| This question <134|301> overall <135-1|136-1> Hans: <135|138>. |
| Exam Question 247: What is the price of a commodity? |
| [136] Hans: Definition of Price This Question is an exam question because it has a short and easy answer: |
| the price is the expression of the value of a commodity in money. |
| Perro [130] says it a little differently: |
| The price can be defined as the sum of money used for trade of the commodity. |
| Perro's answer is more in the spirit of neoclassical economics, which likes to define money by its functions as means of circulation. In Capital, the function of means of circulation is not as basic as the function of measure of value: it is discussed in Section 2 of Chapter Three, while measure of value is discussed in Section 1. Marx says: money can circulate commodities because people measure the values of their commodities in money first. |
| Perro writes also: |
| Marx also discusses in C105:1 “imaginary money”. Here he explains that the amount of labor used on a commodity can not always be realized, but has to imagined or evaluated in order to set the price. |
| This is a misunderstanding. Marx says that for putting a price tag on the commodity you do not need any actual gold but only imagined gold. Nevertheless this process does depend on real gold because the price depends on how much labor there is in gold. |
| Perro's last paragraph is: |
| We can conclude with what Marx discussed in C104:3. A commodity's price can be determined in one single equation. Here he gives the following example; 1 ton of iron = 2 ounces of gold (where the gold, the money form, is the socially accepted form of exchange). |
| In this paragraph, Marx does not speak of the determination of a price but the expression of value. The equation 1 ton of iron = 2 ounces of gold looks very similar to the Simple form of value 20 yards of linen = 1 coat. But there is an important difference: the simple form of value is a very limited expression of value because it only expresses the value in coats, while other things express their values in other equivalents. The price, by contrast, is a society-wide expression of the value, because everything else expresses it value in gold as well. |
| PumpkinStar [132] has the subject line: “Money is worthless...Labor is everything!” By this he means that it is not the money material itself, but the labor which counts. If silver instead of gold were money, one would need more than 2 ounces to represent the value of 1 ton of iron, because silver contains less labor per ounce than gold. |
| Maktub [134] points out that one word in PumkinStar's message is apparently a typo. I found this helpful because I thought so too. |
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