Is commodity fetishism unique to capitalism?

[Illegalitarian]

Thread title says it all... to me, commodity fetishism doesn't really seem like an issue specifically with capitalism, but rather, a problem that people have in general with anthropomorphizing non-human things and taking very mechanical, reductionist views of the world around us, missing or perhaps willfully ignoring the "bigger picture" if you will, the way things work in relation to the world around them, even missing the fact that all things do, indeed, have relation to the world around them, especially social relations.

So to me it seems as if the end of capitalism, even if it does mean the end of goods as commodities, would not lead to the end of people viewing economic activity as merely the trading or distribution of goods in relation to production rather than viewing economics as a social relation.

[Kill all the fetuses!]

Isn't commodity fetishism about people being the creators of commodities and, hence, social laws that it necessities, but having the activity of our behaviour being controlled by the commodities (and laws that it entails)?

Isn't it what the analogy of religion in Capital means, i.e. people creating God, but now God controlling people's behaviour?

Isn't it not about "viewing" or "understanding" commodity production in some subjective sense, but the commodity production entailing laws (i.e. law of value) that then controls us irrespective of how we view it and how we understand it?

[Illegalitarian]

Isn't commodity fetishism about people being the creators of commodities and, hence, social laws that it necessities, but having the activity of our behaviour being controlled by the commodities (and laws that it entails)?

Isn't it what the analogy of religion in Capital means, i.e. people creating God, but now God controlling people's behaviour?

Isn't it not about "viewing" or "understanding" commodity production in some subjective sense, but the commodity production entailing laws (i.e. law of value) that then controls us irrespective of how we view it and how we understand it?

It's entirely about viewing commodity production and market exchanges in a subjective sense, independent of the social relations of economic activity and what they entail.

but you're right on everything else.

[Blake's Baby]

As no other economic system was based on prouction of commodities, it's difficult to see how commodity fetishism would be a major feature of them.

[Illegalitarian]

As no other economic system was based on prouction of commodities, it's difficult to see how commodity fetishism would be a major feature of them.


I'm speaking specifically of the tendency people have of viewing things mechanically, from a reductionist view, seeing trade and goods as having qualities all of their own, rather than how they're all part of a social relation.


So even in, say, a communist society, why would this not be so? What would keep people from still viewing these objects as a status symbol, as a thing almost with a life of its own rather than considering what it took to make them, viewing it only for its use value?

[Sewer Socialist]

As no other economic system was based on prouction of commodities, it's difficult to see how commodity fetishism would be a major feature of them.

Feudalism was not a mode of commodity production? When a peasant produces large amounts wheat for their lord, which the lord will redistribute, in exchange for land and security, why is that wheat not a commodity? Or were there other dominant modes of production I am overlooking?

[Illegalitarian]

Feudalism as a mode of production has always been a bit hard to define for me.


I don't think one could even give a proper blanket definition of feudalism as one could for capitalism, unless one wants to take a rather eurocentric view of feudalism.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Feudalism was not a mode of commodity production? When a peasant produces large amounts wheat for their lord, which the lord will redistribute, in exchange for land and security, why is that wheat not a commodity? Or were there other dominant modes of production I am overlooking?

The point is that the wheat is not sold on the market - therefore it is not a commodity. There was commodity production under feudalism (see the Champagne fairs for example) and under Asiatic despotism, but this was a minor component of an economy that was based on agricultural production.

[Blake's Baby]

What 870 says. Commodity production existed in previous modes of production (the ancient slave societies of the Mediterranean having very clear components of their economies devoted to commodity production, some of it even by wage labour) but it was not the general mode of production. Likewise, in feudal Europe, markets existed alongside other mechanisms of distribution, and they were by no means the most important. When they become the most important (eg the Anglo-Flemish cloth industry) we are talking about the beginings of capitalism.

The majority of production in previous societies was intended for consumption. Excess production could be sold on the market. In capitalism, the majority of production (even in the agricultural sector I'd guess) is destined for the market. That's what makes it a commodity; the fact that it trades against other social products rather than being directly consumed.

