This question <126|146> overall <126|128> Saturn: <60|172>.

Question 116: Give everyday examples of “material relations of persons” and “social relations of things.”

[127] Saturn: Material relations of persons and social relations of things   Assuming that person P is the owner of commodity X and person Q is that of commodity Y, they want to exchange their commodities with each other. Within this exchange, some relationships are established. Since each of them is interested in the other's commodity, material relation of P and Q is established. Material relations of persons are those relationships established only by the connections of persons through the material things which are being discussed. So material relations of persons will not be established without the material things or commodities which are being exchanged. In this case, commodities, X and Y, connect the persons, P and Q, with the material relation, and then X and Y are in the social relation of things. An everyday example of these relations will be the relationships between car dealers and buyers of those cars.

Hans: Good. You are referencing all previous answers, and you are bringing the earlier examples into a stricter conceptual framework. You are bringing out nicely the dialectics between material relations of persons and social relations of things. The only thing you are missing is that social relations of things go beyond being the mediaries of the material relations of persons. Cars are not only a social tie between the driver and the car dealer, but social prestige comes to be attached to the kind of car one drives or the brand name of one's shoes.

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