It may be helpful to know that by the time Marx wrote 'Das Kapital', the terms 'fetish' and 'fetishism' were not yet used with a sexual connotation, but merely meant the belief, typical of 'primitive' religions, that certain objects could have magic qualities and powers . It wasn't until after Marx's death that the French psychologist Alfred Binet applied the terms to describe a form of sexual fixation.
I did not know that. For Marx the fetishism reveals how 'real relations of production' take the form of a commodity relation is due to all kinds of human labor simply measuring out 'homogenous abstract labor' in them when they come into an exchange. They are all equally 'values'. Since they don't exchange themselves it is people who have to be their representatives as owners and do the actual trading. Do people only come into contact with one another just to buy and sell? I find that really strange. I think Marx's choice of working is perfect. It is a fetishistic way of dealing with people through money. You don't see anything in the natural world doing this. An entire legal superstructure is created so people can play those roles is out of control. Rather than create this autonomous social system, all have to do is guide their real relations of production in and with nature for survival. Sounds pretty tragic to me that a skilled professor or teacher, lawyer, carpenter, scientist, one industry to another, and an unskilled average worker can all be reduced a 'thing' called 'value' expressed as a quantity of value in their services or products. Then to make matters worse, these industries relate to each other rather through blind averages of products bought and sold. That is strange and crippling. This prevents us from using our industry capacity in a rational way and breeds stupid people.
if you want to understand it you will have to read it yourself to really get it. you can't rely on others to think for you. but there is plenty of introductory texts to marx' theory. the best of course are those who remain close to the original text.
Thanks for your question. I think Marx and Engels' position was that it is impossible to articulate an un-alienated relationship from our current material/discursive framework. That is, humans would have to get closer to transparency before they could see what transparency would actually be like. I derive this answer mainly from Engels' critique of Utopian Socialism in "Socialist: Utopian and Scientific." There, Engels critices Utopian socialists for their "top-down" vision of the future.
Thompson rejects Althusser's theory of ideological interpretation for its determinism--Althusser boxes himself in so that there seems to be no way to think outside the box of ideology. But if it leaves us wondering where to find revolutionary agency, Althusser's theory nonetheless offers a powerful lever of critique.
Well, Marx actually agrees with you. In naming the phenomenon "commodity fetishism" Marx wasn't promoting fetishism--he was criticizing the way people look at the things they produce in a capitalist economy, and arguing that this habit of mistaking the "thing" for the life process makes people unhappy.
Hi, I'm curious to know what marx' thoughts were on how a transparent and actual relationship between people is characterized by. How do we see eachother when not alienated from eachother according to Marx?
This was extremely helpful and interesting. Are there any sources of academic text which sums up these theories like you have? Would be really useful for my work? Thanks
Please could you explain what Marx means by this: "the social relations of the producers (...) take the form of the social relations between the products" ? Thank you :)
Frederick Leo I think this is Marx’s snide way of saying social relations are not valued in a commodity-exchange based economy. In other words, producers/consumers direct most of their attention to the commodities and ignore or pay little attention/analysis to the social relations, I.e. labor, hierarchy that makes those things useful. This is to the detriment of all involved in the labor process, as well as those who glorify and celebrate commodities and exchange value above human life; because after all, when things are treasured more than people, the social relations of production end up destroying the environment and the laborer only while making the capitalist temporarily rich in things.
Hi Frederick - that's the rub of commodity fetishism. It means that rather than seeing how your iPhone is produced and by whom and under what conditions and then have the maker exchange with you to give you the phone, you just see the phone on the market with a price tag. Likewise, no one sees your conditions on the market and even you don't know what your work is valued when it is turned into a commodity. Everything is displaced, from a social relation you can see and understand to a hidden commodity relationship. The social relationship is still there - you need to go to work to buy things produced by other people - you're all entwined - but it's not obvious that this is the case So rather than having explicit relations among humans, we see the world as relations among commodities and money. The word fetish has a weird connotation now - everyone thinks about sex - but basically it means a displacement from one thing to another. One thing is hidden and an imposter is what is seen.
So if i understand correctly commodity fetishism is what happens when societies values inflate the value of a product beyond the cost of labor in a society where all materials are held in common? So for example sun glasses which cost hundreds of dollars in the store but cost little to make? Is it the idea that social values such as fashion or fads distort and increase the value of commodities in a way that is unconscious to most because they believe in private property?
Only commodity producing societies demand the money-commodity of gold. As such, gold is not a use-value but money. Despite the fact that its useful qualities qualify it as a use-value it also qualifies it as money. How much things cost to make and how much they sell for is not the idea here. This professor poorly explains it and is real boring to boot, which is why people get turned off to economics. You have to understand Marx's Law of Value before discussing commodity fetishism and then the complex money form is better grasped because that is what he is getting at the complex money system of capitalism ---the financial machinery of capital and how it operates.
