Symbolic technologies

Machines and the Marxian notion of fetishism

Bibliographic Data

ID2401477
AuthorsA Hornborg (0000-0003-2102-5875, Lund University, corresponding author)
Year2001
Volume1
Issue4
Pages473-496
Publication date2001-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAnthropological Theory (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1463-4996 • E-ISSN: 1741-2641
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/14634990122228854
OpenAlexW1964929827
LanguageEN
Citations received19
References cited46

By extending the Marxian theory of fetishism from money and commodities to machines, we may achieve an epistemological shift in our understanding of the foundations of 'technological development'. The first part of the article discusses previous definitions of fetishism in order to distil some central themes that appear to be particularly significant to the argument on machine fetishism. It is argued that semiotic theory can be useful in distinguishing different varieties of fetishism. The core of the Marxian definition is understood to be the mystification of unequal relations of social exchange through the attribution of autonomous agency or productivity to certain kinds of material objects. The attribution of productivity to modern technology is here interpreted as a mystification of the unequal, global exchange of (labour) time and (natural) space

Agency (philosophy · Argument (complex analysis · Attribution · Economics · Epistemology · Fetishism · Linguistics · Natural (archaeology · Neoclassical economics · Productivity · Semiotics · Sociology · Space (punctuation) · Anthropology · History · Philosophy · Political Economy and Marxism · Psychology · Social Psychology

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