@@Sheh1000 rarely and usually very little, some universities do have entire classes on marx though, but very few. marx is usually touched on for a class period and then they want you to forget about it.
@@Sheh1000 They do not. Since the director of the Marxist-Lenninist institute was sent to die in a Russian concentration camp I seriously doubt Marx is taught in Russia too.
@@Sheh1000 Curriculum varies wildly between schools, cities, & states in the US so it would be hard to assume anything at all is taught in all of them. In general though once you get to college you'll hear about him one way or another. I only learned his general theory in high school in an optional philosophy class, and now I've probably studied him in over 6 college classes
I became so involved in only buying commodities that have transparent manufacturing practices. One time I bought a cotton shirt from one of these ethically sustainable small independent shop. When they shipped my shirt, they also sent the cotton farmers and the person who made my shirt pictures and names, I actually for the first time knew the identity of the people who made my shirt. the entire experience felt very real and authentic, but I still questioned the ethical part of it. I questioned the fact that I had the means/money to buy that shirt.. while the farmer and the person who made my shirt were only able to make them. It just something is extremely disturbing about capitalism. I couldn't help it but to think that the U.S. with it's imperialist/capitalist practices enforced that dynamic on the world. Thank you for this video, its very informative.
Spot on. There is a popular saying that there is no ethical consumption under capitalism (mostly because of the profit motive and exploration in the system) The truth is, we can spend out whole life focusing on the aesthetics of it all like using metal staws, tote bags, and recycling, (which is the liberal approach) or we can get to the source of the issue. A systemic one.
@@lilfoward1832 I literally came here to quote that saying! There is something even more sinister in these "ethical capitalist" types making desperate attempts to show how "ethical" their mode of production is by sending pictures of little smiley kids in whatever third world country they buy their labour from. Capitalism is capitalism, and putting a smiley face on the whole thing is like a peculiar form of crypto-fascism almost. "Fair trade coffee" as well. It is as ridiculous as fair trade cocaine, or fair trade oil. "War Free Oil" - imagine that! "The petroleum you are using was sourced ethically from a country that is not currently a war zone between competing imperialist powers or between multinational corporations, backed by the CIA, and an organised resistance movement of communists and indigenous people - drive safely!".
@@the_local_bigamist You're correct. Except for it being fascistic, which it isn't. Fascism comes from the top down when the elite and capitalists tries to hold on to their power in times of crisis or revolt. Anyways, the fair trade thing is bs, you're right. It's just like the ethically sourced stamps on fish or other products. It doesn't make a difference at the end of the day and its just aesthetics and liberal pandering.
@@lilfoward1832 You're right of course, but I think that this is how fascism will come, I just got distracted and didn't really follow through with what I was saying. I was thinking banks with pride flags pasted everywhere and things like that. "We care, but we will re-posses your home". I think that the next wave of fascism will utilise the aesthetics that we associate with modern "liberalism" and this pretence of "ethical consumption", much like "green capitalism". In Britain for example, our recent Home Secretaries (minister in charge of policing, security and all that) have been implementing policies that could have come from a National Front leaflet in the 70s and the the last two Home Secs have actually been people of colour. I think that as with all socioeconomic systems, fascism adapts and naturally its aesthetics adapt with it. Of course what we were talking about were more petit-bourgeois operations but I think that this kind of thinking and the whole facade of "ethics" and smiley aesthetics both comes from the top and the bottom in the usual dialectical way and I think that the creeping fascism we are seeing as a result of capitalism's crisis will be a lot more colourful and "friendly-looking" than that of the interwar period. But the ruling class are afraid now of the potential of the working masses in a similar way to back then - here in Britain we are seeing the re-emergence of organised labour which has shocked the bourgeoisie and their media have been unable to demonise it in the eyes of the working masses. The unions have sympathy, and so we can imagine what kinds of things will come next. Of course we are talking about historical materialism. I didn't expand on my point enough but I hope you see what I mean, it is something that I have been considering for a while and I heard it elsewhere first I think. And the petit-bourgeois is essentially the microcosmic version of monopoly capitalism anyway and so many of these "ethical companies" will be chewed up by the big boys, if they haven't already been, and the image that they have constructed will remain intact as part of the "brand", much as the big corporations and conglomerates have been attempting to construct a "progressive" aesthetic through their public relations.
There's a VERY good video by Yugopnik, well ALL of his videos are BANGERS! But he has a video on surviving capitalism as a Leftist/ Socialist/ Communist and in it he explains that while you should try to be as aware of how ethically sourced/ produced the products your purchasing are. You also shouldn't stress yourself out about too much to where it's becoming a detriment to your mental health or your financial means. Also to remember, that NO matter how ethical your product has been sourced/ produced and how ethically the company pays their workers, THERE IS NO ETHICAL CONSUMPTION UNDER CAPITALISM. He also adds that getting TOO caught up on ethical consumption can also lead to purity politics, which is something we must avoid.
@@lukebrown13 I've had to stop my reading due to life circumstances, though so far I've read up to where Marx is discussing the so called magic of money and its got me thinking about how fiat currency only has value because a government says it has value. I wonder what he'd think of bitcoin
@@missZoey5387 thats hilarious to think about lmfao. ive been trying to find more educational content on socialism and marxist theory, its so hard to find and you already know america doesnt have any school programs teaching marx economics 😭
I've got a couple of questions here because this one is one of the most difficult things about Marx and yet one of the most used and famous concepts: 1) Were pre-capitalists societies based on people relations and not through things? In other words what's the difference between a pre-capitalist society and a capitalist one? 2) What if we know what's 'behind' that t-shirt -you already know it in the video-, the exploitation, the people, names, etc.-. Does it make a difference in relation with the fetish qualities of the t-shirt? And related to the first question: Did people in the past know everything behind the commodities they exchanged?
These are excellent questions, and you are right, this is a rather difficult concept. 1. As Marx understood it, the fetishization of the *commodity* is a phenomenon unique to capitalism. To be sure, fetishization of objects existed before capitalism. But fetish objects were largely religious in nature and their "powers" were spiritual (think religious iconography, idolatry, etc.). Commodities are also not unique to capitalism -- they existed in pre-capitalist societies as well. The difference between pre-capitalist societies and capitalist ones is that the production of commodities is at the core of the economic structure of the latter. The production of commodities is a central force in capitalism. In feudal societies, many products of labor were not necessarily commodities. The crop yield of serfs, for example, was split directly after production, with some going to the lords and some remaining in the hands of the peasant laborers. This type of economic activity made up a large part of social relations in previous societies. As commodity production and exchange became the dominant form of social relations -- the very definition of capitalism -- commodity fetishism became a society-wide occurrence. I don't want to cite any literature because I'm not sure where this might be written, but I believe that commodity fetishism as a phenomenon is really only notable exactly when it becomes pervasive in society. In other words, only under capitalism, where commodity production and exchange prevail as the fuel economic forces, can the fetishism of commodities really exist. 2. Again, this is not strictly referencing any one work, but I would say that knowing what's "behind" the t-shirt is similar to taking medicine to relieve symptoms of a cold. The veil that commodity fetishism creates is a symptom, not necessarily the fetish quality itself. At the end of the day, social relations would continue to manifest themselves through objects instead of people, even if every step in the "journey" of the commodity was transparent. 3. In the past, it may have been even harder to know everything about the commodity being exchanged. People didn't have access to information the way we do now, especially in the last few decades with the advent of the internet and digital databases. However, commodities did not play the central role they play now, under developed capitalism. The majority of the population did not engage in the production of commodities. The main movers of commodities, merchants, did not hire laborers and keep the products of their labor. Most commodities were made and sold by the same person or group of people, i.e. the producers and sellers were not always a distinct class. So when commodities were exchanged, the act may very well have been closer to interpersonal relations as opposed to social relations mediated by objects. Also, the average person did not need to engage in the exchange of commodities on a daily basis, unlike the average person under capitalism. A peasant, for example, made a lot of his/her own tools, clothing, housing, furniture, and trinkets. By and large peasants were also responsible for feeding themselves on a daily basis. So even if there might have been a couple moment of interaction with commodities of unknown origin, they were not nearly as pervasive, and indeed inevitable, as they are under capitalism. This is what comes to mind immediately when looking at your questions. If I come across a pertinent quote or passage somewhere in the future I'll add to my answer, or even make an additional video. Thanks for asking such good questions!
@@themarxistproject Thanks for your answers. I still think that Marx found something bigger in terms of commodities fetishism, a more universal quality: things are alive. The other thing is that I think the fetishism works as a double function: let's imagine you buy an iPhone: you don't see the amount of labor, working conditions, etc., in which the phone was made, you just see an object. The object appears to you just as such. Nothing 'behind' and in that sense it works as a 'veil'. The other function would be that you don't see the amount of work, etc., because the object itself disguise you to other properties and meanings (status, emotions and so on). This one would be closer to the old-fashioned religious items -which I think is the same value clothing has in sexual fetishes-. 👍
@@felipesantell007 I agree, that's definitely a big part of how capitalism and commodity fetishism works. The commodity has that strange, almost mystical essence, like you say. I think it's one of the more interesting concepts Marx developed in his work.
There is nothing mystical on most products, just happens in the mind of the great Marx and other philosophers... These men were racists (normal for their era) and totally based on a colonial mentality. For them primitive societies were stupid and put glass beads on a pedestal, that is why he picked this term, to ridicule their own societies as being as stupid as these aboriginals... Just Marx and other enlightened philosophers could see all the social relations...
@@julianocamargo6674 dude, thank you. This was confusing me so much, I couldn't see why he bothered with the word 'fetishism' as it doesn't seem to add anything to the concept, at least as its explained in this video.
