This question <76|76> overall <69|71> Betty: <422|173-1>.

Question 158: Marx describes the selection of General Equivalent as an exclusion. What is the General Equivalent excluded from?

[70] Betty: general equivalent as value   Marx says in 158:4 that “Through its equation with linen [the general equivalent], the value of every commodity is now not only differentiated from its own use value, but from all other use values, and is, by that very fact, expressed as that which is common to all commodities.”

Like Pepper said in [67], things which have use value have exchange value. Hans said in his answer to Pepper that money (our General Equivalent) “can be considered a form of existence of value independent of particular use values.” I would then infer that in this passage Marx is saying that what the General Equivalent is excluded from is ever having its own use value. In the example, linen is the General Equivalent. Therefore, people would not trade their goods for linen so they could use its bodily form to make a shirt; they would use the linen to trade for other things they need. Linen would lose its use value and instead represent the use values of all other commodities. In other words, the use values of all commodities are expressed in the value of the General Equivalent, which excludes the General Equivalent itself from having a use value of its own.

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