This sheds little light upon Marx's ideas. He reads a good chunk of Marx's dense, abstract prose. Quoting is not explaining. When he does offer his commentary, it sounds little different from the Marx he quoted.
@arguingplentifully ...following that line thought, it's a sad truth that it's only been a relatively brief amount of time that certain races have been allowed to trade equally and freely across the world. It's like turning up to card game half way though; your opponents will, of course, have more winnings than you at that point.
@arguingplentifully I'm not sure if this argument holds weight, although I agree that there is still prejudice around. I see many of the great financial powers around as deriving from great historical riches that have 'passed down', so to speak, over time. Even large banks and reserves have initial investors who 'prop-up' and help germinate their growth. Therefore much of the monetary power of the world remains amongst the peoples ( through religious or blood ties) who've held it for centuries.
I feel so stupid. This stuff is really hard to understand I wish that someone preferablely Ron Strickland would post a response video and explain this stuff in plain English instead of quoting Marx and expecting his audience just to get it. I need some one to go over this stuff sentence by sentence. btw who studies this for fun?
Don't feel stupid, it helps if you understand as long as labor is used as the measure of value its products will always be commodities and value serves as the substance that makes them exchangeable in varying amounts. If your house sells for 100K, House = $, is how we understand exchange from a general category to a particular thing. But if you reverse that equation the particular things all equal to one kind of value, it becomes clear, e.g, $= house, car, oil, gas, food, iron, wheat, paper money. Money makes all these things equal to each other because they all contain labor-time money represents. Hope that helps.
Commodities are given sort of magical properties to the minds of consumers past the object's literal use value. Because consumers see these objects in terms of those properties, that separates us from those who produced the item and the labor. Both the people who produce the item and the consumers form a relationship with the item itself and this breaks down the relationships between humans as well as the relationship of humans to their own labor. It's complex stuff. Hope this helps. For example, an iPhone the prestige of the object is so ingrained in our minds that we don't think about the children in China that are laboring to produce the product, thus are relationships to the people who produce the items and their labor are distorted.
It may be helpful to know that by the time Marx wrote 'Das Kapital', the terms 'fetish' and 'fetishism' were not yet used with a sexual connotation, but merely meant the belief, typical of 'primitive' religions, that certain objects could have magic qualities and powers . It wasn't until after Marx's death that the French psychologist Alfred Binet applied the terms to describe a form of sexual fixation.
I did not know that. For Marx the fetishism reveals how 'real relations of production' take the form of a commodity relation is due to all kinds of human labor simply measuring out 'homogenous abstract labor' in them when they come into an exchange. They are all equally 'values'. Since they don't exchange themselves it is people who have to be their representatives as owners and do the actual trading. Do people only come into contact with one another just to buy and sell? I find that really strange. I think Marx's choice of working is perfect. It is a fetishistic way of dealing with people through money. You don't see anything in the natural world doing this. An entire legal superstructure is created so people can play those roles is out of control. Rather than create this autonomous social system, all have to do is guide their real relations of production in and with nature for survival. Sounds pretty tragic to me that a skilled professor or teacher, lawyer, carpenter, scientist, one industry to another, and an unskilled average worker can all be reduced a 'thing' called 'value' expressed as a quantity of value in their services or products. Then to make matters worse, these industries relate to each other rather through blind averages of products bought and sold. That is strange and crippling. This prevents us from using our industry capacity in a rational way and breeds stupid people.
Where is Mr. Strickland now 12 year after the publishing of this video?
the countless essays written based on this video. thank you kindly.
Thanks for your comment!
if you want to understand it you will have to read it yourself to really get it. you can't rely on others to think for you.
but there is plenty of introductory texts to marx' theory. the best of course are those who remain close to the original text.
Thanks for your question. I think Marx and Engels' position was that it is impossible to articulate an un-alienated relationship from our current material/discursive framework. That is, humans would have to get closer to transparency before they could see what transparency would actually be like. I derive this answer mainly from Engels' critique of Utopian Socialism in "Socialist: Utopian and Scientific." There, Engels critices Utopian socialists for their "top-down" vision of the future.
I'm glad all of you found it interesting... I plan to add new videos to the series from time to time.
Thompson rejects Althusser's theory of ideological interpretation for its determinism--Althusser boxes himself in so that there seems to be no way to think outside the box of ideology. But if it leaves us wondering where to find revolutionary agency, Althusser's theory nonetheless offers a powerful lever of critique.
Awesome program, sir. Your videos have answered many of my questions about Marxism.
Well, Marx actually agrees with you. In naming the phenomenon "commodity fetishism" Marx wasn't promoting fetishism--he was criticizing the way people look at the things they produce in a capitalist economy, and arguing that this habit of mistaking the "thing" for the life process makes people unhappy.