I just wanted to say, thank you so much for these videos and your playlist The Fundamentals of Marxism. I've been looking for/ watching Theory videos for awhile now and all of the Content Creators and videos that I've found, as amazing as they are, are predicated off of the assumption that you know the basics/ fundamentals of Marxism. But since I'm broke because I make just enough to take care of my needs, so i can't really afford to purchase any books. This was perfect for me. Now i can watch these and go back to Yugopnik, Second Thought, Hakim, The Deprogram, etc with the fundamentals I've learned from you and finally have a greater understanding of their content on theory.
These videos are great. There are certain topics in Marx's original work that are hard to grasp simply because of words like "fetishism", and a short video like this is a great companion piece to reading the chapter on Commodity Fetishism in Capital, from which Lukacs largely drew on in developing his work on Reification as I understand. This is brilliant stuff. Cheers comrades.
I think another interesting example is found when Marx talks about money. During a period of economic growth, money is considered just something that facilitates exchange, but during a crisis, it is seen as the end, all, and be all "nothing can be done, nor moved without an influx of money" so everyone stops satisfying their needs for longs periods of time even though they have not forgotten how to work nor the machinery has been destroyed. But everyone will be paralyzed. their lives at risk, until money "knights" their labor into permission, into action. It is not until this inorganic piece of paper "knights" you into permission that you may continue to work to satisfy your need. It is irrelevant if your life is at risk everything stops until money is allowed to be given this "extra" power over your existence. That is another interesting way in which fetishism appears. Another way in which it appears is when, for example, the workers that build luxury apartments are not as valuable as the apt itself. That is to say as another commodity purchased in the market, as a thing that you purchase, people are worth less than that which they create. And, clearly, we are forced to accept this. This kind of magical thinking (to act on it on a daily basis) is enforced as a must for economic growth. The belief in the price system as being correct when it signals back to us "you guys must always be less valuable than the wealth you produce. It will rule over you. It is more valuable than yourself" when our standards of living are reduced in wages, and benefits etc.
I enjoyed this video and your replies to comments. It's amazing to have found this channel. I have just begun to delve into Marxism and you seem to be such a great help! Subscribing right away!
When none of your teachers speak English, so you can get away with "borrowing" material from another source and translating. Anyways I can't thank you enough.
What're your thoughts on "woke capitalism" where the very process of production is the fetish through which consumers relate to one another? Like, rather than the commodity signifying otherwise and otherwhere (as fashionable, efficient, voyeuristic, etc) it operates through self-reflexivity? We very much seem to be in the zone of a rising (post)postmodern capitalism, where commodities are pedestaled as sincere and authentic by exposing their production line.
I'm glad to find this channel, thanks for the video! Waiting for more :) About the "stay radical", although it's a little radical (hur dur), that's fine, I didn't feel coerced.
Would the Ikea model of making you put the shelf together yourself blur your relationship to the production and its workers even more and therefore make the fetish even deeper?
Hey man, this has been really helpful for a video essay I'm doing for my channel. Would it be possible to have citations for the particular points in Marx's manuscripts you've made here? I think it'd be of great utility, thank you.
I'm glad to hear that you found the video helpful! I really wish I had kept exact page numbers. I normally do when I am citing direct passages, but I didn't do that so much in this video, so here's the best I can do for you: - Check out chapter 1, section 4 of Capital (Vol.1), if you haven't already. Honestly, I would suggest reading the whole first Chapter if you have the time. In the marxists.org digital pdf, C1S4 starts on page 47. Section 4 is definitely the bulk of the content for this video. - I referred to two textbooks which both have great sections on commodity fetishism: Ben Fine's and Alfredo Saad-Filho's "Marx's 'Capital'", p.21 Routledge Handbook of Marxian Economics, ed. by Brennan et al, p. 14-18 - David Harvey also has an excellent discussion of commodity fetishism in his Companion to Marx's Capital (a must-have, in my opinion). If you don't have access to the Routledge text or Fine and Saad-Filho's book, email themarxistproject@gmail.com. Sorry if you've already looked into all that. Good luck with your video essay!
Hi There! ¿Is there any way I may help with translating your videos with subtitles? I am able to write them in English (if there aren't already), Spanish and Catalonian
Can you give watchers to translate your video into other languages? I was thinking of translating the videos in this serie into dutch. What do you think of that?
Thank you SO MUCH for creating this channel and its educational materials. What I love EVEN MORE is that it's just the content itself unfettered by Capitalist sponsorship fetishism (LMAO) 🤣
This is such an abstract concept but I think you helped me understand it a little better using the t-shirt example, my question would then be: is this mysterious fetishized nature of the production the problem because I'm not interacting with the laborers who made my shirt possible, but rather I'm buying it from a faceless retailer like Walmart therefore disconnecting me from the laborers and introducing a corporate middleman reaping the benefits of said sale and the workers are only getting their hourly wages and not a cut of the shirt sale thus disconnecting them from the end result of their labor's true earned value, which is (at least what I perceive as) the root of Marxist ideology? In less words is the commodity fetishization explaining the root problem with capitalism that Marxism tries to address, labor being disconnected from the true value it generates? Sorry if this is literally just rephrasing what was said as a question but I just needed to wrap my head around it and typing it may have helped.
I think what commodity fetishism is meant to articulate is the way in which objects mediate social relations in capitalism. When Marx wrote about it, he saw it as an unprecedented inversion of human society. What moves capitalism are objects, not people. Consequently, capitalism is the most impersonal and mechanistic mode of production to-date. In this sense, commodity fetishism perpetuates that "cog in the machine" feeling that so many people seem to describe. Commodities, whether goods or money, have power over us, and not the other way round. Hence the term "fetishism," which relates to the idea of an object possessing supernatural powers. As to your question about labor and its value: this is a difficult topic and Marxists sometimes disagree about it. You can check out a video on this channel, incidentally titled "Should Workers Get the Full Value of Their Labor?" It presents the Value Form Theory perspective, which is one interpretation of Marx's theory of value.
So what is the answer to these problems? I appreciate the video. The capital is the first philosophy book I’m trying to read. I’m on page 32 lol. But I understand everything I have read so far except for this idea fully. I thought he meant that when people exchange things they only care about money and not about the use value of the object and I was completely Misunderstanding it 😂. But am I ? Is this kind of true or not really? And does it have any importance? I really appreciate that you respond to the comments and I appreciate the videos. I have decided to educate myself on topics like these and stop being idle and unproductive😂. Thx again!
Capital is definitely a hard text at first but whem you get through it all comes together and is very worth your time! You're right in understanding that money matters during the exchange process. However it goes two ways. For the *capitalist/business owner* it's the money matters. They want to sell the product and dont much care how it's used after it's bought. The consumer actually cares about the product's function. They are exchanging money for the use of the commodity. So for them in that case, the commodity's "use-value" matters. This is actually somewhat important. First of all, it explains why companies dont care about the effects of their product or how their product is used. When we say that in capitalism, things are produced for exchange, we mean that capitalist enterprises only care about the fact that their products are sold. That's their bottom line. In theory, capitalists dont even care if you buy their commodity and never use it (like food products going bad in your fridge). This also explains why some companies prefer to throw away leftover products that never got sold. If the commodity cant be sold, it has no value anymore to the capitalist. Hope this answers your question! Feel free to ask about anything else!
The Marxist Project thank you for your quick response! I understand now that concept is important. Should I read the whole book and then go back to understand it or should I read it super slowly to understand everything. Like what did you do?
Well, one thing that worked for me is reading it together with someone else/ a group. Some people also suggest skipping certain chapters. Some of the longer historical chapters in capital are arguably less important than the theoretical ones. Personally I think there is a lot of value in reading the whole book. If you decide to read the whole thing and are doing it alone (this is what I did the first time I read it), you should check out David Harvey's Companion to Capital. You can also watch his full lectures online where he goes over the book chapter by chapter. When I revisit Capital, Harvey's videos and book are a huge help. Also, Capital is one of those books that makes a *lot* more sense when you read it again. You totally don't have to, but if you do, you'd be surprised how much easier and quicker it reads. It's awesome that you're going for Capital. A lot of people get scared by it (that was me for a while) but it's 100% worth the read.
@@themarxistproject Audio. YUSS! In that case I will reupload them from time to time until all is translated to german. Very well done. Most definitely you will be mentioned and cited. Cheers Comrade!
@@DialecticalMaterialismRocks That's awesome! I don't speak any German sadly, but I'll be excited to see how they turn out. Thanks for helping spread the ideas!
I often hear commodity fetishism used in context of social movements (especially in the lgbt movement, when, for example, companies adopt pride flags during pride month). Is this the same thing?
Well, there are many different definitions of "fetish(/ism)" but that example wouldn't reflect Marx's use of the term. Commodity fetishism basically acknowledges that commodities arbitrate/conduct social relations between individuals in capitalism. The phenomenon occurs in the realm of exchange, and the power of the commodity (hence why it is a fetish) is in its ability to obscure the other end of exchange. Consumers are not aware of what happens in the production process or who participates in it. Conversely, producers do not know their consumers. They are related through the exchange of commodities. The fact that social relations in the (capitalist) economy occur in such a fashion is the idea of commodity fetishism. Hope that answers your question!
I can think it could be loosely applied. Consumers will fetishize commodities even more so when the producers of those commodities, to them, though deceptively, try to attach some sort of social or political agenda to it that the consumer supports. Despite all this just being as a marketing scheme to reap more profit.
I'm going to be honest, all I got from this is that Marx saw commodities as representing what people put into them, and noticed that most people take the commodity without thinking much about what went into it. I'm not sure what insight this observation provides. I think the statement "it is probable that many if not most of the commodities you exchange for your money on a regular basis are created at one point or another in exploitative circumstances." is a conclusion that does not follow the premise. What does exploitation have to do with people thinking about what goes into their commodities? We still buy these commodities (iPhones) when we do know that exploitation went into making them.
If it wasn't for capitalism, we won't be having neither these commodities (like the cell phone I am holding right in my hand right now), nor the discussion. Point is, there are always two sides to a coin 🪙 and it's up to you which side you pick (red pill or blue).
