In the second lecture of Marxian Political Economy, Prof. Venktesh Athreya examines Karl Marx’s analysis of the commodity and how the value of a commodity is determined in a capitalist society. A clear distinction is made between how Marx’s theory which highlighted the social relations involved in commodity production was distinct from bourgeois conceptualisation. These relations between people are mystified under capitalism as relations between things – which Marx referred to as commodity fetishism. Marxian political economy, therefore, becomes a scientific framework, for understanding society not just at its surface level of appearances, but also its underlying reality that determines these appearances and the contradictions that arise between essence and manifestation.