Commodity Fetishism

Literary/ Cultural Context Essay

Stewart Crehan (University of Zambia)

The Literary Encyclopedia. WORLD HISTORY AND IDEAS: A CROSS-CULTURAL VOLUME.

Domains

Cultural Studies
Economics, Commerce & Industry
Theory, Concept, Approach (social science)

Dates

Date of occurrence 1850-2005

Places

The Marxist critique

The concept of commodity fetishism, which is central to Marxism, has an ancient pedigree. Whilst the term “fetish” appears in the fifteenth century (see separate entry on Fetishism) and the linking of “fetish” to “commodity” begins with Marx, we find something of the psychology he describes already present in Biblical accounts of idolatry. In Exodus 20:3 Yahweh issues commandments to the Hebrews against making graven images and bowing down to them, and Isaiah observes of his Babylonian captors that they “lavish gold out of the bag, and weigh …

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

6028 words

Citation: Crehan, Stewart. "Commodity Fetishism". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 13 March 2006 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=1656, accessed 23 November 2024.]

Save this article

If you need to create a new bookshelf to save this article in, please make sure that you are logged in, then go to your 'Account' here

Commodity Fetishism

Domains

Dates

Places

Save this article

Leave Feedback