| This question <114|114> overall <117|122> Hans: <105|125>. |
| Question 160: Why doesn't Marx say that the simplest value relation is that between commodity and money? |
| [121] Hans: The near impossibility of money-less exchange. Fenix, Marx lived around the time of the Charles Dickens movies, at the times of Ebenezer Scrooge. Old-fashioned by our standards, but definitely a monetized economy. People did not go into the stores bartering things at that time. |
| Even if you go further back in history, you will find direct bartering without money only in the most primitive stages of commodity production. As soon as there are more than a handful of different commodities, bartering becomes so complicated that it is simply not done. The traders always resort to money. The historical development of commodity production and the development of the forms of value from direct barter to money go therefore hand in hand. Marx discusses this historical development in chapter Two, beginning with paragraph 181:2. |
| Money comes therefore very early, and as soon as money is on the scene, the commodities themselves lose the ability to serve as means of exchange. The example with the gift returns in Fenix's [114] is a good illustration. The stores are willing to take christmas gifts back which you don't like, but instead of bartering them for different merchandise they give you monetary credit which you can apply to the purchase of a new good. |
|
|
|||||