and I have one question that is dogging me. I think I will hold off on it for a bit though, because it is better to make sure everyone is comfortable with this.

Is 2a) regarding the division of labor just a procedural point for now?

Thanks and please continue.

Musings on #2:

The exchange value of a commodity is the cumulation of the the labor involved, for a bolt of linen the labor of the farmer, the carter and the weaver is all included, in an abstract sense.

There must be exchange otherwise a product of labor only has use value. In primitive society there may be division of labor, perhaps according to sex, age or skill, yet there is no exchange value for all is held in common.

"Ya don't work, ya don't eat."

If I come across a stone in a creek bed very well formed by nature to be used as a hand ax it has use value despite there being no labor input. {but if one expends time specifically looking for such things is that not labor too?)

So far, so good. Curves ahead...

Edit:A tangent: what happens to the exchange value of a commodity when it is resold or is depreciated? What happened to that labor?

Saying something is rare is the same as saying that much labor is expended without result, in order to "produce" (find), that which is found with little effort by the finder. And then, ya gots to pick it up and carry it.

You answered your second question with depreciation. To the extent that the commodity doesn't "wear" (get dated, etc.), the labor remains intact.

As far as primitive people go, there is no exchange and no private property internally. There are elaborate rituals to make sure it stays that way. Among the Indians of the North-West, for example, complex Potlatch rituals to distribute personal property were the norm, in a geography in which nature was quite favorable.

Yes... It is required for the logical derivation and is also historically accurate (logic conforms to life). But, it's still complicated because the social division of labor is required for commodity production, but commodity production, once begun, in turn gives an immediate impetus to the social division of labor.

you felt had to be introduced for this section.

"Let us now pass from the commodity considered as a use value to the value of commodities."

1) "So far as they are values, the coat and the linen are things of a like substance, objective expressions of essentially identical labour." But, we have already seen that the coat and linen are expressions of unlike labor, so far as they are useful. In considering the coat and linen as values, we are reducing labor to something which is obviously real but otherwise has no practical expression:

"Productive activity... is nothing but the expenditure of human labour power. Tailoring and weaving, though qualitatively different productive activities, are each a productive expenditure of human brains, nerves, and muscles, and in this sense are human labour. They are but two different modes of expending human labour power."

"...the value of a commodity represents human labour in the abstract, the expenditure of human labour in general."

"It is the expenditure of simple labour power, i.e., of the labour power which, on an average, apart from any special development, exists in the organism of every ordinary individual."

It is the commonality of this "human labour in the abstract" for all commodities which in turn creates the basis for value. Some observations:

1a) "Simple average labour, it is true, varies in character in different countries and at different times, but in a particular society it is given."

1b) "Skilled labour counts only as simple labour intensified, or rather, as multiplied simple labour, a given quantity of skilled being considered equal to a greater quantity of simple labour. Experience shows that this reduction is constantly being made. A commodity may be the product of the most skilled labour, but its value, by equating it to the product of simple unskilled labour, represents a definite quantity of the latter labour alone. The different proportions in which different sorts of labour are reduced to unskilled labour as their standard, are established by a social process that goes on behind the backs of the producers, and, consequently, appear to be fixed by custom."

In truth, mass production is nothing other than such a process, in which the skilled labor of the workshop craftsman is broken up into its component actions, each of which are then performed by unskilled laborers in combination. So too, the work of engineers is replaced, at least in part, by that of draftsmen with CAD systems, lawyers are supplemented by and partially supplanted by paralegals, and doctors by PAs, Nurses, technicians, and computer diagnosticians. In the real world, this reduction of skilled to less skilled or unskilled labor is a constant process, underscoring the equivalence of the two at some easily calculable ratio.

1c) "Tailoring and weaving are necessary factors in the creation of the use values, coat and linen, precisely because these two kinds of labour are of different qualities; but only in so far as abstraction is made from their special qualities, only in so far as both possess the same quality of being human labour, do tailoring and weaving form the substance of the values of the same articles."

2) But coats and linen are not simply values but values of a definite magnitude. This difference in magnitude between different commodities is nothing other than the different quantity of this simple, abstract labor congealed in each, measured in labor time.

"While, therefore, with reference to use value, the labour contained in a commodity counts only qualitatively, with reference to value it counts only quantitatively, and must first be reduced to human labour pure and simple. In the former case, it is a question of How and What, in the latter of How much? How long a time? Since the magnitude of the value of a commodity represents only the quantity of labour embodied in it, it follows that all commodities, when taken in certain proportions, must be equal in value."

3) Changes in the amount of simple labor congealed in either the coat or in linen, or both, will obviously change the proportions in which they stand in relation to each other.

4) We have been grinding along, and then, all of a sudden the following (with its corollary #4a):

"An increase in the quantity of use values is an increase of material wealth. With two coats two men can be clothed, with one coat only one man. Nevertheless, an increased quantity of material wealth may correspond to a simultaneous fall in the magnitude of its value. This antagonistic movement has its origin in the twofold character of labour. Productive power has reference, of course, only to labour of some useful concrete form, the efficacy of any special productive activity during a given time being dependent on its productiveness. Useful labour becomes, therefore, a more or less abundant source of products, in proportion to the rise or fall of its productiveness. On the other hand, no change in this productiveness affects the labour represented by value. Since productive power is an attribute of the concrete useful forms of labour, of course it can no longer have any bearing on that labour, so soon as we make abstraction from those concrete useful forms."

4a) "However then productive power may vary, the same labour, exercised during equal periods of time, always yields equal amounts of value. But it will yield, during equal periods of time, different quantities of values in use; more, if the productive power rise, fewer, if it fall. The same change in productive power, which increases the fruitfulness of labour, and, in consequence, the quantity of use values produced by that labour, will diminish the total value of this increased quantity of use values, provided such change shorten the total labour time necessary for their production; and vice versâ."

In points 4 & 4a, above, our pace of examination suddenly accelerates. It follows from the logical corridor we have been following, but the room that opens up is suddenly much larger than before. I won't stop because we are almost at the end of the section, but the above bears discussion.

And with a final repetition of the two-fold nature of the labor expressed in commodities, we are done with Section 2. Please do note the footnote at the very end of the Section.

What do you think?

First, is this still clear? Second, what does it mean?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e6/Twofold_labour.jpg/180px-Twofold_labour.jpg

Marx initially took to be an actual "antimony"/contradiction. (Not paradox because a paradox meant something else until guys like Bertrand Russell coopted the term. A paradox needn't be factually inconsistent, it was only a function of the reasoning/logic being used)

Anyway, what Marx wanted to know was why businesses are always trying to lower prices. Resolving this question was actually a significant breakthrough I think.

This is the section where my frustration spikes.

Concerning skilled labor, what of the labor invested in developing said skill? That of both the learning worker and instructor(s)? I can see where this line leads to argument for greater valuation of skilled labor, how is this resolved?

Gotta mull this some more. I'll be back...

Labor time is a constant, productive power, I'm guessing this refers to technique, mechanization and the like, modifies the amount of use-value being produced. The more shit we can make the cheaper that shit gets because labor is constant. $18.75 dvd players, anyone?(discounting the 'cheap' labor of Asia as by the time these devices were introduced there was virtually no production of such devices elsewhere.)

Concerning footnote#16, My initial tendency is to agree with Smith, as 'bout all of the jobs I've done have been wretchedly necessary usage of my time on Earth. I'm not quite clear what Fritz's beef with Smith was, mebbe failing to differentiate concrete labor(work) from abstract labor(labor). That I get, though working with the insubstantial makes me queasy.

Do I get it? Does it look like I get it? Kinda think so, though if so it feels a bit superficial.

that more use-value is produced in the absolutebut the use-value of a given object stays the same for the most part (cases like VCRs being outmoded by DVDs of course factor in as well -- and it is a VERY big factor). When the price goes down that is indicative of a loss of exchange value which entails a loss of value (because it takes less time to produce each unit)

between when something, due to age or rarity or demand, starts to have its depreciation reversed after having been resold, given away for years, and then it starts to re-appreciate, such as in antiques...is there labor in finding, re-valuing something?

Both devices serve the same purpose, I find the improvements marginal(skip/chapters). Yet we are compelled to junk serviceable, paid for products and to purchase initially expensive devices and a whole new set of media(curiously more profitable for the manufacturer). This continues until competition bottoms out the price point and a new, more profitable product is introduced (blue ray, whatever) and the cycle is renewed. This pattern is obvious with consumer electronics(your new computer is obsolete when you carry it out of the store), automobiles, military hardware, etc. On the face of it this is the result of competition, though I suspect that there's a lot of planned obsolescence going on. In any case the use value remains more or less the same while the exchange value is manipulated. It seems to me that on the abstract level that this is a major mechanism for dealing with over-production. Marginally improved utility(unless microsoft makes it, then all bets are off), more profits for the capitalists(dollars pried from our pockets), massively increased waste stream, it's fucked up.

Can I please have a planned economy?

The use-value is not impacted at all (or doesn't have to be). Increased productiveness, regardless of the source, does not mean that more commodities are produced. It can (and often does) mean that the same number of commodities are produced as before, but that the value congealed in each is reduced. The replacement of one type of use-value by another is a seperate process.

It also does not follow that there is any change in price. It depends on what happens to the values congealed in other commodities... and what happens to money.

... I mean on Marx... I guess I'm channeling.

Criticism of consumer society, crackpot theories of planned obsolescence or price manipulation, and the same old shit using "Marxian verbiage" does not qualify.

I ain't saying that there isn't truth to all of the above, but none of it has squat to do with what Marx wrote above, and took 15 years to do it, I might add.

The question on the floor is the two fold nature of the labor contained in the two fold character of commodities... with the objective of understanding how the fucker works WITHOUT regard to ANY manipulations, conspiracies, or rackets.

Just responding to the Kid. Naw, it's just one of those 'everyday conspiracies', the way things work. It is an aspect of the market which seems to have accelerated in recent decades and affects my job a good deal, I've thought about it a bit.

Shall we continue?

I was only telling BP, that all else being equal, that was one way in which use-values could be modified. My point was actually somewhat the opposite, that the process we're describing does NOT entail a "modification" in use-value. I then tried to redirect the emphasis back to value and exchange value instead.

Of course "all else being equal" is not a particularly helpful or realistic premise to run with..but sometimes it helps more than it hurts. You're right that I'm likely sowing more confusion here than I am dispelling (may be confusing myself too because I thought what I wrote was completely inline with what you just wrote)

Section 3 - The Form of Value or Exchange-Value
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm#S3

I will stick pretty closely to Marx's text in this section because it is really straight-forward. Stop me if it gets foggy...

1) "Commodities come into the world in the shape of use values, articles, or goods, such as iron, linen, corn, &c. This is their plain, homely, bodily form. They are, however, commodities, only because they are something twofold, both objects of utility, and, at the same time, depositories of value. They manifest themselves therefore as commodities, or have the form of commodities, only in so far as they have two forms, a physical or natural form, and a value form."

This is simple summarization of what came before. Be careful with this, though, because while Marx constantly does this repetition, he also often substitutes terms... and thus establishes equivalence. This is the Hegelian "style", i.e. the use of derivation and semantic determination in place of "definitions". The idea is not just to classify but to understand how we got there.

2) "Turn and examine a single commodity, by itself, as we will, yet in so far as it remains an object of value, it seems impossible to grasp it. If, however, we bear in mind that the value of commodities has a purely social reality, and that they acquire this reality only in so far as they are expressions or embodiments of one identical social substance, viz., human labour, it follows as a matter of course, that value can only manifest itself in the social relation of commodity to commodity."

Because, as far as value relations are concerned, it is really "the social relation of" person to person which is being described...

3) "Every one knows, if he knows nothing else, that commodities have a value form common to them all, and presenting a marked contrast with the varied bodily forms of their use values. I mean their money form. Here, however, a task is set us, the performance of which has never yet even been attempted by bourgeois economy, the task of tracing the genesis of this money form, of developing the expression of value implied in the value relation of commodities, from its simplest, almost imperceptible outline, to the dazzling money-form. By doing this we shall, at the same time, solve the riddle presented by money."

In fact, the science of this has advanced a great deal since Marx's time. The science in question is not Economics but Archeology. What Marx derives logically is largely confirmed historically, with the simpler forms being also the earlier... as we might guess.

With that, we end our preamble and start on the body of the Section.

"Turn and examine a single commodity, by itself, as we will, yet in so far as it remains an object of value, it seems impossible to grasp it. If, however, we bear in mind that the value of commodities has a purely social reality, and that they acquire this reality only in so far as they are expressions or embodiments of one identical social substance, viz., human labour, it follows as a matter of course, that value can only manifest itself in the social relation of commodity to commodity."

The defenders of capitalism would not claim that things have value separate from, outside of social relations, I don't think. They would say, however, rather than "I (or we) want (or need) it, therefore it has value, therefore I (or we) will make it" that "I want it, therefore it has value, therefore I will take it, or force others to make it for me."

I am still following along..

Police presence in Pittsburgh is pretty strong but not that intimidating so far.

This section of Capital starts us on that path (ending with "fetishism").

I agree with you that the "defenders of capitalism would not claim that things have value separate from, outside of social relations". Certainly they would agree that the values in circulation would not be obvious to a Martian. Still, the issues start to fog up as we start to turn the question over in our heads.

It is certainly true that an axe is useful. It is probably true that two axe's are also useful (a backup, in case the first breaks; conveniently placed in another location, etc.). When we start to get to 50 axes or 50,000, we want them, not because of their axe-i-ness, but because they each have value, and we can exchange them for other things... or for money, which is to say the same thing. Now your observation starts to turn on its head. Instead of, "I want it, therefore it has value", we now substitute, "It has value, therefore I want it."

We are actually using "value", in this case, in the two-sided way that Marx describes commodities. By appropriating a use-value, we satisfy some human need. By appropriating value, we take command of social labor... the labor of others. And, in truth, the two have nothing whatever to do with each other. From the standpoint of value, railroads are the same as cardboard boxes are the same as beer are the same as jetways in airports are the same as motor oil. In fact, we have just described the evolution of the Illinois Central Railroad into I.C. Industries.

As use-values though, a cardboard box will simply not do, if you were thirsty and needed a beer.

[div class="excerpt"]Instead of, "I want it, therefore it has value", we now substitute, "It has value, therefore I want it."[/quote]

Very good. I understand.

The bow & arrow analogy.

Let us continue, need t' sharpen my tools.

because Marx starts to treat specific cases of value and it all starts to sound like academese and it is hard to keep all of the various subsections straight.

This section will probably bear quite a bit of discussion especially because the derivation leading to money (which I don't think is solely accomplished bythe substitution Anax mentions) actually draws in some mathematical background regarding infinite series (and it is doubly surprising because today you have to be at least at the graduate level in math to actually absorb what Marx is saying about the deficiency of such series)

"Turn and examine a single commodity, by itself, as we will, yet in so far as it remains an object of value, it seems impossible to grasp it. If, however, we bear in mind that the value of commodities has a purely social reality, and that they acquire this reality only in so far as they are expressions or embodiments of one identical social substance, viz., human labour, it follows as a matter of course, that value can only manifest itself in the social relation of commodity to commodity."

Because, as far as value relations are concerned, it is really "the social relation of" person to person which is being described...

Social relations between persons, once commodity production becomes the norm, are mediated by *things*. This was not the case before commodity production and will not be the case after commodity production passes into history, along with the greed for *things* that necessarily accompanies it.

In fact, an entirely different construction of value will have to come into being.


---
That's 5 lines. How'd I do?

;)

EDIT: I was going to be a smartass and throw his own words back at him as an answer:


It is certainly true that an axe is useful. It is probably true that two axe's are also useful (a backup, in case the first breaks; conveniently placed in another location, etc.). When we start to get to 50 axes or 50,000, we want them, not because of their axe-i-ness, but because they each have value, and we can exchange them for other things... or for money, which is to say the same thing. Now your observation starts to turn on its head. Instead of, "I want it, therefore it has value", we now substitute, "It has value, therefore I want it."

The answer is not necessarily "explicitly" stared in Chapter 1 Section 3 so much as it automatically accompanies the derivation of money

That 5 lines of his pretty much says it all.

In that case, yeah, it does say something.

1. what conditions are required to be able to sell your axe?

