Examples Of Commodity Fetishism

Expanding our human geographical knowledge is a positive and significant way of tackling a large scale and ongoing issue in the world today; consumption and commodity fetishism. By recognising time space compression and a global village, the complexity of care and by highlighting various examples of unethical production of commodities we can start to understand the difficulties we, as the consumer, have been inflicting on producers, tradespeople and farmers worldwide. However, correcting the detrimental affect consumers are obliviously having on these lives’ is not a simple task due to globalisation and the capitalist trading world we live in. Looking at procedures of ethical consumption like fair trade are ways which other companies should

Marx’s words explain this culture; “Commodity fetishism is the tendency, in a capitalist commodity system, for social relations between people to appear as a relationship between things” (Marx, 1867/1976, p. 164) This spectacle explains how people within the industries of producing and selling commodities see their societal relationships between things, instead of relationships between people. Therefore, removing most aspects of human interaction within this industry, juxtaposing the reality of the situation. The reality is consumption patterns must include social interactions; they deal with the exchange of goods worldwide therefore human cooperation, discussion and relationships must be built up for commodities to reach their destinations. Nevertheless, Marx’s commodity fetishism results in our capitalist fuelled society giving reason for people to consume rapidly without concern for the people involved as, in the words of Marx, “every product of labour” is transformed “into a social hieroglyphic” (Marx, 1867/1976,

Fair trade is a global mechanism that has been put in place to help the most deprived producers in the developing world migrate out of severe poverty by generating the scope to access markets in the global north and provide to their consumers. But specifically, on standings that do not exploit them but are advantages to their lives, in every fair-trade scheme it is forbidden to use slave or child labour and employees all must have the right to form a union. Fair-trade allows these producers to feel important and worthy due to the prospects of starting their own business. The Fair-trade movement has reached and aided millions of lives in forty-eight countries across Africa, Asia and South America as well as creating a coffee industry with the most exponential growth in the consumer capitals of the global north; the UK and the USA. This success has been recognised world wide and has been broadcast in the media, becoming documented by governments’ as a trade that is making a difference while also being economically viable. Yet, delving deeper into the economies of fair trade show that the percentage given back to the original producer of the price of the commodity on the shop shelves is extremely little. However, this fault lies with the supermarkets or corporate brands which idealise the commodity fetish and create an unethical pattern of