>>> sawicky at epinet.org 09/26/00 01:03PM >>>
. . . and i don't get the stereo analogy max. is there some clear cut
indication that a $2 grand stereo makes for better quality listening?
people aren't spending that much to get better sound, they're spending it
to get a whole bunch of other desires met or because they are stupid and
thing price = quality. kelley
We were talking about whether trademarks were capital. DH channeled Naomi K to make the point that the consumption benefits of brands were 'collective hallucinations,' or in his words 'wacky,' which fit my point that what was involved was criticism of the consumption habits of the masses, and any such criticism ought to be measured carefully for elitist or austerity policy implications.
I pointed out that 'wacky' needn't be limited to certain pastimes of the working class, but could include things like $2K stereos, depending on one's personal taste. So there is really no reason to discount the value of 'trademark capital' from the standpoint of market processes. Whatever people are willing to pay for is valuable, so if a trademark acts as some kind of social trigger for a 'collective hallucination,' it's capital in the narrow, capitalist sense. What it is from a marxist standpoint I'll leave to others. One could imagine progressive trademarks too. If DSOC had had millions of dollars to spend, maybe their rose-trademark would have become a brand and we'd be complaining about President Paul Wellstone.
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CB: From a Marxist standpoint, one might analyze this based on a sort of variation of the "guns or butter" approach of the production possibility curve type deal only it is a sort of spending possiblity curve analysis.
There is only so much money in the hands of the total mass of consumers, buyers of things like stereos and butter. If butter money is spent on the stereo high price, then some butter making firms will go bankrupt, causing a crisis for some butter workers, (but not necessarily a universal crisis, and certainly not a crisis danger to the economic system as a whole). Some butter workers will then become part of the reserve army, immiserated.
This is aside from the fact that even if the stereos and everything else is sold at a prices close to their value, there is not enough demand , money from wages in hand , among the mass of consumers who are wage-laborers, to buy all the commodities produced because of the surplus-value exploited. The total amount of wages paid is less than the total value of commodities produced by the difference of the surplus-value extracted.
"Over" pricing merely aggravates for the "butter" producers this basic gap between total supply and total demand.