| This question <134|143> overall <138|140> Emma: <61|200-3>. |
| Question 79: Why can commodities not express their values in their own use values? |
| [139] Emma: Commodities expressing values As in the first assignment, I will attempt to lay out my assumptions and define my terms as clearly and concisely as possible in answering the question. I have chosen this question since it seems to me that, while deceptively simple, it contains elements of seminal importance to understanding Marx's theories of value and commodities in capitalism, two issues at the foundation of Marx's criticism of it. |
| Marx believes commodities are use values, or products, produced intentionally for exchange in the market, as opposed to being simply produced for a private purpose. They have a “double character” that lies at the heart of the answer to the question. In the first instance, or level, commodities are something capable of satisfying human wants or needs and are at this point the product of abstract labor. They have the substance of value, that is, they are pure use value due to some inherent qualities or properties that are desired at the time of production but which may not be desired in the future. In the second instance, or level, commodities are use values produced for exchange in the market either directly for other use values through barter or with money. Therefore, due to their desirability and exchangeability in the market commodities also possess an exchange value that is part of the result of concrete labor, that is, labor performed to produce a discreet product. It is through this second level that the commodity takes on a form of value via its exchangeability for other use values. |
| Up to now, I have attempted to define commodity and describe the two kinds of labor required to produce it. The next part of the question asks why a commodity cannot “express” its [exchange] “value in their use values?” Here I am assuming that “value” as used in the first occurence in the question refers to “exchange” value, consistent with the dual nature of commodities. |
| At the first level, the purely use value level, commodities have only potential possibilities for utility or exchange value. Commodities are first produced outside the social forum of the market, even though they are intended ultimately for participation in the market. Although, as the study guide points out, there is a social context at this level which determines what the laborer will produce given what he observes as market demand. His interaction with the market to decide how to direct his abstract labaor and apply his concrete labor is therefore a type of social component. Still, at this first level there is no exchange value to be expressed because for exchange value to exist there must be included a second social aspect, the market, wherein exchange value is determined. |
| For Marx, the expression of the exchange value of a commodity is a level two activity and is a purely social function made up of various relationships with other use values being offered in the market at their own relative exchange values determined in conjunction with other commodities. The exchange value of each commodity is therefore dependent on the market as the setter of exchange value. That a commodity has exchange value implies that is has exchangeability. This exchangeability in turn acts to validate the private level one decision to produce the commodity and allows a wide variety of different use values to interact rationally in the market. At the same time it validates the labor time expended to produce the commodity and confirms that the time necessary for production was “socially necessary.” Indeed for the producer of the commodity the labor he has expended in production only becomes useful if and when his product enters the social context of the market and interacts therein. For it is only such commodities capable of useful interaction and which have exchangeability that are socially necessary. |
| In short, at the use value level, level one, a commodity is only a possibility, it has substance but no form. It is only half developed. Its (exchange) value, however, is a function not only of its abstract level one labor, but also a function of its level two form or exchange value which can be determined only in the market. Until the commodity enters the market it cannot express its value as a whole since it is only in the market that its form is identified. |
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