Commodity fetishism presents social labour relations as properties of things

Evidence

The mysterious character of the commodity-form consists therefore simply in the fact that the commodity reflects the social characteristics of men’s own labour as objective characteristics of the products of labour themselves, as the socio-natural properties of these things. Hence it also reflects the social relation of the producers to the sum total of labour as a social relation between objects, a relation which exists apart from and outside the producers. Through this substitution, the products of labour become commodities, sensuous things which are at the same time suprasensible or social. — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 410

Categorization

• DEFINE: The key Marxian definition of commodity fetishism as ‘suprasensible’ social things, quoted for the argumentative weight of the chapter.
• XREF: connects to: Commodity fetishism in mass production dictates conventional human behavior — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 46; Lukács saw rationalization as reification caused by commodity fetishism — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism: A Marxist…, 379; Debord theorized spectacle as commodity fetishism’s absolute fulfillment — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism: A Marxist…, 549 (+12 more)

Broader Connections

• Capitalism’s socialized labor is experienced by individuals as alien market relations #expands (0.86) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 889
• Capitalist exchange abstracts objects from the real labor that produced them #exemplifies (0.82) — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 95
• Market relations are real yet structurally unable to express the underlying social labor #contradicts (0.72)