Commodity fetishization (German: Warenfetischismus) is the conception of social relations which are involved in production not as social relations between people, but as economic relations between money and the goods bought in the market . Most often, it refers to attributing qualities that are achieved through human action, to natural or spiritual forces. In this sense, the fetishization of commodities turns the economic value, which is subjective and intangible from the ground up, into something that is perceived as objective and real, that people believe has intrinsic value in itself.
The theory of the fetishization of commodities is presented in the first chapter of Karl Marx 's book , " Capital ," with the aim of explaining that the social organization of labor is mediated by exchanges in the market, that is, the sale and purchase of commodities. Thus, in a capitalist society, the social relations between people, who produces the product, who works for whom, the production time of the goods, etc., are perceived as economic relations between objects, that is, how much a certain commodity is worth in relation to another commodity. Therefore, the trade in goods in the market obscures the true economic essence of the human relationship of the creature, those between the worker and the capitalist