Chris O’Kane, Social Constitution and Fetishistic Social Domination in Marx, Lukács, Adorno, and Lefebvre – Brill, March 2026

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.

Part of the Historical Materialism series, where books are published in paperback 12 months later with Haymarket.