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.
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