The cellphone you are using right now is based on accumulated human knowledge over the years and public research of universities (touch screens, processors, batteries etc.), it's not like capitalists are inventors, they simply own the means of production.
Yeah... and we didn't need these commodities either. Are we happier for all our personal electronics? People are more lonely than ever despite the touted advantages of cellphones and the Internet. Admitting these commodities do a net social good, why is capitalism necessary for these commodities to exist? The "innovation" constantly shilled by liberals is not made by the capitalist but by the intellectual workers in engineering and science. As for "we wouldn't be having [...] this discussion", yeah... I wish we weren't, I wish it weren't necessary to criticise and dissect the current state of affairs. If crime didn't exist, we wouldn't have a conversation about crime. Would you thence say there are two sides to crime?
The Matrix was written by 2 trans women who were partly inspired (although disowned by) Baudrillard's Simulcra and Simulation. He was a Marxist at the time.
Labor, i.e., the working class comes into creation when separated from its objective conditions during successive phases in the history or work. I would imagine its formal beginnings dates back to the day the factory destroyed the division of labor of commodity producers and made these skilled workers available out of need and desperation, no doubt, available for hire by capitalists who own factories. Ever since that fateful day three social conditions are continually reproduced by capitalism, 1., separation of product from workers, 2., work refined into detailed operation and a de-skilling of workers, 3., a labor-market where every producer has to sell their labor-power! By this definiion we can conclude China and America are rival capitalist nations. The factory system recieved a lot of praise and glory when it came into being. This must have meant that a son did not have to learn his father's trade with mother mediating conflicts between them. The son could leave home, leave Pop's business, and the dull boring life of a small town division of labor, to work in a factory, earn a wage, move into a room in the city and become whatever that person chose to make of themselves, derilect or not. Leave behind the provincially minded folk of his small town or valley. Many stories are built to this effect. One comes to mind, the Great Gatsby. A recent case of a murder in Port Jervis NY is the story of a local shoemaker/cobbler shot and killed during a robbery. The sons after their father's funeral liquidated the cobbler's business despite the fact that there was still a market for it in Port Jervis NY. They lacked the foresight and skill to keep it alive. They could have given another the chance to make it a success. If the sons had put their energy into the cobbler's business they would be far richer than they are today working their father's trade as niche market for handmade shoes in a worldwide market. The sons made a poor choice and maybe their wives encouraged them to make the wrong choice. Their wrong choices enabled in their own way the three social conditions I mentioned above to continue. The factory system was a complete break from the old traditions and ethics of work in manufacture. Now that we are many centuries away from this break and embedded in a factory system of work is computer technology and science. Labor management programs used to increase worker productivity and a cell phone that connects individuals to capitalists does two things in addition the the three mentioned above. First, the capitalist has successfuly controlled his/her workforce through the workforce against other workers, and 2., workers carry with them in their pocket the market the capitalists aim to penetrate with their products. Five big things are happening to the detriment of the working classes, they are consumers of the the technology and science investment made by capitalists and are consumers of the product the capitalists sell. These social conditions are a bigger issue than commodites having the power to walk and talk and have there own social institutions, though, that is important to know and understand, I think, their use and reliance on captitalist computer science and technology has made them vicitims of their own doing and totally dependent on working more hours under the worst conditions than ever before while the capitalists are enriched by the workers.
Wow, that's a very interesting point! Certainly, the first part of your comment aligns pretty well with Marx's perspective (the destruction of the old mode of production and the cultures associated with it). I think you're right in identifying computer science and technology as a powerful new phenomenon with massive socio-economic implications. Something I would add is that the same technology, while having many negative effects in our capitalist reality today, can become a mechanism for liberation and an important tool for building a post-capitalist society!
@@themarxistproject Thanks. I believe that would be in your department to show how S&T can be applied to meet the needs of society or humanity in contrast to how it is used to control populations now, i.e., the Palestinians as guinee pigs in monitoring the movement of people. You have a show that can reach people. I don't. But what I would like to see is more concrete case samples of real people stories that illustrate how a way of life changes by their own actions, such as my example of the murder of a cobbler in Port Jervis NY. In my view, there must always be a particular case that illustrates the general theory. Otherwise, people have a hard time understanding that every action they do effects a capitalist revolution to their detriment and demise, and every action they can do can effect a revolution for themselves, but either way, a revolution is effected whether they like it or not. It is just a question of what direction should that revolution be guided, for society or for a capitalist class. S&T is central to this thesis in the role it plays as a weapon for capitalists and not a weapon for workers. So far all Americans aid and abet the capitalists revolutions which look like war, security, intervention to them, is carried on behind all our backs. So- you need illustrations to break the veneer demonizing software writers, publishers, producers is less effective than exposing them for producing the weapons of totalitarian social control. Keep up the good work.
@@MrDXRamirez I completely agree with you that concrete examples are very important in conveying the overall message. It is something I hope to include in the channel going forward. I'm definitely interested in making more about the potential of S&T. So far, my Future of Socialism video is the only one that touches on this topic. If you get the chance, you should watch it and share your thoughts -- I would be happy to hear what you think. I will add all your ideas to my list. Thanks for leaving such thoughtful comments!
Could we say that via social media and other technological advancements in connectivity have allowed us to take our social interactions back from the commodity? We’re now able to see working conditions in 4K, while during the time of Marx this wasn’t the case. Perhaps the abolition of this fetishism lays in our collective consciousness of class which becomes more prevalent with each passing day. Jk fam idk what I’m talking about
in our future lower communist societies, the shirt you buy will come with a little holographic video chip that gives you a diary and bio of the cotton picker, the transporter and the sales clerk who brought that commodity to your community. so that the labour put into it leaves no mystery and is never forgotten. and ultimately we will pick our own cotton. weave our own string. and form our own shirts via 3d printer and we will forget our clothing has had any past mysticism within it. we will own ourselves. and our shirts.
Erm... not really. We're producer-consumers, so we're not just the people who need shirts, we're the people who make them (or whatever good or service we're employed in producing), and suffer as a result of the social relationships which we're embedded in. Most of us are alienated from the products of our labour, and this alienation has its source in (and is to a degree the other side of) commodity fetishism. To say that the structures which govern our lives is ever 'irrelevant' strikes me as a very bizarre thing to say.
Maybe the guy who needs a shirt would rather buy a shirt with good cotton from someone who is paid fair wages. Maybe you don't though. Someone who realises, for instance, the oppressive nature of fast fashion has higher odds of deciding to buy a more expensive, fairer, more durable shirt which benefits him in the end too. Labour and economic relations are the beginning of self-awareness and self-realisation.
thank you the marxist project for your commodity fetishism lecture... through your lecture, the more i come to understand what my yoga spiritual guru said... that communism is perfectly righteous... however, it is limited to material things... communists are righteous but limited in the materialistic calculations & definitions... marx scientifically explained that wages be valued according to the worth/usage of the finished products... is this what your lecture mean...?
Marx has plenty of philosophical work. His materialism is ontological materialism (which does not limit us from understanding humans) not the object-focused materialism we use in common parlance. It's likely that he didn't believe in objective morality either which is just true if you believe that we live in a rational universe, a material one. “Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence.” -Marx
marx is an extraordinary materialist... i now understand my spiritual guru in saying this... thank you again for your commodity fetishism lecture... it explains the exploitations of capitalists in the common masses(workers)... capitalists cant survive without the common masses (workers) ... no wonder china civilization & the asean lands survived 5000 years despite constant natural disasters & epidemics that kill whole villagers in 3 to 5 days... china great leaders era after era know the indispensability of commoners(peasants) and merchants(thinkers of businesses that employ surplus people... dynasties can control the capitalists merchants so that the ruling bodies have the financial means tocater & protect & preserve the peasantry the commoners... this is why mao said, very rich people hate mao and will want to kill mao, very poor people love mao and will die for mao... mao will do everything to love & cater the peasantry... the countrysides people... peasantry is the continuity of generations/descendants... merchants(capitalists) maintain the needs of the peasantry (commoners)... the japan invader ruler said, if the koreavpeople dont love their king, kill the king... if the korea people love their king, dont kill the king... is this commodity fetishism...?
It seems to me there is little difference between the religious and the secular uses of the word fetish here. Sounds like spooky woo talk whatever your ideological flavour.
All these qualities seem to be the result of a large, well networked population rather than capitalism in particular. You could imagine a very localised capitalist system where none of this is true and a global socialist system where production is still invisible to the end user. On top of this, I don't understand what the problem is supposed to be with this system. Is it supposed to show that consumers aren't able to account for the conditions of workers in their purchases and make ethical choices to influence capital? And if that is the problem being pointed out, what is the proposed solution? Or is it just an exercise in showing that problems exist? Also, why is Marx bothering with the word 'fetishism'? The video still doesn't explain it. A fetish is an object imbued with meaning beyond its physical form. I could understand using the word 'fetish' in a semiotic sense to describe a commodity's ability to signal status or communicate some other kind of association, but this video doesn't seem be saying that. It seems like 'fetish' is just being used arbitrarily if this video is correct.
