Ayn Rand Meets Karl Marx – The Spirit of Unity

Quoting from Slavoj Zizek's work, "Living in the End Times", page 290;

…What this also means is that before we succumb to bemoaning the "alienating" effect of the fact that "relations between persons" are being replaced by "relations between things," we should keep in mind the opposite, liberating, effect; displacement of the fetishism onto "relations between things" de-fetishizes "relations between persons," allowing them to acquire "formal" freedom and autonomy.  While, in a market economy, I remain defacto dependent, this dependence is nonetheless "civilized," enacted in the form of a "free" market exchange between myself and other persons instead of in the form of direct servitude or even physical coercion.  It is easy to ridicule Ayn Rand, but there is a grain of truth in the famous "hymn to money" from her "Atlas Shrugged:

"Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction.  When money ceases to become the means by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of other men.  Blood, whips and guns or dollars.  Take your choice – there is no other."

But did not Marx say something similar in the formula just quoted, regarding how, in a commodity economy, "relations between people assume the guise of relations among things"? In the market economy, relations between people can appear as relations of mutually recognized freedom and equality; domination is no longer directly enacted and visible as such.  What is problematic is the underlying premise of Rand's statement; that the only choice is between direct and indirect relations of domination and exploitation.

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