| This question <48|61> overall <48|50> Hans: <47|51>. |
| Exam Question 117: Explain the different parts played by coat and linen in the equation “20 yards of linen = 1 coat.” |
| [49] Hans: Asymmetry between Linen and Coat Grumpy [48] wrote: |
| Marx explains the different parts played by coat and linen in 139:6;V139:6: “Obviously the two different commodities A and B (here linen and coat) play two different roles. The linen expresses its value in the coat: the coat serves as the material in which that value is expressed.” |
| Marx says here “obviously”, but I bet the difference between the roles of coat and linen is not obvious to every reader, this is why I placed question 117 here. I would have liked you to explain to the reader in your own words what those two different roles are, instead of just repeating a Marx quote which they just read. |
| Marx continues his argument that the linen is the first commodity that plays an active role, and the coat is the second, which plays the passive role. |
| Ok, here we have a difference between the linen and coat: one is active, the other passive. Now you need to explain why the linen is active and the coat is not. You do this in your second paragraph, therefore let's jump there: |
| What gives the linen the active role is the need of the linen weaver's labor to be accepted socially, or in other words the labor of the linen weaver is accepted by the economy and this gives the linen the active role of a commodity. |
| Your reformulation “in other words” shows that you did not understand Marx's argument. What makes the linen weaver so active is exactly the fact that her labor is not necessarily accepted in the economy. She put a lot of labor into the linen, and now she is hungry and needs to see something for her labor. Therefore she will not leave a stone unturned until she has found someone who needs her linen and can give something in exchange which she needs. |
| You say it better in the next sentence, but there you should leave the “raw material” out; this is true for every commodity, whether raw material or finished product. (As you say yourself elsewhere in your submission, the form of value has no relation to the use values involved.) |
| The need of the labor of a raw material to be accepted socially is what defines the active role of a commodity. |
| You make two other remarks which are evidence of misunderstandings. The first is: |
| From Marx we learn that the two commodities are not interchangeable. |
| This sounds here as if the two commodities could not be exchanged on the market with each other. Of course they can. I used the phrase “not interchangeable,” not Marx, and I meant by it that the Simple form of value is not symmetric, the two sides play different roles. I realize now that this is easy to misunderstand, therefore I changed the wording for the next edition of my Annotations. |
| Your second misunderstanding is: |
| So when we are saying that the 20 yards of linen are worth 1 coat, we are saying one coat is the value of 20 yards of linen. This does not mean that the value of the 20 yards of linen is equal to the value of one coat. |
| Of course the values are equal. We are just not saying it here in this way. Maybe the point I wanted to make is easier to understand if you think in terms of dollars instead of coats. Say there is some linen you want to buy, and the price tag is 15 dollars. Then you can say: “the value of the linen is equal to the value of 15 dollars,” but you can also simply say: “the value of linen is 15 dollars.” Both things say roughly the same, although there are nuances of differences between them. The statement “20 yards of linen is worth one coat” should be understood to be more akin the statement “value of linen is 15 dollars” than to the statement “the value of the linen is equal to the value of 15 dollars.” |
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