| This question <127-2|137-5> overall <136|136-2> PowderNow: <100|136-2>. |
| 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? |
| [136-1] PowderNow: Marx disagrees with this passage made by Destutt the Tracy and feels that Ricardo is making the same mistake by agreeing with the statement. Marx would point out that Destutt the Tracy made three errors in the paragraph. First, Destutt proclaims that both value and use value come from labor. He does not recognize the two aspects of labor, concrete and abstract, but lumps them together as one. Marx would have stated that use value comes from concrete labor and value from abstract labor. |
| The second mistake that Destutt makes is that the value of a commodity comes from the value of the labor. Marx would say that the value of a commodity comes from the labor itself. Value is congealed abstract labor, the value is not caused by labor, but is the labor. As Hans said in [57], “One does not say ice is caused by water, or ice is the result of water, but ice is water.” |
| The third mistake made by Destutt is the assumption that use value comes only from labor. Marx would say that use value comes from concrete labor as well as nature and that value comes just from abstract labor. |
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