Fetishism Of Commodity By Carl Marx And Hubert Marcuse

Value is the capitalist’s most important tool. Carl Marx and Hubert Marcuse both understood that commodities were the driving force in a capitalist society. They understood that our capitalist economy is based on persuading men that happiness is achieved by buying things that someone else has produced and that buying these things will keep other men happy and employed. Progress and mechanization cause people to appear independent, but in fact, it has made people more reliant on these “things”. This progression has afforded capitalist leaders the ability to achieve social control over the masses. Marx, in the essay Fetishism of Commodity, criticizes capitalism for exploiting people for their labor. A commodity, according to Marx, can have a use-value because it satisfies a person’s need or it can have an exchange-value, because it has value in relation to something else. Regardless, all commodities are a result of an infusion of labor. Men have no intrinsic satisfaction for working except to receive a paycheck and although it would seem logical that the value of a commodity would be determined by the amount of labor that went into making the object, Marx says that this is not the case. Industry in a capitalistic society, he explains, treats objects as if they themselves have value. This has influenced a society to perceive that the
It seems, that Mr. Ma values his employees. Although there is no overtime at the company and employees work until the job is done, he pushes them to take their own initiative. These employees work hard, not only because they have to produce, but because they are encouraged by their productivity. The people who work do so for the team and the wares. This might be the type of work ethic that Marx believed creates a successful