Current Forum: Session 5: Ideology and Class	Read 5 times 	
Date: 12-Feb-2001 22:17:14	
Author: MCKAHAN, JASON G. <jgm8530@garnet.acns.fsu.edu>	
Subject: Ideology Of Capitalism Again 	
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       From time to time, I have heard a student remark, “The theories of Karl Marx are dated and virtually inapplicable to American society today.” In the sense that Marx was addressing problems specific to nineteenth century Europe, I could agree with this remark. However, regardless of the changes that have taken place since then, Marx is still very relevant judging the current distribution of wealth and resources in the present capitalist America as demonstrated by Mantsios. I agree with the argument of Immanuel Wallerstein that, “the basic problem resides in our imagery about how capitalism works” (in Race, Nation, Class. Balibar and Wallerstein, eds.). State ideology leads us to assume that present capitalism functions under a system of the free-flow of production, competition, individualism, growth of private property rights and limited governmental intervention. However, as Wallerstein notes capitalism has been just as much or more about partial free-flow of production, monopoly, anti- individualistic socialization, decrease in private property rights, and manipulation of law and politics.
       Trading Places demonstrates Wallerstein’s thesis. The privilege of wealth is stressed in the opening montage of workers rushing to work and beginning their day intercut with Louis being served breakfast in bed. By the time Louis rises, the workforce is well into their day. Louis spends a few hours in his office and then heads off to the country clubs and professional societies. We begin to see that wealth has little to do with hard labor (note Ophelia’s remark about Louis’s soft hands, “Give me your hands. You've never done a hard day's work in your life, have you?”) and more to do with relations with important and influential people. It is not only the loss of capital that destroys Louis’s status, but also his loss of connections within the bourgeoisie.
       Competition is the ideal of capitalism, yet any observation shows that capitalism also functions by means of exclusive use rights and monopoly. The Dukes are not successful because they encourage competition, but because they can manipulate laws and politics to set themselves in monopoly (e.g., early citrus crop reports). Louis’s trajectory is a representation of these relations. The Dukes are able to keep him from being competitive by framing him with crime and drugs (utilization of police and courts), impounding his assets (utilization of loans and trust authorities) and dishonoring his name (utilization of “social register” and perhaps, the media). Billy Ray will later be subjected to racism. 
       Individualism recurs in Trading Places, as in Citizen Kane, through the repetition of low-angle shots of paintings and statues of illustrious men. In the title sequence, we not only see the workers and Louis, but also low-angle inserts of statues of the daunting individuals of capitalism. Such figures would ideologically epitomize men who, through hard work and genius, formed the world of wealth. The various clubs that Louis attends are decorated with larger than life-size oil paintings of legendary patriarchs, while their image is underscored by the bourgeois sounds of Mozart. However, Landis seems to satirize this idealism, by flashing back to silly, pretentious Louis. It is obvious that Louis lacks the “common sense” of the middle class and is incompetent when reduced to penury. Furthermore, the capricious manipulation of the Dukes shows that wealth is not the result of individualism and hard work, but rather the bourgeois holds and distributes wealth.
       Private property is not the essence of capitalism in Trading Places. In fact, we could question whether it even exists. The opening tracking shots through Louis’s townhouse, mise-en-scene cluttered with statuettes, a grand staircase, high molded ceilings and a butler, sets us up to believe that he personally owns everything there. But how can Louis lose everything and 
all be redistributed to Billy Ray? It seems in reality that the Dukes own and control property and are free to throw it around as they see fit. Louis is only the “managerial bourgeois,” a salaried overseer of production, who does NOT own the means of production, while the Dukes have aristocratized themselves. Private property thus protects only the bourgeois, who have the most to lose and gain in such legislation, while the middle class and managerial bourgeois (except by credit – Louis has this) cannot afford private property anyway. 
       Gender conflict is worked out through homophobia and white privilege. Billy Ray will only accept the gifts of the Dukes when he knows they are not gay: “Then these guys are from the 
fag side aren't they? Then what's my next move? Thanks man, you've been a lot of help!” Louis’ trip to jail invokes fears of gay rape: “Those men wanted to have sex with me.” Billy Ray, Louis and Ophelia are really syntheses of sex, gender, race and class associations in the 1980s. Each represents a myth produced from anxieties and fears of a changing nation. 1) The lost woman who needs to be re-interpolated the “normal” sexual relations of morality and phallocentricism. 2) The white male “victim”, who is losing his white privilege to non-whites. 3) The successful African American male, who strives in the power relations of white privilege and can only succeed by using that system. 
       In closing, it is noteworthy that class is not a matter of some folks having wealth and some not; it is precisely because some are wealthy, that some are not. Mantsios’s statistics of the 
distribution of wealth expose the pyramidal structure of capitalism, wherein the smallest 10 percent of people control 71.7 percent of the wealth. This fact is realized in Trading Places by the fact that for Billy Ray to be rich, Louis must be poor. This is represented through the reverse shots when the two spot each other. Billy Ray sees Louis through the window of a limo, Louis returns the gaze through a cab window. Billy Ray spies Louis out of the window of a five-star bistro, Louis looks in standing outside in the cold and rain. So too, for Billy Ray, Louis and Ophelia to be rich, the Dukes must be sent to the poorhouse. One Duke holds another in cardiac arrest on the floor of Wall Street – crosscut to our three heroes on an exotic island basking in the sun. Landis may miss the mark here in blaming the problem on “corruption” of the Dukes, instead of bringing the endless accumulation of wealth within capitalism itself into question. At the end of the day, capitalism works and Landis condones it.