So I was on Twitter doing my normal agitation posting, trying to catch the attention of people. When I saw Madeline Pendleton post a response to some rich jackass talking about how Marx didn't consider how good suede jackets feels. It's probably important to mention the jacket is also a designer jacket that costs over $7,000
Madeline, of course, responded that Marx did, in fact, consider this problem, and it is a problem of commodity fetishization.
After having a small discussion with Twitter communists, they're convinced she's wrong because she's utilizing "commodity fetish" in the wrong way. They think she's using it as this dude is worshipping the commodity, but I think she's arguing the dude is attempting to associate mythical value to this object in order to justify the extreme cost of a jacket.
When I asked for more clarification, I also got linked a 169 page book instead of a section from that book which is just so helpful when you're trying to understand a very critical hyper-specific concept that probably doesn't need a full 169 pages to explain it to you.
One, I feel like communists on Twitter are splitting hairs to attack Madeline over something that feels like it's probably just a miscommunication between concepts, two I kinda feel like Madeline has a pretty good argument to hear that this is, in fact, commodity fetishism the way that Marx describes it in Capital.
When I asked for clarification, since I got linked to a Wallace, Sean quote and a 169 page book on why the economy doesn't exist, I figured that @Cowbee@hexbear.net might have some actual good information to help a budding Marxist understand what's going on here.
Mostly stupid and dramatic. I am curious to know who is right and where I can find more information on commodity fetishization.
Read the section from Capital, its short and likely the most straightforward part of the chapter: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm#S4
(I like the penguin edition translation better, but this one is still fine)
Edit: the comment by Cori in the second image is correct btw. It is very much a concept about how all commodities in a capitalist economy are mystified, and are read as objective relations between things (other commodities and money) rather than as social relations of their production. It has nothing to do with how nice a jacket is or how high its price is.
So because og dude didn't criticize or praise the price of the commodity and just focused specifically on use value this has no bearing on commodity fetish because he doesn't use these things to justify the value of the item? Especially since these things dude talks about has no bearing on the labour that goes into the jacket
Capitalists using perceived 'value' to raise the price of supposed luxury goods is a separate phenomenon from commodity fetishism.
One thing to note with Marx and his writing with capital is #1 he writes about it in motion, never in stasis freeze-frame. And #2 capitalism is a relation between people/society, not a relationship between things or even people and things.
So for instance people can charge highly for new goods or "luxury" goods because the actual labour costs, etc. are obscured from the buyers since all they see is the final price, but they're not obscured from rival capitalists who would try to make a similar good on the market. The competition, over time, and not in some magical freeze frame moment like the OP guy is trying to analyze the price of suede jackets here, will drive the price and the rate of profit for these goods down. Their perceived value and sale price are temporary and socially-dependant like almost everything in capitalism.
We can already see it over the arguments from other Twitter shitlibs like DieWorkwear guy over whether Chinese bootlegs are actually the same quality as "genuine" Chanel, etc. goods because the social need to not look poor is clashing with the up-charging from luxury brands and Chinese competition is breaking the illusion that this stuff is worth the prices.
Yeah, apparently the concept of charging more for luxurious items is something called mercantilism. I don't know, I need to look more into it, I just found out about the concept.
So since OG Dude doesn't include anything in his analysis about exchange value, there's no commodity fetishization going on here is my understanding about it.
It could be a marxian concept, but in this case, it's not commodity fetish.
Is that like thinking of a $10 drink as an hour of your life if you make $10 an hour? And like thinking of a $500 designer shirt as worth 50 $10 shirts or no?
not really, it isnt about how the object "gained value" through production or branding or anything. its about how under capitalism the final value of the object when you go to buy it is represented by a cost, but the means by which the object was made and ended up in your hands are not readily knowable in their entirety and were driven at every step by another cost price. the existence of the cost price at the end makes it seem like you can have hints at all this, but for all intents and purposes the object has appeared to you like "magic" (a fetish in the old sense of the word is like a magical item). it is all so unknowable because commodities under capitalism are made up of many different processes and services that are themselves further supported by labour. so therefore most people under capitalism will operate in consumption under the effects of commodity fetishism