The World-Historical Logic in Marx’s Theory of Fetishism

The evolution of world history can be seen as a process of the constant reshaping of forms of dependence. Marx’s theory of fetishism reveals the mechanism at work: while humans disenchant and master natural forces, they simultaneously fall under the domination of social forces that they themselves have created and that have become independent through reification. The transition from primitive fetishism to commodity fetishism is not merely a replacement of the object of worship; it also manifests a shift between natural forces and social forces that accompanies the generation of human subjectivity. Thus, the theory of fetishism becomes an important tool for grasping the direction of world history and the fate of subjectivity.

世界历史的演进可视为依赖关系形态不断重塑的过程。马克思的拜物教理论揭示了其中的机制，人在祛魅并掌握自然力量的同时，又陷入自身创造并经由物化而独立化的社会力量的支配。由原始拜物教向商品拜物教的转换，不只是崇拜对象的更替，更呈现出人的主体性在生成过程中伴随着的自然力量和社会力量之间的转换。由此，拜物教理论成为把握世界历史走向与主体性命运的重要工具。

Marx’s reflections on “fetishism” had already germinated before *Capital*, and can be traced back as early as April–May 1842. At that time, Marx, having just obtained his doctorate, made extensive excerpts from works on history, philosophy, and political economy in the library of the University of Bonn, forming the *Bonn Notebooks*, later included in Volume IV/1 of the new MEGA published in 1976. The *Bonn Notebooks* consist of seven notebooks. In the third notebook, he excerpted the French Enlightenment thinker Charles de Brosses’s *On the Worship of Fetish Gods* and noted three characteristics of fetishism: first, believers select or create deities from natural objects; second, they directly worship the objects they themselves have created; third, when the fetish fails, they destroy or discard it. This dialectical relationship of “both worship and resistance” became an important analytical framework for the young Marx in understanding history and society, and was also reflected in the articles he wrote for the *Rheinische Zeitung*.

马克思关于“拜物教”的思考，在《资本论》之前便已萌发，最早可追溯至1842年4—5月。当时，刚获得博士学位的马克思在波恩大学图书馆大量摘录历史、哲学与政治经济学著作，形成了后来收录于1976年出版的新MEGA第Ⅳ部第1卷的《波恩笔记》。《波恩笔记》共有七本，在第三本笔记中，他摘录了法国启蒙思想家德布罗斯的《论物神崇拜》，并关注到拜物教的三个特征：其一，信徒从自然物中选择或创造神灵；其二，直接崇拜自己创造的对象；其三，当物神失效时便加以破坏或抛弃。这种“既崇拜又反抗”的辩证关系，成为青年马克思理解历史和社会的重要分析框架，也在他为《莱茵报》撰写的文章中有所体现。

In “The Leading Article in No. 179 of the *Kölnische Zeitung*,” Marx wrote: “Fetishism is so far from raising man above the sway of his sensual desires that, on the contrary, it is the ‘religion of sensual desire.’ The fantasy of desire deceives the idolater into believing that an ‘inanimate thing’ will alter its natural characteristics in order to satisfy his caprice. Hence, when the idol ceases to be the idolater’s most loyal servant, the idolater’s crude desire smashes the idol.” This passage reveals the mechanism of early fetishism: people project their own desires and expectations onto natural objects, and through primitive labor and religious rituals, endow them with the power to respond to human needs, thereby establishing a connection and a relationship of control between humans and nature. However, this control is always fragile. The sacred status of the fetish is not absolute but depends on its function. Once the fetish fails to meet human needs, it is destroyed. Although humans submit to the fetish in worship, they always retain a negating subjectivity. This “destructibility” of the fetish constitutes a key characteristic of early fetishism.

