| This question <542|37> overall <32|37> Grindage: <1204|183>. |
| Question 87: We know now that value consists of abstract labor. What does exchange-value consist of? |
| [36] Grindage: Marx is trying to describe how the capitalist system has evolved into using money and how it has abstracted out labor. |
| When use-value (labor) becomes abstract and commodities can be exchanged by equating them in terms of a universal equivalency, this is when exchange-value is dominant in the capitalist system. |
| Price is not exchange-value. It is merely a monetary expression of exchange-value. Exchange-value can be thought of as something that relates exchange values of all different commodities. |
| Exchange-value is therefore what is used just before money is used in the capitalist system. Money takes the equivalencies developed by exchange-values and equates universally all commodities and links them through money values. |
| Exchange value is the quantity for which one commodity would taken to be exchanged for a certain quantity of another commodity. |
| Therefore, exchange value consists of how much of a commodity is needed to exchange for another quantity of a commodity. These two quantities of commodities include labor and that will also be included in what exchange-value consists of. |
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