Karl Marx wrote a couple of pieces that describes commodities and two types of value, exchange and use-value. While reading these articles, I started to see what was in front of me this whole time.
I started to pay attention on how things were made trade/exchanged. I have this idea, which is related to Karl Marx theory on commodities, that our society is a materialist and consumption society that value the object than how it was made. When a product is made, lets say jewelry, the value of the jewelry would be high but the workers are abused. Workers get paid by money on how long they work but always by what they made. For example, if a worker was working and finished making a $10,000 car, he/she will not receive the same amount the car is being sold. Rather the worker will be paid on how long he/she worked for the car and even then, the wage is low, which is called wage labor. A lot of workers these days are alienated because the item the worker is working on is not a part of them. They are not selling what they made, someone else is selling them and receiving a higher profit than the person who made the product. Consumers spend so much money on items that might have no value but since it is demanded by the public, the companies put higher prices for their own profit. For example, the whole time I was reading these articles, I thought of two things related to commodities and labor power. They both relate to jewelry and their workers and that is, the movie “Blood Diamond” and the show South Park. In the situation of Blood Diamond, workers somewhere in Africa are treated badly, and sell their labor for wages to survive for the day. They would try to find diamonds in muddy waters in the hot sun all day without rest. Once one of the workers found they, they receive from a few cents to a few dollars. Real diamonds are overly expensive around the world and people pay thousands of dollars for an authentic diamond but they are not told that diamonds come from country that are Bourgeoisie. It seems as though trading doesn’t exist anymore in civilized societies. I also want to argue that this country might be a capitalist country. In South Park, there was an episode that surprised me entirely. This episode was about how people are being tricked into buy gold/jewelry for a very high price which in reality was actually quiet cheap to make. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvQfoj2XnIE Here is the link to a video that explains our need to products, use labor power and its related to our every day lives. In the video, south park is making fun of the home shopping next work aka “HSN” because that channel buys cheap jewelry and makes you believe you are saving a lot of money and expensive jewelry. After people buy it, then they take it to the “we buy gold” shops they buy it off you for even cheaper. That gold is then send to a foreign and poor country were the workers are proletarian. The reason why I think this country is a capitalist country is because as a country we let this happen in our country but everyone looks the other away or is quiet about it.
I started to pay attention on how things were made trade/exchanged. I have this idea, which is related to Karl Marx theory on commodities, that our society is a materialist and consumption society that value the object than how it was made. When a product is made, lets say jewelry, the value of the jewelry would be high but the workers are abused. Workers get paid by money on how long they work but always by what they made. For example, if a worker was working and finished making a $10,000 car, he/she will not receive the same amount the car is being sold. Rather the worker will be paid on how long he/she worked for the car and even then, the wage is low, which is called wage labor. A lot of workers these days are alienated because the item the worker is working on is not a part of them. They are not selling what they made, someone else is selling them and receiving a higher profit than the person who made the product. Consumers spend so much money on items that might have no value but since it is demanded by the public, the companies put higher prices for their own profit. For example, the whole time I was reading these articles, I thought of two things related to commodities and labor power. They both relate to jewelry and their workers and that is, the movie “Blood Diamond” and the show South Park. In the situation of Blood Diamond, workers somewhere in Africa are treated badly, and sell their labor for wages to survive for the day. They would try to find diamonds in muddy waters in the hot sun all day without rest. Once one of the workers found they, they receive from a few cents to a few dollars. Real diamonds are overly expensive around the world and people pay thousands of dollars for an authentic diamond but they are not told that diamonds come from country that are Bourgeoisie. It seems as though trading doesn’t exist anymore in civilized societies. I also want to argue that this country might be a capitalist country. In South Park, there was an episode that surprised me entirely. This episode was about how people are being tricked into buy gold/jewelry for a very high price which in reality was actually quiet cheap to make. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvQfoj2XnIE Here is the link to a video that explains our need to products, use labor power and its related to our every day lives. In the video, south park is making fun of the home shopping next work aka “HSN” because that channel buys cheap jewelry and makes you believe you are saving a lot of money and expensive jewelry. After people buy it, then they take it to the “we buy gold” shops they buy it off you for even cheaper. That gold is then send to a foreign and poor country were the workers are proletarian. The reason why I think this country is a capitalist country is because as a country we let this happen in our country but everyone looks the other away or is quiet about it.