Date: Wed, 07 Apr 2004 23:06:14 +0900
Subject: Re: AUT: Alienation vs Reification
From: MIYACHI TATSUO <miyachi9-AT-gctv.ne.jp>


On 4/7/04 12:36 AM, "Michael Handelman" <mhandelman1-AT-yahoo.com> wrote:

> I know that Lukacs coined the term "reification"
> (which he based it upon Weber's notion of
> "rationalization"), before the discovery of the
> Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, but is
> there actually any difference between alienation and
> reification?
> 
> In English translation of Capital, Marx's notion "Sache # and Ding" are both
translated into thing. But it is wrong. Sache means property which person
occupies# and Ding means merely physical thing. Marx carefully distinguished
both notions ,because without this distinction, Versachering and Verdingling are
confused. Reification in English refer to both terms, so we cannot understand
marx's true intent.

Below is my article on fetishism in which I argue the importance of
distinction of both terms.


               

Marx¹s critique of the fetishism
?????????
  

1. On the equivalent form of value
In the value-form in Capital, Marx wrote about the equivalent form:
    

     The relative value-form of a commodity, the linen for example, express
its value-existence as something wholly different from its substance and
properties, as the quality of being comparable with a coat for example;
this expression itself therefore indicates that it conceals a social
relation.  With the equivalent form the reverse is true. The equivalent form
consists precisely in this, that the material commodity itself, the coat for
instance, express value just as it is in everyday life, and is therefore
endowed with the form of value by nature itself.  Admittedly this hold good
only within the value-relation, in which the commodity linen is related to
the commodity coat as its equivalent.  However, the properties of a thing do
not arise from its relation to other things, they are, on the contrary,
merely activated by such relations.  The coat, therefore, seems to be
endowed with its equivalent form its property of direct exchangeability, by
nature,.just as its property of being heavy or its ability to keep us warm.
Hence the mysteriousness (Rätesellhafte-quoter) of equivalent
form(Caipital,1,p.149)

 This is the first peculiarity of equivalent form from which use-value
becomes the form of appearance of its opposite, value.(First
substitution-Quidproquo)
About the second peculiarity of equivalent form, Marx wrote:


In order to express the fact that, for instance, weaving creates the value
of linen through its general property of being human labour rather than in
its concrete form as weaving, we contrast it with the concrete labour which
produces the equivalent of linen, namely tailoring.  Tailoring is now seen
as the tangible form of realization of abstract human
labour(Capital,1,p.150).

In this substitution concrete labour becomes the form of manifestation of
its opposite, abstract human labour. In this form, the relation of the
abstract and the concrete is reverse. This is the second
substitution(Quidproquo-quoter) .
And the third peculiarity of equivalent form is that private labour takes
the form of its opposite, namely labour in its directly social form:


 Because this concrete labour, tailoring, counts exclusively as the
expression of undifferentiated human labour, it possesses the characteristic
of being identical with other kinds of labour, such as the labour embodied
in the linen.  Consequently, although, like all other commodity-producing
labour, it is the labour of private individuals, it is nevertheless labour
in its directly social form.  It is precisely for this reason that it
presents itself to us in the shape of a product which is directly
exchangeable with other commodities(Capital,1,p.150)

 This is the third substitution.

2. On the mysterious character(Das Geheimnisvolle-quoter) of the
commodity-form
About the mysterious character of commodity-form, Marx wrote:


     the mysterious character of the commodity-form therefore simply in the
fact that commodity reflects the social characteristics of men¹s own labour
as objective characteristics of the products labour themselves, as the
socio-natural properties of these things(Dinge-quoter).  Hence it also
reflects the social relation of the producers to sum total of labour as a
social relation between objects, a relation which exists apart from and
outside the producers. Through this substitution, the products of labour
become commodities, sensuous thing(Ding), which are at the same time
suprasensible or social(Capital,1,p.164)

To understand this Geheimnisvolle of this commodity-form have to be premised
on understanding the Rätesellhahte of equivalent form, and the problem is
previously resolved in the part of value-form, in which the equivalent form
seems to have its property of direct exchangeability by nature just as the
material properties.  So Rätesellhafte of equivalent form meets the
Geheimnisvolle of the commodity-form.