2. is selling your axe under duress the same as manufacturing 10,000 axes with the expressed intent of selling them for money?

3. what is the distinction, the two-fold character that comes up repeatedly, of value? How is it that exchange value and use value are almost completely unrelated yet cohabit in the same commodity?

4. Is selling your axe a way of accumulating "value" or is it merely a more evolved manner of bartering (ie you are actually selling your axe to buy something else you want/need, but the transaction is "mediated" by money)

Somebody else has to want it.

Period.

you have already assumed the existence of money for one thing. More fundamentally, you have already assumed a social system of excahnge in general. You have assumed that in some way the value of the axe can be quantified for exchange purposes.

Discussing value forces you to posit questions regarding the whys and wherefores of social relations and the systems that such relations entail. You said elsewhere that value can't be quantified..and yet, exactly that quantification happens zillions of times per day all around you.

There ain't no percentage in accumulating use-values. Two axes, three? One fish is dinner. Two is really full. Three? Thirty? It's a smelly long house. If you could dry them or smoke 'em, it's something but there is still no basis for "greed". That takes widespread trade, a "community of commodity producers", the ability to transform use-values of one type into use-values of all types. In passing, we eliminate the need and obligation to work, and we get personal service. The whole is well less than 10,000 years old... out of one million years.

A nature without an expression - for a million years - is no nature at all. It's a gesture.

More, we know that trade exists... so, some level of stability also exists. The world of stolen use-values seems to have limited appeal from the get go, as is supported from the ritualized nature of the weapons of war... if such exist at all.

The bullshit Abrahamic stories of "human nature" are contemporary news (describing events as they were evolving then) and are very similar to Greek fables: nostalgic laments to the passing of the Gens and the genuine "freedom" of the primitive constitution. They are like Midas stories. And of course, Midas was the King of the Minoans, who were constantly stuck in a state of "old values" undermined by new-fangled wealth.

The whole process from this point to money is still lengthy, though.

(I mean, historically)

It’s possible one could “sell” and ax for money. But why couldn’t he sell his ax for something else entirely, like food or for a skill that he lacks. He could be selling his ax to a man who doesn’t have the skill to make his own ax.

A tribe that has extra axes might have something to barter with for treaties or rights of passage with other tribes.

Even the perception of need is not necessary. He might give an ax to a youth as a right of passage, or to a friend as a birthday present.

He might be contributing to the whole. A hunting injury might prevent him from going out and hunting. So he stays at home and makes axes, freeing up time for the younger fitter hunters who now can invest more time towards hunting.

The problem here is that you are attempting to argue from an absolute. Labor begets capital and capital is the product of the exploitation of labor.

But labor might have another definition. The use of labor is a needed component to transform natural resources from an unusable form, to a usable form.

right?

"The social division of labour causes his (the Weaver) labour to be as one-sided as his wants are many-sided. This is precisely the reason why the product of his labour serves him solely as exchange-value. But it cannot acquire the properties of a socially recognised universal equivalent, except by being converted into money."

So, because his "wants" are "many-sided" he therefore uses his labor to create enough of a commodity (linen) to exchange for all his "wants". Money (or gold) only comes in as "a socially recognised universal equivalent".

And in Marx's own words we have moved to "wants" as opposed to "needs" (although he may be using them interchangeably?).

As Marx said, people created coats for thousands of years without anyone being a "tailor", but after someone became a tailor or a weaver or a blacksmith or a wagon maker, there arose the possibility of becoming wealthy from the labor of others - a possibility that did not exist in that particular manner before...

Is this close?

We talked about it in passing, up-thread (or maybe in the last one). The division of labor is a precondition for commodity exchange but, exchange in turn gives tremendous impetus to its further evolution. The same thing that causes someone to use "his labor to create enough of a commodity (linen) to exchange for all his wants" also causes others to to create enough of another commodity.

It is an interesting thing.

Wants and needs are interchangeable, mainly because Marx is not interested in the world of use-values... BUT, there is an implied transition from bare existence to the production of surplus, which enables exchange but also enables a broader universe of use values.

I know you like to talk about economics. You could learn a lot here and I am more than willing to talk to you... But, it will take some work on your part. You have missed the point of the section. You did think about it , which is good, but you thought about a phrase. The various uses for an axe which you can think of are largely irrelevant. The question revolves around a specific form that axes take at a certain point in human history. As a physical tool, axes are like any other product of labor... a million year history. As commodities, a product produced for exchange, they acquire an entirely new set of characteristics.

Want to try, again?

One day, an "Indian" has a brilliant idea. Instead of running after rabbits, he will make a bow and arrow. The Indian goes hungry for two days while others hunt and voila... The next day, he catches three times as many rabbits as anyone else. Now the other Indians ask him how it is done. He becomes an overseer of bow and arrow production, rather than a hunter. He is the first capitalist and the bow and arrow are the first capital. Samuelson loved that stupid story.

Of course:

1) The Indian wouldn't go hungry (food was communal).
2) Bows and arrows are not invented in two days by one guy.
3) The Indian would not have any call on the bow and arrow even as he wouldn't have any less call on food (there was no private property).
4) If he were to come up with conditions for teaching people how to make tools, they would kick the ever-loving shit out of him.

In truth, it is ridiculous. None of this would ever occur among indigenous people. These are modern Samuelson attributes projected backward in time.

Robinson Crusoe is a better attempt at taking completely modern attitudes back to simpler times in order to attempt the derivation of economic categories. All old Robinson needs is two people in order to invent chattel slavery. Subsequently, he "proves" that all of the categories of modern economics issue forth from that same "invention". They absolutely love Robinson...

They don't do so well with actual ancient history, archeology or anthropology, though. Those old people just don't get it. Dumb fucks...

I am all ears, and want to learn.

“You did think about it, which is good, but you thought about a phrase.”

Sorry, but I have judged from a bit more substantial body of evidence than just one fraise. The prevailing wisdom of this board recently is that any commodity represents the transfer of wealth from the labor class (the manufacturer of the ax in this case) to the ruling class (the person “purchasing” the ax).

This argument is far too simplistic of course, which is why I called it out. What I am not waiting to see however is that weather this is actually an accurate augment postulated by socialism. If it is, then we’ve got a debate on our hands. If it is not, then you are trying to educate the wrong people on this board.

Ideas like this amount to nothing more than capitalist-bashing, and is the sort of argument one would expect from creationists or flat earthier. And I continue to harbor doubts that it is a legitimate part of socialist theory. But it certainly is a widely held view point of many socialist. And not just from those on this board either, but on other boards, from other posters, and even from Wichita’s own socialist chapter.

“The various uses for an axe which you can think of are largely irrelevant. The question revolves around a specific form that axes take at a certain point in human history. As a physical tool, axes are like any other product of labor... a million year history.”

I am not entirely sure what you mean by “million year history.” If the form of the ax is irrelevant, then so be it. It’s then nothing more than a widget – a fictional product used to examine economic ideas. But to examine it in a specific point in time is a bit puzzling. I might entertain the consideration of the widgets use, utility, or value from any specific point in time; from the point of its production to the point of its full consumption (when the widget/ax is no longer able to serve any function). But to do so over a million year span? This I am curious to see elaborated.

“As commodities, a product produced for exchange, they acquire an entirely new set of characteristics.”

I am not sure I agree. A commodity is nothing more than a product (or service) waiting for consumption. As a result, its definition can be a bit hard to nail down. Any product used for consumption is a good definition, and certainly a common one. But how dose the being a commodity endow any product with new characteristics?

A cave man may craft a stone ax to use for hunting, and then gives it to his sun or grandson. The ax then gets lost some where, only to be uncovered a million years later by passerby of some means who sells it at an auction for a million dollars, in turn being resold and resold until it becomes part of a donated foundation to a research facility that studies stone axes.

Throughout the exercise, the ax itself remains unchanged. But many aspects of its relationship to the outside world have changed. Utility wise, when it was first crafted and used, it represented the best technology, only to become an obsolete relic in the world of steel axes. But its rarity a million years later, not its manufacture, turns it into a commodity. But was it manufactured with the intent of being a product for exchange?

And then when it is donated to a university for study, it becomes a commodity of a whole other sort. It ceases to be an object of monetary value and becomes one of scientific value.

It is here you idea of examining any widget in any specifically given point in time becomes problematic. To place any commodity into any economic perspective, one must examine the ax as it moves from point A to point B, and then to point C. Without time, it has no utility at all, but is just a sharp rock on a stick. For the cave man to use it as a tool, he needs time. For the aristocrat to trade it, he needs time. And for a scientist to study it, he needs time.

Outside time, any product has not characteristic at all, let alone at the point of production.

But perhaps your elaboration will fill in the gaps?

I am not entirely sure what you mean by “million year history.” If the form of the ax is irrelevant, then so be it. It’s then nothing more than a widget – a fictional product used to examine economic ideas. But to examine it in a specific point in time is a bit puzzling. I might entertain the consideration of the widgets use, utility, or value from any specific point in time; from the point of its production to the point of its full consumption (when the widget/ax is no longer able to serve any function). But to do so over a million year span? This I am curious to see elaborated.

You only need to bust your train of thought into two shorter trains.

The first sentence refers to the long human history of using an ax before it was ever offered up as a commodity.

Your second and third sentences are fucking great and betray an almost innate grasp of this stuff right outta the gate.

As a commodity at the point of exchange, the ax is not being USED as an ax. It's not exactly a fiction. I think vessel is perhaps a good subsitution. It is the carrier of value, its value in the marketplace.

As for your contemplation of time, that is all very good once the ax has fallen out of the market and resumed its place as a USE VALUE, one that will eventually be consumed as you very rightly note.

He just confused you by making his reference to time without sufficient detail for you to see where he was coming from. Absent that confusion, you are doing Great

edit - its/it's :(

It was not insult to say that you needed to disentangle what you thought he meant in his reference to time from your, yes, very good next couple of sentences.

If there were any evidence that you were and are confused it is the balance of your post above.

Perhaps the other guy can help if you can resist making some wildly off the mark assumption...

Barter ain't selling. Axes did exist for millenia before commodity production.

Anyway though, nevermind. You obviously are not open to having even a part of this discussion with me.

Fine.

Keep on pitching. You were doing just fine, absent the innocent confusion that you chose to follow up with utter confusion. Must be that pesky handle I have now. Someone else wrote a whole trolling OP about it...

My apologies.

Really.

you may not like the idea, but at some point quantity blurs into quality. Produce 1 million widgets and its damn sure true that the character and nature of what you've produced is different than if you produce 5 units.

It is no longer a question about the need for widgets but instead about the potential for exchange those widgets contain.

But I do want to reiterate that I was being sincere both in my first post and in the second one when I apologized (*for not insulting you in the first place).

Not sure what has you so incapable of grasping that, but it ain't me or the subject matter of the thread.

What does that leave?

You may want to back up to the thread "What is value?" so as to commence at the beginning of the exposition.

Depends on the population that is consuming the widgets. One million I-pods being sold in Kansas, a population of 2.8 million. Or how about we only sell those in just the city of New York with a population of 8.3 million.

So no we have two naked nuts dancing on the field thinking they hit home runs.

except for the biggest issue you choose to overlook..not one I-Pod or widget is produced out of a concern for need. So then what, Code Man?

Um. OK.

Take the last word.

Wow.

You can't make this shit up, folks.

I am saying that when a company decides to produce a million widgets/I-Pods they could give a shit how many people "need" one (or want one). They are produced entirely on the basis of what they can be sold for.

Not one shareholder in Apple has stock options that are payable in I-Pods

the Code Man posted some Star Trek fanfic and I attempted to help him with a few clerical mistakes (ok ALOT of clerical mistakes). He simultaneously shit a brick and popped a blood vessel.

You've been forewarned..;)

Oh, I see. They don’t share YOUR morals. I can see where that might be a problem when you have delusion of moral superiority.

(He probably thinks I can't hear him.) ;)

..

Are you really going to debase yourself by associating yourself with such an outburst?

Gotta say, team fealty is wonderfully strong here.

Go Big Libs! Batterrrrrrr!! Batterrrrrrrr!

What an absolute embarrassment.

and has no interest in understanding his work and how it applies to our own situation, in this time and this place. As TA said elsewhere, they are very much like Creationists, who disparage Darwin without ever understanding his work or even having any interest in understanding his work. To paraphrase a great human being, they are capitalist, running-dog, lackeys and it is good that they show themselves...

Eta: Let's get back to work...

"No act of kindness will go unpunished..."?

Seriously, dude.

recovered from the last few days of abject stupidity. Maybe a 3rd thread?

I am not being impatient, but every few pages I read (I sometimes have to re-read pages) a light comes on in my head and I discover that I am in a small closet; I go outside the closet and I am in a larger, darkened room. When the next light comes on, I find I am in a slightly larger closet and step out into a larger darkened room. I would really like to get this chechenka doll bull-shit behind me! :)

I am at your service. I will continue right here and ask Tin to pare off Mr. Baseball's subthread, above. Otherwise, length alone will make us start a third thread. Logically, the first standalone part ends with Section 4, "Fetishism". It is quite close but we have a little more slogging to go.

I will keep my eyes peeled...

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Section 3A - Elementary or Accidental Form Of Value
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm#S3

In part 1 of Section 3A, we reproduce the entire text, because it is quite short:


A. Elementary or Accidental Form Of Value

x commodity A = y commodity B, or
x commodity A is worth y commodity B.

20 yards of linen = 1 coat, or
20 Yards of linen are worth 1 coat.



1. The two poles of the expression of value. Relative form and Equivalent form

The whole mystery of the form of value lies hidden in this elementary form. Its analysis, therefore, is our real difficulty.

Here two different kinds of commodities (in our example the linen and the coat), evidently play two different parts. The linen expresses its value in the coat; the coat serves as the material in which that value is expressed. The former plays an active, the latter a passive, part. The value of the linen is represented as relative value, or appears in relative form. The coat officiates as equivalent, or appears in equivalent form.

The relative form and the equivalent form are two intimately connected, mutually dependent and inseparable elements of the expression of value; but, at the same time, are mutually exclusive, antagonistic extremes – i.e., poles of the same expression. They are allotted respectively to the two different commodities brought into relation by that expression. It is not possible to express the value of linen in linen. 20 yards of linen = 20 yards of linen is no expression of value. On the contrary, such an equation merely says that 20 yards of linen are nothing else than 20 yards of linen, a definite quantity of the use value linen. The value of the linen can therefore be expressed only relatively – i.e., in some other commodity. The relative form of the value of the linen presupposes, therefore, the presence of some other commodity – here the coat – under the form of an equivalent. On the other hand, the commodity that figures as the equivalent cannot at the same time assume the relative form. That second commodity is not the one whose value is expressed. Its function is merely to serve as the material in which the value of the first commodity is expressed.

No doubt, the expression 20 yards of linen = 1 coat, or 20 yards of linen are worth 1 coat, implies the opposite relation. 1 coat = 20 yards of linen, or 1 coat is worth 20 yards of linen. But, in that case, I must reverse the equation, in order to express the value of the coat relatively; and. so soon as I do that the linen becomes the equivalent instead of the coat. A single commodity cannot, therefore, simultaneously assume, in the same expression of value, both forms. The very polarity of these forms makes them mutually exclusive.

Whether, then, a commodity assumes the relative form, or the opposite equivalent form, depends entirely upon its accidental position in the expression of value – that is, upon whether it is the commodity whose value is being expressed or the commodity in which value is being expressed.


What is going on here?

First Marx presents a simple equation ("x commodity A = y commodity B"). Then he establishes its equivalence with a logical assertion ("x commodity A is worth y commodity B"), making it clear that we are dealing in the realm of logic and not simple mathematics. Then, he begins to parse the logical proposition.

Commodity A has value. But that property cannot be expressed in commodity A by itself. It has to be set into a relationship with commodity B. In this relationship, the value of Commodity A is expressed, but only relatively... as a function of the value contained in commodity B. But B, is here only incidentally - to serve as an equivalent for the value contained in commodity A.

What is going on here?

Well, if we change the property (value) under consideration, all immediately becomes clear. Consider "length" as the property contained in 2 things. If we are considering my arm, it says nothing at all to say my arm has "length". But put it into comparison with floor tiles and that content changes:

"My left arm is the same length as three floor tiles." Now length has a practical expression.

