In April, when the Orion capsule orbited the far side of the Moon, humanity experienced a remarkable milestone in science and technology. For the first time in over fifty years, humans personally saw Earth rise above the lunar horizon. The Artemis II astronauts reached for a device to capture this historic moment not a specialised tool or custom aerospace equipment, but a consumer device: the iPhone 17 Pro Max.
NASA’s choice to include the device on Orion was deliberate. It involved a thorough, multistep safety review: turning off all radios, studying glass-shatter physics, testing the titanium frame in a vacuum, and confirming the phone wouldn’t interfere with navigation systems. The device was simplified to just recording images and securely placed inside the astronauts’ suits. Its use remained strictly controlled.
The images of Earth with auroras at both poles, the stark lunar far side, and astronauts seen through Orion’s cabin windows reflect decades of scientific progress and the work of thousands of engineers, technicians, and workers across continents. They represent a collective societal achievement. Within days, Apple’s leadership seized the opportunity. Then CEO Tim Cook and marketing chief Greg Joswiak posted congratulatory messages on social media, turning a scientific milestone into a branding opportunity. Apple repurposed the iconic Earthrise images over the Moon for the “Shot on iPhone” campaign. Apple transformed what was originally a testament to human collaborative effort into a marketing tool.
Five months later, the reason for this excitement became evident. On September 9, 2026, Apple introduced the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max. As expected, the main highlight was the camera. Apple showcased a new 48MP main sensor with a variable aperture, along with the A20 Pro chip and a vapour chamber cooling system that it claimed delivered the highest sustained performance ever in an iPhone. Prices increased accordingly: the iPhone 18 Pro now starts at $1,199, marking a $100 rise from the previous year. Bloomberg reported that the foldable version would surpass $2,000.
The comparison reveals an important insight. A device built through global labour exploitation marks humanity’s return to the Moon. A highly profitable corporation then claims the rights to these images. Several months later, it sells a newer version of the same device to the working class at an even higher cost. Both the Moon, the Earth, and scientific progress are turned into commodities to be bought and sold.
The Commodification of Scientific Achievement
The Artemis II mission is a true testament to human ingenuity, illustrating the combined efforts of scientists, engineers, and workers whose collective labour has enabled humans to return near the Moon. Each part of the Orion spacecraft, along with every line of code, instrument, and sensor, reflects decades of scientific research, social experience, and technical improvements. It stands as a victory not of individual talent or corporate progress but of society’s collaborative effort.
Under capitalism, even the greatest scientific breakthroughs are driven by private profit. When Artemis II orbited behind the Moon, a moment meant for all humanity, a major corporation quickly claimed it. The astronauts reached for a consumer device, the iPhone 17 Pro Max, to record the view. This was not a showcase of Apple’s engineering but a carefully controlled use of a consumer gadget in a scientific mission, after NASA turned off its radios, tested its materials, and limited what it could do.
Apple quickly seized the achievement, with executives flooding social media with congratulatory posts. They turned a major scientific milestone into a market spectacle. The iconic images of Earth rising over the lunar horizon, shaped by decades of scientific effort and thousands of workers, were repurposed as advertising content. What was once human heritage became a marketing tool.
This reflects the core of commodity fetishism. The social labour involved miners extracting rare earth metals under harsh conditions, assembly line workers in China and India working in large factories, and engineers creating sensors and firmware is obscured. Instead, we see the illusion of a self-sufficient technological marvel, attributed to corporate brilliance rather than collective effort. The iPhone appears as a standalone technological wonder, with its capabilities seeming to arise from Apple’s executives’ ingenuity rather than from the work of millions.
Images from Artemis II, taken by workers risking their lives, are used to justify a $1,199 price. The working class is asked to pay increasing prices for products they help create. The same workers who assemble these devices can’t afford them. Millions worldwide face rising living costs, stagnant wages, and shrinking social services, yet they are told the latest gadget made through their own exploited labour is essential for modern life.
