Marx at Christmas

Season's greetings, Karl (and to you, my esteemed reader). There’s just something about self-verifying utopianism that doesn’t quite hit the spot the rest of the year, but it’s Christmas, so let’s cut Marx some seasonal slack. This isn’t solely an assault on the long-since-dead ideologue, but rather a repository of festive feedback, reflecting not only on Marx’s conceptualisation of surplus value and capitalism, but our conceptualisation of Christmas, too. Though undoubtedly worthy of deep, invigorated discussion, this article will not orient around the hefty debate on whether Santa Claus is a socialist or a capitalist. The answer, of course, is he’s probably somewhere in between. Not for some grand academic reason, but because he is, shockingly for the kiddies, fictional. This article will, however, focus on the defining economic ideals of capitalism and socialism, as well as the lived experiences of the holiday in which St. Nicholas looms large. 

Christmas means something slightly different to everyone, and the quintessential image of the season varies widely. For some, the mental picture of Christmas is one of an unrestricted feeling of peace and joy with the family, while others imagine a beautiful tree adorned with delicate trinkets, or a juicy turkey with stuffing and other traditional trimmings. Lovely images, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t problems beneath the warm surface. No, there will be no cascading criticism of capitalism here. After all, it’s the season of goodwill, so there’s no need to challenge a force for it, but we can use capitalism’s most ardent critic as a means of diagnosing the issue with consumerist Christmas.

There is a particular excess that we all notice this time of year. Have you walked through a Flying Tiger, Søstrene Grene, or The Range this Advent? There are immense heaps of Christmas ‘stuff’, as if we’re collectively suffering from Christmas-besity, gluttonously festivising anything, nay everything. A unique set of utensils for one month of the year? Overkill doesn’t cover it. An engraved St. Nick on your turkey-carver isn’t going to make the day merry and bright, and here’s when we can bring in the concept of surplus value.

Used by Marxists to depict the accumulation of wealth by industrialists, surplus value refers to the process through which the labour of the masses is ‘exploited’ for minimal returns compared to that of the capitalist owner. Notably, this understanding is spatially vertical, with the greatest actual contribution in the production of value coming from the labour at the base of industrial production, and reducing as you rise up the chain-of-enterprise-command, through middle managers, managers proper, and up to shareholders and executives. Those with the most substantial input, therefore, receive the least output, and vice versa. Despite the apparent flaws in this conceptualisation, including the just correlation of risk and reward, Marx’s notion of surplus value can offer utility, so long as we horizontalise it. 

If we gently sidestep consideration of this concept's accuracy, it can tell us something intriguing. Christmas is, above all things, a season of intimate social relations, and yet it has come to resemble somewhat of a blob, expanding outwards just as Marx thought capitalism had done so upwards (through the creation of vertical value-extracting corporations). Marxism frequents the realm of the unconvincing (you could say such a realm is its natural habitat), but when you become accustomed to endless decorations, crackers, and culinary delights, it’s easy to feel as if Christmas has mystified behind tinsel and eggnog. It’s harder to perceive Christmas values or spirit from Christmas ‘stuff’, and while neither of these intentionally vague concepts inherently erodes the other, the separation of them becomes increasingly tough to discern. 

Value is captured in broadness as much as some misguided economists would suggest it is structural accumulation. Instead of perceiving corporations and their production as innately exploitative, we ought to see them as perpetually widening. Not malicious, but voracious, even to the point of bloating beyond imagination. Choice is a good thing – but no one needs this many options. The sheer volume isn’t inducing cheer, but overstimulation. Commercial spending is good – the circulation of money within the economy creates multiplier effects, reducing unemployment and inducing heightened affluence. But there is an extent to which this becomes too centred around vapid materialism, and vapid materialism alone, amounting to the circulation of money without real rhyme or reason. Christmas thus becomes increasingly performative, resembling social meaning rather than creating it. The seasonal industry predicates on such materialism, and while it’s up to every economic agent to spend their capital how they wish, it hardly seems wise to unscrupulously engage in the festive frenzy many seem unable to go without.

In the context of Christmas ‘stuff’ becoming increasingly reflective of the widespread conceptualisation of Christmas itself, Marxists would deploy the term commodity fetishism. People making purchases for the sake of it, not out of a deep desire for the thing itself, but for the broader consumerist Christmas culture of festivisation. This is where Marxism crosses from an unusual tool of intriguing analysis into a deeply frustrating obstacle. Its position is grounded on a loaded interpretation that distinguishes objective reality from the illusory permutations of commodification in a less-than-convincing manner, as if the object becomes meaning itself. There can, however, exist a harmonious overlap between our grasp of social relations, the meaning behind objects, and reasonable capitalist consumption. Christmas merely continues to become excessive in terms of the latter, not necessarily ruining the former, but instead redirecting our focus from the ideas that make it so revered.

The purpose of this piece hasn’t been to forge bah humbug. Frankly, there’s enough of that going around. Given the sheer amount of conflict raging around the world, one could suggest Santa ought to cancel his Christmas Eve delivery amidst security concerns, and this piece isn’t designed to add to Mr Claus’ increasingly long risk assessment. Instead, it has used ideas that, in isolation, are ludicrous, to point out the excesses of consumerist Christmas. Not that this has eroded the meaning or beauty of the season. The so-called spirit of Christmas may have become increasingly difficult to discern, but it is not damaged, corrupted, or missing in action. Rather, it’s become progressively lost amid the things we associate with Christmas, as if ‘stuff’ has begun to supersede the values of kindness, generosity, and goodwill which truly give it meaning. We’ve encased Christmas in too many sheets of consumerist wrapping paper, so let’s make like a spirited youth and rip it off.

Image: Wikimedia Commons/Husky

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