| This question <54|54> overall <57|59> Hans: <57|63>. |
| Question 150: How is the opposition of use value and value in the commodity expressed, made evident, in the Simple form of value? |
| [58] Hans: I placed this Question in the Annotations right after where Marx said: |
| The Simple form of value of a commodity is the simple form of appearance of the opposition between use value and value contained within the commodity. |
| I wanted you to elaborate what he might have meant by this. Fisherman [54] does not refer to Marx's specific argument at the place where the question was posed, but he gives some generalities about the difference between value and use value. He sums it up as follows: |
| The point that Marx is trying to drive across is that the simplest value relation is that one commodity may have no value to one person, but may have a value of a different kind to another person. |
| This is certainly not Marx's point, because this is a purely subjective concept of value. In Marx's eyes, the value of a commodity is socially given; he never talks about its value “to” some individual. The presently assigned Section focuses more on the individual than the rest, because it describes how individuals, by the transactions they make in the market, feed enough information into the market that market prices can oscillate around values. Although supported and adjusted by the actions of many individuals, the value of a commodity is an irreducibly social concept. |
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