Screwball Scramble
SHOPPER FRENZY: In the United States, the Friday following Thanksgiving is traditionally known as Black Friday, marking as it does, the beginning of the Christmas shopping season for millions of Americans. On Black Friday 2008 in New York, the retail giant Wal-Mart was one of many stores across the country planning to open its doors early to shoppers. However, this particular Friday, 34 year old Wal-Mart worker, Jdimytai Damour had the misfortune of finding himself in the way of the gathered crowds. He was subsequently killed as..."out-of-control shoppers, desperate for bargains broke down the doors...Other workers [too] were trampled as they tried to rescue [Mr. Damour] and customers shouted angrily and kept shopping, when store officials said they were closing because of the death"... (USA Today, 2008, online). Indeed,..."crowd[s] swarmed over and around [Mr. Damour] even as paramedics battled in vain to save him"...(Guardian, 2008, online). Similarly in Britain, while Black Friday is not a part of our cultural tradition, scrambled shopping certainly is. For example, last year the giant electrical chain Currys, marked the reopening of its giant refurbished megastore in the West Midlands with bargain prices on many commodities, including LCD TV's, satellite navigation equipment, laptops and printers. On the first day of the sale which initially attracted more than 3,000 people, "[p]olice had to put crowd control measures in place to deal with the fighting and were forced to close down a section of the M6 motorway, after a seven-mile queue built up. One 75-year-old who had arrived at the store at 3am had fainted by the time the store opened at 8.30am" (The Telegraph, 2008, online). A year earlier, the retail clothing giant Primark opened its first central London store. "By 10am, the doors had been knocked off their hinges by...eager shoppers, desperate to get hold of a pair of �8 jeans. By 11am, a floor manager had been knocked to the ground by the hordes, trampling all that was in their path in search of a �2 bikini. And by noon the queue to get in, snaked all the way down Oxford Street to Marble Arch with a waiting time estimated at a couple of hours" (Guardian, 2007, online). Meanwhile, when another retail giant, Ikea, opened a store in north London in early 2005, once again consumer chaos ensued, as shoppers screamed with excitement, scrambled for bargains, and stampeded over anyone and anything in their path. (Guardian, 2005, online). DRIVE AND MOTIVATION: There are countless other examples of such commercially driven consumer scrambles not only in Britain and America, but also throughout the developed world (I suppose, overt looting might logically be regarded as the extreme manifestation of such activity). So how are we to understand this phenomenon? The credit crunch may initially seem like a reasonable explanation and yet le crunch is a recent phenomenon, whereas examples of shopping scrambles are anything but. Others have suggested parallels between frenzied shopping and religion. As journalist Julian Baggini argues in the afore-mentioned article on Ikea, "the rational self-interest at work might be thought to be the large discounts being offered to shoppers. But a �45 leather sofa is not worth risking injury or even death for. The kind of 'must have' mania that infects some shoppers as they close in on a good deal is more akin to the imperatives of religious devotion than those of personal finance...[T]he people who flock[ed] to Ikea during the sales really [we]re like pilgrims flocking to a shrine or temple"...Yet citing religious-like zeal as the ultimate causal factor in all this is also problematic. This is because it fails to explain why such overpowering psychological drives and motives arise (in this case in shoppers' minds) in the first place. Another way of putting this, is to suggest that it is never sufficient to postulate psychological motives as ultimates, for the objective source of such drive and motivation must itself, be explained. Perhaps then, another primary cause is at work. An essential objective cause, outside and independent of the mind. "[People] must be in a position to live in order to be able to 'make history'. [And] life involves before everything else eating and drinking, a habitation, clothing and many other things...The first necessity therefore...is to observe this fundamental fact in all its significance and all its implications and to accord it its due importance" (Marx and Engels, 1940, p.16). In the last analysis, it is I believe this particular dominant socio-economic order, a given people's historically conditioned pattern for getting the job done as it were, which ultimately gives rise to, and subsequently conditions people's thoughts, feelings and actions. "From the start...spirit is afflicted with the curse of being burdened with matter" (Marx and Engels, 1940, p.19). Emerging first in 17th-century England, capitalism has subsequently developed as a dominant form of human association to become "a coherent and expansive force on a world scale" (Cox, 1987, p.51). CAPITALISM AS SUCH: The essence of capitalism is defined by Teschke (2004, p.40) as being an historically conditioned form of human association which is..."based on