--- BrownBingb at aol.com wrote:
> ORANGE CITY, Fla. (Nov. 29) - A mob of shoppers
> rushing for a sale on DVD
> players trampled the first woman in line and knocked
> her unconscious as they
> scrambled for the shelves at a Wal-Mart Supercenter.
Granted that this was an instance of consumerism gone bad, but what does this have to do in particular with commodity fetishism? Or was that just a cute title?
-Thomas
^^^^^^^^
CB: I'm glad you asked, Thomas. My thought is that consumerism, marketing, advertising, buying madness (as in the example above) , keeping up with the jones, consumer debt, mall culture are all forms of expression of the institution that Marx called commodity fetishism.
Because capitalism cannot survive without selling more and more, it must constantly build into mass psychology the addiction for commodities. Most people must come to define themselves and their happiness based the number of things, gadgets, widgets, durable goods they own. And there must be an apettite for new things. Otherwise GDP can't constantly grow,and profit rates will fall.
Look at the thread going on now on marketing and distribution. Consider Doug's discussion of the Nike and other brands. I know someone who named her daughter Nautica.
A real nut for today's Marxists to crack is to demonstrate how through commodity fetishism the enormous material wealth of the USA paradoxically oppresses us. So, the richer we are materially , the poorer we are in happiness. How can we do this without falling into the trap of advocating hairshirt/barracks socialism, noblilizing savagery or taking a Christian vow of poverty ?
We gotta write a book. Well, Michael Dawson just wrote one related, I think.