| This question <83|83> overall <103|110> Hans: <97|111>. |
| Question 62: Marx argues that commodities are exchangeable only because they contain some common substance. Bailey denies this. He compares the exchange-value of commodities with the distance between points, which is not based on a commonality between the two points but is purely relative: “As we cannot speak of the distance of any object without implying some other object, between which and the former this relation exists, so we cannot speak of the value of a commodity but in reference to another commodity compared with it. A thing cannot be valuable in itself without reference to another thing” [mecw32] 329, fn. Comment. |
| [106] Hans: How distant is a relative? Oops, I meant, how relative is a distance? In a manuscript discussing the above quote from Bailey, Marx argues that the distance between two points is not as relative as it may seem. He brings two considerations. Both points are written by Marx in English, although most of the manuscript is German. Marx was probably sitting in the British Museum in London while writing this. The next two paragraphs are literal quotes from Marx: |
| (1) When a thing is distant from another, the distance is in fact a relation between the one thing and the other; but at the same time the distance is something different from this relation between the two things. It is a dimension of the space, it is some length which may as well express the distance of two other things besides those compared. |
| (2) If we speak of the distance as a relation between two things, we suppose something “intrinsic,” some “property” of the things themselves, which enables them to be distant from each other. What is the distance between the syllable A and a table? The question would be nonsensical. In speaking of the distance of two things, we speak of their difference in space. Thus we suppose both of them to be contained in the space, to be points of the space. Thus we equalize them as being both existences of the space, and only after having them equalized sub specie spatii we distinguish them as different points of space. To belong to space is their unity. |
| These are interesting arguments worth pondering. Should question 62 show up in the exam, this is what you ought to remember. |
| Here are some additional points which are not as important as the above food for thought: |
| (a) Even in this example of points in space, the relation between the points is only possible because they have something in common. This of course resonates with Marx's argument that also the exchange relation between commodities is based on a commonality in these commodities. |
| (b) How does all this relate to Thugtorious's [83]? I will not go into the details but give just one general observation. Marx is always very careful to investigate the qualities of things before looking at their quantities. Modern sciences have forgotten how to deal with qualities, everything has been quantified. Thugtorious in his argument also gives too much importance to the quantities of things. |
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