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The Shallowness of Don Robotham's formulations
According to Robotham:
" The term 'lumpen' refers to those strata of society crushed by the juggernaut of economic change. They have been ejected from the old (often rural) economy but have not found a stable place in new formal economic activities. They live by their wits, often resorting to crime.
The lumpen develop a culture adapted to their position in society. Violence and intimidation are their modus vivendi; braggadocio their favoured mode of expression; name-brand clothes, flashy cars and bikes, skin bleaching and bling, their forte. Forget delayed gratification, modesty and respect for punctuality. The old African, Protestant values framework within which most Jamaicans are still raised is utterly alien to them."
Anybody who is even vaguely familiar with the history of the capitalist accumulation of wealth is aware that at every stage of the process, sections of the working class that have been tied to older industries are often crushed by "the juggernaut of economic change" or as the economist, Joseph Schumpeter, termed it---the forces of creative destruction. And, of course, the working class is not the only class that is negatively impacted by these radical economic changes. Individuals, within the capitalist class, whose capital was tied-up in these devastated industries, might very well end up in the ranks of the proletariat or the ranks of the petty-bourgeoisie at the completion of a specific case of economic restructuring. This is consistent with the process of capital accumulation.
We should also point out that crime, violence and intimidation are not the inventions of the so-called lumpen-proletariat. The ruling classes, throughout history, can rightly claim credit for the invention of these practices. The lumpen-proletariat, as a strata, has never risen to the position of the ruling class in any society. However, throughout the history of capitalism, some individuals have been able --through plunder, theft and all sorts of "criminal" activities-- to muscle their way into the ranks of the ruling class. Other individuals from this strata (such as prostitutes) were able to use "softer means" (leading to marriage) to worm their way into the ranks of the "high society" circles.
The lumpen-proletariat has never owned the primary tools (that produce the basic necessities of life) within any given social formation... which is the material basis for the economic, political, ideological and cultural hegemony of any ruling class. For a relatively short period of time--from the mid to the end of the 17th century--the lumpen proletariat (the pirates of the Caribbean) was allowed a certain amount of political and cultural autonomy in Port Royal, Jamaica, while they carried out their plunder on behalf of the British State and the merchant class, that was tied to that State. The pirates engaged in riotous consumption. The central point that I want to get across here, is this: the so-called lumpen-proletariat merely tries to mimic the consumption patterns and some of the more depraved forms of the life-style of the ruling classes. In places such as Jamaica-- or, other areas of the world, where the productive forces are still relatively backward--this mimicry (name-brand clothes, flashy cars and bikes, skin bleaching and bling) assumes exaggerated forms. And what are the reasons for this?
Here is the paradox that helps to explain this phenomenon: The merchant class that developed in the colonies was prevented (by the colonial state) from imitating (yes, imitating!) the more positive aspects of bourgeois culture. And what were the more positive aspects of bourgeois culture? Encouraging the development of science and a scientific culture. In this regard, Marx and Engels made the following observation..... From its inception, the bourgeoisie (as its class consciousness expanded regarding the requirements of its own reproduction) worked prodigiously-- along with its various representatives within the developing capitalist state--to cultivate a cadre of scientific and technical personnel whose task it became to penetrate the secrets of nature in order to put their discoveries at the service of capitalist production. As capitalism developed, science, technology and production became more and more interdependent. The constant revolutionizing of the instruments of production (the tools) through the ever increasing incorporation of the new developments in the physical, geological, chemical and biological sciences (which serve as the material basis of production) continually increases the productivity of human labor. Marx and Engels also observed, however, that this constant revolutionizing of the tools carried in its wake a host of social contradictions, given the nature of property relations under capitalism. And so, while paying glowing tribute to the enormous technical progress which the capitalist production relations had engendered since its entrance onto the stage of history, they (KM &FE) also pointed to the equally enormous periodic destruction of these same productive forces (the tools and the human skills embodied in them) which occurs at ever shorter intervals, as capitalism develops.
Folks, the basis of the intellectual crisis of Professor Don Robotham (and I might add, of his generation of the English-speaking, Caribbean-born intellectuals) is that he does not possess the theoretical tools that are required to grasp the laws of motion of the capitalist economy.....that is, he does not have a coherent understanding of the process of capitalist accumulation, which would then allow him to explain how the so-called lumpen-proletariat was produced by the process of the primary/primitive accumulation of capital (which I described earlier) and how the ranks of this strata is constantly being expanded by the economic necessity for unrelenting technical innovations, under capitalism.
