| This question <50|37> overall <80|82> Hans: <79|84>. |
| Exam Question 67: Is labor the only source of use value? Is labor the only source of value? (“Value” is here the property which makes things exchangeable.) |
| [81] Hans: What it means to be the only source We have three answers to 67. Caren's [37] uses this simple and specific Question to write a very interesting and far-reaching essay about exploitation. However I do not see the connection between this essay and the Question asked; therefore this essay hurt her grade rather than helping it. |
| Caren's answer to the Question is contained in the last two lines of her submission. It is right as far as it goes, but if Caren says that labor is not the only source of use value, she should also identify the other sources of use value. |
| Kalle noticed that Caren went overboard with her answer (apparently he overlooked the last two lines in her answer), and tried to focus the answer more. This is good, Kalle's answer [40] is focused, but unfortunately it is wrong. |
| Jake's answer [41] is for all practical purposes correct, but he interprets the question in a different way than it is meant. This discrepancy occurred in previous years too, and I want to identify the source of these misunderstandings here. |
| With the formulation: is labor the only source of use value, I meant to ask: are there other sources of use value besides labor? The answer I wanted is: labor cooperates with nature to give use values. Therefore use value has two sources, labor and nature (labor is its father, and nature its mother). |
| But I should not have asked the question in this way. The present formulation suggests that all use values must contain labor. This suggestion is not a logical necessity. It is not necessary that every single use values derives from all possible sources of use value. Not every drunk person must have imbibed every alcoholic beverage there is. But I know by now from experience that the present formulation of my question misleads a good number of people, therefore I should find another formulation of this question. |
| When Jake denied my question, he denied this secretly suggested assumption in my question, he said that there are things which have use value but do not contain labor. This also answers the question itself in the negative, because these things must get their use value from something other than labor. |
| A question to the class: how should I formulate Question 74 so that this misunderstanding will be avoided? |
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