Constant Capital - The Particular Fetish of The Money Commodity As Capital

The Particular Fetish of The Money Commodity As Capital

The fact that the productive force of labour appears within capitalism as the productive force of capital was for Marx an example of reification of the relations of production or of commodity fetishism. In other words, property (a "thing") is given human powers and characteristics which it does not truly have. Economists talk about the "productivity of capital" to describe the yield or return on capital, but capital itself "produces" nothing, people do that.

The fetish of capital is broken as soon as living labour is withdrawn; then it becomes clear that the constant part of capital produces nothing, and declines in value. Because of its role as a traditional money commodity some individuals give a reference display of this fetish by seeing gold as the only 'real' money, even in the current time when most money is lacking any substantial form whatsoever, even paper.

Critics object however that without the supply of means of production, labour also can produce nothing. That is, separated from means of production, workers are also nothing. This however raises the question of why and how workers come to be separated from the means of production which they have themselves created.

For Marx at least, the answer to this question is not "technical" but purely social, i.e. a matter of property relations which provides capital and its owners with a social power over people. But ownership by itself creates no net addition to new value produced, other than, perhaps, profit from speculation which redistributes existing asset values and claims to them.