| This question <89|136-1> overall <127-1|127-3> Brutal: <127-1|142>. |
| Question 203: Marx implies that Ricardo should not have agreed with the following passage by Destutt the Tracy: “‘As it is certain that our physical and moral faculties are alone our original riches, the employment of those faculties, labor of some kind, is our original treasure, and it is always from this employment that all those things are created which we call riches ... It is certain, too, that all those things only represent the labor which has created them, and if they have a value, or even two distinct values (use value and exchange value), they can only derive them from that' (the value) ‘of the labor from which they emanate'” Are there any errors in this passage? What are they? |
| [127-2] Brutal: Destutt's mistakes Destutt makes three errors in this passage. They are: |
| 1) Use value only comes from labor. Marx makes it very clear that use value comes from nature and labor (133:2/o also see English only Annotations page 26). |
| 2) Use value and exchange value come from labor. Destutt should have said that use value comes from concrete labor and value from abstract labor. This shows that Destutt did not recognize the different forms of labor and by agreeing with this statement Ricardo makes the same mistake (Brutal [81] and Hans [84]). |
| 3) The mistake that seems to bother Marx the most is when Destutt says, “[Commodities] have a value, or even two distinct values, they can only derive them from that of labor.” What Destutt is saying is that the value of a commodity comes from the value of labor. This logic leads one in circles without knowing where the value of the commodity labor comes from. However, Marx makes it clear (as does Hans) that value comes from labor itself (Hans [89]). |
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