WWKMD?, Episode 9: Marx and the Christmas Illusion: Gifts, Gold, and Commodity Fetishism

This episode applies Marx’s critique to Christmas: how the holiday’s joy is masked by commodity fetishism, Santa as a labor myth, and the manufacturing of demand that fuels overproduction, debt, and worker alienation.

Far from rejecting festive longing, Marx would diagnose Christmas as evidence of a human desire for abundance and solidarity that capitalism can only counterfeit through consumption.