| This question <71|71> overall <76|78> Hans: <75|81>. |
| Question 114: Coat and linen are qualitatively different use-values. Are they exchanged because their use-values are different, or because the labors in them are different? |
| [77] Hans: Causality Disentangled. Marx argues: whenever there is commodity production, a social division of labor must be underneath. This is pretty obvious, and we can just leave it at that. But Marx tries to be very precise, and my Annotations try to identify each step in his derivation. If you read the text closely, you find two statements which seem to be at odds with each other. In 132:3, Marx says: |
| Were these two objects not qualitatively different use-values ..., they could not face each other as commodities. |
| And in 132:5/o he says: |
| Use-values cannot confront each other as commodities, unless they are produced by qualitatively different useful labors. |
| Question 114 tries to get clarity about this: is is the first or the second? JohnGalt [71] stresses that qualitatively different use-values cannot exist without qualitatively different useful labors. This is right. But even if the differences in use-values come from differences in labor, they can have their own effects -- to say otherwise would be the error of reductionism. Indeed, if you look at the exchange process itself, only the use-values are present; the labor is somewhere in the background but is usually not talked about. Therefore I would say: the exchange directly requires different use-values, and since different use-values presuppose different labor processes, one can conclude from this that exchange also requires different labors. |
| I think this is how Marx meant it. The first sentence gives the direct effect, and the second the direct and indirect effect. This is a small point, but it is better to follow Marx even in these small details, so that we know we are not missing something really profound. |
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