The Commodification of Revolution

This synthesis of State and System has allowed for the appropriation of many things, up to, and including, revolution.  It is the illusion of the separation of these that fools bands like Anti-Flag into believing they can make a difference from within.  So, in going back to Michael Moore, is the flaw in capitalism really a flaw?  Or is the capitalistic system so strong and intact that a few rebellious, revolutionary t-shirts, bands, movies, etc. really will have no effect except to net profits?  Worse yet, has the Commodification of Revolution cheapened it to the point of neutralization, removing any true meaning from it?  If the idea of Revolution is for sale, then there is the possibility that anything truly can be sold.  Nothing, not even an anti-capitalistic revolution is beyond the scope and size of capitalism.  In theory, even this writing of my own, inspired by revolution, created in frustration of the bastardization of revolution, can be sold for profit.  The System is so strong that it can buy and sell its own enemies without any fear of any actual harm occurring.  What are the ramifications of this appropriation?

The capitalist world-economy is so strong that not only do other systems work within the framework of it, but they also work with it.  The erosion of the separation of System and State is commonly thought to be a rather recent development in today’s post-World War II globalized world, but, in truth, the capitalist world-economy and the political arena have always been integrated.  “In the real world of historical capitalism, almost all commodity chains of any importance have traversed these state frontiers…Moreover, the transnationality of commodity chains is as descriptively true of the sixteenth-century capitalist world as of the twentieth-century.”[1] 

[1] Ibid., 31.

Capitalism’s status as the dominant social system occurred through its ability to commodify all processes, “not merely exchange processes, but production processes, distribution processes, and investment processes.”[1] Once these social processes had all been but absorbed into the larger system, capitalists needed another inlet for capital accumulation.  “Since capitalism is a self-regarding process, it follows that no social transaction has been intrinsically exempt from possible inclusion.  That is why we may say that the historical development of capitalism has involved the thrust towards the commodification of everything.”[2]

[1] Ibid., 15.

[2] Ibid., 15-16.

.  Everybody and everything is affected by the System and the systems within the System.  The System is an overlapping system of systems, each highly complex, highly bureaucratic, all working within, not just the framework of every other system, but within the overarching umbrella of the capitalist system.  Immanuel Wallerstein has referred to this as the capitalist world-economy.  Wallerstein states that by 1557 “the capitalist world-economy was an established system that became almost impossible to unbalance.”[1]  For over 400 years capitalism has been bending, shaping, destroying and consolidating other world systems into its self:      Historical capitalism, is, thus, that concrete, time-bounded, space-bounded integrated locus of productive activities within which the endless accumulation of capital has been the economic activity.  It is that social system in which those who have operated by such rules have had such great impact on the whole as to create conditions wherein the others have been forced to conform to the patterns or to suffer the consequences.  It is that social system in which the scope of these rules (the law of value) has grown ever wider, the enforcers of these rules ever more intransigent, the penetration of these rules into the social fabric ever greater, even while social opposition to these rules has grown ever louder and more organized [italics added].[2]

[1] Immanuel Wallerstein, The Capitalist World-Economy, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 19.

[2] Immanuel Wallerstein, Historical Capitalism, (London: Vereson Editions, 1983), 18-19.

The System can take on many forms, shapes and characteristics.  The Random House Unabridged Dictionary gives many different definitions; the one most applicable is as follows: “(sometimes initial capital letter
) the prevailing structure or organization of society, business, or politics or of society in general; establishment (usually prec. by the): to work within the system instead of trying to change it.”[1]  In this case, society is the System, the church is the System, the status quo is the System, the military is the System, and consumerism is the System to name a few.  All of these systems work within the framework of each other system.  All systems are affected by all other systems.

[1] “system,” http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/system (accessed May, 2007).

 The “flaw” that Michael Moore is referring, and the strategy within, as mentioned above, is commonly referred to as “Working within the System.”  Working within the System is the ideal, but if that is what these individuals and groups are striving for, they would be running for office under the banner of change instead of playing music or making movies.  If the System does not change, then what is the point of working within it?  Anti-Flag said it best when they sang “Their System Doesn’t Work for You.”  No matter what one does, the System will never work for you; you will only work for it, so why would a band like Anti-Flag think that they will be effective in their protest from within the System?  To answer this, “the System” must first be defined as it is a word that is thrown around quite frequently.  The “revolutionaries” of the 60s were yelling for its downfall and the punks, activists, and revolutionaries of today are calling for the same. 

, “The rich man will sell you the rope to hang himself with if he thinks he can make a buck off of it.”  Well, I’m the rope—I hope I am part of the rope—and they also believe that when people watch my stuff or maybe watch this film or whatever, they think that, you know, “Well, you know what, they will watch this but they won’t do anything, you know, because we’ve done such a good job of numbing their minds and dumping them down, you know, they’ll never affect it; the people aren’t going to leave the couch and go and do something political.”  They’re convinced of that.  I’m convinced of the opposite.  I’m convinced that a few people are gonna leave this movie theater, or get up off the couch, and go and do something, anything, to get the world back into our hands.[1]

[1] “Prognosis,” The Corporation, DVD, directed by Jennifer Abbot and Mark Achbar, (2003; Zeitgeist Films: 2005).

You know, I’ve often thought its very ironic that I’m able to do all this and, yet, what am I on?  I’m on networks; I’m distributed by studios that are owned by large corporate entities, now why would they put me out there?  When I am opposed to everything that they stand for and I spend my time on their dime opposing what they believe in?  Ok?  Well, it’s because they don’t believe in anything.  They put me on there because they know that there are millions of people that want to see my film or watch the TV show, so they are going to make money.  And, I have been able to get my stuff out there because I am driving my truck through this incredible flaw in capitalism, the greed flaw, the thing that says,

Over 20 years later, Gitlin would still celebrate this fact, failing to see the effects and the irony of this intrusion of a major corporation on the protest/revolutionary movement by saying, “To make it all more marvelous, Dylan did all this not on the marginal, faintly do-it-yourself Vanguard or Folkways label, redolent of Pete Seeger and the fight against the blacklist, but on big-league commercial Columbia Records;” after all those protests, all the violence, all the calls for the downfall of capitalism, all the calls for revolution, Gitlin still fails to see the irony of “working within the System” considering the entire movement he was a part of was a battle against “the System.”  Like London, Gitlin and many others failed to see the inherent contradictions.  Many, like Anti-Flag, still tend to believe that this insurgency from within is an effective form of protest, message spreading, and revolution.  To take a quote of Michael Moore’s from the movie The Corporation:

Working within the System              Are bands like Anti-Flag and Rage Against the Machine helping to spread a message or are they just reinforcing and helping to make the System stronger?  After all, did McLuhan not state that “the medium is the message”?  And the mediums used in these cases can be considered, and are, vehicles of capitalism, thus making these bands, movies, etc vehicles of capitalism rendering their message null and void.  It can be debated both ways.  Bob Dylan sang what were considered “protest songs” in the early 60s though he himself did not consider them of which, on albums released by Columbia Records, which, as mentioned, was one of the biggest labels at the time and is now a subsidiary of Sony BMG, yet he is credited with sparking a movement.