This question <141|158> overall <148|150> Melissa: <82|160>. graded C

Question 306: Why does Marx say in footnote 38 to paragraph 177:3--4 that the commodities diamond, pearl, etc., only seem to possess relativity as exchange-values? Are exchange-values not relative by definition?

[149] Melissa: Diamond in the rough...   Marx says in footnote 36 to paragraph 177:3--4 that the commodities diamond, pearl, etc., only seem to possess relativity as exchange values because the value is recognized in a social process, as “…expressions of human labor” (a little later in the same footnote). Since the value is being recognized as a social process, the exchange value would be subject to the consumer.

I agree with Karly [141] that exchange values are not relative by definition, as it is the consumer who decides the exchange value. Each consumer will have a different exchange value depending on how they view the value of the commodity.

Hans: Apparently, when you read “value is a social relation” you think: value depends on what people say it is. Some social relations indeed depend a lot on what individuals do and think: fashions, the question which book becomes a bestseller and which doesn't, developments of language, etc. For the sake of the present argument I call them “soft” social relations. But there are also “hard” relations which originate in society, i.e., they are social relations, but they are much less under the control of the individuals. The question how much labor-time is necessary to produce a certain good is such a “hard” social relation. When Marx talks about the commodities' “relativity as mere expressions of human labor” he is thinking exactly about this “hard” labor proportion between the two commodities. This is their true relativity. It is reflected on the surface in the exchange proportions between the goods. When Marx calls these surface relations “seeming” he means two things: (1) they are visible, while the underlying relationship is not clearly visible. (2) but they are only the reflection of the underlying relation.

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