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ragas@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

Wow that is pretty weak reasoning entirely focused on his perogative.

Counterpoint: Take a craft market where the people selling are actually immediately the people making the thing. Isn’t it nice to buy something pretty there? And isn’t it an added bonus that you actually got to talk a bit to the people there?

So the effect of being happy to have something nice works beyond disembodied consumerism. And is even heightened by personal contact.

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mattyroses@lemmy.today ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
You’re just talking about alienation here

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sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
The entire point is that capitalism makes craft markets exceedingly rare, it makes that experience you describe more uncommon, it makes everything more abstract.

The commodity fetishism grows out of that, the more abstracted away the thing is, the more mystically and irrationally products are treated by people.

Hell, in the US right now, you can find tons of stuff at ‘Farmers Markets’ that are actually just some product of a massive corporation being rebadged, repackaged, and trying to get flipped for a margin.

That ‘authentic’, ‘small-batch’, ‘bespoke’ product? Yeah that’s just a marketing tactic now, in many cases.

Stanley cups? Beanie babies? Fast fashion? Pokemon cards? Fancy pantsy sneakers?

Perfect examples of fetishized commodities, consumed and ‘shopped’ for with essentially crazed, religious zeal.

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- ragas@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
  I don’t think the described commodity fetishism is a particular feature of capitalism though. Because the exact same can happen in a planned economy. Hence my example of a crafts market where you personally know people.
  
  There are some famous examples of this commodity fetishism happening similarly in the GDR with for example the Trabant.
  
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