Product

In today's world the harder question to answer is not what is a product but rather what is not a product. So all consuming, so reactive, a system is capitalism that it is nigh impossible to escape it. Even the attempt to escape, real or fantasized, is turned around and fed back into the system one hoped to decry. Hence the factories churning out Guy Fawkes masks and Che Guevara t-shirts, or the burgeoning industry of tiny home construction.

Not to say that capitalism is a bad thing. It's an admirably nimble and reflexive system and perhaps the greatest spur to human ingenuity short of war. Plus, no one well versed in 20th century history could still advocate for its one time rival, the fully state run economy. When one hears that for the entirety of the Soviet Union's seven decade existence it never once manufactured an adequate supply of tampons or sanitary pads, one can clearly see the remarkable efficacy of the free market. But, one can't help but wish it was not so all pervasive. That there were some avenues of life beyond it's purview. Some places still free of price tags.