Capitalism is not 'production for distribution'. Every economy has that. Capitalism is 'generalised commodity production through wage labour'. There are three elements to that - it has to be production for the market, it has to involve the exploitation of the proletariat, and it has to involve the most significant portion of the economy. All previous economic forms involved a little of the first and second but only in capitalism are these features generalised.

Otherwise you could conclude from that fact that slavery still exists (in a very minor way) that we're living in ancient Athens. It still exists (as commodity production through wage labour existed in the ancient world and in feudal Europe) but it is not a general system.

[Illegalitarian]

What 870 says. Commodity production existed in previous modes of production (the ancient slave societies of the Mediterranean having very clear components of their economies devoted to commodity production, some of it even by wage labour) but it was not the general mode of production. Likewise, in feudal Europe, markets existed alongside other mechanisms of distribution, and they were by no means the most important. When they become the most important (eg the Anglo-Flemish cloth industry) we are talking about the beginings of capitalism.

The majority of production in previous societies was intended for consumption. Excess production could be sold on the market. In capitalism, the majority of production (even in the agricultural sector I'd guess) is destined for the market. That's what makes it a commodity; the fact that it trades against other social products rather than being directly consumed.

Capitalism is not 'production for distribution'. Every economy has that. Capitalism is 'generalised commodity production through wage labour'. There are three elements to that - it has to be production for the market, it has to involve the exploitation of the proletariat, and it has to involve the most significant portion of the economy. All previous economic forms involved a little of the first and second but only in capitalism are these features generalised.

Otherwise you could conclude from that fact that slavery still exists (in a very minor way) that we're living in ancient Athens. It still exists (as commodity production through wage labour existed in the ancient world and in feudal Europe) but it is not a general system.

What do you mean by the bolded? Were goods not produced and sold on the market for a price, with workers being exploited to make those goods, during feudalism? I'm not sure why you mean by "consumed" as a concept opposed to being sold on a market. What other mode of distribution was there?

[Dave B]

I think if you take an informal understanding of commodity fetishism as a kind of asceticism and rejection of conspicuous consumption etc.

It did exist I think in the form of Greek Cynicism, as it was interpreted in first century Roman empire.

You have to historically contextualise Greek Philosophy I think as it tended to morph over time.

I haven’t read up on the Greek Cynics yet but it is on my provisional reading list if anybody knows of a good book on it.

There was something called ‘wage labour’ 2000 years ago and I think it was Cicero who first used the term wage slave.

However it is confused somewhat by the fact that the ‘payment’ for commodities produced by simple commodity producers eg by landowning peasants and particularly artisans was often considered even by themselves as ‘wages’.


As did the artisans in Britain around the turn of 1800 eg from the own literature as often cited in Thompsons history of the working class.

For it to properly come under the term wage labour it would I think have to fall into the category of ‘piece work’.

[Creative Destruction]

What do you mean by the bolded? Were goods not produced and sold on the market for a price, with workers being exploited to make those goods, during feudalism? I'm not sure why you mean by "consumed" as a concept opposed to being sold on a market. What other mode of distribution was there?

Not generally. The majority of production in feudalism was for direct consumption of the serfs and the people they pledged tribute to in exchange for land and protection. Most serfs did not produce enough to take any surplus to market to be sold, though it was technically an ability to do so. It was a tertiary concern, if one at all. Markets had very little play here.

[DOOM]

What do you mean by the bolded? Were goods not produced and sold on the market for a price, with workers being exploited to make those goods, during feudalism? I'm not sure why you mean by "consumed" as a concept opposed to being sold on a market. What other mode of distribution was there?

No, at least it didn't predominate. This is a popular historical misconception caused by wrong reconstruction of history in pop-culture. It's just easier to portray the medieval ages for the visitors of a cinema through a capitalist lense, than to explain them the basic traits of feudalism before starting the actual movie (needless to say that it would suck).
However, the conditions didn't allow that much productivity to let markets (and thus commodity fetishism, labour fetishism and capitalism in general) emerge significantly. There wasn't enough surplus to allow peasants and craftsmen to sell their product on a market.

[Illegalitarian]

So serfs toiled and produced goods for their own consumption, and the rest was paid as tribute for protection?

I'm sorry, I feel pretty stupid here because I honestly don't know much at all about feudal social relations, the rise of feudalism, what defined it in certain parts of the worlds or how it ended, outside of France and England (I think Cromwell ended it maybe? I'm not sure, again, I feel pretty embarrassed here).



