Thesis Lit Review
Chris O’kane
Thesis introduction
preface
The current economic social crisis can be well described by the Marxian
theory of fetishism. Volatile world markets and the sovereign debts crises have
acted like autonomous entities with their social repercussions possessing the
character of inverted forms of domination. These circumstances are well
reflected in Marx’s statement that ‘magnitudes of value vary continually,
independently of the foreknowledge and action of exchangers. Their own
movement within society has for them the form of a movement made by things,
and these things, far from being under their control, in fact control them.’1 Yet
contemporary critical social theory has moved away from employing Marx’s
theory of fetishism while also finding itself ill suited to describe or understand
the socio-economic crisis.
However, a strand a critical social theory does exist that can be said to
have grappled with similar issues. Marx’s theory of fetishism served a
fundamental role for these thinker’s theories of ideological mystification and
their theories of the constitution and constituents of social domination. In this
thesis I focus on the bringing the later to the fore with an eye to the
contemporary relevance of these theories of fetishism and social domination for
critical theory.
This thesis is therefore concerned with a comparative history of
fetishism’s role in Marx, Lukacs, Adorno and Lefebvre’s theories of the
constitution and constituents of social domination.2 I critically examine how
Marx, Lukacs, Adorno and Lefebvre use fetishism in their respective theories of
the constitution3 and constituents4 of social domination. I also track how these
thinker’s respective conceptions of fetishism and social domination differ from
each other. Finally, I consider the coherence of these theories and their
contemporary relevance.
(Marx 2004) 176
I define a theory of social domination as a theory that asserts an integral link
between the way a society is structured and the type of domination
characteristic of this society. The definition is intended to be vague and to bypass
terms typically associated with the Marxian conception of social domination such
as alienation or reification.
3 By Constitution I refer to how the theory of fetishism as a social relation
between people becoming a social relation between things constitutes these
theories of social domination.
4 By Constituents I refer to how the properties of these conceptions of fetishism
are used to convey how fetishism structures and is indicative of social
domination.
1
2
1
My approach is theoretical, comparative and broadly historical;
Theoretical in the sense that I focus on providing what I think is an accurate and
critical account of each thinker’s conception of fetishism and the role that
fetishism plays in their theories of the social constitution and constituents of
social domination; Comparative in the sense that this account compares each
respective theorists conception of fetishism and the role it plays in their theory
of the constitution and constituents of social domination; Historical in the sense
that I am providing a history or map of how each thinkers conceives of fetishism
and utilizes it in their theory of social domination.5
The following comparative study of fetishism and social domination in
Karl Marx, Georg Lukacs, Theodor Adorno and Henri Lefebvre therefore provides
a substantial original contribution in the following manner: (1) orienting my
comparative study on the question of fetishism and social domination which is
concerned with how each thinker conceives of fetishism and how this conception
of fetishism is used as a basis for their theories of the constitution and
constituents of social domination. (2) My criticism of each thinker’s conception
of fetishism, how it fits into their theories and their theories of the constitution
and constituents of social domination. (3) My selection of Marx, Lukacs, Adorno
and Lefebvre who have never been studied in a comparative manner from this
perspective. (4) My concluding considerations on the coherence these theories
hold for models of fetishism and social domination and the relevance of these
theories for a contemporary critical social theory of fetishism and social
domination.
1 Literature Review
The focus of this thesis is therefore different than the voluminous and
disparate writings on fetishism that either: (a) use the term in manner that
differs from its Marxian origins6 or (b) treat fetishism as constitutive of a
Despite fetishism’s importance to ‘Western Marxism,’ there is no work in
English that examines the development of fetishism in ‘Western Marxism.’
Merlau Ponty, who coined the phrase ‘Western Marxism,’ focuses on The
Adventures of the Dialectics, Martin Jay focuses on totality, Russell Jacoby on The
Dialectic of Defeat and Perry Anderson levelled a number of criticisms at the
tradition in Considerations on Western Marxism. This thesis takes inspiration
from these approaches. However, my focus differs in two respects: (1) I begin
with a substantive chapter on Marx and trace the concept of fetishism from Marx
through Lukacs, Adorno and Lefebvre’s interpretations. (2) I narrow my field of
examination from the rather broad category of ‘Western Marxism’, to focus on
thinkers who share a similar Hegelian interpretation of Marx and use fetishism
as a central part of their social theory. The history of fetishism I trace
consequently maps a concept that hasn’t been utilized in any in depth histories
or studies on Marx and Western Marxism.
6 Many accounts of commodity fetishism say more about the particular
disciplines they are written in than the phenomenon itself. This is particularly
true in disciplines such as literary theory or cultural studies where despite the
fact that the Marxian term is used the concept is often applied in a way that has
little to do with the Marxian conception of fetishism. Several examples suffice:
5
2
different concept such as false consciousness, ideology or reification in studies
that survey these respective concepts.7 In what follows I outline a conceptual
typology of how these different constitutive interpretations construe fetishism.8 I then
discuss how historical and conceptual accounts in these types address the
development of the concept in Marx and Western Marxism.
2 Conceptual Typologies of Fetishism
Norman Geras’s classic article on fetishism: Essence and Appearance: Aspects
of Fetishism in Marx’s Capital9, provides a convenient distinction to frame different
conceptions of fetishism. Geras distinguishes between two distinct aspects of
fetishism: mystification and domination. The different interpretations I will now
outline follow Geras’s distinction with fetishism primarily conceived as constitutive
of a type of mystification, domination or a combination of the two.
2.2 Fetishism as False Consciousness
The interpretation of Fetishism as False Consciousness has a long history
and can be seen as far back as Karl Kautsky’s highly influential The Economic
Doctrines of Karl Marx.10 This conception is now prevalent among Anglophone
and analytic philosophical accounts of fetishism. 11 The most prominent
examples of this interpretation include the important analytic Marxists G.A.