By 'fetish' Marx was referring to the commodity as an embodiment of value - the nicely succinct phrase to focus on here is that we perceive relations of exchange and production as 'social relationships between things', rather than as social relationships between people. The real source of value in society for Marx is the human labour which produces the commodity, and the social relations within that system of production. The fetishism is the reification of those social relations into the commodity itself, as if the commodity had powers which it does not really possess. The problem with trying to answer the question 'what was Marx's point on X, Y, Z' is that his style is dialectical - he doesn't analyse any one thing in an atomistic way, and them ram it back into his analysis as if it really does exist as a separate phenomenon. He's trying to analyse capitalist society as a whole, which means that each concept opens out into new concepts, which then fold back into each other. Understanding commodity fetishism is part of that process. In context, Marx uses commodity fetishism as a way of explaining how the social organisation of labour is mediated through market exchange, which in turn obscures those relationships. At this stage in the argument, Marx is really just being descriptive, but it's not hard to see the ways in which commodity fetishism does pose a problem within capitalist society: the particularly exploitative relationships behind third-world production of certain commodities being hidden behind the commodity itself is an obvious example, although I don't recall Marx himself making any specific points like this. The next key point is alienation - I'm over-simplifying here, but basically commodity fetishism is the means through which a worker becomes alienated from their labour, because the relations of production are essentially lost in the process of exchange. This is a problem for Marx because he thought that humans are inherently creative beings (when people say that Marx had no view of human nature, this is nonsense - Marx saw human nature as being essentially creative). When we're alienated from our own labour - when the work of our own hands is hidden from us - it therefore deprives us of the thing from which we derive meaning. Alienation - which, again, is made possible through commodity fetishism - is also responsible for disguising the power of the producers. For Marx, market forces appear (and 'appear' is the operative word, Marx uses it a lot when describing capitalist society) to be independent forces outside of human control. When value is fetishised within commodities, i.e. when social relations of production are obscured behind exchange, this is itself the alienation of the producer from the thing they produced. This alienation takes the form of exchanges which appear (again, only appear) to be independent of those same relations which produced the commodities being exchanged. Marx's point is that they are in fact not independent forces at all, they lie under human control. It is only because of the surface appearance of social relations between things that people think that these forces are external. Again, I've massively oversimplified, and left out a bunch of stuff about the money form which you kind of need to make the argument make complete sense, but I hope that helps a bit! It's an unfortunate fact about Marx that you can really only understand what he was getting at by looking at his work holistically.
@@monkeymox2544 Thanks for taking the time to type all that out. I think I'll have to read a bit more if I want to get any further. The problem is that there's still too much assumed knowledge there for me to understand it. 'relationships between exchange and production' and 'social relationships between things' are opaque phrases that point to something that underlies what you're saying, but because I don't know what those things are it's hard to grasp the meaning. I actually started reading 'capital' a while ago but I gave up pretty early because I found 'labour value' unconvincing as a concept. There didn't seem like a lot of point in continuing if that was going to be an axiom that everything else was built on. I probably would have kept going if it was just a normal sized book, but I don't have the time to wade through tomes like that. Maybe I should read a summary version of it or something. Any recommendations?
@@stevem815 Sorry it's such an easy trap to fall into, using that kind of language! By 'social relations between things', I'm referring to the appearance that exchange takes on in the marketplace - the underlying point is that the production and exchange of commodities comes about through a set of social relations; in the marketplace however, that relationship is obscured. The relationship simply appears to be that between commodity and commodity (usually the money commodity and some other commodity). Again its really important to emphasise that this is only an appearance - things cannot have social relations. Not that it's small by any measure, but I'd thoroughly recommend David Harvey's companion to Capital. Some people don't like him very much, but I found him indispensable in understanding the text. The book is really just a tidier transcription of his lecture series, which are all on TH-cam. Aside from that, to be honest I've found books on Marx to be a bit hit and miss - many of them assume prior knowledge, and the easier ones cover the same basics over and over again, I haven't found much of a middle ground. That's why Harvey is good, he leads you through the text one page at a time, as the argument unfolds. The Philosophy of Marx by Etienne Balibar is one of the few I have really enjoyed, but it's obviously not so in-depth on the economic and sociological side of things. You're probably better just watching more stuff on YT, at least initially. Richard Wolff is always good for explaining the basics in an entertaining and jargon-free way (although, like Harvey, there seem to be a certain cohort of Marxists who really don't like him), as is Yanis Varoufakis. I haven't read any of their books, but they're probably good places to start if you prefer to read than to watch. There are obviously plenty of excellent channels on YT (like this one), but I do think that it's good to get your introduction from well-known academics, if for no other reason than that you can be sure they've been scrutinised.
@@monkeymox2544 I was actually watching the David Harvey lecture series while I was reading Capital. To be honest it was part of what made me stop, I felt like there were kind of obvious criticisms of the text that he would ignore, and started to feel a bit dishonest given that (I'm assuming) his audience were undergrads who probably wouldn't be picking up on them. It may be that I'm overly cynical about adults dedicated to communicating ideological frameworks to young people... I've had some bad experiences in that realm and I think I'm a bit allergic to it as a result! I'll find the Etienne Balibar one you mentioned and give that a go. Hopefully there's an audio version I can listen to while I'm working. Enjoyable sounds good.
@@stevem815 There's Das Kapital manga version published by East Press which is easy for complete beginners, but I'm guessing many will consider this as too oversimplified. There's also Marx's Kapital for beginners by David Smith and Phil Evans which is more balanced without sacrificing much for simplicity (in my view at least, though it may not mean much considering I never tackled Das Kapital itself)
Cuba has actually done quite well despite decades of foreign interference, embargoes and sanctions. If you look at physical quality of life (education, healthcare, housing and other basic needs), Marxist-Leninist countries have historically beaten capitalist countries on nearly every mark. Yugoslavia was also a thriving socialist country with quite progressive civil rights laws and excellent statistics which promoted diversity and brotherhood for much of its existence.
Cuba was ran by actual career criminals before Castro took power. I’d say it’s better off now. Also, when one of our presidents refused to overthrow them, he got shot for it. Kinda weird huh
So sad to see people still falling for this nonsense. Sadly even after extensive editing by his cult like supporters Marx's writings make no sense as serious economic or cultural commentary.
I'm not sure what's more cultish, between people who are raised to believe the current system (which makes them unhappy and alienated, for the most part, wasting their life to work for a future they never get) is the best they can have, and a countercultural theory which rejects it and proposes a new system. Perhaps capitalism would fit the "religion" label better, since it's done much more damage at a larger scale.
@@kazimiraz-zaxel5240 Hi Kazimierz ( neat name ) Anyway People LOVE their FREEDOM ( see UDHR 1948) always have , always will ... and yes there will be unhappy failures , drug addicts, screwballs, drinkers and so on ( Karl Marx was one of these) that will or can not lead a rational life in a free society - There are people who choose to live in regimented cultures , some are just fine choices , like the army , or a monastary , or more sadly a prison - where everyone is equal , same cloths , food , housing and so on- this is their choice to live in a restricted freedom culture - good for them . However just because some are unhappy living in a free society does not give anyone the right to restrict or denigrate the freedoms of others ( see UDHR 1948) .The defining characteristics of “Capitalism” (non coercive / free economic and social culture) can not be separated from individual freedom that make a free open and just society possible in the form of the dynamic relationships between freedom of though, belief, opinion, speech, religion, expression, association, political equality, assembly, property rights, and basic human dignity. The term “ capitalism” is by definition an abbreviated reference to the interrelated complexities of a FREEDOM based social culture. The term ‘capitalism” is definitionally dependent on a deeper social reality that is the individual and social FREEDOM that premise the economic relations between free people in a free high trust society. To oppose ‘Capitalism” is to oppose the natural freedoms of all people are entitled to (see UDHR 1948) The term “ CAPITALISM” is simply an invented word to re-frame basic human rights and freedoms as“ economic factors” that should be controlled by a self serving elite. The fact is all FREE SOCIETIES are “ Capitalistic “ Societies and all coercion ( violence) based societies are socialist societies, where a selected “administrative caste” control or own the means of production. This has been the case since the Pharaoh and his “administrative caste” opposed the freedom of the Jews, to todays screwball dictators like Pol Pot, Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, and Xi Jinping all of whom have oppressed every expression of freedom , and following the historic precedent of the Pharaoh oppressive to the Jewish people and todays wider Judeo-Christian culture. Anyway hope this helps ... All the best my friend
@@williamforrestall2161 Dude this video is literally about commodity fetishism and you went on some weird rant about freedom and oppressing Christian people, don’t come at me for not attacking the subject
you've saved me from failing an essay
Just curious, are you from US? Wonder if students learn Marxist theory there
@@Sheh1000 rarely and usually very little, some universities do have entire classes on marx though, but very few. marx is usually touched on for a class period and then they want you to forget about it.
@@Sheh1000 They do not. Since the director of the Marxist-Lenninist institute was sent to die in a Russian concentration camp I seriously doubt Marx is taught in Russia too.
@@Sheh1000 as a political science major in the US, Marxist theory has been taught or at least mentioned in like 90% of my classes for the past 2 years
@@Sheh1000 Curriculum varies wildly between schools, cities, & states in the US so it would be hard to assume anything at all is taught in all of them. In general though once you get to college you'll hear about him one way or another. I only learned his general theory in high school in an optional philosophy class, and now I've probably studied him in over 6 college classes
I became so involved in only buying commodities that have transparent manufacturing practices. One time I bought a cotton shirt from one of these ethically sustainable small independent shop. When they shipped my shirt, they also sent the cotton farmers and the person who made my shirt pictures and names, I actually for the first time knew the identity of the people who made my shirt. the entire experience felt very real and authentic, but I still questioned the ethical part of it. I questioned the fact that I had the means/money to buy that shirt.. while the farmer and the person who made my shirt were only able to make them. It just something is extremely disturbing about capitalism. I couldn't help it but to think that the U.S. with it's imperialist/capitalist practices enforced that dynamic on the world. Thank you for this video, its very informative.
Spot on. There is a popular saying that there is no ethical consumption under capitalism (mostly because of the profit motive and exploration in the system) The truth is, we can spend out whole life focusing on the aesthetics of it all like using metal staws, tote bags, and recycling, (which is the liberal approach) or we can get to the source of the issue. A systemic one.
@@lilfoward1832 I literally came here to quote that saying! There is something even more sinister in these "ethical capitalist" types making desperate attempts to show how "ethical" their mode of production is by sending pictures of little smiley kids in whatever third world country they buy their labour from.
