As the world turns more capitalist, products seem to be given more value compared to their production. Karl Marx described such scenarios as fetishism of commodities. In particular, people attach more importance to the products than the labor involved in producing them (Tromsness, 2016). The laborers are treated as means to an end, meaning that their efforts, knowledge, and expertise are hardly recognized. Managers or owners of firms that produce certain commodities go to great lengths to brand and advertise the products in order to woe consumers to buy them. They are often motivated by the desire to make profits. It is uncommon for the same managers to talk about or even appreciate people who gave the products the value (McAllister, 2015). Even in some cases, employees who create the products have poor working conditions as well as poor salaries. Managers often push them to produce more and more of the products but hardly pay attention to their concerns.
One prominent example of a product that has been fetishized in the world today is the Nike products, especially the Nike shoes. Nike spends significant amounts of money branding its products. Football Stars such as Ronaldo most of the time has been used to brand and market the Nike products (Nike Company). All over the world, Nike is a household name. Nevertheless, Nike has faced a lot of scandals and controversies. Firstly, in 2005, the company was accused of providing poor working conditions in its Asian factories (Teather, 2005). Besides, the firm was also accused of violating child labor laws. From these accusations, it emerges that Nike attached a lot of importance to the final products than the people involved in making them. Workers would work in dangerous conditions and receive meager wages while the managers spent time branding and marketing the products, hence commodity fetishism.
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References
McAllister, M. P. (2015). Commodity fetishism. The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Consumption and Consumer Studies , 1-2.
Nike Company. https://www.nike.com/xf/en_gb/?ref=https%253A%252F%252Fwww.google.com%252F
Teather, D. (2005). Nike lists abuses at Asian factories. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2005/apr/14/ethicalbusiness.money
Tromsness, R. (2016). Marx: A Summary of “The Fetishism of Commodities”. https://owlcation.com/social-sciences/Analysis-of-Marx-The-fetishism-of-commodities
