This question <44|36> overall <33|35> Nogi: <668|87>.

Question 74: Does Marx assume that only equal values are exchanged on the market?

[34] Nogi: Marx believes that exchange proportions are reducible to the substance inside the commodities themselves. He uses the example of exchange proportions of many commodities against wheat and says the exchange proportion is considered the exchange proportion of wheat and not the other commodities because they are reducible to the substance inside the wheat itself. Therefore I would argue that Marx does believe that only equal values are exchanged on the market.

Hans: Since the wheat can be exchanged for many different commodities, Marx argues that the origin of these exchange values is not something relative, something between the wheat and each of these other commodities, but that the exchange-values are the signals which these other commodities give about something that is inside the wheat itself. Each of these other commodities is saying: “I am willing to trade places with the wheat because the wheat contains labor just as I do.” I.e., the exchange-values are the surface signals about something that is going on in the hidden sphere of production, they point to something other than themselves. This indirectness of the exchange-value makes it possible that other factors can influence this signal too. In chapter Three, 195:2/o, Marx says that exchange-value can also be a signal of other things, for instance of a discrepancy between demand and supply. The indirectness is therefore an argument against the assumption that commodities have to be exchanged at proportions quantitatively corresponding to their values.

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