There has to be a systemic explanation behind this. Some combo of alienation, desire to "get rich quick" and being pressured under Capitalism to get ahead in anyway possible.
It's not just cups. It's funko pops, trading cards, basically any nerd thing that people think are collectible, obsession over "flipping" storage units, etc.
Do people in China have similar crazes? Is there a "tickle me elmo" type stampede that happened in the past?
When people are completely alienated from the concept of labour value, the ability to actually figure out whether something has value is lost. So it is easy to push speculator bubbles onto them, convincing people that they can just buy a thing and it will magically make them more money in the future. A lot of people are desperate and struggling and think it will be a shortcut to the "easy life"
These things keep working on people because they don't understand how value works, they are told that things "appreciate in value" and assume that the latest fad must function in the same way. They're often compared to things like stocks or landowning (which are also pretty arbitrary in their values, only adding to the confusion).
There has to be a systemic explanation behind this. Some combo of alienation, desire to "get rich quick" and being pressured under Capitalism to get ahead in anyway possible.
It's not just cups. It's funko pops, trading cards, basically any nerd thing that people think are collectible, obsession over "flipping" storage units, etc.
Do people in China have similar crazes? Is there a "tickle me elmo" type stampede that happened in the past?
China, like all countries, has a "most popular children's toy of the holiday season" but that's not really a good analogy for Stanley cups.
When people are completely alienated from the concept of labour value, the ability to actually figure out whether something has value is lost. So it is easy to push speculator bubbles onto them, convincing people that they can just buy a thing and it will magically make them more money in the future. A lot of people are desperate and struggling and think it will be a shortcut to the "easy life"
These things keep working on people because they don't understand how value works, they are told that things "appreciate in value" and assume that the latest fad must function in the same way. They're often compared to things like stocks or landowning (which are also pretty arbitrary in their values, only adding to the confusion).