Not to be off topic, but what anarchist capitalist call for, isn't that basically feudalism? Private security agencies that one must pay for protection, agencies that in reality would dominate society and likely fight (perhaps not physically) for control of certain regions?

[Creative Destruction]

So serfs toiled and produced goods for their own consumption, and the rest was paid as tribute for protection?

The other way around: the serfs toiled to pay tribute (primary), and the rest was for their consumption (secondary).

[Illegalitarian]

That's uh... pretty fucking terrible.

Where did the bourgeois come from, in all of this? What made them, in England, France, Japan, etc organize as a class and start acting in their rational self-interests as a class? With no generalized commodity production or wage labor it seems as if there wouldn't have really been a big presence of bourgeois, petite or otherwise.

[Blake's Baby]

Well, there wasn't. That's why we didn't have generalised capitalist production.

But capitalism is far more dynamic than feudalism. There's little 'economic' rationale for an aristocrat to improve the lot of his peasants in order to increase production - better, if he wants to make money in the short term, to throw them off the land and move sheep in.

Capitalists on the other hand exploit the working class in ways that aristocrats never even thought of. Treating labour as a commodity to be bought and sold reduces the peasant (free or unfree, they're still in control of their work-processes) to the 'hired hand' (no other part of the human worker is important). This is what 'wage slavery' is - the state of existing only on the sale of labour power.

The re-investment of profit as capital makes capitalsm the relatively dynamic system it is. It overcomes other economic forms by out-competing them. It takes a generation to improve an estate; it takes a month to improve a factory. Capitalists employing proletarians were faster at making money than aristocrats with their peasant dependants. The bourgeoisie (or 'burghers', ie 'town-dwellers', that is, pretty much what we'd think of as merchants) began to control more and more of the economy, in England, France, the Low Countries and parts of Germany and Italy.

[Illegalitarian]

Were peasants treated as slaves? It sounds as if they were quite independent upon the aristocracy, for pretty much everything. What was the relationship there?

I'm also not sure if we can really say that the re-investment of profit into an operation to make it more profitable is uniquely capitalist. Surely the feudal lords of the day recognized that investing in their peasant.. operations, or what have you, would make their dealings more profitable? Then again, I'm not even sure how the aristocracy even made profit, without wage labor.

Again, sorry if this is way off base or seems like a noob question. I've just never been particularly interested in reading upon feudalism until now, or at least, the dynamics of it.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Were peasants treated as slaves? It sounds as if they were quite independent upon the aristocracy, for pretty much everything. What was the relationship there?

I'm also not sure if we can really say that the re-investment of profit into an operation to make it more profitable is uniquely capitalist. Surely the feudal lords of the day recognized that investing in their peasant.. operations, or what have you, would make their dealings more profitable? Then again, I'm not even sure how the aristocracy even made profit, without wage labor.

Again, sorry if this is way off base or seems like a noob question. I've just never been particularly interested in reading upon feudalism until now, or at least, the dynamics of it.

Serfs were not slaves - they owed a labour obligation to their lords and did not have freedom of movement generally speaking, but they were not chattel.

The feudal owners didn't really seek profit - social power in the period was derived from other things, from military control over significant areas of land and patronage of important religious institutions to wealth that was mainly the result of the feudalist's prerogative to impose levies, duties, imposts etc.

[Illegalitarian]

There was certainly money, though. Where did it come in and how was it earned if not through labor? If the serfs were not typically paid, it's hard to imagine they had money to pay any sort of taxes. What determined this labor obligation to feudal lords?

As someone earlier said, the popular depiction of feudalism has certainly painted it in an entirely different light and made it more relatable, this is all (mostly) news to me!

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

There was certainly money, though. Where did it come in and how was it earned if not through labor? If the serfs were not typically paid, it's hard to imagine they had money to pay any sort of taxes. What determined this labor obligation to feudal lords?

As someone earlier said, the popular depiction of feudalism has certainly painted it in an entirely different light and made it more relatable, this is all (mostly) news to me!

