Exchange Value and Love #069

Love as consuming in a capitalist society

My name is Andy, and I'm a philosophy lecturer. This is Every Dawn, where I try to give you a little bit of a philosophical thought to accompany you throughout your day. In the past episodes, we have been talking about capitalism and how capitalism affects our relationships to all kinds of things about our own life, about clutter, decluttering our homes, perceiving a flower, and even such things as perceiving a flower. Today, we want to have a look at love because love is another aspect of our lives that is immensely important, of course, but where capitalism has caused us to have a really strange attitude toward it.

Love in the Age of Capitalism

If you think about it, what capitalism does, according to Eric Fromm, whom we talked about previously, is that capitalism is training us to see everything in terms of an exchange value. And so, this applies to all kinds of things. We see a house as an exchange value, we see it as a monetary investment, and later we can sell the house and buy another, better house. Or we see a car as an investment. We see all kinds of things. We see even education as an investment. We pay for education, but we will say it doesn't matter that I paid, you know, $50,000 for my education because this is an investment and later I will get my money back. So even intangible things like education are seen as a financial investment.

The Exchange Value of Love

Unfortunately, this is also the case for love. When we think of the partner we would like to have, very often in our minds already, we are calculating the exchange value of that partner. We're calculating their value in almost monetary terms. Of course, we are not calculating in terms of dollars, but we are calculating how valuable this person is. For example, as a husband, are they desirable enough? And this desirability is a kind of value hierarchy. Right? Some people are more desirable, some people are less desirable, and this is the same with houses and with cars. Some cars are more desirable, some houses are more desirable.

Love as a Transaction

This converts love, which should be something that we unconditionally give to another person, and where we connect with another person in a deep way, this becomes then a transaction that is almost a financial transaction, a transaction that is about this externally perceived value of the other person. And even worse is that the same happens to me when I think of the partner I would like to have. I would like to acquire, in a sense. I'm thinking of my own exchange value. I'm evaluating myself, and I am perhaps saying this partner is too good for me. I would like to have, you know, let's say this pop star or this actress as a girlfriend, but I'm not good enough. My market value is not high enough. I can only have, you know, Peter from the next house. I cannot have this boy group member because I am not valuable enough.

The Misunderstanding of Love

And of course, this completely misunderstands what love is about. Right? Love is not an exchange of externally perceived values, and often you know you see that even those very glamorous personalities in the media, you wonder sometimes because they have boyfriends or girlfriends that are not flashy at all. Because in reality, love is not dependent on these external, you know, properties, on these externally perceived values. And very often when love is handled in this way, it turns out unhappy because people are focusing on this, and when you focus on this, then of course the next thing that happens is that somebody else comes who has an even higher perceived value. And now you see that the previous person you said you thought you were in love with, in reality, is not the right person anymore because now the other person has an even higher exchange value. And now I have to switch, otherwise, I'm getting a bad exchange rate for my love.

The Impossibility of Love Under Capitalism

Right, and this makes love essentially impossible. And this is what Fromm says: when we have this attitude towards love, then we are eternally going to be unhappy. We are eternally going to feel pressured ourselves to be a good exchange value instead of being, you know, a loving partner. And we are also going to never be happy with what we have because we will always be thinking perhaps I could have gotten a little more value out of the things that I have to offer. And so perhaps when you think about love, about your own love relationship, or about the relationship you want to have, perhaps it's helpful to keep this in mind that love is not about that. And it is much more important that you find someone with whom you can connect on a human basis, somebody who has perhaps the same interests as you or a similar worldview. And it does not matter if they have, you know, the shiniest hair or the most, you know, sexy clothing or whatever it is. What matters is that this person is good for you as a person.

The Impact of Social Media

And of course, I mean, social media makes everything even worse than all of these love apps, Tinder, and whatever they are called. I thankfully am too old to ever use any of them, but these make things even worse because then you're even more stuck in this game of evaluating your own value against the value of a potential partner and trying to find the best exchange for your value because they don't allow you to connect at all except through the perception of this external value.

Finding a Partner the Old-Fashioned Way

So this is why, perhaps, you know, another good idea if you're looking for a partner would be to just ditch this internet thing completely and just try to find someone with whom you can connect on a personal basis in the office or in some other social context where you can get to know people as persons before you evaluate them through this external perception of value. Thank you, and see you tomorrow.