Part of a series on Marxism
Theoretical works
The Communist Manifesto Das Kapital Marxism is both the theory and the political practice (that is, the praxis) derived from the work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. ... Image File history File links Karl_Marx. ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ... Das Kapital (Capital, in the English translation) is an extensive treatise on political economy written by Karl Marx in German. ...
Sociology and anthropology
Alienation · Bourgeoisie Class consciousness Commodity fetishism Communism Cultural hegemony Exploitation · Human nature Ideology · Proletariat Reification · Socialism Relations of production Marxs theory of alienation (Entfremdung in German), as expressed in the writings of young Karl Marx, refers to the separation of things that naturally belong together, or to antagonism between things that are properly in harmony. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Class consciousness is a category of Marxist theory, referring to the self-awareness of a social class, its capacity to act in its own rational interests, or measuring the extent to which an individual is conscious of the historical tasks their class (or class allegiance) sets for them. ... This article is about the form of society and political movement. ... Cultural hegemony is a concept coined by Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci. ... The rate of exploitation is a concept in Marxian political economy. ... Marxs theory of human nature occupies an important place in his critique of capitalism, his conception of communism, and his materialist conception of history. Marx, however, does not refer to human nature as such, but to Gattungswesen, which is generally translated as species-being or species-essence. What Marx... Political Ideologies Part of the Politics series Politics Portal This box:      An ideology is an organized collection of ideas. ... The proletariat (from Latin proles, offspring) is a term used to identify a lower social class; a member of such a class is proletarian. ... Reification (German: Verdinglichung, literally: thing-ification) is the consideration of an abstraction or an object as if it had human (pathetic fallacy) or living (reification fallacy) existence and abilities; at the same time it implies the thingification of social relations. ... Socialism is a broad array of ideologies and political movements with the goal of a socio-economic system in which property and the distribution of wealth are subject to control by the community for the purposes of increasing social and economic equality and cooperation. ... Relations of production (German: Produktionsverhaltnisse) is a concept frequently used by Karl Marx in his theory of historical materialism and in Das Kapital. ...
Economics
Marxian economics Labour power · Law of value Means of production Mode of production Productive forces Surplus labour · Surplus value Transformation problem Wage labour Note: Marxian is not restricted to Marxian economics, as it includes those inspired by Marxs works who do not identify with Marxism as a political ideology. ... According to Karl Marx, there is a clear distinction between labor and labor-power in economics. ... The law of value is a concept in Karl Marxs critique of political economy. ... Means of production (abbreviated MoP; German: Produktionsmittel), are the combination of the means of labor and the subject of labor used by workers to make products. ... In the writings of Karl Marx and the Marxist theory of historical materialism, a mode of production (in German: Produktionsweise, meaning the way of producing) is a specific combination of: productive forces: these include human labor-power, tools, equipment, buildings and technologies, materials, and improved land social and technical relations... For the specific theoretical justifications behind the Great Leap Forward and the Five Year Plans, see Theory of Productive Forces. ... Surplus labour is a concept used by Karl Marx in his critique of political economy. ... Surplus value, according to Marxism, is unpaid labour that is extracted from the worker by the capitalist, and serves as the basis for capitalist accumulation. ... In Karl Marxs economics the transformation problem is the problem of finding a general rule to transform the values of commodities (based on labour according to his labour theory of value) into the competitive prices of the marketplace. ... Wage labour is the socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer in which the worker sells their labour under a contract (employment), and the employer buys it, often in a labour market. ...
