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g consumption of the object. For example let us take the gas fire. This is an object which provides satisfaction of a need ie. that of heat. Its use value is realised when we turn it on during a cold spell and its use value is the protection it affords us against cold weather. If each and every object encapsulates a use value, then what is it that creates that use value? According to Marx (1981:28-29), use values, "...serve directly as a means of existence. But, on the other hand, these means of existence are themselves the product of social activity, the result of expended human energy, materialised labour". Thus, use value is the crystallisation of human toil and labour and it follows therefore that every object is, to some extent, the product of the same forces. However, Marx (1981:28) uses the example of a diamond to illustrate that use value is only the token which expresses a definite economic relationship, that of exchange value. 4.3. Exchange value. Exchange value refers to a broadly quantitive concept within which use values are proportionately exchanged. As an example the exchange value of a single house at ?0,000 can be expressed as ten cars each with exchange value of ?,000. Now, we know that a car does not have the same use as a house and we can therefore conclude that exchange value exists without reference to an object's material form and irrespective of the needs that their (the objects) use value satisfy. At this point exchange va lue begins to sound very much like Baudrillard's concept of symbolic exchange value. However, Baudrillard fails to recognise the role of human labour which goes into creating this value and sees symbolic exchange value purely as a method of hierarchical delineation. Further to this, Baudrillard falls short of the mark for he ignores the roles of ideology and alienation within capitalist production methods, which consequently create commodity fetishism. 4.4. Alienation and commodity fetishism. Marx's early work during 1844, entitled 'Economic And Philosophical Manuscripts', outlines his concept of alienation3, and formed the basis of 'Capital'. According to Marx, the process of capitalist production alienates the worker from the fruits of his labour4. Thus, the process of production relates to "a loss and servitude to the object" and the worker becomes a "slave of the object" (Giddens 1992:11). It is in this way that man loses union with gattungsleben; his species being, the essence that makes him distinct from a mere animal. The product which the worker produces becomes alien to him and, according to Marx, the only way in which he (the worker) can relate to that object is via purchasing it. Such an assertion immediately allows us to equate alienation with consumerism. Indeed, Marx argues that it is alienation that creates commodity fetishism. The production process is, for the workers, not a creative aspect of their life but rather, an instrumental aspect - a means to an end. The end to which labour is aimed is that of creating exchange value which will allow the labourer to purchase the commodities from which he/she is alienated. That is to say that the purchase of goods becomes an end in itself regardless of whether those goods satisfy a need or not. This displacement of goals is, according to Marx, akin to a fetish, the accumulation of goods becoming an expression of the alienated workers creative potential. As we can see, commodity fetishism of this type is a system-level effect w