3. From equivalent form to money-form
The purpose of analyzing the value-form is to show the origin of money-form
by tracing the development of the expression of value.


 The degree of development of relative form of value, and that of the
equivalent form, correspond. But we must bear in mind that of the
development of the equivalent form is only the expression and the result of
the development of the relative form. The simple or isolated relative form
of value of one commodity converts some other commodity into an isolated
equivalent.  The expanded form of relative value, that expression of the
value of one commodity in terms of all other commodities, imprints those
other commodities with the form of particular equivalents of different
kinds.  Finally, a particular kind of commodity acquires the form of
universal equivalent, because all other commodities make it the material
embodiment of their uniform and universal form of valueŠThe universal
equivalent form is a form of value in general.  It can therefore be assumed
by any commodity.?On the other hand, a commodity is only to be found in the
universal equivalent form(form C), if, and in so far as, it is excluded from
the ranks of all other commodities, as being their equivalent.  Only when
this exclusion becomes finally restricted to specific kind of commodity does
the uniform relative form of value of the world of commodities attain
objective fixedness and general social validity. The specific kind of
commodity with those natural form the equivalent form is socially interwoven
now becomes the money commodity, or serve as moneyŠ The only difficulty in
the concept of the money form is that of grasping the universal equivalent
form(Capital 1, p.139)

And the difficulty in the concept of equivalent form is that of grasping
       simple value form between two commodities. In money-form, gold and
silver are not seen as representing a social relation of production, but in
the form of natural objects with peculiar social properties.  This
substitution makes the social relation of production being natural things.

4. Versachlichung der Personen  and  Personifizierung der Sache

About Versachlichung der Personen, Marx wrote:
 Whence then, arise the enigmatic( rätsellhafte-quoter) character of the
product of labour as soon as it assumes the form of a commodity?  Clearly,
it arises from this form itself.  The equality of the kinds of human labour
takes on a physical form in the equal objectivity of the products of human
labour as values; the measure of the expenditure of human labour-power by
its duration takes on the form of the magnitude of the value of the products
of labour; and finally the relationship between the producers, within which
the social characteristics of their labour are manifested, take on the form
of a social relation between the products of labour(Capital 1, p.164)

And about Personfizierung der Sache:

  
Commodities cannot themselves go to market and perform exchanges in the
their own right. We must, therefore have recourse to their guardians, who
are possessors of commodities.  Commodities are things(Dinge-quoter) and
therefore lack the power to resist man.  If they are unwilling, he can use
force; in other words, he can take possession of them. In order that these
objects may enter into relation with each other as commodities, their
guardians must place themselves in relation to once another as persons whose
will resides in those objects, and must behave in such a way that each does
not appropriate the commodity of the other, and alienate his own, except
through an act to which both parties consent.  The guardian must therefore
recognize each other as owners of private property.  This juridical
relation, whose form is the contract, whether as part of a developed legal
system or not, is a relation between two wills which mirror the economic
relation. The content of this juridical relation( or relation of two wills)
exist for one another merely as representative and hence owners, of
commodities(Capital,1. P.178)

 In this context, subjectivity is on the side of commodity, not person.
As guardian of commodity, person¹s will resides in those objects, which
become the subject of relation, and person merely act for commodities
behavior. This substitution is the mode of unintentional government of
person¹s will. Therefore the bearer of commodities are not free person, but
is ruled by commodities behavior
This is the Personfizierung der Sache.