Technical innovations and the economic necessity for a "relative surplus population" (the reserve army of the unemployed)
It is an undisputable fact that industry cannot develop and expand without a significant pool of surplus laborers, of all types (skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled.) Let us again invite Karl Marx, one of the truly great social scientists (and whose writings and method of anaysis, DR, and many of his former comrades in the Workers Party of Jamaica, used to pretend that they were studying ) to say a few words on this matter:
Here is KM, in his own words:
“The relative surplus-population exists in every possible form. Every labourer belongs to it during the time when he is only partially employed or wholly unemployed. Not taking into account the great periodically recurring forms that the changing phases of the industrial cycle impress on it, now an acute form during the crisis, then again a chronic form during dull times — it has always three forms, the floating, the latent, the stagnant.” Capital Vol. 1
Let me define and elaborate a little on how these three forms/aspects of "the relative surplus population" (the reserve army of the unemployed) are dialectically interrelated; how they factor into the process of capital accumulation; and how they operate in the contemporary world, and in Jamaica, in particular. As we proceed with the discussion, bear this in mind regarding the role of the relative surplus population/the reserve army of the unemployed: As an integral part of the process of accumulation, the reserve army serves to regulate wages (the price of labor-power).
Let us start off with the Floating segment: This segment includes workers who might be temporarily unemployed and are moving from one job to another in the same or different industries. They might require retraining in order to be reabsorbed into the process of production. In today's context of unrelenting technical innovation, the workers' skills are becoming obsolete at a faster and faster rate. The capitalist class, as a whole, depends on the State/Government to undertake the responsibility of investing in the training of the labor force to meet their needs. Very few individual capitalists are going to invest in their workers, knowing fully well that they could lose them to their competitors. Even the larger capitalist firms, who may invest in training programs, make sure that the training their workers receive is narrowly focused on their immediate needs. It is no secret that today, it is cheaper to train engineers and research scientists in places such as China and India, than in the US or Europe. This means, therefore, that an increasing number of this floating segment are going to be ending up in the ranks of the underemployed or the permanently unemployed. The latter is the group that Marx referred to as the Stagnant segment of the "surplus population". It is no accident that over the past 25 years, the State of California has built over twenty something prisons, as opposed to 3 universities. This clearly represents an attempt to warehouse what is becoming the discarded segment of the surplus population. It should be noted that a significant portion of this population is African-American and Latino youth. The deportation of the immigrant-born is nothing but an attempt to make more spaces in the prison available for the native-born. American citizens are demanding that if their taxes are going to be used to build more prisons than schools, then at least top priority for spaces in the prisons should be accorded to a citizen, preferrably a native born. This would appear to be a reasonable demand, in light of the fact that if you are faced with uncertain employment, prisons (at least for the time being) still offer a guaranteed three meals a day.
The Latent Segment: This group is comprised of the population that, historically and also currently, is making the transition out of agriculture and into industry. The group includes not only former peasants but also craftsmen who cannot compete with commodities that are being produced with more advanced tools. This population can no longer reproduce its existence in the countryside or in the small workshops within the urban areas.
Although China and India are the main countries where this segment of the global reserve army can be found, they also exist in relatively large numbers in other parts of Asia, and also in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. It has been estimated that on any given day, over 100 million former peasants are moving across China in search of a buyer for their labor-power. These latent reserve armies of labor are in competition with each other, irrespective of where they might be located in the world. With modern communication and transportation networks, now in place, this population is readily available for exploitation by capital, as never before. The migrant workers from the Caribbean and Latin America to North America and Europe are compelled by the force of present or impending hunger to leave their children while they are working abroad. While the remittances are vital to the immediate biological reproduction of these children, the absence of these parents-- in the critical stages of development of these young peoples' lives--serves to undermine the long-term social and spiritual reproduction of these human beings. These young people are among the group that is creating havoc, in present day Jamaican society. This is part of the social crisis that is being engendered by the process of globalized capitalist accumulation. Trapped within his own intellectual and existential crisis, our professorial "don", Don Robotham, is rendered helpless in figuring out the dialectical relationship between the capitalist economic necessity of constantly revolutionizing the tools and the growing enlargement of the segment of the surplus population which Marx called the Stagnant segment.
