3.1 Reification Theory
“an extension of Marx’s analysis of the “fetishism of the commodity form” in Capital I, whereby Marx refers to the phenomenon of social relations between producers of commodities that appear in capitalism under the guise of objective, calculable, properties of things (“value”).”
“The form which commodities acquire due to this fetishism has gradually become, Lukacs claims, the “universal category of society as a whole”
“In capitalist societies, the commodity form even becomes the dominant form of objectivity itself”
“This process has both an objective and a subjective dimension:” • “objectively, the qualitative homogeneity and continuity of human work is destroyed when industrial work processes become rationalized in a way that is appropriate to understanding them as commodity exchanges. Their mechanization and specialization leads not only to a fragmentation of human life but also to the destruction of the “organic, irrational and qualitatively determined unity of the product”” • “On the subjective side, reification entails a fragmentation of human experience, leading to an attitude of “contemplation” where one passively adapts to a law-like system of social “second nature” and to an objectifying stance towards one’s own mental states and capacities.”
“reification”: “a process which affects four dimensions of social relations: the socially created features of objects (primarily their features as commodities), the relations between persons, their relations to themselves and, finally, the relations between individuals and society as a whole (Stahl 2011)”
“The objective and subjective dimensions of the dominance of the commodity form constitute a complex of reification because the properties of objects, subjects and social relations become “thinglike” in a particular way.”
“These properties become independent, quantifiable, non-relational features that must remain alien to any subjective meaning that one could attach to them.”
“Additionally, by losing grip of the qualitative dimensions of their social relations, people become atomized and isolated.”
“With this description of capitalist society, Lukács combines Weber’s theory of rationalization, Simmel’s theory of modern culture and his own idea of a contradiction between form and life (see Dannemann 1987) with Marx’s theory of value.”
“Drawing on this idea, Lukács sketches a theory of social rationalization that goes beyond a mere description of economic relations and towards a theory of cultural change. The core of this argument is the claim that the dominance of commodity forms in the economic sphere must necessarily lead to the dominance of rational calculation and formal reason in society as a whole. Because a break with the organic unity and totality of human existence is a necessary precondition for this development, the commodity form must, over time, subject all social spheres to its rule. By forcing politics and law to adapt to the demands of capitalist exchange, the commodity form consequently transforms these spheres into a mode of rational calculability (a line of thought clearly stemming from Weber’s analyses)—which helps explain the rise of the bureaucratic state and the dominance of formal, positive law that continues to alienate individuals from society and encourages their passivity in the face of objectified, mechanical rules (1923a: 98).”
“This development leads into a contradictory situation both on the practical and the theoretical level: because the process of rationalization precludes the grasp of any kind of totality, it cannot ever succeed in making the whole of society subject to rational calculation for it necessarily must exclude all irrational, qualitative dimensions from such calculation.”