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How can we be “alienated” by commodities when so many people like shopping?
This week the MARX MEMORIAL LIBRARY takes a look at how capitalism got into our heads

MARX’S critique of capitalism wasn’t limited to economics. It included the way capitalism affects the way people think and behave as individuals.

Capitalist commodity production, he argued, turns everything “into alienable, vendible objects in thrall to egoistic need and huckstering. Selling is the practice of alienation.”

Commodity production and consumption magnifies the significance of an alien entity, namely money.

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