Richard Mellor
Another interesting contribution from George Monbiot. While Monbiot deserves respect he does not explain why the drive to consume. What is it about the system of production in which we live that leads us in this direction. Is it human nature? Is it simply an individual problem that has taken on herd mentality?
It may well be a sort of herd mentality but, like all things human, they can't be separated from society in general. We are not individuals in the sense that we live outside society, are isolated from it.
We live is a global society. This global society is dominated by a system of production we know as capitalism. Capitalism, like feudalism and chattel slavery is a class system. It is a system of production in which a ruling class owns the means of producing society's needs and the distribution of these needs and the products themselves. The vast majority of society is engaged in the actual production or work of creating these necessities and receive remuneration (wages) for doing so. With these wages we but what we need to live a decent life and, as Monbiot explains above, a we buy a lot of pretty much useless things. We are encouraged by those who own the means of production to buy, and buy and buy.
The reason for this and what Monbiot leaves out, is that it is through the capitalist labor process that wealth or added value is created. The workers produce more value through work than the capitalist puts in to it. Or, another way, the wages the capitalists pay for the use of the worker's life activity for a certain period of time, amount to less value than is contained in the object(s) produced. So the capitalist that owns the finished product has a commodity for sale in the market place of the world that contains within it labor time they have paid for and labor time they received for free. They control the amount of time worked so any time the worker works above that which produces his or her value in wages is the icing on the cake for the capitalist. It's an unfair exchange.
For the capitalist it's not over yet. They don't set this process in motion because they need to use these objects they own; they are after the added value contained within them and that (surplus) value cannot be "realized", returned to them in money form until the commodity is sold. This is why it is a life and death struggle for them to sell and to get us to buy. Labor productivity is such that there are too many useful things so if need be the capitalist will produce useless things and use all means at their disposal to convince us we need them. They also own the media and and they use the media to build recognizable brands using slogans and art and convince children to accept their heroes like sports figures and so on. If they don't do this they will use the capital at their disposal to purchase art speculate in financial markets.
The main thing is for them their whole existence as a class is dependent on the production and sale of commodities; they accumulate wealth and exploit in a different way to other class systems.
I tend to get tangled up in this at times as it is most important we as workers understand this process as it explains so much. It lifts the vale off the rotten exploitative system in which we live that we are told is the only way society can be organized or as Francis Fukuyama once claimed is the apex of human civilization. It allows us to see that it is not a permanent system that has existed for all time but part of an historical process and thereferore can be changed.
As Marx pointed out, "Philosophers havee only interpreted the world, the point is to change it." No wonder they hate him.
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