Have you ever seen the hundreds of boxes of chocolate and flowers on the shelves during Valentine’s Day? The walls of teddy bears and love-themed merchandise? What other time have you seen such open admiration for love and loving one’s partner? Under this capitalist society, even love and genuine romance become commodified. In such a profit-driven economic system, it is important to understand how it can affect ourselves and our expressions of love in order to better comprehend and advance our relationships. Love, like all things, is not created in a vacuum.

How is Our Society Connected to Capitalism?

Love is beyond simple biology; it is both a choice and a social process, allowing it to be influenced by and even model after capitalism. Under capitalism, specific forms of love are produced that further the long-term production and sustainment of the capitalist system. Although there have been more socially free ways to love, class relations affect similar factors an economic system affects such as commodity production, reinforcement of private property, and reproduction of propertyless workers (the proletariat). In dating, qualities like attractiveness are commodified and sought after in the personality market. These ephemeral qualities never challenge bourgeois society; they simply exist to reinforce this system. Furthermore, marriage itself is crucial to the longevity of the system by producing the next generation of workers. Love is both a choice of labor and connected to class relations, and as class relations clash and change, so can love. Love, like most things under capitalism, becomes privatized and individualized regardless of the collective well-being. Under this system, love is stripped of its potential to be revolutionary, and instead reinforces a system of class separation (Das, 2022).

How Does Love Reflect Our Culture?

In American culture, love is a cultural model that heavily reflects American individualism and freedom. Love is framed as a personal matter rather than something of the family or community, reinforcing American individuality in marriage. However, in American media, the “one” or “soulmates” are prevalent throughout most romance movies from films such as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) to childhood movies like Sleeping Beauty (1959). Despite this unconditional, enduring quality of love shown in media, the United States holds high rates of divorce and serial monogamy, further connecting with American freedom that is prioritized. This difference may create a sort of cognitive dissonance and fragility of comparison that can negatively impact how we view and act in our own relationships. (De Munck & Kronenfeld, 2016)

In less individualistic Eastern cultures, love is tied to family and social harmony. Culture heavily influences how people demonstrate love and even experience the emotion. In these cultures, love is indubitably connected to responsibility and moderation for the preservation of the family unit and social harmony itself. Since many Eastern cultures are rich with tradition and hierarchy, relationships reflect the same traditional roles and reserved nature in expression. Expressions of love varies across cultures and nations, further affecting how people experience the emotion itself. (Karandashev, 2015)

by Anabelle Sawyer

Why Is It Such a Bad Thing?

As humans, it is both natural and necessary to be dependent. As children, we heavily rely on our parents for survival, affection, and guidance. As adults, we rely on our friends and community for support. Survival has always been intertwined with dependence and collectivism for the betterment of society as a whole. However, in capitalism, our dependence is monetized. Dependence on others becomes dependence on commodities and the market, turning us to rely on capital instead of each other (Llaguno, 2023). This alienation changes the nature of our relationships both with each other and with ourselves. Due to this dependence on the market and labor instead of one another, connections may be formed for financial benefits over emotional aspects. Instead of choosing who or what you may truly like, you go with what best financially will benefit you and create stability for the future. Relationships themselves become commodified. Furthermore, because of the long work hours most people under capitalism face, time for loved ones and oneself slowly dwindles. Both our dependence and our time becomes manipulated under this economic structure and derived from alienation itself.

Under capitalism, the baseline of money is for survival rather than the betterment of life or the community, making money heavily valued and sought after in our society. However, there is a significant correlation between highly valuing money and objectifying other people. Many believe money is a means to an end; however, this logic is then applied to connections and relationships as well, creating strife or discord with the partner (Wang & Krumhuber, 2016).

What Now?

Although social change is commonly collective and gradual, it does not mean change can’t be made in our relationships and how we view our own emotions and choices. However, acknowledging that our economy and the media we consume can not only affect us but the ones we care about is a crucial first step.

References

Das, R. (2022). “Politics of Love, and Love of Politics: Towards a Marxist Theory of Love.” Class, Race Corporate Power, 10(2). https://doi.org/10.25148/crcp.10.2.010586

De Munck, V., & Kronenfeld, D. (2016). Romantic Love in the United States: Applying Cultural Models Theory and Methods.

Karandashev, V. (2015). “Cultural Perspective on Love.” Social Psychology and Culture Interpersonal and Intergroup Relations, 5(4). https://doi.org/10.9707/2307-0919.1135

Llaguno, T. (2023). “Alienated Dependence: The Unfreedom of Our Social Relations.” Journal of Social Philosophy. https://doi.org/10.1111/josp.12551

Wang, X., & Krumhuber, E. G. (2016). The Love of Money Results in Objectification. British Journal of Social Psychology, 56(2), 354–372. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjso.12158