The example given in class when discussing commodity fetishism was a simple cup of coffee in which the value of that simple cup of coffee we drink in the morning has a hidden value. It starts with the workers that picked the coffee beans who probably get low wages, then a company who pays a worker to deliver the coffee beans to a company such as Starbucks, and that worker making the coffee for someone else. When put into that perspective it is easier to understand the term deeper in which we take for granted the value of that cup of coffee we have in the morning. There are many things we buy, eat, or drink that we take for granted and that have hidden value.
Last semester the Latino Cultural Center put on an event called “Bananas.” This event screened the documentary titled Bananas a documentary about 12 Nicaraguan workers who wanted to sue the Dole Company for exposing them to a harmful pesticide that caused them to be sterile. Many of these men did not even know they were being exposed to this pesticide they were just working for the company. Marx would however describe it as the workers selling their labor to Dole Company and Dole buying their labor for cheap wages. A banana to us is something that we can eat, that will give us energy and a healthy snack yet we do not see the value hidden behind that product and it is something we take for granted. Of course many of us are not thinking when we buy Dole bananas “I wonder how this banana was grown who grew it and how it got to this store.” This explains commodity fetishism and this documentary does a good job in showing the hidden value of Dole bananas, it shows us the perspective of the workers who are harvesting the bananas.
These workers are also alienated through the process of work in which their “productivity” is being sold to Dole. They are also alienated through the product of work in a way because through harvesting the bananas it is going to the company to be shipped out to many stores that many people probably shop at. The workers also experience alienation from their species-being because they are spending many hours harvesting these bananas robbing them of their time and their energy as well as their ability to remain fertile. The last form of alienation the workers faced is alienation from others. An important quote from the documentary trailer that describes this alienation very well is when the narrator of the documentary says “Every death is another victory,” every time a worker working for Dole died it was for being exposed to the pesticides and it was another victory for the company because they got what they wanted/needed from that worker. Now that that person is “gone” they are replaceable by other workers to do the same job the previous worker did. It is just like what we talked about in class if a machine breaks it can be easily replaced with another that will do the same exact job that the old machine did it is the same concept here. This documentary demonstrates the many theories of Marx regarding capitalism as well as buying and selling labor and the hidden value behind many products we use every day.
http://youtu.be/4LikhNC5T34