Queering Capitalism

In addition to exposing capitalism as a social system based on exploitation of humans and nature, Karl Marx also pointed out that capitalist societies produce, and fundamentally rely on, a fetishism that is the veiled yet crucial effect of commodity production where social relationships among people...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Krisis (Amsterdam, Netherland : 2000) Netherland : 2000), 2018-01 (2)
Main Author: Ludwig, Gundula
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biopolitics
Boudry, Pauline
Capitalism
Capitalist societies
Commodities
Commodity markets
Consumption
Democracy
Exploitation
Foucault, Michel
Gramsci, Antonio (1891-1937)
Labor theory of value
Lifestyles
Marx, Karl (1818-1883)
Nation states
Neoliberalism
Politics
Production
Sexuality
Social order
Social relations
Tolerance
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Summary:In addition to exposing capitalism as a social system based on exploitation of humans and nature, Karl Marx also pointed out that capitalist societies produce, and fundamentally rely on, a fetishism that is the veiled yet crucial effect of commodity production where social relationships among peopleare transformed intoeconomic relationships. In this way, commodities are no longer perceived as embedded in social relations or as products made by people, but instead appear as objects that have an intrinsic exchange value. The “commodity-form, and the value-relation of the products of labour within which it appears, have absolutely no connection with the physical nature of the commodity and the material relations arising out of this. It is nothing but the definite social relation between men themselves which assumes here, for them, the fantastic form of a relation between things. In order, therefore, to find an analogy we must take flight into the misty realm of religion. There the products of the human brain appear as autonomous figures endowed with a life of their own, which enter into relations both with each other and with the human race. […]. I call this the fetishism which attaches itself to the products of labour as soon as they are produced as commodities, and is therefore inseparable from the production of commodities.” (Marx 1867/1966, 165).
ISSN:1875-7103