History
Anarchism and Marxism Capitalist mode of production Class struggle Dictatorship of the proletariat Primitive accumulation of capital Proletarian revolution Proletarian internationalism World Revolution While anarchism and Marxism are two different political philosophies, there is some similarity between the methodology and ideology of groups of anarchists and Marxists, and the history of the two have often been intertwined. ... The capitalist mode of production is a concept in Karl Marx’s critique of political economy. ... The South African Police Crush Another Demonstration by the Shack dwellers Movement Abahlali baseMjondolo, 28 September, 2007 Class struggle is the active expression of class conflict looked at from any kind of socialist perspective. ... The dictatorship of the proletariat is a term employed by Karl Marx in his 1875 Critique of the Gotha Program that refers to a transition period between capitalist and communist society in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat. The term refers to a... Primitive accumulation of capital is a concept introduced by Karl Marx in part 8 of the first volume of Das Kapital (in German: ursprüngliche Akkumulation, literally original accumulation or primeval accumulation). Its purpose is to help explain how the capitalist mode of production can come into being. ... A communist revolution is a social revolution inspired by the ideas of Marxism that aims to replace capitalism with communism, normally with socialism (public ownership over the means of production) as an intermediate stage. ... International Socialism redirects here. ... World revolution is a Marxist concept of a violent overthrow of capitalism that would take place in all countries, although not necessarily simultaneously. ...
Philosophy
Marxist philosophy Historical materialism Dialectical materialism Analytical Marxism Marxist autonomism Marxist feminism Marxist humanism Structural Marxism Western Marxism Libertarian Marxism Young Marx Marxist philosophy or Marxist theory are terms which cover work in philosophy which is strongly influenced by Karl Marxs materialist approach to theory or which is written by Marxists. ... Historical materialism is the methodological approach to the study of society, economics, and history which was first articulated by Karl Marx (1818-1883), although Marx himself never used the term (he referred it as philosophical materialism, a term he used to distinguish it from what he called popular materialism). Historical... According to many followers of the theories of Karl Marx (or Marxists), dialectical materialism is the philosophical basis of Marxism. ... Analytical Marxism refers to a style of thinking about Marxism that was prominent amongst English-speaking philosophers and social scientists during the 1980s. ... For other meanings of autonomism, see autonomism (disambiguation) page Raised fist, stenciled protest symbol of Autonome at the Ernst-Kirchweger-Haus in Vienna, Austria Autonomism refers to a set of left-wing political and social movements and theories close to the socialist movement. ... Marxist feminism is a sub-type of feminist theory which focuses on the dismantling of capitalism as a way to liberate women. ... The term Marxist humanism has as its foundation Marxs conception of the alienation of the labourer as he advances it in his Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844--an alienation that is born of a capitalist system in which the worker no longer functions as (what Marx terms) a... Structural Marxism was an approach to Marxist philosophy based on structuralism, primarily associated with the work of the French philosopher Louis Althusser and his students. ... Western Marxism is a term used to describe a wide variety of Marxist theoreticians based in Western and Central Europe (and more recently North America), in contrast with philosophy in the Soviet Union. ... Libertarian Marxism is a school of Marxism that takes a less authoritarian view of Marxist theory than conventional currents such as Stalinism, Trotskyism, and other forms of Marxism-Leninism, as well as a generally less reformist view than do Social Democrats. ... ‘Young Marx’ is one half of the concept in Marxology that Karl Marx’s intellectual development can be broken into two board categories, the other being ‘Mature Marx’. There is disagreement though as to when Marx thought began to mature, Lenin claimed Marxs first mature work as “The Poverty...
