Jia Sun

Jia Sun

August 31, 2025

Fetishism, Marxism, Commodity fetishism, Digital fetishism.

This paper explores the evolution and contemporary relevance of Marx's theory of fetishism, moving from its origins in religious fetishism through commodity fetishism, and extending its analytical framework to the phenomenon of digital fetishism within contemporary algorithmic capitalism. By revisiting Marx’s critical insights into how social relations become mystified as natural properties of objects, the paper identifies structural parallels between historical forms of fetishism and the present-day mystification processes mediated by digital technologies. Drawing upon recent theoretical advancements by Japanese Marxist scholars—particularly Masahide Ishizuka's distinction between "positive fetishism" and "negative fetishism" (idolatry)—the paper develops a nuanced critique of digital fetishism, emphasizing how algorithmic and data-driven systems conceal underlying labor, interests, and power relations. It argues that contemporary digital platforms systematically transform human subjectivity into quantifiable and controllable data entities, reinforcing exploitation through invisibilized labor. Ultimately, the paper advocates a "denaturalizing" critique that exposes digital technologies as social and historical constructions rather than autonomous forces, calling for institutional innovations and democratic control to reclaim human agency from the ideological veil of digital fetishism.

© 2025, the Authors. Published by ISCCAC

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license