Commodity Fetishism In Karl Marx's Critique Of Capitalism
Alina Ossi
Exam 2 Essay
December 7, 2016
Commodity Fetishism is basically socialization that’s blurred by thing-hood. For Karl Marx, commodity fetishism is the discernment of social relationships that go along with production, thus creating an economic type relationship. It’s the connection between money and commodities that are being traded in the capitalist market. In Marx’s Critique of Capitalism, Volume One, he states “It is clear as noon-day, that man, by his industry, changes the forms of the materials furnished by Nature, in such a way as to make them useful to him (p. 320). Marx then goes to talk about the form of wood. It is the natural material given to us that we then alter, and make into a table. Then, the table takes steps to being a commodity, “it is changed into something transcendent” (320).
Commodities are created not based off of their use value, but by the human ability to have useful kinds of labour, and productive activity, which then produces qualitative and quantitative labour. Then we have to look at labour-time. People aren’t going to put in the work if there is no interest in producing the object. The quantitative value …show more content…
“An immediate consequence of the fact that man is estranged from the product of his labour, from his life activity, from his species being is the estrangement of man from man” (Tucker 77). Labourers no longer look at each other as another human, but as an object, or threat. Instead of working together, we alienate ourselves to where we have to do better or more than the other guy, so long as that means we continue to be able to survive. In Hegel’s Lordship and Bondage, the lord looks at the bondsman as an object, as if he is not as valuable as the Lord. As humans we have the capability of deciding to use the fact that we can make choices and fix things to where there is equality and survival, or we can reduce ourselves to animals and just focus on survival though
Exam 2 Essay
December 7, 2016
Commodity Fetishism is basically socialization that’s blurred by thing-hood. For Karl Marx, commodity fetishism is the discernment of social relationships that go along with production, thus creating an economic type relationship. It’s the connection between money and commodities that are being traded in the capitalist market. In Marx’s Critique of Capitalism, Volume One, he states “It is clear as noon-day, that man, by his industry, changes the forms of the materials furnished by Nature, in such a way as to make them useful to him (p. 320). Marx then goes to talk about the form of wood. It is the natural material given to us that we then alter, and make into a table. Then, the table takes steps to being a commodity, “it is changed into something transcendent” (320).
Commodities are created not based off of their use value, but by the human ability to have useful kinds of labour, and productive activity, which then produces qualitative and quantitative labour. Then we have to look at labour-time. People aren’t going to put in the work if there is no interest in producing the object. The quantitative value …show more content…
“An immediate consequence of the fact that man is estranged from the product of his labour, from his life activity, from his species being is the estrangement of man from man” (Tucker 77). Labourers no longer look at each other as another human, but as an object, or threat. Instead of working together, we alienate ourselves to where we have to do better or more than the other guy, so long as that means we continue to be able to survive. In Hegel’s Lordship and Bondage, the lord looks at the bondsman as an object, as if he is not as valuable as the Lord. As humans we have the capability of deciding to use the fact that we can make choices and fix things to where there is equality and survival, or we can reduce ourselves to animals and just focus on survival though