Cultures of Fetishism (33 page)

While all this financial hanky-panky was going on, the Chinese went on a frantic shopping mall spree and established their reputation as Land of Giant Megamalls. In a blink of the eye, they had produced half of the ten biggest malls in the world. And then, a nanosecond later, they already had built the two
very
biggest. First came the 7.32 million square foot Golden Resources Mall—the length of six football fields and exceeding the floor space of the Pentagon, the largest office building in the world. A few years later they con- structed the 9.58 million square foot South China Mall, which featured large-scale reproductions of the high spots of Western culture—with clever imitations of the piazzas and architecture of Venice, bridges, canals, gondolas and all; and the Champs Elysee of Paris with a full-size reproduction of the Arc de Triomphe at its center; and Southern California’s Hollywood with a giant Imax theater and of course the requisite McDonalds and Pizza Hut food courts dotting the landscape, here, there and everywhere.
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In August of 2005, just a few months before Communist China became the fourth-largest economy in the world, it was announced that Donald Trump was developing a Chinese version of the Reality TV show,
The Apprentice
. At the same time, Trump’s Chinese counterpart, Vincent Lo, was preparing a competing show,
Wise Man Takes All
, which Mr. Lo said “was in line with our longstanding commitment to the development of China” and “designed to foster healthy competition and entrepreneurship among the younger generation.”
67
Here was Communist China about to produce two competing blueprints on how to become a dead labor, capitalist vampire.

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, Marx’s theory of surplus labor value came to life in a shape that he could not have predicted. Marx had always been puzzled by the ambiguities inherent in the capitalist mode of production; those bats that sometimes looked like mice and at other times seemed to be birds. Finally, he realized that many of these ambiguous creatures were actually vampires. Even so, he would have been amazed and perhaps bewildered had he lived to see that a vast number of dead labor capitalist vampires were Chinese communists.

If we extend our vision of the surplus labor situation just a bit further, we will confront scenes of the cheapest labor of all in many parts of the world. Child labor is concentrated in Asia and Africa, which together account for more than 90 percent of child employment. Child labor is prevalent in Thailand, Sri-Lanka, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Iran, and in lesser known places like Chad. Coming closer to home, we see evidence of considerable child labor in Brazil, Paraguay, Peru, and Costa Rica.
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The commodification of children, transforming children into surplus labor, into objects that are valued far less than the material goods they pro- duce, is one of the saddest and most telling illustrations of the first principle of the fetishism strategy:
Fetishism is a mental strategy that enables one human being to transform another living, breathing human with its own enigmatic energy and vitalities into something that is material—a commodity
. The image of the dead labor capitalist vampirizing the bodies and souls of helpless little children makes high-minded, good-thinking American citizens cry out with moral outrage.

Yet, child labor is an intrinsic component of survival in most newly developing countries. A country that is already developed, like the United States, Great Britain, France, or Germany does not depend on child labor for its survival and therefore can afford to raise objections to that form of labor. On the other hand, manufacturers and exporters in the still developing countries have a stake in perpetuating child labor. When addressing the do-gooders from the United Nations, they protest that measures to prohibit child labor would rob them of their biggest advantage in the world market— lower labor costs. Since these child labor measures come from the already developed countries, they are viewed as an attempt by the rich countries to wipe away the developing country’s profit advantages. The manufacturers from underdeveloped countries argue that placing trade restrictions on coun- tries who employ child labor is tantamount to unfair labor practices, because:

(l) not all child labor is exploitative; (2) Poor countries cannot afford such measures; and (3) Levels of poverty would increase.
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Chances are that child labor will continue to be a fact of life in most countries of the world for some time to come. Chances are that a ten-year-old from Sri Lanka or India will have contributed labor time to the blue silk dress that you wear to a charity benefit. Chances are that a four-year-old tied to a weaving loom has participated in the manufacture of the elegant “Persian” carpet that covers your entire living room floor. Look at your labels. If your carpet doesn’t say “Made with Adult Labor Only,” chances are a child’s labor contributed to its exotic pattern.

