ABSTRACT
This chapter develops a comprehensive critique of privacy that is based on Marxist theory and focuses on the ideological quality of privacy in capitalism. It points to the relevance of Marx's fetish argument for understanding ideologies in capitalism and argues that capitalism necessitates that people recognise themselves mutually as private property owners. The chapter analyses the public-private distinction in capitalism and relates the distinction to the concept of ideology. Marx's ideology theory says that specific practices are related to specific forms of thought. In terms of the idea of a right to private property, Marx argues that marketers must recognize each other as owners of private property. The inalienability of privacy cannot be interpreted as the guaranteed state of absolute privacy, understood as absolute withdrawal from social interactions. Dominant possessive individualistic theories of privacy are ideological as they originate from commodity exchange while hiding individuals' sociality. The chapter proposes to think of dominant notions of privacy as possessive individualistic ideology.
