Exploring whether or not capitalism is the root of all our woes
By VIOLET ZANZOT— vmzanzotl@ucdavis.edu
There’s this guy, let’s call him Karl Marx, who talked a lot about what he called “the base” of a society. Society’s system of production dictates pretty much everything else, acting as a base, according to Marx’s musings about historical materialism in his work “The German Ideology.” He referred to that “pretty much everything else” as the superstructure, which is the ideology of a society.
This framework is particularly notable because of its implication that everything we do in our society is caused by our economic system. Think of the work week, for example. It was built to give people five days of labor, thereby separating the idea of performing labor from subsistence. If we worked for the sake of survival, there would be no days off. In our society, work and survival are separated by a moderator; money is the middleman between labor and needs (it is also no coincidence that money pays for wants).
The complete interconnectedness of production and social living is not happenstance — at least, that is what Marx predicates. His theory has led me to wonder: Is the problem with American society today the base of capitalism? In other words, was Marx right about the relationship between economic system and social system, and is the turmoil in our country today caused by our economic mode of production?
It is no secret that we live in an anxious and turbulent world today. Politically, consensus feels lost. Technologically, progress seems to be leaving many people behind. Creatively, the struggle to be original and unique feels breathless. Even in love, we have turned to apps to introduce ourselves, when a generation ago, a bar was as good a place as any to meet people. Why? For Marx, the base develops everything else, and the superstructure’s purpose is simply to reinforce the base.
Capitalism has created a society built on consumption. Over time, we have seen that consumption has changed what the idea of “goods” means and, in turn, what people want. Rather than being just physical objects or services, goods are symbols. We don’t want shoes, we want Nikes. We don’t want sunglasses, we want Ray-Bans. We use things to define ourselves and express ourselves, and because of this, goods exist in a world of meaning.
This system of consumption has shaped the way we want to exist in the world, given that we’re all implicated by a world of symbolic things. The way we perceive ourselves and other people is through the lens of goods that represent bigger ideas. A Gucci belt is success. A Louis Vuitton purse is status.
Even a choice between restaurants is more than a choice between a burger or pizza; you must be able to afford a choice, and you are likely deciding within the context of a group of people. A burger or pizza is a symbol of a social strata, made of people with a common willingness to spend and socialize. The goods are symbolic.
Given that consumption has changed how we see people and the world, it feels very easy to blame differences between people on these goods. Can we boil down all of our issues to the fact that if you have nicer shoes, people will think differently of you? Is there a divide between Republicans and Democrats because they shop in different stores? Capitalism has turned people into deeply symbolic creatures that no longer exist in a simple reality of objects.
In the end, capitalism has incentivized people to utilize goods as symbols. This representative behavior has created barriers between people, pushing them apart. The more layers of symbolism, the more manufactured the separation between people.
That being said, if the different aspects of our social system were under arrest for the turmoil in our country, capitalism would very likely be the gun held by the perp — it is a tool that can be used for evil, but which cannot operate alone. I do not villainize capitalism as a theoretical framework. Rather, I find that it has added a layer of complexity through symbolism that has changed the name of the game altogether. We have institutionalized symbolism through consumption and the layers of nuance have created more room for trouble. If capitalism is not the whole problem, what is the solution?
Written by: Violet Zanzot— vmzanzot@ucdavis.edu
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