Marx compared self-recognition through others to the commodity’s need for another commodity.

Evidence

In a certain sense, a man is in the same situation as a commodity. As he neither enters into the world in possession of a mirror, nor as a Fichtean philosopher who can say ‘I am I’, a man first sees and recognizes himself in another man. Peter only relates to himself as a man through his relation to another man, Paul, in whom he recognizes his likeness. With this, however, Paul also becomes from head to toe, in his physical form as Paul, the form of appearance of the species man for Peter. — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1254

Categorization

• XREF: Marx’s Peter/Paul example grounds the value-form analysis of Capital — connects to political-economy theory and to any value-form commentary in the reader’s knowledge base. — connects to: Under capitalist subsumption, the self becomes a saleable commodity defined by interchangeability — Grant Bollmer, Katherine Guinness, The Influencer Factory: A Marxist…, 206; Marx’s free time itself becomes capital through self-development. — Byung-Chul Han, Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New…, 115; In Marx’s Capital, persons are personifications of social relations rather than economic agents — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1980
• SHARE: The sevenfold-underlined footnote in Adorno’s copy of Capital is a delightful concrete archival detail for anyone working on Adorno’s Marx marginalia.

Broader Connections

• Under capitalist subsumption, the self becomes a saleable commodity defined by interchangeability #expands (0.78) — Grant Bollmer, Katherine Guinness, The Influencer Factory, 206