Prominent figures
Karl Marx · Friedrich Engels Karl Kautsky · Georgi Plekhanov Rosa Luxemburg · A. Pannekoek Vladimir Lenin · Leon Trotsky Georg Lukács · Guy Debord Antonio Gramsci · Karl Korsch Che Guevara · Frankfurt School J-P Sartre · Louis Althusser Karl Heinrich Marx (May 5, 1818 – March 14, 1883) was a 19th century philosopher, political economist, and revolutionary. ... Engels redirects here. ... Karl Kautsky (October 16, 1854 - October 17, 1938) was a leading theoretician of social democracy. ... G. V. Plekhanov Georgi Valentinovich Plekhanov (Георгий Валентинович Плеханов) (December 11, 1856 – May 30, 1918; Old Style: November 29, 1856 – May 17, 1918) was a Russian revolutionary and a Marxist theoretician. ... Rosa Luxemburg Rosa Luxemburg (March 5, 1870 or 1871 – January 15, 1919, in Polish Róża Luksemburg) was a Jewish Polish-born Marxist political theorist, socialist philosopher, and revolutionary. ... Anton Pannekoek Antonie (Anton) Pannekoek (January 2, 1873, Vaassen – April 28, 1960, Wageningen) was a Dutch astronomer and Marxist theorist. ... Lenin redirects here. ... Leon Trotsky (Russian:  , Lev Davidovich Trotsky, also transliterated Leo, Lyev, Trotskii, Trotski, Trotskij, Trockij and Trotzky) (November 7 [O.S. October 26] 1879 – August 21, 1940), born Lev Davidovich Bronstein (), was a Ukrainian-born Bolshevik revolutionary and Marxist theorist. ... Georg Lukács (April 13, 1885 – June 4, 1971) was a Hungarian Marxist philosopher and literary critic in the tradition of Western Marxism. ... Guy Ernest Debord (December 28, 1931, in Paris – November 30, 1994, in Champot) was a writer, film maker, hypergraphist and founding member of the groups Lettrist International and Situationist International (SI). ... Antonio Gramsci (IPA: ) (January 22, 1891 – April 27, 1937) was an Italian writer, politician and political theorist. ... Karl Korsch (August 15, 1886 - October 21, 1961) was a German Marxist theorist. ... Ernesto Guevara de la Serna (June 14,[1] 1928 – October 9, 1967), commonly known as Che Guevara, El Che or just Che was an Argentine-born Marxist revolutionary, medical doctor , political figure, and leader of Cuban and internationalist guerrillas. ... For related articles, see Critical theory and Critical theory (Frankfurt School) Max Horkheimer (front left), Theodor Adorno (front right), and Jürgen Habermas in the background, right, in 1965 at Heidelberg The Frankfurt School is a school of neo-Marxist critical theory, social research, and philosophy. ... Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (June 21, 1905 – April 15, 1980), normally known simply as Jean-Paul Sartre (pronounced: ), was a French existentialist philosopher and pioneer, dramatist and screenwriter, novelist and critic. ... Louis Pierre Althusser (Pronunciation: altuË¡seʁ) (October 16, 1918 – October 22, 1990) was a Marxist philosopher. ...
Criticisms
Criticisms of Marxism This article is on criticisms of Marxism, a branch of socialism. ...
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In Marxist theory, commodity fetishism is a state of social relations, said to arise in capitalist market based societies, in which social relationships are transformed into apparently objective relationships between commodities or money. The term is introduced in the opening chapter of Karl Marx's main work of political economy, Capital, of 1867 . Marxism is both the theory and the political practice (that is, the praxis) derived from the work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... A fetish (from French fétiche; from Portuguese feitiço; from Latin facticius, artificial and facere, to make) is an object believed to have supernatural powers, or in particular a man-made object that has power over others. ... Karl Heinrich Marx (May 5, 1818 – March 14, 1883) was a 19th century philosopher, political economist, and revolutionary. ... The Politics series Politics Portal This box:      Political economy was the original term for the study of production, the acts of buying and selling, and their relationships to laws, customs and government. ... Capital, Volume I is the first of three volumes in Karl Marxs monumental work, Das Kapital, and the only volume to be published during his lifetime. ...

