Fetishism of Commodities the Wealth

Fetishism of Commodities The wealth of societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails, presents itself as an 'immense accumulation of commodities'…" (Marx 303). Today, more than ever, it represents an axiom about the centers of highly developed capitalism, with the focus being on global income, purchasing power, and personal consumption of different commodities.

Commodity fetishism, as Marx so aptly named his theory concerning commodities (essentially society's relations with things), is a main tenet in Marxist theory, as well as an increasingly important term in this day and age (especially when it comes to globalization). This paper will attempt to illustrate what commodity fetishism actually is and what it can tell us about how human functions and their relationships under capitalism.

This paper will also explore how commodity fetishism commands that all social relations be guided through the market and through the medium of commodity exchange; commodity fetishism has no interest in freedom or social equality -- an idea that should make us think twice about the claim that capitalism is the forerunner of democracy.

Marx used the word fetish when describing how people try to make sense of the world in which they live -- that is, he suggested that people have a "commodity fetish" and they have to obsess about money in order to understand the world they live in. He also believed that these same fetishes were the exact things that prevented people from seeing the truth about money and the society in which they lived. Essentially, he believed that classes were always exploiting one another.

How this pertains to social issues is that the fetishes allow capitalists to go on acting in their capitalist ways without having to think about the real consequences of that very exploitation system on which they survive. What is a commodity? Marx defined a commodity as, "an object outside us, a thing that by its properties satisfies human wants of some sort or another. The nature of such wants, whether,…they spring from the stomach or from fancy, makes no difference" (Marx 303).

Commodity fetishism occurs when there is a certain desirable value placed on a commodity. Commodity fetishism rules that social relations will be defined in terms of these values, making the commodities a vital part of all social relations in a capitalist society. Marx thought that the commodity has the ability to keep its true nature hidden from people and can therefore enter into social developments taking place without us even knowing (essentially behind our backs).

It appears that Marx is saying that people tend to move about in a world that is not a true world, or a true reality -- that is, there are many visible things that are given certain qualities or values that come from social processes, specifically processes of production, which Marx would likely call exploitation and class struggle because of the fact that concrete labor transforms into the abstract of the labor market. Therefore, things are given attributes that come from their social essence.

Marx stated, There is a definite social relation between men, that assumes, in their eyes, the fantastic form of a relation between things… This I call the Fetishism which attaches itself to the products of labour, so soon as they are produced as commodities, and which is therefore inseparable from the production of commodities (Marx 321). Commodity fetishism happens because under capitalism the medium of exchange of the whole of individuals' material lives is the commodity.

A person trades his (or her) labor, a type of commodity in itself, for money, another type of commodity, which is then exchanged for other commodities no longer produced by the person or even the community -- for that matter. It is only the commodities that change hands as they are exchanged according to the value that is given to them by a fetishizing desire.

Because commodities can be exchanged for one another, Marx believed that all commodities have something in common (and one of the most interesting aspects of commonality is the fact that nearly all of the producers of commodities remain, for the most part, invisible). This commonality cannot be ascribed to their use value because they differ in quality. Marx drew the conclusion then that capital (in general) and fetishism (specifically) "must be equal to a third, which in itself is neither the one nor the other" (Marx).

This third thing is different from the use value of the goods concerned and thus also from that which provides these goods with their visibility and materiality and makes them useful with respect to the satisfaction of consumer needs. It remains invisible and becomes a sort of abstraction and escapes the consumer's awareness. The value of commodities is quite illogical and incredibly random, according to Marxist theory.

A gemstone is more valuable than a carton of eggs, for example; however, the carton of eggs is by far more valuable in terms of practical living because food is something we require to live; a gemstone is not needed for anything but status, greed, etc. Capitalism fetishizes commodities and imbues them with values that are way out of proportion to their function or usefulness to individuals or communities. The illusion that value comes from the commodity itself and not from the social relations behind it is a fetish.

Marx believed that a capitalist society is full of these types of illusions. Money, for example, is considered the most valuable in qualities, but it is only because it is used to express the value of all other commodities. Profit may seem to come.