The iPhone’s presence on Orion symbolises how capitalism warps scientific progress, turning it from a collective human achievement into a source of profit. The Moon becomes a setting for advertising, with scientists’ and astronauts’ work serving marketing purposes. Private firms commandeer society’s accomplishments and sell them back to workers at high prices. Artemis II shows what humanity can achieve through shared scientific efforts. However, under capitalism, even space becomes a commodity. The Moon landing is exploited for corporate branding, and innovations born from collective labour are used for private wealth. Workers face the stark truth that technologies they develop, such as lunar-based Earth imaging, are owned and monetised by the capitalist elite.
The Global Labour Chain Behind the iPhone
Every iPhone results from a complex, global network of exploited labour. Behind its sleek design, a social process spans continents, connecting miners, factory workers, engineers, and logistics staff in a capitalist production system. The minerals used in its components, such as cobalt, lithium, nickel, copper, and rare earth elements, are mined under brutal conditions in Africa and Latin America. Workers often operate in dangerous environments without proper safety gear, risking exposure to toxic dust, tunnel collapses, and exploitative subcontractors. Child labour remains widespread in parts of the cobalt supply chain. The raw materials of what is called the “most advanced consumer device in history” are tainted with the sweat and blood of some of the world’s poorest populations.
Materials are then shipped to East Asia, where workers produce chips and components under intense supervision and pressure. Semiconductor plants in Taiwan, South Korea, and China operate with military-like discipline. Workers endure long hours, repetitive tasks, and constant oversight. Even minor procedural mistakes can ruin millions of dollars worth of wafers, leading management to enforce strict behavioural rules to maintain productivity. The socalled “miracle” of the Aseries chip, praised by Apple as a symbol of innovation, is actually the result of disciplined labour, years of scientific expertise, and the exploitation of thousands of skilled workers whose efforts often go unnoticed.
Devices are assembled in largescale factories in China, India, and Vietnam, where hundreds of thousands of workers operate continuously. The conditions are severe: crowded dormitories, strict security, long overtime hours, and wages barely enough for basic needs. Workers have repeatedly protested through walkouts, strikes, and uprisings. The 2022 rebellion at Foxconn’s Zhengzhou plant, the world’s largest iPhone factory, highlighted the harsh realities behind Apple’s sleek image. Workers protested unsafe environments, withheld wages, and opposed strict COVID lockdowns. Footage showed clashes with security, workers fleeing on foot, and criticism of management. This uprising uncovered deep social tensions involved in producing Apple’s flagship product.
However, these workers do not benefit directly from the value they generate. Instead, it flows upward to Apple’s shareholders, executives, and investors. Apple boasts trillions of dollars in market value. Its executives earn multimillion-dollar compensation packages. Shareholders receive large dividends. The company retains substantial cash reserves, conducts extensive stock buybacks, and earns rental income through its App Store and subscription services. The labour of millions is concentrated into profits for a small elite.
Meanwhile, those who make the devices cannot afford them. Miners who extract cobalt cannot buy an iPhone, nor can assembly workers who solder components or logistics staff who ship devices globally. Even in the US and Britain, millions face rising living costs, stagnant wages, and worsening social services. They are required to pay $1,199 or $2,000 for the foldable version of products created through their own exploited labour.
This core contradiction of capitalism highlights that the working class creates society’s wealth but cannot enjoy its benefits. The iPhone exemplifies this starkly: hailed as a technological achievement, yet its production relies on exploiting workers worldwide. Promoted as a tool to boost creativity, it is, in reality, built on suppressing workers’ rights. While admired for its innovative design, it depends on harsh mineral extraction and the strict labour of factory workers.
Apple’s marketing conceals this reality. The corporation presents the iPhone as a self-contained technological miracle, the product of visionary leadership and corporate genius. Commodity fetishism reaches its highest expression: the social labour embodied in the device is erased, replaced by the illusion of autonomous technological creation. The iPhone appears as a thing with its own inherent value, detached from the labour that produced it.
The working class faces this contradiction firsthand: they produce the device but must give up an increasing part of their wages to buy it. They generate the wealth, yet the capitalist class takes it. The iPhone is more than a consumer product; it symbolises the global exploitation capitalism relies on and highlights the need for a socialist restructuring of production, where workers reap the benefits.
