| This question <110|104> overall <110|112> Hans: <109|112>. |
| Exam Question 58: What is value (according to Marx)? |
| [111] Hans: Value, Exchangeability, and Price Senco [110] adds relevant depth to the question. He writes: |
| Labor devoted to the production of commodities that are actually exchanged, produces value. |
| Yes. The short answer to the question “what is value?” is: value is congealed abstract labor. Senco also makes an important clarification what value is not: |
| Professor Ehrbar clearly states in his annotations, on page five of the blue edition, that “Value is that property of a commodity which allows it to be exchanged on the market... Marx uses this word to denote an economic category: it is that intrinsic property of commodities which finds its expression in the market.” |
| Actually I wrote: “which finds its expression in the market price.” Did you omit the word “price” because it conflicts with what you say in your next sentence? |
| Price is not what determines the commodities value, price simply reflects the current market conditions. |
| The first half is right, prices do not determine values. But the second half is only partially right. If there is an imbalance in the market which pushes prices away from their equilibrium levels, then Marx agrees with you and says that prices reflect the market conditions which create this imbalance. But after prices have returned to their equilibrium levels, then Marx says that the market ceases to affect prices, instead, prices are in this case determined by and reflect the values, i.e., the labor content of the commodities. |
| Senco's last two sentence are right again: |
| Hans asserts in [108] that “exchangeability comes from value.” I will add that value comes from labor. |
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