Robyn Marasco
University of California, Berkeley
Department of Political Science 
rmarasco@uclink4.berkeley.edu
(510) 666-9012

Crisis, Culture, and Consumption: The Commodification
of Dissent in Late Capitalism

The Grave-diggers Crisis is at the heart of the Marxist
analysis of bourgeois society.  Marx himself recognized
the emergence of crisis and its resolution as the motor
of a progressive dialectical history.  The Bourgeois
revolution and the development of capitalism
inadvertently and dialectically produced a new, and
ultimately triumphant agent of history - the
proletariat.  In the now famous passage from the
Communist Manifesto, crisis emerges as the impetus of
violent and revolutionary conflict:  "What the
bourgeoisie, therefore, produces, above all, are its
own grave-diggers.  Its fall and the victory of the
proletariat are equally inevitable."   Like so many of
Marx's morbid metaphors , the grave-diggers embody both
the revolutionary potential of the proletariat and the
inevitable doom facing the capitalist order. To make
history, revolutionary agents must not look to the dead
relics of the past, only to the future with its vast
possibility.  

For Marx, such grave-digging is making history par
excellence.  Here Marx draws upon Vico's conception of
humans as the makers of their own history, viewing the
buried dead as, literally, the human casualties of
violent revolution and, symbolically, the defeated
institutions, relationships, traditions, and ways of
life characteristic the old order. 
     
The grave-diggers of the bourgeoisie emerge as a result
of the increase in networks of communication, the
direct politicization of the proletariat, and, most
importantly, the great workshops of the industrial
order.  Channels of communication "that place workers
of different localities in contact with one another"
facilitated the centralization of labor solidarity and
struggle.   In addition, the bourgeoisie engaged in the
direct politicization of the proletariat in the own
battles against the aristocracy and inflexible members
of the bourgeoisie.  In these frequent struggles for
power, the bourgeoisie enlisted the proletariat on the
former's behalf, certain to be victorious with the
political support of the working class.  Once again,
"the bourgeoisie itself, therefore, supplies the
proletariat with its own elements of political and
general education, in other words, it furnishes the
proletariat with weapons for fighting the bourgeoisie." 
 Drawn into the political sphere, the proletariat come
to realize the interconnected workings of the state and
private property, unmask the ideologies of bourgeois
society, and begin to develop political strategies for
the realization of their universal interests. 
Political education enables the proletariat to
strategize their crucial transition from a
class-in-itself to a class-for-itself.  However,
enlightenment does not come from political education
and participation alone.  It is in the factory - the
architectural embodiment of the industrial order - that
workers begin to recognize themselves as members of an
exploited class sharing an interest in the overthrow of
the dominant relations of production.  
  
In this industrial boot camp, the naked brutality and
exploitation at the heart of private property reveals
itself in all its totality.  At the same time, the
proletariat has been transformed into soldiers.  
Concentrated in great masses, working long and arduous
hours, the proletariat begin to recognize the bitter
realties of their exploitation.  The tensions between
the high levels of production and the enduring
servitude characteristic of the modern factory become
more and more acute. At one and the same time, this
massive industrial workshop unmasks the rich
productivity and harsh brutality of capitalism.  Hence,
a crisis emerges in the factory itself.  For Marx, it
was a crisis of enormous proportion - a crisis in
capitalism.  While Marx was certainly mistaken in his
forecast for dawning triumph of the proletariat, his
analysis of crisis remains essential today.  Despite
the declining status of communism as the chief enemy of
Freedom, Equality, Property, and Bentham , capitalism
has not managed to completely overcome its tendencies
towards crisis.  In fact, we might say that capitalism
remains haunted by the specter of crisis.
Contra proclamations of the death of history and the
end of ideology, capitalism has not managed to resolve
its immanent crises.  Crisis, therefore, remains an
indispensable category of Marxist analysis and
foundation for critique.  However, do we have any use
for the notion of the grave-digger?  Should we throw
that baby out with the bathwater of historical
inevitability?  Given fundamental shifts in the
organization of capital, marking the era of late
capitalism, from where do the grave-diggers emerge?
Some suggest that these "new times" are marked by a
transition from production-based manufacture to
consumption-based flexible accumulation.   If, in fact,
the grave-diggers were thought to emerge from the
sphere of production in the nineteenth century, do they
emerge from the sphere of consumption in the
twenty-first?  Are we seeing the emergence of the new
consumer army to replace the industrial army of Marx's
day?  Or do we look, not at those most directly
implicated in capitalist relations of production and
consumption, but those on the very periphery of such
relations?  In simpler terms, what is left of the
revolutionary agent(s)?  Should we look within the
system itself?  Or do we look to its margins?  Or do we
abandon this great quest for the revolutionary agent
altogether?

Revolution Commodified

In recent years, consumers have witnessed the
proliferation of "revolutionary" products - commodities
that depict the sounds, images, and sensations of
revolutionary upheaval - within the realm of popular
culture.  Revolutionary ideas have been objectified -
into Che Guevara tee-shirts, into Lenin lunchboxes,
into new Hollywood commodities like Tyler Durden
(depicted by Brad Pitt in Fight Club), into popular
rock music artists like Rage Against the Machine - and
sold to the masses of consumers.  The red star, once
the symbol of communism is now an essential fashion
piece, adorning tee-shirts, backpacks, headbands, and
notebooks sold to the American teenager.  One cannot
step into an American shopping mall without seeing Che
Guevara's face screenprinted onto a Hanes tee-shirt
selling for $18.  In the realm of popular culture,
particularly youth culture, the commodification of
socialism proves to be a highly profitable venture.
Perhaps such developments in fashion and entertainment
make perfect sense, reinvigorating Marx's notion of the
grave-digger.  Perhaps in the new age of commodity
capitalism, the grave-digger no longer emerges from the
locus of industry - the factory - but from the locus of
consumption - the entertainment industry.  Could it be
that in the age of late capitalism, we must look to the
very participants in consumer culture to discern the
possibilities for social transformation?  Could it be
that popular artists use the tools of consumer
capitalism to subvert consumer capitalism, much like
the industrial worker who derived power, strength, and
voice through the conditions of exploitation and
domination?  Finally, could it be that the music
industry giants at Epic Records, a subdivision of the
Sony Corporation, each hoping to see a pretty penny at
the end of the day, actually sow the seeds of their own
eventual destruction? 

In this study, I am less interested in the intentions
of the producers and marketers of these commodities
than in the social and political impact of their
existence.  Moreover, I am less concerned with the
products themselves and than with what they reveal
about shifts in the organization of capital and the
role of culture in these new times.  Finally, I intend
to consider the political implications of these novel
cultural developments.  What is the relationship
between these cultural artifacts and the political
system that tolerates them?  How do political actors
consume these commodities?  In sum, I will attempt to
articulate a Marxist critical analysis of the recent
commodification of dissent and the mass consumption of
revolution.  I read these developments as both internal
and external responses to a crisis in late capitalism. 
In this post-cold War era, capitalism has perfected its
own inner logic, defeating its opposition not by
destroying it, but by appropriating it and selling it
for profit.  What does it mean when capitalism has
managed to package, market, sell, and profit from its
own antithesis?