Cohen and Jon Elster. We can therefore see two prevalent explanations of why
fetishism is false consciousness in Cohen and Elster’s work. For Cohen fetishism
is a form of false consciousness because of the illusory independence fetishized
Coffee and Commodity Fetishism, From Hegel to Madonna: Toward a General Economy of
Commodity Fetishism and Yoga and Fetishism: Reflections on Marxist Social Theory.
These approaches are not relevant to this study.
See (Rosen 1996) (Vandenberghe 2009)
My typology does not address Lacanian interpretations of Marx. To my
knowledge this interpretation does not engage with conceptual accounts of
fetishism in Marx, Lukacs Adorno and Lefebvre. Zizek’s scattered remarks are an
exception to this, however they are too scattered to warrant their own typology.
9 (Geras 1971)
7
8
"Characteristics which had appeared mysterious because they were not
explained on the basis of the relations of producers with each other were
assigned to the natural essence of commodities. Just as the fetishist assigns
characteristics to his fetish which do not grow out of its nature, so the bourgeois
economist grasps the commodity as a sensual thing which possesses
pretersensual properties.” (Stenning 1936) From www.Marxists.org. This
interpretation can also be seen in the canonical Marxist accounts of Sweezy. For
a further discussion of these accounts see (Geras 1971) and (Rubin 2007)
11 See also (Eyerman1981), (Pines 1993), (Gabel 1975) And (Rosen 1996)
10
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commodities possess. 12 Elster describes this illusion in a similar fashion with
recourse to a naturalization and embodied fallacy. 13 In Fetishism as False
Consciousness, fetishism is therefore seen a mystified type of ideological false
consciousness that veils domination in capitalist society. Fetishism is thus
conceived as an epistemological error or what Elster calls a ‘cognitive illusion’14
that is generated by the complex appearance of the capitalist mode of
production, which also leads to these appearances being naturalized. In this
account fetishism consists in a category mistake concerning what Michael Rosen
terms a “theoretical illusion about the economy”15 that conceives of the exchange
value commodities posses as intrinsic to commodities, rather than seeing it as
something produced by exploited human labour. In some accounts once this
mistake is corrected the fetishism of commodities is dispelled and denaturalized. In others, this illusion is objectively generated by capitalist
production.16 In both cases fetishism is an illusion about conceptions of capitalist
social production generated by the mystified appearance of the capitalist
circulation process. It is not something inherent to capitalist social production or
the social domination that is constitutive and constituted by capitalist social
production
2.3 Althusserian Conceptions of fetishism
As the name implies the Althusserian conception of fetishism was
developed by Louis Althusser in the 1960s.17 Althusser argued that the aspect of
alienation in Marx’s conception of fetishism was a vestige of the Hegelian legacy
of the Young Marx’s thought and was separate from Marx’s scientific critique of
political economy. Fetishism was consequently seen as irrelevant to Marx’s
critique of political economy to the point where Althusser even argued that the
first chapter of Capital could be skipped. Althusser later amended his view that
there was an epistemological break between the young Marx and the mature
Marx. Never the less, in his interpretation fetishism is a trans-historical form of
mystification that veils production that is of secondary importance to the later
analysis in Capital. Marx’s criticism of the fetishism of commodities therefore
“replaces the false conception of this ‘economy’ as a relation between things by
its true definition as a system of social relations.”18 This unveils fetishism
“Commodities possess exchange-value, and capital is productive. But these
powers belong to them only by grace of the material process. Yet they appear to
inhere in them independently of it. That appearance is fetishism….The illusion is
that it has… power independently, whereas in fact it is delegated by material
production.” (Cohen 2001)116
13 As Elster lucidly states: by this [fetishism] Marx means that the social relations
of men come to appear as the (natural) properties of objects.” Thus, “Commodity
fetishism is the belief that goods possess value just as they have weight, as an
inherent property.” (Elster 1985) 95.
14 Elster 1985) 99
15 (Rosen 1996) 294
16 For a discussion of both sides see (Rosen 1996) 200-219
17 (Althusser 2005; Althusser and Balibar 2009; Balibar 2007)
18 (Althusser 2005) 216
12
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because: “A social (‘human’) relation cannot therefore be found among ‘things’ in
general, but only behind the thing of this capitalist relation.19” In contrast to the
conceptions of fetishism in Lukacs, Adorno and Lefebvre, Althusserian Marxists
also treat fetishism as concept that is specific to Marx’s account of labour.20
These interpretations of Fetishism as False Consciousness and the
Althusserian interpretation of fetishism differ from the other prevalent strands
of commentary on fetishism; Fetishism as Alienation, Fetishism as Reification
and Fetishism as value.21 In these types fetishism is conceived as a central aspect
of Marx’s critique of political economy and integral to his theory of social
domination. However, these typologies also treat fetishism as constitutive of the
concepts they use to characterize this theory of social domination
2.4 Fetishism as Reification
Fetishism as Reification was first conceived in what many consider to be
the founding document of Western Marxism; History and Class Consciousness.22
In this typology the influence of Lukacs’ theory of reification leads to the
term ‘fetishism’ being used interchangeably with ‘reification.’ In these
conceptions fetishism and reification are treated as: (a) synonymous terms to
describe the transformation of social processes into things that dominate and
deceive people as a form of mystified false consciousness23 or fetishism is
treated as (b) half of the basis for Lukacs’ and the Frankfurt schools Weberian
Marxist theory of reification. 24 In all of these instances reification is said to be
(Althusser 2005) 217
In this view Marx’s conception of fetishism ‘does not consist of a general
reification of all relationships, as some humanist interpretations of Marx argue,
but only of this particular relationship.” (Althusser 2005) 313
21 As G Petrovic points out in A Dictionary of Marxist Thought there is often an
overlap between conceptions of alienation, reification and fetishism.21
Reification and fetishism are often treated as types of alienation, fetishism is
treated as synonymous with reification or they are all treated interchangeably.
