Beyond Labor and Affluence

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Quartzsite's economy is beyond affluence. In general, the products sold at Quartzsite’s markets are bought and sold to facilitate social relationships, not because they are needed or desired for their own sakes.

Rocks are the ultimate objects of exchange at Quartzsite, being the foundation of the markets and remaining a major destination for visitors. Generally obtained from the surrounding mountains during leisurely hikes and having had minimal labor applied to their retrieval and processing, Quartzsite's rocks circumvent the notion of labor or scarcity. Nor are the rocks useful.

On the contrary, at Quartzsite the exchange of rocks becomes purely metaphysical, religion without the need for people. Because, according to Marx, the social character of a producer's labor is only expressed through the exchange of commodities, exchanging rocks is a way for Quartzsite's winter visitors to remind each other that they have escaped the capitalist system into a world in which they are nothing, make nothing, and do not need to labor. The exchange of rocks replaces social interaction. As Marx wrote of the commodity: "it is a definite social relation between men that assumes ...the fantastic form of a relation between things."

As the ideal late capitalist city, Quartzsite transgresses capitalism itself to incorporate what were once considered obsolete forms of economy: its market economy is largely free of capitalism, dwelling is based on feudalism, and individuals, just wealthy enough to escape the necessity of labor, are free to pursue their desires, as if under Communism.