This is the "form" of "length", with my arm serving as the relative form (the thing whose length is expressed relatively in something else) and the floor tile acting as the equivalent form (the thing which exists only to be compared to the length of my arm... as an equivalent).

Another way to say the same thing is that we have described how things are "measured", something Marx says implicitly here but will say explicitly in a moment. The original equation is the most elementary form in which value can be measured and, in fact, is the most elementary form from which all measurement originates.

OK, but why not use a standardized measurement of length, such as feet or meters? Because no such standardized measure exists yet, either logically or historically, in our exposition. On the contrary, it is from this form that a "standardized" system will evolve.

Of course, in this simplest, bipolar expression, it is entirely arbitrary as to which commodity is to be measured in terms of another, BUT, a single commodity cannot, "simultaneously assume, in the same expression of value, both forms."

This section is actually much simpler than it first appears, though its importance is as Marx asserts.

Everybody follow?

Section 2 - The Two-Fold Character of the Labour Embodied in Commodities
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm#S2

1) We saw in the previous section that commodities are products of labor and present themselves as a "complex of two things – use value and exchange value." We saw too, that the labor expended on them has the same two-fold nature. Now, we will develop the latter point. Before we begin, two issues:

1a) NOTE: Marx writes about the labor in commodities, "...so far as it finds expression in value, it does not possess the same characteristics that belong to it as a creator of use values. I was the first to point out and to examine critically this twofold nature of the labour contained in commodities." Marx usually marks whenever his own views sharply diverge from or develop previous theories of political economy. The corollary to what he is saying here is that he is not the first to describe the twofold nature of commodities as use-values and exchange-values. This goes far to explain why the various "debunkers" of Marx inevitably find themselves also dismissing classical political economy, with the rejection of Smith and Ricardo on "value" as a minimum requirement.

1b) NOTE: Marx further states that the two-fold nature of labor expressed in commodities, "...is the pivot on which a clear comprehension of political economy turns." Again, Marx rarely makes such strong statements loosely.

2) Just as use-values of the same type may not enter into exchange with each other, so too, the concrete labor contained in them may not be of the same type ("To all the different varieties of values in use there correspond as many different kinds of useful labour..."). A series of observations concerning this point follow:

2a) From this, it follows that that "division of labour is a necessary condition for the production of commodities." The converse, however, is not true. A quite complex division of labor may exist without requiring the production of commodities. Thus we set the historical ordering of our logical derivation.

2b) Nevertheless, "In a community, the produce of which in general takes the form of commodities, i.e., in a community of commodity producers, this qualitative difference between the useful forms of labour that are carried on independently by individual producers, each on their own account, develops into a complex system, a social division of labour."

2c) "So far therefore as labour is a creator of use value, is useful labour, it is a necessary condition, independent of all forms of society, for the existence of the human race; it is an eternal nature-imposed necessity, without which there can be no material exchanges between man and Nature, and therefore no life."

2d) Finally, in considering use-values, "If we take away the useful labour expended upon them, a material substratum is always left, which is furnished by Nature without the help of man. The latter can work only as Nature does, that is by changing the form of matter.[13] Nay more, in this work of changing the form he is constantly helped by natural forces. We see, then, that labour is not the only source of material wealth, of use values produced by labour. As William Petty puts it, labour is its father and the earth its mother."


We are now about two pages into Section 2 and are done with the useful labor which creates use-values. I am so familiar with this material that it appears straightforward and almost elementary... but, I don't trust my own perspective.

Is the above clear?

To me the piece about measurement (and it is a rather deep commmentary on "measurement") is totally obvious and I remember thinking so the first time I encountered this idea ( which was not while reading Marx's Capital incidentally)

However, I think it is as not as straightforward as I think..perhaps not even for myself. I don't quite know why, but it proves vexing in practice.

As I said above, this is, IMO, where it gets to be tough sledding if only because the rest of section 3 is a whirlwind of blurbs similar to this one.

setting us up to grasp money; to understand what money is and how it relates to value. We have to first understand that we cannot talk about the "value" of a commodity except in terms relative to something else. Once we get the hang of dealing with value as a "relative" attribute, we can begin to see how money works. This is what hit me fairly early in this particular reading...

this is sort of where the rubber meets the road..he is taking "philsopy" and introducing it to reality(the whole discussion of measurement sort of harks back to You-Know-Who)

as Pinko commented not too long ago. Been going over this stuff repeatedly, it is sinking in, at the least it no longer looks like Cyrillic to me.

Sometimes the 'why' of what Marx is talking about eludes me. Take the last paragraph of the section, at first it was 'wtf is he talking about?' but now if I read it slowly and thnk about it then it is perfectly sensible. Perhaps not the level of comperhension that I'd prefer but good enough.

The value of a commodity can not be expressed by itself, but only in relationship to another commodity. (That is the origin of all measurement.) Value is a property that exists in two things, it cannot exist in one thing. "My arm is as long as my arm" doesn't express a value for the arm. Two things, held in comparative relationship to one another allows us to express value.

One of the things has relative value according to its equivalent value in another thing. That thing can't have both forms at once, It doesn't matter which way we turn the relationship. If two widgets = one whatsit, we can say that as two widgets have the relative value of being equivalent to one whatsit, or one whatsit has the relative value of being equivalent to one half of a widget.

Standardized systems of measurement come later. (The names of some standardized measurements betray their origins - "foot" for example.)

These issues will reappear once we get to Capital.

There are a few different things going on in this section. First, Marx is being unusually precise (even for him) because the political economy which preceded him made a number of very simple logical mistakes which were constantly being repeated (such as the assumption that commodities could serve as the equivalent form for each other, or as a measure of value for each other, at the same time).

An even bigger context worth noting is that Marx finished and published this weighty tome (Volume I) and then prepared Volumes II and III for publication, and then organized 3 prior volumes worth of notebooks which were a criticism of existing political economy (Theories of Surplus Value), and then he came back to significantly rework the first 4 sections of Volume I in a later edition. It was the only part of the whole which was so treated. Why? Partly, Marx said, that this initial section lent itself to a "dialectical presentation". Partly it is because it is "all there". In germinal form, what we find in the atomic categories of capitalism, and their contradictions, is what is also at play in the complexity of the real world system itself.

I once told Pinko that all we had to read together was the first 60 (70? 90? 150? pick a number) pages of Capital. After that, one was familiar enough with the logic, the style, and method of the old man, that they could proceed on their own. I'm sticking to that, though I was by no means the first to say it. There is more, though. This is a different kinda book. The riddle gets solved at the very beginning... but it is so simple and ordinary that it sort of escapes you at first.

These issues will reappear once we get to Capital.

There are a few different things going on in this section. First, Marx is being unusually precise (even for him) because the political economy which preceded him made a number of very simple logical mistakes which were constantly being repeated (such as the assumption that commodities could serve as the equivalent form for each other, or as a measure of value for each other, at the same time).

An even bigger context worth noting is that Marx finished and published this weighty tome (Volume I) and then prepared Volumes II and III for publication, and then organized 3 prior volumes worth of notebooks which were a criticism of existing political economy (Theories of Surplus Value), and then he came back to significantly rework the first 4 sections of Volume I in a later edition. It was the only part of the whole which was so treated. Why? Partly, Marx said, that this initial section lent itself to a "dialectical presentation". Partly it is because it is "all there". In germinal form, what we find in the atomic categories of capitalism, and their contradictions, is what is also at play in the complexity of the real world system itself.

I once told Pinko that all we had to read together was the first 60 (70? 90? 150? pick a number) pages of Capital. After that, one was familiar enough with the logic, the style, and method of the old man, that they could proceed on their own. I'm sticking to that, though I was by no means the first to say it. There is more, though. This is a different kinda book. The riddle gets solved at the very beginning... but it is so simple and ordinary that it sort of escapes you at first.

We've got it all: "In the particular is the general", and alla that...

But, more, we are also watching the organic logic of the subject unfold, with each simple proposition also matching the actual historical evolution... in chronological order.

We've got it all: "In the particular is the general", and alla that...

But, more, we are also watching the organic logic of the subject unfold, with each simple proposition also matching the actual historical evolution... in chronological order.

... an epiphany of sorts that was building up... either that or indigestion.

Kiddo, I owe you a big one... on the cause of capitalist "crisis", etc. You keep quoting me MR guys and French Filosophers on the "cause" being the "Tendency of the Rate of Profit to fall" or the changing organic composition of Capital or some shit about Marx "abandoning" the "over production of commodities" in the Manifesto for something far more technical. And I keep pushing back with some platitude about how markets are bounded but capital isn't. We are at a point at which I have to answer your question for real.

I just have to figure out how I do it (and let the Old Man speak for himself), and not divert this reading thread... stay tuned.

... an epiphany of sorts that was building up... either that or indigestion.

Kiddo, I owe you a big one... on the cause of capitalist "crisis", etc. You keep quoting me MR guys and French Filosophers on the "cause" being the "Tendency of the Rate of Profit to fall" or the changing organic composition of Capital or some shit about Marx "abandoning" the "over production of commodities" in the Manifesto for something far more technical. And I keep pushing back with some platitude about how markets are bounded but capital isn't. We are at a point at which I have to answer your question for real.

I just have to figure out how I do it (and let the Old Man speak for himself), and not divert this reading thread... stay tuned.

... restating each proposition.

One minor issue: "It doesn't matter which way we turn the relationship". True, if we don't try to use both sides of the relationship as the equivalent form at the same time. You actually illustrated why...

"two widgets = one whatsit" is true...

"two widgets = one whatsit= two widgets", gets us nowhere.

We are about to say "two widgets = one whatsit = four dopplegangs = 100 gazebs = 1 footstool"

"Ahh... a footstool, you say? Well, I know what that is."

... restating each proposition.

One minor issue: "It doesn't matter which way we turn the relationship". True, if we don't try to use both sides of the relationship as the equivalent form at the same time. You actually illustrated why...

"two widgets = one whatsit" is true...

"two widgets = one whatsit= two widgets", gets us nowhere.

We are about to say "two widgets = one whatsit = four dopplegangs = 100 gazebs = 1 footstool"

"Ahh... a footstool, you say? Well, I know what that is."

;)

;)

and trying to find some material and you know who is really, really full of shit? Autonomists. Toni Negri-flavor especially.

All of their "critiques" (to be generous) are not only completely ignorant of what is really being hammered out, but it also misses the sublime irony that all of the "problems' they expound on at length are not only understood but expressly addressed by Marx.

If "matter" is used as merely a figure of speech to replace "idea" than nothing has changed in philosophy they tell us matter-of-factly (and as is their wont, at great length). Crudely applied "dialectical" reasoning is just an exercise in the repetition of truisms? One cannot derive "significance", historical or otherwise, solely from proximate causation?

Well, gee, no fucking shit..

I'd say round up a few more trash bags to stuff all this French Filosofee in so we can bury it at the landfill, but this time its Italian and (modern) Greek. Split the difference and lets toss it off a bridge.

EDIT: and, to be fair, much of this crap mirrors Sartre so it is not exactly French-free

and trying to find some material and you know who is really, really full of shit? Autonomists. Toni Negri-flavor especially.

All of their "critiques" (to be generous) are not only completely ignorant of what is really being hammered out, but it also misses the sublime irony that all of the "problems' they expound on at length are not only understood but expressly addressed by Marx.

If "matter" is used as merely a figure of speech to replace "idea" than nothing has changed in philosophy they tell us matter-of-factly (and as is their wont, at great length). Crudely applied "dialectical" reasoning is just an exercise in the repetition of truisms? One cannot derive "significance", historical or otherwise, solely from proximate causation?

Well, gee, no fucking shit..

I'd say round up a few more trash bags to stuff all this French Filosofee in so we can bury it at the landfill, but this time its Italian and (modern) Greek. Split the difference and lets toss it off a bridge.

EDIT: and, to be fair, much of this crap mirrors Sartre so it is not exactly French-free

I've batted the cuckoo clock metaphor around quite a bit..even thought about appropriating it, decided I didn't have the chops for it :)

I've batted the cuckoo clock metaphor around quite a bit..even thought about appropriating it, decided I didn't have the chops for it :)

Thanks

Thanks

http://www.progressiveindependent.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=100854#148

http://www.progressiveindependent.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=100854#148

I'm looking forward to it.

I'm looking forward to it.

[div class="excerpt"]
"Ahh... a footstool, you say? Well, I know what that is."[/quote]

Reading my mind or somethin'?

But that's how it seems to work. It's the abstraction which gives me trouble, just got to remember that it is a tool for understanding and not anything resembling metaphysics or subatomic physics, both of which seem to proceed from the supposition. ( I think my brain works funny. Too much blunt trauma?)

[div class="excerpt"]
"Ahh... a footstool, you say? Well, I know what that is."[/quote]

Reading my mind or somethin'?

But that's how it seems to work. It's the abstraction which gives me trouble, just got to remember that it is a tool for understanding and not anything resembling metaphysics or subatomic physics, both of which seem to proceed from the supposition. ( I think my brain works funny. Too much blunt trauma?)

experiences I have had, to date. Thanks for making this possible...

experiences I have had, to date. Thanks for making this possible...

this is a bit of a side question so if you don't care to address it thats OK

But one thing the Reading Capital series has done for me is bring into focus exactly how significant the discoveries Marx made that are presented in Chapter 1 are to everything that follows

However, as has been commonly noted, Engels rarely discusses any of these things in his subsequent writings. There are probably 100 different crackpot takes on why this is so but I was wondering if you had a take on the issue

this is a bit of a side question so if you don't care to address it thats OK

But one thing the Reading Capital series has done for me is bring into focus exactly how significant the discoveries Marx made that are presented in Chapter 1 are to everything that follows

However, as has been commonly noted, Engels rarely discusses any of these things in his subsequent writings. There are probably 100 different crackpot takes on why this is so but I was wondering if you had a take on the issue

And I'm getting caught up. I've been reading this thread in bits and pieces all week, and I just now read through the whole thing...

Some good shit, man :)

I'll read it over a few more times and ask questions if I need to but the way the conversation has gone I think everything is answering itself...

And I'm getting caught up. I've been reading this thread in bits and pieces all week, and I just now read through the whole thing...

Some good shit, man :)

I'll read it over a few more times and ask questions if I need to but the way the conversation has gone I think everything is answering itself...

Section 3A - Elementary or Accidental Form Of Value
Part 2. The Relative Form of value
(a.) The nature and import of this form
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1...

Marx now digs even deeper into his logical proposition, "20 Yards of linen are worth 1 coat". A series of observations about the first half of our equation follow. It may be thought that we are belaboring the meaning of this most elementary of propositions, which mirrors the most primitive form of actual exchange, historically. Yet, many of the observations to follow come back to haunt the commodity as capital:

1. "...the elementary expression of the value of a commodity lies hidden in the value relation of two commodities... It is apt to be forgotten that the magnitudes of different things can be compared quantitatively, only when those magnitudes are expressed in terms of the same unit. It is only as expressions of such a unit that they are of the same denomination, and therefore commensurable."

2. "If we say that, as values, commodities are mere congelations of human labour, we reduce them by our analysis, it is true, to the abstraction, value; but we ascribe to this value no form apart from their bodily form. It is otherwise in the value relation of one commodity to another. Here, the one stands forth in its character of value by reason of its relation to the other."

3. Underlying the above, is this:

"...it is true that the tailoring, which makes the coat, is concrete labour of a different sort from the weaving which makes the linen. But the act of equating it to the weaving, reduces the tailoring to that which is really equal in the two kinds of labour, to their common character of human labour. In this roundabout way, then, the fact is expressed, that weaving also, in so far as it weaves value, has nothing to distinguish it from tailoring, and, consequently, is abstract human labour. It is the expression of equivalence between different sorts of commodities that alone brings into relief the specific character of value-creating labour, and this it does by actually reducing the different varieties of labour embodied in the different kinds of commodities to their common quality of human labour in the abstract.[18]

There is an interesting footnote to this paragraph which cites Benjamin Franklin:


18. The celebrated Franklin, one of the first economists, after Wm. Petty, who saw through the nature of value, says: “Trade in general being nothing else but the exchange of labour for labour, the value of all things is ... most justly measured by labour.” (“The works of B. Franklin, &c.,” edited by Sparks. Boston, 1836, Vol. II., p. 267.) Franklin is unconscious that by estimating the value of everything in labour, he makes abstraction from any difference in the sorts of labour exchanged, and thus reduces them all to equal human labour. But although ignorant of this, yet he says it. He speaks first of “the one labour,” then of “the other labour,” and finally of “labour,” without further qualification, as the substance of the value of everything.

