This question <1|8> overall <1|3> Hans: <629|4>.

Question 4: Can one say that happiness is the only true wealth?

[2] Hans: RedHead's Aristotelian Conclusion.   Thank you, RedHead, for stepping forward with the first homework answer! ReadHead's first sentence is unobjectionable:

In regards to wealth equating happiness and vice-versa, the definition of wealth must first be firmly established.

But what follows then is not a definition of wealth but a definition of value:

Marx speaks of physical commodities in terms of value and use-value. The problem I have encountered with this terminology is the vast spectrum of opinion related to defining these terms. One cannot place a blanket of uniformity on the value of something ... whether it be a possessed object, beloved individual, or a gut-wrenching emotion. Humans value all of these things so differently.

Next, RedHead gives two absolutely hilarious illustrations of the variety of human preferences, which I will not reproduce here. Then RedHead brings Marx's opionion about all this:

As Marx stated in this first chapter, “the exchange relation of commodities is characterized precisely by its abstraction from their use-values”.

RedHead paraphrases this in his own words:

Though society has put a monetary value on the materials and products for the sake of commerce, their true value varies greatly from person to person.

This paraphrase is only partly accurate. Marx says indeed that the market prices of commodities stand in no relation to their use-values. But Marx does not conclude from this that the exchange proportions are simply social fictions, invented for the sake of commerce, with no inner substance. Nevertheless RedHead is in good company, because his conclusion is identical to that of the famous Greek philosopher Aristotle, who said that their exchange proportions

must be something foreign to the true nature of these things, a mere ‘makeshift for practical purposes’.

This was a quote from Marx discussing Aristotle in Capital on p. 151:3. Marx's own theory is different: the exchange proportions do not reflect the use-values but they reflect a different aspect of the commodities, namely, their labor content.

Well, what does all this have to do with question 4? Not much, because for question 4 we do not need a definition of value but a definition of wealth. Nevertheless, this was a thoughtful and well written answer, and RedHead has earned an A- with it.

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