Status Updates From The Anti-Capitalist Book of...

The reason over 4mil Bangladeshis work in fashion production is because Bangladesh was steered into treacherous over dependence on clothing exports by the neo-colonial policies of the international monetary fund (IMF) and World Bank. These institutions pushed for Bangladesh to abandon dreams of self sufficiency.

“Never forget that fashion brands make their sourcing decisions deliberately, following colonial pathways to industrial sites where they can evade the standards that keep people safe and where they think any resistance to their crimes can and will be crushed. This colonial exploitation is backed by deeply unequal global financial systems.”

“Being materialistic in this sense does not mean doing more shopping, rather it’s a call for people to recognize that products, such as shoes and handbags, are dependent on nature and labor and have a physical, material reality, independent of thought. It calls for use values to take precedence over endless symbolic values.

Quote from 1968 play, The Price: “Years ago, a person, if he was unhappy, didn’t know what to do with himself. He’d go to church, start a revolution, something. Today you’re unhappy, can’t figure it out, what is the solution? Go shopping.”

“Under capitalism, people are locked into a mindset where having is more important than being. We learn to value things only when we directly possess them, rather than looking for happiness in ourselves, in labor, in society, or in nature. Commodities acquire meaning because people are alienated. People balance endless stretches of meaningless working hours with a dreamed future of excitable consumption.”

“The system is on life support and that life support is debt.”

“The fashion industry is a neoliberal icon of what economist David Harvey described as an ‘increasing reliance on fictitious capital and debt creation.”

“Multiple studies have linked household debt with increased depression & stress, a decline in relationships, parenting behavior, & positive child outcomes. This is not a problem of irresponsible consumers; people are actively and officially encouraged to get into high levels of debt for systemic reasons. Interest rates are kept low to keep people shopping for goods that are becoming more expensive as wages drop.”

Advertising is a symptom of this system, not the sole arbiter of problems, but still represents massive amounts of waste.

“If makeup is a creative pursuit, allowing women to express their individuality, why is the same picture painted day after day with little room for novelty and imagination? The woman who does not paint her face encounters sanctions that would never be applied to someone who chooses not to paint a watercolor.”

“If we do not critique capitalist compulsions, then statements from makeup magnates, like Helena Rubinstein - ‘there are no ugly women, just lazy ones’ - become truisms rather than merely grasping attempts to make billions by exploiting peoples’ insecurities.”

There is a difference between criticizing people for enjoying, buying, and wearing fashion and criticizing capitalism for compelling people constantly to buy new clothes.

Aesthetic labor: the facets of a person’s employment that insists they maintain a certain appearance to remain employed.

- staying up with fashions, hairstyles, makeup, etc. to receive promotions, be taken seriously, etc.

“While fashion can provide an outlet for aesthetic creativity and enjoyment, this is subject to the demands of the markets that control fashion production. In this way, the human need for clothing and creativity has been commodified into the production of fashion for profit.”

“Imaginary appetites and false needs are created without regard to whether they are real or dehumanizing and without regard for what they have done and continue to do to the biosphere, the animal kingdom, and the planet.“

“In the late 1990’s, when the Adbusters Media Foundation tried to buy air for its Buy Nothing campaign, it was turned down by CBS on the grounds that it was contrary to the country’s current economic policy. These are examples of the subordination of human needs to the imperative of corporations to accumulate wealth.”

“Instead of Use Value, symbolic values like love, wealth, and power are attributed to commodities. Capitalism has changed what we value as a society, value is now associated with market based value alone, that which can be traded or sold. Real value, that of love, solidarity, truth, connection, and nature has been reduced to existing in a haunted form.”

Use value: the value of a commodity based on its ability to meet human need

“World trade churns almost entirely around the needs not of individual consumption, but of production.” - Marx
“Corporations must produce fashion in order to make money. If everyone bought only the clothes they needed, it would spell disaster for corporations, so instead, false needs are created to keep everyone shopping.”

40,000 year old sewing needles have been found on Paleolithic sites