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Karl Marx Roots Summary

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Karl Marx describes commodity fetishism as the separation of a commodities production and consumption. Value is placed on the commodity by the consumers for the use value and is separate from the value of labor (Marx p.7). Furthermore, Marx describes how commodities have a magical and mysterious quality because consumers are blinded from the labor and only see them is their final state (Marx p.4). This paper argues how authors fetishize sassafras as a commodity during the time between the 1560s and the 1770s by discussing only the uses that it held and not how it was produced, and by exaggerating the power that it had in relieving ailments. In Sokolov’s article, titled Roots, he discusses the different uses that sassafras has had since the Native Americans used it in the 1500s. First, he explains how it was used as a thickener in gumbo (Sokolov 98). Then, he moves on to how it was used to make root beer and the dangers of consumption …show more content…

In France, it had been claimed to help with the French Pox and even the Plague (Manning and Moore 473-474). Similarly, Willard et al. discuss the effect that sassafras had on Syphilis. Syphilis was believed to originate in the New World, so Europeans believed that the cure would only be found in the New World (Willard et al. 4). In the 1560s, the treatment for Syphilis was mercury treatment, then it was guayacan and sassafras (Willard et al. 4-5). These examples show how sassafras was given a magical quality. Because they were used in so many different treatments, and even thought of as a universal cure, they were fetishized. Just as Marx explains that commodities that are fetishized have a certain magical quality, sassafras is described to have a certain magical quality. The uses of it are exaggerated without any evidence of its actual benefit. Sassafras is fetishized because of the power it was given shown in these

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There are also notes of eucalyptus and root beer. Health Benefits of Sassafras Sassafras provides numerous health benefits, many of which are from its safrole content. The compounds in sassafras that provide its health benefits include: Safrole On its own, Safrole is said to be effective for treating several health conditions including scurvy and rheumatism. Safrole is controversial because it is a carcinogen and is capable of inducing mutation.

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The most common diseases included malaria, smallpox, stones, measles, influenza, syphilis, and dysentery (Singman 52). The solutions to certain diseases during the Renaissance time period were deranged. For example, people believed that deafness could be cured from powdered armadillo bone. They also believed that you could get rid of a wart by putting a cut up mouse on it. Crazy assumptions like these were made up because there was no common medicine (Lace 73).

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Lord Jeffrey Amherst, gave blankets as gifts to the Natives without their knowing of the disease that was waiting to attack their unprepared immune system. Vice Versa While the Americas suffered a great loss due to disease transferred by the Europeans, Europe was introduced to Syphilis (S.T.D.). I find this a tad ironic due to the fact that Europeans infected the Native Americans, then the Native Americans then affected the Europeans through the women they stole. “The Pox” as Europeans called syphilis, spread through Europe slowly then about as fast as the diseases in the New World did. When sores would occur on the genital area mercury and guaiacum were used as a remedy.

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For example, children who have what is now known as ADHD are often treated with Ritalin, but the same kids often take sleeping medication as Ritalin is a stimulant. It can be risky to take the ideas of social construction too seriously because there is a possibility of simply rewriting history and reverting to considering the people with mental illnesses to be deviant and

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The strength of this book is based on the writer's capacity to draw an obvious conclusion regarding global relations, ideas, and history. They discuss three fundamental types of world legislative issues; World Imperial system, Feudal system, and anarchic international system. They particularly accentuate the anarchic international system. For example, the universal sovereign absence clarifies that the world is a self-help system dependent on every state to do what is best for themselves and additionally the community of states. They connect that idea with distinctive political philosophers, for example, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Marx.

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While the improvements in the production, transportation, and refinement systems of sugar in the 17th and 18th century were hallmarks of technological progress, the symbolic link between sugar and “progress” perhaps comes in a different, more cosmetic form: the whiteness of refined sugar. Mintz discusses how refined sugar is consistently a desirable item throughout the centuries, with whiteness associated with purity, cleanliness, and civilization. This is not just because white sugar is the most expensive, the most difficult to produce, and lends itself easily to be used in fancy pastries and dishes, but also due to the dominant narratives in the British Empire during this time, where darkness is associated with backwardness and sin. The improvement of the availability and accessibility of white sugar through the 19th century is then seen by many as a clear marker of progress towards civilization. Similar phenomenon can also be observed in the modern world – refined sugar continues to serve as the commodity that introduces “less developed” traditional culture to the “modern” and “developed” Western world.

