| This question <1|4> overall <1|4> Hans: <523|6>. |
| Question 4: Can you think of things which are part of the riches of capitalist society but which are not produced for and traded on markets? |
| [3] Hans: Wealth and Poverty in Capitalism I would like to thank Daklar for jumping in early and sending the interesting message [1] to the homework list. Please don't take it personally if the rest of my response is somewhat critical. It is common in this class that the first answers are not quite correct. My grading is also more lenient at the beginning than later (but Daklar's message was, on his request, ungraded). |
| First of all, Daklar missed the subject. You should always consider the study questions in the context of the assigned portion of Marx's text. Marx begins Capital with the assertion that the wealth of capitalist society consists of commodities, i.e., is produced for the market and can be bought and sold. This is obviously true: almost all the wealth produced in our society is a commodity. It is accessible only to those who have money. Question 4 was asking for counterexamples: are there elements of wealth which are not commodities? Having these counterexamples in mind may help us understand why everything else is commodified. |
| Daklar answers a different but related question: how does someone in his or her youth, i.e., at a time when one has not yet had the opportunity to earn much money, cope with it that everything costs money? There is a privilaged minority in our society who have money as a matter of course, but Daklar's family does not belong to this minority. Therefore, Daklar worked since he was 12 years old, and he does not have his own family to support, so the bite of the “bills” hasn't really started yet. Plus he found an employer who pays for his school. If he only is willing to work, Daklar found, or to obligate himself to future work by taking up credit, he is allowed to take a small part in the obvious abundance around him, go to movies and eat candybars as much as he wants, and enjoy the cheap trinkets which the corporations give away as advertisment gifts. |
| There is only one factual error in Daklar's message: he attributes the poverty in the third world countries to the absence of capitalism. This is not true. This poverty is very much a product of capitalism. Capitalism produces abundance for a few and various degrees of poverty for the many. Daklar is aware how thin the veneer is since he appreciates that in the USA one can drink the water out of the taps without getting sick. In fact, capitalism is about to create a world wide water shortage. In capitalism, wealth and poverty are closely intertwined. |
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