Serfs did not typically pay taxes (although they paid tithes and so on in natura). Craftsmen, merchants and petty nobles did, as did some free farmers. A count of Leicester, for example, could extract money from merchants entering his lands, from craftsmen and similar people, from lesser barons who lived in his territory and so on.

[Redistribute the Rep]

What determined this labor obligation to feudal lords?

The feudal lords offered them protection in exchange for their labor obligation

[Blake's Baby]

Rents in money gradually started becoming more important in England from the early 14th century onwards. A rural proletariat developed too. Previously the main way dues were paid was in kind - either in products, or in labour.

Our word 'farm' almost certainly derives from the latin 'firma' meaning the food an estate gave to its feudal lord. Kings would travel around the country with their courts, living on their 'firma' - food-rents - by staying at an estate for a while, eating the produce, then moving 20 miles down the road after a week or two.

Most lords didn't have such widespread estates but even then, wagons and wagons of agricultural produce would roll up to their castles as the peasants paid of their 'debts' to their superiors. The church was a massive landholder too, and took its share of production.

Money, as such, was a very minor part of 'economic' life.

[Sewer Socialist]

The majority of production in feudalism was for direct consumption of the serfs and the people they pledged tribute to in exchange for land and protection

So is it correct to say that this production for exchange (for land and protection) was producing commodities, but the commodities produced were overshadowed if compared to what was produced for direct consumpton, as in by the peasant families who produced it?

[Blake's Baby]

No, they're not commodities, because commodities trade on the market. There was no 'market' in protection, you couldn't say 'well, I produced 20 cows but the Earl of Oxford is only offering me 9 months' protection, if I trade them with the Duke of Norfolk I get a whole year's protection...'.

The 'right' to farm the Earl of Oxford's land came with the obligation to supply certain services (some grain; some cows; some labour on the Lord's land etc). There was no 'trade' involved. When you pay taxes, are you 'tradding' money for protection (by the army or police)? Or are taxes imposed on you whether you will or no? You don't get to pick and chose and say 'well, I'd rather be protected by Belgium, thanks, I'll pay my taxes to them.'

I don't really see how this can be regarded as 'exchange'. Unless you think robbery is an 'exchange', where someone hands over their wallet, in exchange for not being stabbed in the face.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

So is it correct to say that this production for exchange (for land and protection) was producing commodities, but the commodities produced were overshadowed if compared to what was produced for direct consumpton, as in by the peasant families who produced it?

To expand on what B's B said, and because I think we're in disagreement about a minor matter (I think compulsory market exchanges make sense), this was not a market exchange - that is, the food produced was not traded for money qua universal equivalent. In fact a lot of exchanges in mediaeval society, particularly in the Early Middle / "Dark" Ages were not market exchanges, for example when a family gave their land to a monastery in return for religious patronage but kept the usurfruct and so on.

[Sewer Socialist]

Oh, yes, now I understand. Thanks!

[RedMaterialist]

So is it correct to say that this production for exchange (for land and protection) was producing commodities, but the commodities produced were overshadowed if compared to what was produced for direct consumpton, as in by the peasant families who produced it?

The problem of the definition of a commodity was apparently even an issue for Marx and Engels:


Whoever directly satisfies his wants with the produce of his own labour, creates, indeed, use values, but not commodities. In order to produce the latter, he must not only produce use values, but use values for others, social use values. (And not only for others, without more. The mediaeval peasant produced quit-rent-corn for his feudal lord and tithe-corn for his parson. But neither the quit-rent-corn nor the tithe-corn became commodities by reason of the fact that they had been produced for others. To become a commodity a product must be transferred to another, whom it will serve as a use value, by means of an exchange.) From Capital, Vol I, Chap One, Section One.

Footnote added by Engels:


I am inserting the parenthesis because its omission has often given rise to the misunderstanding that every product that is consumed by some one other than its producer is considered in Marx a commodity. [Engels, 4th German Edition]

[Blake's Baby]

There is another passage where Marx says it is only when traded against other goods on the market that commodities exist as such, it is then that they reveal their commodity form. I'm sure some of our Marxian scholars can find it. The point is that 'commodities' are not produced for consumption as such, but for trade.

[RedMaterialist]

I'm sure some of our Marxian scholars can find it. The point is that 'commodities' are not produced for consumption as such, but for trade.

