The Blimp's Full of Hot Air

The Blimp's Full of Hot Air

A few years back the news featured a story of how Goodyear or Fuji let a man use their blimp's LED board to propose to his girlfriend, who was down in the stadium with her. She said yes. Goodyear probably made out better than the man.

It made me wonder why Goodyear would take away precious advertising time to help
a guy out. Sure, sure, they did it for the publicity. It makes them look good, and so the consumer might be inclined to shop for tires there more. But something else might be going on.

If the man just published a new book, believe me, Goodyear would not promote it with free advertising. If he just one first place flipping the log in the Scottish Games, Goodyear would say sorry, no free ads. So it must be something special about his proposing to his girlfriend that would make Goodyear turn good.

Why would the man's new book contract or the Scottish Games not affect Goodyear's heart? No other personal success, not a new job, or climbing Mount Everest would do the trick. So it's something particular about marriage that Goodyear has an interest in.

Marriage must move along the same processes that keep Goodyear rolling in dough. Now, nothing is wrong with marriage on its own terms. It's the fulfillment of two people's love. But in terms of the Capitalist system there is something wrong. In Capitalist terms marriage creates stable home life, and that means stable workers. It often produces children - more workers for production. In fact, some women have been scorned for being selfish when they say they don't want children. What business is it of theirs? The business is that the production of children fuels the production of commodities, so that offspring themselves become a commodity - in Marxian terms, anything that has exchange value. It is the promise of future labor that makes the worth of new offspring.

Our lives are not just our own but the Capitalist system's. It is not just for the common good but for the production of surplus value - profit for the managers - that the messages of the state creates for all of us a complicity with the methods of production.