Artemis II and the Militarisation of Space
The Artemis program reflects capitalism’s contradictions. Washington presents it as a strategic rivalry with China, aiming to dominate cislunar space, access lunar resources, and expand military influence beyond Earth orbit. This isn’t solely scientific exploration; it continues imperialist competition into space. The same motives behind tariffs, sanctions, and semiconductor battles fuel the lunar race.
Private contractors build the rockets, capsules, and systems used in Artemis, profiting enormously from government contracts. Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and SpaceX all stand to gain. The scientific labour of thousands is subordinated to corporate profit interests and the geopolitical aims of American imperialism. The iPhone embodies these same relations. It is a consumer device built through exploited labour, marketed through spectacle, and sold at inflated prices. Its presence aboard Artemis II is symbolic: the commodification of scientific achievement, the subordination of exploration to profit, and the transformation of collective labour into private property.
Leadership Change Without Strategic Change
Apple’s new CEO, John Ternus, led the iPhone 18 Pro launch amid typical corporate applause. The tech media noted it as his “first appearance” at the flagship store, implying his personality mattered, though it doesn’t affect the core social and economic forces shaping Apple. In truth, this leadership change changes nothing. Apple’s core focus remains unchanged: maximising profits by commodifying technology, increasing exploitation across its global supply chains, and expanding rent-seeking practices that keep consumers more tightly integrated into its ecosystem.
The corporation’s strategy is shaped not by its executives’ personal preferences but by its nature as a large capitalist enterprise. Apple must prioritise maximising shareholder value, diversifying revenue sources, and boosting profit margins. This necessity is unavoidable, as it stems from the fundamental principles of capitalism, which place all human endeavours scientific, cultural, and technological under the goal of accumulating private wealth.
Apple continues to focus on increasing revenue per device. The starting price of $1,199 for the iPhone 18 Pro reflects a sustained trend, not an anomaly. Each year, Apple tends to raise prices, make repairs more difficult, and restrict features with proprietary hardware. The company’s marketing often portrays each new release as revolutionary, even when updates are minor. This strategy seems aimed more at fostering artificial scarcity and dependency than at genuine innovation. As a result, the working class feels pressured to buy increasingly expensive devices to stay connected and participate in modern society.
In addition to rising hardware prices, Apple has increased its focus on subscription-based revenue. Services like iCloud+, Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, and AppleCare are becoming an increasingly significant part of the company’s income. These subscriptions are not meant to offer essential services but are intended to generate steady, recurring fees that flow from consumers to shareholders. This approach exemplifies rentier capitalism: earning income not from manufacturing or production, but through ownership and control of digital assets.
Apple’s integration of “AI” features aims to enhance its ecosystem. These features are promoted as advances in productivity, creativity, and convenience but primarily serve to generate revenue. AI-driven photo editing, writing tools, and device optimisation are linked to hardware upgrades and subscription plans. Although Apple claims these features represent the future of computing, their main purpose is to justify price hikes and keep users within their closed ecosystem. The narrative of innovation conceals a core economic strategy: turning routine digital activities into a continuous income source.
Apple utilises cultural spectacle to justify rising prices. Its marketing, from “Shot on iPhone” to keynote events, fosters an image of exclusivity and desirability. Featuring an iPhone on Artemis II becomes a marketing tactic, linking the device to scientific and exploratory achievements. The company rebrands collective accomplishments as proof of its technological dominance. This spectacle masks the underlying exploitation in manufacturing and normalises the increasing costs of engaging with Apple’s ecosystem.
What Technology Could Be Under Socialism
The technological capacities on display a pocket-sized device capable of recording the Earth setting behind the Moon demonstrate with striking clarity what humanity can achieve when scientific knowledge accumulates across generations. The iPhone’s ability to function, even in a tightly constrained and safety modified form, aboard a spacecraft orbiting the Moon is not a testament to Apple’s corporate genius but to society’s collective labour. It reflects centuries of scientific inquiry, decades of engineering refinement, and the coordinated labour of tens of thousands of workers across multiple continents. The problem is not the technology itself. It is the social system in which the technology is developed, deployed, and ultimately commodified.