I thought we all were Marxian scholars.

So, a slave produces cotton for a slave owner, but there is no transfer of the cotton by means of an exchange, of a sale. The transfer is controlled by direct force. When a serf produces a bushel of wheat there is no transfer of the wheat by an exchange or sale. The transfer is also controlled by force, the serf is tied to the estate.

On the other hand, when a corporation employee operates farm machinery and produces a bushel of wheat or bale of cotton, the transfer of the product from the employee to the corporation is controlled by the exchange of wages for the product. Or the exchange of wages for the work which produced the product, which I think would be the same.

Of course, in the case of commodity production the exchange of wages for the product is assumed to be an equal, free exchange. The marginal product of labor is equal to the wage paid for that labor, according to the neo-classical economists.

But the problem is, how does commodity production produce the fetish character of the commodity?

[Blake's Baby]

I thought we all were Marxian scholars...

I'm not. I can quote very few bits of Marx, and I almost always have to go and look up referrences. I don't regard myself as a Marx scholar at all. Scholarship isn't the point, we're not being examined on this stuff. Practice is the point surely.


...So, a slave produces cotton for a slave owner, but there is no transfer of the cotton by means of an exchange, of a sale. The transfer is controlled by direct force. When a serf produces a bushel of wheat there is no transfer of the wheat by an exchange or sale. The transfer is also controlled by force, the serf is tied to the estate.

On the other hand, when a corporation employee operates farm machinery and produces a bushel of wheat or bale of cotton, the transfer of the product from the employee to the corporation is controlled by the exchange of wages for the product. Or the exchange of wages for the work which produced the product, which I think would be the same...

That's not really a market relation though. Yes, labour-power is a commodity but it's not trading 'against' the cotton, it's trading against other labour-power.

The cotton becomes a commodity when it enters the market, ie trades against other commodities in the market, ie when you can buy cotton or beans or nails or training shoes or Justin Beiber CDs. Not swapping cotton for labour-power. The worker never owns the cotton in the first place, so there is no 'exchange'/'transfer' there.


...Of course, in the case of commodity production the exchange of wages for the product is assumed to be an equal, free exchange. The marginal product of labor is equal to the wage paid for that labor, according to the neo-classical economists.

But the problem is, how does commodity production produce the fetish character of the commodity?

Alienation of the product from the producer. The product ceases to be a work of joy and engagement and becomes an economic necessity divorced from human creativity.

I'm quite taken with the idea of homo faber, it makes a lot of sense to me. Humans like to make and play with stuff. When that become something that is done not to make you happy but to make someone else rich - and especially when the rich (therefore powerful) are in charge of a system that insists on its own 'rightness' - then what is made starts to become a monstrous 'other' that needs to be appeased. The economy - originally intended for the fulfillment of human needs - becomes a blind destroyer that needs constant sacrifices of time, energy, creativity, skill, emotional investment etc. The products people make take on a (pseudo-)life of their own, to the point where workers who make (let's say) shoes, sacrificing hours, days, even weeks of their life, cannot even afford to buy the shoes that they've made. 'Their' product - what they have made with their own time, effort, skill and energy - has become something outside of them, which commands them in a way, to make more sacrifices (of time and energy) to 'appease' (=re-appropriate) it.

That's why it's a 'fetish' - a monstrous but also ridiculous human-created godling.

[RedMaterialist]

I'm not. I can quote very few bits of Marx, and I almost always have to go and look up referrences. I don't regard myself as a Marx scholar at all. Scholarship isn't the point, we're not being examined on this stuff. Practice is the point surely.

Well, with google search we all can quote Marx, Engels, Lenin, etc. etc. in a matter of seconds. Practice and theory, the dialectic.




That's not really a market relation though. Yes, labour-power is a commodity but it's not trading 'against' the cotton, it's trading against other labour-power.

But isn't labor-power traded against money, which represents all commodities? A worker expects wages to be paid in money, not in other workers' labor.


The cotton becomes a commodity when it enters the market, ie trades against other commodities in the market, ie when you can buy cotton or beans or nails or training shoes or Justin Beiber CDs. Not swapping cotton for labour-power. The worker never owns the cotton in the first place, so there is no 'exchange'/'transfer' there.


