Marx’s theories of products as a commodity with their use-value and exchange-value can still be applied to products being brought and sold today. Marx describes products as commodities once they are able to be brought or sold but only if they are usable by someone else. For example chalk. Chalk is just chalk and has no value until the chalk is exchanged for money in the store. However, Marx’s idea of commodity fetishism suggests that because of the commodity being more than just a product, one overlooks the actual labor power sold to which ever part of the production that is put into a stick a chalk. According to Marx, an object only has its value when the process and labor to get that object doesn’t matter. Commodity fetishism is best hidden when the object itself has a large use-value to overpower the labor power put into the object like the production of Nike’s products.
Nike is a very popular brand known throughout and outside of the United States of America for its famous foot wear of gym shoes. From gym shoes, Nike branched out to make other products like active wear, sports bags, school bags and many other high commodity items. Nike’s products have a very high use-value mainly because of the name of the brand itself and the fact that the brand has been supported and glorified by many high known athletes. Although to this day, Nike is a very known and favored brand because of its high commodity items, its commodity fetishism is no longer hidden. To many consumers of the product, the only thing they knew about Nike and its products was that they were good products but no one really knew the labor power behind the products in their actual production.
According to Steve Boggan’s article, Nike Admits to Mistakes over Child Labor, Nike’s products were found to be assembled and made in Cambodia by children as young as ten years old. Nike’s products were found to not only be assembled by children, but by children working in poor conditions with little to no wages. It was found that the profits Nike made off of selling its merchandise did not trickle down to the hard work, sweat, and tears the assemblers put into the products. Although Nike promised to end (what Nike’s chairman thought was never happening) the child labor by being stricter on applicants, it has yet to completely succeed. However the assemblers of those products are not the only hidden values in a simple pair of Nike gym shoes or active wear t-shirt. There was labor power put into loading those items from Cambodia and shipping them to designated areas, labor power put into unloading the merchandised and stocking the shelves, and the labor power put into selling the product for profit including all the in between labor power involved. Examining such a huge commodity as Nike products definitely gives a better understanding of Marx’s idea on commodity fetishism. It’s understandable how an individual’s sold labor power goes unrecognized when the product becomes a commodity and made more valuable than the real work used to create it. (Boggan, 2001)
Boggan, S. (2001, October 20). Nike Admits to Mistakes Over Child Labor. Retrieved from Common Dreams: Building Progressive Community: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/1020-01.htm
Nike is a very popular brand known throughout and outside of the United States of America for its famous foot wear of gym shoes. From gym shoes, Nike branched out to make other products like active wear, sports bags, school bags and many other high commodity items. Nike’s products have a very high use-value mainly because of the name of the brand itself and the fact that the brand has been supported and glorified by many high known athletes. Although to this day, Nike is a very known and favored brand because of its high commodity items, its commodity fetishism is no longer hidden. To many consumers of the product, the only thing they knew about Nike and its products was that they were good products but no one really knew the labor power behind the products in their actual production.
According to Steve Boggan’s article, Nike Admits to Mistakes over Child Labor, Nike’s products were found to be assembled and made in Cambodia by children as young as ten years old. Nike’s products were found to not only be assembled by children, but by children working in poor conditions with little to no wages. It was found that the profits Nike made off of selling its merchandise did not trickle down to the hard work, sweat, and tears the assemblers put into the products. Although Nike promised to end (what Nike’s chairman thought was never happening) the child labor by being stricter on applicants, it has yet to completely succeed. However the assemblers of those products are not the only hidden values in a simple pair of Nike gym shoes or active wear t-shirt. There was labor power put into loading those items from Cambodia and shipping them to designated areas, labor power put into unloading the merchandised and stocking the shelves, and the labor power put into selling the product for profit including all the in between labor power involved. Examining such a huge commodity as Nike products definitely gives a better understanding of Marx’s idea on commodity fetishism. It’s understandable how an individual’s sold labor power goes unrecognized when the product becomes a commodity and made more valuable than the real work used to create it. (Boggan, 2001)
Boggan, S. (2001, October 20). Nike Admits to Mistakes Over Child Labor. Retrieved from Common Dreams: Building Progressive Community: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/1020-01.htm