| This question <74|77> overall <74|76> Jedi: <455|142-17>. |
| Question 166: How does Marx's use of the term “fetishism” compare with its modern dictionary definition? |
| [75] Jedi: Going around in a destructive circle Fetishism as defined by modern dictionaries gives us the feeling that it is a self-inflicted condition of blind obsession for material gain. |
| Marx uses “fetishism” in much the same way. His use implies that “fetishism” is a symptom of a destructive and regressive disease that is inflecting the unknowing citizens of the market system. The cause of the disease is not self-inflicted blindness to the virus, but darkness cast upon the people by the market itself. |
| This destructive and regressive nature of the disease is the result of the people's misconception of the true value of the basic social elements, the commodities. Due to the fact that the market system, by its own design, is very contaminating. Commodities are so tainted with unnatural or socially given properties that their inherent natural value become extremely difficult to see through. |
| Due to the aforementioned social constraints that the market puts on a commodity, the commodity becomes illusive to the people; the disease as manifested by “fetishism” will not be cured. Ironically, if the people suddenly realize that they are in a circular system of invest social power in the commodity and then trying to take advantage of it, the market itself would collapse. |
| I believe Professor Hans agrees with me. In section 1.4.1, pg. 63, he wrote, |
| “capitalistic social relations can only maintain themselves if most of the people most of the time ”forget,“ in their practical actions, that the power of the things which they are trying to take advantage of originate in their own activity.” |
| Hans: You are confusing inflect and inflict, and illusive vs. elusive. |
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