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Now that the Soviet guardians of
orthodox Marxism have fallen,
we are free to take Karl Marx for the political economist he was and not as a god or idol. In fact, Soviet orthodoxy did not draw on the humanistic philosopher Marx.
Marx himself gives support to those who link democracy with socialism. He of course did talk about the dictatorship of the proletariat, which contained a vision of overturning the current social order where a few dominate the many. This also resulted in a "vanguard," directing the way for the proletariat, and these leaders became a ruling elite in the Soviet bloc that along the way forgot much of Marx's vision and merely sought to maintain itself in power. However, he stated, "We do not assert that the attainment of this end [political supremacy of the workers] requires identical means." For example, Marx alluded to the possibility that in the United States socialism might be achieved democratically. These many years later, neither socialism nor even any real economic democracy is not yet present in our nation. We who claim to follow Marx seek to make this a reality.
As I look at Marx, the fundamental principle that stands out is the fetishism of commodities. I learned this in 1980 through a group active in the struggle for liberation in Central America, which focused on Marx in this way. They witnessed not only the bad fruit (poverty and related problems) of capitalism in Latin America, they also saw a fundamental problem with capitalism. Let us begin the road to the fetishism of commodities by looking at alienation.
Marx's essay entitled "Alienated Labor" offers an analysis of a building block of the market system:
1. Workers use their own labor to make a product, which is not theirs, but belongs to the owner of the business. The owner takes the product from the worker and sells it on the market. Workers are separated and thus alienated from the work of their hands.
2. This produces alienation from one's own humanity, because one's labor is not an end in itself. That is, work is no longer meaningful in itself; it is only important because workers receive wages. For Marx work is an essential part of what it means to be human. In our own day we know that identity is indeed shaped by one's work.
3. The competition of businesses that produce the same product produces alienation from one another. Workers are separated by which company they work for. Instead of claiming the unity of human beings doing similar work, workers see each other as competitors. Although unionization across industries has lessened this problem, few workers today are able to belong to a union.
Alienation is a common description of attitudes in modern times. The rebellion that emerged from the 50's and 60's can be seen as the result of alienation in other forms. The civil rights movement arose from the alienation caused by racism. This emerged first in response to southern segregation and went deeper to oppose the entrenched racism of the whole system. The alienation from American authority resulted from the hypocrisy of the war in Vietnam became for some a thorough alienation from the consumerist individualism of American culture and produced the counter-culture. In the midst of these movements, the feminist movement arose to challenge the patriarchy wreaking havoc in the forms of racism and militarism and struck at the heart of human relationships in raising the alienation between men and women. Gays and lesbians, whose repression has been manifested in so many ugly and violent ways, experience yet another form of alienation.
Hiding beneath the various forms of alienation is the fetishism of commodities, which in our capitalist society adds another level to further distort the other forms of alienation. Fundamental to Marx's work in his magnum opus Capital (Das Kapital), the fetishism of commodities describes the human world turned upside down as the economic process takes over responsibility for human interactions. Marx explains this comes about, and then offers an answer of how to put people before profits.
First, an object is produced by human labor because it satisfies a human need (or want). This object is useful. It is a use-value. It is transferred to another who desires its use-value. It becomes important to the seller and buyer for its exchange-value. This exchange turns the humanly produced product into a commodity. A product of labor may be useful, but the reason sufficient to produce it is not its use-value. Rather it is the exchange-value, its nature as a commodity. The value of exchange then becomes a quantity in relation to other commodities, which is most clearly measured in terms of money, the ultimate equivalent. Marx has an almost surreal description of a table coming to life.
"The form of wood, for instance, is altered, by making a table out of it. Yet, for all that, the table continues to be that common, every-day thing, wood. But, so soon as it steps forth as a commodity, it is changed into something transcendent. It not only stands with its feet on the ground, but, in relation to all other commodities, it stands on its head, and evolves out of its wooden brain grotesque ideas, far more wonderful than "table-turning" ever was. "[Capital, vol. 1 (International Publishers: New York, 1967) p.71]
Put in more ordinary language commodity fetishism creates material relations between persons and social relations between things. People don't relate to one another directly, but indirectly through their products. When prices rise or workers are laid off, business people tell us that the market did it. The market takes on the appearance of immutable natural law and businesspeople deny the responsibility their decisions have made. Instead responsibility, a human quality, is attributed to the market. A modern theorist describes it this way,
"They [Commodities] seem to exhibit human behavior. The location of their moves is the market, especially the stock exchange. There commodities rise and fall, gain and lose ground, have victories and suffer, spin upward and fall. Among them appear enmities and friendships; there are mergers and commitments. And many conflicts arise among them. ...The economic world of business is not inhabited by human beings, but by commodities. The commodities take action, and human beings run after them." ["The Economic Roots of Idolatry" by Franz Hinkelammert in The Idols of Death and the God of Life (Orbis Books: Maryknoll, N.Y., 1983, pp. 168-169).]
Even worse than attributing responsibility to the market is asserting that conditions are a fact of nature, as if they are God-given. We tell poor people we are sorry they cannot afford to live, we can't help it because the market dictates that there must be poor people. In our rich nation we act as if the market matters more than people do. This is seen quite clearly in the area of basic human needs such as food, shelter, education, work and especially health care. In the U.s. money runs our health care system, and without money care is inadequate. Preventative care is almost nonexistent for those without health insurance, but if you can pay then the most trivial elective surgery becomes possible. It is a matter of money, not need. When responsibility for human beings is given over to an inanimate object like the market, we call it idolatry. Marx calls it the "fetishism of commodities." This is as foolish as worshiping any statue. Thus Marx follows the prophets in the Judeo-Christian tradition to attack idolatry, because it harms human beings both materially and in the form of alienation from their true interests.
To overcome this problem, we can begin by questioning the market. Laisse faire is long gone, but we have modern freemarket-ers who see human intervention as a problem, under the fiction that the market is not a human construction. However, we do not have to accept that some must be poor or that the rich must be unfettered. The rich are not benign but make decisions about the use of their moneyówill they amass it, will they buy art, give to charity, invest in industry or work for peace and justice? They make decisions that effect people and they need to be held accountable. We need to make these power relations transparent and change the system that allows them to decide who lives and who dies. Is not the life and death of people more important than the financial figures of the wealthy?
Marx sees that fetishism can be overcome in the Association of Free People, "Freedom in this field can only consist in socialized man, the associated producers, rationally regulating their interchange with Nature, bringing it under their common control, instead of being ruled by it as by the blind forces of Nature. [Marx Engels Reader, ed. Robert Tucker (W.W. Norton & Co. Inc: New York, 1972 p. 320, from "On the Realm of Necessity and the Realm of Freedom" in Capital (Vol. 3)]
When we see that the market depends on the relations between the activities and decisions of the owners, managers, and the workers "and are not disguised under the shape of social relations between the products of labour," (Capital, p. 77) then we can begin to move away from the idolatry of the market and take responsibility for the economic structures of our society. We can begin to move toward seeing the production of the economy as something that should benefit all of us and not for a few, that will work better for all of us, if we are part of democratic decision making. True democracy will only come when we have economic democracy.
Join us in the Democratic Socialists of Central Ohio (DSCO), as we study socialist history and involve ourselves in current struggles. We meet at 7:00 p.m. on the third Thursday of the month at OSU's Northwood Building at 2231 N. High St. For more information please contact Reg Dyck: rdyck@capital.edu or Simone Morgen: smorgen@juno.com. The Free Press and DSCO join together to honor community activists May 2 for our annual Awards Dinner.
Marx himself gives support to those who link democracy with socialism. He of course did talk about the dictatorship of the proletariat, which contained a vision of overturning the current social order where a few dominate the many. This also resulted in a "vanguard," directing the way for the proletariat, and these leaders became a ruling elite in the Soviet bloc that along the way forgot much of Marx's vision and merely sought to maintain itself in power. However, he stated, "We do not assert that the attainment of this end [political supremacy of the workers] requires identical means." For example, Marx alluded to the possibility that in the United States socialism might be achieved democratically. These many years later, neither socialism nor even any real economic democracy is not yet present in our nation. We who claim to follow Marx seek to make this a reality.
As I look at Marx, the fundamental principle that stands out is the fetishism of commodities. I learned this in 1980 through a group active in the struggle for liberation in Central America, which focused on Marx in this way. They witnessed not only the bad fruit (poverty and related problems) of capitalism in Latin America, they also saw a fundamental problem with capitalism. Let us begin the road to the fetishism of commodities by looking at alienation.
Marx's essay entitled "Alienated Labor" offers an analysis of a building block of the market system:
1. Workers use their own labor to make a product, which is not theirs, but belongs to the owner of the business. The owner takes the product from the worker and sells it on the market. Workers are separated and thus alienated from the work of their hands.
2. This produces alienation from one's own humanity, because one's labor is not an end in itself. That is, work is no longer meaningful in itself; it is only important because workers receive wages. For Marx work is an essential part of what it means to be human. In our own day we know that identity is indeed shaped by one's work.
3. The competition of businesses that produce the same product produces alienation from one another. Workers are separated by which company they work for. Instead of claiming the unity of human beings doing similar work, workers see each other as competitors. Although unionization across industries has lessened this problem, few workers today are able to belong to a union.
Alienation is a common description of attitudes in modern times. The rebellion that emerged from the 50's and 60's can be seen as the result of alienation in other forms. The civil rights movement arose from the alienation caused by racism. This emerged first in response to southern segregation and went deeper to oppose the entrenched racism of the whole system. The alienation from American authority resulted from the hypocrisy of the war in Vietnam became for some a thorough alienation from the consumerist individualism of American culture and produced the counter-culture. In the midst of these movements, the feminist movement arose to challenge the patriarchy wreaking havoc in the forms of racism and militarism and struck at the heart of human relationships in raising the alienation between men and women. Gays and lesbians, whose repression has been manifested in so many ugly and violent ways, experience yet another form of alienation.
Hiding beneath the various forms of alienation is the fetishism of commodities, which in our capitalist society adds another level to further distort the other forms of alienation. Fundamental to Marx's work in his magnum opus Capital (Das Kapital), the fetishism of commodities describes the human world turned upside down as the economic process takes over responsibility for human interactions. Marx explains this comes about, and then offers an answer of how to put people before profits.
First, an object is produced by human labor because it satisfies a human need (or want). This object is useful. It is a use-value. It is transferred to another who desires its use-value. It becomes important to the seller and buyer for its exchange-value. This exchange turns the humanly produced product into a commodity. A product of labor may be useful, but the reason sufficient to produce it is not its use-value. Rather it is the exchange-value, its nature as a commodity. The value of exchange then becomes a quantity in relation to other commodities, which is most clearly measured in terms of money, the ultimate equivalent. Marx has an almost surreal description of a table coming to life.
"The form of wood, for instance, is altered, by making a table out of it. Yet, for all that, the table continues to be that common, every-day thing, wood. But, so soon as it steps forth as a commodity, it is changed into something transcendent. It not only stands with its feet on the ground, but, in relation to all other commodities, it stands on its head, and evolves out of its wooden brain grotesque ideas, far more wonderful than "table-turning" ever was. "[Capital, vol. 1 (International Publishers: New York, 1967) p.71]
Put in more ordinary language commodity fetishism creates material relations between persons and social relations between things. People don't relate to one another directly, but indirectly through their products. When prices rise or workers are laid off, business people tell us that the market did it. The market takes on the appearance of immutable natural law and businesspeople deny the responsibility their decisions have made. Instead responsibility, a human quality, is attributed to the market. A modern theorist describes it this way,
"They [Commodities] seem to exhibit human behavior. The location of their moves is the market, especially the stock exchange. There commodities rise and fall, gain and lose ground, have victories and suffer, spin upward and fall. Among them appear enmities and friendships; there are mergers and commitments. And many conflicts arise among them. ...The economic world of business is not inhabited by human beings, but by commodities. The commodities take action, and human beings run after them." ["The Economic Roots of Idolatry" by Franz Hinkelammert in The Idols of Death and the God of Life (Orbis Books: Maryknoll, N.Y., 1983, pp. 168-169).]
Even worse than attributing responsibility to the market is asserting that conditions are a fact of nature, as if they are God-given. We tell poor people we are sorry they cannot afford to live, we can't help it because the market dictates that there must be poor people. In our rich nation we act as if the market matters more than people do. This is seen quite clearly in the area of basic human needs such as food, shelter, education, work and especially health care. In the U.s. money runs our health care system, and without money care is inadequate. Preventative care is almost nonexistent for those without health insurance, but if you can pay then the most trivial elective surgery becomes possible. It is a matter of money, not need. When responsibility for human beings is given over to an inanimate object like the market, we call it idolatry. Marx calls it the "fetishism of commodities." This is as foolish as worshiping any statue. Thus Marx follows the prophets in the Judeo-Christian tradition to attack idolatry, because it harms human beings both materially and in the form of alienation from their true interests.
To overcome this problem, we can begin by questioning the market. Laisse faire is long gone, but we have modern freemarket-ers who see human intervention as a problem, under the fiction that the market is not a human construction. However, we do not have to accept that some must be poor or that the rich must be unfettered. The rich are not benign but make decisions about the use of their moneyówill they amass it, will they buy art, give to charity, invest in industry or work for peace and justice? They make decisions that effect people and they need to be held accountable. We need to make these power relations transparent and change the system that allows them to decide who lives and who dies. Is not the life and death of people more important than the financial figures of the wealthy?
Marx sees that fetishism can be overcome in the Association of Free People, "Freedom in this field can only consist in socialized man, the associated producers, rationally regulating their interchange with Nature, bringing it under their common control, instead of being ruled by it as by the blind forces of Nature. [Marx Engels Reader, ed. Robert Tucker (W.W. Norton & Co. Inc: New York, 1972 p. 320, from "On the Realm of Necessity and the Realm of Freedom" in Capital (Vol. 3)]
When we see that the market depends on the relations between the activities and decisions of the owners, managers, and the workers "and are not disguised under the shape of social relations between the products of labour," (Capital, p. 77) then we can begin to move away from the idolatry of the market and take responsibility for the economic structures of our society. We can begin to move toward seeing the production of the economy as something that should benefit all of us and not for a few, that will work better for all of us, if we are part of democratic decision making. True democracy will only come when we have economic democracy.
Join us in the Democratic Socialists of Central Ohio (DSCO), as we study socialist history and involve ourselves in current struggles. We meet at 7:00 p.m. on the third Thursday of the month at OSU's Northwood Building at 2231 N. High St. For more information please contact Reg Dyck: rdyck@capital.edu or Simone Morgen: smorgen@juno.com. The Free Press and DSCO join together to honor community activists May 2 for our annual Awards Dinner.