4. "Human labour power in motion, or human labour, creates value, but is not itself value. It becomes value only in its congealed state, when embodied in the form of some object. In order to express the value of the linen as a congelation of human labour, that value must be expressed as having objective existence, as being a something materially different from the linen itself, and yet a something common to the linen and all other commodities. The problem is already solved.

When occupying the position of equivalent in the equation of value, the coat ranks qualitatively as the equal of the linen, as something of the same kind, because it is value. In this position it is a thing in which we see nothing but value, or whose palpable bodily form represents value. Yet the coat itself, the body of the commodity, coat, is a mere use value. A coat as such no more tells us it is value, than does the first piece of linen we take hold of. This shows that when placed in value-relation to the linen, the coat signifies more than when out of that relation, just as many a man strutting about in a gorgeous uniform counts for more than when in mufti."

5. "In the production of the coat, human labour power, in the shape of tailoring, must have been actually expended. Human labour is therefore accumulated in it. In this aspect the coat is a depository of value, but though worn to a thread, it does not let this fact show through. And as equivalent of the linen in the value equation, it exists under this aspect alone, counts therefore as embodied value, as a body that is value...

... in the value equation, in which the coat is the equivalent of the linen, the coat officiates as the form of value. The value of the commodity linen is expressed by the bodily form of the commodity coat, the value of one by the use value of the other. As a use value, the linen is something palpably different from the coat; as value, it is the same as the coat, and now has the appearance of a coat. Thus the linen acquires a value form different from its physical form. The fact that it is value, is made manifest by its equality with the coat..."

6. Finally:

"We see, then, all that our analysis of the value of commodities has already told us, is told us by the linen itself, so soon as it comes into communication with another commodity, the coat. Only it betrays its thoughts in that language with which alone it is familiar, the language of commodities. In order to tell us that its own value is created by labour in its abstract character of human labour, it says that the coat, in so far as it is worth as much as the linen, and therefore is value, consists of the same labour as the linen. In order to inform us that its sublime reality as value is not the same as its buckram body, it says that value has the appearance of a coat, and consequently that so far as the linen is value, it and the coat are as like as two peas...

By means, therefore, of the value-relation expressed in our equation, the bodily form of commodity B becomes the value form of commodity A, or the body of commodity B acts as a mirror to the value of commodity A.[19] By putting itself in relation with commodity B, as value in propriâ personâ, as the matter of which human labour is made up, the commodity A converts the value in use, B, into the substance in which to express its, A’s, own value. The value of A, thus expressed in the use value of B, has taken the form of relative value."

****************

We have two choices with this section: Either we can dig deeply into it, because there is quite a lot going on... OR, we can take it at face value, while remembering where it is and the basic substance of Marx's observations... with the additional assurance that we will be back here at a later time.

I am going to choose the latter option, in order to keep moving. Still, even at face-value, do we understand what Marx is saying?

Section 3A - Elementary or Accidental Form Of Value
Part 2. The Relative Form of value
(a.) The nature and import of this form
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1...

Marx now digs even deeper into his logical proposition, "20 Yards of linen are worth 1 coat". A series of observations about the first half of our equation follow. It may be thought that we are belaboring the meaning of this most elementary of propositions, which mirrors the most primitive form of actual exchange, historically. Yet, many of the observations to follow come back to haunt the commodity as capital:

1. "...the elementary expression of the value of a commodity lies hidden in the value relation of two commodities... It is apt to be forgotten that the magnitudes of different things can be compared quantitatively, only when those magnitudes are expressed in terms of the same unit. It is only as expressions of such a unit that they are of the same denomination, and therefore commensurable."

2. "If we say that, as values, commodities are mere congelations of human labour, we reduce them by our analysis, it is true, to the abstraction, value; but we ascribe to this value no form apart from their bodily form. It is otherwise in the value relation of one commodity to another. Here, the one stands forth in its character of value by reason of its relation to the other."

3. Underlying the above, is this:

"...it is true that the tailoring, which makes the coat, is concrete labour of a different sort from the weaving which makes the linen. But the act of equating it to the weaving, reduces the tailoring to that which is really equal in the two kinds of labour, to their common character of human labour. In this roundabout way, then, the fact is expressed, that weaving also, in so far as it weaves value, has nothing to distinguish it from tailoring, and, consequently, is abstract human labour. It is the expression of equivalence between different sorts of commodities that alone brings into relief the specific character of value-creating labour, and this it does by actually reducing the different varieties of labour embodied in the different kinds of commodities to their common quality of human labour in the abstract.[18]

There is an interesting footnote to this paragraph which cites Benjamin Franklin:


18. The celebrated Franklin, one of the first economists, after Wm. Petty, who saw through the nature of value, says: “Trade in general being nothing else but the exchange of labour for labour, the value of all things is ... most justly measured by labour.” (“The works of B. Franklin, &c.,” edited by Sparks. Boston, 1836, Vol. II., p. 267.) Franklin is unconscious that by estimating the value of everything in labour, he makes abstraction from any difference in the sorts of labour exchanged, and thus reduces them all to equal human labour. But although ignorant of this, yet he says it. He speaks first of “the one labour,” then of “the other labour,” and finally of “labour,” without further qualification, as the substance of the value of everything.

4. "Human labour power in motion, or human labour, creates value, but is not itself value. It becomes value only in its congealed state, when embodied in the form of some object. In order to express the value of the linen as a congelation of human labour, that value must be expressed as having objective existence, as being a something materially different from the linen itself, and yet a something common to the linen and all other commodities. The problem is already solved.

When occupying the position of equivalent in the equation of value, the coat ranks qualitatively as the equal of the linen, as something of the same kind, because it is value. In this position it is a thing in which we see nothing but value, or whose palpable bodily form represents value. Yet the coat itself, the body of the commodity, coat, is a mere use value. A coat as such no more tells us it is value, than does the first piece of linen we take hold of. This shows that when placed in value-relation to the linen, the coat signifies more than when out of that relation, just as many a man strutting about in a gorgeous uniform counts for more than when in mufti."

5. "In the production of the coat, human labour power, in the shape of tailoring, must have been actually expended. Human labour is therefore accumulated in it. In this aspect the coat is a depository of value, but though worn to a thread, it does not let this fact show through. And as equivalent of the linen in the value equation, it exists under this aspect alone, counts therefore as embodied value, as a body that is value...

... in the value equation, in which the coat is the equivalent of the linen, the coat officiates as the form of value. The value of the commodity linen is expressed by the bodily form of the commodity coat, the value of one by the use value of the other. As a use value, the linen is something palpably different from the coat; as value, it is the same as the coat, and now has the appearance of a coat. Thus the linen acquires a value form different from its physical form. The fact that it is value, is made manifest by its equality with the coat..."

6. Finally:

"We see, then, all that our analysis of the value of commodities has already told us, is told us by the linen itself, so soon as it comes into communication with another commodity, the coat. Only it betrays its thoughts in that language with which alone it is familiar, the language of commodities. In order to tell us that its own value is created by labour in its abstract character of human labour, it says that the coat, in so far as it is worth as much as the linen, and therefore is value, consists of the same labour as the linen. In order to inform us that its sublime reality as value is not the same as its buckram body, it says that value has the appearance of a coat, and consequently that so far as the linen is value, it and the coat are as like as two peas...

By means, therefore, of the value-relation expressed in our equation, the bodily form of commodity B becomes the value form of commodity A, or the body of commodity B acts as a mirror to the value of commodity A.[19] By putting itself in relation with commodity B, as value in propriâ personâ, as the matter of which human labour is made up, the commodity A converts the value in use, B, into the substance in which to express its, A’s, own value. The value of A, thus expressed in the use value of B, has taken the form of relative value."

****************

We have two choices with this section: Either we can dig deeply into it, because there is quite a lot going on... OR, we can take it at face value, while remembering where it is and the basic substance of Marx's observations... with the additional assurance that we will be back here at a later time.

I am going to choose the latter option, in order to keep moving. Still, even at face-value, do we understand what Marx is saying?

Not only are there a few decades worth of correspondence which shows just how closely the two worked together but there is the fact that Freddy's hands are all over Capital. He put together Volumes II & III, as well as the three volume set of Theories of Surplus Value. He comments ten-thousand times in his later writings, "As Marx definitively proved...", and so on. Still, Freddy clearly deferred to the decade and a half that Marx spent on Political Economy. The earlier works carry both of their names while from the Groundplan, forward, it is Marx alone. It is often commented on by many, that Marx became encyclopedic on the subject as time passed.

The only thing that I can think of is that Freddy is so straight-forward and practical... much more difficult than Marx to transform into a toothless academic icon.

I think he was merely being deferential, an etiquette that neither LaSalle nor Bernstein suffered from.

Not only are there a few decades worth of correspondence which shows just how closely the two worked together but there is the fact that Freddy's hands are all over Capital. He put together Volumes II & III, as well as the three volume set of Theories of Surplus Value. He comments ten-thousand times in his later writings, "As Marx definitively proved...", and so on. Still, Freddy clearly deferred to the decade and a half that Marx spent on Political Economy. The earlier works carry both of their names while from the Groundplan, forward, it is Marx alone. It is often commented on by many, that Marx became encyclopedic on the subject as time passed.

The only thing that I can think of is that Freddy is so straight-forward and practical... much more difficult than Marx to transform into a toothless academic icon.

I think he was merely being deferential, an etiquette that neither LaSalle nor Bernstein suffered from.

"as has been commonly noted"..sort of facetiously because I do not see that at all, except that Engels is perhaps a touch more concerned with taking pains to impart the key points almost didacticly without some of the flourish and pomp, the sort of cherry-on-top that Marx always tosses in

It is ridiculous some of the shit that gets slung at Engels..didn't "understand" Marx, tried to subvert Marx, and on and on..the hell?

"as has been commonly noted"..sort of facetiously because I do not see that at all, except that Engels is perhaps a touch more concerned with taking pains to impart the key points almost didacticly without some of the flourish and pomp, the sort of cherry-on-top that Marx always tosses in

It is ridiculous some of the shit that gets slung at Engels..didn't "understand" Marx, tried to subvert Marx, and on and on..the hell?

Is it basically saying that although the specifics (skills?) of the labor may not be identical, in terms of how the labor creates value in the commodity all labor is measured as equal? And that this is done in order to allow it to be measured in the abstract, in the quantitative rather than the qualitative?

This is where I find out if I am as caught up as I think.

Is it basically saying that although the specifics (skills?) of the labor may not be identical, in terms of how the labor creates value in the commodity all labor is measured as equal? And that this is done in order to allow it to be measured in the abstract, in the quantitative rather than the qualitative?

This is where I find out if I am as caught up as I think.

I can hang with that, so far, so good. We are working our way to the 'universal solvent', these demonstrations showing it's elemental essence.

The uniform/mufti allusion I did not get, is that so important?

When he refers to "it's buckram body" he is talking about use value, yes?

The Franklin footnote was interesting. Can't help but know that he was a 'stupor mundi' but I didn't know he was concerned with theoretical economics.

And now Les McCann and Eddie Harris are in my head....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PT4-mBAC6KA

The podium is yours, maestro.

I can hang with that, so far, so good. We are working our way to the 'universal solvent', these demonstrations showing it's elemental essence.

The uniform/mufti allusion I did not get, is that so important?

When he refers to "it's buckram body" he is talking about use value, yes?

The Franklin footnote was interesting. Can't help but know that he was a 'stupor mundi' but I didn't know he was concerned with theoretical economics.

And now Les McCann and Eddie Harris are in my head....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PT4-mBAC6KA

The podium is yours, maestro.

Karl says specifically that weaving and tailoring are different kinds of labor and are only equatable as "congealed labour" embodied in different commodities. The equation of different labors is only in the "abstract", after the creation of exchangeable commodities. The "value" is in "abstract labor", not in "physical labor", [i]per se[i/].


I think...

Karl says specifically that weaving and tailoring are different kinds of labor and are only equatable as "congealed labour" embodied in different commodities. The equation of different labors is only in the "abstract", after the creation of exchangeable commodities. The "value" is in "abstract labor", not in "physical labor", [i]per se[i/].


I think...

I think.

I think.

I think... :)

Am I the only one who looked up 'congelations' just to make sure it meant what it looks like? I don't think I've ever encountered variations on the word congeal in any context other than gooey stuff, heh.

I think... :)

Am I the only one who looked up 'congelations' just to make sure it meant what it looks like? I don't think I've ever encountered variations on the word congeal in any context other than gooey stuff, heh.

I had to look up 'buckram' and that Latin.

It is gooey stuff, hope it sticks.

I had to look up 'buckram' and that Latin.

It is gooey stuff, hope it sticks.

The murky social stuff (all labor treated as if it were the same - goo) comes to rest in commodities as they are produced, and sets once they enter the world of commodities - congeals.

The murky social stuff (all labor treated as if it were the same - goo) comes to rest in commodities as they are produced, and sets once they enter the world of commodities - congeals.

(so yes, you are caught up)

...but here, he is saying slightly more. He is saying that when commodities stood on on their own, we could explore their two-fold nature. But, when commodities enter into even this simplest of relationships with other commodities (the Accidental Form of Value), they cease to have a two-fold nature. They exist as "values" alone. Every commodity which enters into this relationship is qualitatively identical. The only weaving left in the thing is "the weaving of values". They differ from each other only quantitatively (which we are about to explore).

The commodities in our equation are commensurable. How do we know this? Because the equation measures the value of the first relative to that of the second. They could not stand in this relation if they were not. (How do we measure length with a scale?)

Turn your last sentence on its head: Because exchange is based on quantity, all qualitative distinctions have already disappeared.

(so yes, you are caught up)

...but here, he is saying slightly more. He is saying that when commodities stood on on their own, we could explore their two-fold nature. But, when commodities enter into even this simplest of relationships with other commodities (the Accidental Form of Value), they cease to have a two-fold nature. They exist as "values" alone. Every commodity which enters into this relationship is qualitatively identical. The only weaving left in the thing is "the weaving of values". They differ from each other only quantitatively (which we are about to explore).

The commodities in our equation are commensurable. How do we know this? Because the equation measures the value of the first relative to that of the second. They could not stand in this relation if they were not. (How do we measure length with a scale?)

Turn your last sentence on its head: Because exchange is based on quantity, all qualitative distinctions have already disappeared.

So, trade (or the potential for trade) eliminates the use value of a product from consideration, leaving only value considered as an expression of a relationship to another product. Because the only thing the items have in common is the abstract labor embedded in them, their existence as commodities and their value, even in the market place, lies in that labor.

So, trade (or the potential for trade) eliminates the use value of a product from consideration, leaving only value considered as an expression of a relationship to another product. Because the only thing the items have in common is the abstract labor embedded in them, their existence as commodities and their value, even in the market place, lies in that labor.

Change, "...even in the market place", to "by the time they come into contact with each other in the market place, they exist only as values... mere congelations of abstract human labor differing only in quantity."

Change, "...even in the market place", to "by the time they come into contact with each other in the market place, they exist only as values... mere congelations of abstract human labor differing only in quantity."

"We see, then, all that our analysis of the value of commodities has already told us, is told us by the linen itself, so soon as it comes into communication with another commodity, the coat. Only it betrays its thoughts in that language with which alone it is familiar, the language of commodities. In order to tell us that its own value is created by labour in its abstract character of human labour, it says that the coat, in so far as it is worth as much as the linen, and therefore is value, consists of the same labour as the linen."

What we learned when we considered the commodity by itself ("...all that our analysis of the value of commodities has already told us")... that it is a product of labor, that it has a two-fold nature, that this two-fold nature consists of it being both a use-value and a value, that as a value it is abstracted away from all it's physical characteristics as a use-value, that this duality is a reflection of the two-fold character of the labor contained in it, and that the labor which creates value is human labor in the abstract - all of this which we have gone to pains to discover... All of this is apparent ("is told us by the linen itself") the minute that two commodities come into relation with each other. The one commodity becomes the measure of the other and as such reveals that both consist of the same commensurable "stuff", human labor reduced to a commonality, differing only in the quantity of that stuff congealed in each.

