| This question <34|56> overall <46|48> Ida: <46|156>. |
| Question 15: If Marx wanted to start his book with first principles, why did he pick the analysis of the commodity and not the analysis of the labor process or the analysis of value? |
| [47] Ida: I think Marx started his book with the analysis of commodity because he felt that the idea of the commodity was the center of capitalism. It was the desire for the commodity and for all commodities which makes a capitalist society do what it does. The fact being that capitalists produce items for profits to purchase those commodities. The desire for commodities leads to greed and possibly the downfall of a society. Therefore, we must first get an understanding for the item of desire, being the commodity, before we can begin to understand why that item is desired. |
| Hans: Marx is a materialist. He does not believe that human ideas are what drives history. In his eyes, capitalism is not the outgrowth of the human desire for commodities (you probably mean use values). And Marx does not believe that the individual is a good starting point for analyzing society. It is not individual motivations but social structures, the organization of production on a social scale, which differentiates capitalism from feudalism etc. |
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