Sometimes all of these overlaps occur in the course of one article. There are,
however, grounds for distinguishing these types of interpretations of fetishism.
19
20
(Lukács 1972) The concept is also used by leading Western Marxists such as
Karl Korsch, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jurgen Habermas in their respective social theories
to signify objective and subjective types of social domination. The ways these
uses differ from Lukacs deserve a study of their won.
23 See (Cook 1996)
24 Prominent examples include Axel Honneth. (Honneth 2008) 97, Ralf
Wiggershaus (Wiggershaus 1995) pg 80, (Jay 1986; Jay 1996) 189-90 (Cook
2004) and L Dupree “object and the rise of cultural alienation” in Lukas Today J
Grondin “Reification from Lukacs to Habermas in Lukacs Today. For Lukacs and
the Frankfurt School as Weberian Marxists see (Löwy 1996)and (Dahms 2011)
Some of these works complicate the issue to some degree by treating fetishism
as part of the basis for theories of reification that encompass Marx, Weber and
other theories.
22
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synonymous or continuous with the aspects of fetishism it draws from Marx and
constitutive of a theory of social domination and mystified false consciousness.25
Some people who can be grouped into this strand of interpretation also contend
that Lukacs’s theory of reification somehow discovered or at least anticipated
Marx’s theory of alienation prior to the discovery of the Economic and
Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844.26
Thus, despite (a) its literal meaning-- which is usually traced to the Latin
term res and is defined as the transformation of human processes into things or
the confusion of human processes with things—or (b) its general use which
includes describing society as thingified-- signifying that social relations between
people are mediated by things— or fragmented, accounts of fetishism as
reification adopt Lukacs’ widespread use of the term and apply it to other
thinkers entire theories of social domination. This leads to confusing the part
with the whole in analyses of other thinkers where the transformation of human
processes into things, the mediation of social relations between things or social
fragmentation forms an aspect, but not the entirety, of the majority of these
thinkers’ social theories of domination. As a result, the term that designates
what mediates social relationships—reification-- is often conflated with how and
why social relationships are mediated in this manner.
2.5 Fetishism as Alienation.
The interpretation of Fetishism as Alienation was triggered by the
discovery of Marx’s Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts following the
publication of History and Class Consciousness. The place that alienation has in
Marx’s later writings became a matter of contention during the debates between
Humanist and Althusserian interpretations of Marx. There now seems to be a
general acknowledgement that fetishism relates to alienation. However there are
a number of different conceptions of how they relate that depends on how
alienation is conceived.
These conceptions of Fetishism as Reification are particularly prominent in
work that is conceived from within or that focuses on the Frankfurt School.
26CF Harry Dahms statement that “At the time, Marx’s Economic and
Philosophical Manuscripts with their emphasis on the category of alienation had
not been discovered yet, and when Lukacs wrote History and Class Consciousness,
he was not familiar with Marx’s earlier critique of political economy in terms of
alienation. Yet he was able to reconstruct Marx’s critique of alienation as the
foundation for the critique of commodity fetishism.” 102. See also Vandenberghe
147 A Reassessment of Alienation in Karl Marx C. E. Grimes and Charles E. P.
Simmons, The Question of Alienation in Marx Nishad Patnaik as well as (Arato
1979)
25
6
What I will term the classic Marxist Humanist conception of Fetishism as
Alienation was initially formulated by Western Hegelian Marxists.27 In this
interpretation alienation is seen as the core problematic of Marx’s thought.
Marx’s formulation of the theory of alienation in the Manuscripts is thus seen as
the key formulation of this problematic. While Marx’s later focus on political
economy is seen as the less expansive, ‘economist’ conception of alienation. In
these accounts the classic formulation of alienation is said to underlie Marx’s
entire critique of political economy. Fetishism is therefore interpreted as the
economic type of alienation. This analysis is concisely summarized in Henri
Lefebvre’s statement that “fetishism is the economic form of alienation.”28 In this
interpretation alienation is an objective and subjective state generated by
capitalist production in which humans are alienated from their products and cut
off from their human essence.29
A viewpoint similar to this classic Marxist humanist viewpoint was also
taken up as a counterpart to Althusser. This viewpoint emphasizes a strong
continuity between Marx’s theory of alienation and fetishism. Fetishism is
designated as a sub-specie of alienation. Thus like the classical Marxist
Humanist interpretation, in this interpretation, fetishism consists in alienation
and underlies Marx’s critique of political economy. This can be seen among other
places in Bertell Olmann’s work on alienation.30 which follows the classical
humanist view that Marx’s theory of alienation is the core problematic of his
thought.31 What Olmann terms fetishism and reification merely represent
Marx’s later formulations of alienation.
A thinner conception of Fetishism as Alienation can also be found in
works on Marx. These works argue for a continuity between the young and later
Marx, but in contrast to the other accounts of Fetishism as Alienation, they also
emphasize important developments that give fetishism a conceptual and
explanatory complexity that is lacking in The Manuscripts. In this strand Marx’s
theory of alienation might not include or emphasis the alienation of human
essence and consist solely in the way that labour becomes an alien form of
domination that is external to the human social relations that constitute it.32
This account can be seen in the classic Marxist humanist works of Henri
Lefebvre, Herbert Marcuse, and Eric Fromm. For a similar interpretation from
this era from a non-Hegelian Marxist standpoint see Lucien Goldmann and
Daniel Bell.
27
(Lefebvre 2008).
Fromm shares this view with the additional contention, as evident in one of his
more popular books Beyond the Chains of Illusion, that the alienation of humans
from their products is illusory. See (Fromm 2006)
30 (Ollman 1977),
31 Other examples from this period include (Meszaros 2005), (Wilde 1998)
28
29
(Avineri 1968) And (Eagleton 2007)
For a recent example see (Sayers 2011)
See (Geras 1971).
