In order to understand how Disneyworld and Marx correlate, we must first fully look at Marx’s theories.  Marx lived in a time where capitalism was overtaking the world.  At his time there was a small number of bourgeoisie, or rich people, who dominated all the proletariats, or poor people.  For this reason, Marx saw the world through a paradigm where society is based on economics.  He decided that he needed to be the bourgeoisie to enlighten the proletariats and show them the extent of their exploitation.  This is why Marx wrote The Communist Manifesto where he described what would happened if the workers would not revolt and overthrow capitalism in order to make communism. 

He asserted that the division of labor objectifies people, making them feel alienation in the workplace.  He described alienation on different levels.  Marx believed that alienation happens from the product as the product has more value than a worker who gets paid under minimum wage.  He believed in alienation from production.  This means that the worker does not feel like he/she has a bond with their labor, but rather, is doing a mindless task without seeing an end result.  Marx also believed that people would feel inhuman and uncreative and, hence, are alienated from themselves.  Also they would not be able to talk to other workers, thus feeling alienated from their community. 

With some background into Marx’s theory, we can start comparing it to Disneyworld.  In the beginning alienation was not nearly as strong for Disney workers as it is now.  From the start, Walt Disney was a ruthless, power-hungry man who did not even create Mickey Mouse.  Instead, he stole the idea from the original animator and marketed it as his own.  Once Mickey Mouse and Walt Disney began to get recognition, Disney started animation on “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.”  Since the beginning, animators working for Disney had to sell all their rights and remain anonymous.  Therefore, they received no credit by the audience as the exclusive production credits for Disney films were made to “Walt Disney Presents.”  Furthermore, Disney’s employees were fired if they spoke, even one word, during work hours.[1]

To Marx, this is a clear example of alienation in the workforce.  This is to say that workers felt disconnected and removed from reality.  However, at this time, alienation did not exist from the product or themselves, but only from others.  During the creation of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”, the animators still took pride in their work as it had many creative aspects to it.  Since then, alienation for Disney workers has significantly increased. 

Once Disney became famous enough, he made WED Enterprises, which basically filtered 100% Disney money to him.1  This shows that Disney was created on a Marx principle.  In this scenario, Disney clearly put all of his enterprises money into more capital, instead of giving his workers a better salary.  Disney wanted to create a monopoly, and he got a good start by making his own world, with his own government; namely Disneyworld.

This brings us to Disney world today, which took Walt Disney’s cruel manners and made him look like a saint.  Today’s Disney uses an excessive amount of exploitation while trying to create a monopoly for themselves.  Marx discussed this as he said it would be inevitable in capitalism.  He believed that capitalists only care about putting revenue back into the business, hence making their franchise bigger.  The bourgeoisie do not care about their workers, and therefore will give them as little money as possible.  Actually, according to Marx, the only thing they even supply them with minimal money is for them to be able to live to the next day of work, and for them to have children so that they can produce cheap labor as well.  For this reason, workers get exploited while the business keeps dramatically growing in size.

Disneyworld today epitomizes Marx’s envision of a capitalistic society.  Michael Eisner, the CEO of Disneyworld, earned $200 million in 1996.  This is to say that he made close to $100,000 per hour.  Eisner’s salary is equivalent to 325,000 Disney workers, where most get paid twenty-eight cents an hour.[2] Most of Disney workers are in factories in three different continents.  These factory workers are creating Disney clothes, toys, dolls and other novelty items, while they will never have enough money to buy a Disney item.  Eisner stays this rich by keeping his workers oppressed. 

Disney tries to raise the rate of exploitation in order to make more of a profit on their workers.  There are two ways that Eisner, and the rest of Disney Enterprise, do this.  One way is by extraction of absolute surplus value.  This Marxian term means exploiting the worker over a longer period of time.  For example, if a business pays its workers by the day, the workers will, in turn, simply work longer days. The other method includes workers working twice as hard, creating twice as many garments.  That way, they will work for two hours but create products equivalent to four.  This also increases the rate of exploitation.

Disney disregards that their workers are human, however there are approximately 73 million children working full time at factories.  This is one in eight 10 to 14 year olds.  Each one of these workers has had their childhood stolen from them.  Most of Disney’s Chinese workers are young, single females who have been taken away from their homes at a vulnerable age to work on sewing Disney garments.  At an interview, these girls confessed to working excessively long hours in a hazardous place, for pitiful wages while they receive poor food and sleep in dangerously overcrowded dormitories.[3] These workers, statistics show, make thirteen cents an hour as they work for twelve to sixteen hours a day.  They also sleep in a dormitory filled with sixteen other people, while still being spied on by bosses.  Once Disney receives their toys from China, they mark it up 1,000%.  That’s right, a Chinese factory worker makes less in a day’s work then the product they are producing.  Vietnamese workers, on the other hand, work for ten hours a day for six cents an hour.  Other sweatshops are in Haiti, Bangladesh, Thailand and Pakistan.  However, these conditions do not only apply to foreign countries, as cases of child labor for Disney have been found in both New York and Los Angeles.[4]

