| This question <9|20> overall <10|12> Hans: <8|12>. |
| Question 49: What is value (according to Marx)? |
| [11] Hans: Use value of money In message [9], Dragonfly argued that money has a use value. I.e., that people desire money not only in order to buy things with it, but also for its own sake. Marx agrees that people want money for its own sake, but what drives them is not the use value of money, but they are, so to say, under the spell of value itself. Here is, in rough outlines, how this goes, but we will discuss these things later in more detail: |
| (1) Marx says that every commodity has two sides, it is value and use value. Money is the value side of the commodity that has shaken off the cumbersome use value side of it. |
| (2) Under capitalism, this independent value, which originally developed in order to facilitate the exchange (that is not quite right but good enough for now), has developed from a servant to a king, from a means to an end. It has acquired the blind purpose of turning itself into more and more money. This is what Marx calls capital. |
| (3) Marx argues that capital's drive for self-expansion does not come from the greed of its owner but it is a necessity anchored in the structure of the capitalist economy. Case in point: a capitalist who does not actively and aggressively pursue profits and expand, will go under in competition. If he wants to remain a capitalist, he has no choice. He is the slave of self-expanding value. |
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