| This question <30|30> overall <29|31> Hans: <29|31>. |
| Multiple Choice Question 88: Which of the following family relations best correspond to the relation between value, use-value, and exchange-value? |
| (a) If you are value, use-value is your daughter and exchange-value your son. |
| (b) If you are value, use-value is your brother and exchange-value your son. |
| (c) If you are value, use-value is your father and exchange-value your son. |
| (d) If you are value, use-value is your daughter and exchange-value your granddaughter. |
| [30] Hans: Relation between use-value, exchange-value, and value. The most important thing to remember from the first homework period is that each commodity has two different aspects: it is a use-value, i.e., a useful object, and it is an exchange-value, meaning that it can be traded or sold on the market. These are two different aspects which cannot be reduced to one another. One cannot derive the exchange-value from the use-value. |
| In the presently assigned readings, Marx also uses the word “value.” One might think, wrongly, that this is the more general concept from which exchange-value and use-value are special cases. But Marx is not using it this way. For him, value is the underlying concept whose surface manifestation is the exchange-value, and there is no direct link between value and use-value. |
| I.e., in the above multiple choice question, answer (a) is wrong and answer (b) is right. Both value and use-value are inherent in the commodity, and exchange-value is the form in which the value manifests itself. Just as [21], this multiple choice question is not in the Annotations and therefore not assigned as homework, but it could come up in the first Midterm. |
| Let's make a rule in this class: whenever you use the word “value” you have to distinguish whether you mean use-value, exchange-value, or that thing which Marx calls “value” (which is rolled out only in the readings assigned today until Monday). |
| If we don't keep things organized this way, it is much more difficult to say intelligent things about the commodity. |
| Chris says in [20]: “A commodity is something that has value to those concerned in the marketplace.” Here we can only guess whether use-value or exchange-value are meant. Rob, in [23], begins similarly vague but then corrects himself: “A commodity is anything of value. Specifically, a commodity is anything with ‘exchange value’ such that it can be traded on an open market.” |
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