 "Love is capital: Examining emotions, base and superstructure")
“You always gain by giving love.”
–Reese Witherspoon, Hollywood actress
Well, many advertising and corporate giants may not necessarily agree with Reese Witherspoon, given how “love” as an emotion has been commoditised in contemporary times.
Love is as much a part of our social being as much is innate creativity and productivity to our species being. Labour can be quantified and commodified due to its tangible nature but so can love, a transcendental emotion. Looking at the world around us, there are innumerable situations where love is commercialised and victim to capitalists’ pursuit of infinite profit. The crux of capitalism lies in the interplay between the Marxian concepts of base and the superstructure.
The Base essentially comprises the various economic modes and forces of production via which labourers produce means of subsistence. Superstructures are social institutions such as education, politics, family, the media, etc, that serve as a medium to facilitate social relations between people and commodities.
Gift giving is common in today’s industrialised world — even culturally appropriate and insistent in certain cultures. It is considered a kind of love language and makes us consumers of love. On a variety of occasions — birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, celebrating someone’s success or a milestone in their life, we do not hesitate to decorate the scene with balloons, order food and alcohol; especially the cake.
Popular cake websites such as Ferns and Petals and Winny are an example of how sentiments of love are commercialised. By popularising celebrations in this manner, we crucialise these items for it to be deemed a ‘worthy’ celebration, hence falling victim to capitalist interests.
“What is a birthday without a cake?” “What is a wedding without a grand buffet?” These items become a reflection of how much we ’love’ this person whom we are celebrating for. Furthermore, the ‘add-on’ pages offering ‘hundred rose bouquets’ or ‘Ferrero Rocher combos’ scale up the quantity love here, thus also scaling up their profits.
Similarly, Valentine’s week is an extension of the aforementioned argument. These very specific days such as ‘rose day’ or ’teddy day’ with specific commodities like heart shaped balloons, heart shaped chocolates, heart shaped lockets with pictures inside them, all of these become material means of tangibly expressing love. The intensity of love, how much x loves y is measured in terms of how many balloons were bought or how much money was spent. These expectations that someone will spend money for you to get you something that serves as a memento of love, is what capitalists feast upon and extract profit from.
Another connection here could be drawn regarding the alienation of products from the creator. The preceding traditional system of handwritten cards and hand produced gifts has been replaced by mass produced cards and other products that can be bought with as little effort as the click of a button. All the extra special honeymoon packages, the extra special ‘character printed cakes’, the extra love is in some way or another related to the base and capitalists will find a way to commodify and profit from it. Gift giving as a concept is facilitated via the superstructure of marriage, parent-child relationships, friendship and the like, which supports the economic and material base of these shops, websites and the larger companies that own them.
In the anime paradise of Japan, studios and production houses partake in cafe and exhibition collaborations as a profitable scheme using the mania (obsessive love) the fans have for their favourite franchises and series. One of the most frequently advertised anime franchises is the ‘Free’ series. Briefly, it is an original sports anime produced by Kyoto Animation and the plot revolves around young men whose dreams, aspirations and relationships are united by swimming. The Kyoto Animation Shop (by the Kyoto Animation Studio) has done various collaborations with the Coco’s Cafe franchises, and more importantly and cleverly, with Mizuno Swimwear.
Another popular marketing method is at Japanese cinemas, where they incentivise their target audience to watch a movie by releasing and distributing ‘free’ and ‘rare’ merchandise. This seemingly ‘free’ or ‘bonus’ merchandise lures the audience to fall for this trick. Just like professional sports deploys using a fan’s identification and support for a certain team, entertainment agencies like those who manage, produce and launch Idol groups, are commodifying this sentiment of love and other accompanying emotions, visible in shirts, glow sticks, keychains, mascots etc to grow their fanbase and accumulate even more profit.
The way I see it, many well reputed ‘hangout spots’ or ‘date spots’ which many eateries and other stores set up, thereby gatekeeping certain facilities or services ‘only for couples’, is yet another capitalist strategy. This phrasing implies that all those who are couples must consume this service and even those who are not, fake being in a relationship with their opposite or same sex friend to avail of that service that is made to feel ‘rare’. These three examples underscore the conversion of love from an intangible feeling, to a quantifiable commodity and then to a material profit.
Religion is a highly controversial yet relevant superstructure when it comes to talking about economic relations. We often hear news bulletins about fraud maulanas and maulvis who fleece people off under the garb of offering divine guidance. Not only capitalists but also politicians use religion as a weapon to manipulate people in their favour. The masses’ love for God or love for their country and love for their community are utilised to create a collective mindset that is suggestive of a consumer behaviour that eventually benefits the makers of these mindsets.
Proceeding to media as a social institution, it has pervaded every aspect of our life, be it work or entertainment. A famous Netflix series called ‘Indian Matchmaking’ recently went abuzz among varying demographic groups. Here, a reputed matchmaker Sima Taparia uses the need for love as a business. She may not be a capitalist in a direct sense but basically what she does is match the romantic preferences of the clients and forge a social relationship via the marital superstructure for financial purposes. The matches would not follow through without paying Sima for her services, nor would Sima’s payment be possible without those relations being created. In this situation, the base and superstructures support each other symbiotically.
The popularity of Bollywood or any other celebrities for that matter does not only come from the actual acting but from popularising and/ or scandalising love affairs, dates, etc. Media news houses, websites and apps use this to boost their TRP ratings which is another example of exploitation of love by a third party.
TV reality shows which are very obviously and ridiculously scripted, is a two-way street involving the monetization of love. The actors who participate as contestants in shows such as Splitsvilla or Love Island pretend to fall in love (maybe genuinely at times) to monetise their (fake or real) love. The actors get paid for falling in love, getting heart broken, etc, and the producers and channel owners make more money from this first level of monetization of love that takes place. Then follows a secondary profit off, of that primary monetisation.
People looking for potential love gather on platforms such as Bumble, Tinder and the like. Their need for love reflects in the downloading and usage of the app. A lot of these apps deploy pay walls and premium services with exclusive content for purchase. Advertising on these apps is certainly very annoying and this annoyance creates profits for capitalists too. How so? The annoyance is a deliberate attempt to get the users to opt for less annoying ‘ad free premium’ options. When the ads are shown, they make profit off it. When the ads are not shown, they make a greater profit.
Parents’ love for their children is used by advertisers very cleverly by targeting not the parents but the children, thus the parents buy those products for their child out of their love for them, which makes up for the child targeted advertising we see today.
Lastly, touching upon self-love, the ideas of ‘get that solo vacation’ or ’normalise spending on yourself’ teenagers see on Instagram, furthers capitalist interests. To buy oneself expensive fragrant creams or the latest PlayStation edition as a form of self-love strengthens the relationships of you with yourself and you with the base. Getting nails regularly painted in an attempt to feel ‘pretty’ or ’trendy’ does not serve us. It serves the business owners and those who control the ideology of what is pretty trendy. The psychological and self-esteem benefits are surely ours but not the economic ones.
While we certainly do exist as citizens of respective nations and of the global village, we must also be conscious of our existence as consumers in the building of “base and superstructure” we find ourselves in. While a modern capitalist society, many would argue, thrives on consumerism, let us not lose sight of what Amy Carmichael famously said: “You can give without loving, but you cannot love without giving.” Eventually, the “giving” should always supersede the “taking”.
Yashee Jha, a multi-faceted student, is an avid commentator on various topical issues. Views expressed are personal.
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