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This just confirms my suspicion that commodity fetishism was just Marx's imperfect understanding of what Hayek would later describe in The Use of Knowledge.
"Commodities contain relationships that are not captured in full by their price": yes. That's the whole point of price. https://twitter.com/b1g_damage/status/1300210161773092866
"Commodities contain relationships that are not captured in full by their price": yes. That's the whole point of price. https://twitter.com/b1g_damage/status/1300210161773092866
The idea, of course, being that in some non-alienated society we could stand in these relationships unmediated either by things or, at least, artificial qualities of these things. This is a fantasy - indeed, Bernard Williams calls (something like) it '*the* fantasy' in ELP.
Culture always mediates our relationships: indeed, you can't even form the idea of relationships to other human beings w/out culture. This sometimes obscures, yes, but it's necessary. "Commodity fetishism" is merely the form that this cultural mediation takes under capitalism.
(and as Hayek points out, this particular form is incredibly useful, allowing us to solve collective action problems in large-scale societies with advanced division of labour that we otherwise couldn't - collective action problems that Marx merely wishes away under communism)
And yes, this thread was just literally an excuse to post thoughts I've had in other forms at other times. But it was a good opportunity: this description of commodity fetishism really brings out that the 'problem' is that it obscures - but as Hayek saw, that that's the point
