The Commodity Fetish

Sound kinky? Really kind of disturbing when you understand the concept, how it works, and how we're all implicated by it. Fetish here is used not in the perverted sense, but in the following manner:

fet⋅ish /ˈfɛtɪʃ, ˈfitɪʃ/

--noun

1.	an object regarded with awe as being the embodiment or habitation of a potent spirit or as having magical potency.

2.	any object, idea, etc., eliciting unquestioning reverence, respect, or devotion: to make a fetish of high grades.

Combine that with

com⋅mod⋅i⋅ty /kə'mɒdɪti/

–noun, plural -ties.

1.	an article of trade or commerce, esp. a product as distinguished from a service.

2.	something of use, advantage, or value.

...and you get the phrase coined by Karl Marx.

(Quickly, before I lose whatever radically conservative audience I might have, you should know I voted for Ron Paul in the primary.) Karl Marx pointed out something that is true, and whether or not you agree with his solutions to economic problems, he was right about the way capitalist societies function in regards to stuff, at least in recognizing the phenomenon of the commodity fetish.

If you have ever eaten a hot-dog, you have experienced the commodity fetish at work.

To get a little bit of perspective, consider this family heirloom:

This is a small, framed portion of a quilt, made ca. 1850 AD/CE. It is the result of a team effort of a mother and daughter team, distant matriarchs of my wife's family. The two ladies harvested the flax and spun it into linen, sheared the sheep, spun and dyed that wool, then worked together to weave this beautiful quilt! There's a story about hiding some items (perhaps this quilt) from raiding Confederate soldiers, but in order to consume that entertaining story, you'll have to get together with us in person and listen to my lovely wife tell the tale, it really is hers to tell.

What does this have to do with commodities and fetishes? Well, by way of this example, 150 years ago, if you were in need or want for a quilt, no problem! Just go harvest some flax, spin it into linen, along with the wool you sheared off of your own sheep, dye it with... i have no idea, and then spend a month or two of your spare time weaving it into a blanket. This is the way that most "products" of human invention have been produced for thousands of years--in the home.

Not so in an industrialized capitalist society, especially one operating on a global economy. If we want a blanket or quilt, we go to Target and pick one out. It's probably made in China. We might choose it based on its level of comfort, its insulating qualities, the way it works or doesn't work with the decorating scheme in our living room, or it's price. And we take the thing home and enjoy it, put it to use, until it gets stained or torn, or we decide it just doesn't go with anything, and then we give it to a charity or the landfill and it becomes the charity or landfill's problem.

Today we purchase and use items with little or no regard to the questions concerning their origin, the safety of the workers who produced the item, perhaps with little or no questions about the safety or the quality of the item itself. When it's there in the store we rarely ask ourselves a question deeper than, "Do I want this?" or "Am I willing to spend x amount on this?" We're primarily concerned with the item's apparent value in and of itself, with little or no thought given to the labor or work that goes into producing such an item. And how can we? We all use a lot of stuff! We don't have time to research the origins of everything in the supermarket, and why should we? What does it matter?

It matters because someone is paying the price for me to have all the things that I want at relatively little or no cost to myself. Likewise, someone is benefiting from taking advantage of human beings and the boon that comes from ignorant bliss.

Take the hot-dog for instance. That hot-dog probably has the unwanted meat from about 500 cows or more, all mixed in to that one little homogenized link, and most of that meat has probably been treated with ammonia. If that weren't gross enough, I can look on the package and see the number of fat grams and chemicals that are contained in it. But the real kicker is that those cows were probably slaughtered by a person with no other options for employment, being payed a measly wage, working in dangerous conditions all so that I could enjoy that meat-like delicacy as part of my 4th-of-July or camping experience. But if I think about all of that, I might not want to eat the hot dog. And Oscar Meyer and "Bar-S" want to keep it that way. Often, I like to go with Hebrew National, but is it really that much better? How do I really know?

The truth is if I want to eat hot-dogs, I have to participate in all the evil--potential or real--of eating that hot dog. How much is the hot dog worth to me? What about my $20 cell phone? I've had it for 6 months and it only now occurs to me to check to see where it was made. When I take it apart and remove the battery it says it was "Made in Mexico." I wonder who made it. I wonder how old that person was, what their name is. Do they have a family? Were they paid well? How many phones or parts of phones like mine do they make in a day?

Movies like Food Inc. and websites like the Story of Stuff* attempt to disabuse us of commodity fetishism, but the truth of the matter is that we've all been conditioned for years to not think about the resources or labor that go into the products we buy, and to stop consuming all together and live a completely different lifestyle is probably not desirable or possible for most of us. At the same time, I believe in a just God who will one day judge the living and the dead. I am responsible for how I spend my dollars, or how I don't spend my dollars. In the parable of the sheep and the goats, it's not the evil that was actively done, but the good that wasn't done by supposedly good people just passively living their lives that condemns the "goats." As much as I'd like to not think that God might want me to actually go without certain items I find "essential" to my daily life, to not entertain such a possibility, in view of Scripture, seems a little foolish.

Is the comfort of my myriad of consumer choices worth the injustice it may cause? Can I really get away with a plea of ignorance before a God that knows everything? How do I live in my own culture without abandoning God or without becoming a reactionary?

*I find this 20 minute video to be a bit over-simplified, but does an OK job of raising some questions about the big picture of consumerism's effect on everything.