Capitalism is capitalism, and putting a smiley face on the whole thing is like a peculiar form of crypto-fascism almost.
"Fair trade coffee" as well. It is as ridiculous as fair trade cocaine, or fair trade oil. "War Free Oil" - imagine that! "The petroleum you are using was sourced ethically from a country that is not currently a war zone between competing imperialist powers or between multinational corporations, backed by the CIA, and an organised resistance movement of communists and indigenous people - drive safely!".
@@the_local_bigamist You're correct. Except for it being fascistic, which it isn't. Fascism comes from the top down when the elite and capitalists tries to hold on to their power in times of crisis or revolt. Anyways, the fair trade thing is bs, you're right. It's just like the ethically sourced stamps on fish or other products. It doesn't make a difference at the end of the day and its just aesthetics and liberal pandering.
@@lilfoward1832 You're right of course, but I think that this is how fascism will come, I just got distracted and didn't really follow through with what I was saying. I was thinking banks with pride flags pasted everywhere and things like that. "We care, but we will re-posses your home". I think that the next wave of fascism will utilise the aesthetics that we associate with modern "liberalism" and this pretence of "ethical consumption", much like "green capitalism". In Britain for example, our recent Home Secretaries (minister in charge of policing, security and all that) have been implementing policies that could have come from a National Front leaflet in the 70s and the the last two Home Secs have actually been people of colour. I think that as with all socioeconomic systems, fascism adapts and naturally its aesthetics adapt with it. Of course what we were talking about were more petit-bourgeois operations but I think that this kind of thinking and the whole facade of "ethics" and smiley aesthetics both comes from the top and the bottom in the usual dialectical way and I think that the creeping fascism we are seeing as a result of capitalism's crisis will be a lot more colourful and "friendly-looking" than that of the interwar period. But the ruling class are afraid now of the potential of the working masses in a similar way to back then - here in Britain we are seeing the re-emergence of organised labour which has shocked the bourgeoisie and their media have been unable to demonise it in the eyes of the working masses. The unions have sympathy, and so we can imagine what kinds of things will come next. Of course we are talking about historical materialism. I didn't expand on my point enough but I hope you see what I mean, it is something that I have been considering for a while and I heard it elsewhere first I think. And the petit-bourgeois is essentially the microcosmic version of monopoly capitalism anyway and so many of these "ethical companies" will be chewed up by the big boys, if they haven't already been, and the image that they have constructed will remain intact as part of the "brand", much as the big corporations and conglomerates have been attempting to construct a "progressive" aesthetic through their public relations.
There's a VERY good video by Yugopnik, well ALL of his videos are BANGERS! But he has a video on surviving capitalism as a Leftist/ Socialist/ Communist and in it he explains that while you should try to be as aware of how ethically sourced/ produced the products your purchasing are. You also shouldn't stress yourself out about too much to where it's becoming a detriment to your mental health or your financial means. Also to remember, that NO matter how ethical your product has been sourced/ produced and how ethically the company pays their workers, THERE IS NO ETHICAL CONSUMPTION UNDER CAPITALISM. He also adds that getting TOO caught up on ethical consumption can also lead to purity politics, which is something we must avoid.
Holy shit TH-cam algorithms actually recommend a leftist i wasn't already subscribed to. We did it comrades, we seized the algorithm!
great video! i've found my previous conception of commodity fetishism was wrong. thanks for clearing that up!
Happy to have helped you out! That's the hope with all these videos, so it's good to hear that it's a good resource!
thank you for making these videos. I am currently reading Capital for the first time and need the supplementary content as aid.
how has your reading been going and have you found other helpful content?
@@lukebrown13 I've had to stop my reading due to life circumstances, though so far I've read up to where Marx is discussing the so called magic of money and its got me thinking about how fiat currency only has value because a government says it has value. I wonder what he'd think of bitcoin
@@missZoey5387 thats hilarious to think about lmfao. ive been trying to find more educational content on socialism and marxist theory, its so hard to find and you already know america doesnt have any school programs teaching marx economics 😭
@@lukebrown13 ikr
I've got a couple of questions here because this one is one of the most difficult things about Marx and yet one of the most used and famous concepts: 1) Were pre-capitalists societies based on people relations and not through things? In other words what's the difference between a pre-capitalist society and a capitalist one? 2) What if we know what's 'behind' that t-shirt -you already know it in the video-, the exploitation, the people, names, etc.-. Does it make a difference in relation with the fetish qualities of the t-shirt? And related to the first question: Did people in the past know everything behind the commodities they exchanged?
These are excellent questions, and you are right, this is a rather difficult concept.
1. As Marx understood it, the fetishization of the *commodity* is a phenomenon unique to capitalism. To be sure, fetishization of objects existed before capitalism. But fetish objects were largely religious in nature and their "powers" were spiritual (think religious iconography, idolatry, etc.). Commodities are also not unique to capitalism -- they existed in pre-capitalist societies as well. The difference between pre-capitalist societies and capitalist ones is that the production of commodities is at the core of the economic structure of the latter. The production of commodities is a central force in capitalism. In feudal societies, many products of labor were not necessarily commodities. The crop yield of serfs, for example, was split directly after production, with some going to the lords and some remaining in the hands of the peasant laborers. This type of economic activity made up a large part of social relations in previous societies. As commodity production and exchange became the dominant form of social relations -- the very definition of capitalism -- commodity fetishism became a society-wide occurrence. I don't want to cite any literature because I'm not sure where this might be written, but I believe that commodity fetishism as a phenomenon is really only notable exactly when it becomes pervasive in society. In other words, only under capitalism, where commodity production and exchange prevail as the fuel economic forces, can the fetishism of commodities really exist.
2. Again, this is not strictly referencing any one work, but I would say that knowing what's "behind" the t-shirt is similar to taking medicine to relieve symptoms of a cold. The veil that commodity fetishism creates is a symptom, not necessarily the fetish quality itself. At the end of the day, social relations would continue to manifest themselves through objects instead of people, even if every step in the "journey" of the commodity was transparent.
3. In the past, it may have been even harder to know everything about the commodity being exchanged. People didn't have access to information the way we do now, especially in the last few decades with the advent of the internet and digital databases. However, commodities did not play the central role they play now, under developed capitalism. The majority of the population did not engage in the production of commodities. The main movers of commodities, merchants, did not hire laborers and keep the products of their labor. Most commodities were made and sold by the same person or group of people, i.e. the producers and sellers were not always a distinct class. So when commodities were exchanged, the act may very well have been closer to interpersonal relations as opposed to social relations mediated by objects. Also, the average person did not need to engage in the exchange of commodities on a daily basis, unlike the average person under capitalism. A peasant, for example, made a lot of his/her own tools, clothing, housing, furniture, and trinkets. By and large peasants were also responsible for feeding themselves on a daily basis. So even if there might have been a couple moment of interaction with commodities of unknown origin, they were not nearly as pervasive, and indeed inevitable, as they are under capitalism.
This is what comes to mind immediately when looking at your questions. If I come across a pertinent quote or passage somewhere in the future I'll add to my answer, or even make an additional video.
Thanks for asking such good questions!
@@themarxistproject Thanks for your answers. I still think that Marx found something bigger in terms of commodities fetishism, a more universal quality: things are alive. The other thing is that I think the fetishism works as a double function: let's imagine you buy an iPhone: you don't see the amount of labor, working conditions, etc., in which the phone was made, you just see an object. The object appears to you just as such. Nothing 'behind' and in that sense it works as a 'veil'. The other function would be that you don't see the amount of work, etc., because the object itself disguise you to other properties and meanings (status, emotions and so on). This one would be closer to the old-fashioned religious items -which I think is the same value clothing has in sexual fetishes-. 👍
@@felipesantell007 I agree, that's definitely a big part of how capitalism and commodity fetishism works. The commodity has that strange, almost mystical essence, like you say. I think it's one of the more interesting concepts Marx developed in his work.
There is nothing mystical on most products, just happens in the mind of the great Marx and other philosophers... These men were racists (normal for their era) and totally based on a colonial mentality. For them primitive societies were stupid and put glass beads on a pedestal, that is why he picked this term, to ridicule their own societies as being as stupid as these aboriginals... Just Marx and other enlightened philosophers could see all the social relations...
@@julianocamargo6674 dude, thank you. This was confusing me so much, I couldn't see why he bothered with the word 'fetishism' as it doesn't seem to add anything to the concept, at least as its explained in this video.
I just wanted to say, thank you so much for these videos and your playlist The Fundamentals of Marxism. I've been looking for/ watching Theory videos for awhile now and all of the Content Creators and videos that I've found, as amazing as they are, are predicated off of the assumption that you know the basics/ fundamentals of Marxism. But since I'm broke because I make just enough to take care of my needs, so i can't really afford to purchase any books. This was perfect for me. Now i can watch these and go back to Yugopnik, Second Thought, Hakim, The Deprogram, etc with the fundamentals I've learned from you and finally have a greater understanding of their content on theory.
These videos are great. There are certain topics in Marx's original work that are hard to grasp simply because of words like "fetishism", and a short video like this is a great companion piece to reading the chapter on Commodity Fetishism in Capital, from which Lukacs largely drew on in developing his work on Reification as I understand. This is brilliant stuff.
Cheers comrades.
Really enjoyed the video! Huge help to clearing up the theory. Good work!
I think another interesting example is found when Marx talks about money. During a period of economic growth, money is considered just something that facilitates exchange, but during a crisis, it is seen as the end, all, and be all "nothing can be done, nor moved without an influx of money" so everyone stops satisfying their needs for longs periods of time even though they have not forgotten how to work nor the machinery has been destroyed. But everyone will be paralyzed. their lives at risk, until money "knights" their labor into permission, into action. It is not until this inorganic piece of paper "knights" you into permission that you may continue to work to satisfy your need. It is irrelevant if your life is at risk everything stops until money is allowed to be given this "extra" power over your existence. That is another interesting way in which fetishism appears. Another way in which it appears is when, for example, the workers that build luxury apartments are not as valuable as the apt itself. That is to say as another commodity purchased in the market, as a thing that you purchase, people are worth less than that which they create. And, clearly, we are forced to accept this. This kind of magical thinking (to act on it on a daily basis) is enforced as a must for economic growth. The belief in the price system as being correct when it signals back to us "you guys must always be less valuable than the wealth you produce. It will rule over you. It is more valuable than yourself" when our standards of living are reduced in wages, and benefits etc.
