tomorrow (26th january) the anniversary of the recording in 1970 of this blaster - the first alice coltrane album to feature horns apparently - joe henderson and pharoah sanders, the great ron carter on bass. horsemouth will be busy so he though he'd best put it up now.
so horsemouth dreamt he was with the product designers (or were they industrial designers - they seemed to be confused) while they debated commodity fetishism. four of them had been assigned to read chapter one and report back to the group - none of the rest (it transpired) had read it. so we start at four nil and see how the discussion disperses and shares ideas.
as industrial designers (or was it product designers?) the students were aware that he product was made of deeply sensuous material (there was the material in the coat for example) and a portion for the wages of the workers who had sewed it together (if we are talking about a coat). but hey they’re getting paid right - and this makes up part of the value (so far so uncontroversial) and then there’s the portion for profit ... and then the discussion kind of petered out. why was it fetishism? a few blankish looks - maybe something to do with branding? being able to charge a premium price?
horsemouth could be wrong but by calling it fetishism isn’t marx implying that this is some kind of irrational belief, that if we were outside the society and ideology we are in we could see it. one where the relationships between people (exploiters and exploited, exploited and fellow exploited) are replaced by relationships between things - us and money. the work (of the workers) gets hidden within the commodity (and is valued in money - which is itself a commodity). the whole system comes to look natural and fair.
ok - it’s a long time since horsemouth himself read any of this - but then he wasn’t asked to read it when he was paying good money for it. next week (said the end of the dream) baudrillard.
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