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	Our Assignment in Capitalism
Home Identity Construction Political Economy Orientalism Language Borders Religion Annotated Bibliography	back to political economy Paper for Global Interdependence, Fall 2004 I spent spring in Senegal last year when Easter snuck up on me without warning. I was waiting for the traditional predictors of the holiday like chocolate Easter eggs lining grocery store shelves and bunnies prancing across the TV screen. Even though I went to church on Easter Sunday it just did not feel like Easter without jelly beans filling the sweaty palms of children. I had to leave the US to understand my inherent role as a consumer by living in the upper-middle class in this country. Sitting in front of my computer, surrounded by books, notebooks, pictures and lamps I do not feel like a consumer because I can go next door and find the same amount of stuff. I never questioned my ideology as I critiqued that of the US because I never saw myself as a major player in Capitalism. I may not shop at the mall, but buying second-hand clothes maintains the same values of consumerism. I finally realized that we live by established values just by growing up in a nation-state that assigns us certain roles. The nation-state insidiously shapes our existence in the dual objectives of segmenting the participants in the Capitalist system and unifying within those categories, which creates identities and values that fuel Capitalism. The nation-state has played a vital role in the formation of consumer identity. As the head of the Department of Commerce in the late 1920s, Herbert Hoover accelerated the economy by increasing consumption. Through the Census of Distribution he learned about the zones heavy in potential consumers. After building businesses strategically, Hoover focused on encouraging consumers to buy through increasing their spending power. Safety legislation like “truth in lending” laws promoted lending and credit which allowed people to buy even when they had no money (18). The US government continued forging a consumer identity by telling it where to spend its money. In a White House Conference on Child Health and Protection, a report described the horrors that might result if the child lives without special accoutrements for his proportional difference, “He moves through a misfit world with nothing apportioned to his needs. Often this results in retarding his physical, mental, and social development” (22). What tragedy might emerge if your child lacks his own mini table and chairs! The state fostered a new consumer identity by applying information about the population to methods of advertising the safety and necessity of products and allowing it the means to buy. A group of workers must make commodities before the consumer identity can be forged. The government stole the autonomy of the colonized by enforcing cash-crop agriculture for export on the previously subsistence-based land. This colonial ploy engendered reliance on the colonizer for importation of goods. Additionally, the state privatized the communal lands. The cost of land and technology since the Industrial Revolution forced farmers into factory work. Descending upon the factories in droves, this population became further divided by the competition for jobs. Segmented from consumer society after losing their autonomy, they began to segment themselves into competing factions. The interaction between the consumers and the vulnerable workers produces our concept of capital flow at the root of Capitalism. The creation of the vulnerable creates a source for commodities that the consumer will now want to buy. The level of competition for unskilled labor skyrockets, allowing factories to offer meager wages for maximum output. Lax government restrictions from both the core and periphery nations, such as free trade zones and lower tariffs on goods produced by foreign labor using domestic goods, have regenerated the disparity between the workers and consumers today. By shaping the commodity-driven consumer population and the vulnerable labor force, the nation-state allows and endorses the flow of capital from the workers to the consumers. As long as our culture prizes commodities, we need to make more money, which entails working longer hours and spending less time in human relationships. In the welfare system, Americans do not want to support a single mother who stays at home developing a relationship with her child rather than working an outside job and spending all her money on childcare. Instead, the State has implemented different Welfare-to-Work programs that guarantee mothers are working in order to receive aid. According to Leach cited by Robbins, “If you want to get the most out of life, just make up your mind that you were made to be happy, that you are a happiness machine, as well as a work machine… and your harvest of good things will be abundant” (19). In his advice, Leach presupposes the commodity-driven values that describe and unite consumers, no matter their means. Above a picture of a department store, Robbins points out “every culture has its distinct style or elements, rituals or ritual objects that define for its members what is most important in life” (5). Robbins demands of his readers to consider commodity-oriented values that Capitalism has instilled in our American culture. A combined effort between the nation-state and the corporation socializes the consumer to accept a unified set of values that ensure the success of Capitalism. As we work hard for our money, our society believes that it deserves to spend hard, resulting in trips to the mall for fun. Advertisements dictating the new fashions to the masses of credit-card toting Americans and stimulate the economy of the nation-state. As consumers enact their unifying values common to all consumers in purchasing commodities, they feed more money into the systems of the nation-state. Returning to the public sector, this money in turn allows for consistent lending power to the consumer to propagate the circle of Capitalism. Capitalist structures likewise promote unity within the segments of the work force. As the nation-state defined the values that shaped the consumer, it promoted unification within smaller pockets of the labor population. A labor aristocracy begins to form within worker populations where the distinction between groups has already been drawn by other means. In the English state in the mid-nineteenth century, English workers competed with the legislatively demeaned immigrant Irish for jobs. Though both segments played the same role at the bottom of the capitalist system, the English distinguished themselves as members of the ruling elite. Since he associated himself with the powerful English for whom he worked, the Englishman “turned himself into a tool of the aristocrats and capitalists of his own country against Ireland, thus strengthening their domination over himself” (40). Rather than associating with the Irish workers in a fight for their collective protection, the Englishman allies the rulers who trust him to enforce restrictive policies against the workforce. Migrant labor such as that of the Irish generally provides an opportunity for capitalists to take advantage of the political and social values associated with diverse groups of workers. By assigning identities and values for the populations of our world, the nation-state produces a dehumanizing effect on the people who become consumers and laborers. Consumers learn to buy because of the benefit of the nation state, the association with others, and its demonstration of hard work. The nation-state has assigned laborers a role in the capitalist market by seizing their autonomy and bringing them to the public sector of work, competing for jobs and thus harboring resentment against other members of the vulnerable class. No longer are we independent voices, but rather puppets of the capitalist machine that benefits from our actions. Yet we are able to act freely within our confined spaces. As consumers we use our dress to characterize ourselves and define for others where we belong in society. Just as we can express ourselves, workers can maintain communal values that precede their capitalist subjugation. A family I stayed with in rural Senegal barely survived materially, but they delighted in the time they spent building relationships with one another. We may not have chosen our roles, but we have the power to shape our actions within them. back to top
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Our Assignment in Capitalism

