Our relationship to consumption is not an easy one. Apart from being self-centred, superficial and narcissistic, the consumer is held responsible for global warming, poverty and now, by binging on easy credit, economic crisis. A straw man has many uses, including being part of the solution by reducing carbon footprints, consuming more ethically and tightening the proverbial belt.
iCommunism defends the consumer against the prevailing politics of austerity. It splits the fetish from the commodity fetish by taking the shine away from the commodity now signified in the ubiquitous i of i branded products and transfers it over to communism. With ideology once again alive on the streets of Europe, iCommunism reimagines Herbert Marcuse 1960s artistic critique of capitalism s repressive performance principle for today s consumer society. Capitalism promised us shiny things but only communism can deliver them in a different, more liberating, universal and sustainable form.
Colin Cremin was born in London and now lives in New Zealand where he lectures in sociology at the University of Auckland. Capitalism's New Clothes was published with Pluto Press in 2011 which examines how injunctions to be enterprising, ethical and to enjoy overlap and reinforce an ideological indeterminacy that in various ways implicates the subject in capitalism's destructive tendencies.