The Fetishism of Coffee in America Essay

According to Karl Marx, alienation is the transformation of individual`s own labor into a power that rules by supra-human laws. In his theory he believed that alienation brought distinction of substances that were harmoniously put together. It brought social divisions of people from the aspect of their “human nature’’ which referred to the range of behavior shared by all human beings. Under capitalism, origin of alienation is commodity fetishism. Marx highlights four calibers of alienation in labor. The worker was alienated from the work he produced. The manner in which something was produced was not by its actual producer nor by its consumers but by capitalist class. It is the capitalist class who appropriated labor and endeavored to determine consumer’s taste for him to maximize profits.

This intimate relationship between man and nature, his activity and the objects of nature, is the ‘appropriate’ relationship because worker is not capable of creating without nature, that is, without the sensual external world. Hence, the world is the material into which man invests his labor, through which he produces things, and without it he cannot live. However, in a capitalist society, such relationship does not exist and man is alienated from nature, from the products of his activity or work. Under capitalism, workers produce for the market rather than for their own use or enrichment. According to Marx, the object produced by labor in modern society stands as an alien being to the worker. His labor is embodied in the product he created, and this product is an objectification of labor which represents a loss to the worker, as well as servitude to the object. Hence, alienation occurs when worker lacks control over the products of his labor. Additionally, during the process of production, man’s labor are seen as much an object as the physical material being worked upon, since labor is a demand in modern society, which can be bought or sold. The more objects the worker produces, the fewer he can personally possess, and therefore the greater is his loss. For instance, in

The fundamental message presented throughout Karl Marx’s Capital is that wage-laborers are exploited under capitalism. Marx argues that regardless of how well a worker is being paid, they are still being exploited by the capitalist in the form of unpaid labor. The focus of this paper will be to explain how and why this relationship between surplus labor and the exploitation of workers is formed in Marx’s opinion.

Marx said that in the product of labor the worker is alienated from the object he produces because it is bought, owned and disposed of by someone else, the capitalist. In all societies people use their creative abilities to produce items which they use to exchange or sell. Marx believes that under capitalism this becomes an alienated activity because the worker can't use the things that he produces to engage in further productive activity. Marx argued that the

In capitalism, the commodity holds the utmost importance, for it is the organic unit of every capitalist society: one simply does not exist without the other. Yet, the commodity also proves to be the greatest enemy of the individual, particularly to the worker. The reason for this lies behind the commodity's deceiving property: the exchange-value. The exchange-value traps the worker in an unbreakable cycle of capitalism that tortures the worker with constant self-devaluation and gradual dissociation from the essence of being human, as Karl Marx describes from his early works, such as “Estranged Labour,” to his magnus opum, Capital. In order to break the cycle, the worker must scrutinize and eventually estrange himself from the exchange-value.

Within a world of economics, we are nothing without wealth. Although, the product of labour has its consequences, for instance, if one puts their minds set only on funds, they become devalued as a person and hence become more of a commodity to society. The worker’s loss of reality is the foundation of their alienation (Marx, 1844). In the interest of economic hardship, Marx developed four types of alienation for workers in society that depicts different representations of estrangement against the working class. The first type, is alienation from the product, the products do not belong to the propertyless worker, and the more the worker produces the product the less the worker has. Workers who are isolated from their own labour process is the

Commodity Fetish’s are the relationship between an individual and the production and the consumption of goods. Marx explains that capitalism is a product

Marx also proposes the important point that “capital, is developed, in the same proportion is the proletariat, the modern working class, developed -- a class of laborers, who live only so long as they find work, and who find work only so long as their labor increases capital. These laborers, who must sell themselves piecemeal, are a commodity, like every other article of commerce, and are consequently exposed to all the vicissitudes of competition, to all the fluctuations of the market” (F. Engels., K. Marx, Feb. 1847).

According to Marx, there are several “powers” of commodities. He believed that a commodity has both a use-value and an exchange value but that there was also had a third factor: value. Use-value is how valuable a good is. Marx explains how it is only useful for the person using the commodity. For example, if I am selling a frisbee or a chicken, I have no use-value for this commodity. The use-value of a commodity only serves to satisfy social need. The demand is for its function only exists for the consumer that wants the a frisbee or a chicken. On the other hand, the seller, is interested in the exchange-value because they want to know how much they can get for their commodity. Unlike use-value, exchange value is not intrinsic. This is only

Marx viewed the ‘commodity’ as the most elementary form of modern wealth. The essence of the commodity is the

In Marx’s clarification of why he calls this fetishism he at the start points out the mystery of exchange value and those who is not successfully use the right scientific understanding to see the link with abstract human labor. Nevertheless, the analogy has other side of the coin. Just like religious fetishism provides power over its believers, commodity fetishism lets the market “to rule the producers instead of being ruled by them,” or as he says it afterwards: “the process of production has the mastery over man, instead of being controlled by him”.

Marx’s (1987) “materialist conception of history” (p. 146) provides an outline through which he presents the intimate connection between society and the provision of material need through the ages. His theory begins with the pre-modern individual, whose existence consists only of productive actions vital to only his own survival, such as gathering food and building shelter. Marx considers this

Marx argues that capitalism creates alienation and made this is a main critique of capitalism. Although he did take inspiration from Hegel’s philosophy, his idea of alienation was different in the respect that the “spirit” is not alienated from itself, but it is people who are alienated from their work or from each other (Ball, Terence, Richard Dagger, and Daniel O’Neill 142). There are four factors in which Marx believes the workers are alienation. The first is that they don’t own the means of production or what they produce so in turn they are alienated from the product of their labor (148). Second, there is no satisfaction in their labor because mass production kills creativity (148). Third, the workers power to create and enjoy beauty is destroyed so they are alienated from their human potential (149). Lastly, capitalism alienates workers from each other because they are forced to

One of the theories the Frankfurt school scholars accept and discuss furthermore is Marx’s theory of ‘commodity fetishism’. According to Karl Marx, Commodity fetishism is “… in the world of commodities with the products of men's hands. This I call the fetishism which attaches itself to the products of labor”. Commodity fetishism refers to an object being idealized for its astonishing features made by human labor that gets exchanged to monetary value once it hits the market and becomes fetishized. In short, the object’s value comes from the commodity, rather than from human labor that produced the object. Commodity fetishism is a topic where it critically challenges us especially since we live in the 21st century where media influences people

How non-public belongings are an essential to the feature of capitalism. Marx reviews the capitalist notion that the notion of 'non-public belongings' is the rational device for exchange. Marx stresses that "personal property is only maintained in capitalist societies by means of using an tough device of laws supported with the aid of the usage of the power of the state" (Hughes 2003 :). free of charge marketplace capitalist consisting of Adam Smith it is the purchase of personal belongings that motivates humans to supply wealth, however this acquisition will result in the "breakdown of real social relationships" (Hughes 2003 :). Why does Marx trust this? The answer Marx gives is a logical one; ones man or woman's ownership of an object denies its benefits to every other growing struggle and producing fierce competition over assets*. Marx explains that in the case while belongings are definitely the made from some other's paintings, it becomes human alienation. In one of these scenario underneath capitalism, labor is effectively reduced to a mere commodity and paintings becomes depersonalized*. on this view people efforts enhance and empower folks who oppress them, the capitalist, alienated from their product and methods of their labor and in the end, from themselves as innovative and social beings* (Heywood). Marx