32
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Prominent examples of this strand include the work of Lucio Colletti33, Norman
Geras34 and Fredy Perlman.35
For the majority of these views Fetishism as Alienation overlaps with
Fetishism as Reification on one of two points. Unlike Fetishism as Reification
these accounts often treat mystification as a separate but related to fetishism.
Like Fetishism as Reification, Fetishism as Alienation, provides a constitutive
account of fetishism in which human social relations constitute external and
alien entities that dominate society. However, these accounts often refrain from
an explanation of how or why these characteristics and their constitution differ
from Marx’s theory of alienation, 36 let alone providing a comparative account of
fetishism and social domination in Marx, Lukacs, Adorno and Lefebvre.
2.6 Fetishism as Value.
The interpretation of fetishism as value is exemplary of value-form
theory. Value form theories founding documents are generally attributed to
Soviet Scholars in the 1920s, who were later purged by Stalin.37 The Japanese
Ono school also began working on Marx’s theory of value following World War II.
However, value form theory did not receive much attention until the 1960s in
the context of the formation of the Neu Marx Lekture, which apart from singular
exceptions like Coletti, can be said have popularized value-form theory.
Many of the foremost pioneers of the Neu Marx Lekture were students of
Adorno including Alfred Schmidt, H.G. Backhaus, Helmut Reichelt and HansJurgen Krahl. These students seized on the Marxian concepts Adorno used in his
work as a basis for their studies of Marx. To study Marx they used philological
methods that utilized previously neglected documents from Marx’s later works
such as The Grundrisse and the first edition of Capital.
In this interpretation fetishism is conceived as a central component of
Marx’s monetary theory of value.38 This relationship is well summarized in
Kuruma’s concise formulation that Marx’s section on the value form provides an
analysis of how money develops and the theory of fetishism describes why
money develops. Fetishism is thus conceived as ‘real’ or ‘practical’ abstraction
generated by the social form of capitalist production that reifies people and
personifies things culminating in the abstract social domination of capital.
(Colletti 1973), (Colletti 1989)
(Geras 1971).
35 Fredy Perlman, “Introduction: Commodity Fetishism” in (Rubin 2007)
36 (Colletti 1973) and Perlman’s writings on Marx are an exception. How they
differentiate Marx’s account of alienation in The Manuscripts and Capital is
discussed in my chapter on Marx.
37 Foremost among these works is (Rubin 2007) and (Pashukanis 1987)
Ryzanov’s MEGA were also influential to the methodology and philological
approach taken up by value-form theory.
33
34
Other figures who can be grouped into this school include Michael Heinrich,
Dieter Wolf, Ricardo Belofiore, Patrick Murray, Fred Moseley, Moishe Postone,
Chris Arthur, Gert Reuten and Werner Bonefeld and Capital and Class /the Open
Marxist school
38
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The value-form interpretation can be seen to further distinguish itself
from the other two typologies that conceive of Marx’s theory of fetishism as a
central component of his theory of domination. In contrast to the classic Marxist
Humanist conception of Fetishism as Alienation, value form theorists have
emphasized the shifting and developing nature of Marx’s thought. Along with the
thin conceptions of Fetishism as Alienation this strand therefore emphasizes the
differences in development and explication between the young and mature
Marx.39 In contrast to Fetishism as Reification value form theorists also make a
distinction between fetishism, reification and mystification in recent studies.40
Yet, as I will show in the next section, this interpretation predominantly focuses
on Marx with little comparative work on Marx and his interpreters.
As can be seen all of these all these types treat fetishism as constitutive of
a larger conception of mystification or domination. This is reflected in historical
or comparative accounts of fetishism.
3 Conceptual Histories
Despite the lack of a study of the development of fetishism from Marx
through Western Marxism, a number of the foremost studies of these thinkers
assert similarities or differences between Marx and his interpreters in their
respective conceptions of fetishism. There are also studies that provide
continuous and discontinuous conceptual histories in these conceptual types
that account for fetishism.
3.1 conceptual continuity
A conceptual continuity between Marx and Western Marxists can be seen
in each of these types. Thus histories of ideology such as Michael Rosen trace
their conception of Fetishism as False Consciousness through Marx, Adorno and
Benjamin.41 While other studies assert a continuity in Fetishism as Reification in
studies on Marx, Lukacs and Adorno.42 Other studies on Lukacs, Adorno and
Lefebvre describe the continuity of their theory with Marx’s theory of alienation
or estrangement.43 Finally, some value-form theorists stress similarities in
Much of the work in this typology is based on emphasizes the differences
between different editions of Capital.
40 Examples include: Chris Arthur, Riccardo Belliofiore, Michael Heinrich, John
Clegg, Guido Schulz and Nick Gray’s distinction between the fetish character of
commodities, the fetishism of political economists and reification. This
distinction is also similar to Jameson’s conception of reification and fetishism as
chiasmus in Valences of the Dialectic.
41 For an opposing view see (McCarney 1980) And Social Theory and The Crisis of
Marxism. Available at www.josephmccarny.com
42 See (Arato 1979; Wiggershaus 1995; Cook 2004; Cook 1996)
43 For Lukacs see (Arato 1979) For Adorno see (Benzer 2011) And Cook. For
Lefebvre see (Elden 2004) and (Jay 1986)
39
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themes between Marx, Lukacs and Adorno.44 In many instances these
characterizations are hampered by the lack of an in depth discussion of what the
conceptions of fetishism, reification or alienation and estrangement consist in.
Instead the usual procedure is to assert continuity by presupposing a definition,
by offering an expansive thematic definition based on themes or conceptions
these theories hold in common, or by taking the respective theorist’s claim that
they are faithfully using the concept.45
All three of these types of continuity can be seen in Federic
Vandenberghe’s A Philosophical History of German Sociology. In this
‘philosophical history’ Vandenberghe maps the concept of reification from Marx
through Simmel, Weber, Lukacs, Horkheimer, Adorno and Habermas.46 To map
the concept Vandenberghe offers an expansive thematic definition of reification
that incorporates the differences in each respective thinker’s conceptions of
social domination into his conception of reification. Part of this expansive
thematic definition includes grouping alienation and fetishism under reification.
