Commodity fetishism is the understanding of the relationship between commodities put forward by the

Marxist point of view that every time a good has value added to it, it is only in terms of money,
inevitably. We owe back the credit not to the commodity itself and not the labor involved to add value
to it. This sets a different social dimension in terms of how we essentially view commodities: greed, lust
and hunger because we never bother to scratch or value how a particular product came into being but
rather what it looks like in its final stage. An elaborate and popular example of commodity fetishism is
an average fast food burger advert. A scrumptious giant burger sits in the middle of the plater with its
succulent sauces and grilled or deep fried patty. The everyday consumer looks at the price, mentally
creates a value they assign to the product and makes the purchase. However, this value is never
assigned considering the value of the work that went into making the burger itself.

Marx argued that economists did not investigate the reality of commodities beyond a superficial surface
level. The economists were too deeply entrenched in measuring value in terms of money, debt, cash
flow, interest rates and prices. In a recent, more contemporary situations, we assign these values in
terms of currencies, digital and national currencies available worldwide. However, Marx believed the
essential value of economic activity lied in the elaborate process of how production functioned, and the
value that labor and places added to it. It was not the price tag that created this value, rather the value
came from the source of the product. Industrialization, fertile land, skilled labor, favorable climatic
conditions, and infrastructure each played a vital role to create the value that eventually may reflect
itself in the price. Essentially the pure value of each of these factors are understated through the
capitalist’s exploitation to reduce costs, or overstated in prices to increase the capitalist’s profits. What
really was reflected in the value in terms of price, was the power of the small ruling elite and its ability
to control prices, costs and settle all upheaval by the proletariat or the working class by having a strong
grip on the political infrastructure, and the military power that the elite collected as they took maximum
ownership of all means of production.