| This question <3|11> overall <9|11> Eagle: <330-16|25>. |
| Question 20: 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? |
| [10] Eagle: Primary Object According to Marx, a commodity is an external object, a thing which through its qualities satisfies human needs of whatever kind. We consider an external object to mean something like - paper, corn or lead. These objects can satisfy a man's need to eat or write a novel. The needs of human beings are either consumption, subsistence or a means of production. Nevertheless, these objects will and do satisfy what a human being wants to hold and have. |
| For Marx to start his book with an idea of labor would have been putting the cart before the horse. Before men can labor at something, they need to have a commodity or external object in their hands to do work. Therefore, Marx was right to pick the primary object of the commodity. |
| Before you can have an analysis of value, you have to have a commodity or thing to value. If we do not produce the thing through labor, an example being the air we breathe, then we do not have a commodity. Therefore, a thing like a rock has to exist to pound the grains of wheat to produce a loaf of bread that we can consume as a commodity. Ergo, Marx was right to start his book based on the commodity not labor or value. |
| Hans: On the one hand it does not seem you have done the readings or have gone through the other answers. Are you aware that Submission [3], which was handed out in class, also dealt with the same Question? If you are the second to answer a certain Question, then you have to refer to your predecessors. |
| Also your mistake of identifying a commodity with a thing that has use value is an elementary and an avoidable one. Did you read the study materials on pp. 8 and 9? Also Submission [5] gives a correct definition of the commodity, as an answer to Question 6 |
| On the other hand, you did some innovative and correct thinking when you said that the labor process cannot be primary because labor needs instruments which are themselves produced. This is very right and we forget too often to what extent we are standing on the shoulders of the past. Also the argument in your third paragraph, that one has to have something with value in order to say something about value is very right. If you do your homework I think you will make a valuable contribution to this class. |
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