在《〈科隆日报〉第179号的社论》中，马克思写道：“拜物教远不能使人超脱感性欲望，相反，它倒是‘感性欲望的宗教’。欲望引起的幻想诱惑了偶像崇拜者，使他以为‘无生命的东西’为了满足偶像崇拜者的贪欲可以改变自己的自然特性。因此，当偶像不再是偶像崇拜者的最忠顺的奴仆时，偶像崇拜者的粗野欲望就会砸碎偶像。”这段论述展现了早期拜物教的机制，即人们将自身的欲望和期待投射于自然物，并通过原始劳动和宗教仪式赋予其回应人类需求的力量，借此建立起人与自然的联结和控制关系。然而，这种控制始终是脆弱的。物神的神圣地位并非绝对，而是取决于其功能。一旦物神未能满足人的需求，便会遭到毁弃。人虽然在崇拜中臣服于物神，但始终保留着否定的主体性。物神的这种“可毁灭性”构成了早期拜物教的关键特征。

Marx’s understanding of fetishism underwent a process of gradual deepening and transformation. Starting from his early attention to the concept of fetishism, through the explorations in the *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*, *The German Ideology*, and the *Grundrisse*, up to the systematic exposition in *Capital*, the object of worship in fetishism developed from the early natural fetish to the fetishes of commodities, money, and capital in capitalist society. Unlike natural fetishes, these man-made fetishes acquired “indestructibility.” People can smash an ineffective idol, but they find it difficult to actively destroy money and capital, because the latter are not simply natural objects but reified forms of social relations. Just as paper money has purchasing power not because of the nature of the paper itself, but because of the entire system of social exchange it embodies. The fetishes of commodities, money, and capital become components of the social totality; destroying them means breaking away from the entire system of social exchange, which is almost inconceivable in modern society.

马克思对拜物教的理解经历了逐步深化和转变的过程。从早期关注拜物教概念开始，经由《1844年经济学哲学手稿》《德意志意识形态》《政治经济学批判大纲》的探索，直到《资本论》的系统阐述，在这一过程中，拜物教的崇拜对象由早期的自然物神发展为资本主义社会中商品、货币、资本的物神。与自然物神不同，这些人造的物神获得了“不可毁灭性”。人们可以砸碎不灵验的神像，但却难以主动摧毁货币和资本，因为后者并非单纯的自然物，而是社会关系的物化形式。正如纸币之所以具有购买力，并非由于纸张本身的性质，而在于它所承载的整个社会交换体系。商品、货币、资本的物神成为了社会总体性的组成部分，摧毁它意味着脱离整个社会交换体系，这在现代社会几乎是不可设想的。

If the sacred power of natural fetishes originates from human fear of and dependence on natural forces, then the emergence of man-made fetishes in capitalist society has more complex structural roots. In the *Grundrisse*, Marx reveals the appearance of commodity fetishism, criticizing economists who “regard the social relations of production and the determinations acquired by objects under these relations as natural properties of things. This crude materialism is a equally crude idealism, even a fetishism, which ascribes to things social relations as immanent determinations, thereby mystifying them.” This passage indicates that under the capitalist mode of production, the social relations created by humans are transformed into determinations of things and confront humans in the form of things. This process means a re-naturalization of social forces. This transformation veils things in mystery, giving commodities, money, and capital an “objective” status that transcends individual consciousness. When the laws of the market and the law of value appear to operate like natural laws on the surface, people often find it difficult to realize that they are being dominated by forces they themselves have created, and they lose the capacity for negation and transcendence. The “indestructibility” of the fetish constitutes a key characteristic of commodity fetishism.

