dead [he/him]

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Joined 5 years ago
Cake day: April 3rd, 2021
  • dead [he/him]@hexbear.nettotheory@hexbear.net•So, what is commodity fetishism and why is every twitter communist arguing about it?English
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    4 days ago

    I think to understand commodity fetishism, people need to first ask “What is a commodity?” Marx’s definition of a commodity is an object that was created for the purpose of being exchanged. In chapter 1 of Capital, Marx points out that clothing has existed for thousands of years but a tailor did not exist until clothing became a commodity.

    So we had clothing, but then at some point, commodity clothing came about. What is the difference between a jacket that you make for your own use and a jacket that is made for the purpose of being sold? Commodity Fetishism is the intangible traits of a commodity which makes it different from an object that was made for use.

    chapter 1, section 4

    It is as clear as noon-day, that man, by his industry, changes the forms of the materials furnished by Nature, in such a way as to make them useful to him. The form of wood, for instance, is altered, by making a table out of it. Yet, for all that, the table continues to be that common, every-day thing, wood. But, so soon as it steps forth as a commodity, it is changed into something transcendent. It not only stands with its feet on the ground, but, in relation to all other commodities, it stands on its head, and evolves out of its wooden brain grotesque ideas, far more wonderful than “table-turning” ever was.

    Marx says that you can take wood and make it into a table, but when you make the table into a commodity, ie make it for sale, then it becomes a new form.

    I think the twitter leftist people are not reading the original tweet carefully enough because they are talking about how nice suede feels, but the original tweet says “how good life feels when you wear a brown suede jacket”. The original tweet is not describing the physical traits of the jacket, but an intangible, indirect experience in relation to the jacket.

    Madeline makes the presumption that the suede jacket is a commodity, ie that it was made for exchange, noting that the jacket in the image was purchased. Though the tweet doesn’t specify that the suede jacket must have been exchanged in order to make life feel good. I think Madeline is interpreting the intangible trait of “how good life feels” as a symptom of Commodity Fetishism, ie this specific jacket has intangible qualities because it was made for the purpose of exchange.

    I think that they both know the correct definition of commodity fetish but they are interpreting the tweet in different ways.