I have taken other sociology classes and we always somehow
bring up Karl Marx. I mean why wouldn’t we, he is a great sociologist with
great theories and thoughts. One theory that really caught my eye was Fetishism
of Commodity. An easy way to explain Fetishism of commodity is by thinking of a
garage sale, in a garage sale you have buyer and a seller. The word commodity
means buying and selling of goods and services. There is this obsession of constantly
needing to buy and sell. As a seller you want to make the most money that you
possibly can and once you get that money you want to buy the newest and coolest
things just to feel like you fit in. By constantly making yourself become
obsessed with selling and wanting to make money you will almost lost yourself
in materialistic things. You would allow yourself to be known as your status
and not your own self. The way I see it is we see the money and not the time
and effort put into the product. For example if you have a block of wood you
will see it has nothing but if you take the time and effort of making it into a
table, will you be proud? No, you would see money signs because you can sell it
and make money off of it. This also can mean that if you go to the grocery
store you buy the groceries there is now a relationship between you and the
owner. When you give your money to the store you are giving money to the owner.
A great example of Fetishism can be when
the new Grand Theft Auto game came out. People took of work the next day just
to stay up to go buy the game. There were lines lined up outside of game
stores. This also is a great example of a want, and not a need. This shows an Obsession
for a materialist item.
I
posted below a video of a group of people being obsessed with the latest trends
and objects. The video is of black Friday. This shows how out of control things
can get when it comes to materialistic things!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBk32OUxCnU
I really loved your examples given about the newest video games and I also think the example of the piece of wood vs. a handmade table really put the fetishism of commodity into perspective. However, you defined a commodity as the buying and selling, but more specifically a commodity is strictly the GOOD itself, not necessarily the transaction of the sale.
ReplyDeleteYou really hit on the fetishism part - how we are obsessed with "stuff". In today's society, I think it's really important to look at that and how it relates to the total depersonalization of the economy and how Marx thinks that this depersonalization is contributing to us not reaching our full potential as a society. One other thing to add in addition to the previous comment is that commodities can also be abstract concepts such as labor itself in addition to goods and services. Do we make ourselves become obsessed with having the newest things or the most money or does society reinforce and reward our obsession?
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