THEORY

OF
COMMODITY
FETISHISM
KARL MARX
- A critic of
Capitalism
- A German thinker of the 19th century
- A philosopher and political economist
COMMODITY
- An object
- An object in relations
- Objects-in-relations are shaping our social
relations
• Satisfying our need and desire (use value)
• Satisfying the need of exchange
(exchange value)
FETISHISM
- The commodity world characterized by
the logic of equivalence conceals.
• Social relations
• Social character of labor
COMMODITY FETISHISM
Commodity Fetishism Karl Marx’s narrative of
modernity focuses upon two linked social
processes not emphasized by Weber:
commodification and fetishization.
- A commodity is an article produced for
market exchange rather than for its own
immediate consumption.
- It is sinister not only because people are
deprived of ‘sensuously varied objectivity’, but
also because, as commodified entities
themselves, people (workers) come to be treated
as mere objects.
- This objectification of labor is what makes profit
possible: although a portion of labor is indeed
“exchanged for the equivalent of the worker’s wages;
another portion is appropriated by the capitalist
without any equivalent being paid” (Marx). The
masking of this swindle is the most pernicious effect
of modernity.
- Thus, commodity fetishism: the idolatry of
consumption goods.
- Marx highlights for us the central role played
by the technique of demystification or
“ideology critique” – what Weber called
rationalization process- within the narrative of
modernity.
 For Marx, modernity is ideology; it is a
narrative that maintains the existing structure
of power by obscuring or defending as
legitimate its inherent in equalities and
injustices.
 THE FRANKFURT'S
THE FRANKFURT'S
THEORY OF
THEORY OF

MODERN
MODERN
CAPITALISM
CAPITALISM
MODERN CAPITALISM

- Capitalism overcomes the challenges of

the economy (class tensions)
- Becomes stable and continuous
(superfically includes working class)
MODERN CAPITALISM
- Means of reinforcing its existence
( self-investment)
- The failure of Marxism
- Develops a range of
false needs for the
crowd.
- False needs serve as a
HOW
does this
distraction from ”true/real” happen?
needs.
- When the false needs encounters,
- The failure of Marxism
the ”culture industry” produces ”new”
forms of false needs.
(e.g pager to cellphone to smartphone)
- Consumption of false needs HOW
further enslaves them to does this
happen?
capitalism 
- True needs cannot be met through
modern capitalism.