| This question <68|100> overall <76|79> Flea: <54|152>. |
| Question 75: Why can commodities not express their values in their own use values? |
| [77] Flea: commodities as values or use-values Because use-values and values are two completely different things. As Marx stated in his first edition, “A commodity is something...twofold, use value and value, the product of useful labor and the congelation of abstract labor.” A commodity's value is the actual time and labor spent privately producing the commodity. A commodity's use-value is the process through which a commodity transforms from their “home-grown” natural form to their social form throught he production process. An example of this might be the changing of iron into steel, or even water into ice. The commodity therefore holds its form throughout this transition, but not until it is placed in society, and accepted, does the commodity obtain its worth and acceptance. |
| Hans: You seem to be reading the assignments closely, but you still have lots of confusions. And you apparently have not followed very closely the other messages about Question 75, which hurts your grade. My advice to you is: just keep on trying. You will be corrected a lot but this way you will learn a lot, and if you do, your grade will get better too. Perhaps you should submit your answers early in the week when there aren't yet other answers to worry about. Good luck! |
| Because use-values and values are two completely different things. |
| This cannot be the reason. It is very well possible to express value in something other than value. Marx says that a commodity expresses its value in another commodity's use value, which is an even more different thing. |
| As Marx stated in his first edition, “A commodity is something...twofold, use value and value, the product of useful labor and the congelation of abstract labor.” A commodity's value is the actual time and labor spent privately producing the commodity. |
| It is not the actual time, but the socially necessary time. (This only as an aside; this is not relevant to the argument here). |
| A commodity's use-value is the process through which a commodity transforms from their “home-grown” natural form to their social form throught he production process. |
| No, in Marx's classification their natural form is their use value form, and their social form is their value form. |
| An example of this might be the changing of iron into steel, or even water into ice. The commodity therefore holds its form throughout this transition, but not until it is placed in society, and accepted, does the commodity obtain its worth and acceptance. |
| Here you seem to be confusing Marx's transformational view of production (that production is not the creation of new things but the transformation of what is already there), and the concept of the form of value. Both use the word “form”, but they are two different things. |
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