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The Idea Of A Commodity In Karl Marx's Capital

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The influential socialist Karl Marx presented the idea that an individual’s state of well-being in a particular society depended on labor. Not only is labor a way of survival, it is also a way of creating one’s identity. Through working and creating items of use-value the human race has met and continues meeting the needs of existence and have incorporated themselves in this world. In Karl Marx work “Capital”, Marx begins describing the concept of the commodity as an object that satisfies human wants because of the many properties within them. These objects can either be seen as quantity or quality, making it a use-value. In the reading we learn that use-value is what is used as a commodity. These commodities are given a specific value, which is measured by the socially …show more content…

The commodities are produced by paid working class individuals and undergo through exchange-value in which they are sold in order to make profit. Karl Marx argues that, “the value of a commodity, therefore, varies directly as the quantity, and inversely as the productiveness, of the labour incorporated in it” (Marx 56). Commodities have use value that satisfies human wants. All commodities have something in common which is that they are products of labor. As a result, the value of a commodity is determined by the amount of labor needed for its production. Through this system of mass production, exchange and profit, the market has gained control over working class individuals and our lives in general. Everything that we use in or daily lives have become commodities to be sold and bought. Many individuals may argue that this is not true in our world in the United States in the 21st century because companies now sell brands rather than “commodities”. However, I believe companies today use the concept of brands to ensure their place in the market and attract buyers, after all, their main goal is to sell

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The capitalist society is defined as “a historically specific way of organizing commodity production; produces profit for the owners of the means of production; based on structured on structured inequality between capitalists and wage labors whose exploited labor produces capitalist profit”(Dillon 72). Karl Marx offers several critiques of capitalism. He especially critiques job competition and how this can lead to the exploitation of wage workers. As California Warehouses Grow, Labor Issues are a Concern by Jennifer Medina highlights some of Marx’s concerns. Capitalism is based upon the creation of surplus value or profit.

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This can be understood as a metaphor asserting that the base of society keeps every other aspect running smoothly. It is important to note that in the preface of A Critique of Political Economy, Marx failed to sate a clear difference between a commodities exchange value and use value (McIntosh 1997). This distinction is the basis for how we determine value and is an essential part of the social economic

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A brand can be defined as a unique mark on a particular product or range of products that allows the company to be distinguished from similar suppliers (Cronje, 2006). Creating a brand for a

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Marx believes that people in a capitalist society become enraptured by the system of commodities. For example, Marx’s ideas on the commodification of labor show how the individual, as a worker, becomes enraptured by the capitalist system of production, and accepts his role in the system. He writes, “The workers exchange their commodity, labour, for the commodity of the capitalist, for money, and this exchange takes place in a definite ratio”” (Marx, in Calhoun, p. 122). Marx believes that workers become captivated because they fetishize the commodification process to the extent that they view themselves and others through the lenses of commodities.

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Marx states that labor “not only produces commodities. It also produces itself and the worker as a commodity, and indeed in the same proportion as it produces

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This happens during the capitalist mode of the production. Although in The Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret Thereof Karl Marx still is concerned about the laborers, he is more focused on how the buyers of the products do not acknowledge that the products came from the work of laborers. As Marx says in The Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret Thereof, “A commodity appears at first sight an extremely obvious, trivial thing. But its analysis brings out that it is a very strange thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties” (pg. 163).

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This is because despite the energy of labor and the being of the labor which are put into the product, that product itself doesn’t belong to the laborer nor do they receive any benefits from the product i.e., ‘the fruits of their labor’. In a sense, the laborer loses something of himself during the time spent creating this estranged object, as it doesn 't identify with it as a meaningful part of its own presence as a person, yet simply as an independent entity alienated to itself. Marx states that the “worker puts his life into the object; but now his life no longer belongs to him but to the object” (29). Therefore, the more labor one puts into a product the more powerful and estranged the world of products becomes of them. This estrangement can become so acute that the bare necessities of living are taken from the laborer as the more products they produce, the less they possess.

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The Industrial Revolution cast its shadow upon European cities and towns. Some enjoyed this shade while others suffered tremendously because of it. Those who enjoyed the luxuries and wealth that the Industrial Revolution provided, the bourgeoisie, depended on the needs of the poor, the proletarians, to increase the size of their monstrous factories and ultimately their wealth and influence. In “The Communist Manifesto” Karl Marx discusses the effects of the Industrial Revolution in further dividing society by creating new social and economic hierarchies. In addition to his observation of the division of labor, Karl Marx believed, that due to the technological shift from craftsmanship to machinery this also caused division of labor and the appreciation of proletarian handmade goods was disregarded.

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In his work, he focusses on commodities and how they are affected in capitalism. On one hand, consumers use commodities, or any good or service produced by human service, without thinking about all parts of production that led to the product being in their hands. This phenomenon is what Marx calls commodity fetishism. In Capital, he discusses how a commodity has both a use and exchange value. A use value refers how a commodity can be used to satisfy a human want or need and how it is used in society, where as the exchange value is is how it can exchanged for other commodity.

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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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Capitalism is understood to be the “economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state.” In modern society, capitalism has become the dominant economic system and has become so integrated that it has resulted in a change in the relationships individuals have with other members of society and the materials within society. As a society, we have become alienated from other members of society and the materials that have become necessary to regulate ourselves within it, often materials that we ourselves, play a role in producing. Capitalism has resulted in a re-organization of societies, a more specialized and highly segmented division of labour one which maintains the status quo in society by alienating the individual. Karl Marx and Emile Durkheim theorize on how power is embodied within society and how it affects the individuals of society.

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They don't do this by reaching some internal consensus on what they think the brand means. The real starting point is to go out to customers ad find out what they like or dislike about the brand and what they associate as the core of the brand concept. (Bedbury as quoted in Malone, 2004)A company needs to know that whatever

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1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background A brand is a name, term, sign or symbol that differentiates one seller’s brand from those of other sellers (Allen, O’Guinn & Semenik 2013:13). A brand allows a company to communicate a effective communication message to the market (Allen, O’Guinn & Semenik 2013:13).

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Brands are complex offerings that are conceived by organisations but ultimately resides in the consumers mind (De Chernatony, 2010). A brand thus signals to the customers the source of the products and services and protects both the competitor who would attempt to provide products and services that appear similar or identical (Aaker, 2004). Brands provides the basis upon which consumer can identify and bond with a product or service or group of products and services (Weilbacher, 1995). A brand is a specific uniqueness associated with a product or services that enables the consumers connect with it by easy identification through the name, slogan, design, logo, symbols, etc. of the organisation that produces the products or

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