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On the other hand what the school embraces almost unchanged from Marx’s theory is his concept of commodity fetishism: 'A commodity is a mysterious thing, simply because in it the social character of men’s labour appears to them as an objective character stamped upon the product of that labour; because the relation of the producers to the sum total of their own labour is presented to them as a social relation, existing not between themselves, but between the products of their labour. This is the reason why the products of labour become commodities, social things whose qualities are at the same time perceptible and imperceptible by the senses. […] This I call the Fetishism which attaches itself to the products of labour, so soon as they are produced as commodities, and which is therefore inseparable from the production of commodities.” Thus, in a capitalist society, individuals do not want a product for itself, with the purpose of satisfying a real need, for its use-value, but rather for its symbolic, social meaning, its exchange value, solely determined by the market based on analyzing the existing supply and demand, and this way marketing can produce demand for products of no use.

Modern capitalism succeeded in creating a higher standard of living in a society now controlled also by mass media, shaping and being shaped by popular culture. As I mentioned before, marketing provides people with a myriad of different brands and products which helps create a false needs in buyers, the fulfillment of which will consequently create false sense of happiness and freedom of choice.

Another main subject of the Frankfurt school critics is culture and culture industry, its present state and the changes its heading towards. Due to exchange value overpowering use value of objects, the boundary that existed for a very long time between high art (associated with aristocracy and the elite) and low art (associated with the working and lower classes) is to be dismantled, mass production stepping in, producing for mass consumption. “High culture is what

we listen to while we are on hold waiting for customer service. It is what we pass on our way to the museum gift shop. It is what we buy to decorate our living rooms. Even where high culture is not simply a commodity, it functions more and more like a commodity, with an emphasis on the new, the latest, the attention getting, the controversial, the shocking.”