Stock in Apple (News - Alert) Inc. broke $600 a share for the first time in the company's history one day before the state-side release of the New iPad.
Valued at almost $555 billion, Apple enjoys the distinction of world’s single most expensive company. Few companies in world history have managed to surpass the $500 billion mark. Apple’s rise to power on the market is a question has garnered much debate. A contingent question is this: “What, exactly, makes the Apple company so successful at producing commodities the contemporary market so strongly desires?”
In Capital: Volume 1, Marx coins the term “commodity fetishism”. Commodity fetishism refers to the way in which finished products seem to magically hide the circumstances in which they were made. It is here that we find the answer: Apple seems to possess the capacity to dictate and manipulate the way in which we fetishize their commodities better than just about any company in history.
Pricing for the New iPad will remain the same as prior releases: $500. The iPad 2 waits on nearby display tables with downcast eyes as a tragic reminder of the joys it brought consumers in years past, discounted to $400. The assumption is that the new features of the New iPad are worth exactly $100; it just seems true. The force field of “it just seems true,” surrounding Apple products, the strength of the fetish the company can generate for their commodities, proceeds simply without precedent.
An article in The Guardian documenting the inhumanity with which Apple treats their workers, and stock growth proceeds unscathed. Simultaneously, Apple channels the ecological star power of ex-president, Al Gore, appointing him as a chair on their board of directors. This gesture somehow nullifies all counter-suggestion.
The new generation tablet computer will go on sale Friday, 16 Mar. 2012 in America, Canada and ten other countries. Commence fetishizing.