This is profound
I enjoyed this video and your replies to comments. It's amazing to have found this channel. I have just begun to delve into Marxism and you seem to be such a great help! Subscribing right away!
Hii comrade from India 🇮🇳
Thanks for the quick vid explaining the topic.
When none of your teachers speak English, so you can get away with "borrowing" material from another source and translating. Anyways I can't thank you enough.
Such a worthwhile 5 mins to have understood the mysterious way commodities operate at the level it conceals every truth about the social relations...
I was reading George Ritzer,got stuck on this point.....very lucid explanation
Nah, you got stuck on bureaucracy exam of capitalist society.
it is the best video for commodity fetishism to watch on youtube, thank you!
Thank you for this video! I've been reading a book and didn't really understand what commodity fetishism means, but now i do!
love all your content, man. just discovered this channel, this wealth of information. thanks for doing the work you do, comrade. much appreciated
Beautiful explanation of such complex concept.
I used to have that question in my mind in the past "what is this items story?".
Its nice to see I'm not the only one.
What're your thoughts on "woke capitalism" where the very process of production is the fetish through which consumers relate to one another? Like, rather than the commodity signifying otherwise and otherwhere (as fashionable, efficient, voyeuristic, etc) it operates through self-reflexivity? We very much seem to be in the zone of a rising (post)postmodern capitalism, where commodities are pedestaled as sincere and authentic by exposing their production line.
so do all those organic things with the names and pictures of family farmers on the packaging overcome commodity fetishism?
This channel is a gem! Thank you
Still a fairly complex thing to understand, thanks for the explanation tho :)
I'm glad to find this channel, thanks for the video! Waiting for more :)
About the "stay radical", although it's a little radical (hur dur), that's fine, I didn't feel coerced.
Would the Ikea model of making you put the shelf together yourself blur your relationship to the production and its workers even more and therefore make the fetish even deeper?
I am leaving a comment for the algorithm, comrade.
this saved me so much time. you are a legend!
Hey man, this has been really helpful for a video essay I'm doing for my channel. Would it be possible to have citations for the particular points in Marx's manuscripts you've made here? I think it'd be of great utility, thank you.
I'm glad to hear that you found the video helpful!
I really wish I had kept exact page numbers. I normally do when I am citing direct passages, but I didn't do that so much in this video, so here's the best I can do for you:
- Check out chapter 1, section 4 of Capital (Vol.1), if you haven't already. Honestly, I would suggest reading the whole first Chapter if you have the time. In the marxists.org digital pdf, C1S4 starts on page 47. Section 4 is definitely the bulk of the content for this video.
- I referred to two textbooks which both have great sections on commodity fetishism:
Ben Fine's and Alfredo Saad-Filho's "Marx's 'Capital'", p.21
Routledge Handbook of Marxian Economics, ed. by Brennan et al, p. 14-18
- David Harvey also has an excellent discussion of commodity fetishism in his Companion to Marx's Capital (a must-have, in my opinion).
If you don't have access to the Routledge text or Fine and Saad-Filho's book, email themarxistproject@gmail.com.
Sorry if you've already looked into all that. Good luck with your video essay!
@@themarxistproject thank you very much.
Hi There!
¿Is there any way I may help with translating your videos with subtitles?
I am able to write them in English (if there aren't already), Spanish and Catalonian
Great video
Do you have the transcripts of these amazing videos?
Thanks so much for making this. Very insightful!
Can you give watchers to translate your video into other languages? I was thinking of translating the videos in this serie into dutch.
What do you think of that?
Thank you SO MUCH for creating this channel and its educational materials. What I love EVEN MORE is that it's just the content itself unfettered by Capitalist sponsorship fetishism (LMAO) 🤣
This is such an abstract concept but I think you helped me understand it a little better using the t-shirt example, my question would then be: is this mysterious fetishized nature of the production the problem because I'm not interacting with the laborers who made my shirt possible, but rather I'm buying it from a faceless retailer like Walmart therefore disconnecting me from the laborers and introducing a corporate middleman reaping the benefits of said sale and the workers are only getting their hourly wages and not a cut of the shirt sale thus disconnecting them from the end result of their labor's true earned value, which is (at least what I perceive as) the root of Marxist ideology?
In less words is the commodity fetishization explaining the root problem with capitalism that Marxism tries to address, labor being disconnected from the true value it generates?
Sorry if this is literally just rephrasing what was said as a question but I just needed to wrap my head around it and typing it may have helped.
I think what commodity fetishism is meant to articulate is the way in which objects mediate social relations in capitalism. When Marx wrote about it, he saw it as an unprecedented inversion of human society. What moves capitalism are objects, not people. Consequently, capitalism is the most impersonal and mechanistic mode of production to-date.
In this sense, commodity fetishism perpetuates that "cog in the machine" feeling that so many people seem to describe. Commodities, whether goods or money, have power over us, and not the other way round. Hence the term "fetishism," which relates to the idea of an object possessing supernatural powers.
As to your question about labor and its value: this is a difficult topic and Marxists sometimes disagree about it. You can check out a video on this channel, incidentally titled "Should Workers Get the Full Value of Their Labor?" It presents the Value Form Theory perspective, which is one interpretation of Marx's theory of value.
So what is the answer to these problems? I appreciate the video. The capital is the first philosophy book I’m trying to read. I’m on page 32 lol. But I understand everything I have read so far except for this idea fully. I thought he meant that when people exchange things they only care about money and not about the use value of the object and I was completely Misunderstanding it 😂. But am I ? Is this kind of true or not really? And does it have any importance? I really appreciate that you respond to the comments and I appreciate the videos. I have decided to educate myself on topics like these and stop being idle and unproductive😂. Thx again!
Capital is definitely a hard text at first but whem you get through it all comes together and is very worth your time!
You're right in understanding that money matters during the exchange process. However it goes two ways. For the *capitalist/business owner* it's the money matters. They want to sell the product and dont much care how it's used after it's bought.
The consumer actually cares about the product's function. They are exchanging money for the use of the commodity. So for them in that case, the commodity's "use-value" matters.
This is actually somewhat important. First of all, it explains why companies dont care about the effects of their product or how their product is used. When we say that in capitalism, things are produced for exchange, we mean that capitalist enterprises only care about the fact that their products are sold. That's their bottom line. In theory, capitalists dont even care if you buy their commodity and never use it (like food products going bad in your fridge). This also explains why some companies prefer to throw away leftover products that never got sold. If the commodity cant be sold, it has no value anymore to the capitalist.
Hope this answers your question! Feel free to ask about anything else!
The Marxist Project thank you for your quick response! I understand now that concept is important. Should I read the whole book and then go back to understand it or should I read it super slowly to understand everything. Like what did you do?
Well, one thing that worked for me is reading it together with someone else/ a group.
Some people also suggest skipping certain chapters. Some of the longer historical chapters in capital are arguably less important than the theoretical ones. Personally I think there is a lot of value in reading the whole book.
If you decide to read the whole thing and are doing it alone (this is what I did the first time I read it), you should check out David Harvey's Companion to Capital. You can also watch his full lectures online where he goes over the book chapter by chapter. When I revisit Capital, Harvey's videos and book are a huge help.
Also, Capital is one of those books that makes a *lot* more sense when you read it again. You totally don't have to, but if you do, you'd be surprised how much easier and quicker it reads.
It's awesome that you're going for Capital. A lot of people get scared by it (that was me for a while) but it's 100% worth the read.
thank you
0:44 back in the GOOD ol' days of WHAT????
Am I allowed to translate your videos to german?
Yes, you are! Would you do German subtitles or audio?
@@themarxistproject Audio. YUSS! In that case I will reupload them from time to time until all is translated to german.
Very well done. Most definitely you will be mentioned and cited. Cheers Comrade!
@@DialecticalMaterialismRocks That's awesome! I don't speak any German sadly, but I'll be excited to see how they turn out. Thanks for helping spread the ideas!
Excellent explanation, thank you!
I often hear commodity fetishism used in context of social movements (especially in the lgbt movement, when, for example, companies adopt pride flags during pride month). Is this the same thing?
Well, there are many different definitions of "fetish(/ism)" but that example wouldn't reflect Marx's use of the term. Commodity fetishism basically acknowledges that commodities arbitrate/conduct social relations between individuals in capitalism. The phenomenon occurs in the realm of exchange, and the power of the commodity (hence why it is a fetish) is in its ability to obscure the other end of exchange. Consumers are not aware of what happens in the production process or who participates in it. Conversely, producers do not know their consumers. They are related through the exchange of commodities. The fact that social relations in the (capitalist) economy occur in such a fashion is the idea of commodity fetishism.
Hope that answers your question!
I can think it could be loosely applied. Consumers will fetishize commodities even more so when the producers of those commodities, to them, though deceptively, try to attach some sort of social or political agenda to it that the consumer supports. Despite all this just being as a marketing scheme to reap more profit.
Super informative and well-explained! Thanks :))
In late capitalist marketplace, the design of commodities seem to matter more and more. How could this be accounted for by the theory of fetishism?
Absolute brilliant
it'd be cool to add subtitles
Thank u..comprehensive n easily understood
Mind blown.