More... at the point at which commodities enter into "communication" with each other, it is only this value form which remains, with its content apparent only in relation to another commodity.

Why do we care?

Because this transformation is the nexus of Political Economy. That which enters into exchange precisely because it is a use-value, emerges into the world of commodities exclusively as a value. That which starts out as qualitatively different, ends up being qualitatively identical and differing only in quantity. That which had no existence apart from its bodily form, is now nothing apart from its value form, and that expressed relatively, in another acting as its measure of value.

From this set of contradictions, we are going to construct all the rest...

"We see, then, all that our analysis of the value of commodities has already told us, is told us by the linen itself, so soon as it comes into communication with another commodity, the coat. Only it betrays its thoughts in that language with which alone it is familiar, the language of commodities. In order to tell us that its own value is created by labour in its abstract character of human labour, it says that the coat, in so far as it is worth as much as the linen, and therefore is value, consists of the same labour as the linen."

What we learned when we considered the commodity by itself ("...all that our analysis of the value of commodities has already told us")... that it is a product of labor, that it has a two-fold nature, that this two-fold nature consists of it being both a use-value and a value, that as a value it is abstracted away from all it's physical characteristics as a use-value, that this duality is a reflection of the two-fold character of the labor contained in it, and that the labor which creates value is human labor in the abstract - all of this which we have gone to pains to discover... All of this is apparent ("is told us by the linen itself") the minute that two commodities come into relation with each other. The one commodity becomes the measure of the other and as such reveals that both consist of the same commensurable "stuff", human labor reduced to a commonality, differing only in the quantity of that stuff congealed in each.

More... at the point at which commodities enter into "communication" with each other, it is only this value form which remains, with its content apparent only in relation to another commodity.

Why do we care?

Because this transformation is the nexus of Political Economy. That which enters into exchange precisely because it is a use-value, emerges into the world of commodities exclusively as a value. That which starts out as qualitatively different, ends up being qualitatively identical and differing only in quantity. That which had no existence apart from its bodily form, is now nothing apart from its value form, and that expressed relatively, in another acting as its measure of value.

From this set of contradictions, we are going to construct all the rest...

"Turn your last sentence on its head: Because exchange is based on quantity, all qualitative distinctions have already disappeared"

That was an a-ha! moment :shocked:

"Turn your last sentence on its head: Because exchange is based on quantity, all qualitative distinctions have already disappeared"

That was an a-ha! moment :shocked:

and actually comment on, the rest still decipherin', and much appreciated...

and actually comment on, the rest still decipherin', and much appreciated...

and a wool jacket are identical in value? and use value? (I'm really scared shitless to ask a question here, but so be it)

and a wool jacket are identical in value? and use value? (I'm really scared shitless to ask a question here, but so be it)

(ie the wool jacket might be worth more or less than the linen coat) but they are identical in that it is an apples to apples comparison

As for use-values there is actually no way to make use-values "identical" or, to word it a bit differently, "commensurate". The process we are detailing is one where commodities begin having only use-value but enter into a relationship whereby they are left as having only value.

(ie the wool jacket might be worth more or less than the linen coat) but they are identical in that it is an apples to apples comparison

As for use-values there is actually no way to make use-values "identical" or, to word it a bit differently, "commensurate". The process we are detailing is one where commodities begin having only use-value but enter into a relationship whereby they are left as having only value.

They may be identical in use-value, if they serve the same purpose. They may or may not be identical in value - it could be that 2 wool coats equal a linen one...but there is a way to compare them and define their value in relation to one another.

And that comes from the labor involved.

They may be identical in use-value, if they serve the same purpose. They may or may not be identical in value - it could be that 2 wool coats equal a linen one...but there is a way to compare them and define their value in relation to one another.

And that comes from the labor involved.

why the forces of reaction would have a problem with this.

"But I am so much better educated. And my skills are rarified. How could *I* be commensurable with a lowly ___________?"

Just sayin'

And BTW, I'm increasingly glad I slogged through all this - and many times - well before this online dialogue got going. I'd have been hating it, watching all you smart fuckers "getting there" in a timeframe that would have left me thoroughly LOST. I won't be well and truly fucked again until sometime around the 'working day' (pop quiz notwithstanding).

You rock, collectively of course. And I lurk with a big happy :)

What was that you said about sun shining through parting clouds, MM? I hate to slip into the evangelist role, but I can with complete confidence say now that I am convinced the single smartest thing Anaxarchos ever said to any of us on this board is that we should familiarize ourselves with the first few chapters of Capital.

LONGGGGG day tomorrow - 500mi + 6 hours of work. I'll check in during the coming couple of daze though...

http://www.ilcircolino.it/che/foto/pp_3gr.jpg

No wonder he is smiling.

why the forces of reaction would have a problem with this.

"But I am so much better educated. And my skills are rarified. How could *I* be commensurable with a lowly ___________?"

Just sayin'

And BTW, I'm increasingly glad I slogged through all this - and many times - well before this online dialogue got going. I'd have been hating it, watching all you smart fuckers "getting there" in a timeframe that would have left me thoroughly LOST. I won't be well and truly fucked again until sometime around the 'working day' (pop quiz notwithstanding).

You rock, collectively of course. And I lurk with a big happy :)

What was that you said about sun shining through parting clouds, MM? I hate to slip into the evangelist role, but I can with complete confidence say now that I am convinced the single smartest thing Anaxarchos ever said to any of us on this board is that we should familiarize ourselves with the first few chapters of Capital.

LONGGGGG day tomorrow - 500mi + 6 hours of work. I'll check in during the coming couple of daze though...

http://www.ilcircolino.it/che/foto/pp_3gr.jpg

No wonder he is smiling.

We should take our time and make sure everyone understands that. (Well stated, perfectly clear, simple, yet people are having difficulty - perhaps because it contradicts so much we have been told.)

"We see, then, all that our analysis of the value of commodities has already told us, is told us by the linen itself, so soon as it comes into communication with another commodity, the coat. Only it betrays its thoughts in that language with which alone it is familiar, the language of commodities. In order to tell us that its own value is created by labour in its abstract character of human labour, it says that the coat, in so far as it is worth as much as the linen, and therefore is value, consists of the same labour as the linen."

We should take our time and make sure everyone understands that. (Well stated, perfectly clear, simple, yet people are having difficulty - perhaps because it contradicts so much we have been told.)

"We see, then, all that our analysis of the value of commodities has already told us, is told us by the linen itself, so soon as it comes into communication with another commodity, the coat. Only it betrays its thoughts in that language with which alone it is familiar, the language of commodities. In order to tell us that its own value is created by labour in its abstract character of human labour, it says that the coat, in so far as it is worth as much as the linen, and therefore is value, consists of the same labour as the linen."

Your contributions to all the boards are priceless. More your efforts to support poor and working people's right to health care are beyond admirable. Jeez, you are even involved in your union, and the need for public schools. Anybody that would give a shit about any questions or disagreements about Marx that you might have, would have to come through many of us.

Your contributions to all the boards are priceless. More your efforts to support poor and working people's right to health care are beyond admirable. Jeez, you are even involved in your union, and the need for public schools. Anybody that would give a shit about any questions or disagreements about Marx that you might have, would have to come through many of us.

I think you are saying that because both of your examples are coats, and coats are all used for the same thing, they are therefore identical in value. That is the opposite of what is being said. Check out this paragraph -

"That which starts out as qualitatively different, ends up being qualitatively identical and differing only in quantity. That which had no existence apart from its bodily form, is now nothing apart from its value form, and that expressed relatively, in another acting as its measure of value."

See what is being said there?

Qualitatively identical and differing only in quantity.

The linen and the coat are different - in their physical manifestation. Different qualitatively - different in their qualities. They had no other existence. But as commodities, they are qualitatively identical and only differ quantitatively - how much value each has, which can only be discovered (expressed) relatively - by comparing one to the other, as relative value, not by comparing their qualities.

The physical qualities of the coats, as commodities, becomes irrelevant. They have become abstractions, may as well just be entries on a ledger sheet - bodiless.

I think you are saying that because both of your examples are coats, and coats are all used for the same thing, they are therefore identical in value. That is the opposite of what is being said. Check out this paragraph -

"That which starts out as qualitatively different, ends up being qualitatively identical and differing only in quantity. That which had no existence apart from its bodily form, is now nothing apart from its value form, and that expressed relatively, in another acting as its measure of value."

See what is being said there?

Qualitatively identical and differing only in quantity.

The linen and the coat are different - in their physical manifestation. Different qualitatively - different in their qualities. They had no other existence. But as commodities, they are qualitatively identical and only differ quantitatively - how much value each has, which can only be discovered (expressed) relatively - by comparing one to the other, as relative value, not by comparing their qualities.

The physical qualities of the coats, as commodities, becomes irrelevant. They have become abstractions, may as well just be entries on a ledger sheet - bodiless.

...may or may not have the same use-value. One may be much warmer, or more fashionable, or their use-values may be identical. But as values, none of that will matter. Their value will be based solely on the amount of labor which it took to produce each. In turn, this helps to explain how capital intensive cloth made in Birmingham, England displaces homespun cloth in India. Despite the miserable condition of Indian labor, the English cloth has less value because it contains less labor. If the use-values are the same, the commodity with less human labor in it tends to displace the one which has more. The co-existence of the linen coat and the wool jacket tends to suggest that their use-values are not strictly identical.

As to "fear", fear not sister. Curt is right again, as is his custom. I have done this class many times, including many times with those who had great trouble reading (we just read it aloud, again and again). Just slow us down until it clicks.

The only people who consistently fail to understand this material are tenured professors of the social sciences...

...may or may not have the same use-value. One may be much warmer, or more fashionable, or their use-values may be identical. But as values, none of that will matter. Their value will be based solely on the amount of labor which it took to produce each. In turn, this helps to explain how capital intensive cloth made in Birmingham, England displaces homespun cloth in India. Despite the miserable condition of Indian labor, the English cloth has less value because it contains less labor. If the use-values are the same, the commodity with less human labor in it tends to displace the one which has more. The co-existence of the linen coat and the wool jacket tends to suggest that their use-values are not strictly identical.

As to "fear", fear not sister. Curt is right again, as is his custom. I have done this class many times, including many times with those who had great trouble reading (we just read it aloud, again and again). Just slow us down until it clicks.

The only people who consistently fail to understand this material are tenured professors of the social sciences...

Labor involved in spinning wool, weaving wool, equal to labor involved in same with linen maybe? so labor value the same?

Labor involved in spinning wool, weaving wool, equal to labor involved in same with linen maybe? so labor value the same?

of commodities being discussed (it threw me a bit). The commodities in question could be anything - ax-handles and shoes, anvils and shawls, wagons and railroad ties. I was kind of confused at first because I kept thinking about the linen being used to make the coat! (LOL). Karl is just picking two commodities at random - linen and coats, but it could have been anything. This at least was a problem early on for me, I kept thinking this relationship in the back of my mind - had to "purge" it (no totalitarianism involved...honest).
:)

of commodities being discussed (it threw me a bit). The commodities in question could be anything - ax-handles and shoes, anvils and shawls, wagons and railroad ties. I was kind of confused at first because I kept thinking about the linen being used to make the coat! (LOL). Karl is just picking two commodities at random - linen and coats, but it could have been anything. This at least was a problem early on for me, I kept thinking this relationship in the back of my mind - had to "purge" it (no totalitarianism involved...honest).
:)

It is our time on earth, it's all we got. Is one person's time on earth worth more than another's? For it to be stolen from us is no small crime. That it should be miserable, onerous, is insult to injury.

Capitalism takes the essence of our lives and gives it to others who have no need for it other than their self-aggrandizement.

Work we must, else we perish. But we work for ourselves, our brothers and sisters, not thieves.

It is our time on earth, it's all we got. Is one person's time on earth worth more than another's? For it to be stolen from us is no small crime. That it should be miserable, onerous, is insult to injury.

Capitalism takes the essence of our lives and gives it to others who have no need for it other than their self-aggrandizement.

Work we must, else we perish. But we work for ourselves, our brothers and sisters, not thieves.

luckily I'm so dense I didn't even realize that so it'd didn't throw me :)

luckily I'm so dense I didn't even realize that so it'd didn't throw me :)

Is linen ever used to make coats, anyway? Wouldn't be very warm. I know Pat Nixon had a "cloth coat" LOL.

Is linen ever used to make coats, anyway? Wouldn't be very warm. I know Pat Nixon had a "cloth coat" LOL.

Well said.

Well said.

but this passage is just absolutely a killer!

"Aristotle therefore, himself, tells us what barred the way to his further analysis; it was the absence of any concept of value. What is that equal something, that common substance, which admits of the value of the beds being expressed by a house? Such a thing, in truth, cannot exist, says Aristotle. And why not? Compared with the beds, the house does represent something equal to them, in so far as it represents what is really equal, both in the beds and the house. And that is – human labour.

There was, however, an important fact which prevented Aristotle from seeing that, to attribute value to commodities, is merely a mode of expressing all labour as equal human labour, and consequently as labour of equal quality. Greek society was founded upon slavery, and had, therefore, for its natural basis, the inequality of men and of their labour powers. The secret of the expression of value, namely, that all kinds of labour are equal and equivalent, because, and so far as they are human labour in general, cannot be deciphered, until the notion of human equality has already acquired the fixity of a popular prejudice. This, however, is possible only in a society in which the great mass of the produce of labour takes the form of commodities, in which, consequently, the dominant relation between man and man, is that of owners of commodities. The brilliancy of Aristotle’s genius is shown by this alone, that he discovered, in the expression of the value of commodities, a relation of equality. The peculiar conditions of the society in which he lived, alone prevented him from discovering what, “in truth,” was at the bottom of this equality."

This is the STUFF, man! It pisses me off that this isn't taught in school from the earliest grades. Everyone should be walking around with the relationships spelled out in Capital as part of their everyday makeup. This is getting good...

but this passage is just absolutely a killer!

"Aristotle therefore, himself, tells us what barred the way to his further analysis; it was the absence of any concept of value. What is that equal something, that common substance, which admits of the value of the beds being expressed by a house? Such a thing, in truth, cannot exist, says Aristotle. And why not? Compared with the beds, the house does represent something equal to them, in so far as it represents what is really equal, both in the beds and the house. And that is – human labour.

There was, however, an important fact which prevented Aristotle from seeing that, to attribute value to commodities, is merely a mode of expressing all labour as equal human labour, and consequently as labour of equal quality. Greek society was founded upon slavery, and had, therefore, for its natural basis, the inequality of men and of their labour powers. The secret of the expression of value, namely, that all kinds of labour are equal and equivalent, because, and so far as they are human labour in general, cannot be deciphered, until the notion of human equality has already acquired the fixity of a popular prejudice. This, however, is possible only in a society in which the great mass of the produce of labour takes the form of commodities, in which, consequently, the dominant relation between man and man, is that of owners of commodities. The brilliancy of Aristotle’s genius is shown by this alone, that he discovered, in the expression of the value of commodities, a relation of equality. The peculiar conditions of the society in which he lived, alone prevented him from discovering what, “in truth,” was at the bottom of this equality."

This is the STUFF, man! It pisses me off that this isn't taught in school from the earliest grades. Everyone should be walking around with the relationships spelled out in Capital as part of their everyday makeup. This is getting good...

I think Pinko was posing this very question about Aristotle a while back. Not sure if he was asking for elaboration on this passage or if he was confused about it or what. But I do remember it coming up

I think Pinko was posing this very question about Aristotle a while back. Not sure if he was asking for elaboration on this passage or if he was confused about it or what. But I do remember it coming up

... an angry one.

... an angry one.

When I'm thinking about me, something I want to know, regardless the applications that knowledge may have to the greater good, I get timid; if I'm not thinking about me, look out, I ran out in the road to stop two cars coming from the opposite direction when my cat was crossing (he never crossed the road again)...when the president of the state wide union said teachers might have to accept merit pay and ill defined what union was, I called him out...but ask a question for myself? pulling teeth...

