| This question <77|112> overall <98|101> Jasmine: <42|115-1>. |
| Question 75: Why can commodities not express their values in their own use values? |
| [100] Jasmine: Question 75 (again) First of all, commodities are things which are made or produced for sale or exchange. A commodity itself does not exist as a “commodity” unless the value is translated to other commodities. A commodity can not play its role without exchange relation. There is a relationship between two commodities that is like a mediator: both commodities don't work by themselves but once they polarized, a mediator is created between their relationship. In this case, the mediator is going to be the value of the commodities. |
| Commodities have their interactions each other. If a commodity is not exchanged for other things, it no longer has reason to be a “commodity.” In other words, once a commodity is exchanged to other things, then it is going to have a meaning to be a “commodity”; the value of the commodity is reflected in the other commodities. The value of the commodity is an invisible thing, however, the value which is inside of the commodity can tell us its own value through the other commodity. Commodities have its own value inside, such as effort or attempt of the worker of the commodity, and other commodities can prove the value as a use value throughout the exchange relation. |
| Hans: You have the right insight: commodities are not isolated things, but they must be brought in relation to each other. This is why they cannot express their values in their own use values. |
| But you started with the wrong definition of a commodity here. I said in my Annotations, and then again in message [68] specifically in relation to Question 75, that one should not define the commodity here as something produced for the exchange. Because then it follows by definition that it has to relate to other commodities. No, the definition of the commodity you need here is that a commodity is a product produced in a society in which all labor is performed privately and all labor counts as equal. Then it has to relate to other commodities to get its labor validated. It cannot claim social validity for the labor spent on it by just pointing to its use value. It must find someone who will buy it and in this way prove that the labor was indeed socially necessary. |
|
|
|||||