This question <121|121> overall <108|117> Fenix: <1281|303>. graded B

Question 160: Why doesn't Marx say that the simplest value relation is that between commodity and money?

[114] Fenix: Simplest relation between commodities.   It is very simple for those of us living in our day and age to think of money as the simplest value relation between commodities. Money is the generic tender and every commodity that is produced today can be given a monetary value which represents its overall value. Marx feels that the simplest value relation for a given commodity is another commodity with the same value. This makes sense on a few different levels.

For one, Marx did not live during the modern 21st century. If you wanted to get meat from the butcher, you may have traded him a chicken, some eggs, bread, or some other commodity that equaled the value of meat you were receiving from the butcher. This system was more time consuming than our modern system of using a generic currency but the principle was the same. Money is quite simply a third party to the transaction between different commodities. If you receive a gift you do not wish to keep and take it back, you are normally given its monetary value in the shape of money which you then use to purchase a different commodity. It would have been much simpler to simply switch the one commodity for the other, instead of having to use the mediator money.

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