A History Of The World In Seven Cheap Things Analysis

In the final chapter of Patel and Moore’s A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things, they came to the conclusion that all of the ‘cheap things’ that created capitalism have an interlocking relationship with not only economic processes, but the ecological as well. Since the beginning of capitalistic approach, the world itself became a cheap mine. Even to this day, it is being exploited and constantly drained from its natural resources. With the resource being the center of capitalism, cheap food, care, lifes, money, nature, and work all begin to develop. In order to keep everything in place, violence and constant dehumanization of the human work had to be displayed. The profit from a commodity can not be obtained until something or someone is exploited and used up indefinitely.

The inevitable damage that is caused through means of profit is catastrophic, and has been ignored as people think about living in the present and not how their action can affect the future.

Patel and Moore say that the world hasn't been damaged due to Anthropocene, but on the contrary through Capitalocene. The one way that humans can still live on this planet after all the Capitalocene is through reparation. The reparation is not focused on all of the genocide and conquest that was laid out to get to where we are today. But in fact to think and act on a level were we can communicate and interact with the web of life differently. Seeing that the human beings are the final product in this complex capitalistic system, we can change and improve the system to focus on less destruction and more recreation and equality. Patel and Moore begin by stating the first steps for reparation can begin by looking at our individual ecological footprint. By decreasing our dependence on unnecessary luxury we can take the four fold stress of the planet we live on and increase the survivability of our future

generations.

Anna Tsing’s Sorting out Commodities: How Capitalist Value Is Made through Gifts, focuses on the value of capitalist commodities through non capitalist social relations. Tsing began by providing her thoughts on the difference between commodities and gifts. Once a certain commodity is created or harvested by a person, it gains a piece of the makers history inside of it. After the creation the product can then be sold of to a different distributer or sent out as a personal gift. The former will expose the product to an exchange cycle that makes the product lose its history and become a regular commodity. The latter, will turn into a gift that expresses the personal creator’s intent and increases the social relationship between people. Tsing explores the Gift and Commodity binary theory and comes up with an example that uses both processes cooperatively.
Using the Japanese Matsutake mushrooms as an example, Tsing illustrates her idea of a gift turing into a commodity then back into a gift. The mushrooms start of by being obtained by independent contractors in the United states. These people use natural labour and hunt for a natural resource that is then infused with their personal history. This personal single owner hunt is what gives the mushroom a gift like characteristic, however it changes as soon as it it sold to the wholesale companies. The exchange of hands and sorting of ‘good and bad’ mushrooms reconstructs them from gift into an abstract commodity. The mushrooms then get collectily sent to Japan and sold to customers not as a food product but as a gift. Due to Japan's customs, the Matsutake mushrooms are regarded as a product to gift in order to congratulate one another on their success. Due to this unique custom the gift once again becomes a gift breaking the shackles of a regular food commodity.