5.  On the fetishism of commodity
 
 Versachlichung is followed by fetishism. Marx wrote:


       The mysterious(Geheimnisvolle) character of the commodity-form
consists therefore simply in the fact that the commodity reflects the social
characteristics of men¹s own labour as objective characteristics of the
products of labour themselves, as the socio-natural properties of these
things.  Hence it also reflects the social relation of the producers to sum
total of labour as a social relations of objects, a relation which exists
apart from and outside the producers.  Through this substitution, the
products of labour become commodityŠThe commodity-form, and the
value-relation of the products of labour within which it appears, have
absolutely no connection with the physical nature of commodity and the
material relations arising out of that.  It is nothing but the definite
social relation between men themselves which assumes here, for them, the
fantastic form of the relation between things.  In order, therefore, to find
an analogy we must take flight into the misty realm of religion.  There the
product of the human brain appear as autonomous figures endowed with a life
of their own, which enter into relations both with each other and with the
human race. So it is in the world of commodities with the products of men¹s
hands. I call this the fetishism which attaches itself to the products of
labour as soon as they are produced as commodities, and is therefore
inseparable from the production of commodities(Capital,1, p.164)

The appearance form of commodity relation produces the fantastic form of
relation between things. Therefore Versachlichug produces Verdinglichung.
Now, fundamentally speaking, Simple value form provide the basis of the
fetishism as false semblance independently of this relation:


 We have already seen, from the simplest expression of value, x commodity Ay commodity B, that the thing in which the magnitude of the value of another
thing is represented appears to have the equivalent form independently of
this relation, as s social property inherent in its nature.  We followed the
process by which this false semblance became firmly established, a process
which was completed when the universal equivalent form became identified
with the natural form of a particular commodity, and thus crystallized into
the money-form.  What appears to happen is not that a particular commodity
becomes money because all other commodities express their values in it, but,
on the contrary, that that all other commodities universally express their
values in a particular commodity because it is money.  The movement through
which this process has been mediated vanishes in its own result, leaving no
trace behind( Capital,1,p.187)

Thus Ding appear to have the social force by nature. The fetishism of
commodity and money is completed.
  Now about fetishism of capital, and interest-bearing capital, this theme
is beyond my argument, but the basic mechanism is not that of the fetishism
of commodity and money, but I only point out that the substitution of
relation of means of production and labour is the root of fetishism of
capital in which the separation of means of production from producer
occurs..
Thus, the fetishism is itself an ideology, which justify the capitalist mode
of production. Marx wrote:


 We have already shown in connection with the most simple categories of the
capitalist mode of production and commodity production in general, in
connection with commodities and money, the mystifying character that
transforms the social relations for which the material elements of wealth
serve as bearers in the course of production into properties of these things
themselves(commodities), still more explicitly transforming the relation of
production itself into a thing(money). All forms of society are subject to
this distortion(Capital,3,p.965)
6. The fetishism and every day life consciousness
On the basis of the fetishism, the actual producer¹s consciousness is
determined.  Marx wrote:

:
It is also quite natural, on the other hand, that the actual agents of
production themselves feel completely at home in these estranged and
irrational forms of capitalist-interest, land-rent, labour-wages, for these
are precisely the configuration of appearance in which they move, and with
which they are daily involved(Capital,3,p.969)

  But, on the same time, on account  of Versachlichung, the capitalist mode
of production appear to them as overwhelming natural law, governing them
irrespective of their will. Obeying natural law as such gravity is natural
action, so false semblance of freedom is established..
But, on the other hand, since the social power that governs people is Sache,
Deversachlichung movement emerges. Ecologies, consumer and worker¹s
cooperative, and many social movements  generally pursuit Deversachlichung
unconsciously or consciously to establish the new organization of society in
which the social labour need not to receive the form private labour, and
need not to mediate the product of labour in order to prove his own labour
in abstract form as social ed

ly appro v 7.  Reply to argument of Martha Augoustinous on Ideology
M.Augoustinous argues about ideology.?At first, she sends away the theories
of ideology such as ideology as the set of political beliefs and value,
ideology as system justification, ideology as false consciousness, and
ideology as social cognition. And she adopts ideology as false consciousness
as an ideological critique of society. About ideology as political beliefs ,
she says:


