This question <7|9> overall <7|9> Hans: <6|11>.

Question 49: What is value (according to Marx)?

[8] Hans: Value is not determined by social need   I agree with Peaches's first sentence in [7]. Value is that property of things which gives them weight on the market. If a thing has high value, then it can be exchanged for large quantities of other things.

Now which property of things is being rewarded by the market in this way? In the second sentence, Peaches says it is social need. This is wrong. This is not Marx's position on value.

Peaches says something else in the second sentence: that value is not based on worth, i.e., use value. This is in agreement with Marx.

The last sentence is, if I understand it right, an illustration of the fact that value is not based on use value: money has lots of value but it does not have use value. If this reading of the sentence is correct (and please correct me if I am wrong, Peaches), then it should read: “Money is not worth anything unless it is exchanged for something else” instead of “unless it can be exchanged for something else.”

As you notice, I said that a part of Peaches's answer is wrong, but I did not supply the right answer, and I did also not give arguments why it is wrong. I want to leave this to others. Perhaps someone wants to jump in and say what the right answer is, and give as many arguments as possible why Peaches's answer cannot be right.

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