I really enjoyed learning more about your views on the economic history of slavery, particularly through the lens of Marx. Concepts like “commodity fetishism” offer important insight into how humans construct value in objects and thus contribute to things like materialism within capitalism. Your discussion on how this relates to the commodification of humans in slavery was incredibly profound and nuanced. As commodities, enslaved people were reduced into objects of their labor, which in turn reinforced the slavery as a viable system of production. I also really appreciated your candid approach that made this episode compelling and easy to follow. You could turn this into a whole history series, excellent work!
This was a very interesting and unique podcast! Analyzing through a Marxist point of view was definitely a concept I’ve never come across, but you explained it very well and I thought it was good that you acknowledged that his theories were contentious before discussing them. I also really enjoyed the analysis of commodity fetishism and the illusion of where value really comes from, and I found it compared surprisingly well to some of the work I do in sports analytics: team managers wrongfully place value in players based on the illusion of skill that the player’s physical characteristics provide and not on how well that player actually help their team win games. The last piece of analysis I really liked was the viewpoint of when a captive truly becomes an enslaved person – stripping one’s entire individuality was the extra gut punch that made the atrocities of slavery that much more sinister and degrading. All in all, this was a great listen, fantastic work!
I really enjoyed learning more about your views on the economic history of slavery, particularly through the lens of Marx. Concepts like “commodity fetishism” offer important insight into how humans construct value in objects and thus contribute to things like materialism within capitalism. Your discussion on how this relates to the commodification of humans in slavery was incredibly profound and nuanced. As commodities, enslaved people were reduced into objects of their labor, which in turn reinforced the slavery as a viable system of production. I also really appreciated your candid approach that made this episode compelling and easy to follow. You could turn this into a whole history series, excellent work!
This was a very interesting and unique podcast! Analyzing through a Marxist point of view was definitely a concept I’ve never come across, but you explained it very well and I thought it was good that you acknowledged that his theories were contentious before discussing them. I also really enjoyed the analysis of commodity fetishism and the illusion of where value really comes from, and I found it compared surprisingly well to some of the work I do in sports analytics: team managers wrongfully place value in players based on the illusion of skill that the player’s physical characteristics provide and not on how well that player actually help their team win games. The last piece of analysis I really liked was the viewpoint of when a captive truly becomes an enslaved person – stripping one’s entire individuality was the extra gut punch that made the atrocities of slavery that much more sinister and degrading. All in all, this was a great listen, fantastic work!