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Error or absurdity? A non-cognitive approach to commodity fetishism

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  • David Andrews

Abstract

Karl Marx presented his theory of commodity fetishism as an explanation of the mysterious appearance of social relations in a system of commodity production as natural phenomena. The standard interpretation of this as a failure to perceive capitalist social relations correctly depends on a particular modern sense of ‘natural’. If classical political economy and Marx used ‘natural’ in the Aristotelian sense, commodity fetishism appears quite differently: not as a cognitive error but rather as a manner of living under commodity production, one that is not wrong but absurd, the word fetishism tying commodity production to pre-Enlightenment, preliterate peoples.

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  • David Andrews, 2018. "Error or absurdity? A non-cognitive approach to commodity fetishism," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(5), pages 738-755, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:eujhet:v:25:y:2018:i:5:p:738-755
    DOI: 10.1080/09672567.2018.1475501
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