如果说自然物神的神圣力量源于人对自然力量的恐惧与依赖，那么资本主义社会中人造物神的出现，则有着更为复杂的结构性根源。马克思在《政治经济学批判大纲》中揭示了商品拜物教的表象，他批判经济学家们“把人们的社会生产关系和受这些关系支配的物所获得的规定性看作物的自然属性，这种粗俗的唯物主义，是一种同样粗俗的唯心主义，甚至是一种拜物教，它把社会关系作为物的内在规定归之于物，从而使物神秘化”。这段话指明，在资本主义生产方式下，人创造的社会关系被转化为物的规定性，并以物的形式与人相对立。这一过程意味着社会力量的再度自然化。这种转化给物披上神秘的面纱，使得商品、货币、资本获得了超越个体意识的“客观”地位。当市场规律、价值规律在表面上如同自然法则般运行时，人们往往难以意识到自己正被自身创造的力量支配，也失去了否定与超越的能力。物神的“不可毁灭性”构成了商品拜物教的关键特征。

Between 1879 and 1882, Marx devoted considerable energy to the study of primitive society and anthropology, forming what later became known as the *Ethnological Notebooks*. This was not an accidental shift in academic interest, but an attempt to grasp the laws of development of human society within a broader historical perspective. In this process, Marx developed new reflections on fetishism. In 1881, while excerpting John Lubbock’s *The Origin of Civilisation and the Primitive Condition of Man*, he wrote: “The idol should not be confused with the object of worship; fetishism is an attack on the gods, while idolatry is submission to the gods.” In this commentary, he distinguishes two types of fetishism. One is fetishism where the fetish can be destroyed; the other is fetishism where the fetish cannot be destroyed. This distinction raises a more critical question: why are there two types of fetishism with such different natures? What historical logic lies behind them? Through these inquiries, Marx attempted to construct an analytical framework of historical anthropology, using fetishism as an entry point. Although these reflections were not systematically integrated into the system of historical materialism during his lifetime, this distinction nonetheless provides illuminating theoretical clues for later generations to understand the structural dynamics of world history, especially the evolution of the relationship between humans and things.

1879—1882年间，马克思将大量精力投入原始社会和人类学问题研究，形成了后来所称的《人类学笔记》。这并非偶然的学术兴趣转向，而是他试图在更宏观的历史视野中把握人类社会的发展规律。在此过程中，马克思对拜物教展开了新的思考。1881年，他在摘录约翰·拉伯克的《文明的起源和人的原始状态》时写道：“不应把偶像同受崇拜之物混淆起来，拜物教是对神的进攻，偶像崇拜则是对神的服从。”在这段评注中，他把拜物教区分为两种。一种是可以毁坏物神的拜物教，另一种则是不可毁坏物神的拜物教。这一区分引发了更为关键的问题：为何会存在两种性质迥异的拜物教？其背后是怎样的历史逻辑？通过这些追问，马克思尝试以拜物教为切入点，建构一种历史人类学的分析框架。尽管相关思考未能在他生前系统地纳入历史唯物主义体系之中，但这一区分也为后人理解世界历史的结构性动力，尤其是人与物的关系演变，提供了富有启发性的理论线索。

The development of world history is not linear progression, but advances continuously in the tension between the succession of forms of “dependence” and the development of subjectivity. In the *Grundrisse*, Marx outlines the stage structure of world history through three forms of “dependence”: personal dependence, personal independence based on objective dependence, and the free individuality based on the universal development of individuals and the subordination of their communal, social productivity as their social wealth. Within this framework, the distinction of fetishism not only reveals changes in the object of worship across different historical stages, but also uncovers the complex transformative relationship between the dynamic of human subjectivity, natural forces, and social forces.

世界历史的发展并非线性递进，而是在“依赖关系”形态的更替与主体性发展的张力中不断推进。马克思在《政治经济学批判大纲》中以“依赖关系”的三种形态勾勒出世界历史的阶段性结构：人的依赖关系，以物的依赖为基础的个人独立，以个人全面发展为基础的自由人的联合体。在这一框架下，拜物教的区分不仅呈现出不同历史阶段中崇拜对象的变化，更揭示出人的主体性动力与自然力量、社会力量之间复杂的转化关系。

