1 Commodities seem simple things but they're not. The relations between
them and the men who make & use them is mystifying. We need to pursue
the true relations. We can explain the mystification by using an analogy
with religious fetishism.
2 Relations of exchange are difficult to grasp: what is the unit of
exchange, what do different commodities have in common? The real answer
is that exchange is organized (long term) according to the amount of 'socially
necessary labour time' expended in the production of commodities - but
this is not immediately apparent to persons in everyday life. Indeed, even
economists have only dimly grasped the truth. It seems as if objects exchange
with each other according to some quality of their own, or according to
custom, or as if they had a life of their own. No-one could really grasp
the truth until the fully developed production of commodities (in capitalism)
arose and made things clearer.
3 The snag is that our attempts to make sense of social life operate
on existing 'facts' and patterns - we tend to see what exists 'on the surface'
as 'facts' to be grasped directly by our theories. Thus the economists
got confused about the value of things (really determined by amounts of
labour etc) and the money price of things (the form in which value is exprssed
in capitalism). Hence the categories of economics (or in social sciences
more generally) are merely
4 We can get to the real picture by comparing capitalism with other
forms of production. In the Middle Ages in Europe, a personal dependence
was the basis of social relations, production was confined to goods and
services as use values, there was no need for any abstract forms of production
or social relations. (Exploitation was also pretty obvious and clear, and
took a visible 'political' form). In modern societies, there is a need
(both economic and ideological) for abstract principles to organize the
distribution and exchange of products. But capitalism does not operate
only according to abstract principles (it also works on more restricted
and partial 'principles' such as the 'profit motive'). Exchange in capitalism
has to distribute products 'fairly', according to labour time invested,
but it also has to be arranged so as to lead to the creation of surplus
value. This is what is not grasped properly in economics.
5 The nearest analogy to the sorts of misunderstandings that go on is
found in religion. In religion, gods appear to have an independent existence,
interacting among themselves and controlling human beings. But the reverse
is the real picture: men have created those gods in the first place and
given them their power: 'the religious world is but a reflex of the real
world'.
6 It is the same with economics, which offers a limited and fetishised
analysis. The 'facts' of capitalist organization are assumed to be natural,
God-given forms. Earlier (and different) forms of economic life are either
ignored or considered as early efforts, as 'artificial'. A proper use of
the early examples makes it possible to de-fetishise the forms of capitalist
production (although some fetishes are easier to replace than others -
modern economics agrees that money is no magic commodity, but keeps its
illusions about capital, for example, and the myth that 'Nature' plays
a key role is as pervasive as ever).There is also a clear 'political' issue:
Introduction
The notion of commodity fetishism has been developed much more
widely than in economics. The "fetishism mechanism" is a key to understanding
a number of "humanist" marxist pieces on culture and social life generally
(including analyses of the media). Fetishism stands as an argument about
the loss of control over, and misunderstanding of, all aspect of social
life. Since the concept appears in the mature works of Marx, some (eg Colletti)
see it as evidence of the continuing interest in what the young Marx called
alienation: "de-fetishisation" is still the key to Marx's method for them.
Others, especially Althusser, find the whole discussion in Capital
an inexplicable throwback to older and less pure concepts (and urge us
to ignore the section in Capital altogether): Marx himself insists
we start reading Capital with this discussion, however.
Main points
'...forms of thought expressing with social validity the
conditions and relations of a definite, historically determined mode of
production, viz the production of commodities'.
They do not capture 'reality'; they are too close to the existing
state of affairs to really understand it.
'The life-process of society...does not strip off its mystical
veil until it is treated as production by freely associated men, and is
consciously regulated by them in accordance with a settled plan'.
(This is why labour is measured in the abstract way it is).
The formulae of economics '...belong to a state of society in which
the process of production has the mastery over man...'