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[Cthulhu]

I'm writing a paper, it's an easy two pager and I'm just about done.  I just need to figure out if this thing I wrote actually makes any sense, for some reason I can't tell :/

Specifically, I had to go to the local Urban Outfitters and look around, then write a Marxist critique on it.  I just wrote this paragraph and I'm not 100% sure I'm getting all the terminology so when I read the paragraph I'm not sure if it makes sense and if I'm using the terminology correctly.

Marx wrote much on the ways in which producers and consumers are distanced from each other and from the realities of the capitalist system.  Unlike an artisanal system, no apparent connection is present between one of the items being sold at a place like Urban Outfitters and the workers who made it.  No sense of the labor involved is apparent from the perspective of a consumer, and the cost to purchase an item does not reflect the labor involved.  This disconnect between labor and its products, and the reification of values like sign-exchange, which have no relation to an object's actual worth as it relates to the labor involved to produce it, is what Marx deemed commodity fetishism.

The Urban Outfitters in question is in a former church, and I'm thinking about bringing that up and referencing how in some ways the store is a temple of consumerism where commodities are given talismanic value, but I'm not quite sure how to phrase it yet.

[LordSlowpoke]

it appears to be a little bit stiff, but essays are supposed to be like that right? you're not using the workers for nearly enough length though (unless the 2 pages are a strict limit in which carry on), you could even go on a tangent where the bangladeshi or other workers are used simply because marx's ideas have not been implemented there, ergo ridiculous amounts of exploitation

nevertheless the terminology seems right but you should wait for someone to disprove everything i am saying

[Cthulhu]

I added a little more about the workers, and how instead of receiving profits for their work, they receive a wages which then become the "value" of their labor, which is conveniently controlled by the people who own the factory.

[nenjin]

Seems understandable to me.

.... and the cost to purchase an item does not reflect the labor involved.

If I can question your logic a sec though, that doesn't strike me as a statement that is completely true. The cost of labor has to impact the price point in some way. Even if it's made in Malaysia at a cost of .05 cents per shoe to the manufacturer, that cost is ultimately passed on to the retailer and used as part of their price point calculation.

I try to avoid statements that sound absolute because they're the kinds of things teachers/TAs wanting to dock points love to ding you for, for not "thinking it through." Because it gives them an excuse to write what they think in the margins of your paper.

[Vector]

That's a common minor misreading of Marx, but what he's actually saying is that totally incomparable things are being said to be similar through monetary value.  Objects are robbed of their true selves, their full tangible and intangible differences, when they are reduced to their usages in this way and all made equivalent through currency.

Currency, after all--the "current," the thing that's impossible to hold onto--is the epitome of non-singularity, of similarity.  It, in itself, has no inherent value, and in turn, things being made equivalent through money, and equivalent to money, again have this act of violence rip away their unique qualities.

[Aqizzar]

My only issue with the segment is the use of the word 'reification'.  I had to look that up, and after reading the definition I can't say for sure whether it's being used correctly and consequently I'm not entirely following what this sentence means:

and the reification of values like sign-exchange, which have no relation to an object's actual worth

If you already saw it used in this context then more power to you, but I might look for another way to say what you were trying to say.  I feel like it needs a little more explanation.

[Neonivek]

That's a common minor misreading of Marx

To admit if there is probably one thinker who is commonly misrepresented almost entirely it is probably Marx.

[freeformschooler]

The only stiff thing about it is Essay Wording. "ways in which producers" can be turned to "ways producers," "between one of the items being sold" is more words than "between one of the items sold." Looking at the sentence, you could even shove in "between an item sold."

I know, I know, essays aren't Simple English Wikipedia, but less unneeded words = getting your point across with maximal efficiency.

Good job, though.

[Cthulhu]

My only issue with the segment is the use of the word 'reification'.  I had to look that up, and after reading the definition I can't say for sure whether it's being used correctly and consequently I'm not entirely following what this sentence means:

and the reification of values like sign-exchange, which have no relation to an object's actual worth

If you already saw it used in this context then more power to you, but I might look for another way to say what you were trying to say.  I feel like it needs a little more explanation.

Yes, rereading it I'm not sure if that's the right word or the right way to say it.  That line and that word was part of the reason I posted this, I might rewrite that.  I might omit the whole paragraph.