| This question <697|697> overall <695|698> Gregory: <691|98>. |
| Question 1: What did Marx mean with his formulation “the value form is slight in content”? |
| [697] Gregory: straight forward. Marx is explaining that the value form as a whole is straight forward or in other words not complex. Furthermore, he explains that the value form in its simplest terms indeed has no relation to actual use-values, a form of value is simply an expression of values. Hans explains in response to Sparrow's response [2005fa:1947] that the value form is simple in that it would take abstract thinking to break down its more complex components. In other words, it is so straightforward it is difficult to discuss its deeper more in-depth reasoning. Overall, the value-form is a “slight concept”, however the individual components can be analyzed to a much further degree. |
| Hans: The value-form, i.e., the exchange relations on the market, are an expression of the fact that all commodities are the products of human labor. Marx does not say that the value-form has no content, but that its content is slight. Nevertheless this simple story, which the commodities tell us whenever they are exchanged, is difficult to decipher. It is so small that one needs a microscope to see it (“microscope” meaning the very deep and abstract thinking Marx applies expecially in the early chapters of Capital). |
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