         By restricting the definition of ideology to a coherent system of
political beliefs as embodied within rhetoric of western democratic
political parties, this tradition of research focuses only upon formal
political conflicts and the formal process of political decision-making.
While this is a legitimate area of research and inquiry in itself, it fails
to consider the everyday politics of ordinary person¹s life, thereby
stripping the concept of ideology of its critical component. (p.297)
She correctly point out the limitation of ideology as political beliefs.
Secondly, she argues about ideology as system justification  ³such
theoretical perspectives have emerged largely from structural Marxist
accounts of ideology²(p.297) on the basis of Marx¹s German ideology. But
this notion is ³ criticized for being too economically determinist and
reductionist²(p.298)  But the theme of German ideology lies in critique of
Hegelian tradition, and the understanding of class struggle emerging from
material relation, separating its political, religious, ideological form.
Thus, Marx said that it is necessary to separate the material conflict from
its political,religious form to understand class-struggle. It is not
reductionist theory. Thirdly, she argue about ideology as false
consciousness 

              The working classes were seen to have failed to recognize
their Œtrue¹ economic and political interests by internalizing the
bourgeois values of their oppressors. Ideology(falsity) was contrasted with
science(truth).  Many social theorists have seized on this vulgarized
concept of ideology, equating it with all that is false, distorting and
mystifying.  Like the concept of false consciousness, the Gramiscian notion
of hegemony has been to understand the widespread perceived legitimacy and
support that contemporary capitalism and parliamentary democracy receive
from the general public( Gramsci,1971)Š The hegemonic process can be
described as the way in which a particular world view or moral philosophical
outlook diffuses throughout society, forming the basis of what is   299)


             She criticizes the notion of the false consciousness:


             The notion of false consciousness suggests that ideology itself
is a matrix of falsefoods, a view which only a few Marxists would adhere to
today. For example, Eagleton(1991) arguesŠ¹In short , successful
ideologies must be more than imposed illusion, and for all their
inconsistencies must communicate to their subjects a version of reality
which is real and recognizable enough not to be simply rejected out of hand¹
(p.300-301) 

           But she and Eaglton don¹t refer to the content of so-called
reality. Since they don¹t argue the content of the so-called reality, they
cannot point out the false consciousness.
 Next, she criticizes the ideology as social cognition.:


Jost(1995), for example, documents a body of social psychological research
demonstrating that many disadvantaged and oppressed group in society hold
beliefs which are contrary to their own self-and group interest; that is
beliefs which justify, rationalize and legitimate their own subordination.
These documented social psychological phenomena include: belief in a just
world(Lerner,1980)-associated with a tendency among oppressed groups not to
perceive their own injustice and disadvantage(Elster,1987); political
fatalism and acquiescence-linked to beliefs about the futility of protest
and the unlikelihood of social change(Cunningham,1987); actual resistance to
change­reflected in phenomena such as cognitive
conservatism(Greenwald,1980), and behavioural compliance; the tendency for
society¹s victims to blame themselves(Janoff-Bulman, 1992) or to blame and
scapegoat other disadvantaged persons or groups(Tajfel, 1978);
identification with and preference for Œthe oppressor¹ or more powerful
outgroups(Hinke&Brown, 1990) ;and finally, the justification of social roles
and the legitimation of existing inequities between different social
groups(Jost&Banaji, 1994)²  She criticizes the social cognition that
³Psychological accounts of false consciousness primarily locate distortions
and mystification within the perceptual and cognitive domain of the
individual subject. The individual subject is viewed as failing to perceive
reality accurately and failing to recognize his or her true self-and
group-based interests.  Such individualistic approaches to subjectivity fail
to acknowledge that reality construction is not an isolated cognitive task
involving the direct and unmediated perception of the world.  People are
constantly and actively engaged in a complex and socially situated process
of constructing reality, but they do this by using the cultural and
ideological resources that are available to them( Gergen,1982; Harré 1983;
Shotter, 1984).(p.301-302)

