UK Riots: Retail millionaires distance themselves from the youth they exploit

Guardian UK

The Guardian has a piece today on the retailers that have "cultivated a gangster chic image" in order to make lots of money selling the clothes that reflect this image to the youth.  These hip stores  were targeted in the riots.  JD Sports was one of them with 30 or so of its stores targeted at a cost, with clean up and all, of some $15 million. Other businesses that were targeted were Boots, Carphone, Warehouse and Argos says the Guardian.  These are not the corner store, the mom and pop community businesses so in a sense, an attack on them was somewhat political; they are symbols of a global corporate culture in a way that a community business is not.  In many ways, they were the death knell for the community small business.

We know that there was indiscriminate violence and looting of mom and pops and individual property and there was plain criminal activity.  I read a posting on Facebook the other day though where someone commented about how these youth just destroyed property and a small business person's livelihood for the fun of it,  but that analysis fails miserably to explain the underlying causes of the explosion. 

When I left Britain almost 40 years ago they were just coming out with credit cards. My mum and dad completely disapproved of them.  "We'll be like the Yanks pretty soon" my mum used to say.  "people will up to their arse in debt buying things they don't need." But capitalism, with the mighty global powerhouse of US capitalism in the lead was unstoppable.  Gone were the days when we bought a TV at Curry's or some other store and paid for it on the hire purchase.  The Bourgeoisie creates a world after its own image, Marx wrote.  It must go everywhere, nestle everywhere.  We must consume, and consume, in fact, it must never end.  The reason it must never end is that profit is created through the Labor process, through production, as the owners of capital pay the worker (Labor power) less value in wages than the the use of that Labor power creates.   But this added value, this profit, is only realized through the sale of the end product. Without the sale, this value is trapped if you like and therefore of no use.

Here we are in an economic crisis of historic proportions but there is still the drive, along with the need to destroy excess productive capacity, to sell the goods. And there are millions of young people, those bombarded day in day out with ads displaying images of what they should be, how they should dress, what they should listen to etc.  And you can't tell me that imagery and ads don't work.  The capitalists are not stupid. They don't fork out billions in advertising because it doesn't work. 

It is not a healthy state for us to live and breathe for consumption of material goods.  But in a 24 hour marketplace, an economic system that is based on the production of commodities for sale in order to realize the added value contained within it is the natural order of things. But capitalism also creates great poverty for the majority as it creates great wealth for the few.  There are more than one million youths in Britain between the ages of 16 and 24 who have no work. When people don't have the money to buy these things, the capitalists advances them credit, lends back to us some of this stolen wealth for a price. But this can't go on indefinitely.  This debt allows capitalism to go beyond its limits but inevitably, like a rubber band it breaks entirely or snaps back to within its limits. The unemployed merely have enough to eat on and that's it, but they're still targeted as customers.

This is what has happened over the last few years as capitalism and the market goes in to crisis.  The events we see from Greece to Chile, Bangladesh to Spain are the social repercussions of this economic tidal wave of devastation.  Where organization is weakest and among some of the most oppressed sections of society particularly the youth, the response can be confused, violent, and chaotic as we have seen in Britain. Also, racism is institutionalized in capitalist society and economic crisis worsens what is already a crisis situation for these victims.  It is not that confused though that symbols of the corporate capitalist global structure are not recognized and treated with he contempt they deserve.

One youth helping himself to some clothes said of the rich,  "Look at all they got for nothing, why shouldn't we get something for nothing?" 

Another youth was quoted in the paper again referring to the rich, "They kept us down for years and made our lives worse and they expect nothing to happen. Well they were wrong."

These are political statements from a section of the working class; they have class content.  I have no doubt the owner or owners of JD stores are millionaires.  They are appalled at theft, what they call "looting".  The thought they they have become wealthy as looters doesn't enter their head. In fact, we do not use such terms to describe them but looters they are.

Where does the billions Apple stores have come from?  It comes from poor people in places like China. These apparel stores exploit some of the poorest people in the world.  Striking workers, many of them women, in the factories of Bangladesh have been shot and killed by thugs hired by the factory owners who sell the stuff to retailers like those above.  We don't see too much of that on TV.  We don't receive endless images of children working in the factories of Asia on US and British television. 

The retail billionaires are responsible for this violence against workers who are fighting back against their exploitation.  I remember Vietnamese workers that burned down their factory in response to beatings, rape and other abuses by bosses.  I think some of them came over to the US and wanted to meet with Michael Jordan who was making millions advertising the shoes they made to kids in the ghettos here but he dodged them.

Now these corporations whose owners make millions and billions looting the workers of the world are trying to distance themselves from their victims in the UK who have been influenced only too well by their advertising and creation of an image that helps them sell.   "Adidas condemns any antisocial or illegal activity," the company said. "Our brand has a proud sporting heritage and such behaviour goes against everything we stand for." the company tells the Guardian. What liars and hypocrites.  Sport has nothing to do with it.  These companies don't make their billions selling to athletes.  And their entire existence is based on anti-social and illegal activity.  That's why we don't get images of factory life in Bangladesh or Vietnam on the TV every day.

"Ultimately you have to have faith in the law and this resolving itself," says the chairman of JD sports.  This is what the "law" is about.  What the cops are there to protect, the corporations and the rich. 

Throughout the world, not prettily I admit, workers, the middle class and the youth are fighting back.  Political solutions and movements will arise out of it all.  We live in very interesting times.