Under a rational, socialist organisation of production, the immense scientific and technical capacities embodied in devices like the iPhone would be liberated from the profit system. Advances in optics, sensors, and computing would be planned democratically to meet human needs, not to maximise quarterly earnings. Space exploration would be international, cooperative, and nonmilitarized, guided by the principle that humanity’s expansion beyond Earth must serve peaceful and scientific purposes. Devices would be designed for durability, accessibility, and universal benefit, not planned obsolescence or rent extraction through subscription services. The fruits of scientific labour would belong to all humanity, not to shareholders. The Moon and the technologies that reach it would be treated as common heritage, not as marketing material for a trillion-dollar corporation.
The contrast is stark. Capitalism turns collective achievement into private property. Socialism would turn private property back into collective achievement. The images taken aboard Artemis II point to what is possible. They show the Earth as a fragile sphere suspended in darkness, a reminder of humanity’s shared fate. They show the Moon as a world that belongs to all people, not to corporations or nations. They show human labour’s capacity to transcend boundaries, overcome immense technical challenges, and reach new horizons. They reveal the potential of a society organised around cooperation rather than competition, around human need rather than private profit.
But under capitalism, even these images are commodified. They become advertisements for a $1,199 device. They become instruments of profit extraction. The scientific achievement of returning human beings to the Moon becomes a backdrop for corporate branding. The labour of astronauts, engineers, and scientists becomes raw material for marketing campaigns. The heavens themselves the Moon, the Earth, the vast expanse of space are transformed into commodities.
The story of the iPhone aboard Artemis II is not a trivial anecdote. It is a microcosm of the entire capitalist system. Corporations appropriate scientific achievement. Collective labour becomes private profit. The working class is asked to purchase the products of its own exploitation. The technologies that enable exploration of the Moon, the devices that capture images of the Earth, and the scientific achievements that expand human knowledge are all subordinated to the profit interests of a tiny minority.
The return to the Moon should be a moment of global unity, a demonstration of humanity’s capacity for cooperation and scientific progress. Instead, it becomes a marketing opportunity for Apple and a geopolitical manoeuvre for American imperialism. Artemis II is framed not as a scientific mission but as part of a strategic competition with China, an extension of great-power rivalry into cislunar space. Private contractors build the rockets, capsules, and systems used in the mission, profiting enormously from government contracts. The scientific labour of thousands is subordinated to corporate profit interests and the geopolitical aims of the American ruling class.
The working class must draw the necessary conclusions. The technologies that enable exploration of the Moon, the devices that capture images of the Earth, and the scientific achievements that expand human knowledge must be liberated from the profit system. They must be placed under democratic, socialist control. Only then can scientific progress serve humanity as a whole rather than the narrow interests of shareholders and imperialist governments.
The Moon belongs to all of humanity. So too should the fruits of the labour that took us there. The images captured aboard Artemis II reveal not only the beauty of the Earth and the Moon but the potential of human labour when freed from the constraints of capitalism. They point toward a future in which scientific achievement is no longer commodified, technology serves human need, and the heavens are explored not for profit or geopolitical advantage but to advance knowledge and enrich human life.
The task before the working class is clear: to overthrow the capitalist system that commodifies the heavens and to build a socialist society in which the full potential of human ingenuity can be realised. Only then will the Moon, the Earth, and the technologies that connect them truly belong to all.
Further Reading
1. Commodity Fetishism & Technology
Fuchs, C. (2014). “Digital Labour and Karl Marx.” Routledge. A foundational text in Marxist digital labour theory. Fuchs analyses how consumer technologies embody hidden labour relations and argues that digital commodities intensify fetishism by obscuring global labour chains.
Graham, M. & Anwar, M. (2019). “The global gig economy: Towards a planetary labour market?” First Monday, 24(4). Explores how digital commodities rely on dispersed labour networks. Useful for framing the iPhone as a planetary commodity.
Mosco, V. (2016). “The Paywall: The Business of Scholarship in the Digital Age.” Digital Journalism, 4(1). Discusses how digital infrastructures become rentextraction mechanisms directly relevant to Apple’s subscription strategy.
