>>> jim at heartfield.demon.co.uk 10/03/00 03:27PM >>>
In message <s9d9ef78.000 at mail.ci.detroit.mi.us>, Charles Brown
<CharlesB at CNCL.ci.detroit.mi.us> writes
>CB: An example of trivialization by commercialization is automobile model
>changeover EVERY year, no matter what new has been discovered. These are
>artificial new "needs/wants".
Well, OK, but I think that Marx's point is that ALL NEEDS are artificial.
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CB: I don't know. On the first page of Vol. I of _Capital_, he says wants ( that which use-values meet) may derive from the stomach or from fancy. Some, needs are artificial, from fancy, but some needs are natural, such as eating. He'd probably say most wants are not natural.
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Per cent of disposable income spent on food
Year US UK 50 20.6 - 55 18.8 - 60 17.4 35 65 15 31.1 70 13.8 25 75 13.9 22.7 80 13.4 20.9 85 12 18.4 90 11.6 15.8 95 10.9 13.9 99 - 12.8
According to the Rowntree Trust survey those things that are considered necessities has expanded considerably, (a consequence of past productivity increases). More than half those interviewed considered the following to be necessities: annual holiday away from home (not with relatives), television, telephone, deep freezer/fridge freezer, insuring home contents, hobby or leisure activity, washing machine (September 11, 2000).
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CB: For a huge number of people in the U.S. a car is a necessity. Don't see it on your list. However, a new model every year is not a necessity. I don't see health care on the list either.
On the other hand, a communist approach does not propose that only necessities be produced. But, in the case of new model car every year , for example, spending money on the aritificial new of the late car model, might prevent a lot of people from going on a holiday, or getting some of the other necessitiies on your list. They have to choose how to apply resources that are scarce relative to your ever expanding list of "necessities". Their budget is stretched to get up to the standard that the Roundtree Trust and television are telling them is the minimum to not be poor. They suffer anxiety and worry over the fact that given this standard of necessities, they might actually be poor or below average. Your notion of infinite wants as a virtue sets 10's of millions of people up for feeling shame.
Also, society spends resources on the new model car every year, that it might spend in assuring that everybody gets health care, rather than many people not getting health care and other people getting a new model car, when they have an older model that looks fine and works.
In message <s9d9f2c6.009 at mail.ci.detroit.mi.us>, Charles Brown
<CharlesB at CNCL.ci.detroit.mi.us> writes
>CB: In the case of gym shoes , they add to my rich individuality as a use-value
>in running and playing sports ( actually a need that persists from the human
>phase of what Mandel calls primitive natural needs, from the exilharation and
>pleasure of using muscles to the feel good of better health; although even 200,
>000 years ago there were historically created needs, probably sports). Getting
>harassed because my gym shoes are out of style with the Nike type merely
>detracts and distracts from my fulfillment of my rich individuality.
No, I think running is a small part of the pleasure of running shoes. Otherwise, why Nike? To treat such symbolic hierarchies as without substance is to become otherworldly.
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CB: How treating the Nike symbolic hierarchy as without substance is becoming otherworldly is sort of mysterious itself. Thinking that running is a small part of the pleasure of running shoes is too. Are you saying the "substance" of symbolic hierarchies are important to the fulfillment of rich individuality ?
>
>In general, not every commodity coming out of the bourgeois cornucopia enhances
>our rich individualities, and the "keeping up with the Jones" phenomenon often
>represses our individual potentials.
But 'keeping up with the Joneses' is an important thing for Marx who says in Wage Labour and Capital, that a modest home becomes a lowly hovel next to a palace. His point is that it is not the absolute physical needs htat are important, but one's social needs relative to other people - in principle, he means the contrast between profits and wages, as expressed in consumption goods.
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CB: Yes, that's all true, ( except that "absolute physical needs"are as important as social needs ; some lefts seem to be in an otherworld where there are no more poor people at all , nobody who is challenged in meeting their physical needs) but it doesn't mean that I should be shamed or socially pressured into wearing Nikes because the Joneses get into that otherworld mentality of television commericials thinking that they are Michael Jordan. They can, but why do I have to ? I am happy being an amateur basketball player. It is great fun. I don't need the illusion that I am Michael Jordan to enjoy playing basketball in order to fulfill my rich individuality. Nor should most people need that to fulfill their rich individuality.
I'd even argue that playing sports is more Marxist than spectating sports. Praxis over contemplation. And the Michael Jordan fetish is rooted in spectating.
Not to mention that Michael Jordan's type of gym shoes have very little to do with how well he plays basketball.
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The idea that one should not want to 'keep up with the Joneses' is capitalist ideology.
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CB: The idea that because the Joneses wear Nikes, I need them to enjoy playing basketball is capitalist propaganda.