Thank you for these lectures, please do more.
Hi, I'm curious to know what marx' thoughts were on how a transparent and actual relationship between people is characterized by. How do we see eachother when not alienated from eachother according to Marx?
This was extremely helpful and interesting. Are there any sources of academic text which sums up these theories like you have? Would be really useful for my work? Thanks
Please could you explain what Marx means by this: "the social relations of the producers (...) take the form of the social relations between the products" ? Thank you :)
Frederick Leo
I think this is Marx’s snide way of saying social relations are not valued in a commodity-exchange based economy. In other words, producers/consumers direct most of their attention to the commodities and ignore or pay little attention/analysis to the social relations, I.e. labor, hierarchy that makes those things useful. This is to the detriment of all involved in the labor process, as well as those who glorify and celebrate commodities and exchange value above human life; because after all, when things are treasured more than people, the social relations of production end up destroying the environment and the laborer only while making the capitalist temporarily rich in things.
Hi Frederick - that's the rub of commodity fetishism. It means that rather than seeing how your iPhone is produced and by whom and under what conditions and then have the maker exchange with you to give you the phone, you just see the phone on the market with a price tag. Likewise, no one sees your conditions on the market and even you don't know what your work is valued when it is turned into a commodity. Everything is displaced, from a social relation you can see and understand to a hidden commodity relationship.
The social relationship is still there - you need to go to work to buy things produced by other people - you're all entwined - but it's not obvious that this is the case So rather than having explicit relations among humans, we see the world as relations among commodities and money. The word fetish has a weird connotation now - everyone thinks about sex - but basically it means a displacement from one thing to another. One thing is hidden and an imposter is what is seen.
So if i understand correctly commodity fetishism is what happens when societies values inflate the value of a product beyond the cost of labor in a society where all materials are held in common? So for example sun glasses which cost hundreds of dollars in the store but cost little to make? Is it the idea that social values such as fashion or fads distort and increase the value of commodities in a way that is unconscious to most because they believe in private property?
Only commodity producing societies demand the money-commodity of gold. As such, gold is not a use-value but money. Despite the fact that its useful qualities qualify it as a use-value it also qualifies it as money. How much things cost to make and how much they sell for is not the idea here. This professor poorly explains it and is real boring to boot, which is why people get turned off to economics. You have to understand Marx's Law of Value before discussing commodity fetishism and then the complex money form is better grasped because that is what he is getting at the complex money system of capitalism ---the financial machinery of capital and how it operates.
That's my favorite porn genre.
what's the background music in the debut???
This sheds little light upon Marx's ideas. He reads a good chunk of Marx's dense, abstract prose. Quoting is not explaining. When he does offer his commentary, it sounds little different from the Marx he quoted.
thanks for posting this!
thanks algorithm
@arguingplentifully ...following that line thought, it's a sad truth that it's only been a relatively brief amount of time that certain races have been allowed to trade equally and freely across the world. It's like turning up to card game half way though; your opponents will, of course, have more winnings than you at that point.
@arguingplentifully I'm not sure if this argument holds weight, although I agree that there is still prejudice around. I see many of the great financial powers around as deriving from great historical riches that have 'passed down', so to speak, over time. Even large banks and reserves have initial investors who 'prop-up' and help germinate their growth. Therefore much of the monetary power of the world remains amongst the peoples ( through religious or blood ties) who've held it for centuries.
Spot on! Inheritance laws preserve the original surpluses from way back in time for a specific class in the future.
I feel so stupid. This stuff is really hard to understand I wish that someone preferablely Ron Strickland would post a response video and explain this stuff in plain English instead of quoting Marx and expecting his audience just to get it. I need some one to go over this stuff sentence by sentence. btw who studies this for fun?
Me, I study only for fun!
Don't feel stupid, it helps if you understand as long as labor is used as the measure of value its products will always be commodities and value serves as the substance that makes them exchangeable in varying amounts. If your house sells for 100K, House = $, is how we understand exchange from a general category to a particular thing. But if you reverse that equation the particular things all equal to one kind of value, it becomes clear, e.g, $= house, car, oil, gas, food, iron, wheat, paper money. Money makes all these things equal to each other because they all contain labor-time money represents. Hope that helps.
Commodities are given sort of magical properties to the minds of consumers past the object's literal use value. Because consumers see these objects in terms of those properties, that separates us from those who produced the item and the labor. Both the people who produce the item and the consumers form a relationship with the item itself and this breaks down the relationships between humans as well as the relationship of humans to their own labor. It's complex stuff. Hope this helps. For example, an iPhone the prestige of the object is so ingrained in our minds that we don't think about the children in China that are laboring to produce the product, thus are relationships to the people who produce the items and their labor are distorted.
Ha ha.