  But by social cognitionist, important documents are observed. The problems
here are not criticize them as individualist but to interpret their
observations from the perspective of Versachlichung and the fetishism of
Sachen( commodity, money and capital). The fetishism attribute the
capitalist mode of production to a socio-natural property. Under this
fantastic form, individual adapts to the relation as if adapt to natural
law. But on the other hand, The bearer of the commodity reside their will in
the commodity, the subjectivity is on the side of commodity. In the market,
the commodity of high productivity has high price, and the converse is true,
so that commodity form allows the bearer of commodity to recognize their
value in so far as their abstract labour, and treat the concrete person¹s
labour discriminately.  Labour¹s price is in fact reproductive cost of
labourer, but for the fetishism, it appears to arise from labour¹s use
value.  Since labourer¹s natural differences such as skin¹s color, or
labour¹s characteristics appear to decide the price of labour, many
discrimination occurs within the working class. Besides, on the oppressed
side of social relation, the oppressed drive to oppose to the social
relations, but this opposition appear to unnatural such as to oppose the
gravity in the person swayed by the fetishism of Sachen, so that the
opposition turns upon to himself or the same groups. And discriminations
within the working class occur.
      Finally, She adopt the notion of the false consciousness as an
ideological critique of society:

Marx later writings which located ideology not in peoples minds or their
consciousness, but in the social and material reality of capital
itself.(p.305)

She quotes Eagleton who says:

Marx is not claiming that under capitalism commodities appear to exercise a
tyrannical sway over social relation; he is arguing that they actually
do(p.305)

 She also quote Geras who says:

If then the social agents experience capitalist society as something other
than it really is, this is fundamentally because capitalist society presents
itself something other than it really is(p.305)

  She says that mystification , then, is embedded in the very nature of
capitalist society, in reality itself, and not in the minds of people.  But
her and Eagleton¹s argument surrenders the fetishism of capital, because
they approve the Sachen¹s tyrannical social force as if natural disaster.
  While Marx¹s critique of fetishism is to criticize the socio-natural
appearance form of social relation as fantastic form of a relation between
things which is derived from mysterious character of commodity-form, they
surrender the fetishism of Sachen. In addition, their notion of reality is
unclear. What is the content of the reality.?
   According to her argument, paradoxically,the false consciousness is the
consciousness of the reality, so she must returns back to the beginning with
interpreting the so-called reality.
?
??8?Reply to argument of Michael Billig on commodity fetishism and of
Brenda Goldberg on a psychology of need and the abstraction of Value

 Michael Billig argue that for fetishism of commodity, social forgetting
occurs, and in late capitalism or consumer capitalism, postmodern, consumer
capitalism has lost its capacity to retain its own past. Along side what
Jameson calls a Œhistorical amnesia¹, a sociological amnesia can be
detected. The very term Œconsumer capitalism¹ exemplifies this
absent-mindednes:


.My memory can include the production of my self through my consumption: I
can tell stories of how I acquired the means to be my present self. But I
have little or nothing to say about the production of my jealously owned
commoditiesŠMy sense of being a possessive self is not derived from my
relation with those who produce the means of these pleasure. Quite contrary,
it is to be derived from the relation between my commodities, conceived as
material object, and the commodities of others. It is precisely this type of
relationship which Marx identified at fetishist.(p.319-320)
To remember Marx is to remember the condition of daily exploitation. We
should remember that the fetishized commodities whose daily consumption is
so important to us and to our sense of ourselves are produced by unnamed
ŒOthers¹. Our routines of life , not to mention our habits of
interpretation, distract us from this remembering.? Thanks to such
routines, we can habitually forget that our many possessions have been
produced by the labour of repressed Others.(p.327)
 