a set of social property relations in which property-less direct producers are compelled to sell their labour-power (mental and / or physical capacities) to the owners of the means of production (capitalists) in return for wages...Both producers and capitalists are subjected to market competition." By virtue of their legal ownership of the various means of production, (machinery, land, buildings, raw materials etc..) capitalists are able to appropriate all surplus value realised during the production process. Property-less working people, continuously produce much more than is necessary to meet their own material and cultural needs and in the process of doing so, are paid less in wages / salaries than the social values they surrender. This is the essence of capitalist exploitation which differs greatly from the forms of exploitation in either slave or feudal times. "Profits depend first and foremost on the ability of capitalists to extract surplus value from the production process: whatever the level of wages, the capitalists need to coerce labour to work over and beyond the labour time required to produce those wages" (Fine and Saad-Filho, 2004, p.68). Capitalist production is therefore not intended for direct use. To meet the growing material and cultural needs of all in society is not its aim. Instead, it is based on the production of use values for profitable exchange. It assumes the form of an interminable process, beginning with money and ending, all capitalists hope, with more money once their respective commodities have been sold at a profit. Indeed, to begin and end production with the same money values would be meaningless, mere tautology. Finally, the imperative of competitive accumulation among and between myriad capitals in particular, means that all have to endlessly embrace the latest that science and technology has to offer in their efforts to stay ahead of competitors or else run the risk of ruin. Therefore, as it historically evolves, capitalist competition tends to result in a growing concentration and centralisation of accumulated wealth, partly thanks to a spontaneously evolving credit system, and partly on account of more and more 'victims' of competition, falling by the wayside. The highest stage of this concentration and centralisation process is seen in the establishment of giant monopolies. CAPITALISM AND SCRAMBLED SHOPPING: Having adopted a way of life then, in which all socio-economic activity for exploiter and exploited alike, is devoted to the competitive production, appropriation, distribution, exchange and consumption of objects with price tags; a way of life in which each property-less individual has to sell his or her personal capacities in order to earn a living, this in turn, exercises a profound influence on the thoughts, feelings and actions of those constituting such a society. Economic activity is conceptualised not as a means to an end, but rather as an end in itself, with the appropriation of commodities being seen as the most valued activity in life. People spend their entire lives seeking pleasure, satisfaction and advantage both from and in things. Conversely and although one can never think of oneself in this manner, other people are conceptualised not as ends, but instead as means to ends, as things to be used in one's endless quest for commodities. But why do modestly ordered object-seekers, sometimes undergo a transformation into more frenzied object-seekers? As already mentioned, capitalist exploitation involves paying less in wages / salaries to working people than the values they socially produce. One obvious consequence of this, is that limitations are permanently placed on the general purchasing power of working people. Under such circumstances, whenever commodities are offered for sale at knock-down prices, fierce competition among and between buyers is hardly surprising. A second factor in all this, itself a general consequence of working people's limited purchasing power, is the current and increasing massive burden of personal debt. This again, is bound to encourage some to seek out the best bargains, and not simply at a reduced cost, but more worringly, at any cost! Today, personal debt in Britain has assumed colossal proportions. Credit Action (2008, online) for instance, estimates that total personal debt here in the UK alone is currently a massive �1,455 billion, an increase of 4.7 per cent (�64 billion) on the previous 12 months. Such debt now exceeds GDP for the first time ever. American consumers too are not only exploited, but also heavily in debt with some estimates putting the current figure at $14 trillion. The death of Mr. Damour at Wal-Mart on that Black Friday, clearly meant little or dare I say nothing to most, if not all of the shoppers present. He was arguably conceptualised by the madding crowd, in an utterly impersonal manner. As something merely to be used as a means to an end and when needs must, discarded. Unfortunately for Mr. Damour, even the opportunity for frenzied shoppers to use and then discard him in some or other capacity did not materialise that November morning. For my part, Mr. Damour is a kind of symbolic victim of capitalism's ongoing festival of the juggernaut, in which "living people throw themselves