"To maintain wealth and dominance over the long term, one must own the ‘means of production’—such as factories, land, or corporate shares—that continuously generate wealth. Why, then, do the vulnerable ignore the strong’s means of production, only envying their ‘purchasing power’ and crying out that they want to own the same luxury goods?"
This is a question that pierces straight into the raw, bone-deep mechanisms of capitalism. The core of Marxian economics, as well as the sorrowful paradox of the consumer society we face every day, stands precisely at this juncture. Consumer goods like designer bags or luxury cars diminish and depreciate with use, but the means of production are the fountainhead of wealth that turns their owner into a permanent ruling class.
Why, then, do the masses fail to covet this fundamental engine of wealth, instead lusting after the glamorous "consumption" that is nothing more than the exhaust fumes emitted by that very engine? Behind this lie three perfect traps engineered by capitalist civilization utilizing human psychology.
The Real Power Thoroughly Concealed Behind the Curtain
Think about the landscape we confront from the moment we open our eyes in the morning until we fall asleep at night. What floods our Instagram feeds, YouTube vlogs, and street billboards are images of luxury apartments, designer watches, and extravagant omakase dining—images of sheer consumer goods. The media relentlessly and brilliantly exposes only the end-products of wealth.
Conversely, the real engines that generate that brilliant landscape—namely corporate share structures, proprietary technology patents, platform algorithms, and mega-real estate assets, or the means of production—are kept thoroughly hidden behind the curtain. In the world of the vulnerable, the very existence of the means of production is visually out of reach. Having never seen it, they do not even know what it is they should covet. Capitalism has essentially blindfolded the masses so that they desire the wrong target.
The Brake Built by Capitalism: The Trap of "Pseudo-Equality"
The territory of the means of production monopolized by the ruling class has an entry barrier as high as space itself. It is virtually impossible for an ordinary individual to become a major shareholder of a conglomerate or the owner of a tech giant. In this moment, to soothe the despair and rage of the masses, capitalist civilization presents a breathtaking alternative: the democratization of consumption.
"I may never own that tycoon’s means of production, but I can buy the exact same car he drives, even if it means becoming a ‘car poor’ soul. I can sling that billionaire’s handbag over my shoulder if I just swipe my credit card on an installment plan."
While the vulnerable cannot even stand in the shadow of the real power (the means of production) owned by the strong, it is temporarily possible to replicate their consumption. And the moment they grip that object in their hand, the human brain falls into a peculiar illusion: the liberating sensation of pseudo-equality, believing, "I now stand on equal footing with them." To prevent the weak from overturning the system or challenging real power, civilization hands them a cheap amusement park ticket called consumption and keeps them content inside.
The Shackle Named Dopamine: Compensatory Consumption
Owning and operating the means of production requires a high level of mental energy and long-term strategy. However, the vulnerable, who sell their daily labor just to survive another day, are already intellectually and physically depleted.
For an exhausted human being returning home after grinding their very soul into the workplace all day, there is simply no mental bandwidth left to ponder a revolution to change the structure, or to plan for future means of production. There is only one fast, intuitive way to be compensated for this deep alienation and fatigue: compensatory consumption—spending money right now to inject dopamine straight into the brain.
"I survived another dog-eat-dog day, so I deserve to gift myself this piece of luxury."
This heart-wrenching line, used to comfort oneself, is paradoxically the cleverest and saddest shackle of capitalism—one that permanently distances the worker from the real power of the means of production.
It is by no means because the vulnerable are foolish that they target purchasing power instead of the means of production. It is because the massive cobweb of capitalism has shrouded real power in a thick fog, planted the illusion that replicating the strong’s consumption equals equality, and rewired our brains to swallow the narcotic of instant spending at the end of exhausting labor.
Ultimately, our cry of "I want to own that luxury item too" is merely a sorrowful receipt of envy thrown from the spectator stands by those who have been stripped of the stamina to climb into the ring of real power. We are running like hamsters on a wheel inside a colossal factory of wealth (the means of production) built by the rich, mortgaging the very meaning of our lives just to gather up the crumbs (consumer goods) that fall from that factory floor.
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