 Firstly, his reading of fetishism of commodity is incorrect. He says:


the value of a commodity derives from the labour which has produced the
commodity. Instead of understanding the value of the commodity in terms of
the social relation of which have produced it, the commodity¹s value is
understood in relation to other commodities, such as money or the goods that
money can purchase. In this way, the labour expended in the production is
forgotten in the everyday understanding of the value of commodity.  The
social character of labour appears Πas an objective character stamped upon
the product of that labour. Consequently, Πa definite social relation
between men assumesŠthe fantastic form of a relation between things¹
ŠHe(Marx-quoter) wrote that Œ the determination of the magnitude of value
by labour-time7 becomes secret¹ and, thus, money Œactually conceals,
instead of disclosing, the social character of private labour¹(p.315)

In the first place, value of commodity don¹t derives from labour, but
abstract labour. In the value form, the characteristics of abstract labour
is expressed by equivalent form of value. And that the social character of
labour appears as objective character stamped upon the product of that
labour is the substitution(Quidproquo) of relation. Similarly, Brenda
Goldberg¹s understanding of fetishism of commodity is incorrect. She says:


the abstract concept of value, which is the most basic form of exchange, two
commodities stand, as it were, eye to eye( or ŒI¹ to ŒI¹),caught in a
specular relationship.  In order for the two objects, commodity ŒA¹ and
commodity ŒB¹, to be exchanged they must express a relation of both
relative and equivalent value. Since commodity ŒA¹ cannot express its own
value, it must seek its value through the bodily form of opposing image. One
commodity can only have value when compared to another commodity, which
stand in relation to itself in a different qualitative form, and so a second
object, commodity ŒB¹, must serve as the physical embodiment through which
the value of ŒA¹ is expressed. Within this elementary form of exchange
there is a division of roles, one commodity taking the active ŒA¹ and one
the passive ŒB¹ role. The function of the passive object is to act as a
mirroring surface reflecting back the other value. Second, however, for two
commodities to be deemed exchangeable, they must also some identical or
equivalent substance. The substance which is common to both elements is ,
according to Marx, abstract human labour power. The expanded form of value
occurs when the social network of commodity relations develops such that
commodity ŒA¹ can find its relative and equivalent value in a variety of
other commodities(p.357)

 Firstly, relation of commodities is not premised on real exchange, or
exchange process. Marx, at first, analyzed one commodity, and reduced it to
abstract labour.as crystals of this social substance which is value. Then,
he analyze the value form, in which this social substance appear. Because
commodities possess an objective character as values only in so far as they
are all expressions of an identical social substance, human labour, that
their objective character as values is therefore purely social. From this it
follows self-evident that it can only appear in the social relation between
commodity and commodity. In the simple form of value, two commodity play two
different parts. The linen express its value in the coat; the coat serves as
material in which that value is expressed. The relative form of value and
the equivalent form are two inseparable moments, which belongs to and
mutually condition each other; but at the same time, they are mutually
exclusive or opposed extremes, i.e. poles of the expression of value. Thus,
commodity ŒA¹ cannot play both roles in the same time, which
Goldberg suggest to be possible. Because he cannot analyze the peculiarity
of the equivalent form of value, he says:

              the commodity are all relative to each other² ³ In order to
give unity and true abstraction to the system, a third element is
needed(p.358)

           This confused explanation is derived from disregarding the
analysis the    equivalent form of value.
Now about social amnesia, Billig point out the relation of consumption and
production. But he ignores the fetishism of the capital. About the labour
process and the valorization process, Marx wrote:


The labour process, as we have just presented it in its simple and abstract
elements, is purposeful activity aimed at the production of use values. It
is an appropriation of what exists in nature for the requirement of man. It
is the universal condition for the metabolic interaction between man and
nature, everlasting nature-imposed condition of human existence, and it is
therefore independent of every form of that existenceŠ.The labour process,
when under the control of the capitalist consumes labour power, exhibits two
characteristic phenomena. First, the worker works under the control of the
capitalist to whom his labour belongsŠ.Secondly,  the product is the
property of the capitalist and not that of the worker, its immediate
producer(Capital.1.p.290-291)

