| This question <7|7> overall <7|9> Hans: <6|11>. |
| Question 47: Why does Marx write in C46:3/o; V127:1 “the valid exchange values,” instead of simply “the exchange values”? |
| [8] Hans: Exchange Values are a Social Reality Daklar hypothesizes in [7] that Marx wrote “valid exchange values” because exchange values, in Marxian economics are indeed something socially “valid”, while in modern mainstream economics they are merely subjective. |
| Daklar says: If one buys something cheaply and then sells the same thing more expensively, one's profit is “invalid” because it has no objective basis; one has not added value to the thing. But if one adds labor to the thing before selling it, then one's profits are “validated”. |
| Marx does not use this exact terminology, but Daklar pinpoints here indeed a basic difference between Marxian and mainstream economics. In mainstream economics, values are generated in your mind: the price you pay for something is proof for it how much you like the thing. In mainstream economics, you can never make a bad exchange. Your utility always increases, otherwise you would not have made this exchange. If someone makes a profit, it is because he or she increased the utilities of so many people. Mainstream economics makes it impossible to criticize capitalism. It disarms you. It is, as many have remarked, pro-capitalist ideology posing as a science. |
| Marx would say that the above justification of profits is based on a simple confusion between use value and exchange value. In terms of use value, every voluntary exchange is favorable, even if one of the traders loses in terms of exchange value. In Marxian economics, exchange values are not generated in the traders' minds but in the society-wide production process: they are proportional to the (direct and indirect) labor content of the goods. Instead of avoiding controversy, as mainstream economics, this theory generates it. (Compare here Question 55.) Once you link value to labor, you allow the workers to compare the wage they get with the value their labor creates. Result: wage is much lower than value created. This is where the capitalist's profit comes from. |
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