 Within Hegelian and Marxist traditions, a surprisingly wide range of social phenomena—including religion, the state, and private property—have been characterised as having the character of a fetish. Indeed, Marx sometimes treats the phenomenon of fetishism as a distinguishing feature of modernity; where previous historical epochs were characterised by the rule of persons over persons, capitalist society is characterised by the rule of things over persons. ‘Capital’, we might say, has come to replace the feudal lord. Consider, for instance, the frequency with which ‘market forces’ are understood and represented within modern culture as something outside of human control, as akin to natural forces which decide our fate. In a famous image—from the Communist Manifesto—Marx portrays modern bourgeois society as ‘like the sorcerer, who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells’ (Marx and Engels 1976: 489).