New Economy rant

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Tue Sep 26 09:07:32 PDT 2000


Max Sawicky wrote:


>"Nice things" is way narrow. One person's consumption
>is another person's wacky. I can't bring myself to watch
>professional wrestling, but obviously a lot of people do.
>I think paying $2,000 for a stereo system is wacky, but
>people do so they can savor classical sonatas or indigenous
>music. Isn't there something about that in marx?

I'm not for trying to stop people spending $150 for a pair of shoes, or $2,000 for a stereo. I think they do it out of a phantasmic attempt to fulfill a longing that the purchase won't fulfill, though, so they'll just need to buy some other overpriced commodity soon after. In my role as self-appointed social critic, I'm just aiming to point this out and suggest that buying stuff isn't really a cure for alienation.

Doug



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list