Commodity Fetishism and Its Impact on Contemporary Society and Culture
What is commodity fetishism as defined by cultural and media theorists? Identify and analyse three images that demonstrate the way commodity fetishism is impacting on contemporary society and culture.
“Commodities are defined as things that are bought and sold in a social system of exchange.” (Sturken & Cartwright, 2009, p. 279 )”The concept of commodity culture is intricately allied with the idea that we construct our identities through the consumer products that inhabit our lives” (Sturken & Cartwright 2009, p. 279) The idea of a commodity culture has been described by media theorist Stuart Ewen as a commodity self. He believes that we are constructed through our relationship with and use of commodities in our everyday lives. Karl Marx believes that a fetish is an ordinary object which has been given a type of mystical power that consequently makes it more valuable within a consumer society. This essay will explain the concept of commodity fetishism through looking at the theorist Karl Marx and also through looking at the three different images provided.
It is clear that in contemporary society, as consumers we only ever consider the object we are purchasing and we do not consider or think about where it comes from or who made it. For Marx, commodity fetishism is the tendency of people to see the product of their labour in terms of relationships between things, rather than social relationships between people. In other words, people view the commodities only in terms of the characteristics of the final product while the process through which it was created remains obscured and unconsidered. According to Marx, people value objects that they can use. Commodity fetishism tends to replace the inter-human relationships with relationships between humans and objects.
Frankfurt school theorists saw the escalating role of commodities as a kind of ending for meaningful social interaction. “For these theorists commodities were “hollowed out” objects that propagated a loss
“Commodities are defined as things that are bought and sold in a social system of exchange.” (Sturken & Cartwright, 2009, p. 279 )”The concept of commodity culture is intricately allied with the idea that we construct our identities through the consumer products that inhabit our lives” (Sturken & Cartwright 2009, p. 279) The idea of a commodity culture has been described by media theorist Stuart Ewen as a commodity self. He believes that we are constructed through our relationship with and use of commodities in our everyday lives. Karl Marx believes that a fetish is an ordinary object which has been given a type of mystical power that consequently makes it more valuable within a consumer society. This essay will explain the concept of commodity fetishism through looking at the theorist Karl Marx and also through looking at the three different images provided.
It is clear that in contemporary society, as consumers we only ever consider the object we are purchasing and we do not consider or think about where it comes from or who made it. For Marx, commodity fetishism is the tendency of people to see the product of their labour in terms of relationships between things, rather than social relationships between people. In other words, people view the commodities only in terms of the characteristics of the final product while the process through which it was created remains obscured and unconsidered. According to Marx, people value objects that they can use. Commodity fetishism tends to replace the inter-human relationships with relationships between humans and objects.
Frankfurt school theorists saw the escalating role of commodities as a kind of ending for meaningful social interaction. “For these theorists commodities were “hollowed out” objects that propagated a loss