Marx’s theory of fetishism depends on phenomenal forms being real, not imaginary

Evidence

Now, all the relations of the sphere of exchange really exist—they are not figments of anyone’s imagination. Value could not be realized without them. There is a labor market, where labor-power is bought and sold—the form of the contract being the wage. There are markets in which commodities exchange against money—the form of the contract being prices. This sphere of “free exchange,” where labor appears to exchange against its “due price” (a “fair wage”) and where goods appear to exchange at their equivalences (real prices), is the domain of private, egoistic exchanges which political economy named “civil society.” To put it briefly, and in a very simplified form, Marx argues two things about this sphere of capitalist society. Looking—to use a special metaphor—“downward,” this sphere conceals the real, but highly unequal and exploitative relations of production. The concentration on—indeed the fetishization of—the sphere of exchange masks what founds it and makes it possible: the generation and extraction of the surplus in the sphere of capitalist production. Thus, at the level of exchange, the agents of the process appear as one individual confronting another: whereas, of course, this epoch of egoistic individuals “which produces this standpoint, that of the isolated individual, is also precisely that of the hitherto most developed social … relations” (Grundrisse ). Thus, when the production relations of capitalism appear as —and are treated, conceptually, as consisting of nothing except—exchange relations, the effect of this re-presentation is to mask and occlude what the “real relations” of capitalism are. This is the theory of representation, and it is also part of the theory of “fetishism.” It indicates why Marx is so insistent throughout Capital on the difference between “real relations” and their “phenomenal forms”—without his entertaining for a moment the idea that the “phenomenal forms” are imaginary or do not exist. — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 519

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies that Marx’s ‘phenomenal forms’ are real appearances masking production relations, not illusions — a precise conceptual distinction needed to grasp the theory of fetishism.
• XREF: This connects to later decoding of Hall’s articulation theory and to critical theories of ideology as masking rather than falsity, echoing the Frankfurt School’s critique of the culture industry.
• ADDENDUM: Directly supports the claim in ‘On Sacrifice’ essay lineage — actually connects more naturally to the culture industry mechanics discussed in reader’s Frankfurt School notes.