COMM 287 Study Guide - Final Guide: Richard Easterlin, Marcel Mauss, Materialism
Document Summary
Our relationship with commodities/thing, the modern marketplace is global. Part of the most important information about a product that we need to know is: Goods were made up of the life-force of the producer. The exchange of the things was literally an exchange of persons. Process of objectification (a persons labor/activity is a part of things_ Things come to resonate with social relations eg. the sentimental gift. Embedded in goods are the social relations of their production. If we can decode the information stored in them we will be able to understand the entire system. However, in the system of global capitalism, this real meaning is hidden or masked. There is a rupture between the way things appear and their real meaning. Cotton, coffee, carpets, tombstones, cell phones: the meaning of production is emptied out, advertising then fills the commodity with meaning. Advertising and the marketplace converts them into signs.
