ABSTRACT
This paper discusses the changing socialization of children to consumer culture at the end of the twentieth century by comparing how three different texts have historically constructed children's relationship to toys, which I argue are both market-produced commodities and also serve as an analogy for commodified labor. The lessons we teach children about the "proper" relationship to toys have implicit in them the social construction of what it means to be a consumer and worker under capital. The three case studies are The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams (1922) , Disney's Toy Story (1995) , and Beanie Babies.
