| This question <53|53> overall <58|60> Hans: <58|64>. |
| Question 87: We know now that value consists of abstract labor. What does exchange-value consist of? |
| [59] Hans: Not Every Question Makes Sense. Melanie's [53] is consistent with the answers given last Semester: Grindage in [2007SP:36] said that the exchange-value of something consists in the things one gets in exchange, and Adam [2007SP:37] modified this by saying it consists in the value of the things one gets in exchange. This is a practically oriented point of view: it does not really ask what exchange-value is, but looks at the practical implications of the exchange-value, namely, that one gets things in exchange for one's own commodity. |
| Some study questions are in the text because I think I have the right answer and want to test whether you get to this answer too. Others are in there because I think this is a logical thing to ask for someone reading the text, whether or not I know the right answer. Question 87 is of this second kind. If Marx makes so much fuss about it what value consists of, does this mean we should also be concerned what the other social relations, such as exchange-value, consist of? |
| Right now I am thinking, the answer is no. Value is special, because it is a social relation that takes the shape of an immaterial substance in the commodities, as I tried to explain in [58]. Because of this, it makes sense to ask what it consists of. Exchange-value is a social relation which takes the form of the proportions in which different things can be exchanged on the market. Maybe a Marxist would want to decompose it into what it would be if it were only determined by the value in the commodity, and the deviations from this due to demand and supply. I.e., it is possible to analyze it, to ask further questions about it. But unlike value, exchange-value is not an immaterial substance, therefore the question what it consists of does not make sense. |
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