This question <167|54> overall <168|170> Hans: <163|170>.  
  Question 82: Is Marx's concept of “value material” attached to commodities, but separate from their physical material, a metaphor? Is it a phantasy, an invention, which Marx needs to hold his labor theory of value together? Is Marx going overboard here? Or does it really exist?   
  [169] Hans: No Need to Study if you Already Know the Answer.   And if you think you know the answer, and someone else just sent this same answer to the homework list, then you know you are right, therefore reading the other answers is only a waste of time.   
  The problem with this argument is that wrong answers do not just fall from the sky but have their reasons. Therefore it is easily possible that different people come to the same wrong answer. For instance CMor [167] agreed with Poppy [162] because both were mis-reading the Barbon quote in the same way. In CMor and Poppy's reading, Barbon said that 100 pounds of lead is of as great a value as 100 pounds of gold. In other words, they thought Barbon said that the things themselves have no value, all the value comes from us humans. But Barbon said something different, namely, that 100 pounds' worth of lead is of as great a value as 100 pounds' worth of gold. 100 pounds' worth of lead is the amount of lead you can buy with 100 pounds, the British currency. This is almost tautological, but Barbon wants to make the point that there is no difference between things that have the same value. This is a similar concept as Marx's value materiality, that as values all things consist of the same immaterial substance.   
 
 
 
  Students enrolled for Econ 5080 in 2009fa are invited to give feedback to the above message
Pseudonym:      UofU ID:  
Text: