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Commodity Fetishism

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Abstract

An analysis of Marx’s notion of ‘commodity fetishism’ – as a theory of the necessary (systemically induced) misperception of underlying production relations by participants in market exchanges. The appeal of the notion to the two main opposing tendencies of mid- and late 20th-century Marxism – Marxist humanism and structuralist Marxism – is discussed. Reasons are proposed to account for a recent decline of interest in the phenomenon among both economists and philosophers. It is suggested, however, that the concept remains viable.

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Levine, A. (2018). Commodity Fetishism. In: The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95189-5_532

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