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[93] Ozz: Labor comparison and the Expanded form of value. Karly [88] covered what defects the
expanded form of value had very well and her comment on the lack of
simplicity summarizes it well. She said “the expanded form of
value uses multiple use-values at one time, therefore making it
complex.” The explanation of the benefits of the Expanded form
of value was missing one important aspect, the allowance to compare
labor processes. When taking a commodity, such as linen, and
expressing the value of it with multiple other commodities, such as
corn and iron, you are comparing the human labor that it took to
produce that linen and comparing it to that same human labor that it
took to produce the iron or corn. I think how Marx states it makes it
the clearest. He wrote “For the labor which creates it is now
explicitly represented as labor which counts as the equal of every
other sort of human labor, whatever natural form it may possess, i.e.,
whether it be objectified in a coat, in corn, in iron, or in
gold.” Thus an important benefit is the ability to compare the
labor processes of producing different commodities. To answer the
rest of the question, the other defects are the lack of uniformity: the
relative form of value of a certain commodity is different from that
of every other commodity, and Incompleteness: the representation of
value is never-ending because of the unlimited amount of commodities
to compare with. |
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