| This question <165|165> overall <143|145> Ames: <39|485>. |
| Question 217: Imagine a world in which humans only need one use-value to survive (e.g., some humans survive on carrots alone, others on boots alone, others again on shampoo alone, etc.), but production is such that each production process yields many different use-values (i.e., the production process which produces milk also produces shoe polish, record players, sausages, cooking oil, roller blades, coats, sunglasses, and tooth brushes, and many other things, as byproducts.) Argue that in such a fictitious world, the expression of value would go directly from the accidental form of value to the general form of value, bypassing the expanded form of value. |
| [144] Ames: fictitious society. Each production process in this fictitious society, such as the one for milk, yields byproducts (i.e., roller blades and sunglasses). In this example, x amount of milk would equal y amount of roller blades, and x amount of milk would equal z amount of sunglasses. Therefore, the accidental form of value (x milk = y roller blades) goes directly to the general form of value (milk, the equivalent commodity, is directly exchangeable for all other commodities, including its byproducts roller blades and sunglasses). |
| In this situation, the expanded form of value is bypassed because byproducts do not become exchangeable for one another without the primary product. That is, roller blades and sunglasses are not exchanged for each other. Rather, they are exchanged through the unified form of the product milk. Without the production process of milk, rollerblades and sunglasses would not exist in the first place. |
| In addition, each human needs only one use-value to survive, so the expanded form of value, where a product of labor is habitually exchanged for various other use-values, becomes irrelevant and unnecessary. The expanded form of value would not be applicable in this society. Rather, the equivalent of a single use-value IS the same everywhere, at all times. |
| Thus, the expanded form of value is not applicable in this fictitious society. The expression of value goes directly from the accidental form of value to the general form of value. Humans can use one equivalent use-value (i.e., milk) to exchange for the single use-value (i.e., rollerblades) needed by each individual to survive. |
| The fictitious society incorporates the general form of value and becomes a social relation involving all commodities. All use-values produced in the same production process are expressed in one single kind of commodity set apart from the rest. In this example, that commodity would be milk. The general form of value arises from the expanded form of value as a joint work of the whole society. |
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