"[…] it is important to stress the difference between [Marx’s analysis of commodity fetishism] and much popular commentary on so-called “consumer culture.” […] for Marx commodity fetishism had nothing to do with the particular features of the commodities themselves — it is not about some alluring or corrupting qualities that a Kindle has that a book doesn’t have, or about music produced by an iPod rather than an orchestra. Often, commentary on consumerism suggests that there is something inherently wrong with the products that we are being encouraged to buy. For example, the American liberal Henry David Thoreau, still popular in radical circles today, argued that “it is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly.” The idea here is that having too much stuff is in some way the root of the problem. For Marx, however, it was not the things themselves that were the problem but the social relationships in which we produce, own and exchange those things. There is nothing at all wrong with products that make human lives more bearable, or more fun, nor is there anything wrong with poor and desperate people wanting those products." — Alienation: An Introduction to Marx’s Theory (2012) by Dan Swain (p50)
Posted on: Fri, 06 Sep 2013 05:26:22 +0000
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