| This question <47|52> overall <49|51> Ben: <24|204>. graded B– |
| Question 86: Use-value is the quality of the commodity, and exchange-value is its quantity. Right or wrong? |
| [50] Ben: Marx says, “A use value or useful article, therefore, has value only because human labour in the abstract has been embodied or materialized in it. How, then, is the magnitude of this value to be measured? Plainly, by the quantity of the value-creating substance, the labour, contained in the article. The quantity of labour, however, is measured by its duration, and labour-time in its turn finds its standard in weeks, days, and hours.” |
| What I got from this was that use value is measured by how much labor is put into the commodity. I feel that with more labor time comes a higher quality commodity. |
| Hans: It is sometimes true that more labor gives a better use-value, but it is certainly not universally true, and measuring use-value by labor input seems a pretty stupid thing. In fact, Marx was not talking about use-value here but about value. Those words must be carefully distinguished, see my [30]. |
| [50] Ben: Marx also said “Exchange value, at first sight, presents itself as a quantitative relation as the proportion in which values in use of one sort are exchanged for those of another sort, a relation constantly changing with time and place.” |
| What this means to me is that different quantities of certain commodities are equal to other different quantities of certain commodities. Maybe this will help one apple is not equal to a watermelon but 10 apples could be equal to a water melon. |
| Hans: Yes, you are understanding that sentence of Marx correctly. But I am not sure how this relates to the question. |
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