When I'm thinking about me, something I want to know, regardless the applications that knowledge may have to the greater good, I get timid; if I'm not thinking about me, look out, I ran out in the road to stop two cars coming from the opposite direction when my cat was crossing (he never crossed the road again)...when the president of the state wide union said teachers might have to accept merit pay and ill defined what union was, I called him out...but ask a question for myself? pulling teeth...

I actually selected wool and linen as I thought they might have similar value regarding labor, sheering/reaping, spinning and weaving for both, tailoring similar. Interesting about the different value for the cloths you mention.

So as an artist, it goes that a painting which takes maybe a month would have more value than an artist's print which resulted from an artistic process, but has become mass produced to a degree? I guess aesthetic value would be use value in each?

Sorry so long here, I'm having difficulties posting...

On edit, regarding art, I like the artist printmakers who pull their own prints a lot, they do the artistic drafting, the processing, and the production, and their work is more art for the people, though the labor is pretty intensive. The printmakers I've known have huge arms...especially the stone lithographers...the muralists are others that truly create art for the masses...

I actually selected wool and linen as I thought they might have similar value regarding labor, sheering/reaping, spinning and weaving for both, tailoring similar. Interesting about the different value for the cloths you mention.

So as an artist, it goes that a painting which takes maybe a month would have more value than an artist's print which resulted from an artistic process, but has become mass produced to a degree? I guess aesthetic value would be use value in each?

Sorry so long here, I'm having difficulties posting...

On edit, regarding art, I like the artist printmakers who pull their own prints a lot, they do the artistic drafting, the processing, and the production, and their work is more art for the people, though the labor is pretty intensive. The printmakers I've known have huge arms...especially the stone lithographers...the muralists are others that truly create art for the masses...

wrinkly as sin...

wrinkly as sin...

Section 3A - Elementary or Accidental Form Of Value
Part 2. The Relative Form of value
(b.) Quantitative determination of Relative value
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm#S3b

We now continue with the relative form as quantity, something we have already anticipated in our discussion:

"Every commodity, whose value it (the Relative Form) is intended to express, is a useful object of given quantity... And a given quantity of any commodity contains a definite quantity of human labour. The value form must therefore not only express value generally, but also value in definite quantity...

The equation, 20 yards of linen = 1 coat, or 20 yards of linen are worth one coat, implies that the same quantity of value substance (congealed labour) is embodied in both; that the two commodities have each cost the same amount of labour of the same quantity of labour time. But the labour time necessary for the production of 20 yards of linen or 1 coat varies with every change in the productiveness of weaving or tailoring. We have now to consider the influence of such changes on the quantitative aspect of the relative expression of value."


I. Let the value of the linen vary,[20] that of the coat remaining constant. If, say in consequence of the exhaustion of flax-growing soil, the labour time necessary for the production of the linen be doubled, the value of the linen will also be doubled. Instead of the equation, 20 yards of linen = 1 coat, we should have 20 yards of linen = 2 coats... The relative value of commodity A, i.e., its value expressed in commodity B, rises and falls directly as the value of A, the value of B being supposed constant.


II. Let the value of the linen remain constant, while the value of the coat varies. If, under these circumstances, in consequence, for instance, of a poor crop of wool, the labour time necessary for the production of a coat becomes doubled, we have instead of 20 yards of linen = 1 coat, 20 yards of linen = ½ coat... Hence, if the value of commodity A remain constant, its relative value expressed in commodity B rises and falls inversely as the value of B.


III. Let the quantities of labour time respectively necessary for the production of the linen and the coat vary simultaneously in the same direction and in the same proportion. In this case 20 yards of linen continue equal to 1 coat, however much their values may have altered. Their change of value is seen as soon as they are compared with a third commodity, whose value has remained constant. If the values of all commodities rose or fell simultaneously, and in the same proportion, their relative values would remain unaltered. Their real change of value would appear from the diminished or increased quantity of commodities produced in a given time.


IV. The labour time respectively necessary for the production of the linen and the coat, and therefore the value of these commodities may simultaneously vary in the same direction, but at unequal rates or in opposite directions, or in other ways. The effect of all these possible different variations, on the relative value of a commodity, may be deduced from the results of I, II, and III.

"Thus real changes in the magnitude of value are neither unequivocally nor exhaustively reflected in their relative expression, that is, in the equation expressing the magnitude of relative value. The relative value of a commodity may vary, although its value remains constant. Its relative value may remain constant, although its value varies; and finally, simultaneous variations in the magnitude of value and in that of its relative expression by no means necessarily correspond in amount.[21]"

After the loaded subsection we have just reviewed, this one is almost a relief, no?

Section 3A - Elementary or Accidental Form Of Value
Part 2. The Relative Form of value
(b.) Quantitative determination of Relative value
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm#S3b

We now continue with the relative form as quantity, something we have already anticipated in our discussion:

"Every commodity, whose value it (the Relative Form) is intended to express, is a useful object of given quantity... And a given quantity of any commodity contains a definite quantity of human labour. The value form must therefore not only express value generally, but also value in definite quantity...

The equation, 20 yards of linen = 1 coat, or 20 yards of linen are worth one coat, implies that the same quantity of value substance (congealed labour) is embodied in both; that the two commodities have each cost the same amount of labour of the same quantity of labour time. But the labour time necessary for the production of 20 yards of linen or 1 coat varies with every change in the productiveness of weaving or tailoring. We have now to consider the influence of such changes on the quantitative aspect of the relative expression of value."


I. Let the value of the linen vary,[20] that of the coat remaining constant. If, say in consequence of the exhaustion of flax-growing soil, the labour time necessary for the production of the linen be doubled, the value of the linen will also be doubled. Instead of the equation, 20 yards of linen = 1 coat, we should have 20 yards of linen = 2 coats... The relative value of commodity A, i.e., its value expressed in commodity B, rises and falls directly as the value of A, the value of B being supposed constant.


II. Let the value of the linen remain constant, while the value of the coat varies. If, under these circumstances, in consequence, for instance, of a poor crop of wool, the labour time necessary for the production of a coat becomes doubled, we have instead of 20 yards of linen = 1 coat, 20 yards of linen = ½ coat... Hence, if the value of commodity A remain constant, its relative value expressed in commodity B rises and falls inversely as the value of B.


III. Let the quantities of labour time respectively necessary for the production of the linen and the coat vary simultaneously in the same direction and in the same proportion. In this case 20 yards of linen continue equal to 1 coat, however much their values may have altered. Their change of value is seen as soon as they are compared with a third commodity, whose value has remained constant. If the values of all commodities rose or fell simultaneously, and in the same proportion, their relative values would remain unaltered. Their real change of value would appear from the diminished or increased quantity of commodities produced in a given time.


IV. The labour time respectively necessary for the production of the linen and the coat, and therefore the value of these commodities may simultaneously vary in the same direction, but at unequal rates or in opposite directions, or in other ways. The effect of all these possible different variations, on the relative value of a commodity, may be deduced from the results of I, II, and III.

"Thus real changes in the magnitude of value are neither unequivocally nor exhaustively reflected in their relative expression, that is, in the equation expressing the magnitude of relative value. The relative value of a commodity may vary, although its value remains constant. Its relative value may remain constant, although its value varies; and finally, simultaneous variations in the magnitude of value and in that of its relative expression by no means necessarily correspond in amount.[21]"

After the loaded subsection we have just reviewed, this one is almost a relief, no?

This seems straightforward and concise. (Yippee!)

This seems straightforward and concise. (Yippee!)

and the boss hasn't allowed for proper maintenance of the machinery, they're running like crud, taking more time to produce the product. There is more labor(value) in the product, yet the relative value remains the same.

or

new machines have been installed, the product can be produced much faster, or the man leans on the workers harder, deriving the same effect. The value of each unit is reduced because it takes less labor(time) to produce them. Yet the relative value remains the same.

or

I'm off track.

Hard getting my head around my working the same hours, producing more goods but having my labor being less valued. Same for the opposite. Too literal minded, I guess.

Does relative value have anything to do with selling price? I think so.

and the boss hasn't allowed for proper maintenance of the machinery, they're running like crud, taking more time to produce the product. There is more labor(value) in the product, yet the relative value remains the same.

or

new machines have been installed, the product can be produced much faster, or the man leans on the workers harder, deriving the same effect. The value of each unit is reduced because it takes less labor(time) to produce them. Yet the relative value remains the same.

or

I'm off track.

Hard getting my head around my working the same hours, producing more goods but having my labor being less valued. Same for the opposite. Too literal minded, I guess.

Does relative value have anything to do with selling price? I think so.

Actually, this is the part that has traditionally given me trouble, but this exercise is beginning to show me why.

Thus far, Capital has been a logical proof demonstrating that abstract human labor is the only thing that relative value can be an expression of. Since abstract labor can not be understood in anyway that takes into account the specific type or condition of the labor congealed in a commodity, duration is the only available measuring tool. But, this is not a description of functioning political economy, it serves to prove that whenever "commodities encounter each other" relative value (even in time of scarcity) would, in its natural state, be determined by the duration of "labour time".

Of course, relative value is always perverted by Capital through a variety of profit making actions. If we fast forward to a 21st century Socialist economy, we are not limited to using only duration when considering the reward for labor. I'm not talking about education, physical aptitude, etc, rather the onerous or dangerous nature of a task.

Marx here is offering a proof not a prescription for a good political economy. Yes?
The duration thing has always been a problem for me. I think what I written above is better than my previous understanding.

BTW, the one reason I think this thread is so successful, is that the internet forces one to read and write, a very different learning experience than listening or conversing. Except for TA who must type faster than I talk lol.

Actually, this is the part that has traditionally given me trouble, but this exercise is beginning to show me why.

Thus far, Capital has been a logical proof demonstrating that abstract human labor is the only thing that relative value can be an expression of. Since abstract labor can not be understood in anyway that takes into account the specific type or condition of the labor congealed in a commodity, duration is the only available measuring tool. But, this is not a description of functioning political economy, it serves to prove that whenever "commodities encounter each other" relative value (even in time of scarcity) would, in its natural state, be determined by the duration of "labour time".

Of course, relative value is always perverted by Capital through a variety of profit making actions. If we fast forward to a 21st century Socialist economy, we are not limited to using only duration when considering the reward for labor. I'm not talking about education, physical aptitude, etc, rather the onerous or dangerous nature of a task.

Marx here is offering a proof not a prescription for a good political economy. Yes?
The duration thing has always been a problem for me. I think what I written above is better than my previous understanding.

BTW, the one reason I think this thread is so successful, is that the internet forces one to read and write, a very different learning experience than listening or conversing. Except for TA who must type faster than I talk lol.

Karl, here is talking about where value comes from, not what some particular commodity is valued on a particular day in a particular location, but what is the source of all value in any commodity, period. And remember the labor he is talking about, once it gets to the "value" part is "abstract labor" not "physical labor"; so there are no "conditions" or "circumstances" that come to bare - because the "labor" has become "abstract". Does that make sense?

Karl, here is talking about where value comes from, not what some particular commodity is valued on a particular day in a particular location, but what is the source of all value in any commodity, period. And remember the labor he is talking about, once it gets to the "value" part is "abstract labor" not "physical labor"; so there are no "conditions" or "circumstances" that come to bare - because the "labor" has become "abstract". Does that make sense?

Yeah, keep drifting into the literal.

Ya got all of these values subsumed into the realm of abstract value, their value relative to each other varying according to their various circumstances, but it all comes out in the sauce.

Can't help it I'm a primitive, we're the most obdurate sort of materialist, ya know?

Yeah, keep drifting into the literal.

Ya got all of these values subsumed into the realm of abstract value, their value relative to each other varying according to their various circumstances, but it all comes out in the sauce.

Can't help it I'm a primitive, we're the most obdurate sort of materialist, ya know?

...you are onto one of the most fundamental driving forces of capitalism itself. You have, admittedly in germinal form, tripped across the the reason why capitalism immediately unleashes "the productive forces slumbering" under the surface of human society, and puts to shame all Egyptian pyramids... how capitalism not only builds Coliseums but actually several in each small town, and this, not as its greatest creations, but as incidentals. You have also explained why no matter how many times they bury Marx, they can't keep him dead. Let's consider the problem more closely.

Remember that when we derived abstract human labor, we abstracted away from the concrete, specific labor which creates products or use-values. But, we also abstracted away from the specific characteristics, productivity and intensity of the individual worker. What we are left with is a social average... the value which congeals in each individual commodity is an average of the amount of labor which congeals in all of the commodities produced of that type - labor of average duration and intensity - regardless of the individual circumstances surrounding the production of a single commodity. Now, think about your two examples in light of this, starting with the latter...

"new machines have been installed, the product can be produced much faster, or the man leans on the workers harder, deriving the same effect. The value of each unit is reduced because it takes less labor(time) to produce them. Yet the relative value remains the same."

Which is why capitalism constantly revolutionizes production. New machines produce 10 widgets per hour yet the "average" is five widgets. The relative value remains the same because the value of all widgets has not changed. The capitalist is making twice as much and will continue to do so... so long as his increased productivity is not matched by others sufficient to reduce the overall average. Once the new average reflects the new productivity, the process begins anew... or even before. You have just described "competition" and our capitalist is trying to stay "ahead of the game", as they all are. Of course, there are limits to increasing the intensity of labor... but not so in the introduction of machinery.

Now let's consider the other example:

"the boss hasn't allowed for proper maintenance of the machinery, they're running like crud, taking more time to produce the product. There is more labor(value) in the product, yet the relative value remains the same."

Consider a machine shop. It normally produces five widgets per hour... but, the tools and bits are old... or the furnish is not quite right (though cheap)... The tools keep breaking or they require constant resharpening. Instead of producing 5 widgets, the actual average is three. Yet the relative value has not changed. Our capitalist is failing... Why did he do this? Perhaps he was not competitive enough to replenish his capital. Perhaps other sectors offering greater return seduced his capital. It makes no difference. His belt is rusting.

What is true of the individual capitalist can also be true of national capital. Perhaps cannibalization is sustained by tariffs, or monopoly pricing... for a time. But the underlying engine is inexorable. Sooner or later...

We are now a couple of dozen pages into the book but we are already describing, again in germinal form, real life... and that in a way which is rarely understood by even the few. And, we we are only anticipating a little.

They should have burned the proofs of this book...

...you are onto one of the most fundamental driving forces of capitalism itself. You have, admittedly in germinal form, tripped across the the reason why capitalism immediately unleashes "the productive forces slumbering" under the surface of human society, and puts to shame all Egyptian pyramids... how capitalism not only builds Coliseums but actually several in each small town, and this, not as its greatest creations, but as incidentals. You have also explained why no matter how many times they bury Marx, they can't keep him dead. Let's consider the problem more closely.

Remember that when we derived abstract human labor, we abstracted away from the concrete, specific labor which creates products or use-values. But, we also abstracted away from the specific characteristics, productivity and intensity of the individual worker. What we are left with is a social average... the value which congeals in each individual commodity is an average of the amount of labor which congeals in all of the commodities produced of that type - labor of average duration and intensity - regardless of the individual circumstances surrounding the production of a single commodity. Now, think about your two examples in light of this, starting with the latter...

"new machines have been installed, the product can be produced much faster, or the man leans on the workers harder, deriving the same effect. The value of each unit is reduced because it takes less labor(time) to produce them. Yet the relative value remains the same."

Which is why capitalism constantly revolutionizes production. New machines produce 10 widgets per hour yet the "average" is five widgets. The relative value remains the same because the value of all widgets has not changed. The capitalist is making twice as much and will continue to do so... so long as his increased productivity is not matched by others sufficient to reduce the overall average. Once the new average reflects the new productivity, the process begins anew... or even before. You have just described "competition" and our capitalist is trying to stay "ahead of the game", as they all are. Of course, there are limits to increasing the intensity of labor... but not so in the introduction of machinery.

Now let's consider the other example:

"the boss hasn't allowed for proper maintenance of the machinery, they're running like crud, taking more time to produce the product. There is more labor(value) in the product, yet the relative value remains the same."

Consider a machine shop. It normally produces five widgets per hour... but, the tools and bits are old... or the furnish is not quite right (though cheap)... The tools keep breaking or they require constant resharpening. Instead of producing 5 widgets, the actual average is three. Yet the relative value has not changed. Our capitalist is failing... Why did he do this? Perhaps he was not competitive enough to replenish his capital. Perhaps other sectors offering greater return seduced his capital. It makes no difference. His belt is rusting.

