| This question <18|18> overall <18|21> Hans: <17|22>. |
| Question 74: Use-value is the quality of the commodity, and exchange-value is its quantity. Right or wrong? |
| [20] Hans: Does exchange-value depend on use-value? Toby does not believe that Marx is justified to draw a deep rift between use-value and exchange-value. And I am glad Toby has the courage to criticize Marx in his [18]; let's not pretend that we all have suddenly turned into Marxists because we are enrolled in this class. For the sake of clarity I would like to summarize Marx's position and Toby's position, as far as I understand them. |
| Marx says that each commodity has two different attributes which have little to do with each other. One is its use-value, and the other its exchange-value. The exchange-value (i.e., in a monetary economy, the price) does not depend on the use-value, i.e., the prices of goods are no indicators of their usefulness. The only link that can be found between use-value and exchange-value is that a commodity must have some use-value, otherwise it could not be exchanged. This is what Marx means when he says that use-values are the carriers of exchange-value. |
| This only means that use-value is a condition for exchange-value; it does not follow that the use-value determines the exchange-value. Every painting needs a canvas and the canvas could be called the carrier of the painting. But this does not mean that the canvas determines what the painting looks like. Another example is that every sentence we say must follow the rules of grammar in order to be understood, but this does not mean that the rules of grammar determine what we say. |
| Brandt [1997ut:134-3] was therefore wrong when he wrote that the use-value “gives” the commodity an exchange-value. Toby believes it too, he writes “I see the exchange value as a product of the use value.” I cannot blame Brandt or Toby for thinking this, after all neoclassical economics says exactly this, and it also seems justified by experience. If something is desirable then lots of people want it and its price goes up. The problem with this argument is that it is only valid in the short run. In the longer run, supply will increase in response to the higher prices. Instead of the law “useful products have higher prices” a commodity economy follows the long-run law “useful products are produced in larger quantities.” |
| What do prices then depend on, if not on use-values? Marx's answer, of course, is that prices are proportional to labor content. |
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