The imprisonment of people in the U.S., as seen by Marx in terms of Commodity Fetishism, is, in fact, one of the most important points to consider. “Commodity Fetishism”, as explained by Marx in his Communist Manifesto, is a process in which commodities become mystical and even sacred in capitalist societies. People do not acknowledge the labour or social relations that are behind the production and exchange of goods but rather see the commodities themselves as the bearers of value and power. The concept of rehabilitation in the prison system is shown in several aspects.
Initially, the labour of prisoners is being sold within the prison industrial complex. In the United States, prisoners are frequently pressured to work for little or no pay at all, in some cases, under severe exploitation. Private companies indirectly exploit these jobs for their profit purposes, and thus, prisoners become a commodity whose value is in their ability to generate profit. Instead of taking to heart the humanity of the prison population and seeking the causes of crime and imprisonment, the prison system continues to consolidate the exploitation and dehumanization of prisoners, reducing them to mere commodities.
Also, the dealing of prisoners as commodities was prominent with the operation of privatized prisons and the financial rewards behind mass incarceration. For private prison organizations, the prime ultimate goal is the production of shareholder value while operating for-profit institutions. On the other hand, the pursuit of profits is connected to an unhealthy incentive to retain as many people as possible, irrespective of the underlying social effect. Here, prisoners become something like a commodity that has been inserted into a market system where their bodies and lives have been sold, bought and priced up for financial gain.
Furthermore, the prison system aims at the preservation of punishment and control of the prisoner population, which entails the commodification of prisoners. Prisons usually show up as institutions of punishment and retribution, where the part of interest is to discipline and control people instead of rehabilitating them. The latter policy, among all the others, draws attention to the problem of dehumanization and inequality that the prisoner faces. The idea of a prisoner being treated as a commodity of society whose value is determined by their threat to humanity is reinforced. By giving more attention to punishment and control, the prison system increases a culture of dehumanization as well as violence, which, in turn, provides more grounds for the continued commodification of prisoners.
In view of these arguments, our current profit-motivated prison system has been seen to stand out as a prime example of slavery. Where the type of misuse may be different, the essence of seriousness, power, control and dehumanization, which leads to the situation, remains the same. One thing that is common with slavery is that the prison system also tends to maltreat and disproportionately punish marginalized communities. One such community affected is the Black and Brown communities, which are subjected to systemic racism and discrimination. The ghost of the slavery acts during the era of American history has become a yardstick which is used to measure the performance of the judicial system, creating the chains of poverty, incarceration, and exploitation.
In addition, the commodification of the prisoners in the prison industrial system is the same as the commodification of the enslaved people in the chattel slavery system. In both cases, people are dehumanized, and their worth is measured by their power to generate returns for their captors. The employment of slave labour, the denial of human rights, and the maintenance of systematic violence are all features that are similar to slavery. Although the prison system was supposed to be the substitute for slavery, it is another form of bondage that is based on the racial and economic differences which are justified under the law and order.
To conclude, the manner in which prisoners are treated in the United States demonstrates the commodity fetishism theory that Marx spread in his Communism Manifesto. Non-monetary generosity is detrimental to social welfare because it gets in the way of appropriate financial management. It is seen as a non-official social support system that is not controlled and followed by official policies. Similarly, the profit motive of the prison industrial complex leads to the reproduction of the structures of dehumanization and exploitation, with the same mechanism as the ones used in institutions such as slavery. At last, the success of our current carceral system gives undeniable evidence of both the enduring legacy of slavery and the need for revolutionary change.
Work Cited
Ava DuVernay. “13th.” Netflix, 17 Apr. 2020, www.youtube.com/watch?v=krfcq5pF8u8.
write