In the course of the study Vandenberghe also makes frequent conceptual
missteps that undermine how he defines concepts and the relations between
concepts.
Vandenberghe’s expansive thematic definition of reification and his
conceptual missteps can first be seen in his discussion of Marx in the
introduction. Vandenberghe begins by following Gillian Rose in pointing out that
Marx only used the German word for reification (verdinglichung) twice. By the
next page, without an explanation of why, he has moved to defining Marx’s social
theory of domination solely in terms of reification. Vandenberghe then adds
more unwarranted attributes to this definition of reification by amalgamating
the related phenomenon of ‘personalization’ into this nebulous and unfounded
definition.47 This culminates in Vandenberghe’s development of a conception of
Studies in this strand focus primarily on philogical studies of Marx. So they
have not provided any in depth studies of other figures theory of fetishism. The
closest that comes to comparative accounts can be seen in Backhaus and
Reichelt’s frequent use of Adorno for their exegesis of Marx’s theory of value. For
a similar contemporary comparison see two recent articles by Bonefeld on
Adorno. In (Holloway, Matamoros, and Tischler 2008) And Bonefeld (2012). For
a comparison between Marx and Lukacs see Postone in (R. Albritton and J.
Simoulidi 2003)
44
This may be one of the reasons that Lukacs or classic Marxist Humanist
conceptions of fetishism have become popular conceptions of fetishism.
46 The English translation is a truncated version of his longer two-volume study.
47 “Reification is the opposite of personalization and is therefore conceptually
related. While reification transforms something which is not a thing into a thing,
personification transforms that which is not a person into a person…Reification
in Marx’s sense, can also be seen as personification: social or pseudo-natural
forces are perceived and understood as quasi-human forces that rule the world.”
Vandenberghe. 9
45
10
reification expansive enough to include a methodological and social conception,
each of which feature several subtypes.48
Like his discussion of reification in the introduction, Vandenberghe’s
studies of individual thinkers are also baggy. Following his definition of Marx’s
social theory in terms of reification in the introduction, his chapter on Marx
begins by defining all of Marx’s work through the core theme of alienation.49
From there Vandenberghe moves to a discussion of Marx’s development where
he argues that Marx’s thought moved from a philosophical anthropological
approach to a historical structuralist one that was still based on Marx’s under
riding humanism and his conception of alienation. Along the way the terms
alienation, reification and fetishism are treated interchangeably. The term
‘fetishist-reification’ is eventually coined to describe the fetishism of
commodities. Yet despite this terminological fusion Vandenberghe’s able
exposition of five aspects of fetishism, which include domination and
mystification, does not discuss how his characterization of the different aspects
of fetishism relate to reification or alienation, nor is it clear how fetishism is
constituted or how it constitutive or relates to other aspects of Capital. We are
left to assume they are somehow synonymous and stand at the core of it.
Vandenberghe concludes with his reconstruction of Marx’s thought. This
reconstruction is based on the theme of inversion that runs through Marx’s work
and what he defines as the three aspects of Marx’s theory of reification;
alienation, exploitation and fetishism. Vandenberghe places these aspects
together in a synoptic table. In this table alienation is defined as social reification
and is confined to the production process. Commodity fetishism is termed the
reification of consciousness and is treated as a mystified veil that is generated by
the production process. This goes against his earlier account of fetishism that
included mystification and domination.50 In the end we are left with a rather
Methodological reifications subtypes are the critique of reism and naturalism.
Social reifications are the social critique, the critique of false consciousness and
the critique of science.
49 “All Marx’s work can be systematically reconstructed through the single,
central concept of alienation.” The theory of alienation, as Marx first developed it
in his Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, is the core of his
thought…one might say that most, if not all of Marx’s thought, as well as the
critical categories of Capital, are already discernable in their early form in this
text…the Manuscripts anatomy in effects provides a key to the ‘anatomy’ of
Capital. Vandenberghe 33.
50 Compare Vandenberghe’s earlier definition of three of the facets of commodity
fetishism on page 62 that social relations between people are mediated by
economic relations between things, and become confused with them; that
commodities exist independently as pseudo persons; that things, commodities
and their movement lead, dominate and direct men, not vice versa with his later
definition of commodity fetishism in the synoptic table on page 66 as
‘commodity fetishism, defined as a well-founded distortion of perception
induced by the structure of the market economy, makes practical processes and
social relations disappear behind a veil of naturalness and materiality. In the first
discussion fetishism would seem to include alienation and domination. In the
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vacuous summary of Marx social theory where “reification, defined as the
imposition of social order through the external constraint of material forces, that
results from and leads to the reduction of action to its solely strategic dimension,
is not histories last word.”51
Moving to Lukacs Vandenberghe makes a strong claim for continuity
between Lukacs, Marx and other Western Marxists. In Vandenberghe’s view
there is continuity between Lukacs’s theory of reification and Marx’s theory of
fetishism.52 At the same time Lukacs’s theory of reification forms the Kuhnian
paradigm of western Marxism.53 For Vandenberghe Lukacs’s theory of reification
therefore “generalizes the theory of commodity fetishism beyond the field of
economics.”54 In Vandenberghe’s view this is done in an objective and subjective
manner. Objectively “reification is related to the autonomous functioning of
market pseudo-things as ‘second nature.’”55 Subjectively, reification, refers to
alienation, the objectifying attitude that humans adopt towards the products of
work that confront them as foreign objects.”56 Thus, in a passage that synthesizes
his theoretical conflations and missteps Vandenberghe makes the following
claim:
“inspired by Simmel, Lukacs deduces and rediscovers the theory of alienation of
labour from the theory of commodity fetishism. Marx's Economic and Philosophical
Manuscripts of 1844 were only published in 1937, Lukacs could not have known
them any more than Simmel. However, in this instance, it is less through a synthesis
of Marx and Simmel- as was the case in Towards the Sociology of Modern Drama-than through a fusion of the Marxist category of 'abstract work' and Weber's
category of formal rationality that Lukacs reconstructs the theory of economic
alienation”57
second it seems to solely consist in false consciousness. Yet Vandenberghe
provides no discussion or grounds for this change.
