The Wandering of a Philosopher

Being a highly culturally relevant show, Pokemon is deeply embedded within a capitalist system where the accumulation of goods – and pokemon - depicts a trainer’s social rank in his world and where the relationship between trainer and animal is one that discourages class consciousness. Pokemon expresses a deep capitalistic notion of economy that promotes the alienation of labor and tries to avoid class consciousness.

Capitalism for Marx is an economical system that breeds on the oppression of labor through its alienation.  There are four elements which the worker becomes alienated to, the first is his own product, the result of his labor is no longer something personal, it has become embedded within a system that mass produces it for another purpose than its own usefulness. It is no longer something of use value but rather something that has the purpose to be sold for profit. The second is his own labor, the worker no longer works for himself, and he works for the system, to be part of this homogeneity that holds the system together. The worker then becomes alienated from other human beings; they are going to start experiencing dehumanization of labor and lose their relations to others. You start to use others as a means to an end rather than as ends in themselves and the fragmentation of the labor process destroys the human relations and breeds competition. It then becomes natural, as if this were always the case. Finally the worker himself begins to see himself as a means to an end; he is the worker of such factory and works over for such and such purposes. He becomes the means to profit.

All of this happens in a dialectical tension between, what Marx refers to as, the base and the superstructure, which create the capitalistic system that alienates the worker. The base is the support of the superstructure, if looking at a house for example it would be the ground holding up the structure of the house. Within the base you have the means of productions, which are the basic necessities of life, those means of production are controlled by the Bourgeoisie or the higher class. Then we have the modes of production, which is the way the productions is achieved, the “how” of producing. These modes of production include human labor power and the available knowledge related to the technology of the means of production and the social and economical relationship that people have to production in a particular era. The modes of production include the proletariat or working class, which works under the bourgeoisie.  The proletariat is the class being oppressed, in this capitalistic system, by being alienated from their labor and being oppressed by a Bourgeoisie that controls the means of production. This base is there to support the superstructure which includes elements like religion, state, education, kinship, culture, arts and mass media. Between the base and the superstructure we have a dialectical tension which means that if anything changes in the base the superstructure will be affected and the superstructure legitimates the base. Now if this is done correctly and we are well embedded in the system, according to Marx, the base becomes invisible and we lose our awareness of it. 

The capitalistic economical system is one that looks to produce and acquire as much surplus as possible in order to become successful and rich. It replaces the use-value of the product (the utility of a product as the base for its value) with an exchange value (creates value through its possibility of being exchanged). This creates an opening for surplus value of commodities (objects outside of us which satisfy human desire).

Pokemon revolves around the story of a young trainer named Ash Ketchum who wants to become the most successful pokemon trainer in history. In order to do so he must win pokemon battles, gain respect and badges from arenas across the country and catch as many pokemons as he can. The show provides a very vivid example of a relation between proletariat and Bourgeoisie. The pokemon (proletariat), little creatures with special abilities, are carried around by their trainers (Bourgeoisie) who use them in battles in order to increase their own ranks in the pokemon world. The pokemons are used as modes of production for the trainer which creates a hierarchical relationship between pokemons revolving around their usefulness.  In other words, the trainer will use his stronger pokemons before he can use his weaker less useful ones. The pokemons, on the other hand, feel guilty if they cannot produce the amount of useful needed by the trainer and thus create a sort of competition between each other. The amount of usefulness a pokemon can exemplify in battle will result in the trainer putting him in the starting six that he may be used to gain the fame and power he wants to acquire. The trainer also controls the means by which this production of power and fame is created; he is the one to decide what to buy in order to increase his pokemon success in battle (medicinal herbs, berries, strength increasing pills, antivenom etc.) and increase his own success rate at catching better and stronger pokemons (different types of poke balls).

In this case we can see how the pokemon is being alienated. One he is alienated from his product, the power and fame that the trainer gets is in no way related to the pokemon itself. And if it is, only in the fact that the trainer was the one to raise him in such a way that he could achieve such high level. The labor no longer reflects who the pokemon is but rather who the trainer is. He also become alienated from his labor, he loses control of his laboring activities, the pokemon does not decide when or who to fight, the trainer makes this decision for him. He then becomes alienated from other pokemon. As I have touched earlier on this subject, a hierarchical structure is put in place between pokemon that are more powerful and useful compared to those who are not. This fragmentation of the labor process destroys the pokemon relation and breeds competition between one another. And finally the pokemon is alienated from himself, it start seeing himself as a means to an end, an end controlled by the trainer. As mentioned above, the pokemon is a means to the trainers’ gain of fame and power and feels guilty if he cannot be a part of this structure, even though it is not something that was chosen by the pokemon himself.  

The more the pokemon is able to produce this fame and power, the more he becomes alienated from himself and thus becomes more and more a commodity himself. The devaluation of the pokemon is directly proportionate to the increasing value of the fame and power the trainer acquires. The slogan “gotta catch’em all” shows how the pokemon is not a being but a thing, an object to be caught to assert a certain purpose – to catch’em all for fame and power. The pokemon again, is demonstrated to have become a means to an end, a thing used and easily replaceable by a better, stronger object. Even though the trainer might already have a Charizard, he does not want the weakest Charizard, he wants the most powerful one. The one that will provide him with this fame and power he so long for. The Pokémon’s entire life thus revolves around the ability to produce, not for himself, but for the trainer.

The class separation is not made obvious by the show; in fact it is made to be seen as perfectly normal, as though the pokemon/trainer relationship is necessary and natural. Class consciousness seems to have been eradicated in such a way that the pokemon doesn’t even see himself as part of an oppressed working class subdued by the bourgeoisie. The Pokémon’s alienation thus becomes perfectly normal and the just way of going about this world. In fact the show does not promote any kind of revolution from the part of the pokemon, and even if such an event would happen, the viewer would be prone to side with the trainers because unlike the pokemons, they are not defying the “natural” order of things.

Thus the pokemon world becomes a world where capitalism has taken over the economical system. A revolution is no longer possible by the proletariat since class consciousness can never be reached. The bourgeoisie will keep on controlling the means of production and the superstructure will keep in increasing its legitimacy to future generations.