Contents 4
Chapter One 20
1. The origin of commodity aesthetics in the contradiction of the exchange relation 20
2. Powerful stimuli as an instrument of merchant-capitalist valorization 25
3. Courtship, luxury of the aristocracy and clear-headed bourgeois intoxication; chocolate, tea, tobacco, coffee 26
4. Capitalist mass-production and the problem of profit realization – the aesthetics of the mass-produced commodity 29
5. The first effect and instrument of monopolization 31
6. The unreality of commodity aesthetics vs the reality of promotional gifts; shop-lifting as the individual's reversal of promotional gifts 41
7. The second effect of monopolization 46
Chapter Two 52
1. The technocracy of sensuality – in general 52
2. The high status of mere illusion in capitalism 54
3. Aesthetic abstraction, philosophical foreplay 55
4. Aesthetic abstraction of the commodity: surface – package – advertising image 56
5. The mirror image of desire as deceptive illusion 57
6. Corrupting use-values: their feedback to the structure of needs 60
7. The ambiguity of commodity aesthetics exemplified by the use of sexual illusion 61
Chapter Three 64
1. The sales-talk – the roles of buyer and seller 64
2. The moulding of the sales assistants 70
3. The sales location, sales act, and the dissolution of the commodity into a form of entertainment; impulse buying and the distraction of the public 74
4. The moulding of the world of buyers 79
5. The moulding of men – men's toiletries; clean clothes every day; the image of masculinity; the penis enters the commodity arena 85
6. Trends in the moulding of sensuality 94
7. Commodity aesthetics 101
Chapter Four 108
1. The influence of commodity aesthetics on the working class 108
2. Comparison with socialism to clarify specifics of commodity aesthetics under monopoly capitalism; the influence of commodity aesthetics on socialism 113
3. The derivation of the most general social fate of the instincts under the relations of private production of commodities; the warping of sensuality and aesthetic fascination 115
4. Collective praxis and the illusion industry under capitalism 124
5. Art owned by and in the service of capital (I) 129
6. Art owned by and in the service of capital (II): representation of private enterprise 134
7. Stage-management and representation at a general social and state level, e.g. fascism as pseudo-socialism 138
Appendices 143
Response to an enquiry from the International Design Centre 143
From the postscript to the Swedish edition of 1975 144
Notes 152

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2024-06-27