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''Go, Fight, Win'' you might here that during cheerleading. Do you think cheerleading is a sport? Cheerleaders are actually very important and we do a lot more then you think. I am a cheerleader and I do believe it is a sport. When we are just standing on the sidelines and yelling you might not consider that a sport, but when we are tumbling or stunting it definitly is.

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This dependency became a part of European consumer culture and even today you can see this; when you think of London, you think of tea, but tea was an imported good that Europeans became dependent on. Another example of “drug foods” becoming prominent in European culture can be seen as “our English Gentry do so much delight in the drinking thereof, that they do still make their way with us notwithstanding their dearness,

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Andre Abi Haidar PSPA 210 INTRODUCTION It is always difficult to write about and discuss Karl Marx, or more importantly the applications of Marx’s theories, due to the fact that he inspired and gave rise to many movements and revolutionaries, not all of which follow his theories to the point. Although Marx tends to be equated with Communism, it might not seem righteous to blame him for whatever shortcomings occurred when his theories were put to the test; Marx passed away well before the revolution in Russia, and he played no role in the emergence of the totalitarian regime at the time. When discussing Marx, however, Vladimir Lenin is one of the biggest highlights when it comes to studying the outcomes of Marx’s theories.

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Commodity fetishism refers to the transformation of human relations formed from the exchange of commodities in the market. Human relations form between people of trade in goods and services in the market expressed in terms of the objectified economic relations among currency. Commodity fetishism allows the ability to transform individuality, conceptual aspects of financially viable value into objective and real things that people think have intrinsic value. (Rubin, 1990,5) Karl Marx states social relation between people assumes in their eyes to form a relation between things therefore commodity fetishism is religious due to the involvement of supernatural status to assume a belief in something not there. Humans use their brains to create commodities

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This sociological study will analyze the problem of commodity fetishism in American consumer culture. Karl Marx’s theory of commodity fetishism is a major problem in the United States due to the inability of consumers to see the intrinsic value of a commodity. American consumer culture tends to become trapped in the “magical qualities” of a product, which makes them unable to understand the object as it was made by a laborer. This abstraction of the commodity is part of Marx’s analysis of capitalist products that is separated from the labor and become valuable objects in and of themselves. This is an important sociological perspective on commodities, which creates an irrational consumer culture in the American marketplace.

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Question 1. What do you make of Karl Marx’s contributions to sociology? Answer: It would take volumes to describe how important Karl Marx’s work is in sociology. His work is important in the 21st century because his concepts and ideas are the only genuine seeds for a better society.

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You may not realize some person or thing you hear, see, or read about if you do not appear closely—and also, sometimes, even if you do appear closely. Also, you can fail to realize something or somebody in two different ways: (a) by not reaching any coherent demonstration at all, or (b) by accepting incorrectly, that is, misinterpretation. The growing individual will similarly learn that it can sometimes be hard to define how well you see or think of a social or a nonsocial piece of cognition, for instance, whether you know it well adequate to get some social or nonsocial objective concerning that object. There is the additional insight that how well you comprehend something now may not be a true predictor of how well you will recognize it

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Karl Marx (1818-1883) considered himself not to be a sociologist but a political activist. However, many would disagree and in the view of Hughes (1986), he was ‘both – and a philosopher, historian, economist, and a political scientist as well.’ Much of the work of Marx was political and economic but his main focus was on class conflict and how this led to the rise of capitalism. While nowadays, when people hear the word “communism”, they think of the dictatorial rule of Stalin and the horrific stories of life in a communist state such as the Soviet Union, it is important not to accuse Marx of the deeds carried out in his name.

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In the Communist manifesto, a well known quote of Marx, “the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.” This is introductory to the first part of the pamphlet and a conclusion to Marx’s theory about class struggle. Marx’s highly structured on how the class struggle emerges and affects the development of a society. The development of a society from the old and from the new is the result of the conflict of classes in the society.

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