Commodity fetishism

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In Marxist philosophy, commodity fetishism (German: Warenfetischismus) is a belief that social aspects of economic goods are inherent to them, rather than being expressions of social relations in which goods and their underlying labour are exchanged. Through commodity fetishism, social phenomena such as market value, wages and rent are reified (attributed to things, i.e. goods, labour, land) while people who determine them—traders, capitalists, landlords—are made to seem passive or obscured altogether. The concept is crucial to Karl Marx's critique of economic theory, which seeks to locate the source of profit in the capitalist economy.

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