Abstract

RUIZ SANJUAN, César. The Fetishism and the Reification of Social Relations in the Capitalist System. Prax. filos. [online]. 2011, n.33, pp.191-206. ISSN 0120-4688.

The aim of this paper is to analyze the meaning of fetishism within Marxist theory in order to show the potential of this dimension of Marxist theory for the critique of the social relations of the capitalist system. The historical specificity of capitalist society is that all relations are traversed by the production and exchange of commodities, and that as a result of the material mediation of social relations, people have come to view these relations as properties of the things. In this way, there is set, behind the individuals, an independent power to which they are subordinate. Marx's critique is directed at this spontaneous perception of social agents and to the theories of political economy, which are developed on the forms of thinking that are suggested by these reified social relations.

Keywords : fetishism; reification; capitalism; critique; Marx.

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