November
15, 2006, Volume 14 Nr. 3, Issue 222
Industrial
Warfare. Industrial Matrimony.
Neo-liberalism's Big Products
Jozef
Hand-Boniakowski
Neo-liberalism is big
business. Big business is big profit. War is
big business. Volker Schneider and Marc Tenbuecken writing in Business
and the State: Mapping the Theoretical Landscape (2002) write that the demands
created by the free market are enforced by,
The state and the
political system function as a form of an 'ideal all-around
capitalist', who must uphold not just the society as such, but the
'capitalist element'.
The United States'
exporting of "democracy" is the dissemination of
global capitalism. Global capitalism, what much of the world
calls neo-liberalism, demands huge and continued exploitation of
natural resources. The mass production of goods and services for
the purpose of ever-increasing profits requires that commodities be quickly available so
that they may be exchanged for more excess capital, i.e., surplus
value or profit. This cycle must be repeated over and over
for profits to not only continue, but to increase. Elizabeth
Martinez and Arnoldo García, writing in "What
is neo-liberalism? A brief definition" (Global
Economy 101, 2000) point out the five aspects of neo-liberalism:
The process of transforming money into
commodities, then commodities into money necessitates that there exist a continual demand for the
commodity. It does not matter whether the commodity is needed,
only that that it be sold. That is, there needs to be a demand
for the product. It does not matter whether the demand is real
or contrived. The continuous demand for commodities requires that the consumption of the
natural resources that make it possible not only continue, but that
the rate of consumption continues to increase along with it. It
does not matter that people die as a consequence of the
commodity-money-commodity exchange.
War is a commodity as
are the weapons that make it possible. It is inconsequential
that civilians die in a war like Iraq which has been going in since
1991. "Shock and awe" showed the world that people
are of little concern to neo-liberalism. What
matters is that the supply of products that make war possible be
consumed so that more war products can be produced. More war
goods produced and sold means more profit. Fighting a nebulous
unending war on "terrorism" insures that war and profit
continue in perpetuity. "Terrorism" has replaced
"communism" as a reason to continue the military
industrial complex humming. Nations with economies that
survive on for-profit war making are not bothered by the consequences of
war, the collateral
damage. It does not matter if
one-half million Iraqi children die as a result of sanctions.
It does not matter that people become contaminated with depleted uranium?
It does not matter that hundreds-of-thousands, or millions of
civilians die. It does not matter that US war casualties come home in boxes in the
darkness of night. People who do not serve the neo-liberalism
system are impediments to the
continuous process of the commodity exchange system. Surplus
value matters. Human beings do not. Neo-liberalism
establishes governing institutions that do will away with laws that
present barriers to exploitation and profit. When resources are consumed or
otherwise disappear, then neo-liberalism places maximum priority in
finding other resources. Acquiring new natural resources is
often, difficult. If need be, neo-liberalism will take what it
needs. While exploitation of resources, including
human beings, is not new, the extent of its worldwide scope is now unprecedented.
Once a commodity, whatever it is, be it a
depleted uranium shell, television set, or a meal, is sold, nothing else
matters except the sale of the next depleted uranium shell, TV or
meal. This is the case even if the shell causes death and
destruction or the meal is not nutritious. Globalization is
about dominating the globe's natural resources with few or no
barriers. Neo-liberalism is about
dominating everything so that the quest for capital becomes the universal
human value. Human beings either acquiesce or perish. Neo-liberalism
is the industrialization of everything. From industrialized
warfare to agriculture, from industrialized prisons and the
"justice" system to the pharmaceutical and "health
care" system, neo-liberalism creates a bland narrow band of
products designed to control consumer's options while cleverly masquerading as
choice. People insisting on alternatives to the
"free-market" are considered as being out of the mainstream. They are viewed as not being normal.
"If
you are not with us, you are against us", is neo-liberalism's mantra.
Neo-liberalism demands that people do not question nor
complain. And so, we accept the advertising lies and claims,
the proclamations of the "news" industry. We accept
the fraud that products are not as advertised, or of poor
quality. Free people do not accept the lies of the
established order. Nor do they obediently accept their
exploitation under the guise of patriotism. So why do we put up with
neo-liberalism? Why do we accept the lies? Why do
we accept the industrialization of everything? Why do we
quietly accept the product that we purchase when it is inferior, broken, repulsive, dangerous or contrary to our own
interests? Matrimony.
Just one more product. JeanneE
and I, like most couples. attend weddings. Most of
them are cookie cutter productions, expensive corporate rites of passage that the bride and groom could,
for the most part, do
without. For the cost of these poorly staged events, the
newlyweds or civil union couple could have a nice down payment on a
house. Instead, cultural operative
prevails. Just as we are indoctrinated into the mindset that
the war will never be done away with, we think we cannot have a
wedding outside the corporate model. The cultural operative
dictates a public ceremony, typically including a
minister, a reception with an obligatory meal, a bubbly toast, booze, a band, a DJ, a
wedding cake and some kind of favor for the guests. A corporate
recipe for yet another commodity. Like other commodities, the typical
mass
produced wedding is riddled with exploitation. Like unexploded
ordnance that fails to deliver, the corporate wedding products that
fail to deliver leave the buyers with little or no recourse. What to do if the wedding reception meal
is so poor that guests cannot not eat it? What to do if the
service is poor? For the most part, the
guests, not wanting to offend the couple, say nothing. The bride
and groom also have little recourse.
