It is too cursed to not post about it
Would Marx be opposed to shopping malls in a socialist society? As a transitionary mechanism to communism would Marx not approve of shopping centers or modern market places?
Call it something like “According to Your Needs Outlet”
Idk much about the guy but, I don’t think a socialist society would outright oppose a shopping mall. I could see a use for them.
Victor Gruen is widely considered the inventory of the modern shopping mall. He was an Austrian Jew who immigrated to the US when the Nazi’s annexed Austria.
I can’t find much specific on his political views, but I’ve seen him described by historians as “far-left” and “socialist”.
Shopping was originally a small part of his vision. He wanted to make an indoor, air-conditioned version of European pedestrian areas. Residences, schools, libraries, hospitals, parks, etc. He hated how the mall he envisioned became the shopping mall. He was influenced by Disney Land - trying to make a planned neighborhood that optimized the human experience. In turn, Disney took a lot of influence from him to make EPCOT.
So I don’t know that he was a Marxist, but he denounced the capitalist hellscape that his malls eventually became.
How painfully ironic
wanted to make an indoor, air-conditioned version of European pedestrian areas. Residences, schools, libraries, hospitals, parks, etc.
Coincidentally, there are malls in Asia that actually meet some of those requirements. Big indoor malls with residential condos attached to them, a park on the mall rooftop, clinics and health services inside the mall, hardware store, bookstore where you can read inside, gym, etc.; plus the standard mall stuff (cinema, restaurants, spa, etc.)
Even a fully communist society would need means of distributing the goods. Somewhere you could go and see what exists and choose what suits your needs.
The only difference would be the lack of monetary exchange.
Yes, but it would not exist in the form of one large building with dozens of competing clothing stores. Shopping Malls are structured in the manner that they are to entice consumerism and generate profit from having many slightly different stores competing for your attention.
Without the profit motive, this would likely be phased out. Certain Markets would exist, as would stores, but not in the specific organization of a shopping Mall. It may exist in Socialism, but likely not lower-stage Communism, and certainly not upper-stage Communism.
Marx and Engels were very clear, that the transition from value-exchange, i.e. money, has to happen as soon as possible, because otherwise, the system will begin to reproduce capitalist dynamics. So, as shopping malls, yes, very much opposed. As distribution/leisure centers? Sure, whatever the dynamics of the new materialist situation will favour/need.
It depends on what stage in the Capialism -> Socialism -> Lower-Stage Communism -> Higher-Stage Communism -> Fully-Automated Luxury Space Gay Communism -> Whatever comes next.
Essentially, having places to get goods in small, compact areas is probably a good thing, but in Socialism or Lower-Stage Communism it would make more sense to have them be one large store, or specialized stores. The myriad different brands would not need to exist in competition with one another, regular stores would exist and eventually Money would be phased out in favor of Labor Vouchers, or some other tracker of Inputs and Outputs.
However, Germany is Capitalist and is Imperialist, we aren’t looking at the People’s Mall, here. Not only that, but it’s an American themed mall. Marx obviously would not be a fan of a Capitalist Shopping Mall in any manner.
“What is now happening to Marx’s theory has, in the course of history, happened repeatedly to the theories of revolutionary thinkers and leaders of oppressed classes fighting for emancipation. During the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes constantly hounded them, received their theories with the most savage malice, the most furious hatred and the most unscrupulous campaigns of lies and slander. After their death, attempts are made to convert them into harmless icons, to canonize them, so to say, and to hallow their names to a certain extent for the “consolation” of the oppressed classes and with the object of duping the latter, while at the same time robbing the revolutionary theory of its substance, blunting its revolutionary edge and vulgarizing it. Today, the bourgeoisie and the opportunists within the labor movement concur in this doctoring of Marxism. They omit, obscure, or distort the revolutionary side of this theory, its revolutionary soul. They push to the foreground and extol what is or seems acceptable to the bourgeoisie. All the social-chauvinists are now “Marxists” (don’t laugh!). And more and more frequently German bourgeois scholars, only yesterday specialists in the annihilation of Marxism, are speaking of the “national-German” Marx, who, they claim, educated the labor unions which are so splendidly organized for the purpose of waging a predatory war!”
Maps doesn’t show any tax office or Karl Marx monument anywhere near that shopping mall
Landesamt für Steuern & Finanzen (tax office)
