For many, especially the underprivileged – seeing fashion models such as Gigi Hadid, Cara Delevigne and Kendall Jenner clothed in name brands was like adding insult to injury.
This was because it’s bad enough that designer brand clothing is a device used to illustrate and magnify the disparity between the leisure classes and the working masses, but the models are glorified for no reason other than who they walked for and what they wore – as though walking while being clothed were some kind of skill.
Clothes are only the most outward and public expression of status, they are only the tip of the iceberg.
Housing, schooling and food have also been made into status symbols of sorts that are purchased over standard goods for the sole purpose of expressing wealth (whether one actually has it or not) in order to give the illusion of importance.
The truth is, the working masses in every nation are constantly being taken advantage of, whether or not they know it, by the bourgeoisie; and the most vulnerable members of society in every nation are constantly being impoverished by the production of both luxury goods.
This is because the production of such goods is a waste of manpower, on people who are paid exorbitant amounts to do basically nothing or on people who are being paid slave wages (here in the Unites States and abroad).
The bourgeoisie classes employ so many people into occupations concerning the manufacturing and exporting of unnecessary and wasteful goods, that if the same manpower were allocated properly, in such a way that only the sorts of business that is absolutely necessary such as agriculture, standard housing construction, and publishing to name a few, issues like homelessness and world hunger would disappear completely.
The truth is this: materialism isn’t a naturally occurring trait in the human condition, it is a learned flaw imbedded in people by the capitalist propaganda. It is detrimental to the development and evolution of mankind.
We as a people, ought to realize that symbols of status are an illusion. Real wealth is the camaraderie in people.
