When Diamonds are Worthless!
What if one morning you awoke to a seemingly normal day; one where you begin the day by carrying out the same routine that over many years you’ve become comfortably accustomed to. You shower, get dressed, do all the little last minute chores you forgot to do the night before and then quickly grab your purse or wallet and head out the door to begin that bright new day. On your way to work or school you stop by Starbucks, as usual, for some much needed morning go juice. You place your order, grab your wallet, take out some cash to pay your bill and suddenly the cashier tells you, “I’m sorry, but we don’t take American currency any longer.” “Huh”, you say, "what do you mean you don’t take American currency?" You took it yesterday!” “Well” states the cashier, “ our store decided to only accept Indian Rupees or Chinese Yuan starting today because the corporate office feels it makes better fiscal sense since we trade directly with those countries.” Upset, you go around the block to another café only to find out they’ve done the very same thing. For each store or shop you go into it’s the same situation. Suddenly every penny you have is seemingly worthless.
What would you do? What could you do? For many displaced workers throughout America, this was pretty much the scenario they faced when one day they came to work only to be told that they were being laid off because their jobs were being shipped overseas. The corporations, where these workers had worked for years, felt it made more fiscal sense to outsource jobs to lower paying markets. Suddenly the one commodity that Americans were able to sell to support themselves and their families was rendered virtually worthless. Marx coined the term “Labour Power” and pointed out that in a capitalist society, this “Labour Power” was the one commodity that the common person had that could be sold or “exchanged” for other commodities that would allow for survival (Marx).
Now perhaps you suggest that these unfortunate workers should obtain different jobs, or as Marx would state, “sell their Labour Power” (Marx) to a different Capitalist. Well, in a perfect world, there might be other jobs to replace the ones that were lost, but based on a growing trend in outsourcing, very few replacement jobs exist and those that do have suddenly declined greatly in their “exchange value” or amount that they are worth. As Marx points out, the exchange value is based on what something is valued at and as something that can be used (Marx). So as jobs are shipped overseas, the value of those remaining jobs declines to reflect their current use value.
For example, I worked as a “retoucher” at an advertising agency during an age when Photoshop® was just beginning to be the default standard in image manipulation. In earlier days, a retoucher would actually paint with ink and dyes on transparent acetate to alter an image. This would sometimes take days to complete and the general value of retouching was measured at around $150 to $300 dollars an hour or more. It wasn’t uncommon for one image to cost a company several thousands of dollars to retouch. During the mid 1980’s, digital retouching became available utilizing a multi million-dollar Sun Microsystems computer platform. Suddenly things that took days now took hours. While the hourly rates for retouching remained the same, the value of retouched images dropped significantly. Through technology, a retoucher could now output far more images per day than previously was possible. The result was less retouchers were now needed but more images could now be retouched. During the mid 1990’s Photoshop® changed the entire field of commercial retouching from one of artisans to one of computer operators. Now anyone could retouch an image with just a basic computer and a small amount of training. Salaries plummeted as the exchange value of retouching labor dropped.
In addition to lowering the “exchange value” of the retouching labor commodity, this also had the effect of lowering the “use value” of retouched images. It now became commonplace to retouch every image to some extent as the price per hour had dropped dramatically as did the labor hours needed to complete an image.
It wasn’t long before the market realized an even greater savings by shipping retouching overseas. The Commodity of Images that once cost thousands of dollars to retouch now cost less than a dollar per image. And suddenly, Diamonds had become worthless!
What would you do? What could you do? For many displaced workers throughout America, this was pretty much the scenario they faced when one day they came to work only to be told that they were being laid off because their jobs were being shipped overseas. The corporations, where these workers had worked for years, felt it made more fiscal sense to outsource jobs to lower paying markets. Suddenly the one commodity that Americans were able to sell to support themselves and their families was rendered virtually worthless. Marx coined the term “Labour Power” and pointed out that in a capitalist society, this “Labour Power” was the one commodity that the common person had that could be sold or “exchanged” for other commodities that would allow for survival (Marx).
Now perhaps you suggest that these unfortunate workers should obtain different jobs, or as Marx would state, “sell their Labour Power” (Marx) to a different Capitalist. Well, in a perfect world, there might be other jobs to replace the ones that were lost, but based on a growing trend in outsourcing, very few replacement jobs exist and those that do have suddenly declined greatly in their “exchange value” or amount that they are worth. As Marx points out, the exchange value is based on what something is valued at and as something that can be used (Marx). So as jobs are shipped overseas, the value of those remaining jobs declines to reflect their current use value.
For example, I worked as a “retoucher” at an advertising agency during an age when Photoshop® was just beginning to be the default standard in image manipulation. In earlier days, a retoucher would actually paint with ink and dyes on transparent acetate to alter an image. This would sometimes take days to complete and the general value of retouching was measured at around $150 to $300 dollars an hour or more. It wasn’t uncommon for one image to cost a company several thousands of dollars to retouch. During the mid 1980’s, digital retouching became available utilizing a multi million-dollar Sun Microsystems computer platform. Suddenly things that took days now took hours. While the hourly rates for retouching remained the same, the value of retouched images dropped significantly. Through technology, a retoucher could now output far more images per day than previously was possible. The result was less retouchers were now needed but more images could now be retouched. During the mid 1990’s Photoshop® changed the entire field of commercial retouching from one of artisans to one of computer operators. Now anyone could retouch an image with just a basic computer and a small amount of training. Salaries plummeted as the exchange value of retouching labor dropped.
In addition to lowering the “exchange value” of the retouching labor commodity, this also had the effect of lowering the “use value” of retouched images. It now became commonplace to retouch every image to some extent as the price per hour had dropped dramatically as did the labor hours needed to complete an image.
It wasn’t long before the market realized an even greater savings by shipping retouching overseas. The Commodity of Images that once cost thousands of dollars to retouch now cost less than a dollar per image. And suddenly, Diamonds had become worthless!