The Stagment Segment: This segment has historically been associated with what Marx called the lumpen-proletariat. This included vagabonds, prostitutes and ordinary criminals. As I outlined earlier: As capitalism emerged throughout Europe, millions of people were forced off the land and those who could not find gainful employment at a factory had to resort to all types of activities in order to survive. Some, as we know, provided the labor-force for the trans-atlantic slave trade and the conquest of the Americas. As the historian Marcus Radiker points out in his new book, titled "Slave Ship", the slave trade was the first global industry of capitalism. As capitalism became further consolidated under the aegis of the industrial revolution, the ranks of the stagnant segment began to include more and more of the former workers who could not keep up with the pace of technical change. This process is being accelerated today with the digitization of all aspects of material production, distribution and exchange. More and more individuals from the working class are resorting to forms of behavior and activities that they were taught to abhor as children. It is not uncommon to hear of the Christian-trained woman or man who felt compelled to offer themselves as a prostitute or to engage in criminal activies in order to feed their hungry children, because they cannot sell their labor-power in other ways. The point here is this: The contemporary process of capitalist accumulation is criminalizing larger and larger sections of the population as this population becomes more and more impoverished. It is forcing more and more people to engage in anti-social behavior that runs counter to their erstwhile moral code. This is at the root of much of the spiritual crises that seems to be impacting a significant number of individuals in contemporary capitalist society.
Commodity Fetishism and the call to exorcise the so-called "bling-bling" culture from Capitalist society
Some folks, within Jamaica and the Caribbean-- for instance, the preachy journalistic-types, such as Ian Boyne, the clueless conductor of monologues, Professor Don Robotham, as well as many of the religious leaders) are of the belief that the youth of the region can be freed from the culture of commodity fetishism or what they call "bling bling culture" in spite of the fact that daily life is overwhelmingly conditioned by the objective material demands of globalized capitalist commodity production and exchange. They and the politicians have even substituted the term "weath creation" for the more scientific term "capital accumulation" (and the complex social content, that the latter implies).
The pervasiveness of commodity fetishism among all classes and strata of the population in Jamaica, reflects the extent to which the region has been integrated into the consumer culture of globalized capitalist accumulation, particularly in the sphere of what is perceived to be "consumptive exhibitionism" that receives expression in the styles of dressing by many of the relatively high-paid athletes and entertainers. However, to avoid some potential confusion here, let me quickly add the following: For every million dollars that these athletes and entertainers receive as income, they have made at least 30 million more for the owners of the teams that they work for or the movies and concerts that they have performed in. In other words, these performers (workers) not only produce an enormous amount of profit for their employers (the capitalist class) but also play a major role in generalizing so-called "bling bling culture" to all parts of what is now a globally integrated system of commodity production and exchange. The reality is that very few of these entertainers and sports figures have the organizational capacity and the intellectual and social wherewithal to transform the money that they make, as income, into capital, so they spend it on bling. The present day level of concentration and centralization of capital precludes this type of metamorphosis (because it takes a high level of organization to become a modern capitalist). This money, therefore, can only be used for consumption. This is the type of consumption that the youth in all areas of the world now mimic. Of course, the emotional investment in things (commodity fetishism) is not something which is peculiarly American. It is most pronounced in the US because it is the place where capitalist commodity production and exchange is most developed.
I have pointed out earlier that for most of the history of capitalism, the merchant class in the Caribbean (as was the case in other parts of former colonial world) was not encouraged or allowed to transform itself into an industrial bourgeoisie that was involved in organizing scientific research that was tied to the needs of industrial production. Even after the changes in colonial economic policy, the manufacturing plants that were established in mid 20th century were restricted to producing the articles of consumption, rather than the making of the means of production (tools), and all that implies for the development of a scientific culture. This is still the case in the Caribbean. The research that the Caribbean-based scientists are engaged in is largely removed from the process of commercialization and therefore most of the trained scientists and engineers are transformed into unproductive bureaucrats. This essentially meant that most of the products (commodities) that were being manfactured in the Caribean could not maintain their competitiveness on the global market.