So what, essentially, is the difference between wheat produced by a serf on an estate and wheat produced by a worker on a corporate farm?



Alienation of the product from the producer...
That's why it's a 'fetish' - a monstrous but also ridiculous human-created godling.

That would mean that wheat produced by a serf would become a fetish when taken from him by his lord.

In the "Fetishism of Commodities" Marx says that a commodity has the appearance of an independent object capable of being perceived by the senses. But in reality it also has a social, subjective quality due to its being produced by social labor. The social relationships of workers are seen by them as objective, material relations between the things they produce.

Thus, commodities appear to have social relations between themselves, and humans have replaced their social relations with material, objective relations. A thing, a commodity, has the quality of a human, social relationship and the only relation between humans is that of objects. As far as I can tell that is how the commodity fetish develops.

As you say, in religion humans produce religious beings who have independent lives apart from humans. The lives of humans become completely wrapped up in the lives of the religious beings. We are defined completely in terms of our own products.

I've always thought advertising is a perfect example of commodity fetishism. A person becomes defined by what type of vehicle they own. And the vehicles themselves have a kind of social relationship between themselves (the Mustang competes with the Skylark, the Tundra, the Ranger, etc..) Although in the past 30 yrs or so the commodities themselves have developed an abstract kind of quality. Cars have numbers rather than animal names. Their names have abstract, meaningless qualities, like Accord, Camry, etc.

[Noa Rodman]

The mode of production in which the product takes the form of a commodity, or is produced directly for exchange, is the most general and most embryonic form of bourgeois production. It therefore makes its appearance at an early date in history, though not in the same predominating and characteristic manner as now-a-days. Hence its Fetish character is comparatively easy to be seen through. But when we come to more concrete forms, even this appearance of simplicity vanishes. Whence arose the illusions of the monetary system? To it gold and silver, when serving as money, did not represent a social relation between producers, but were natural objects with strange social properties. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm#S4

I think the same thing is said by Engels here:

The most important and most incisive advance was the transition to metallic money, the consequence of which, however, was that the determination of value by labor-time was no longer visible upon the surface of commodity exchange. From the practical point of view, money became the decisive measure of value, all the more as the commodities entering trade became more varied, the more they came from distant countries, and the less, therefore, the labor-time necessary for their production could be checked. Money itself usually came first from foreign parts; even when precious metals were obtained within the country, the peasant and artisan were partly unable to estimate approximately the labor employed therein, and partly their own consciousness of the value-measuring property of labor had been fairly well dimmed by the habit of reckoning with money; in the popular mind, money began to represent absolute value. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/supp.htm

And consequently, since today metallic money (silver and gold) are not encountered by ordinary people in daily exchange, commodity fetishism itself actually becomes obscured:

According to Marx, the nature of social mediation in capitalism is further obscured by the fact that money has developed historically in such a manner that coins and paper money have come to serve as signs of value. There is no direct correlation, however, between the value of these signs and the value they signify. Because even relatively valueless objects can serve as means of circulation, money does not appear to be a bearer of value. Consequently, the very existence of value as a social mediation, whether located in the commodity or in its expression as money, is veiled by this contingent surface relationship between signifier and signified. This real process of obfuscation is reinforced by the function of money as a means of payment for commodities that had been acquired previously through contracts, and as credit money. In such cases, money no longer seems to mediate the process of exchange; rather, the movement of the means of payment seems merely to reflect and validate a social connection that already was present independently. In other words, social relations in capitalism can seem as though they have nothing to do with the commodity form of social mediation. Rather, these relations can appear either to be pregiven or to be constituted ultimately by convention, by contracts among self-determining individuals. (quoted from Time, Labor, and Social Domination)

[RedMaterialist]

Your quote from Postone:
In other words, social relations in capitalism can seem as though they have nothing to do with the commodity form of social mediation.

It seems to me that quote touches on the fetishism question without directly addressing it. Marx specifically argued that, in fact, social relations in capitalism are completely obscured by the objectivity of the commodity form of the product. The commodity has a physical reality which can be directly sensed; but underlying that is the subjective, social reality of the labor process which produced the commodity.

But more than that, it appears to the producers that their social relations are the social relations of objects, and inversely, the material relations of the commodities become the social relations of the human producers.