Paper for Global Interdependence, Fall 2004

I spent spring in Senegal last year when Easter snuck up on me without warning. I was waiting for the traditional predictors of the holiday like chocolate Easter eggs lining grocery store shelves and bunnies prancing across the TV screen. Even though I went to church on Easter Sunday it just did not feel like Easter without jelly beans filling the sweaty palms of children. I had to leave the US to understand my inherent role as a consumer by living in the upper-middle class in this country. Sitting in front of my computer, surrounded by books, notebooks, pictures and lamps I do not feel like a consumer because I can go next door and find the same amount of stuff. I never questioned my ideology as I critiqued that of the US because I never saw myself as a major player in Capitalism. I may not shop at the mall, but buying second-hand clothes maintains the same values of consumerism. I finally realized that we live by established values just by growing up in a nation-state that assigns us certain roles. The nation-state insidiously shapes our existence in the dual objectives of segmenting the participants in the Capitalist system and unifying within those categories, which creates identities and values that fuel Capitalism.

The nation-state has played a vital role in the formation of consumer identity. As the head of the Department of Commerce in the late 1920s, Herbert Hoover accelerated the economy by increasing consumption. Through the Census of Distribution he learned about the zones heavy in potential consumers. After building businesses strategically, Hoover focused on encouraging consumers to buy through increasing their spending power. Safety legislation like “truth in lending” laws promoted lending and credit which allowed people to buy even when they had no money (18). The US government continued forging a consumer identity by telling it where to spend its money. In a White House Conference on Child Health and Protection, a report described the horrors that might result if the child lives without special accoutrements for his proportional difference, “He moves through a misfit world with nothing apportioned to his needs. Often this results in retarding his physical, mental, and social development” (22). What tragedy might emerge if your child lacks his own mini table and chairs! The state fostered a new consumer identity by applying information about the population to methods of advertising the safety and necessity of products and allowing it the means to buy.