Marx's use of the term fetish can be interpreted as an ironic comment on the "rational", "scientific" mindset of industrial capitalist societies. In Marx's day, the word was primarily used in the study of primitive religions; Marx's "fetishism of commodities" might be seen as proposing that just such primitive belief systems exist at the heart of modern society. In most subsequent Marxist thought, commodity fetishism is defined as an illusion arising from the central role that private property plays in capitalism's social processes. It is a central component of the dominant ideology in capitalist societies. A fetish (from French fétiche; from Portuguese feitiço; from Latin facticius, artificial and facere, to make) is an object believed to have supernatural powers, or in particular a man-made object that has power over others. ... For other uses, see illusion (disambiguation). ... This page deals with property as ownership rights. ... The dominant ideology in Marxist or marxian theory is the set of common values and beliefs shared by most people in a given society, framing how the majority think about a range of topics, from art and science to politics. ...

Marx's argument

People within capitalist societies find their material life organized through the medium of commodities. They trade their labour-power (which in Marx's view is a commodity) for a special commodity, money, and use that commodity to claim various other commodities produced by other people. The social nature of society is destroyed by the abstraction of commodities, in the sense that "use-value" (the usefulness of an object or action) is totally separated from "exchange-value" (the marketplace value of an object or action). An example is that a pearl or a lump of gold is worth more than a horseshoe or a corkscrew. This abstraction is referred to as "fetishism". (The term "social" is used by Marx to refer to the essential organization of a society, i.e., to those processes by which a society allocates the tasks necessary to its survival.) Under this system producers and consumers have no direct human contact or conscious agreements to provide for one another. Their productions take on a property form, meet and exchange in a marketplace, and return in property form. Production and consumption are private experiences of person to commodity and material self-interest, not person to person and communal interest. This article does not cite any references or sources. ... For other uses, see Money (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Society (disambiguation). ... In microeconomics, production is the act of making things, in particular the act of making products that will be traded or sold commercially. ... In economics, consumers are individuals or households that consume goods and services generated within the economy. ...

The work of social relations seems to be conducted by commodities amongst themselves, out in the marketplace. The market appears to decide who should do what for whom. Social relationships are confused with their medium, the commodity. The commodity seems to be imbued with human powers, becoming a fetish of those powers. Human agents are denied awareness of their social relations, becoming alienated from their own social activity. As a consequence of commodity fetishism, the basic political issues involved in social relationships are obscured, from both exploiter and exploited. Commodity fetishism ensures that neither side is fully conscious of the political positions they occupy. Hence the commodity can be seen as the basic unit of social relations in Capitalism. It is important to remember, as philosoper Slavoj Zizek points out, we cannot see the commodity fetish as simply an illusion to be dispelled by critical awareness, it is instead a concrete unit of social reproduction. In Capital, this argument is presented by tracing the formal aspect of a commodity, its value, from the most abstract model possible towards more concrete, real life models. This method of analysis owes much to Hegel, is densely written, and proves highly resistant to summarization. This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Exploitation means many different things. ... Exploitation means many different things. ... Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (August 27, 1770 - November 14, 1831) was a German philosopher born in Stuttgart, Württemberg, in present-day southwest Germany. ...

After Marx

The fetishism of commodities has proven fertile material for work by other theorists since Marx, who have added to, adapted, or, perhaps, "vulgarized" the original concept. Sigmund Freud's well-known but unrelated theory of sexual fetishism led to new interpretations of commodity fetishism, as types of sexually charged relationships between a person and a manufactured object.

György Lukács based History and Class Consciousness on Marx's notion, developing his own notion of commodity reification as the key obstacle to class consciousness. Lukács's work was a significant influence on later philosophers such as Guy Debord and Jean Baudrillard. Debord developed a notion of the spectacle that ran directly parallel to Marx's notion of the commodity; for Debord, the spectacle made relations among people seem like relations among images (and vice versa). The spectacle is the form taken by society once the instruments of cultural production have become wholly commoditised and exposed to circulation. Debord's work should be seen as a confirmation of the existence of what Marx's critique would seem to predict as, within it, the intimacies of intersubjective and personal self-relating are critiqued as already being affected by commodification. In the work of the semiotician Baudrillard, commodity fetishism is deployed to explain subjective feelings towards consumer goods in the "realm of circulation", that is, among consumers. Baudrillard was especially interested in the cultural mystique added to objects by advertising, which encourages consumers to purchase them as aids to the construction of their personal identity. In For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign, Baudrillard develops a notion of the sign that, like Debord's notion of spectacle, runs alongside Marx's commodity. György Lukács (April 13, 1885 – June 4, 1971) was a Hungarian Marxist philosopher and literary critic. ... Reification, also called hypostatization, is treating a concept, an abstraction, as if it were a real, concrete thing. ... Class consciousness is a category of Marxist theory, referring to the self-awareness of a social class, its capacity to act in its own rational interests, or measuring the extent to which an individual is conscious of the historical tasks their class (or class allegiance) sets for them. ... Guy Ernest Debord (December 28, 1931, in Paris – November 30, 1994, in Champot) was a writer, film maker, hypergraphist and founding member of the groups Lettrist International and Situationist International (SI). ... Jean Baudrillard (July 29, 1929 – March 6, 2007) (IPA pronunciation: [1]) was a French cultural theorist, philosopher, political commentator, and photographer. ... Semiotics, semiotic studies, or semiology is the study of signs and symbols, both individually and grouped into sign systems. ... Advert redirects here. ... In economics, consumers are individuals or households that consume goods and services generated within the economy. ... Cultural identity is the (feeling of) identity of a group or culture, or of an individual as far as he is influenced by his belonging to a group or culture. ...