A 2005 report from Human Rights Watch: Child Labor sounds very much like some scenes from the working day in
Capital
.

Working at rug looms, for example, has left children disabled with eye damage, lung disease, stunted growth and a susceptibility to arthritis as they grow older. Children making silk thread in India dip their hands into boiling water that burns and blisters them, breathe smoke and fumes from machinery, handle dead worms that cause infections and guide twisting threads that cut their fingers. Children harvesting sugar cane in El Salvador use machetes to cut cane for up to nine hours a day in the hot sun; injuries to their hands and legs are common and medical care is often not available.
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Marx’s depictions of surplus labor value and commodity fetishism are not outdated. Nor do they apply only to underdeveloped countries. On the

contrary, the labor-capital relations that reflect these “theoretical” entities are prevalent all over the world, including in our contemporary developed soci- eties, where we abhor the abominations of child labor but still fail to see or to question the widespread commodification of human beings that takes place every day, every night, right in our own backyard.

A central feature of the fetishism of the commodity is the commodification of human beings. It’s all there in Marx’s prediction, “All our inventions and progress seem to result in endowing material forces with intellectual life and stultifying life with a material force.” We need not visit an Iranian carpet fac- tory, or an Indian silk factory, or a Salvadorian sugar cane plantation to “see” this aspect of commodity fetishism.

A good place to view our present-day commodifications of human beings is in the fictional realm of reality TV. Though the producers’ claims that they are representing real human beings behaving naturally in real situations are falsifications, many of these so-called reality shows inadvertently present a real and accurate portrayal of the “secret” of how human beings are trans- formed into commodities. In that sense, reality TV, despite its carefully scripted, detailed planning and heavy duty editing of pre-taped situations, is all-too-real. What we see when we view reality TV is the ultimate personifi- cation of the reification of human beings.

As a brief preface to our look at reality TV, I shall now bring into the fore- ground an aspect of Marx’s commodity fetishism that I have relegated to the background. You may have noticed that my renditions of the capitalist’s vam- pirizations of the worker left out what happens to the body and soul of the worker who is vampirized. I
did
discuss, at some length, the alienation suf- fered by the worker, and also how the surplus labor that is sucked out from the worker’s body is drained off into the profits of the capitalist. But I
did not
refer to the contagion that results from vampirization. Nevertheless, as we all know from watching vampire movies, the vampirized worker, of course, would be transformed into a vampire himself.

The commodification of the human being includes his frenzied competition to get more than his fellow workers and to get more faster than they do. So, in addition to his alienation from his own self, now that he has been vampirized, the worker is likely to become alienated from other human beings.

Let us begin with
Survivor
, the prototype of the reality TV genre that I am referring to.
*
Just a few weeks of viewing how the human beings on
Survivor
manage to outwit and defeat their fellow participants and you could become an expert in manipulation, back-stabbing, humiliation, conniving, defrauding,

* Other reality TV shows, such as
Wife Swap, Nanny, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, Makeover, Extreme Makeover, American Idol, The Contender, Runway,
while they
do
encourage competition and
do
manipulate and commodify the “real” people chosen to participate, never- theless,
do not
offer explicit instructions on how to become a successful vampire. My analysis of the commodification of human beings in reality TV will be limited to
Survivor, The Apprentice,
and
Fear Factor
. My concluding remarks address the notion of reality as it evolved in the first reality TV show,
The Real World
, and the commodification of the young men and women who agreed to participate.

and just plain cheating. Viewing a full season, right up to the moment that one of the sixteen participants manages to out-maneuver all his fellow tribes- people, and win all the money, and you will have been in a position to acquire all the mental agility you need to become a first-class vampire. If you had become addicted to
Survivor
, and stuck with it season after season, it is possible that your vampire dexterities would have become inherent aspects of the person you are. Should you ever want to engage in backstabbing and manipulation of your friends and coworkers, you won’t even have to think about it. It will come to you automatically.

If you have been a faithful follower of
Survivor
-type reality TV, you may not require my descriptions of those shows. Nevertheless, very likely you have not viewed them with an eye to identifying the specific methods they employ to exploit and dehumanize the human beings who they select to participate.

