Starbucks - the new Fetish
William Pietz wrote The Problem of the Fetish to highlight dilemmas of the commodity within Anthropology and Aesthetics. He identified the first essential characteristic of the fetish commodity as being the "object's irreducible materiality,” or the quality of properties and materials that compose the product. The laborer bases the product's “mystical value” on its composition followed by its social implications. The social value is completely subjective to the laborer - during this evaluation, he imprints a part of himself into the product.
The commodity is “therefore a mysterious thing, simply because in it the social character of men’s labour appears to them as an objective character stamped upon the product of that labour” (Marx).
Society trusts the laborer’s judgement, and a uniform social status is then created. This value process “converts every product into a social hieroglyphic” (Marx).
