Social Constitution and Fetishistic Social Domination in Marx, Lukács, Adorno, and Lefebvre

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Author:
Chris O'Kane
The Marxian theory of fetishism is usually interpreted as a theory of false consciousness, alienation, or reification pertaining to commodities or culture. This book reconstructs how Marx, Lukács, Adorno, and Lefebvre interpret and use the theory of the fetish to explain how capitalist social relations create a supra-individual, autonomous, and inverted form of social domination. These relations transform individuals into bearers of domination, thereby perpetuating capitalist society. The resulting reinterpretations of their respective social theories, and of the theory of the fetish, are crucial for a critical theory of capitalism today.
Copyright Year:
2026
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29 Apr 2026
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28 May 2026
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Chris O'Kane is a critical theorist who lives in Central Queens NY. Chris has taught in London, Humboldt, Portland, Texas, and New York City. He has published widely on Marx, The Frankfurt School, and Marxian Critical Theory. Chris is corresponding editor of the Historical Materialism journal. Along with Werner Bonefeld he edits the Critical Theory and Critique of Society book series.
“Chris O’Kane’s book – embodying a confrontation with such diverse authors as Lukács and Rubin, Adorno and Schmidt, Postone and Heinrich, Lefebvre and Bonefeld – is an indispensable reference for understanding the key distinction between fetish character and fetishism. It goes well beyond the traditional interpretations in terms of alienation, reification, and false consciousness, while providing a most clever backward reading of Marx that allows us to integrate the early Marx into the mature Marx. ‘Things’ are truly endowed with social power under capital, but their autonomous properties are not natural. The book shows that, to uproot the mystification of capitalism as an enchanted, perverted, topsy-turvy world, one must go back to the human source of abstract wealth, and hence to how Capital as the Automatic Fetish is socially constituted. The exploitative social relation – namely, the ‘consumption’ of living labour power, with human beings regarded as nothing but the bearers of labour power – turns into society as totalitarian domination. While the social characteristics of labour present themselves as objective properties of things, ‘suffering’ is the experiential correlate of how the fetish character of money, value, and capital spreads fetishist illusions. Reclaiming Marx’s critique of political economy as a critique of society, in the way O’Kane does, is essential for a political project that goes beyond emancipation towards liberation.”
—Riccardo Bellofiore, University of Bergamo (retired)

“For me, Chris O’Kane’s work in critical social theory is synonymous with the Marx revival. It’s not just a matter of O’Kane’s subtle reading of canonical works of western Marxism and critical theory (and beyond), where old-fashioned erudition is animated by the life and death stakes of actually existing capitalist society. It’s also that O’Kane’s historical judgement on those theoretical trajectories is impeccable: his take on the relationship between different approaches; on why certain concepts resonate differently over time; on why one formulation is remaindered while another rises to the surface for debate once again; and so on. O’Kane’s cult-like following among contemporary Marxist and critical theorists is completely earned and deserved.”
—Beverley Best, Concordia University

“Chris O’Kane’s masterful critique of fetishism as a reality of violence is a testament to the power of critical thought that, against the doctrinaire certainty of traditional Marxist critique, insists on deciphering capitalist domination as a social form of impersonal power.”
—Werner Bonefeld, Professor Emeritus, University of York (UK)
Acknowledgements
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Introduction

Literature Review
 1 Conceptual Typologies of Fetishism
 2 Fetishism as False Consciousness
 3 Fetishism as Lukácsian Reification
 4 Fetishism as Alienation
 5 The Classical Althusserian Conception of Fetishism
 6 Value-Form Theory Conceptions of Fetishism
 7 Conceptual Histories
 8 Conceptual Continuity
 9 Conceptual Discontinuity
 10 Outline of the Book’s Main Argument

Part 1 Marx



1 Social Domination in the Young Marx
 1 Introduction
 2 Marx’s Conceptual Structure of Social Constitution and Social Domination
 3 Marx’s Critique of the Philosophy of Right
 4 Alienated Labour
 5 The ‘German Ideology’
 6 Marx’s Critique of Proudhon
 7 Conclusion

2 Capital and the Critique of Political Economy
 Introduction
 1 A Critique of Political Economy
 2 Marx’s Theory of Value
 3 The Valorisation Process in Capital Volume I
 4 The Form-Analysis
 5 The General Formula of Capital, Surplus Value, Production, Wages, Accumulation, and Primitive Accumulation
 6 Conclusion

3 Social Constitution, Fetishistic Social Domination, and the Fetish-Characteristic Properties of the Forms of Value
 Introduction
 1 The Fetish Characteristic Properties of Commodities
 2 The Fetish Characteristic Properties of Money
 3 The Fetish-Characteristic Properties of Capital
 4 Conclusion

4 Social Constitution and Fetishistic Social Domination in the Trinity Formula
 Introduction
 1 Ambiguities and Gaps in the Trinity Formula
 2 Contextualising the Trinity Formula
 3 The Social Constitution of the Trinity Formula
 4 Fetishistic Social Domination in the Trinity Formula
 5 Conclusion

Part 2 Lukács



5 Lukács’s Hegelian Classical Marxist Interpretation of the Fetish
 1 The Marxism of the 2nd International
 2 The Early Lukács’s Theory of Social Constitution and Social Domination
 3 Lukács’s Hegelian Classical Marxism
 4 Conclusion

6 Reification as Dominating Social Mystification
 1 Lukács’s Interpretation of Commodity Fetishism as Reification
 2 Reification as Dominating Social Mystification
 3 Reification as Dominating Social Mystification
 4 The Constitution of Reified Totality
 5 Conclusion

Part 3 Adorno



7 Adorno, the Critique of Political Economy, and the Fetishistic Properties of the Exchange Abstraction
 Introduction
 1 Adorno’s Interpretation of the Critique of Political Economy
 2 Adorno’s Interpretation of the Fetishistic Properties of the Exchange Abstraction
 3 Adorno’s Interpretation of Capital Accumulation and Crisis
 4 Adorno’s Criticisms of Marx
 5 The Fetishistic Properties of the Exchange Abstraction in Critical Theory
 6 Conclusion

8 Social Constitution and Fetishistic Social Domination in the Negative Totality of Late Capitalism
 Introduction
 1 The Social Constitution of Negative Totality
 2 Supra-Individual Objective Fetishistic Social Domination
 3 Supra-Individual Subjective Fetishistic Social Domination
 4 Critical Social Theory
 5 Conclusion

Part 4 Lefebvre



9 Lefebvre, the Critique of Political Economy, and Fetishistic Concrete Abstraction
 1 Lefebvre’s Non-Systematic Marxism
 2 Fetishistic Concrete Abstraction
 3 The Limits of Fetishistic Social Domination
 4 Conclusion

10 Social Constitution and the Social Domination of Fetishistic Concrete Abstraction in Everyday Life, Cities, and Space
 1 The Critique of Everyday Life
 2 Cities and Urban Form
 3 The Production of Space
 4 Conclusion

Conclusion
 Introduction
 1 A New Perspective
 2 Relevance for Contemporary Critical Theory
 3 Towards a Critical Theory of Social Constitution and Fetishistic Social Domination

Bibliography
Index
This book is especially relevant to advanced undergraduates, post-graduates and faculty who work on Marx, Western Marxism, and Frankfurt School Critical Theory in the history, sociology, philosophy, politics, literature, political economy, and cultural studies.
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