In the stage of “personal dependence,” humanity was under the direct domination of blood-based communities, and subjectivity was still in its infancy. Faced with powerful and mysterious natural forces, people sought to establish a connection with nature by projecting fear and desire onto natural objects. But this connection was external; the relationship between humans and the object-god could be severed at any time through external forms, such as smashing idols. The emergence of the scientific revolution became a key turning point in the development of subjectivity. By revealing the laws of nature, humanity gradually cast off its mystified dependence on nature, moving from an earlier faith-based submission to a rationalized understanding and grasp. In this process, individuals gained the possibility of transcending blood-based communities, pushing history into the stage of individual independence based on dependence on things. In this stage, individuals acquired formal independence but fell into dependence on the reified social relations they themselves had created. Commodities, money, and capital acquired an objective power transcending individual will, giving rise to a new fetishism. This naturalization of social relations heralded a renewed loss of subjectivity. Even if all idols were smashed, the relations of dependence themselves persisted in social form. The focus of disenchantment therefore needed to shift from nature to society; it was necessary to reveal the human relations and practices behind money, prices, and capital, and to rebuild human subjectivity through the transformation of productive forces and relations of production. It is in this sense that the association of free individuals becomes the inevitable direction of historical development, enabling individuals to overcome dependence on things while maintaining independence, and to place social forces once again under humanity’s conscious control. This is not a simple return to early blood-based communities, but the establishment of subjectivity at a higher level.

在“人的依赖关系”阶段，人类处于血缘共同体的直接支配之下，主体性尚处于萌芽状态。面对强大而神秘的自然力量，人通过将恐惧与渴望投射到自然之物上，试图与自然建立联系。但这种联系是外在的，人与物神的关系随时可以通过外在的形式中断，例如毁弃神像。科学革命的出现成为主体性发展的关键转折点。通过揭示自然规律，人类逐步摆脱了对自然的神秘化依赖，从原先的信仰性屈从转向理性化的理解和把握。在这一进程中，个体获得了超越血缘共同体的可能性，推动历史迈入以物的依赖为基础的个人独立阶段。在这个阶段，个体获得了形式上的独立，但却陷入了对自己创造的物化的社会关系的依赖。商品、货币、资本获得了超越个体意志的客观力量，形成了新的拜物教。这种社会关系的自然化，预示着主体性的再度失落。即使砸碎所有的偶像，依赖关系本身仍以社会形式存续。祛魅的重心因此需要从自然转向社会，必须揭示货币、价格与资本背后的人的关系与实践，通过生产力和生产关系的变革重建人的主体性。正是在这一意义上，自由人的联合体成为历史发展的必然指向，它使个体在保持独立的同时克服对物的依赖，将社会力量重新置于人的自觉掌握之中。它不是对早期血缘共同体的简单回归，而是在更高水平上实现的主体性确立。

Contemporary digital technology continues this historical logic. Phenomena such as algorithmic authority, data worship, and the myth of artificial intelligence are, in essence, new manifestations of modern fetishism in the technological sphere. They further strengthen humanity’s dependence on its own creations, while also providing the material foundation for higher forms of social cooperation. Human history is not only a history of the development of productive forces or a history of class struggle; it is also a history of continuous struggle against “object-gods.” In this new historical stage, how to transcend the rule of object-gods, to once again grasp the forces we ourselves have created, and to achieve free and comprehensive development, remains the fundamental question we must answer.

当代数字技术延续了这一历史逻辑。算法权威、数据崇拜、人工智能神话等现象，实质上是现代拜物教在技术领域的新表现，它们进一步强化了人对自身创造物的依赖，同时也为更高形式的社会协作提供了物质基础。人类历史不仅是生产力发展史或阶级斗争史，也是一部与“物神”持续斗争的历史。在新的历史阶段，如何超越物神的统治，重新把握自身创造的力量，实现自由全面的发展，仍是我们必须回答的根本课题。

(The author is a lecturer at the School of Marxism, Beijing University of Chemical Technology)

（作者系北京化工大学马克思主义学院讲师）

Online editor: Huihui

网络编辑：慧慧