Commodity fetishism in mass production dictates conventional human behavior

Evidence

Automatically, the economic apparatus, even before total planning, equips commodities with the values which decide human behavior. Since, with the end of free exchange, commodities lost all their economic qualities except for fetishism, the latter has extended its arthritic influence over all aspects of social life. Through the countless agencies of mass production and its culture the conventionalized modes of behavior are impressed on the individual as the only natural, respectable, and rational ones. He defines himself only as a thing, as a static element, as success or failure. His yardstick is self-preservation, successful or unsuccessful approximation to the objectivity of his function and the models established for it. — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 46

Categorization

• DEFINE: Core mechanism of the culture industry thesis: commodities train individuals to see self-preservation as approximation to their function.
• XREF: connects to: Commodity fetishism presents social labour relations as properties of things — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 410; Leisure activities like sunbathing turn people into fetishized commodities — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry: Selected Essays…, 261; Consumerist appropriation severs style from the social system that produces the underclass — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 2862 (+10 more)

Broader Connections

• Commodity fetishism presents social labour relations as properties of things #expands (0.95) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 410
• Standardized production forces a compensating pretence of individualism #expands (0.85) — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry, 82
• Leisure activities like sunbathing turn people into fetishized commodities #exemplifies (0.80) — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry, 261
• Consumerist appropriation severs style from the social system that produces the underclass #expands (0.80) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 2862
• Commodities mediate social prestige despite being essentially social not economic #expands (0.80) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 470
• Mass culture’s technical rationality masks class domination as consumer demand. #complicates (0.75) — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 94