Commodity fetishism

Commodity fetishism signifies the personification of things and economic categories. It is the objectification of production relations between people under the conditions of commodity production based on private ownership; and is seen when the element of social relations dominating people appears outwardly as domination by certain things. Capital as a production relation is personified in the capitalist, while hired labour is embodied in the worker. Fetishism permeates all the economic categories of capitalist society; an example is the exploitation of man by man, which is masked by the payment of wages. The acquisition of money and material goods is the highest manifestation of commodity fetishism.