I'm going to be honest, all I got from this is that Marx saw commodities as representing what people put into them, and noticed that most people take the commodity without thinking much about what went into it. I'm not sure what insight this observation provides. I think the statement "it is probable that many if not most of the commodities you exchange for your money on a regular basis are created at one point or another in exploitative circumstances." is a conclusion that does not follow the premise. What does exploitation have to do with people thinking about what goes into their commodities? We still buy these commodities (iPhones) when we do know that exploitation went into making them.
As an economist he served, oh I came for a different reason nothing wasted that am a good attender of economic ☺️
If it wasn't for capitalism, we won't be having neither these commodities (like the cell phone I am holding right in my hand right now), nor the discussion. Point is, there are always two sides to a coin 🪙 and it's up to you which side you pick (red pill or blue).
The cellphone you are using right now is based on accumulated human knowledge over the years and public research of universities (touch screens, processors, batteries etc.), it's not like capitalists are inventors, they simply own the means of production.
Yeah... and we didn't need these commodities either. Are we happier for all our personal electronics? People are more lonely than ever despite the touted advantages of cellphones and the Internet. Admitting these commodities do a net social good, why is capitalism necessary for these commodities to exist? The "innovation" constantly shilled by liberals is not made by the capitalist but by the intellectual workers in engineering and science. As for "we wouldn't be having [...] this discussion", yeah... I wish we weren't, I wish it weren't necessary to criticise and dissect the current state of affairs. If crime didn't exist, we wouldn't have a conversation about crime. Would you thence say there are two sides to crime?
Read empire of things that will give you insight into methods of production and consumption
The matrix quote match perfectly
The Matrix was written by 2 trans women who were partly inspired (although disowned by) Baudrillard's Simulcra and Simulation. He was a Marxist at the time.
Labor, i.e., the working class comes into creation when separated from its objective conditions during successive phases in the history or work.
I would imagine its formal beginnings dates back to the day the factory destroyed the division of labor of commodity producers and made these skilled workers available out of need and desperation, no doubt, available for hire by capitalists who own factories. Ever since that fateful day three social conditions are continually reproduced by capitalism, 1., separation of product from workers, 2., work refined into detailed operation and a de-skilling of workers, 3., a labor-market where every producer has to sell their labor-power!
By this definiion we can conclude China and America are rival capitalist nations.
The factory system recieved a lot of praise and glory when it came into being. This must have meant that a son did not have to learn his father's trade with mother mediating conflicts between them. The son could leave home, leave Pop's business, and the dull boring life of a small town division of labor, to work in a factory, earn a wage, move into a room in the city and become whatever that person chose to make of themselves, derilect or not. Leave behind the provincially minded folk of his small town or valley. Many stories are built to this effect. One comes to mind, the Great Gatsby.
A recent case of a murder in Port Jervis NY is the story of a local shoemaker/cobbler shot and killed during a robbery. The sons after their father's funeral liquidated the cobbler's business despite the fact that there was still a market for it in Port Jervis NY. They lacked the foresight and skill to keep it alive. They could have given another the chance to make it a success. If the sons had put their energy into the cobbler's business they would be far richer than they are today working their father's trade as niche market for handmade shoes in a worldwide market. The sons made a poor choice and maybe their wives encouraged them to make the wrong choice. Their wrong choices enabled in their own way the three social conditions I mentioned above to continue.
The factory system was a complete break from the old traditions and ethics of work in manufacture. Now that we are many centuries away from this break and embedded in a factory system of work is computer technology and science. Labor management programs used to increase worker productivity and a cell phone that connects individuals to capitalists does two things in addition the the three mentioned above. First, the capitalist has successfuly controlled his/her workforce through the workforce against other workers, and 2., workers carry with them in their pocket the market the capitalists aim to penetrate with their products. Five big things are happening to the detriment of the working classes, they are consumers of the the technology and science investment made by capitalists and are consumers of the product the capitalists sell. These social conditions are a bigger issue than commodites having the power to walk and talk and have there own social institutions, though, that is important to know and understand, I think, their use and reliance on captitalist computer science and technology has made them vicitims of their own doing and totally dependent on working more hours under the worst conditions than ever before while the capitalists are enriched by the workers.
Wow, that's a very interesting point! Certainly, the first part of your comment aligns pretty well with Marx's perspective (the destruction of the old mode of production and the cultures associated with it).
I think you're right in identifying computer science and technology as a powerful new phenomenon with massive socio-economic implications.
Something I would add is that the same technology, while having many negative effects in our capitalist reality today, can become a mechanism for liberation and an important tool for building a post-capitalist society!
@@themarxistproject Thanks. I believe that would be in your department to show how S&T can be applied to meet the needs of society or humanity in contrast to how it is used to control populations now, i.e., the Palestinians as guinee pigs in monitoring the movement of people. You have a show that can reach people. I don't. But what I would like to see is more concrete case samples of real people stories that illustrate how a way of life changes by their own actions, such as my example of the murder of a cobbler in Port Jervis NY.
In my view, there must always be a particular case that illustrates the general theory. Otherwise, people have a hard time understanding that every action they do effects a capitalist revolution to their detriment and demise, and every action they can do can effect a revolution for themselves, but either way, a revolution is effected whether they like it or not. It is just a question of what direction should that revolution be guided, for society or for a capitalist class. S&T is central to this thesis in the role it plays as a weapon for capitalists and not a weapon for workers. So far all Americans aid and abet the capitalists revolutions which look like war, security, intervention to them, is carried on behind all our backs.
So- you need illustrations to break the veneer demonizing software writers, publishers, producers is less effective than exposing them for producing the weapons of totalitarian social control.
Keep up the good work.
@@MrDXRamirez I completely agree with you that concrete examples are very important in conveying the overall message. It is something I hope to include in the channel going forward.
I'm definitely interested in making more about the potential of S&T. So far, my Future of Socialism video is the only one that touches on this topic. If you get the chance, you should watch it and share your thoughts -- I would be happy to hear what you think.
I will add all your ideas to my list. Thanks for leaving such thoughtful comments!
god bless your soul
Could we say that via social media and other technological advancements in connectivity have allowed us to take our social interactions back from the commodity? We’re now able to see working conditions in 4K, while during the time of Marx this wasn’t the case. Perhaps the abolition of this fetishism lays in our collective consciousness of class which becomes more prevalent with each passing day.
Jk fam idk what I’m talking about
in our future lower communist societies, the shirt you buy will come with a little holographic video chip that gives you a diary and bio of the cotton picker, the transporter and the sales clerk who brought that commodity to your community. so that the labour put into it leaves no mystery and is never forgotten.
and ultimately we will pick our own cotton. weave our own string. and form our own shirts via 3d printer and we will forget our clothing has had any past mysticism within it. we will own ourselves. and our shirts.
Had somebody else proposed this lunacy nobody would care
ab2:34 !!!
*We live in a SOCIETY*
The social relation behind a shirt is relevant to a social activist but totally irrelevant to the guy who needs a shirt.
Erm... not really. We're producer-consumers, so we're not just the people who need shirts, we're the people who make them (or whatever good or service we're employed in producing), and suffer as a result of the social relationships which we're embedded in. Most of us are alienated from the products of our labour, and this alienation has its source in (and is to a degree the other side of) commodity fetishism. To say that the structures which govern our lives is ever 'irrelevant' strikes me as a very bizarre thing to say.
Maybe the guy who needs a shirt would rather buy a shirt with good cotton from someone who is paid fair wages. Maybe you don't though. Someone who realises, for instance, the oppressive nature of fast fashion has higher odds of deciding to buy a more expensive, fairer, more durable shirt which benefits him in the end too. Labour and economic relations are the beginning of self-awareness and self-realisation.
thank you the marxist project for your commodity fetishism lecture... through your lecture, the more i come to understand what my yoga spiritual guru said... that communism is perfectly righteous... however, it is limited to material things... communists are righteous but limited in the materialistic calculations & definitions... marx scientifically explained that wages be valued according to the worth/usage of the finished products... is this what your lecture mean...?
Marx has plenty of philosophical work. His materialism is ontological materialism (which does not limit us from understanding humans) not the object-focused materialism we use in common parlance. It's likely that he didn't believe in objective morality either which is just true if you believe that we live in a rational universe, a material one. “Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence.” -Marx
a comment for the aglorithm. great video!
you need a popper stopper, comrade
Thank you for this! Socialism and equality for all friends! Greetings from Canada!
marx is an extraordinary materialist... i now understand my spiritual guru in saying this... thank you again for your commodity fetishism lecture... it explains the exploitations of capitalists in the common masses(workers)... capitalists cant survive without the common masses (workers) ... no wonder china civilization & the asean lands survived 5000 years despite constant natural disasters & epidemics that kill whole villagers in 3 to 5 days... china great leaders era after era know the indispensability of commoners(peasants) and merchants(thinkers of businesses that employ surplus people... dynasties can control the capitalists merchants so that the ruling bodies have the financial means tocater & protect & preserve the peasantry the commoners... this is why mao said, very rich people hate mao and will want to kill mao, very poor people love mao and will die for mao... mao will do everything to love & cater the peasantry... the countrysides people... peasantry is the continuity of generations/descendants... merchants(capitalists) maintain the needs of the peasantry (commoners)... the japan invader ruler said, if the koreavpeople dont love their king, kill the king... if the korea people love their king, dont kill the king... is this commodity fetishism...?
god this is so hard, but I don't mind.
It seems to me there is little difference between the religious and the secular uses of the word fetish here. Sounds like spooky woo talk whatever your ideological flavour.
Don't blow into the mic while recording a narration, or ever.
a communist with the worlds worst mic what a surprise(great video though)
Yeah, the first two video scripts were recorded on an old phone mic. The newer content has much better audio!
It's somewhat charming in a weird way
All these qualities seem to be the result of a large, well networked population rather than capitalism in particular.
You could imagine a very localised capitalist system where none of this is true and a global socialist system where production is still invisible to the end user.
On top of this, I don't understand what the problem is supposed to be with this system. Is it supposed to show that consumers aren't able to account for the conditions of workers in their purchases and make ethical choices to influence capital?
