Dublin Opinion

The consumption of labour-power is completed, as in the case of every other commodity, outside the market or the sphere of circulation. Let us therefore, in company with the owner of money and the owner of labour-power, leave this noisy sphere, where everything takes place on the surface and in full view of everyone, and follow them into the hidden abode of production, on whose threshold there hangs the notice ´No admittance except on business’. Here we shall see, not only how capital produces, but how capital is itself produced. The secret of profit-making must at last be laid bare.” (Marx, Capital, Vol.1, Chapter six, p.280, Penguin Classics edition.)

I just want to highlight something David Harvey brought up in his fourth lecture on Capital. The section of the lecture is below, and it’s where Harvey talks about how the “bourgeois constituency is entirely concerned with market-relations”, and the freedom and rights that pertain there. However, the bourgeoisie rarely has anything to say about what goes on at the point of production. Harvey’s point is that, although social issues and human rights are important, the economic interests of the bourgeoisie stop it from challenging exploitation at the point of production. That’s where trade unions kick in.

Compare what Harvey says with that of the interests and concerns of the much-publicized (RED) campaign , which sees consumption as a solution to issues of human rights. It may be commodified to the extreme, but the philosophy behind (RED) is surprisingly similar to Victorian concepts of “deserving” and “undeserving” poor.

Here’s a newsclip about the launch of Dell’s (RED) laptop from January 2008. The (RED) laptop is just one of a handful of purchases that the guilty and trendy can consume to save African AIDS victims. In August 2006 it came out that i-pods, which people should buy in (RED) in order to save Africans with AIDS, were being made in Chinese sweatshops.

Here’s the advertisement Dell ran with during the Superbowl this year, to let the world know just how wonderful its (RED) Dell will make you feel, and those around you as well.

With regard to rights at the point of production, below is some footage from a documentary based on a Chinese sweatshop making Disney products. It was made by Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior (SACOM), a Hong Kong-based non-profit organisation which ‘aims at bringing concerned students, scholars, labor activists, and consumers together to monitor corporate behavior and to advocate for workers’ rights.’

The bizzareness of a charity campaign which depends on the exploitation of Chinese labour in order to alleviate bourgeois guilt over AIDS in Africa doesn’t seem so illogical when placed within the context of Harvey’s comments above. Both issues are valid, both are issues about rights, but the solution put forward by (RED) is one that fits completely into the market-fetish mindset - that it is better to have human rights incorporated into your marketing strategy, than have worker rights incorporated into your production strategy.

And that is quite disgusting.

Indeed, Bono himself is subject to an online petition calling for him to retire from public life. It states that Bono’s ‘philanthropy efforts are self-righteous, ineffective, & counter-productive.’ The petition’s website also states that

RED has spent $40 million more on marketing than it has raised from the sales of RED products. They should have just spent the $100 million from marketing directly on AIDS charities & it would have been far more effective. Essentially its been one huge advertisement for GAP, American Express, and for Bono himself. It begs the question, is the RED campaign really spreading awareness about AIDS, or merely leveraging AIDS to market a new audience of people who want their philanthropy to fit in with their life-style.”

Whatever about human rights - and the marketability of human rights and especially African AIDs - in the case of (RED), Bill Gates, Bono, Dell, and Apple, empowerment at the point of production is to be avoided at all costs.

With regard to class and Ireland, well, I think it’s fair to say that the dominant concern of rights and empowerment are with those which focus in on the marketplace. Certainly, the main argument these days is that to even touch the mode of production in any way would lead to a complete collapse of the Irish economic system.

It’s quite interesting that one of the main sticking-points with regard to a new National Partnership Programme is not so much with wages, but with union recognition. IBEC is simply refusing to agree in any form or fashion to something that will give unions more say in the mode of production at shopfloor level. That’s one little right that IBEC will not be purchasing, even if Bono hand-wrapped it himself in Chinese (RED) colours.

Finally, below is The Globalisation Tapes, a documentary made by members of the Plantation Workers’ Union of Sumatra (Indonesia).

Using their own forbidden history as a case study, the Indonesian filmmakers trace the development of contemporary globalisation from its roots in colonialism to the present. Through chilling first-hand accounts, hilarious improvised interventions, collective debate and archival collage, The Globalisation Tapes exposes the devastating role of militarism and repression in building the “global economy”, and explores the relationships between trade, third-world debt, and international institutions like the IMF and the World Trade Organization. The film is a densely lyrical and incisive account of how these institutions shape and enforce the corporate world order (and its ’systems of chaos’).” (IFIwatchnet)

Here’s the version on Google Video. It’ll have to do until the (RED) Globalisation Tapes arrives.

Enjoy.