51 Vandenberghe. 68.
52 In the first part of the essay, entitled “The Phenomenon of Reification”, Lukacs
develops his concept of reification on the basis of the Marxist analysis of
commodity fetishism. As we saw in Chapter 1, the central idea of this analysis is
that in an economic system that is totally oriented around market production of
exchange values, human actions are coordinated by the market, with the result
that human social relations take the form of an abstract and pseudo-natural
objectivity, which disguises the trace of its origins and social determinants
behind a rigorous system of autonomous and oppressive laws. 146. Note that
this definition of fetishism possesses some of the characteristics of
Vandenberghe’s original definition in which fetishism possesses the attributes of
autonomous domination, rather than his second definition which treated
fetishism solely as a form of mystification.
53 Ibid.140.
54 Ibid.146
55 Vandenberghe 146
56 Vandenberghe 146
57 Vandenberghe 147
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In Vandenberghe’s view this fusion of the Marxist category of abstract labour and
Weberian formal rationality is achieved through what he terms Lukacs’ theory of
the ‘cash nexus.’58 Vandenberghe argues that Lukacs follows Marx’s theory of
commodity fetishism—and the theory of alienation that Lukacs discovers in it—
in holding that the “coordination of action….is imposed from outside by the
autonomous movement of things on the market. (cash nexus).59 This leads
“actors” to “adopt the objectifying attitude of instrumental-strategic action
towards themselves and others” and for “thingness” to become the determining
modality of thought.” It is also where the Weberian conception of formal
rationality is fused with Marx.
Vandenberghe’s account of Lukacs theory of reification therefore posits a
strong continuity between Lukacs and Marx’s conception of commodity fetishism
and alienation as subtypes of their theories of reification. No consideration is
given to how Lukacs’s conception of reification may differ from Marx conception
of commodity fetishism. Furthermore, as with his account of Marx, no space is
devoted to how Lukacs conceives of the social constitution of reification nor to
the interrelated constitution of its many different facets.
The same is the case for Vandenberghe’s study of Adorno. Vandenberghe
makes a strong claim for continuity between Lukacs and Adorno. He holds that
Lukacs’ theory of reification “is the paradigmatic kernel of critical theory.”
Critical theory modifies this kernel in two ways: on one hand, it “abandons”
Lukacs’ theory of ‘class consciousness,” on the other hand “it radicalizes the
Weberian-Marxist theory of reification.”60
According to Vandenberghe, this radicalization starts from the premises
that “every aspect of Adorno’s sociology is so centred on reification that it
becomes a virtually ontological category.”61 Ironically, the same is true for
Vandenberghe’s treatment of the different aspects of Adorno’s thought, which in
Vandenberghe’s view are all part of Adorno’s theory of reification. Thus,
Adorno’s criticism of reification in Negative Dialectics does not “imply” that he
“rejects the category of reification as such.” Nor is it is even a “rejection of
Lukacs’ category of reification.”62 Instead, Adorno “simply strips Lukacs category
of its humanist and optimistic connotations, inflecting it in a proto-structuralist
direction that is closer to the older than the younger Marx, and more fatalist than
revolutionary in its implications.”63 Unfortunately, since: (a) Vandenberghe’s
prior discussions of Marx do little to distinguish between the young and old Marx
and (b) he doesn’t define what Adorno’s proto-structuralism consists in we are
left to guess why what seems like a discrepancy between Adorno and Lukacs’
conception of reification is not a rejection of or at least discontinuous with it.
Vandenberghe’s treatment of Adorno’s social theory as tantamount to his
theory of reification can be seen in his discussion of the exchange principle. In
Vandenberghe’s view the exchange principles “importance cannot be
The fact that Lukacs never discusses explicitly discusses money doesn’t seem
to bother Vandenberghe.
59 Vandenberghe 148
60 Vandenberghe. 158
61 Ibid. 191
62 Ibid. 189
63 Ibid. 189
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underestimated.” This is because—in another curious misstep that seems to
separate Lukacs from Marxism leaving Marxism untreated—it “enables both the
articulation of the negative dialectics and Marxism and the conjunction of
Lukacs’ and Nietzsche’s categories of reification.”64 But little consideration is
given to how these forms are derived from exchange. Instead we get a
characterization of the Nietzsche strand of reification as equivalent to the
Dialectic of Enlightenment, while the Lukasian strand is concerned with modern
capitalist societies and the cash ‘nexus.’ In so doing Vandenberghe furthers the
claim of continuity between Marx, Lukacs and Adorno’s conception of
commodity fetishism and continuity between Lukacs and Adorno’s conceptions
of reification.
As a consequence Vandenberghe’s philosophical history of German
sociology can really be said to be a sociologist’s account of German social
philosophy. This is because Vandenberghe’s philosophical history is generally
concerned with summarizing each specific thinkers social theory under the
thematic of reification. There is little or no discussion of how each thinker
conceives of the constitution of these social forms of domination, nor is there any
focus on how each thinker conceives of the different aspects of their theories
relating to each other. Finally, there is no discussion of how the conceptual bases
of reification differ in each respective thinker.