(All of this is from Marx's "Fetishism of the Commodity.")

In other words, in capitalist production, it comes to appear that there are no human social relations, precisely because the commodity form itself becomes a social relation between things. This can lead to, I think, certain modern forms of capitalist apology: Margaret Thatcher's claim that society no longer exists and Ayn Rand's 'philosophy' of Objectivism. Thatcher thinks society doesnt exist because she can't see it or touch it. And Rand only can see the objective commodity.

So, I would think that the OP question about whether the commodity fetish occurred in the previous slave and serf economies, would have to be answered as no, except that as another poster commented, there was simple, restricted commodity production in those economies, but never at the scale and domination as modern capitalism.

[Noa Rodman]

Postone writes that credit or paper money obscures the existence of commodity fetishism. Even to someone like Hilferding:
The state can therefore make paper money legal tender. In other words, within the limits set by the minimum required for circulation, a consciously regulated social relationship can take the place of a relationship which is expressed through an object. All this is possible because metallic money, although concealed in a material garb, is itself a social relation. https://www.marxists.org/archive/hilferding/1910/finkap/ch02.htm


One cannot agree with Hilferding's conception that paper money does away with the "objectification" of production relations. "Within the limits of a minimal quantity of means of circulation, the material expression of social relations is replaced by consciously regulated social relations. This is possible because metallic money represents a social relation even though it is disguised by a material shell" (R. Hilferding, Das Finanzkapital, Wien: Wiener Volksbuchhandlung, 1910). Commodity exchange by means of paper money is also carried out in an unregulated, spontaneous, "objectified" form, as is the case with metallic money. Paper money is not a "thing" from the point of view of the internal value of the material from which it is made. But it is a thing in the sense that through it are expressed, in "objectified" form, social production relations between buyer and seller.
But if Hilferding is wrong, then the opposite view of Bogdanov, who holds that paper money represents a higher degree of fetishism of social relations than metallic money, has even less foundation. Bogdanov, Kurs politicheskoi ekonomii (Course in Political Economy), Vol. II, Part 4, p. 161. http://www.marxists.org/archive/rubin/value/ch01.htm

Gold is the direct reification (thingification) of universal labour-time. This is not simply an appearance, but is the objective reality of capitalism. But with paper money npwadays I do think it becomes much harder to explain commodity fetishism.

[Blake's Baby]

Well, with google search we all can quote Marx, Engels, Lenin, etc. etc. in a matter of seconds. Practice and theory, the dialectic...

With google one can quote anything. You think that's what 'scholareship' means, knowing how to use google? I suggest you google a definition of 'scholarship'.




...
But isn't labor-power traded against money, which represents all commodities? A worker expects wages to be paid in money, not in other workers' labor...

Does the worker trade the goods he or she produces against that money? Does the boss of a car firm say 'you can either be paid in cash, or take a car home'?

I'd wager that hardly ever happens. If you're right, it happens every time a worker wants it to.




...
So what, essentially, is the difference between wheat produced by a serf on an estate and wheat produced by a worker on a corporate farm?...

I assume the wheat is the same.



...

That would mean that wheat produced by a serf would become a fetish when taken from him by his lord.

In the "Fetishism of Commodities" Marx says that a commodity has the appearance of an independent object capable of being perceived by the senses. But in reality it also has a social, subjective quality due to its being produced by social labor. The social relationships of workers are seen by them as objective, material relations between the things they produce.

Thus, commodities appear to have social relations between themselves, and humans have replaced their social relations with material, objective relations. A thing, a commodity, has the quality of a human, social relationship and the only relation between humans is that of objects. As far as I can tell that is how the commodity fetish develops.

As you say, in religion humans produce religious beings who have independent lives apart from humans. The lives of humans become completely wrapped up in the lives of the religious beings. We are defined completely in terms of our own products.

I've always thought advertising is a perfect example of commodity fetishism. A person becomes defined by what type of vehicle they own. And the vehicles themselves have a kind of social relationship between themselves (the Mustang competes with the Skylark, the Tundra, the Ranger, etc..) Although in the past 30 yrs or so the commodities themselves have developed an abstract kind of quality. Cars have numbers rather than animal names. Their names have abstract, meaningless qualities, like Accord, Camry, etc.

