Not only is Mariah’s magnum opus – also known as All I Want for Christmas Is You (And A Proletarian Revolution) – extremely catchy, but it is a clear criticism of the excesses of festive capitalism. I mean, it’s basically the
Das Kapital of Christmas music. Take, for example, the intro: “I-I-I don’t want a lot for Christmas / There is just one thing I need / I don’t care about the presents / Underneath the Christmas tree.” What Mariah is really saying here is: “Capitalist production, during the holidays, produces not only commodities, not only surplus value, but it also produces and reproduces the capitalist relation; on the one side the capitalist, on the other the elf-labourer.”