Commodity Fetishism

Abstract

This term used by Marx to characterize the perception of social relations under the sway of commodity exchange. It is under capitalism that fetishism of commodities assumes its most comprehensive form. In Capital, the notion is developed initially with reference to commodity exchange between atomistic self-employed producers. The principal characteristic of such an economy is that each economic agent produces goods which he himself does not consume, and, in turn, consumes goods which he has not produced. For Marx, the important feature is that the mutual interdependence of economic agents is established ex post when they come to exchange their products rather than ex ante when they embark on production. Marx draws attention to the contrast between the coordination of production decisions through the ‘invisible hand’ of the market, and that through a production plan.

This chapter was originally published in The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics, 1st edition, 1987. Edited by John Eatwell, Murray Milgate and Peter Newman