A group of workers must make commodities before the consumer identity can be forged. The government stole the autonomy of the colonized by enforcing cash-crop agriculture for export on the previously subsistence-based land. This colonial ploy engendered reliance on the colonizer for importation of goods. Additionally, the state privatized the communal lands. The cost of land and technology since the Industrial Revolution forced farmers into factory work. Descending upon the factories in droves, this population became further divided by the competition for jobs. Segmented from consumer society after losing their autonomy, they began to segment themselves into competing factions.

The interaction between the consumers and the vulnerable workers produces our concept of capital flow at the root of Capitalism. The creation of the vulnerable creates a source for commodities that the consumer will now want to buy. The level of competition for unskilled labor skyrockets, allowing factories to offer meager wages for maximum output. Lax government restrictions from both the core and periphery nations, such as free trade zones and lower tariffs on goods produced by foreign labor using domestic goods, have regenerated the disparity between the workers and consumers today. By shaping the commodity-driven consumer population and the vulnerable labor force, the nation-state allows and endorses the flow of capital from the workers to the consumers.

As long as our culture prizes commodities, we need to make more money, which entails working longer hours and spending less time in human relationships. In the welfare system, Americans do not want to support a single mother who stays at home developing a relationship with her child rather than working an outside job and spending all her money on childcare. Instead, the State has implemented different Welfare-to-Work programs that guarantee mothers are working in order to receive aid. According to Leach cited by Robbins, “If you want to get the most out of life, just make up your mind that you were made to be happy, that you are a happiness machine, as well as a work machine… and your harvest of good things will be abundant” (19). In his advice, Leach presupposes the commodity-driven values that describe and unite consumers, no matter their means. Above a picture of a department store, Robbins points out “every culture has its distinct style or elements, rituals or ritual objects that define for its members what is most important in life” (5). Robbins demands of his readers to consider commodity-oriented values that Capitalism has instilled in our American culture.

A combined effort between the nation-state and the corporation socializes the consumer to accept a unified set of values that ensure the success of Capitalism. As we work hard for our money, our society believes that it deserves to spend hard, resulting in trips to the mall for fun. Advertisements dictating the new fashions to the masses of credit-card toting Americans and stimulate the economy of the nation-state. As consumers enact their unifying values common to all consumers in purchasing commodities, they feed more money into the systems of the nation-state. Returning to the public sector, this money in turn allows for consistent lending power to the consumer to propagate the circle of Capitalism.

Capitalist structures likewise promote unity within the segments of the work force. As the nation-state defined the values that shaped the consumer, it promoted unification within smaller pockets of the labor population. A labor aristocracy begins to form within worker populations where the distinction between groups has already been drawn by other means. In the English state in the mid-nineteenth century, English workers competed with the legislatively demeaned immigrant Irish for jobs. Though both segments played the same role at the bottom of the capitalist system, the English distinguished themselves as members of the ruling elite. Since he associated himself with the powerful English for whom he worked, the Englishman “turned himself into a tool of the aristocrats and capitalists of his own country against Ireland, thus strengthening their domination over himself” (40). Rather than associating with the Irish workers in a fight for their collective protection, the Englishman allies the rulers who trust him to enforce restrictive policies against the workforce. Migrant labor such as that of the Irish generally provides an opportunity for capitalists to take advantage of the political and social values associated with diverse groups of workers.

By assigning identities and values for the populations of our world, the nation-state produces a dehumanizing effect on the people who become consumers and laborers. Consumers learn to buy because of the benefit of the nation state, the association with others, and its demonstration of hard work. The nation-state has assigned laborers a role in the capitalist market by seizing their autonomy and bringing them to the public sector of work, competing for jobs and thus harboring resentment against other members of the vulnerable class. No longer are we independent voices, but rather puppets of the capitalist machine that benefits from our actions. Yet we are able to act freely within our confined spaces. As consumers we use our dress to characterize ourselves and define for others where we belong in society. Just as we can express ourselves, workers can maintain communal values that precede their capitalist subjugation. A family I stayed with in rural Senegal barely survived materially, but they delighted in the time they spent building relationships with one another. We may not have chosen our roles, but we have the power to shape our actions within them.

home CIS website