Karl Marx developed many theories concerning humans and their behaviors. As we studied Marx’s ideas last week, the theory that stood out to me the most was his theory of the fetishism of commodities. He points out that humans as a whole used to make every single thing that they needed or desired. If they needed clothes, they sewed them, food, they grew it. The world was just starting to become more and more industrialized and things like this became less necessary because of factories starting to make anything from chairs to cars to food. He points out an exchange value and a use value. An exchange value is how much money can one get for a product and a use value is how useful it is to the person who is purchasing it. If there is a surplus of something, such as winter jackets, the exchange value will be low because it is not in high demand. However, if there is only one winter jacket in the whole town, everyone will want it, causing the exchange value to be very high. He says that humans are wanting more and more without knowing why they want more and more. Marx wraps up with saying that now-a-days, people have no idea what goes into making the things that they buy, causing them to lose the connection with the items.
I believe that this theory very much still holds true today, and it is actually a lot like materialism. If I had to make everything that I need or want, I would have barely anything. While this is a sad statement from how things used to be, I think that many people (myself included) don’t appreciate how much work, time and effort goes into making the things that we own.
The short video that I chose to go with this blog is just a bunch of pictures of stores and how many items there are for sale. It also shows tons of people shopping and in the middle it shows workers in factories making all of these products. I picked this video because I think it gives a good idea of really how many options are out there for us in terms of things to buy. I like how in the middle of the video it shows a little bit of how these things are made, also showing that the working conditions do not look enjoyable. I think that was put in the video to remind all of us what others have to go through just so we can have something as simple as a shirt, or as complex as a smart phone.
I like the video, it gives us a good perspective of how good we have it and what others go through just so we can buy whatever we need. I think that we rely way to much on other people and we lost touch with how to do things ourselves. I think we need to get back to doing things on our own and not rely so much on other people making everything for us.
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