Abstract

The backbone of the Marxian critique of capitalism is the commodity form, which typically mystifies the domination of exchange relations. Yet Marx paid little attention to the socio-cultural dimensions of commodity fetishism and focused on the relations between wage-labor and capital. Later, Lukacs and the Frankfurt School highlighted the functions of various socio-cultural spheres as necessary in explaining conservative tendencies in working class consciousness and political action. In particular, they saw the function of consumerism in the integration of everyday life with the presuppositions of capital and technological domination, thus drawing popular attention away from issues of exploitation, economic crisis and authoritarianism.