| This question <114|134> overall <115|117> Hans: <113|121>. |
| Question 100: Coat and linen are qualitatively different use-values. Are they exchanged because their use-values are different, or because the labors in them are different? |
| [116] Hans: Pulling the strings in the background. If the use-values were equal, people on the market would not see reason to exchange. But if the labors were equal, then there might perhaps be no division of labor at all, rather everybody might produce everything for themselves. |
| This intention of question 100 is to encourage you to think more about the effects which the organization of production has for our daily lives. At the beginning of Das Kapital, Marx makes exactly this kind of inference: he asks what the activity of the commodity owners on the market tells us about the underlying relations of production. |
| Many things which we may take for granted in our daily lives have their unacknowledged reasons in the sphere of production. For instance, one often hears that schools are so bad because there is not enough money for them. Why isn't there more money available for schools? The deeper reason is that the exploitative capitalist relations do not need well-educated wage-workers. If the cannon-fodder on the assembly lines is educated, this makes things more difficult for the capitalists. All they need to learn is how to show up on time and follow boring orders. Besides, it is useful for your employer if you are convinced that you are dumb and do not deserve better. This is exactly what our school system teaches. |
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