| This question <42|42> overall <51|54> Hans: <49|58>. |
| Question 109: What does the qualitative equation “linen = coat” tell us about the coat? about the linen? |
| [53] Hans: Paraphrases Don't Pay Off The purpose of the Questions and Answer procedure is: if you express Marx's thoughts in your own words, it becomes apparent where the misunderstandings are. And since you are usually not the only one who has these misunderstandings, we all learn something from it. |
| Sometimes a class participant does not want to go through the trouble of understanding Marx, but they submit a text which is a paraphrase of certain passages of Marx's text, often with signs that they are not understood, and taken out of context. If I catch you doing this, you will not be pleased about your grade. |
| Golf's [42] is an example of this. Here it is, with my comments: |
| Marx uses this equation to tell us that the coat “counts as the form of existence of value, as the material embodiment of value, for only as such is it the same as the linen”. |
| This is not a paraphrase of Marx, but a direct quote, made recognizable as such. I have no objection to this. |
| It is not just Marx who is telling us that the coat is the incarnation of value, but the agents themselves, when they make the exchange, make this statement through their practical actions. (At least this is what Marx believes.) |
| The coat has value, which can then be used to purchase linen. |
| Formulated this way it is true for every commodity. Every commodity has value. By selling the commodity you turn the commodity into money: now you no longer have the commodity but you still have it value, in the form of money. Then you can use this value to buy another commodity. Now in the coat-linen example there is no money, but the coat is the money. As I wrote in the Annotations, the coat not only has value but it is the embodiment of value which can be used to buy linen. |
| The linen on the other hand is value that is expressed. Linen is associated with the coat as being equal in value to it, which then can be exchanged for the coat. |
| This is a paraphrase of the following passage in V 141:2: |
| It is only the value of the linen that is expressed. And how? By being related to the coat as its ‘equivalent’, or ‘the thing exchangeable’ with it. |
| I don't want you to send me paraphrases. I want you to formulate it fresh in your own mind. In addition, Golf misunderstood the last sentence. The ‘its’ and ‘it’ in Marx's last sentence refer to the linen, not the coat. The linen cannot express its value by being exchangeable for coats. It has no power over it whether the owner of a coat will ever be willing to give his coat in exchange for linen. But it can make coats exchangeable for linen, i.e., whenever someone comes with a coat and wants linen for it the linen weaver can say yes. |
| Although the linen and the coat play different parts, they both have value. |
| Of course linen and coat have value. But what Marx was after in this paragraph is: in the exchange relation “20 yards of linen = one coat” they both express their value-being, i.e., they announce to the world that they have value, although they do it in different ways. |
| And only when they have been reduce to the same unit, can they then be “comparable in quantitative terms”. Once they have been reduced, they have become a common commodity which can then be exchanged. |
| This is a paraphrase of the following passage in 141:3/o, in which Marx argues that it is wrong to only look at the quantitative value relations: |
| It is overlooked that the magnitudes of different things only become comparable in quantitative terms when they have been reduced to the same unit. Only as expressions of the same unit do they have a common denominator, and are therefore commensurable magnitudes. |
| Golf's paraphrase says that commodities could not be exchanged if they did not have value. This is a negative argument, and this is indeed how Marx argued in Section 1. Now, in Section 3, Marx looks for positive expressions of the value of the commodities in their exchange relations. By putting this at the end of his submission (and also by other details of his submission), Golf shows that he does not even understand the question Marx is asking here. |
| I am hoping to convince you that the best strategy in this class is to make honest efforts to grapple with the text. This will not only give you a good grade, but this way you also learn some important skills. This is not the only difficult text which you will encounter in your lives. |
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