3.2 constitutive differences
In contrast to accounts of fetishism that stress continuity there are also a
number of studies that stress discontinuity. By discontinuity I mean that these
studies stress important conceptual differences between thinkers conceptions of
fetishism. In the majority of these accounts Lukacs, Adorno and other theorists
are characterized as forming an inferior discontinuity with Marx’s theory. This
can be seen in the account of Fetishism as False Consciousness in the work of Joe
Mccarney.65 It can also be seen in the account Athusserian accounts of fetishism
in Althusser and Balibar66 and in Fetishism as Alienation in Lucio Colletti’s
criticism of Lukacs and Hegelian Marxism.67 Finally, a great many of these
accounts of discontinuity can be found in the value-form interpretations of
fetishism.68 From the other side, accounts of the superiority of discontinuity can
Ibid. 190
Mccarney argues that the inferior discontinuity Lukacs and the Frankfurt
School possess is conceiving of a theory of ideological false consciousness. See
Joe Mccarney The Real World of Ideology and Social Theory and the Crises of
Marxism.
66 See (Althusser 2005) (Althusser and Balibar 2009) And (Balibar 2007)
67 See (Colletti 1973) And (Colletti 1989) For another account discontinuities see
(Frisby 1992) and (Geras 1971)
68 CF Postone’s criticism of Lukacs and The Frankfurt School in (Postone 1996)
Reichelt’s criticism of Adorno in Helmut Reichelt Marx's Critique of Economic
Categories: Reflections on the Problem of Validity in the Dialectical Method of
Presentation in Capital, in: Historical Materialism, Volume 15, Number 4, 2007,
pp. 3–52(50, This emphasis on discontinuity over looks parallels, continuities
64
65
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also be seen in accounts of Fetishism as Reification that are based on a
traditional and economist conception of Marx. These accounts primarily credit
Adorno and Lefebvre for conceiving of non-productivist and non-economist
conceptions of reification.
A prime example of discontinuous comparisons of Fetishism as
Reification can be found in Gillian Rose’s influential treatment on reification in
Marx, Lukacs, Benjamin and Adorno.69 Rose’s work is exceptional in three
respects: (1) it emphasizes the conceptual differences between Marx, Lukacs,
Benjamin Adorno’s theories (2) it bases these conceptual differences on the
different aspects of Marx’s theory of commodity fetishism that Lukacs, Benjamin
and Adorno drew on. (3) it also points out some areas of weakness in how
reification has been used by neo-Marxism.
Rose’s work is also indicative of the type of reification as fetishism. This is
because Rose draws an unsatisfactory distinction between Marx’s theory and
Lukacs, Benjamin and Adorno’s. Rose designates Marx theory ‘commodity
fetishism’ and Lukacs, Benjamin and Adorno’s ‘reification.’ This distinction is
unsatisfactory on one hand because of Rose’s weak contention that Marx didn’t
have a theory of reification on the basis that Marx only used verdinglichung
twice.70 It is unsatisfactory on the other hand because Rose gives no grounds for
why she designates Lukacs, Benjamin and Adorno’s social theories of domination
as theories of reification. The later is in contradiction to her philological
treatment of Marx because Lukacs, Benjamin and Adorno use the terms fetishism
and reification for what Rose defines solely as fetishism.71 This leads Rose to
treat characteristics that Marx, Lukacs and Adorno attribute to fetishism such as
the autonomous personification of things as cases of reification.
In addition Rose’s basis for her distinction between the different bases of
Lukacs and Adorno’s utilization of Marx’s theory of fetishism is problematic. This
is because she draws an erroneous distinction between Marx’s theory of the
labour process and his theory of value. This distinction leads Rose to argue that
Lukacs’ theory of reification is based on the former while Adorno’s theory of
reification is based on the later. Yet, as I will show Marx’s theory of value
incorporates the labour process as well as the forms of value such as exchange
value and use-value. 72 This undermines the bases for Rose’s distinction.
and potential ways that Marx, Lukacs, Adorno and Lefebvre can compliment each
other.
The Lament over Reification--which was originally published as journal article
and later amended as a chapter in her seminal work on Adorno--(Rose 1979)
70 This ignores: (a) the fact that Lukacs uses several words other than
vergdinglichung to describe his theory of reification. (b) that Marx uses phrases
such as veraslichung and dinglich to describe the process of social constitution
that results fetishization and reification or what Ehrbar translates as
“personification of things and reification of persons.”
71 This distinction is especially egregious in Benjamin who used the term
fetishism far more than he used the term reification.
72 One of these points of disagreement will be that Lukacs and Adorno use Marx’s
theory of value not for an explanation of how value is socially constituted but for
social critique. The problem is contra rose not they don’t use surplus value but
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Finally, Rose makes some prescient criticisms of how neo-Marxists have
used the concept of reification to generalize Marx’s theory of value to social
institutions and culture without providing an account of surplus vale, the state or
power. However, she does not apply these criticisms to Lukacs and Adorno’s
particular theories apart from noting that their theories fail to make the
distinction between concrete and abstract labour or provide an account of
surplus value. While this is true, as I will show, it is not clear how the inclusion of
these categories would solve the problems in Lukacs and Adorno’s theories.
Despite these problems Rose’s work is highly influential and is used as the
basis for defining or distinguishing Marx, Lukacs and Adorno’s conception of
Fetishism as Reification in the work of prominent scholars such as Martin Jay
and Deborah Cook.73 It is also a sophisticated and compact study of reification
that comes closest to my aims in this thesis.
4. Conclusion
As this literature review has shown there is large amount of literature on
fetishism. I have offered an overview of this literature by placing it in a typology.
These types differ in conceiving of fetishism as constitutive of a type of
domination, mystification or as a combination of the two. They also differ over
the matter of whether these conceptions have continuity or discontinuity
between Marx and Western Hegelian Marxists. Those who argue for continuity
usually do so in comparative or historical analyses that stress continuity
between their expansive thematic conceptions, while those who stress
discontinuity usually do so in terms of an inferior comparison.