The demand by globally-oriented transnationalized finance capital for a world where all of the circuits of capital are allowed to operate in an unhampered fashion, has speeded up the process of the destruction of uncompetitive industries. This process demands the release of the labor-power (the human energy) that is tied-up in these declining industries (the sugar, banana, and some of the manufacturing industies) and that perhaps could be more effectively exploited by other industries. Some of this human energy will find its way into relatively low-paying jobs, within the Caribbean region. Another segment of this labor-force will become a part of the new guest worker program that is being established in North America. The children who are being left behind to raise themselves are not likely to follow in their parents' footsteps. The satellite connected TV sets that will be purchased with some of the earnings of these workers will provide the young people with the commodity consumption images (pitched by their favorite athletes) that stimulate the demand for more of the so-called "bling bling." Many of this youth population have long realized that low-paying jobs cannot provide them with the "good life" that is being advertised on TV. They, therefore, have found ways to link up with one of the largest, of the modern global industries: the illegal drug industry.
As was pointed out earlier, the slave trade--which is regarded as one of the first truly global industries-- relied heavily for its work force upon a group of human beings that were being expelled from the land but could not be easily be absorbed by the developing factories in Europe. A similar process is occurring within the context of the ongoing scientific and technological revolution, which is not only widening the income gap within the working class, it is also expelling larger and larger groups of people from the production and distribution process of the capitalist economy. This population will be circulating between the expanding prisons and the illegal drug industry.
Concluding remarks
The historical mission of the US bourgeoisie is to drag everbody (even those who are kicking and screaming) into one integrated global capitalist market, and, in the process, transform the national motto from "One Nation under God" to "One market under God". This process will, of course, set the stage for the destruction of all nationalisms, including US nationalism.
In the meantime, what practical options are available to the social classes and stratas in Jamaica and the Caribbean, to facilitate the process of their own reproduction in this globalized system? As far as I can see (and this is from reading much of what he has written over the past several years in the Gleaner), Professor Robotham has demonstrated that he has nothing of substance to offer the Jamaican/Caribbean bourgeoisie, the managers of the local state (the intermediary strata) or the working class, as it is obvious that he lacks a coherent understanding of the nature of modern industry. This is in spite of the fact that this forum has been providing him with a steady diet of material from the global business press, along with analyses. Could it be that Don is deeply aware of his growing intellectual bankruptcy and irrelevance and, is, therefore, desperately seeking some attention by trying to scare the so-called Jamaican "middle-class" into believing that the "lumpen-proletariat" is the underlying source of the social crisis in Jamaica and he is the man in shining armor that can save the day? Well, he got my attention and this commentary is the result.
According to Robotham:
" The term 'lumpen' refers to those strata of society crushed by the juggernaut of economic change. They have been ejected from the old (often rural) economy but have not found a stable place in new formal economic activities. They live by their wits, often resorting to crime.
The lumpen develop a culture adapted to their position in society. Violence and intimidation are their modus vivendi; braggadocio their favoured mode of expression; name-brand clothes, flashy cars and bikes, skin bleaching and bling, their forte. Forget delayed gratification, modesty and respect for punctuality. The old African, Protestant values framework within which most Jamaicans are still raised is utterly alien to them."
Anybody who is even vaguely familiar with the history of the capitalist accumulation of wealth is aware that at every stage of the process, sections of the working class that have been tied to older industries are often crushed by "the juggernaut of economic change" or as the economist, Joseph Schumpeter, termed it---the forces of creative destruction. And, of course, the working class is not the only class that is negatively impacted by these radical economic changes. Individuals, within the capitalist class, whose capital was tied-up in these devastated industries, might very well end up in the ranks of the proletariat or the ranks of the petty-bourgeoisie at the completion of a specific case of economic restructuring. This is consistent with the process of capital accumulation.
We should also point out that crime, violence and intimidation are not the inventions of the so-called lumpen-proletariat. The ruling classes, throughout history, can rightly claim credit for the invention of these practices. The lumpen-proletariat, as a strata, has never risen to the position of the ruling class in any society. However, throughout the history of capitalism, some individuals have been able --through plunder, theft and all sorts of "criminal" activities-- to muscle their way into the ranks of the ruling class. Other individuals from this strata (such as prostitutes) were able to use "softer means" (leading to marriage) to worm their way into the ranks of the "high society" circles.
The lumpen-proletariat has never owned the primary tools (that produce the basic necessities of life) within any given social formation... which is the material basis for the economic, political, ideological and cultural hegemony of any ruling class. For a relatively short period of time--from the mid to the end of the 17th century--the lumpen proletariat (the pirates of the Caribbean) was allowed a certain amount of political and cultural autonomy in Port Royal, Jamaica, while they carried out their plunder on behalf of the British State and the merchant class, that was tied to that State. The pirates engaged in riotous consumption. The central point that I want to get across here, is this: the so-called lumpen-proletariat merely tries to mimic the consumption patterns and some of the more depraved forms of the life-style of the ruling classes. In places such as Jamaica-- or, other areas of the world, where the productive forces are still relatively backward--this mimicry (name-brand clothes, flashy cars and bikes, skin bleaching and bling) assumes exaggerated forms. And what are the reasons for this?
