>When Marx uses it in the phrase "commodity
>fetishism" he is not naming a pyschological or logical error,
>he is naming the material force that drives the capitalist system
I don't know, "productions of the human brain" sounds psychological to me:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm#S4
In order, therefore, to find an analogy, we must have recourse to the mist-enveloped regions of the religious world. In that world the productions of the human brain appear as independent beings endowed with life, and entering into relation both with one another and the human race. So it is in the world of commodities with the products of men’s hands. This I call the Fetishism which attaches itself to the products of labour, so soon as they are produced as commodities, and which is therefore inseparable from the production of commodities. This Fetishism of commodities has its origin, as the foregoing analysis has already shown, in the peculiar social character of the labour that produces them." -
http://bad.eserver.org/issues/1998/41/wray.html
[...]
In several respects, the fetishes as described by Freud and Marx are similar: both describe kinds of magical thinking; both describe acts of forgetting and repression; and both are used as analytical means for exposing unseen causes and for explaining unusual effects.
But for me the important difference is that, in current public discourse in the US, while a wide range of cultural observers readily discuss and even take time to explain and debate the idea of the sexual fetish (does Clinton have a cigar fetish?), the idea of the commodity fetish is hardly ever mentioned. This is not surprising, given the reputation that Marx has in this country and given that he was arguing that this is a fundamental blind spot in all capitalist cultures. But it is worth remarking upon for those very same reasons. In addition, I want to mention three other reasons why I think we tend to like our fetishes to be "sexy" rather than "classy."
One of the reasons we tend to favor the psycho-sexual fetish is that it fits the US ideology of individualism so well. The psycho-sexual fetish is basically a concept which attempts to explain the behavior of specific individuals it even allows for a very strong form of individuation, where someone can develop the most unusual forms of fetishism and receive fame or at least notoriety for the uniqueness of their kink. Marx's fetish, on the other hand, is a theory which attempts to explain social behavior the behavior of a group, a culture. That kind of does not fit well with many Americans we like to think of ourselves as individuals first.
Second, the popularity of the sexual fetish in critical theory might also be understood as the unfortunate ascendancy of psychoanalysis, with its emphasis on language and symbols, over political economy, with its emphasis on economic institutions such as markets and political structures such as the State.
Third, that the sexualized notion of fetishism has dominated public discourse to the exclusion of commodity fetishism is indicative of the degree to which sex and sexuality is widely considered to be more determinative of our social and private identities than capitalism is. This cultural condition confuses us pretty badly about both sex and money. The sexual fetish masks the commodity fetish in our public culture and conflicts and questions about sexual morality displace equally important moral questions about the unethical inequalities of markets and economic practices. It's fine to rape the planet and exploit the global proletariat through overconsumption and overaccumulation, but if you are going to be a sexually pervert, we're going to crucify you!!
I want to suggest that, as critical thinkers on the Left, we need to find ways to make the commodity fetish as intelligible, as popular, and as useful as the idea of the sexual fetish has become. To draw attention to commodity fetishism is to subvert our normal, everyday thinking about ourselves as a consumerist society and to perhaps make us think more deeply about what kinds of injustices and inequalities lurk behind every item in every store on every shelf.