| This question <35|28> overall <36|39> Hans: <32|44>. |
| Question 66: Why does Marx write in 127:1 “the valid exchange-values,” instead of simply “the exchange-values”? |
| [37] Hans: Quality and Quantity. One important aspect of Marx's thinking unfamiliar to most of his modern readers is the attention paid to the quality, rather than the quantity, of things. Modern sciences have developed in a different direction: everything is quantified, and the quality of things is rarely considered. |
| When Marx says that the valid exchange-values of a commodity express an equal content, his emphasis is on qualitative, not quantitative equality. Instead of qualitative equality one could also say one-dimensionality. As long as you have enough money, you can buy everything -- i.e., all the different use-values produced in the economy are treated by the market as just bigger or smaller quantities of the same stuff. |
| Marx's argument, as I understand it, is: if the market treats everything in a one-dimensional manner, then these things must also have one-dimensional nature in production. And then he argues that this one-dimensional element in production is human labor. The same laborer can produce many different things, and capitalists compete on the market place by directing the labor they are employing to produce the most profitable goods. |
| Marx's inference from the equality of commodities implied by their exchange to labor as the equal substance inside the commodities which determined their prices has often been criticized. But it makes sense if one formulates it as follows: if the market is one-dimensional, then production must be too, otherwise market and production would not fit together. |
|
|
|||||