The United States version of
Survivor
, produced by Mark Burnett and hosted by Jeff Probst, was first broadcast in May 2000 on CBS.
Survivor
was the first American reality show to pit one human being against another.

A group of “interesting” human beings are taken to an inhospitable environment—the jungles of the Amazon, the Pearl Islands off the coast of Panama, the Australian Outback, a desert in Kenya—and encouraged to compete with one another to see who will be the last to survive and win one million dollars. The series starts with sixteen players, who are divided into two eight-person “Tribes.” On each episode one player is voted off the show by the other remaining tribespeople. The two tribes compete against each other in challenges entailing physical endurance, intelligence, teamwork, dexterity, courage, and willpower.

After several episodes, usually when there are only eight players left, the two tribes merge. The players must give a new name to the new tribe and cre- ate a new flag for it. From that point on, challenges are won on an individual basis. Throughout, Probst encourages the players to make factions, to plot against each other, to lie about their motives, to steal each other’s supplies, and to betray one another. Probst’s provocations intensify as the episode approaches the meeting of the Tribal Council, where each week one player is voted off the show, either by members of her own tribe or the newly merged tribe. Before the actual voting, Probst gathers the players together to whet their vampire appetites, by reminding them of earlier betrayals, backstab- bings, nasty gossip, disturbing personal interactions, stealing. He also asks them to publicly express their opinions about the other players. Obviously, each player must exercise an exquisite balance between currying favor and denigrating her competitors. The players then vote secretly and one of them is eliminated. Probst takes the torch from the losing player, extinguishes its flame and declares, “The tribe has spoken.” The player who loses is last seen leaving the scene of her defeat. In most episodes, her final words describing how it felt to be voted off are played over the final credits of the episodes.

The Apprentice
pits aspiring capitalists against each other and could be a primer on the fetishism of commodities.
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Donald Trump, the real-life

megacapitalist, is the main host, along with his two henchmen, Carolyn Kepcher and George Ross, who in “real” life are said to be Trump’s “trusted advisers.” Following the example of Trump, Kepcher and Ross maintain a stony-faced, bland expression throughout. Maybe that heartless, unemo- tional pose is supposed to make them look like “real” capitalists. The earliest episodes pitched women against men.

In the 2004/2005 season, the episodes followed the pattern originally suggested for the show: those candidates with those with street smarts against those with book smarts. The challenges were related to business ven- tures; who can buy gold at the cheapest rate on a certain day; who can design and build the most lucrative miniature golf course; who can raise the most money for a charity; who can design the best outdoor building mural for a neighborhood center; who can create the best clothing line that combines fashion and technology; who can create the best promotional brochures for a limited edition automobile.

Other than the fact that the scenes take place in a civilized, hospitable environment, in most other respects, the show is closely modeled on
Survivor
. There are two teams, one composed of ambitious entrepreneur types with only a high school diploma who, in one season, decided to call their team Net Worth, and the other composed of MBAs, lawyers, and other college-educated types who decided to call their team Magna. As in
Survivor
, the two teams are merged when there are only eight people left. However, in
The Apprentice
, the members of each team are pitted against each other by having to chose the two people who they want to deport to the other team. At the end of each episode, the two teams are called to the Boardroom (
The Apprentice
version of the Tribal Council) to determine which player should get fired by Trump. While the provocations to make factions and betray one another are more subtle and “business-like” with Trump and his two assistants as the hosts, there is a built-in
Survivor
quality of nasty business practice, which can be detected in the way the competition is set up for each episode to encourage bad-spirited qualities in the players. In order to help himself to decide “fairly” which person to point his finger at and pronounce “You’re fired,” Trump asks the players to express their opinions about the other players’ business know-how and to reveal the personality quirks that they have noticed. Again, as in
Survivor
, there is this delicate balance between currying favor with the teammates who have the power to induce Trump to fire them, and doing whatever they can to reveal the faults and fallibilities of their fellow teammates. Occasionally, Trump asks his two assis- tants for their opinions. Occasionally, either Carolyn or George express an