Let the reader not doubt that wedding reception meals can be
inedible. JeanneE and I have attended weddings where that is
the case, not because we are vegetarians and there is no vegetarian
option which happens often, but because both the meat and non-meat eaters cannot
stomach the food. The same industrial mindset that produces weapons
of war produces wedding receptions. The business of war is
selling products that people cannot use. The business of
matrimony is selling couples the products they can do without.
Matrimony, like war, is big business. The
Wedding Report http://www.theweddingreport.com/
reports that the "online wedding market" alone "is
worth more than $7.9 billion". It further reports that
the 2006 market is 2.3 million weddings at an individual wedding
cost of $26,800. The cost of this average wedding would make a
nice 10% down payment on the average house. The Wedding Report states that,
In 2006 consumers will
spend $1,841.00 on Wedding Attire, $2,337.00 on their Wedding
Ceremony, $1,104.00 on Wedding Favors & Gifts, $1,136.00 on
Wedding Flowers, $1,739.00 on Wedding Jewelry, $922.00 on Wedding
Music, $2,659.00 on Wedding Photography & Video, $13,692.00 on
their Wedding Reception, $809.00 on Wedding Stationery, and
$563.00 on Wedding Transportation.
In the past 26 years,
JeanneE and I have attended weddings ranging from extreme excess
costing $100,000 or more to simple weddings in living rooms or front
porches, food ranging from potluck to chef catered, from delicious
and beautiful, to where the food was
unworthy of human consumption. What these affairs
have in
common is the notion that the weddings and receptions, as advertised
in the matrimony marketplace, are necessities people cannot do
without. Those that can
afford the "necessities" often commit to excess, while
those that cannot commit to a minimalist version of the wedding
industry's standard. Why not reject both? Why let
neo-liberalism control the blueprint for such a special event.
It is just as possible to have a $0.00 budget wedding as it is to
buy nothing on Buy Nothing Day (each year the Friday after
Thanksgiving). While saying no to the military industry may
involve risk, saying no to the corporate matrimony industry does
not. All is takes is making the decision to do
so. Neil
Shister, in "Queen
for a Day", writes about the typical US wedding being an
illusion for the pot of gold at the end of the neo-liberal rainbow.
This drama, I claim,
stages a conventional, though suspect, cultural aspiration to
upward mobility, disguising it as "high romance." Not
everyone agrees. I've tried my theory out on several women, and
they tend to object. One insisted that it's more about control,
the wedding being the one day in her life the bride gets to call
all the shots. Perhaps. But why these shots? The language
is overwhelmingly about "taste and style," code words
for class; "control," I suspect, is a subtext in a
grander conversation about upward mobility...The popular fantasy
is that on her wedding day, every bride is a member of that
[uppermost leisure] class.
Neo-liberalism creates a world where if we don't spent money, we feel that we
are getting our money's worth: nothing. Marketers convince us that we are cheating ourselves and our friends
and family if we do not provide the best, or at least, the
minimum, of wedding accommodations. This thinking comes from
the same people who bring us war as the means of conflict
resolution. These are the same people who convince us that just taking another pharmaceutical will make us
whole, or erectile. The neo-liberal merchants and their propaganda
will sell us anything and everything. Why not reject the sale
for the sale's sake? If we do this, there might be fewer couples in debt over their weddings.
There
would be many more newlyweds living in their own homes. And
perhaps, there might be fewer of neo-liberalism's wars for profit
for our children to fight for and die in. JeanneE
and I were legally married on October 11, 1981 on the hearth in front of our
woodstove in a small bungalow in Rumson, New Jersey. This was the same
house in which our daughter was born. We were
both barefoot. I wore white overalls and a marigold, my
favorite flower.
JeanneE wore a homemade gown that I sewed from a sheet the night
before. If we had to do it all over again, we would do it the
same way. We would also spend the next twenty-six years
opposing neo-liberalism's militarism and war making just as we have.
They weren't really
weddings, just long costume parties. (on three of her weddings). -
Peggy Lee
Jozef
Hand-Boniakowski is co-editor and co-publisher of Metaphoria
along with his life partner and wife, JeanneE. He is 30-year
veteran retired teacher and a member of Veterans For Peace.
His writings have appeared in Metaphoria,
After Downing Street,
Buzzflash, Counterpunch,
Thomas Paine's
Corner, Rense.com, Omni
Center, Rutland Herald,
Times Argus, and others.
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