Question about a sentence in Capital

[RedPotato]

Me and a friend have been reading Capital and there's this sentence that we simply don't understand what it means. I thought maybe someone here might be able to explain it. It's in chapter one, section 4. The paragraph is towards the end and starts with "As a general rule, articles of utility becomes commodities."

The specific sentence we are wondering about is: "To the latter, therefore, the relations connecting the labour of one individual with that of the rest appear, not as direct social relations between individuals at work, but as what they really are, material relations between persons and social relations between things."

That last part - "material relations between persons and social relations between things" is simply incomprehensible to me.

[Sewer Socialist]

So, the wealth of those societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails, presents itself as “an immense accumulation of commodities." Remember that part?

This mass of humanity is presented not as people, but as things, commodities. This is true for interpersonal relationships as well. The relationships between people are obscured as well. The people who make your food do so not for you really, but for money. Your food that you eat is acquired through the market. Your relationship to these people it's not direct, but mediated by money, and the relationship is solely on the basis of commodity exchange. You at work, do the same. Your work directly produces commodities or assists in others' commodity production. Your means of subsistence are met by buying commodities, buying the products of others' livelihood, and your means of acquiring them is met by selling your self, your time, your ability to work, as a commodity.

Relationships which happen through the market turn relationships between people into relationships between things, and relationships between things are turned into relationships between people. In effect, there is an objectification of subjects and a subjectification of objects. This is what is meant by commodity fetishism. In one sense, at least.

[Hatshepsut]

Mmm...Think of it this way. Suppose there are five people in a small band who all work together to produce what they need for survival. Their labor has a social character; all produce things together and share them together immediately. Later, division of labor comes along and the five people work separately. They don’t know each other personally. Each can access the products of the others only through trade. Each becomes identified to the others only through the things he or she makes. Therefore, a material relationship now exists between each person and the others, consisting of the things exchanged. But at the same time, each thing acquires the “personality” of its maker because the other people know him or her by that thing. So, what had been social relationships between people become social relationships between things, which are exchanged instead of just shared. Any exchange is a social transaction.

Seriously. Darlene, Bucky, and Raul become Dressmaker, Brickmason, and Roofer, so that dresses, bricks, and nailed shingles all have social relationships connecting them. After all, the acts of clothing, walling, and roofing had been social in the past.

Classical economics wants us to believe that things have value independently of the people who make them. The fact that the things are made individually, and stored in piles for some time before they are used, helps maintain that illusion.

It’s a dialectic style Marx often uses. Basically, every relationship between two items has an inverse, so that relationships come in pairs. For example, if A < B, then B > A. The modes of thinking most of us are familiar with take one of the relationships in a pair, say A < B, and follow its consequences. Dialectical thinking may analyze A < B by considering what happens when we start with B > A instead. Sometimes this reveals new conclusions not apparent earlier.

[RedPotato]

That cleared up a lot, thank you for your answers. I've noticed it can be quite tricky understanding what Marx writes since we are all so indoctrinated in conventional "liberal" thinking, whether we want to or not. It requires more effort and careful thinking to be able to think outside the framework of thought that I was brought up with than I first thought when I decided to read Capital.

[RedMaterialist]

That last part - "material relations between persons and social relations between things" is simply incomprehensible to me.

You and a lot of other people.

I think it means that, under capitalism, people become material, commodified, objectified (reification) things and things have social, subjective, personal relations. It's this bizarre "relation" between people and commodities that is the fetishism of commodities.

Thus, in my view, people can become completely identified with their purchases, for instance, they define themselves with whatever kind of car they buy; and the cars can develop personalities of their own, in the eyes of their owners.

I think the commodity fetish is the basis for all modern advertising. Buy this car and you can have great sex! This car has magical properties to make you sexually appealing! This car itself has the human quality of sexiness!

It's this reification of human beings which is expressed in Ayn Rand's objectivist philosophy. IMO.

[Hatshepsut]

Baba Shiv demonstrates commodity fetish in wine, where a $15 bottle relabeled at $250 suddenly becomes a much better wine even though nothing has changed except the price. The taste of expensive wine is embodied in a cheap wine through the powers of the consumer mind. MRI brain scanning was used.

Business says hiking a price to create market appeal is fully justified if you can get away with it; the "experienced pleasantness" of consuming is then the thing of value being sold. And the improvement in quality is real:

Baba Shiv on wine, Stanford Business School
https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/baba-shiv-how-wines-price-tag-affect-its-taste

There's another word for this: Gyp. :mad:

[RedMaterialist]

Baba Shiv demonstrates commodity fetish in wine, where a $15 bottle relabeled at $250 suddenly becomes a much better wine even though nothing has changed except the price. The taste of expensive wine is embodied in a cheap wine through the powers of the consumer mind. MRI brain scanning was used.

Business says hiking a price to create market appeal is fully justified if you can get away with it; the "experienced pleasantness" of consuming is then the thing of value being sold. And the improvement in quality is real:

Baba Shiv on wine, Stanford Business School
https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/baba-shiv-how-wines-price-tag-affect-its-taste

There's another word for this: Gyp. :mad:

How does this mean that the actual quality of the wine has changed? Why is it not just the perception?