The Commodity Fantasy

Olga Konstantinovna discusses the fixation of consumers on commodities, and their resulting ignorance of the exploitation in the world around them.

Ignorance is a disease that runs rampant through our modern society. It is birthed in the petri dish of reaction and unleashed to infect and cloud the minds of working people across the word. Perhaps one of the most perverse tools for this ignorance is the complacency conditioned into people through ‘consumer capitalism’.

In modern society, we are entirely dependent on the labour of others for sustenance (Harvey, 2014). This has created a system in which consumption is equivalent to survival. With this, from whom one buys becomes irrelevant, it is merely a means of survival. Instead, it is the commodity itself that begins to adopt a certain symbolic value. We infuse our hopes and dreams into the ability to consume and products that signify this. This creates a fixation where all those forces required for the conceptualisation of a product fall to the wayside (the ‘commodity fetish’).

This leaves consumers ignorant to the complexities of the society around them. Instead, their lives are dominated by an ‘immense accumulation of commodities’, which seem to come into being spontaneously for their specific consumption. In the process of the fantasy of consumption, a new mentality is born. A deep ignorance that is rife with selfish concern. We find ourselves so deeply disconnected from the complex labour process, that we could not attribute it to any one, even if we wanted to. The consumer no longer cares for the poor quality of a fabric, for the working conditions of the seamstress, nor for the systematic oppression that enables it all. They become fixated only on the commodities in front of them, and this leaves them blind to the suffering of other workers the world over.

However, one cannot claim that all within society are ignorant, for there are certainly those who learn of the horrific crimes of capitalism. Yet, the clear disconnect between the actions of western consumers, and the toiling of southern workers leads to an all-consuming apathy on the part of the consumer. They do not feel personally responsible for the misery caused, even though they have provided the capital and the demand. Hence, the commodity fetish leads to a pure inability for many in the ‘first-world’ to acknowledge the connection they have to fellow members of their class, especially those of the ‘third-world’. They prefer to prioritise their own mediocre standard of living as they are so far removed from the exploitation that occurs in the global South. This has “crucial implications for our collective ability to see and address the ongoing processes of social and environmental destruction under capitalism” (Hudson, 2003).

This complex issue should be of great concern to anyone attempting to shift views in a western liberal society. This problem is exacerbated by an evolution in labour through to the 21st century. Historically, the proletariat has been a class of labourers, consisting of those in industry. One cannot forget the immense importance of the Putilov Steelworkers before and during 1917. However, in modern day Australia we find only 6.5% of workers are in industry. This new type of worker sees themselves as more ‘refined’ than those of days gone by.

The data analyst, retail manager and IT director would never dare be associated with ‘hooligan’ urban workers, or the ‘white-trash bogans’, particularly due to the fact that the livelihood of these workers is the direct result of super-profits from corporations. They are unwilling to challenge the system as ANZ, Coles and Deloitte are the ones putting food on their tables. Hence, must understand that today, “the working class of imperialist countries… is entirely labour aristocratic” (Cope, 2015). This means they remain “chained… to the imperialist ‘fatherland’” (COMINTERN, 1919). This provides even more reason for their apathy towards the plight of workers in the global south, and even the minority of workers struggling in their own country.

Why should they risk their own ‘good’ quality of life for workers who are invisible to them? Thus, a great section of the western working class becomes a ‘bribed’ class. It is partly for this reason that we find a major problem in the diffusion of communist ideology to the Australian masses. How does one organise a class that doesn’t see a reason for organisation?

Our solution lies in capital’s greed. It is no longer satiated by merely exploiting the working class of the global south, and it is beginning to dig its claws into the western working class. Growing pursuits of profit margins has meant cost of labour is kept low whilst cost of goods and services sky rockets. No better is this demonstrated than in the housing market. 90% of the Australian population earns less than $2,820 a week (or $146k a year) (ABS, 2023), and yet the average income needed to buy a house in any capital city is $164k a year (Parliamentary Library, 2024).

This is an example of the cracks that are starting to form in a system cannibalising itself. It is only too easy for this to be twisted by those at the top of the labour aristocracy, those who are wilfully ignorant, into a simple “boom and bust” cycle of capitalism. But this is a falsehood which only justifies continued economic exploitation. Instead, we must unmask the fantasy that occurs and reveal to the working class that this is a systematic problem. Particularly vulnerable to this fetishisation are those that are slightly unable to attain, those who Capitalism sells the dream to. We must smash this façade of hope and reveal that there is no amount of legislation, or abolition of negative gearing, that will solve the biases that Capitalism is built on.