In Bangladesh, there is a saying “if you’re lucky, you’ll be a prostitute – if you’re unlucky, you’ll be a garment worker.”2  Others speak out against sweatshops as well.  Lina Meza, a factory worker in New York asserts “Almost no one goes to the bathroom, they feel embarrassed.  The bathroom is outside.  You have to leave the factory, go to the hallway.  It’s a bit dangerous because anyone can enter the bathrooms.  Also, there’s a part in the building that is unprotected.  You can easily fall into that empty space.”  This treatment shows the fear these children have to experience daily, working at Disney sweatshops.  It shows that Marx was right when saying that no company can ever be moral because they just care about capitalistic endeavors.  It shows that capitalists do not care about people, but only about the bottom line and receiving more money for themselves.

All of the sweatshops also show that Disney is alienating workers daily, and proving Marx to be right about his predictions.  They alienate their workers on many different levels.  First off, a Disney worker feels disconnected from the product they are making.  This is to say that the products become more alive than the worker, as they also go for a higher price value.  Also, the worker feels alienated from their labor since they do not want to do their job, and get no enjoyment out of it.  This also means that they are alienated from themselves due to the fact that without exerting creativity, a person becomes nothing more then an animal.  Finally, the sweatshop victim is alienated from the other workers, since they cannot interact with one another.  Other then that, these workers are spending their lives making a product they will never be able to purchase.  Up until the 1960’s only four percent of clothes were imported into America, but now it has increased to sixty percent.  This means that Marx’s theory has just increased over time, with more workers working for these capitalist businesses.

Businesses such as Disney Corporation do not only care about getting more money by increasing the rate of exploitation of their workers.  They also want to increase profit by monopolizing society.  Today Disney owns:

• Touchstone Films
•  Hollywood Pictures
•  Miramax Films
•  Buena Vista Pictures Distribution
• Buena Vista Television Distribution
• ABC TV and radio stations
• NHL
• The Disney Channel
• The Family Channel
• Siskel & Ebert at the Movies
• Hyperion Books
• ABC Publishing
• six US daily papers and their conglomerates
• special interest magazines
• Women’s Wear Daily magazine
• Family PC
• Hollywood Records
• Lyric Street Records
• Mammoth Records
• all of the ESPN’s
• E!
• The History Channel
• Infoseek
• Lifetime
• A&E
• Anaheim Mighty Ducks
• Anaheim Angels

just to name a few in America alone.  This is not to mention everything with the ‘Disney’ logo such as:

• Walt Disney Films
• The Disney Channel
• Disney Press
• Walt Disney Records
• Walt Disney World
• Disneyland
• Euro Disneyland
• Tokyo Disneyland
• Disney’s Animal Kingdom
• Disney Cruise Line
• Walt Disney Imagineering
• The Lion King on Broadway
• Beauty and the Beast on Broadway[5]

This demonstrates that Disney is dominating all mass media.  However, they have taken monopolization beyond that level.  Disney has actually created its own city.  They have actually taken capital and invested it in making a bigger franchise, instead of investing a little bit in the workers.  Disney now owns the first branded city; namely Celebration, Florida.  This town is built around a Disney branded lifestyle, where children go to Disney school and there is a Disney Town Council.  Disney wants their town to appear as “Small Town, USA” with no franchises or ads.  However, they are fooling their citizens.  The real reason Disney does not have franchises or ads is because they want to slowly monopolize America.  These citizens are not giving any money to any other business except for Disney.  This, according to Marx, is getting to the point where Disney will no longer have any more to monopolize.

Marx was correct in his assertions about the capitalistic world.  Disney shows clear ruthless and immoral behavior.  They have presented that the only thing that is important to them is the bottom line, while trying to create different ways to increase the rate of exploitation of their workers.  They still hold to slave and children labor at their industries, which can be found all over the world including in North America.  The bosses at Disney are getting richer while the poor have pitiful wages and live in horrible conditions.  Yet, when Disney makes more money, it is spent in monopolizing mass media across the world and building new towns where other sources of media cannot be found.  In this sense, Disney epitomizes Marx theories. 

Marx was right about Disney for the most part.  He commented on employees being exploited and bosses becoming richer.  He said that managers would always try to increase the rate of exploitation, disregarding that their workers are actual people.  He also said that the exploitation would lead to more money for the bosses, which will be recycled back into the venture.  This is seen with Disney as it dominates mass media today.  Marx predicted that companies in a capitalist society will try to monopolize the world, which Disney has clearly done by owning its own town.  All the while, Marx suggested, workers feel like they are inhuman and suffer.  Just think that while you are reading this, these kids are working for their twenty-eight cents a day.

References

1.  www.hinxmagazine.com/disney.html

2.  http://www.tabberone.com/Trademarks/SweatShops/FashionVictims/FashionVictims.html

3.  www.cleanclothes.org/companies/disney.

4.  www.anomalies-unlimited.com/Disney/Labor.html

5.  www.web.net/~mike/disney.html