| This question <74|87> overall <80|82> Gunther: <330-38|114-2>. |
| Question 77: What does Marx understand to be the riddle of money? |
| [81] Gunther: Answering Marx's Money Riddle. With the discussion that ensued the first day of class in regards to the Marines and the acceptance of the U.S. dollar I have been wondering what Marx thought of money and its use. With this weeks reading I have gained a glimse at what he may of thought. I basically agree with the comments in response [66] (sorry, I forgot to write down the name) however, I do no agree with the conclusion. |
| Marx describes two forms of value; use value, which is the natural form, and value, or the material of a commodity. The natural form is its utility, this is not what marx wants to focus on, it is the value material that he focuses on to derive the relationships of commodities to commodities and from there brings money into the equation. ID [66] refers to the natural value as the main focus of Marx's arguments. This, I argue, is mistaken. |
| According to Marx, value material is social. That is, it can be measured in terms of human labour. This relationship is what he uses to look at the connection between commodity and commodity. It is not what is naturally found in them that is as important as is what labour went to the production of them. (That is production on a social level, not on an individual level.) Money, when based on the gold standard, had some commodity that was directly exchangable with it. It did not have to rely on the faith and backing of a country much like today's dollar. This relationship is similar to the commodity to commodity relationship. The concept of money is simply that of traing a commodity for another commodity, albeit a much lighter one. -- |
| Hans: Good contribution to the discussion. See my message [87] about it. |
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