down before, and are crushed by the great juggernaut which is itself built and pushed along by people" (Cornforth, 1972, p.53). Of course, hundreds or even thousands of object-seeking consumers nowadays often converge on the same giant superstore. This is undoubtedly a direct consequence of the tendency for competing capitals to necessarily fuel an ongoing concentration and centralisation of wealth. This suggested accumulation process has two dimensions to it. "On the one hand, profits may be re-invested, amassing capital over time. Marx called this the process of concentration. On the other hand, a capitalist can borrow and merge, gathering the existing resources of capitalist production. This Marx called the process of centralisation" (Fine and Saad-Filho, 2004, p.86). Wal-Mart for example, from reasonably modest beginnings in 1960's Arkansas, expanded through this dual process of concentration and centralisation (the latter process assuming by far the most important role as capitalism historically develops) to become today, the largest retailing business on the planet (Wikipedia, 2009, Wal-Mart). In 1999, Wal-Mart actually bought Asda here in Britain which at that time, was the third largest food supermarket in the UK. An excellent example of Wal-Mart's ongoing centralisation ambitions if ever there was one. Meanwhile, another retail giant Ikea also grew from modest beginnings, this time in Sweden in 1943. It constituted just one shop then. At the turn of the 21st-century however, co-workers numbered an estimated 53,000 across more than 150 superstores in 29 countries (Ikea, 1999-2008, online). CONCLUSION: Stampeding shoppers, no doubt imagine themselves to be acting most freely while engaging in such activity. In reality however, and like the bulk of those within the social space we now label capitalism, they are blissfully unaware of the social sources of their myriad drives and motives. Moreover, even if some people do become somewhat disillusioned with a life that necessitates the endless pursuit of pleasure, satisfaction and advantage in things, with no scientific-based knowledge to enlighten them as to the social causes at work, (and thus no capacity to consciously set about actively transforming society for the better) the most they will ever achieve in my view, is an aimless grappling with the effects that necessarily flow from the system in which they find themselves. To put this upside-down world back on its feet again, will first require a profound change of thinking in the minds of a significant number of those constituting capitalist society. A change of thinking in which people and nothing else, come to be seen as ends. Similarly, economic activity must come to be regarded not as an end in itself, but instead as a means to an end, namely as a means to the ongoing satisfaction of the material and cultural needs of all in society. Second, and simultaneously, it calls for a practical reordering of society along lines of common ownership of the material means of production, which in turn, will enable us to rid ourselves of exploitation once and for all and thus, to rationally and freely meet everyone's needs. REFERENCES Cornforth, M. (1972) Communism and Human Values, London, Lawrence and Wishart. Cox, R. (1987) Production, Power and World Order. Social Forces in the Making of History, New York, Columbia University Press. Credit Action (2008) Debt Facts and Figures - Compiled 1st December 2008, [Accessed online, February, 2009] Available at: http://www.creditaction.org.uk/assets/PDF/statistics/2008/december-2008.pdf Fine, B. and Saad-Filho, A. (2004) Marx's Capital, London, Pluto Press. Guardian (2008) Man killed in bargain stampede, [Accessed online, February, 2009] Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/30/walmart-worker-sale Guardian (2007) Primark's �8 jeans and �2 bikinis cause stampede, [Accessed online, February, 2009] Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2007/apr/06/fashion.topstories3 Guardian (2005) Assembly Required, [Accessed online, February, 2009] Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2005/feb/11/consumerissues.shopping Ikea (1999-2008) Timeline, [Accessed online, February, 2009] Available at: http://www.ikea.com/ms/en_US/about_ikea/timeline/full_story.html Marx, K. and Engels, F. (1940) The German Ideology Parts I and III, London, Lawrence and Wishart. Teschke, B. (2004) Chapter 2 The origins and evolution of the European states-system, in Brown, W. , Bromley, S. and Athreye, S. (eds) (2004) Ordering the International. History, Change and Transformation, Milton Keynes, The Open University, pp.21-65. The Telegraph (2008) Violence breaks out at Currys as shoppers fight over bargains, [Accessed online, February, 2009] Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/3209641/Violence-breaks-out-at-Currys-as-shoppers-fight-over-bargains.html USA Today (2008) Wal-Mart worker trampled to death, [Accessed online, February, 2009] Available at: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-11-28-walmart-death_N.htm Wikipedia (2009) Wal-Mart, [Accessed online, February, 2009] Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wal-Mart Colin Baker BSc (Hons) February, 2009.
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