FETISHISM RECONFIGURED: SURPLUS, EQUIVALENCE AND DIFFERENCE WITHIN THE PRODUCTION OF VALUE.

Given a post-structuralist critique of the metaphysics of presence within western thought, It is surprising that much contemporary theory that discusses fetishism still subscribes to concepts of substitution and disavowal which uphold a notion of self-present value. This study offers an original critique of traditional views of fetishism via a consideration of the role of surplus and equivalence within the production of value. Rather than describing fetishism in terms of a disavowal of a self-present determination of value, this critique recognizes that what is ultimately denied within traditional accounts is the artificial surplus production upon which its value is premised. An original account is proposed in which fetishism is perceived as an immanent productive process where difference generates signifiers of value. The fetish can be perceived as the means by which established measures of value are both endorsed and transgressed in relation to a restricted economy. This theory supplements the Bataillean notion of the fetish as an untransposable object of desire and considers the implications of a Deleuzean metaphysics of difference. The work of Deleuze offers a means to resolve the contradiction in which the fetish can be perceived as both an instigator and transgressor of value. As such, fetishism is found to be the archetype of value, rather than its substitute. An original contribution to the corpus of Deleuzean theory is made via an understanding of fetishism in relation to the Body Without Organs. Whereas fetishism has been discussed in terms of a reifying tendency, a wider consideration of Deleuze and Guattari’s work allows the notion to be considered from the point of view of transgression and becoming. Such a conception is found to have greater efficacy than current theories in that it allows the fetish to be understood as either a reified or transgressive value.