Marxism 108: Commodity Fetishism

This video explains exactly what the psychological reaction human beings have in relationship to the material objects which are manifest in the market. This psychological reaction is called 'Commodity Fetishism'.

"A commodity appears at first sight an extremely obvious, trivial thing. But its analysis brings out that it is a very strange thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties. The mysterious character of the commodity-form consists therefore simply in the fact that the commodity reflects the social characteristics of men's own labour as objective characteristics of the products of labour themselves, as the socio-natural properties of these things"

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• 108
• economy
• politics
• Marxism
• Economics
• commodities
• fetishism
• alienation

[MakeItJungle]

Am I listening to a fucking computer? Dammit....

[TheCommunard]

@MakeItJungle What else would you be listening to?

[DrStrangelove666]

I'm a noob and just woke up so please forgive if my questions are stupid.

Isn't there a flaw with this reasoning in that the value of human life is itself just a fetish? I mean in the grand scheme of things, we only have worth because we say we have worth.

Second, how would Marxism handle a world in which all human labor has been replaced with machines owned equally by all mankind?

[TheCommunard]

@DrStrangelove666

Humans have real value in their capacities and their feelings. So human life has intrinsic value, whereas commodities have 'fetishised' value.

As for the machine question. Firstly, no value would be created. Yet you could still have enterprise where prices are set on these machines' products, yet if there were no human labour there would be no one to buy the products. This would essentially over ride the requirement for a revolution, and all mankind could own them equally.

[TheCommunard]

@DrStrangelove666 In other words, that would arouse in capitalism what Marx called 'fetters.' When fetters arise in the mode of production, i.e. it collapses, the economic system must throw them off and advance to a higher mode of production. This is almost universally applicable in history.

The world where everything is produced by machines could only be a communist world, i.e. one where all the machines are indeed owned equally by all mankind.

[TheCommunard]

@DrStrangelove666 Oh, just to clarify - human labour is fetishised, since it is a commodity.

[Forkroute]

very nice