| This question <330-15|330-34> overall <330-27|330-31> Dew: <324-6|330-32>. |
| Question 112: Modern advertising specialists know that consumers often buy a certain product not because they need this particular article, but because they are trying to compensate for other unmet needs. These compensatory demands are important for the economy because they are insatiable. Advertising addresses them whenever it suggests that social recognition, happiness, etc. are connected with the possession of a certain object. |
| Is this what Marx meant by “commodity fetishism,” or does it contradict it, or would Marx's theory give rise to amendments of this theory? |
| [330-28] Dew: I think this is not what Marx meant “commodity fetishism”, rather it is “people's fetishism.” |
| Commodity fetishism, Marx speaks, is that commodities act like they are alive and have a life of their own, and people do not realize that they have this false consciousness and gave commodities this supernatural power. Therefore, in capitalist society, people's social relations appear to be commodity's relations |
| People's fetishism is (I think) that people have false consciousness by thinking that better brand items(commodities) can satisfy people's needs better than normal brand( or no brand) items. People but better brand items not because they need these brand items, but because they can satisfy(compensate) the other unmet needs better. |
| I think this is little similar to commodity fetishism, because in this case, the commodities have bourgeois society, like a life of their own, that was attributed by people. However, I think this is not what Marx meant by “commodity fetishism”. |
| Hans: Brand name fetishism is yet another expression of the abstraction of one's will, of the denial of one's needs, which we all are trained to do under capitalism. People do not even trust their own senses to judge whether the shoes are comfortable or not. They are only satisfied when they wear Nike shoes. |
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