This question <540|546> overall <543|545> Elliot: <507|873>.  
  Question 299: How does Marx know what commodities would say if they could speak?   
  [544] Elliot: In looking over the annotations and the pdf version of Capital, I struggled trying to come to a concise answer to the question. I state that Marx believes that a commodity is an extension of the person who created the commodity. By this I meant that the commodity has a human element to them and therefore the extension of the creator. I failed to mention, that the only way the commodities can have relative “dialogue” is on a level of exchange-value. The commodities in no way can have a realization of their use-value, how could they? After all, use-values can fluctuate depending on the individual interested in a specific commodity. The only possible “dialogue” a commodity could have is on a level of actual exchange value against another commodity.   
  Hans: Saying that commodities are an extension of the person producing them is not a bad argument. After all the commodity relations are social relations, and all social relations go through the members of society. Why shouldn't we be able to do a lot of social science just by introspection?   
 
 
 
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