This question <4|4> overall <4|6> Hans: <3|7>.

Question 65: How is Barbon's statement that nothing can have an intrinsic exchange-value related to Butler's statement that the worth of something consists in the amount of money for which it can be exchanged?

[5] Hans: intrinsic worth.   If Butler identifies the worth of something with how much money one can get for it, this is clearly meant as a satire. Worth should be some intrinsic quality. But in real life, people are married not for their inner worth, but for how much money they make. This is the context in which Butler makes his remark, which is in lines 465-6 of Hudibras, Part II, Canto I.

Josh's answer [4] was thorough and thoughtful, but Josh seems to have missed this critical dimension of Butler's “definition” of worth.

Perhaps it was so easy for Josh to define worth as something relative because the fact-value distinction is part of our daily diet of indoctrination. We are taught that only facts are real, and that values depend on the attitude of the observer, i.e., values are always relative. Marx does not agree. Marx thinks that capitalism is a bad system, this is not a matter of point of view, but it can be proven scientifically. One of Marx's arguments is that capitalism generates illusions and false consciousness and can only function if people have illusions about the character of the society they live in. If one is a scientist, then one values the truth, therefore a society which condemns people to a life in illusions has to be criticized. Indeed, the subtitle of Capital is: “A Critique of Political Economy.” By this Marx does not mean a critique of the other theories of capitalism, but a critique of capitalism itself.

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