This is one of the most imaginative and insightful Marxian analyses about the story of Santa Claus we’ve ever seen. The author points out how the story reproduces capitalist propaganda about happy labor (elves), the spontaneous generation of wealth and the ahistorical nature of how commodities are generated.
After reading this, you’ll have to tell your kid a whole new story! We’re re-posting this two years after we first posted it. Notice the image is a romanitized workshop of small production. A truer representation would be an huge industrial plant with Santa as the absentee landlord just as it is under capitalism.
Read in CounterPunch