Here is the paradox that helps to explain this phenomenon: The merchant class that developed in the colonies was prevented (by the colonial state) from imitating (yes, imitating!) the more positive aspects of bourgeois culture. And what were the more positive aspects of bourgeois culture? Encouraging the development of science and a scientific culture. In this regard, Marx and Engels made the following observation..... From its inception, the bourgeoisie (as its class consciousness expanded regarding the requirements of its own reproduction) worked prodigiously-- along with its various representatives within the developing capitalist state--to cultivate a cadre of scientific and technical personnel whose task it became to penetrate the secrets of nature in order to put their discoveries at the service of capitalist production. As capitalism developed, science, technology and production became more and more interdependent. The constant revolutionizing of the instruments of production (the tools) through the ever increasing incorporation of the new developments in the physical, geological, chemical and biological sciences (which serve as the material basis of production) continually increases the productivity of human labor. Marx and Engels also observed, however, that this constant revolutionizing of the tools carried in its wake a host of social contradictions, given the nature of property relations under capitalism. And so, while paying glowing tribute to the enormous technical progress which the capitalist production relations had engendered since its entrance onto the stage of history, they (KM &FE) also pointed to the equally enormous periodic destruction of these same productive forces (the tools and the human skills embodied in them) which occurs at ever shorter intervals, as capitalism develops.
Folks, the basis of the intellectual crisis of Professor Don Robotham (and I might add, of his generation of the English-speaking, Caribbean-born intellectuals) is that he does not possess the theoretical tools that are required to grasp the laws of motion of the capitalist economy.....that is, he does not have a coherent understanding of the process of capitalist accumulation, which would then allow him to explain how the so-called lumpen-proletariat was produced by the process of the primary/primitive accumulation of capital (which I described earlier) and how the ranks of this strata is constantly being expanded by the economic necessity for unrelenting technical innovations, under capitalism.
Technical innovations and the economic necessity for a "relative surplus population" (the reserve army of the unemployed)
It is an undisputable fact that industry cannot develop and expand without a significant pool of surplus laborers, of all types (skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled.) Let us again invite Karl Marx, one of the truly great social scientists (and whose writings and method of anaysis, DR, and many of his former comrades in the Workers Party of Jamaica, used to pretend that they were studying ) to say a few words on this matter:
Here is KM, in his own words:
“The relative surplus-population exists in every possible form. Every labourer belongs to it during the time when he is only partially employed or wholly unemployed. Not taking into account the great periodically recurring forms that the changing phases of the industrial cycle impress on it, now an acute form during the crisis, then again a chronic form during dull times — it has always three forms, the floating, the latent, the stagnant.” Capital Vol. 1
Let me define and elaborate a little on how these three forms/aspects of "the relative surplus population" (the reserve army of the unemployed) are dialectically interrelated; how they factor into the process of capital accumulation; and how they operate in the contemporary world, and in Jamaica, in particular. As we proceed with the discussion, bear this in mind regarding the role of the relative surplus population/the reserve army of the unemployed: As an integral part of the process of accumulation, the reserve army serves to regulate wages (the price of labor-power).
Let us start off with the Floating segment: This segment includes workers who might be temporarily unemployed and are moving from one job to another in the same or different industries. They might require retraining in order to be reabsorbed into the process of production. In today's context of unrelenting technical innovation, the workers' skills are becoming obsolete at a faster and faster rate. The capitalist class, as a whole, depends on the State/Government to undertake the responsibility of investing in the training of the labor force to meet their needs. Very few individual capitalists are going to invest in their workers, knowing fully well that they could lose them to their competitors. Even the larger capitalist firms, who may invest in training programs, make sure that the training their workers receive is narrowly focused on their immediate needs. It is no secret that today, it is cheaper to train engineers and research scientists in places such as China and India, than in the US or Europe. This means, therefore, that an increasing number of this floating segment are going to be ending up in the ranks of the underemployed or the permanently unemployed. The latter is the group that Marx referred to as the Stagnant segment of the "surplus population". It is no accident that over the past 25 years, the State of California has built over twenty something prisons, as opposed to 3 universities. This clearly represents an attempt to warehouse what is becoming the discarded segment of the surplus population. It should be noted that a significant portion of this population is African-American and Latino youth. The deportation of the immigrant-born is nothing but an attempt to make more spaces in the prison available for the native-born. American citizens are demanding that if their taxes are going to be used to build more prisons than schools, then at least top priority for spaces in the prisons should be accorded to a citizen, preferrably a native born. This would appear to be a reasonable demand, in light of the fact that if you are faced with uncertain employment, prisons (at least for the time being) still offer a guaranteed three meals a day.
