Capitalism and Desire, and Only a Joke Can Save Us, among other books. He is also the cohost of the Why Theory podcast with Ryan Engley.
McGowan applied the “Page 99 Test” to his new book, Pure Excess: Capitalism and the Commodity, and reported the following:
Page 99 of Pure Excess: Capitalism and the Commodity details the example of the iPhone and how it functions as a commodity. As a result, the test works quite well for this book because it hits on a paradigmatic commodity of the contemporary age that allows us to make sense of the role that pure excess plays in capitalist society. The iPhone has value for those who purchase it not because of the useful functions it performs but precisely because of its uselessness—its qualities that exceed utility. The overall argument of the book is that capitalism as a system identifies value as the production of pure excess and not as the production of useful things. Companies aim at discovering a site of excess to profit from, just as consumers search for an excess that they can enjoy. As the iPhone demonstrates, utility always comes as a supplement, as an aftereffect of excess, which is where the primary aim of capitalism resides. This is because excess, what goes beyond use, is the only source of value in the capitalist universe. At the same time, capitalist society constantly tells us that it provides us with useful things, with things that will make our lives better. We invest ourselves in commodities such as the iPhone (explained on page 99) insofar as we believe in their utility, but as consumers, we enjoy their inutility—not the ability to call to make doctor appointments, but the attractive design, the unused technological capacities, and even the white box that the iPhone arrives in. Excess is the source of profit for the producer and enjoyment for the consumer. It is the engine that drives the capitalist system and what prevents us from arresting the production of more and more in the face of the destruction of the earth’s habitability. Thinking about the role of pure excess in capitalism enables us to reconsider the most urgent problems that we face today.Learn more about Pure Excess at the Columbia University Press website.
The Page 99 Test: Capitalism and Desire.
--Marshal Zeringue
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