a difference of opinion
A: I don’t get it. Since when did, “going shopping”, become entertainment? How is spending a relaxing exercise?
S: Karl Marx would call it “commodity fetishism”. The act of giving money and goods mystical, almost human qualities… such that they make us happy.
A: I find it appalling, how much importance we give to money and spending power.
S: Well, if one believes in the power of the free market, we are only buying what we have demanded. If people stop wanting, suppliers will stop producing.
A: I think you have it wrong. Suppliers produce and we buy. You’re giving the sheep-like consumer too much credit. We would but a discarded trash if someone branded it, smacked a logo on it and marketed it to us.
S: Hmmm… I do agree with you there, but is it really our fault for wanting the newest, shiniest thing? If we can be duped into buying over priced stuff, and it really is our own fault for being so ignorant, maybe we deserve to be exploited by capitalism.
A: I wouldn’t go so far as saying we deserve it. But we need to start seeing things more clearly. I can get a watch that tells the time for fifty hundred rupees, and it will last me year. I can also buy a watch for fifty thousand, and it will have the same function. And don’t tell me that the fifty thousand dollar watch is “art: and has such good “craftsmanship”… functionally it is a dud. It is overpriced. Conspicuous consumption for a rat race. People are dying from heat and flooding, and we are hypnotized by billboards and Eid lawn collections.