2. Global Supply Chains & Electronics Labour
Chan, J. (2013). “A suicide survivor: The life of a Chinese worker.” New Technology, Work and Employment, 28(2). A detailed ethnographic study of Foxconn labour conditions. Essential for grounding your section on the Zhengzhou uprising.
Pun, N. & Chan, J. (2012). “Global Capital, the State, and Chinese Workers: The Foxconn Experience.” Modern China, 38(4). Examines Foxconn’s labour regime, militarised management, and the structural exploitation behind electronics assembly.
Smith, J. (2016). “Imperialism in the Twenty-First Century: Globalisation, SuperExploitation, and Capitalism’s Final Crisis.” Monthly Review Press. Not an article but widely cited in journals; provides the theoretical basis for analysing global labour arbitrage in electronics.
3. Space Exploration, Imperialism & Geopolitics
Siddiqi, A. (2015). “The Red Rocket’s Glare: Spaceflight and the Soviet Imagination.” Cambridge University Press. Shows how space exploration has historically been embedded in state power and geopolitical rivalry.
JohnsonFrey, S. (2020). “Militarisation of Cislunar Space.” Astropolitics, 18(3). Explores how US space policy increasingly frames the Moon as a strategic domain directly relevant to your Artemis II analysis.
Gorman, A. (2009). “The archaeology of space exploration.” Journal of Social Archaeology, 9(1). Argues that space artefacts (including images) become cultural commodities, a perfect academic parallel to your “heavens as commodity” argument.
4. Science & Technology Studies (STS) Perspectives
Winner, L. (1980). “Do Artefacts Have Politics?” Daedalus, 109(1). A classic argument that technologies embody political relations, foundational for your claim that the iPhone reflects capitalist social relations.
Edwards, P. (2010). “A Vast Machine: Computer Models, Climate Data, and the Politics of Knowledge.” MIT Press. Shows how scientific infrastructures are shaped by political economy, useful for framing NASA’s technological systems.
Suchman, L. (2007). “Human-Machine Reconfigurations.” Cambridge University Press. Explores how human labour and machines coproduce meaning, relevant to your analysis of astronauts using consumer devices.
Academic Bibliography
Marxist Theory & Political Economy
- Marx, K. (1867) Capital: Volume I. Hamburg: Otto Meissner Verlag.
- Marx, K. (1859) A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. Berlin: Franz Duncker.
- Lenin, V.I. (1916) Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism. Petrograd: Zhizn i Znanie.
- Smith, J. (2016) Imperialism in the Twenty-First Century. New York: Monthly Review Press.
- Fuchs, C. (2014) Digital Labour and Karl Marx. London: Routledge.
Global Labour Chains & Electronics
- Chan, J. (2013) ‘A suicide survivor: The life of a Chinese worker’, New Technology, Work and Employment, 28(2), pp. 84–96.
- Pun, N. & Chan, J. (2012) ‘Global Capital, the State, and Chinese Workers: The Foxconn Experience’, Modern China, 38(4), pp. 383–408.
- Graham, M. & Anwar, M. (2019) ‘The global gig economy: Towards a planetary labour market?’, First Monday, 24(4).
Space Exploration, Imperialism & Geopolitics
- Siddiqi, A. (2015) The Red Rocket’s Glare. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- JohnsonFrey, S. (2020) ‘Militarisation of Cislunar Space’, Astropolitics, 18(3), pp. 210–230.
- Gorman, A. (2009) ‘The archaeology of space exploration’, Journal of Social Archaeology, 9(1), pp. 85–109.
Science & Technology Studies
- Winner, L. (1980) ‘Do Artefacts Have Politics?’, Daedalus, 109(1), pp. 121–136.
- Edwards, P. (2010) A Vast Machine. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
- Suchman, L. (2007) HumanMachine Reconfigurations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Capitalism, Technology & Culture
- Mosco, V. (2016) ‘The Paywall: The Business of Scholarship in the Digital Age’, Digital Journalism, 4(1), pp. 1–18.
- Srnicek, N. (2017) Platform Capitalism. Cambridge: Polity Press.
