New Economy rant

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Tue Sep 26 11:14:23 PDT 2000


Doug Henwood wrote:


> Charles Brown wrote:
>
> >CB: Can we add that the suggestion of the theory of commodity
> >fetishism is that buying stuff is not only not a cure, but a cause
> >of alienation ? Relationships with things are substituted for
> >relationships with people.
>
> Or, as the Slits put it, "I need something new/something trivial will
> do/I need to satisfy this empty feeling...."
>
> Doug

Perhaps. But the kind of brands being discussed are seemingly bought with a quite conscious sense of them as being a way of connecting to other people. The relationship that commodity fetishism obscures is the relationship between the actual producer (the workers) and the eventual buyer of the product. On the other hand, both a peasant forced to bake for his/her lord and the lord are very clear that there is a relationship of consumer to producer involved. I think it to some extent trivializes one of Marx's most fundamental points to link it to mere brand preferences such as are being discussed here.

Carrol



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