Karl Marx Roots Summary

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

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