The Latent Segment: This group is comprised of the population that, historically and also currently, is making the transition out of agriculture and into industry. The group includes not only former peasants but also craftsmen who cannot compete with commodities that are being produced with more advanced tools. This population can no longer reproduce its existence in the countryside or in the small workshops within the urban areas.
Although China and India are the main countries where this segment of the global reserve army can be found, they also exist in relatively large numbers in other parts of Asia, and also in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. It has been estimated that on any given day, over 100 million former peasants are moving across China in search of a buyer for their labor-power. These latent reserve armies of labor are in competition with each other, irrespective of where they might be located in the world. With modern communication and transportation networks, now in place, this population is readily available for exploitation by capital, as never before. The migrant workers from the Caribbean and Latin America to North America and Europe are compelled by the force of present or impending hunger to leave their children while they are working abroad. While the remittances are vital to the immediate biological reproduction of these children, the absence of these parents-- in the critical stages of development of these young peoples' lives--serves to undermine the long-term social and spiritual reproduction of these human beings. These young people are among the group that is creating havoc, in present day Jamaican society. This is part of the social crisis that is being engendered by the process of globalized capitalist accumulation. Trapped within his own intellectual and existential crisis, our professorial "don", Don Robotham, is rendered helpless in figuring out the dialectical relationship between the capitalist economic necessity of constantly revolutionizing the tools and the growing enlargement of the segment of the surplus population which Marx called the Stagnant segment.
The Stagment Segment: This segment has historically been associated with what Marx called the lumpen-proletariat. This included vagabonds, prostitutes and ordinary criminals. As I outlined earlier: As capitalism emerged throughout Europe, millions of people were forced off the land and those who could not find gainful employment at a factory had to resort to all types of activities in order to survive. Some, as we know, provided the labor-force for the trans-atlantic slave trade and the conquest of the Americas. As the historian Marcus Radiker points out in his new book, titled "Slave Ship", the slave trade was the first global industry of capitalism. As capitalism became further consolidated under the aegis of the industrial revolution, the ranks of the stagnant segment began to include more and more of the former workers who could not keep up with the pace of technical change. This process is being accelerated today with the digitization of all aspects of material production, distribution and exchange. More and more individuals from the working class are resorting to forms of behavior and activities that they were taught to abhor as children. It is not uncommon to hear of the Christian-trained woman or man who felt compelled to offer themselves as a prostitute or to engage in criminal activies in order to feed their hungry children, because they cannot sell their labor-power in other ways. The point here is this: The contemporary process of capitalist accumulation is criminalizing larger and larger sections of the population as this population becomes more and more impoverished. It is forcing more and more people to engage in anti-social behavior that runs counter to their erstwhile moral code. This is at the root of much of the spiritual crises that seems to be impacting a significant number of individuals in contemporary capitalist society.
Commodity Fetishism and the call to exorcise the so-called "bling-bling" culture from Capitalist society
Some folks, within Jamaica and the Caribbean-- for instance, the preachy journalistic-types, such as Ian Boyne, the clueless conductor of monologues, Professor Don Robotham, as well as many of the religious leaders) are of the belief that the youth of the region can be freed from the culture of commodity fetishism or what they call "bling bling culture" in spite of the fact that daily life is overwhelmingly conditioned by the objective material demands of globalized capitalist commodity production and exchange. They and the politicians have even substituted the term "weath creation" for the more scientific term "capital accumulation" (and the complex social content, that the latter implies).
