| This question <45|45> overall <53|56> Michael: <43|89>. |
| Question 22: If Marx wanted to start his book with first principles, why did he pick the analysis of the commodity and not the analysis of the production process or the analysis of value? |
| [55] Michael: A Few Comments on Bob's Submission. Make sure to be careful in chapter one. To assist you, let me make a few notes on Bob's answer [45] to Question 22. First, Bob states that “The realization that commodities equals wealth...” Marx, in fact, does not claim that wealth consists only in commodities. Since a commodity is something that is produced for exchange, it follows that the wealth of a capitalist society consists in more than the commodities it produces (since some things we consume are not produced by human labor, but are use values nevertheless. Air, for example). What Marx is saying, instead, is that the commodity is the predominant form of wealth in a capitalist society. So wealth does not have to take the form of a commodity, but all wealth must consist in use-values. (Bob makes this point somewhat in his third paragraph). For example, a society wherein everyone produced only for their personal consumption would be a society with a certain wealth but which produced no commodities. |
| Secondly, Marx uses the term “value” in a special sense. I think that consistently interpreting “value” in the correct sense is one of the more difficult aspects of reading chapter one. When Marx defines what he means by value (quantity of undifferentiated human labor embedded in the commodity (remember, when we're talking about value, we're always talking about a commodity-value is only defined for things produced for exchange)) it seems easy enough, but you must remember to substitute that meaning in for every instance of “value”. A more particular point is that “value” is not the same as price, and is also independent of supply-demand factors. (The amount of socially necessary labor required to produce some object does not generally depend on supply-demand.) |
| Lastly, let me restate that Marx has to be read carefully, especially chapter one of Capital. If you feel a bit lost, that's not only OK, it's how everyone feels on the first read. Much more concerning would be if you did not feel confused. So read and then re-read, perhaps taking notes along the way whenever Marx makes special use of a word or introduces a new concept (drawing pictures may be a useful aid). Also, feel free to send me a personal e-mail (you have it in the syllabus, but the alias michael@marx.econ.utah.edu works as well). If I feel that the question and answer would be useful to the rest of the class I will post them to the free discussion list but I will not in any way identify who asked the question. |
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