What is true of the individual capitalist can also be true of national capital. Perhaps cannibalization is sustained by tariffs, or monopoly pricing... for a time. But the underlying engine is inexorable. Sooner or later...

We are now a couple of dozen pages into the book but we are already describing, again in germinal form, real life... and that in a way which is rarely understood by even the few. And, we we are only anticipating a little.

They should have burned the proofs of this book...

absorb this (me especially)? What the pig was describing was actually a portion of the blood-stained arena of capitalist competition...Jesus, it is hideous in its beauty...

You're right, they should have burned the proofs and scattered the ashes...

absorb this (me especially)? What the pig was describing was actually a portion of the blood-stained arena of capitalist competition...Jesus, it is hideous in its beauty...

You're right, they should have burned the proofs and scattered the ashes...

... but I still gotta say: nope.

Everything Marx writes in Capital and 99.9% of what he writes altogether is about capitalism. The unstated objective of his work is not, "a good political economy" but the elimination of political economy altogether. At a relatively recent stage in human existence, commodities come to exist. Rapidly, they create a human society in which commodity production is the sole organizing principle, with its essential products being class society on the one hand and an increasingly intense struggle, on the other, between the needs of humans and the ever more alien "needs" of their creations. There is nothing to "fix". Commodity production has to go... and with it, those political classes which emanate from it.

"Thus far, Capital has been a logical proof demonstrating that abstract human labor is the only thing that relative value can be an expression of. Since abstract labor can not be understood in anyway that takes into account the specific type or condition of the labor congealed in a commodity, duration is the only available measuring tool. But, this is not a description of functioning political economy, it serves to prove that whenever "commodities encounter each other" relative value (even in time of scarcity) would, in its natural state, be determined by the duration of "labour time".

Exactly the opposite is true. This is precisely a "description of functioning political economy" as it actually exists. There is no "specific type or condition of the labor congealed in a commodity", whatsoever. It is noted only historically.

... but I still gotta say: nope.

Everything Marx writes in Capital and 99.9% of what he writes altogether is about capitalism. The unstated objective of his work is not, "a good political economy" but the elimination of political economy altogether. At a relatively recent stage in human existence, commodities come to exist. Rapidly, they create a human society in which commodity production is the sole organizing principle, with its essential products being class society on the one hand and an increasingly intense struggle, on the other, between the needs of humans and the ever more alien "needs" of their creations. There is nothing to "fix". Commodity production has to go... and with it, those political classes which emanate from it.

"Thus far, Capital has been a logical proof demonstrating that abstract human labor is the only thing that relative value can be an expression of. Since abstract labor can not be understood in anyway that takes into account the specific type or condition of the labor congealed in a commodity, duration is the only available measuring tool. But, this is not a description of functioning political economy, it serves to prove that whenever "commodities encounter each other" relative value (even in time of scarcity) would, in its natural state, be determined by the duration of "labour time".

Exactly the opposite is true. This is precisely a "description of functioning political economy" as it actually exists. There is no "specific type or condition of the labor congealed in a commodity", whatsoever. It is noted only historically.

As long as you are there to say, "See how simple this is?" We all say, "Damn, that is easy!" But otherwise I am trying to figure out this freaking construct that looks like one of Escher's bad dreams; and I finally get to an "Aha!" moment and what I have is some arabesque-looking mess that would stun Dali...What IS it that makes this seem so hard when it is actually rather simple? I love this study, but the frustration level can get pretty high, sometimes...

As long as you are there to say, "See how simple this is?" We all say, "Damn, that is easy!" But otherwise I am trying to figure out this freaking construct that looks like one of Escher's bad dreams; and I finally get to an "Aha!" moment and what I have is some arabesque-looking mess that would stun Dali...What IS it that makes this seem so hard when it is actually rather simple? I love this study, but the frustration level can get pretty high, sometimes...

And I thought.....well, ok then.

Mmmm, acorns...truffles...snort.

And I thought.....well, ok then.

Mmmm, acorns...truffles...snort.

... which is another reason to hate him.

We are exactly half a chapter away from a chapter devoted to, "what IS it that makes this seem so hard when it is actually rather simple." (Section 4. The Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret Thereof)

... which is another reason to hate him.

We are exactly half a chapter away from a chapter devoted to, "what IS it that makes this seem so hard when it is actually rather simple." (Section 4. The Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret Thereof)

You did do all that... And the duality is stunning: each owner of capital is in the position of trying to "beat" the system on whose operation their own survival depends. It is exactly the same as the merchant who works tirelessy to "buy cheap and sell dear", though the merchant could not exist if commodities, on average, did not exchange at their value.

There ain't no greed, human nature, conspiracy or collusion which could get close to this little contradiction which is in the nature of commodities from the outset.

You did do all that... And the duality is stunning: each owner of capital is in the position of trying to "beat" the system on whose operation their own survival depends. It is exactly the same as the merchant who works tirelessy to "buy cheap and sell dear", though the merchant could not exist if commodities, on average, did not exchange at their value.

There ain't no greed, human nature, conspiracy or collusion which could get close to this little contradiction which is in the nature of commodities from the outset.

It would side-track us right now, but the question is a good one. Why is something so simple and straightforward so difficult for people?

I think people assume that it is difficult going in - "economics is way over my head." (No accident - we have been trained to think that.) People then look for the anticipated complexity and brace themselves for the difficulties, and that becomes a distraction and a barrier, and that itself makes the material seem more complex and difficult than it actually is. But as I said, that discussion is probably best left for later.

It would side-track us right now, but the question is a good one. Why is something so simple and straightforward so difficult for people?

I think people assume that it is difficult going in - "economics is way over my head." (No accident - we have been trained to think that.) People then look for the anticipated complexity and brace themselves for the difficulties, and that becomes a distraction and a barrier, and that itself makes the material seem more complex and difficult than it actually is. But as I said, that discussion is probably best left for later.

Each sentence is a gem.

"At a relatively recent stage in human existence, commodities come to exist."

"Rapidly, they create a human society in which commodity production is the sole organizing principle, with its essential products being class society on the one hand and an increasingly intense struggle, on the other, between the needs of humans and the ever more alien 'needs' of their creations."

"There is nothing to 'fix.'"

"Commodity production has to go... and with it, those political classes which emanate from it."

Damn.

Each sentence is a gem.

"At a relatively recent stage in human existence, commodities come to exist."

"Rapidly, they create a human society in which commodity production is the sole organizing principle, with its essential products being class society on the one hand and an increasingly intense struggle, on the other, between the needs of humans and the ever more alien 'needs' of their creations."

"There is nothing to 'fix.'"

"Commodity production has to go... and with it, those political classes which emanate from it."

Damn.

Thanks,
I was trying to write a happy ending way to early. A seeds of the new... kind of thing.
We can continue, your explanation puts me back on track.

Thanks,
I was trying to write a happy ending way to early. A seeds of the new... kind of thing.
We can continue, your explanation puts me back on track.

It is so simple, so elegant, and so in your fucking face, and so hidden from the people...

It is so simple, so elegant, and so in your fucking face, and so hidden from the people...

I've developed this strategy of waiting till there's like 10 posts on a new section so most of my questions/confusions are addressed by the time I get here.

It was accidental at first but I may make a habit of it :)

I keep thinking about quality though. I think I need to get that outta my head for now. But I keep thinking about how a high-quality wool coat has higher relative value than a low-quality wool coat, and then trying to get into the intricacies of how much more labor must have gone into the production of the high-quality coat...and where does that fit into this 'social average' of congealed abstract labor...But really, I just have to look at those as two different commodities don't I?

But generally, quantity will inevitably trump quality in this system. Hell, brand-name labels will trump quality too.

I'm surprised that my mind is taking me in this more literal direction because I'm generally pretty good at abstraction, LOL. Maybe it's because it's getting cold here in Michigan and the thought of cheap crappy coats makes me shiver.

I've developed this strategy of waiting till there's like 10 posts on a new section so most of my questions/confusions are addressed by the time I get here.

It was accidental at first but I may make a habit of it :)

I keep thinking about quality though. I think I need to get that outta my head for now. But I keep thinking about how a high-quality wool coat has higher relative value than a low-quality wool coat, and then trying to get into the intricacies of how much more labor must have gone into the production of the high-quality coat...and where does that fit into this 'social average' of congealed abstract labor...But really, I just have to look at those as two different commodities don't I?

But generally, quantity will inevitably trump quality in this system. Hell, brand-name labels will trump quality too.

I'm surprised that my mind is taking me in this more literal direction because I'm generally pretty good at abstraction, LOL. Maybe it's because it's getting cold here in Michigan and the thought of cheap crappy coats makes me shiver.

... with two significantly different prices, they are different use-values, no matter how it may seem to you or I. There is a social element to "objects of desire" as well, though as Marx said at the beginning, that is a separate study.

... with two significantly different prices, they are different use-values, no matter how it may seem to you or I. There is a social element to "objects of desire" as well, though as Marx said at the beginning, that is a separate study.

Let's move on before I forget ehat I've learned.

Let's move on before I forget what I've learned.

please and thanks!

Section 3A - Elementary or Accidental Form Of Value
Part 3. The Equivalent form of value
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm#S3b

In comparison to the relative form, the equivalent form is almost passive:

"...The commodity linen manifests its quality of having a value by the fact that the coat, without having assumed a value form different from its bodily form, is equated to the linen. The fact that the latter therefore has a value is expressed by saying that the coat is directly exchangeable with it. Therefore, when we say that a commodity is in the equivalent form, we express the fact that it is directly exchangeable with other commodities.

When one commodity, such as a coat, serves as the equivalent of another, such as linen, and coats consequently acquire the characteristic property of being directly exchangeable with linen, we are far from knowing in what proportion the two are exchangeable. The value of the linen being given in magnitude, that proportion depends on the value of the coat. Whether the coat serves as the equivalent and the linen as relative value, or the linen as the equivalent and the coat as relative value, the magnitude of the coat’s value is determined, independently of its value form, by the labour time necessary for its production. But whenever the coat assumes in the equation of value, the position of equivalent, its value acquires no quantitative expression; on the contrary, the commodity coat now figures only as a definite quantity of some article.

For instance, 40 yards of linen are worth – what? 2 coats. Because the commodity coat here plays the part of equivalent, because the use-value coat, as opposed to the linen, figures as an embodiment of value, therefore a definite number of coats suffices to express the definite quantity of value in the linen. Two coats may therefore express the quantity of value of 40 yards of linen, but they can never express the quantity of their own value. A superficial observation of this fact, namely, that in the equation of value, the equivalent figures exclusively as a simple quantity of some article, of some use value, has misled Bailey, as also many others, both before and after him, into seeing, in the expression of value, merely a quantitative relation. The truth being, that when a commodity acts as equivalent, no quantitative determination of its value is expressed."

Marx notes what he calls 3 "peculiarities" in the above relationship...


The first peculiarity that strikes us, in considering the form of the equivalent, is this: use value becomes the form of manifestation, the phenomenal form of its opposite, value.

The bodily form of the commodity becomes its value form. But, mark well, that this quid pro quo exists in the case of any commodity B, only when some other commodity A enters into a value relation with it, and then only within the limits of this relation. Since no commodity can stand in the relation of equivalent to itself, and thus turn its own bodily shape into the expression of its own value, every commodity is compelled to choose some other commodity for its equivalent, and to accept the use value, that is to say, the bodily shape of that other commodity as the form of its own value.


In tailoring, as well as in weaving, human labour power is expended. Both, therefore, possess the general property of being human labour, and may, therefore, in certain cases, such as in the production of value, have to be considered under this aspect alone. There is nothing mysterious in this. But in the expression of value there is a complete turn of the tables. For instance, how is the fact to be expressed that weaving creates the value of the linen, not by virtue of being weaving, as such, but by reason of its general property of being human labour? Simply by opposing to weaving that other particular form of concrete labour (in this instance tailoring), which produces the equivalent of the product of weaving. Just as the coat in its bodily form became a direct expression of value, so now does tailoring, a concrete form of labour, appear as the direct and palpable embodiment of human labour generally.

Hence, the second peculiarity of the equivalent form is, that concrete labour becomes the form under which its opposite, abstract human labour, manifests itself.


But because this concrete labour, tailoring in our case, ranks as, and is directly identified with, undifferentiated human labour, it also ranks as identical with any other sort of labour, and therefore with that embodied in the linen. Consequently, although, like all other commodity-producing labour, it is the labour of private individuals, yet, at the same time, it ranks as labour directly social in its character. This is the reason why it results in a product directly exchangeable with other commodities. We have then a third peculiarity of the equivalent form, namely, that the labour of private individuals takes the form of its opposite, labour directly social in its form.

http://www.stenudd.com/myth/greek/images/aristotle.jpg

Finally, we have the concluding quote about Aristotle, already mentioned by Dhalgren, which serves to illustrate the peculiarities we have noted:


In the first place, he clearly enunciates that the money form of commodities is only the further development of the simple form of value – i.e., of the expression of the value of one commodity in some other commodity taken at random; for he says:

5 beds = 1 house

is not to be distinguished from

5 beds = so much money.

He further sees that the value relation which gives rise to this expression makes it necessary that the house should qualitatively be made the equal of the bed, and that, without such an equalisation, these two clearly different things could not be compared with each other as commensurable quantities. “Exchange,” he says, “cannot take place without equality, and equality not without commensurability". Here, however, he comes to a stop, and gives up the further analysis of the form of value. “It is, however, in reality, impossible, that such unlike things can be commensurable” – i.e., qualitatively equal. Such an equalisation can only be something foreign to their real nature, consequently only “a makeshift for practical purposes.”

Aristotle therefore, himself, tells us what barred the way to his further analysis; it was the absence of any concept of value. What is that equal something, that common substance, which admits of the value of the beds being expressed by a house? Such a thing, in truth, cannot exist, says Aristotle. And why not? Compared with the beds, the house does represent something equal to them, in so far as it represents what is really equal, both in the beds and the house. And that is – human labour.

There was, however, an important fact which prevented Aristotle from seeing that, to attribute value to commodities, is merely a mode of expressing all labour as equal human labour, and consequently as labour of equal quality. Greek society was founded upon slavery, and had, therefore, for its natural basis, the inequality of men and of their labour powers. The secret of the expression of value, namely, that all kinds of labour are equal and equivalent, because, and so far as they are human labour in general, cannot be deciphered, until the notion of human equality has already acquired the fixity of a popular prejudice. This, however, is possible only in a society in which the great mass of the produce of labour takes the form of commodities, in which, consequently, the dominant relation between man and man, is that of owners of commodities. The brilliancy of Aristotle’s genius is shown by this alone, that he discovered, in the expression of the value of commodities, a relation of equality. The peculiar conditions of the society in which he lived, alone prevented him from discovering what, “in truth,” was at the bottom of this equality.

There are a number of things to be discussed here, but we have already covered a lot of turf on the elementary form. I am hesitant to linger further unless there are questions...

but he's cookin'. It's like one of those fancy sauces(which I've read about but never made), the sauce is reduced, then reduced again, something is added, then reduced again, it is the same thing, but more fully developed, it's nuances referring back to and more fully expressing the basic ingredients.

With the Aristotle quote I think I see where this is headed:

Equivalent value = congealed (abstracted) labor = money

And because, slave labor results in the same congealed human labor as wage labor (creating the value of a commodity), how can wages have anything concrete to do with value?

and that is what Marx is describing. And there mebbe lies the reason that Aristotle could not reach the same conclusion as Marx, his understanding of production relationships was different.

If you think about slavery, the cost of feeding and housing the slaves is rarely considered beyond the normal "overhead". That, I think, is how wages are viewed. There is that quotation that someone put up a few days ago - "We work so we can eat so we can work so we can eat so we can work..." Food, clothing and shelter (i.e. "wages") are the same any slave would receive if the massa wanted to keep working him/her...

You are quite right that human labor, if it produces commodities, creates the same value regardless of the social mode employed. Not only slave labor but serf labor was sometimes so employed. In general, though, neither slave (ancient slavery, not capitalist slavery) nor serf-based production was primarily commodity producing. The surplus was typically consumed.