What these accounts do not provide is an accurate and in depth
explanation of how each respective thinkers conceptions of fetishism differ from
each other and how these different conceptions of fetishism factor into their
respective theories of the constitution and constituents of social domination. In
contrast to these accounts, this thesis orients itself by focusing on fetishism as a
distinct concept and providing a comparative account of how this distinct
conception is conceived and deployed in theories of the constitution and
constituents of social domination. To do so my chapters on Marx, Lukacs Adorno
and Lefebvre focus on: (1) how each particular thinker conceives of fetishism.
(2) how these particular conceptions of fetishism fit into each particular thinkers
theories of the constitution and constituents of theories of social domination. (3)
the problems with these theories conception of fetishism and social domination.
In Chapter 1 I focus on how Marx conceives of fetishism in the
constitution and constituents of his theory of social domination. Since Marx is
also the foundation for typological accounts of fetishism and Lukacs, Adorno and
that they don’t provide a substitute for the role surplus value plays in their social
theories.
See also recent examples in (Jarvis 1998) Harry F. Dahms “Beyond the
Carousel of Reification.” And Timothy Hall article on reification in lukacs and
Adorno in(Bewes and Hall 2011)
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Lefebvre’s interpretation of fetishism I begin by distinguishing Marx’s theory of
fetishism from his theory of alienation. I then examine how Marx conceives of
fetishism and the role it plays in the constitution and constituents of his theory of
social domination.
I argue that Marx’s concept of what I term fetish characteristic forms is central to
his theory of value. This theory conceives of value as a real or practical
abstraction that is constituted by the social form of capitalist production. The
term fetish characteristic forms is used to describe the abstract and autonomous
property of these forms. It is deployed in Marx’s discussion of how the fetish
characteristic forms of commodities, money and capital invert to dominate and
compel individual actions through the objectification and the personification of
things culminating in Marx’s analysis of fetishism’s role in the constitution and
constituent of social domination in the trinity formula. I criticize Marx’s theory
by pointing out how its ambiguities, contradictions and unfinished status
undermine its coherence. I also point out how Capital’s analysis of capitalism at
its ideal average raises the problem of relating its theories to empirically
complex social reality.
In chapter 2 I turn to the role that Lukacs’ conception of fetishism plays in
his theory of the social constitution and constituents of the social domination of
reified society. I argue that Lukacs’ conception of fetishism as reification fuses
his Hegelian-Marxian and Weberian-Simmelian conceptions of domination. I
begin by arguing that Lukacs’ theory of the constitution of reification is based on
Lukacs’ Hegelian interpretation of Marx. I then show how his conception of the
phenomena of reification is based on his interpretation of commodity fetishism
as reification. This conception conflates objectification with alienation leading
him to treat reification as the false objectivity of things that veil their content
causing them to possess the rationalized alien powers that fuse his HegelianMarxian and Weberian-Simmerlian conceptions of domination. I then show how
Lukacs conceives of the constituents of this conception of fetishism as reification
by generalizing it to a myriad of social and cultural forms of capitalist totality. I
close by criticizing Lukacs’ conception of fetishism as reification and his
insufficient account of how it is socially constituted and constitutive of social
domination, which ultimately undermines his account of domination.
In Chapter 3 I argue that Adorno’s conception of fetishism and social
domination consists in two phases. The first phase utilizes commodity fetishism
in conjunction with his Lukacs, Benjamin, Freud and Marx in his micrological
studies of domination in mass culture. The later phase utilizes his conception of
the fetishism form of the exchange abstraction as an abstract, autonomous
objective abstraction to conceive of the social constitution of objective and
subjective forms of domination. These forms of domination are conceived as
constitutive of the exchange abstraction by interpreting elements of Hegel,
Weber, Freud, Kant, and Heidegger’s theory in conjunction with it. I close by
criticizing Adorno’s theory for its insufficient account of the genesis of the
exchange abstraction and for his insufficient account of how it is constitutive of
society. This ultimately undermines his critical theory as a critical theory of
society.
In Chapter 4 I argue that Lefebvre conceives of fetishism as a ‘concrete
abstraction’ that is generated by social praxis but never entirely determinate of
it. I further argue that this conception forms the basis for three phases in which
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Lefebvre attempts to theorize how social domination is socially embedded. I
begin with an examination of Lefebvre’s classical humanist conception of socially
embedded domination in his Critique of Everyday Life which uitilizes fetishism as
the basis of his proposed study of analagous form of objective and corresponding
subjective alienation in everyday life. In phase two I show that Lefebvre’s
revision of the critique of everyday life abandons this classic Marxist humanist
model in favour of a study of objective terrorist forms of domination modelled
on his conception of concrete abstraction coupled with a fragmented conception
of alienation no longer based on his classic Marxist humanist notion of total man.
In phase three I show how Lefebvre writings on cities and space transpose his
theory of concrete abstraction to the urban form and the production of space
while jettisoning the explanatory power of the alienation. I close by criticizing
the unsystematic nature of Lefebvre’s theory and his reliance on a simplistic
dualistic opposition, which like Lukacs and Adorno, leads to Lefebvre
undermining his theory of social domination by lacking a coherent account of it
constitution and constituents.
I conclude in three parts. In the first part I draw together and compare my
analysis of fetishism and social domination in Marx, Lukacs, Adorno and
Lefebvre. In part two I draw out my criticisms of each thinker and consider
whether these respective theories provide a coherent and cohesive critical social
theory of fetishism and the constitution and constituents of social domination. I
conclude that each of these theories ultimately fail to provide one. I argue that in
order for a critical theory of society to have a more cohesive standpoint the
question of genesis must be addressed. Failing to do leaves criticism reliant on
the potted account of fetishism; disclosing that social relations underlie social
forms of domination. While this criticism has some traction it does little to
distinguish itself from other accounts of social constructivism, undermining its
critical potential. I close in part three by considering how elements of these
theories might be integrated into a contemporary critical theory that provides an
account of the genesis and interrelation of aspects of each of these theories.
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