| This question <80|83> overall <80|82> Hans: <77|90>. |
| Question 141: If the first chapter is such a systematic discussion of value, why is it then called “Commodities” and not “Value”? |
| [81] Hans: Cancerous Value. Value, in Marx's theory, is not a subjective attitude which varies from person to person as ZACH says in [80]. It is also not primarily the meaning of the commodity, as Ashley says in [76], although there is some truth in it: value is some immaterial substance inside the commodities. Value is at the same time something inside the commodities and a social relation. |
| The problem with value is that in capitalism, value is not static but it is moving. It jumps from commodity to commodity and becomes bigger and bigger. Its self-aggrandizing movement, which can be compared with a cancer, is the main driver of the economy. Marx hasn't said this yet in the assigned readings, he will say this in Chapter Four. What drives the capitalist economy is therefore not the greed of the capitalists but the inner necessity of the social relation “value” to accumulate, to become bigger and bigger and to be concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. |
| Marx holds that social relations, generally, cannot be explained by individual motivations but they have their own dynamic. The topic of the whole book Capital is the anatomy of the social relation “value,” the explanation how it can and why it must accumulate relentlessly. Since social relations cannot be derived from individuals, it would be wrong to begin such an anatomy-book with individuals. Instead, Marx begins with the commodity, because the commodity is a simple and concrete object which gives us the entry point into the social relation “value.” |
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