In "The Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret Thereof " Karl Marx explores human labor as a commodity to individuals in society. From my understanding, humans create the products that ultimately perform the services people need and want in the form of commodities, by taking materials and transforming them into essentials. For instance, cars, dishwashers, washing machines, dryers and toilets are all commodities. These things are not necessarily detrimental to human survival, but they sure do make life a lot easier.

Marx explains that instead of people interacting personally, "material relations between persons and social relations between things" are formed. I especially like Marx use of the word 'fetishism' to describe the human attraction to these material products.

Although this quote refers to how the fruits of labor are associated with the commodities produced, I feel it could easily hold true to the age of text messaging, instant messaging, chat rooms and dating sites. How many jokes have been made to the affect of "my husband loves his blackberry more than he loves me"? Our society has become individuals mass producing things that become integrated into our every day lives, which we simply cannot live without.

I grew up without a dishwasher in the kitchen of my family home. My parents had manufactured and (re)produced their own little personal dishwasher and named it Amber. I can tell you from experience, the simple commodity of having a Kenmore next to the sink saves a good hour and a half after a large Thanksgiving dinner and probably thirty minutes after a home cooked dinner for five.

How do you spend the extra time available because you have the opportunity to take advantage of these commodities? Glued to a screen of some sort I would bet; a cell phone, television, computer, or iPod maybe? While you are having a conversation with a family member or friend, how often do you glance at your phone during the exchange, in fear of missing something off in cyberspace? When should we expect to stop intimately communicating altogether and live in an all-encompassing virtual world? We’ve all seen the movies, right? Very recently the movie Surrogates was released portraying humans as socially secluded, and living their lives in the world through robot proxies.

These commodities surround us and are viewed as necessities by many people in our society. Thus, post industrialism, Americans have simply moved onto what I like to refer to as The Era of Mass Production. Goods and services run our economy and our lives. Instead of working in factories, mines and mills, Americans are spending their time inventing bigger (or smaller) and better gadgets and researching technology to improve that, too. However, when I look at what these luxuries have cost Americans, it makes me wonder if we are destroying ourselves from the inside.