Reification re-specified: The power of commodity-mediated societalisation

Against broader readings that extend reification across different social spheres, this article argues that the concept gains analytical precision when anchored in the economic fabric of society. It understands reification as arising from capitalist societalisation mediated by the commodity form. The concept designates a double form of power: first, the impersonal and abstract power generated by commodity-mediated relations; and second, the ideological power through which this historically specific order appears natural and unchangeable, fostering economic fatalism. The article also distinguishes reification from capitalist rationalisation, showing how fragmented rational calculation both presupposes and reproduces an irrational social totality. It further highlights the non-essentialist account of subjectivity on which the theory relies and clarifies the relation between reification and capitalist alienation. In doing so, it outlines a more precise framework for historicising reification and analysing its relation to socio-economic and political phenomena in contemporary capitalism.