The pervasiveness of commodity fetishism among all classes and strata of the population in Jamaica, reflects the extent to which the region has been integrated into the consumer culture of globalized capitalist accumulation, particularly in the sphere of what is perceived to be "consumptive exhibitionism" that receives expression in the styles of dressing by many of the relatively high-paid athletes and entertainers. However, to avoid some potential confusion here, let me quickly add the following: For every million dollars that these athletes and entertainers receive as income, they have made at least 30 million more for the owners of the teams that they work for or the movies and concerts that they have performed in. In other words, these performers (workers) not only produce an enormous amount of profit for their employers (the capitalist class) but also play a major role in generalizing so-called "bling bling culture" to all parts of what is now a globally integrated system of commodity production and exchange. The reality is that very few of these entertainers and sports figures have the organizational capacity and the intellectual and social wherewithal to transform the money that they make, as income, into capital, so they spend it on bling. The present day level of concentration and centralization of capital precludes this type of metamorphosis (because it takes a high level of organization to become a modern capitalist). This money, therefore, can only be used for consumption. This is the type of consumption that the youth in all areas of the world now mimic. Of course, the emotional investment in things (commodity fetishism) is not something which is peculiarly American. It is most pronounced in the US because it is the place where capitalist commodity production and exchange is most developed.
I have pointed out earlier that for most of the history of capitalism, the merchant class in the Caribbean (as was the case in other parts of former colonial world) was not encouraged or allowed to transform itself into an industrial bourgeoisie that was involved in organizing scientific research that was tied to the needs of industrial production. Even after the changes in colonial economic policy, the manufacturing plants that were established in mid 20th century were restricted to producing the articles of consumption, rather than the making of the means of production (tools), and all that implies for the development of a scientific culture. This is still the case in the Caribbean. The research that the Caribbean-based scientists are engaged in is largely removed from the process of commercialization and therefore most of the trained scientists and engineers are transformed into unproductive bureaucrats. This essentially meant that most of the products (commodities) that were being manfactured in the Caribean could not maintain their competitiveness on the global market.
The demand by globally-oriented transnationalized finance capital for a world where all of the circuits of capital are allowed to operate in an unhampered fashion, has speeded up the process of the destruction of uncompetitive industries. This process demands the release of the labor-power (the human energy) that is tied-up in these declining industries (the sugar, banana, and some of the manufacturing industies) and that perhaps could be more effectively exploited by other industries. Some of this human energy will find its way into relatively low-paying jobs, within the Caribbean region. Another segment of this labor-force will become a part of the new guest worker program that is being established in North America. The children who are being left behind to raise themselves are not likely to follow in their parents' footsteps. The satellite connected TV sets that will be purchased with some of the earnings of these workers will provide the young people with the commodity consumption images (pitched by their favorite athletes) that stimulate the demand for more of the so-called "bling bling." Many of this youth population have long realized that low-paying jobs cannot provide them with the "good life" that is being advertised on TV. They, therefore, have found ways to link up with one of the largest, of the modern global industries: the illegal drug industry.
As was pointed out earlier, the slave trade--which is regarded as one of the first truly global industries-- relied heavily for its work force upon a group of human beings that were being expelled from the land but could not be easily be absorbed by the developing factories in Europe. A similar process is occurring within the context of the ongoing scientific and technological revolution, which is not only widening the income gap within the working class, it is also expelling larger and larger groups of people from the production and distribution process of the capitalist economy. This population will be circulating between the expanding prisons and the illegal drug industry.
Concluding remarks
The historical mission of the US bourgeoisie is to drag everbody (even those who are kicking and screaming) into one integrated global capitalist market, and, in the process, transform the national motto from "One Nation under God" to "One market under God". This process will, of course, set the stage for the destruction of all nationalisms, including US nationalism.
In the meantime, what practical options are available to the social classes and stratas in Jamaica and the Caribbean, to facilitate the process of their own reproduction in this globalized system? As far as I can see (and this is from reading much of what he has written over the past several years in the Gleaner), Professor Robotham has demonstrated that he has nothing of substance to offer the Jamaican/Caribbean bourgeoisie, the managers of the local state (the intermediary strata) or the working class, as it is obvious that he lacks a coherent understanding of the nature of modern industry. This is in spite of the fact that this forum has been providing him with a steady diet of material from the global business press, along with analyses. Could it be that Don is deeply aware of his growing intellectual bankruptcy and irrelevance and, is, therefore, desperately seeking some attention by trying to scare the so-called Jamaican "middle-class" into believing that the "lumpen-proletariat" is the underlying source of the social crisis in Jamaica and he is the man in shining armor that can save the day? Well, he got my attention and this commentary is the result.
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