The wheat, for the peasant, is certainly taken from him by the Lord, but it isn't sold back to him; the peasant doesn't do other labour to get the money to buy back the wheat. The proletarian does. The peasant's needs are met - usually - directly from his or her own labour. The proletarian's needs are met only through the exchange of money on the market. No worker says 'I'll take home 20% of what I produce to feed myself and my family before handing the rest over to my boss'.

[RedMaterialist]

With google one can quote anything. You think that's what 'scholareship' means, knowing how to use google? I suggest you google a definition of 'scholarship'.

Well, I did google 'scholarship.' The first page or so was not a definition of scholarship, but rather a description on how to get scholarships. Scholarship has become a commodity.



The wheat, for the peasant, is certainly taken from him by the Lord, but it isn't sold back to him; the peasant doesn't do other labour to get the money to buy back the wheat.

So the wheat does not become a fetish for the peasant. And it does become a fetish because the corporate employee must buy bread from a local supermarket? I don't think Marx mentioned anything, in the Fetishism of Commodities, about the employee buying back his or her product.

The serfs knew exactly what they had produced and exactly what portion had been taken by the lord and the church. The working class, however, doesn't see the social nature of what has been produced or the social nature of the labor which produced it. Modern society only sees the objects, the vast accumulation of commodities produced, and what is a social relationship appears as an objective, material thing.

All value is produced socially, but we can only see the material objects which are individually produced. Things develop social relationships and people become relations attached to things.

[Blake's Baby]

Well, I did google 'scholarship.' The first page or so was not a definition of scholarship, but rather a description on how to get scholarships. Scholarship has become a commodity...

:laugh: Touche. I wish had an e-acute there.



...
So the wheat does not become a fetish for the peasant. And it does become a fetish because the corporate employee must buy bread from a local supermarket? I don't think Marx mentioned anything, in the Fetishism of Commodities, about the employee buying back his or her product...

The wheat that the peasant produces is divided. Some, the peasant keeps. The rest is delivered to the Lord (or the Church or whoever). The peasant never sees it again, and has no relationship to it. The rest of of it the peasant eats or if there's a surplus, sells. Either way, the peasant doesn't need to sacrifice anything more to get it.

The (let's say) shoes that a worker produces are all delivered to the capitalist. The worker doesn't get to keep every 5th pair or whatever. If the worker wants shoes, s/he has to buy back the products of her/his labour. The worker does have a relationship to the thing s/he created, but it's an alienated one where the product of labour acquires a life of its own separate from the production. It's the necessity of buying back that creates the relationship. The worker must sacrifice more time and energy to get the money together to re-appropriate the product of her/his own labour. That's why Marx talks of products 'confronting' the worker.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I've always thought advertising is a perfect example of commodity fetishism. A person becomes defined by what type of vehicle they own. And the vehicles themselves have a kind of social relationship between themselves (the Mustang competes with the Skylark, the Tundra, the Ranger, etc..) Although in the past 30 yrs or so the commodities themselves have developed an abstract kind of quality. Cars have numbers rather than animal names. Their names have abstract, meaningless qualities, like Accord, Camry, etc.it think that this is an example of fetishizing consumer commodities, not commodity fetishism, if the distinction makes sense.

Sure people project qualities onto consumer goods or status symbols, but this is just more like pure "fetishism" or symbolic associations. The stuff about the abstract names of cars is more just market competition and marketing.

Where commodity fetishism comes into play with cars is that if Toyota invests money and creates an auto plant in Tennessee we think, oh well they have this capital to invest and are creating jobs and it is their right to do this because they have this money to invest. What's hidden is where that capital came from and how that investment yields a return.

On the other hand, under direct exploitation if a lord hosts a feast, we don't think, oh he has a lot of money to spend on food for guests, we think... Look at what a large harvest there was and how the lord got all his tribute. The exploitation, the social relationship between the lord and peasant are clear. Exploitation is just the "right" of the lord.

With commodity fetishism, labor and capital are obscured and mediated and so it's as if the commodities have some "value" that it magical or inherent (new phone is $99... But what is $99 worth but apparently itself... A=A?), not that it is the value of the materials and labor.