Re: Reification/commodification

Paul H. Dillon (dillonph who-is-at tidepool.com)
Tue, 17 Sep 1996 23:31:55 -0700

Judy,

I will admit ignorance of Engestrom (?) as you have admitted ignorance of
Marxism so I'm puzzled that you make the following statement:

At 07:44 PM 9/17/96 -0400, you wrote:
the Marxist definition of commodification - i.e., the form that the
>"fundamental contradiction aris(ing) out of the division of
>labor" (which is operative in all societies) takes in capitalist
>societies.

I know I'm sounding like a dogmatist, which I'm not, but why do you call
something a fundamental Marxist definition on the basis of Engestrom?? How
does he relate it to Marx's analysis of capitalist production. Quite
simply, Marx never used such a concept.

I don't yet understand all the theoretical implications
>of this notion (commodification). Its dual nature (exchange value
>vs use value) is apparently due to the division of labor (not
>capitalism per se).

You must be careful to distinguish the Durkheimian notion of division of
labor from that which Marx developed. Durkheim proposed a sociological
notion related to the differentiation of specific productive activities.
Marx's concept of the division of labor contained the notion Durkheim
developed but was more fundamentally concerned with the relationship between
technical relations of production and social relations of production. Thus
the demise of the guild organizations that prevailed for centuries at the
hands of industrial organization (the transition from craft workshop to
manufacture) corresponded to a transformation of the relations between
laborers and the means of production. Durkheim's notion, which is flatter,
more one dimensional, is part of Marx's but doesn't catch the dialectical
implications. There is no class struggle in the former, there is in the
latter.

Which leads me to think that Chris Francovich
>is right to suggest that reification is a general function of
>consciousness, which manifests variously according to the "objective"
>character of the society (in capitalism, as commodification) - so
>the commodity relation that generates "the pervasive forms of
>objectivity and individuality" depends on the processes of
>reification to do so.

This is still making the concept walk on its head. There quite simply is no
"concsciousness" qua subject, qua individuality, that has general functions,
or existence, or anything, prior to the social relations which generate
them. All else is emptiness and relative forms followed by relative forms
eternally. This myth of the separate, private consciousness, ego ergo sum,
is precisely the product of the reification of consciousness brought about
through the fundamental capitalist (and only the capitalist) relations of
production, the introduction of the commodity relation as the fundamental
form of social reproduction, the conversion of human labor to a commodity.
Remember that there were no "labor markets" in Rome, there were slaves.
There were no labor markets in feudal europe, there were bound serfs, etc.
Broad strokes, sure, but how much detail do you want?

I'll read Engestrom ASAP to see where you're all coming from. In fact, I'd
really like to see what this notion of "commodification" is all about,
especially since you claim it functions in all societies which is patently
absurd. After all, Trobriand Islanders exchanged kula goods but not yams
and pigs . . . It would be real hard to show how anything exchanged in the
verticality economic relations of ancient Andean civilizations were
commodities. And certainly the dentalia shell money of the northern
California Yurok tribe, or the potlatch exchanges of the Kwakiutl,
Tsimshian, Tlingit, etc. had anything at all to do with commodity relations.
But all of them produced their food, clothing, shelter, and other useful
goods that never entered market exchange and certainly were never ever
reduced to simple "exchange values" that could be calculated as a generic
relation expressed in monetary terms. They didn't even have money as we
know it which is, after all, the presupposition of the commodity relation.
>
>Paul
>
>
>
>
>Judy Diamondstone
>Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey
>Graduate School of Education
>]10 Seminary Place
>New Brunswick, NJ 08903
>
>