While home the other week, my parents and I were going
through our DVR looking at previously recorded television shows that we wanted
to watch. After a good 10 minute argument over what to watch, we finally agreed
upon ABC’s Shark Tank. This hour long show allows aspiring businesses and
individuals to approach 5 “Sharks”, wealthy entrepreneurs, in hopes of gaining
an investment to help advance or save their company.
You can watch Shark Tank on Fridays on ABC at 9/8c.
The premise is simple; businesses need the money, advice,
and connections available to them by connecting with the wealthy entrepreneurs in
order to make it in our competitive capitalist market. The market present in our
society today is over-saturated with companies that are willing and able to
produce any type of product in order to solve any type of quandary. Thus, those
starting up their own businesses will have a difficult time succeeding and many
surely falter without the advice, knowledge, and connections gained by an
investment from a “Shark”.
Although many of the entrepreneurs started their own businesses
without the help of others, and are often viewed as the quintessential ideals
of the “American Dream”, it is visible almost immediately to the businesses and
those watching at home, that the entrepreneurs are not simply investing out of
the goodness of their hearts or to help propagate the success that they have
achieved. Their investments do assist those businesses, but in the same token
also take advantage of those who believe or who truly require an investment to
survive.
One of the sharks, Kevin O’Leary, commonly referred to as “Mr.
Wonderful”, often incorporates a perpetual royalty into his deals with aspiring
businesses, or often requires the entirety of his investment to be repaid
before a certain amount of time has elapsed. He very rarely makes investments
unless he can very obviously and confidently make a significant return on his
investment. Mr. Wonderful even often refers to his money as his children, who
he sends out into the world in order to multiply and come back to him.
In this case, the wealthy entrepreneurs can be seen as the bourgeoisie,
and these small businesses are developed by those who could be considered the proletariat.
Thus, through this example, it is easy to see the environment described by Marx
and Engels in Bourgeois and Proletarians
(1888) ever present in our society today.
Marx and Engels talk about in the development of a
constantly expanding market, the bourgeoisie are chased over the “whole surface
of the globe”, and “establish connections everywhere” (Erickson & Murphy
22). This is noticeably seen in Shark Tank through the requirement to have many
products mass produced in China in order to increase profit margins.
Additionally, Marx and Engels state that “In place of the
old local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency, we have intercourse in
every direction, universal interdependence of nations” (Erickson & Murphy
22). This is often seen through those businesses who have online retailers bringing
to light their number of customers from around the globe. However this is also
an interesting topic in that although many companies are exporting their
production and customer base to areas outside of their local communities, many
have pushed against this idea and have begun to root their businesses in their
local area in order to help those “proletariats” in their local communities.
It is possible that Marx and Engels predictions will come
true, and the collapse of capitalism is inevitable, but we just have not
achieved the level of class antagonisms necessary for this collapse yet in our
world. Or perhaps, the bourgeoisie have now attained such a high level of
wealth and power that the demise predicted by Marx and Engels will never come
to fruition. It is also possible that we are now seeing a rise in the ability
of the proletariat to avoid the oppressive bourgeoisie by establishing their
own companies and becoming a sort of pseudo bourgeoisie to others. However,
shows such as Shark Tank illuminate how enculturated our society has become
with conspicuous consumerism and the capitalist market and how it will not be
easy for our society to separate ourselves from that which we are so closely
embedded into.
Meredith, I found your post to be extremely interesting, and you drew some intriguing comparisons between Shark Tank and class concepts. In this comment, I do not plan on refuting or arguing your claims, but rather looking at Shark Tank through the lens of a different Anthropological giant whom we have studied recently, Bronislaw Malinowski. This post is written in first person according to how Malinowski would view Shark Tank (assuming he lived during the production of Shark Tank).
ReplyDeleteAfter spending nearly three years living with Mr. Wonderful and the other Shark Tank capitalists and contestants, I have come to solid conclusions after engaging in rigorous participant observation. While many of my colleagues wished to simply observe these individuals by watching the show, I argued for a more in depth study of the characters and their purpose. Welcome or not, I moved into their house where they live with their wives, and I must admit that although extremely tempted, I was able to succumb my desires, and I did not speak with their wives at all.
Living with these hosts and studying their treatment of contestants, I can understand that this show is put on ABC because it is necessity of society. These contestants are attempting to satisfy a set of secondary needs (getting funded), which in turn, helps them satisfy the primary needs of living such as relaxation, safety, and bodily comforts by having an economic blanket (the job, and the money that comes with it, which in turn translates to food, shelter, etc.). People rely upon Shark Tank to live, and it is therefore in existence. On the contrary, if it did not serve a purpose, it would not be on television, and more broadly, it would not exist in American society.