A lecture by Hamid Van-Koten about industrialization, mass consumption and sustainability. We are living in a post industrial world which carries a lot of meaning. Everything is industrialised around us and this has many consequences. The most important thing in our society called money, as important as major decisions have been made because of money. We pay money for services so we don’t have to make things any more, we can buy anything. Because of industrialization we have fewer jobs (traditional jobs) since everything made by machines although they still need humans to maintain them. But what’s wrong with it? We can buy anything we need or just want so there isn’t any problem. Yes, there is. But let’s start at the beginning.
“…when commodities are in the relation of exchange, their exchange-value manifests itself as something totally independent of their use-value.”
Marx, Capital (p. 125.)
Use value means that the product we buy has the same value as the product we give instead. It also means that we buy things what satisfy our needs. Nowadays we pay with money for everything, which is basically a piece of paper that means everything for a lot of people and it called exchange-value. But it’s proved that money won’t make people happy. We’ve been brainwashed and this lecture helped me to understand how.
To Fordize:
“to standardize a product and manufacture it by mass means at a price so low that the common man can afford to buy it."
Ford – Fordism
Ford was the man who started the industrialization. He designed a car which was affordable for anyone. It wasn’t made by hand anymore but machines which made the process faster. Than the same thing happened with other industries like textiles, printing, jewellery, and architecture. New techniques and materials appeared as artificial oil based fabrics, early plastics that provided cheap materials for the product industry and digital processes in printing which created the print + image format instead of the art deco style. Buildings became less decorated as well with the appearance of concrete and the new modern style born.
Modern style is international and functional. I’ve never thought about it but kitchens are the best example for this. Earlier kitchens were a combination of different bits and bobs but today we have designed, highly functional furniture. Based on user studies and measurements of people’s sizes they made for average people. Mass production doesn’t care about individuals and different personalities. But it cares about money and because manufacture became much more effective they had to sell the products. Designers became more important to create sellable items for consumption and everything speeded up.
Commodity Fetishism:
The relationship between consumer and producer is obscured
Marx – Capital
Everything is designed for us but we have no idea where the goods coming from or what they made of. Even our food is a mystery if we have a look at the ingredients. These new products lost their social value, just their exchange values are important. As an example we don’t know what Martini or Coke made of, they could be made from 2 pence but we have to pay much more for them. Adverts created a new social context for goods, they became magical objects.
Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction:
•Removal of ritual context and tradition, resulting in
•Loss of aura of the object
•Mass production delivers to a mass audience
Walter Benjamin
Adverts changing our taste and tell us what to consume. We became a crowd and the need of individuals doesn’t matter anymore. Manmade object are more expensive so a very few people would buy them. But on the other hand if we need only 3-5 jumpers instead of 20 we can easily afford the better quality.
…Advertising creates “false needs” and thus increases consumption…
John Kenneth Galbraith
It hasn’t been proved that advertising increases consumption but definitely changes the values of it and by providing cheap products it allows us to buy whatever we want. The biggest problem is the waste we produce. First of all the packaging which wouldn’t be necessary if we would grow our own food or buy it at the market (- by the way those who interested in cheap organic vegetables you can purchase a big net full of them for a fiver at the main entrance of the Union every Tuesday during lunch break. Recipe and free soup included and you can also take the net back so no waste involved). Also such a small thing as carrying a fabric shopping bag with us instead of using plenty of plastic ones can make a huge difference. Can you imagine how much waste we produce by following the new trends of fashion, electronics, interiors, etc? But do we really need to buy new ones or we just obsessed with fitting in to the society. Do we have to use our cars every day (I don’t have a car because I don’t need it) and do we need new mobile phones every year? Dundee is special though because the public transport here is pretty useless, mainly after 6pm but its small enough to walk or cycle to most of the places. We don’t have to do what adverts tell us to do. Have you ever calculated your carbon footprint? You can do here if you haven’t: http://www.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.aspx
A photograph from the lecture:
We have only one planet Earth and we’re just about to make it impossible for human being to live on it. I saw two shocking documentaries recently in association with consumption so I’ll write another post about those, until then a short but impressive animation from the lecture: