Recent analyses by Lakoff and others have revealed the metaphorical bases of moral principles in Western cultures. It is argued here that Marxism is metaphorically based on the morality of the labor theory of value. Marx's analysis of the fetishism of commodities reveals the metaphors that mask exploitation of labor and exposes the extent to which these “immoral” metaphors have achieved, in Gramsci's terminology, the hegemonic status of “common sense” in Western cultures.
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