Other theorists have been concerned with the social status of the producers of consumer items relative to their consumers. For example, the person who owns a Porsche has more prestige than the people working on the assembly-line that produced it. But this version of commodity fetishism refers to more—the belief that the car (or any manufactured object) is more important than people, and confers special powers beyond material utility to those who possess it (see also Conspicuous consumption). This article is about the auto company. ... Conspicuous consumption is a term used to describe the lavish spending on goods and services that are acquired mainly for the purpose of displaying income or wealth. ...

See also

• Commodity (Marxism)
• Jean Baudrillard, a theorist whose System of Objects borrows from Marx
• False consciousness
• Guy Debord
• Debord's The Society of the Spectacle (full text)
• Georg Lukacs's theory of Class consciousness and false consciousness and his concept of reification
• Marxism
• relations of production
• Ideology
• Diamond
• Gold

In classical political economy and especially Karl Marxs critique of political economy, a commodity is any good or service produced by human labour and offered as a product for general sale on the market. ... Jean Baudrillard (July 29, 1929 – March 6, 2007) (IPA pronunciation: [1]) was a French cultural theorist, philosopher, political commentator, and photographer. ... For the existentialist treatment of the same concept, see bad faith False consciousness is the Marxist thesis that material and institutional processes in capitalist society mislead the proletariat — and other classes — about the real relations of forces between those classes and of the actual states of affairs with respect to... Guy Ernest Debord (December 28, 1931, in Paris – November 30, 1994, in Champot) was a writer, film maker, hypergraphist and founding member of the groups Lettrist International and Situationist International (SI). ... The Society of the Spectacle (La Société du spectacle) is a work of philosophy first published in 1967 by the Situationist and Marxist theorist, Guy Debord. ... Georg Lukács (April 13, 1885 - June 4, 1971) was a Hegelian and Marxist philosopher and literary critic. ... Class consciousness is a category of Marxist theory, referring to the self-awareness of a social class, its capacity to act in its own rational interests, or measuring the extent to which an individual is conscious of the historical tasks their class (or class allegiance) sets for them. ... For the existentialist treatment of the same concept, see bad faith False consciousness is the Marxist thesis that material and institutional processes in capitalist society mislead the proletariat — and other classes — about the real relations of forces between those classes and of the actual states of affairs with respect to... Reification, also called hypostatization, is treating a concept, an abstraction, as if it were a real, concrete thing. ... Marxism is both the theory and the political practice (that is, the praxis) derived from the work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. ... Relations of production (German: Produktionsverhaltnisse) is a concept frequently used by Karl Marx in his theory of historical materialism and in Das Kapital. ... Political Ideologies Part of the Politics series Politics Portal This box:      An ideology is an organized collection of ideas. ... This article is about the mineral. ... GOLD refers to one of the following: GOLD (IEEE) is an IEEE program designed to garner more student members at the university level (Graduates of the Last Decade). ...

References

This article does not cite any references or sources. (May 2007) Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.

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External links

• Capital, Chapter 1, Section 4 - The Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret Thereof
• All of Chapter One - Marx's logical presentation
• (Isaac Rubin's commentary on Marx)
• "The Reality behind Commodity Fetishism"
• "Change the World Without Taking Power"