And if that is the problem being pointed out, what is the proposed solution? Or is it just an exercise in showing that problems exist?
Also, why is Marx bothering with the word 'fetishism'? The video still doesn't explain it. A fetish is an object imbued with meaning beyond its physical form. I could understand using the word 'fetish' in a semiotic sense to describe a commodity's ability to signal status or communicate some other kind of association, but this video doesn't seem be saying that. It seems like 'fetish' is just being used arbitrarily if this video is correct.
By 'fetish' Marx was referring to the commodity as an embodiment of value - the nicely succinct phrase to focus on here is that we perceive relations of exchange and production as 'social relationships between things', rather than as social relationships between people. The real source of value in society for Marx is the human labour which produces the commodity, and the social relations within that system of production. The fetishism is the reification of those social relations into the commodity itself, as if the commodity had powers which it does not really possess.
The problem with trying to answer the question 'what was Marx's point on X, Y, Z' is that his style is dialectical - he doesn't analyse any one thing in an atomistic way, and them ram it back into his analysis as if it really does exist as a separate phenomenon. He's trying to analyse capitalist society as a whole, which means that each concept opens out into new concepts, which then fold back into each other. Understanding commodity fetishism is part of that process. In context, Marx uses commodity fetishism as a way of explaining how the social organisation of labour is mediated through market exchange, which in turn obscures those relationships. At this stage in the argument, Marx is really just being descriptive, but it's not hard to see the ways in which commodity fetishism does pose a problem within capitalist society: the particularly exploitative relationships behind third-world production of certain commodities being hidden behind the commodity itself is an obvious example, although I don't recall Marx himself making any specific points like this.
The next key point is alienation - I'm over-simplifying here, but basically commodity fetishism is the means through which a worker becomes alienated from their labour, because the relations of production are essentially lost in the process of exchange. This is a problem for Marx because he thought that humans are inherently creative beings (when people say that Marx had no view of human nature, this is nonsense - Marx saw human nature as being essentially creative). When we're alienated from our own labour - when the work of our own hands is hidden from us - it therefore deprives us of the thing from which we derive meaning.
Alienation - which, again, is made possible through commodity fetishism - is also responsible for disguising the power of the producers. For Marx, market forces appear (and 'appear' is the operative word, Marx uses it a lot when describing capitalist society) to be independent forces outside of human control. When value is fetishised within commodities, i.e. when social relations of production are obscured behind exchange, this is itself the alienation of the producer from the thing they produced. This alienation takes the form of exchanges which appear (again, only appear) to be independent of those same relations which produced the commodities being exchanged. Marx's point is that they are in fact not independent forces at all, they lie under human control. It is only because of the surface appearance of social relations between things that people think that these forces are external.
Again, I've massively oversimplified, and left out a bunch of stuff about the money form which you kind of need to make the argument make complete sense, but I hope that helps a bit! It's an unfortunate fact about Marx that you can really only understand what he was getting at by looking at his work holistically.
@@monkeymox2544 Thanks for taking the time to type all that out.
I think I'll have to read a bit more if I want to get any further. The problem is that there's still too much assumed knowledge there for me to understand it. 'relationships between exchange and production' and 'social relationships between things' are opaque phrases that point to something that underlies what you're saying, but because I don't know what those things are it's hard to grasp the meaning.
I actually started reading 'capital' a while ago but I gave up pretty early because I found 'labour value' unconvincing as a concept. There didn't seem like a lot of point in continuing if that was going to be an axiom that everything else was built on. I probably would have kept going if it was just a normal sized book, but I don't have the time to wade through tomes like that. Maybe I should read a summary version of it or something. Any recommendations?
@@stevem815 Sorry it's such an easy trap to fall into, using that kind of language! By 'social relations between things', I'm referring to the appearance that exchange takes on in the marketplace - the underlying point is that the production and exchange of commodities comes about through a set of social relations; in the marketplace however, that relationship is obscured. The relationship simply appears to be that between commodity and commodity (usually the money commodity and some other commodity). Again its really important to emphasise that this is only an appearance - things cannot have social relations.
Not that it's small by any measure, but I'd thoroughly recommend David Harvey's companion to Capital. Some people don't like him very much, but I found him indispensable in understanding the text. The book is really just a tidier transcription of his lecture series, which are all on TH-cam.
Aside from that, to be honest I've found books on Marx to be a bit hit and miss - many of them assume prior knowledge, and the easier ones cover the same basics over and over again, I haven't found much of a middle ground. That's why Harvey is good, he leads you through the text one page at a time, as the argument unfolds. The Philosophy of Marx by Etienne Balibar is one of the few I have really enjoyed, but it's obviously not so in-depth on the economic and sociological side of things.
You're probably better just watching more stuff on YT, at least initially. Richard Wolff is always good for explaining the basics in an entertaining and jargon-free way (although, like Harvey, there seem to be a certain cohort of Marxists who really don't like him), as is Yanis Varoufakis. I haven't read any of their books, but they're probably good places to start if you prefer to read than to watch. There are obviously plenty of excellent channels on YT (like this one), but I do think that it's good to get your introduction from well-known academics, if for no other reason than that you can be sure they've been scrutinised.
@@monkeymox2544 I was actually watching the David Harvey lecture series while I was reading Capital. To be honest it was part of what made me stop, I felt like there were kind of obvious criticisms of the text that he would ignore, and started to feel a bit dishonest given that (I'm assuming) his audience were undergrads who probably wouldn't be picking up on them.
It may be that I'm overly cynical about adults dedicated to communicating ideological frameworks to young people... I've had some bad experiences in that realm and I think I'm a bit allergic to it as a result!
I'll find the Etienne Balibar one you mentioned and give that a go. Hopefully there's an audio version I can listen to while I'm working. Enjoyable sounds good.
@@stevem815 There's Das Kapital manga version published by East Press which is easy for complete beginners, but I'm guessing many will consider this as too oversimplified. There's also Marx's Kapital for beginners by David Smith and Phil Evans which is more balanced without sacrificing much for simplicity (in my view at least, though it may not mean much considering I never tackled Das Kapital itself)
2:35 - the red pill reference really didn't age well 😂
I think I would have just called this alienation
Alienation is a consequence of commodity fetishism which is its cause.
Can anyone name me one country where socialism is thriving without persecuting their own people?
What is your definition of socialism
Cuba has actually done quite well despite decades of foreign interference, embargoes and sanctions. If you look at physical quality of life (education, healthcare, housing and other basic needs), Marxist-Leninist countries have historically beaten capitalist countries on nearly every mark. Yugoslavia was also a thriving socialist country with quite progressive civil rights laws and excellent statistics which promoted diversity and brotherhood for much of its existence.
Cuba was ran by actual career criminals before Castro took power. I’d say it’s better off now. Also, when one of our presidents refused to overthrow them, he got shot for it. Kinda weird huh
Ahem:
GUCCI GANG, GUCCI GANG, GUCCI GANG, GUCCI GANG. GUCCI GANG, GUCCI GANG, GUCCI GANG, GUCCI GANG.
i just want to say, i want to marry you man u made it so easy to understand
first! wait fuck google delete pls
So sad to see people still falling for this nonsense. Sadly even after extensive editing by his cult like supporters Marx's writings make no sense as serious economic or cultural commentary.
I'm not sure what's more cultish, between people who are raised to believe the current system (which makes them unhappy and alienated, for the most part, wasting their life to work for a future they never get) is the best they can have, and a countercultural theory which rejects it and proposes a new system. Perhaps capitalism would fit the "religion" label better, since it's done much more damage at a larger scale.
@@kazimiraz-zaxel5240 Hi Kazimierz ( neat name ) Anyway People LOVE their FREEDOM ( see UDHR 1948) always have , always will ... and yes there will be unhappy failures , drug addicts, screwballs, drinkers and so on ( Karl Marx was one of these) that will or can not lead a rational life in a free society - There are people who choose to live in regimented cultures , some are just fine choices , like the army , or a monastary , or more sadly a prison - where everyone is equal , same cloths , food , housing and so on- this is their choice to live in a restricted freedom culture - good for them . However just because some are unhappy living in a free society does not give anyone the right to restrict or denigrate the freedoms of others ( see UDHR 1948)
.The defining characteristics of “Capitalism” (non coercive / free economic and social culture) can not be separated from individual freedom that make a free open and just society possible in the form of the dynamic relationships between freedom of though, belief, opinion, speech, religion, expression, association, political equality, assembly, property rights, and basic human dignity. The term “ capitalism” is by definition an abbreviated reference to the interrelated complexities of a FREEDOM based social culture.
The term ‘capitalism” is definitionally dependent on a deeper social reality that is the individual and social FREEDOM that premise the economic relations between free people in a free high trust society.
To oppose ‘Capitalism” is to oppose the natural freedoms of all people are entitled to (see UDHR 1948)
The term “ CAPITALISM” is simply an invented word to re-frame basic human rights and freedoms as“ economic factors” that should be controlled by a self serving elite. The fact is all FREE SOCIETIES are “ Capitalistic “ Societies and all coercion ( violence) based societies are socialist societies, where a selected “administrative caste” control or own the means of production. This has been the case since the Pharaoh and his “administrative caste” opposed the freedom of the Jews, to todays screwball dictators like Pol Pot, Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, and Xi Jinping all of whom have oppressed every expression of freedom , and following the historic precedent of the Pharaoh oppressive to the Jewish people and todays wider Judeo-Christian culture.
Anyway hope this helps ...
All the best my friend
@@williamforrestall2161 Lol
@@keith3033 lol...lol ... as you can't seem to address the subject - you may just chuckle along lol -
All the best my chuckle headed friend ...
@@williamforrestall2161 Dude this video is literally about commodity fetishism and you went on some weird rant about freedom and oppressing Christian people, don’t come at me for not attacking the subject
Lol i dont like the stay radical bit