 But for the fetishism of the capital, the valorization process appear to
the simple labour process, so that workers appear to work in a socio-natural
production process.  Since Billig is swayed by the sphere of commodity
exchange, the true relationship of commodity exchange and the immediate
process of production of surplus-value is vague.  His insistence that to
remember Marx is to remember the condition of daily exploitation ignores the
force of the fetishism of capital and confuse the level of commodity
consumption with commodity production.  Commodity consumption is not
necessarily followed by social amnesia.  Rather, social amnesia may occurs
from the process of accumulation of capital in which :


As soon as this metamorphosis has sufficiently decomposed the old society
throughout its depth and breadth, as soon as the workers have been turned
into proletarians, and their means of labour into capital, as soon as the
capitalist mode of production stands on its own feet, the further
socialization of labour and the further transformation of the soil and other
means of production into socially exploited and therefore communal means of
production, takes on a new form.(Capital.1.p.928)

    If society maintains communal character, social, historical memory don¹
t vanish. In capitalist society, in which individuals are reciprocally
alienated , collective and historical memory is impossible.
   Now, Billig¹s argument on repression and social amnesia ignores the the
critique of fetishism of immediate process of production even its mysterious
form, so that he legitimize the capitalist mode of production in general and
fail to explain the reason of social amnesia.
Likewise, Goldberg¹s argument on commodity confuses the fantastic form of
relation between things with fetishism of capital. Since her understanding
of value-form is incorrect, she fails to grasp the Versachlicung der
personen und Personifizihrung der Sache. In the Personifizihrung der Sache,
the Sache governs person¹s will. .Person only act for commodity¹s
behaviour. And she says:


 as Marx also observed, although it is during the production stage that
exploitation occurs and Œsurplus¹ value is created, this exploitation can
only full express itself and reap its Œreturn¹ when the commodity passes
into the realm of circulation and consumption(p.364)

   Here, she is swayed by the false semblance of the capital circulation.
Capital circulation, commodity-capital, productive-capital, and
money-capital only realize, not Œexpress¹ or Œemerge¹. Nevertheless she
says:


   It is in the sphere of circulation that the class and race interests ¹
hidden¹ within the independent body of commodity are Œpersonified¹ and
psychology¹s subjects are metamorphosed through its form in an assessment
of their Œvalue(p.364)

In the sphere of exchange, commodity-value only realize, and in the
circulation, three forms of capital only realize. She sees in the sphere of
circulation the class and race interest, but it is incorrect. Marx wrote:


the value and surplus-value contained in these commodities must first be
realized in the circulation process. Both the restoration of the values
advanced in production, and particularly the surplus-value contained in the
commodities, seem not just to be realized only in circulation but actually
to arise from it. This appearance is reinforced by two circumstances in
particular: firstly, profit on alienation, which depends on cheating,
cunning, expertise, talent and a thousand and one market conjunctures; then
the fact that a second determining element intervenes here besides
labour-time, i.e. the circulation time. Even though this functions simply as
negative limit on the formation of value and surplus-value, it gives the
appearance of being just as positive a ground as labour itself and of
involving a determination independent of labour that arise from the nature
of capital. In Volume 2, of course, we had to present this sphere of
circulation only in relation to determination of form it produces, to
demonstrate the further development of the form of capital that takes place
in it.(Capital,3,p.966)

In contrast with this argument, she ignores the critique of immediate
production.  As a result, she legitimize the capitalist mode of production
process as well as Billig. After all, Billig and Goldberg consider that the
exchange process conceal the exploitable character within the sphere of
immediate production process. But, important is
to understand how to be possible to conceal the exploitable character of
capitalist mode of production within the sphere of immediate production
process.  The fetishism of capital make it possible.
  In this article, I tried to show Marx¹s critique of the fetishism of
commodity, and it is itself ideology which justify the world of commodity in
which commodity appears as socio-natural thing..
 As for the fetishism of the capital and interest-bearing capital, I only
pointed out the basic mechanism. The some articles about the fetishism of
commodity and ideology are insufficient. My reply shows these incorrectness.       



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