As to the portion which went to the producers, that... as we shall see... was set independently from the value which was created by the expenditure of that labor power. The former was essentially set at the cost of reproduction of the laborer, whether that laborer was "free", enslaved, or merely "obligated". That cost of reproduction had a social component that made it vary from physical subsistence, no less for slaves than for modern wage earners.

slavery was political testimony to the fact that all labor could not be reduced to a commonality. More, commodity production itself was rare. It's hard to conceive of that which you don't see...

A couple of insights here. If I am going off topic let me know.

We are not the only ones saying "labor is the source of all wealth." So are the apologists for capitalism, they just won't admit it. They deny that labor is the source of all wealth, but operate strictly within the confines of that. They don't hold a "different opinion" about this, they deny that they share our opinion. What they are really saying is that YOUR labor is of no value particularly until and unless they decide that it is. THEIR labor, however, is of infinite value, and everything they do they want us to consider to be labor. They are out on their yacht, for example, sipping cocktails and thinking beautiful thoughts about how to outsource your job, and then demand that they are rewarded for that "labor." That "labor" is to be seen as vastly more valuable than your labor is.

That means that apologies for capitalism are based on a lie, and it also means that capitalism is inherently and thoroughly anti-social.

Labor being the source of all wealth is simply true, not because Marx says so, anymore than the existence of gravity depends upon Newton's opinion or doctrine.

which, politically, quickly comes to mean that you have to have a society of free producers. This is the political impetus that ends capitalist slavery anyway (and also sparks the movements towards political freedoms a la Locke, Mill, etc..see, its not an abstraction to say that society conforms itself to meet the needs of commodity production)

The fall of the Roman Empire ends the mode of production dominated by slave labor I think and the varied feudal lords become the de facto rulers. The big shift is that the predominant means of production is the land.

its hard to take it all in at once..that is one big reason I see for revisting this "elementary" material

It's common for advocates of capitalism to see wages as related to the value of commodities. That is "If something is worth so much, that the deserved wage is so much". The early introduction of slave labor as a component of abstract human labor, cuts that to the quick.

You read through this section of Capital far too quickly the first time, didn't you?

Besides, this is among the few parts of the book that is straight out of the Science of Logic. The "elementary" material is the hardest? Yep.

... (written history) that labor is the basis of exchange value, even if the reduction is not understood. The original trade tables of the Sumerians (which we will talk about shortly), include labor time notations. It is only with Capitalism that the first systemic denial of value creation by labor content appears. Even then, the effort is so crude and pro forma as to be obviously self serving. Thus the Mercantilists point to value creation in commerce alone, which by sheer accident, happens to be their vocation. The Physiocrats counter with value creation being "a gift of nature", rooted in the soil alone, with all other productive activity being merely transformative. Not surprisingly, they count themselves among the largest landowners.

When "Economic Science" is actually born, the labor foundation of it is universally accepted even if the details are poorly described. It takes nearly 100 years to marshal an attack on this most embarrassing "discovery". Once again, when the marginalists in their various incarnations attempt to tie use-value to value, they do so in such an abstract way as to make it nearly useless. Moreover, they openly undertake an effort nearly unique in the "sciences": to manufacture a new answer because they didn't like the implications of the old one...

In any case, most neo-classical economics bears some similarity to what you write. It is not so much that they accept the labor foundation of "value", so much as they reject such "Moralizing". "What difference does it make?"

This is said, usually just before they about to engage in the most banal moralizing on the most unworthy of subjects.

In Section 1 it sounds so disarmingly simple and it starts to feel like just a lot of extraneous verbiage after that and fetishism is sort of the glamorous part of the Chapter..

Am waitin' on your follow up on capitalist crisis..

For sure the trickiest part for me, and I used to be pretty good at algebra. Use it or lose it, I guess.

News of this reading is reaching strange and disturbing quarters:

HamdenRice said

[div class="excerpt"]
Btw, how are things going over at socialist independent in your sig line? I hear that the only active thread is some pompous windbag giving a line by line reading of Das Kapital. Or was that the other forum?[/quote]

then I can only bow to your genius. I've read it in small doses, I've read it directly alongside explanatory works, I've read it one paragraph (or even one numbered item) at a time.

Its like, the second you open the book a countdown starts til your your eyes glaze over

T-10, T-9, T-8, ..

I think Lenin famously said that you had to read Hegel to understand Capital and you had to read Capital to understand Hegel. Which squares with Hegel's remark that "only one man ever understood me, but even he didn't understand me". I think he was talking about Shelling which is a mixed bag because I'm not sure anyone (sane) ever understood Shelling either.

On the more insulting side, as one Frau asked "Who is this stupid fellow sitting next to me?" (It was Hegel)

As an aside, a long time ago Anax tried to do a thread on Hegel, but I actually managed to make him give up :) I recently tried to read a different work by Hegel, it is really flummoxing because you are not only hardpressed to follow his Rorschach of terms but even more under duress simply to come to a decision whether what he's writing is even intelligible. Its infuriating.

Hell no, I ain't getting near that stuff. I think I remember that thread, the shit you wrote was even worse than Hegel, in terms of sheer incomprehensibility, it made my head hurt. But I am easily flummoxed by such things....

...that we continue a pompous, segment by segment reading until we get to part 4, "Fetishism". At that point, we take a short break and I put up the material on "crisis" (which is long but very straightforward) as a thread. Then we return to do fetishism. And then we talk about if and how we want to continue.

Hamden Rice is just jealous... and, for someone who prides himself on what he knows rather than on who he is... he don't know much.

sounds like a plan to me

Hamden oughta read some Hegel, hes some kinda walking talking contradiction all by himself

Section 3A - Elementary or Accidental Form Of Value
Part 4. The Elementary Form of value considered as a whole
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm#S3a4

With this section, we complete our extended elaboration of the Elementary Form of Value. After the discussion, I'll start a third "Reading Capital" thread as this one has gotten quite long. There, we will continue with the Expanded Form.

Anyone who has gotten a little lost in the twists and turns of the preceding sections need not worry. Much of the material, some of it bordering on formal logic, is intended for later use. Since the Elementary Form is the germ from which the vast and complex world of "commerce" emerges, understanding it in its simplicity helps us to discern later what is fundamental and what is merely incidental. For now, the exposition of the form, with the relative form expressing its value in an equivalent, on the right side of the equation, creates the basis for the Expanded Form or "chain" of equivalents... the next part of section 3.

I will reproduce the entire text (because it is quite short) and follow with a summary of this summary:


4. The Elementary Form of value considered as a whole

The elementary form of value of a commodity is contained in the equation, expressing its value relation to another commodity of a different kind, or in its exchange relation to the same. The value of commodity A, is qualitatively expressed, by the fact that commodity B is directly exchangeable with it. Its value is quantitatively expressed by the fact, that a definite quantity of B is exchangeable with a definite quantity of A. In other words, the value of a commodity obtains independent and definite expression, by taking the form of exchange value. When, at the beginning of this chapter, we said, in common parlance, that a commodity is both a use value and an exchange value, we were, accurately speaking, wrong. A commodity is a use value or object of utility, and a value. It manifests itself as this twofold thing, that it is, as soon as its value assumes an independent form – viz., the form of exchange value. It never assumes this form when isolated, but only when placed in a value or exchange relation with another commodity of a different kind. When once we know this, such a mode of expression does no harm; it simply serves as an abbreviation.

Our analysis has shown, that the form or expression of the value of a commodity originates in the nature of value, and not that value and its magnitude originate in the mode of their expression as exchange value. This, however, is the delusion as well of the mercantilists and their recent revivers, Ferrier, Ganilh,[23] and others, as also of their antipodes, the modern bagmen of Free-trade, such as Bastiat. The mercantilists lay special stress on the qualitative aspect of the expression of value, and consequently on the equivalent form of commodities, which attains its full perfection in money. The modern hawkers of Free-trade, who must get rid of their article at any price, on the other hand, lay most stress on the quantitative aspect of the relative form of value. For them there consequently exists neither value, nor magnitude of value, anywhere except in its expression by means of the exchange relation of commodities, that is, in the daily list of prices current. Macleod, who has taken upon himself to dress up the confused ideas of Lombard Street in the most learned finery, is a successful cross between the superstitious mercantilists, and the enlightened Free-trade bagmen.

A close scrutiny of the expression of the value of A in terms of B, contained in the equation expressing the value relation of A to B, has shown us that, within that relation, the bodily form of A figures only as a use value, the bodily form of B only as the form or aspect of value. The opposition or contrast existing internally in each commodity between use value and value, is, therefore, made evident externally by two commodities being placed in such relation to each other, that the commodity whose value it is sought to express, figures directly as a mere use value, while the commodity in which that value is to be expressed, figures directly as mere exchange value. Hence the elementary form of value of a commodity is the elementary form in which the contrast contained in that commodity, between use value and value, becomes apparent.

Every product of labour is, in all states of society, a use value; but it is only at a definite historical epoch in a society’s development that such a product becomes a commodity, viz., at the epoch when the labour spent on the production of a useful article becomes expressed as one of the objective qualities of that article, i.e., as its value. It therefore follows that the elementary value form is also the primitive form under which a product of labour appears historically as a commodity, and that the gradual transformation of such products into commodities, proceeds pari passu with the development of the value form.

We perceive, at first sight, the deficiencies of the elementary form of value: it is a mere germ, which must undergo a series of metamorphoses before it can ripen into the price form.

The expression of the value of commodity A in terms of any other commodity B, merely distinguishes the value from the use value of A, and therefore places A merely in a relation of exchange with a single different commodity, B; but it is still far from expressing A’s qualitative equality, and quantitative proportionality, to all commodities. To the elementary relative value form of a commodity, there corresponds the single equivalent form of one other commodity. Thus, in the relative expression of value of the linen, the coat assumes the form of equivalent, or of being directly exchangeable, only in relation to a single commodity, the linen.

Nevertheless, the elementary form of value passes by an easy transition into a more complete form. It is true that by means of the elementary form, the value of a commodity A, becomes expressed in terms of one, and only one, other commodity. But that one may be a commodity of any kind, coat, iron, corn, or anything else. Therefore, according as A is placed in relation with one or the other, we get for one and the same commodity, different elementary expressions of value.[24] The number of such possible expressions is limited only by the number of the different kinds of commodities distinct from it. The isolated expression of A’s value, is therefore convertible into a series, prolonged to any length, of the different elementary expressions of that value.


1. We first explored the commodity by itself, and discussed its "two-fold" nature. In this section, we discovered that this was a kind of shorthand. In truth, our commodity must come into a very definite relation with another in order for its "value side" to be expressed: "When, at the beginning of this chapter, we said, in common parlance, that a commodity is both a use value and an exchange value, we were, accurately speaking, wrong. A commodity is a use value or object of utility, and a value. It manifests itself as this twofold thing, that it is, as soon as its value assumes an independent form – viz., the form of exchange value. It never assumes this form when isolated, but only when placed in a value or exchange relation with another commodity of a different kind. When once we know this, such a mode of expression does no harm; it simply serves as an abbreviation."

2. "Our analysis has shown, that the form or expression of the value of a commodity originates in the nature of value, and not that value and its magnitude originate in the mode of their expression as exchange value."

3. "The opposition or contrast existing internally in each commodity between use value and value, is, therefore, made evident externally by two commodities being placed in such relation to each other, that the commodity whose value it is sought to express, figures directly as a mere use value, while the commodity in which that value is to be expressed, figures directly as mere exchange value. Hence the elementary form of value of a commodity is the elementary form in which the contrast contained in that commodity, between use value and value, becomes apparent."

4. The elementary form of value, which is logically the simplest form in which commodities actually exist as commodities, is also the earliest historical form in which they appear: "Every product of labour is, in all states of society, a use value; but it is only at a definite historical epoch in a society’s development that such a product becomes a commodity, viz., at the epoch when the labour spent on the production of a useful article becomes expressed as one of the objective qualities of that article, i.e., as its value. It therefore follows that the elementary value form is also the primitive form under which a product of labour appears historically as a commodity, and that the gradual transformation of such products into commodities, proceeds pari passu with the development of the value form."

- at an equal pace; in an equal or like way; Law without preference or priority.

Edit - Guess I shoulda checked on the effect of trying to post this in the subject line: (pä′rē pä′so̵̅o̅′, pā′ri′ pas′o̵̅o̅′)

:dunce:

figured it was something like that.

Did a search for it earlier: 1st four results:

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The elementary form of value is the same as exchange value, writ large, indicating the transition in our discussion from the theoretical to the historic.

Or I'm really confused.

We are treading on some rather rocky philosophical ground, but the elementary form of value is actually being shown to be a contradiction and a very real one, not one that is merely formal or existing solely in the intellect. In particular the CONTENT of value (which is manifested as the use-value of other commodities) sets this contradiction out very plainly and very starkly.

Chapter 2 on Exchange is actually a bit off yet, but there is an interesting footnote referring to Aristotle there as well. In it, Aristotle deduces that exchange value is actually the scenario where the "use" of the item IS exchange even though this merely defers the question of what its use value is since we must then ask what the use is for the person that receivves the item. But that person may also want it only because it can be exchanged for something else.

But that is not any kind of "use value" at all.

But don't worry, we're NOT going in circles however much it may seem that way.

The first is a debate in political economy from before Marx's day (which oddly still hangs around till the present but in very different words): Do commodities have value because they have exchange value... OR... Do commodities have exchange value because they have value?

Remember the quote in the very beginning of Chapter 1 in which Marx says "an inherent value appears as a contradiction in terms"? This is why.

Commodities have value because they are the products of labor. They don't have exchange value until they enter into the elementary form in which an equivalent commodity "sets" (remember "congeals") or expresses the magnitude of their value. When we said commodities appear as a two-fold thing, use value on the one hand and exchange value on the other, we were actually engaged in an "abbreviation". They don't got no exchange-value when they stand by themselves... they only have potential exchange-value in that they have value. So far, this shorthand (of equating value with exchange-value) is harmless.

The other bit of background is on philosophy (plug your ears). Organic logic is valid if it matches the physical world... that is, a logical process which abstracts an elementary form from a complex world and then attempts to logically recreate that world must be an analog of the actual evolution or the actual history of that world. In truth, this is the only empirical test possible for "Social Science".

Marx is presenting a combined theoretical/historical thesis on the origins of commodities and exchange. No "transition" is required. In fact, our ability to move from a purely logical to a largely historical narrative IS the proof. The simplest logical forms are also the earliest historical forms.

...which by a roundabout route, gets us to your "bow and arrow" question. If exchange value requires market, capital, the entire superstructure of modern relations, and so on, in order to exist, how did it come to be in the first place? Either it all "changed" at some point OR it requires an airlift: Robinson Crusoe transported back 5000 years OR "the Indian and the Bow" story, which is basically an argument that modern commodity relations don't have to evolve historically because they live "inherently" in the bosom of every human as their "nature".

eom...

[div class="excerpt"]
Marx is presenting a combined theoretical/historical thesis on the origins of commodities and exchange. No "transition" is required. In fact, our ability to move from a purely logical to a largely historical narrative IS the proof. The simplest logical forms are also the earliest historical forms.[/quote]

So exchange value is inherent in a commodity because labor has been expended in anticipation of exchange? I'll go out on a limb and guess that commodities arose as a natural result of improved productive capabilities? Casual exchange had been around, making things for exchange could only occur with increased productive capability, new methods and techniques. This made possible accumulation.....

but I think I found a good distillation of Vol. 1 of Capital

"The capitalist pays the value, so far as price coincides with value, of the labor-power, and receives in exchange the disposal of the living labor-power itself. His usufruct is spread over two periods. During one the laborer produces a value that is only equal to the value of his labor-power; he produces its equivalent. This the capitalist receives in return for his advance of the price of the labor-power, a product ready made in the market. During the other period, the period of surplus-labor, the usufruct of the labor-power creates a value for the capitalist, that costs him no equivalent. [4] This expenditure of labor-power comes to him gratis. In this sense it is that surplus-labor can be called unpaid labor.

"Capital, therefore, it not only, as Adam Smith says, the command over labor. It is essentially the command over unpaid labor. All surplus-value, whatever particular form (profit, interest, or rent), it may subsequently crystallize into, is in substance the materialization of unpaid labor. The secret of the self-expansion of capital resolves itself into having the disposal of a definite quantity of other people’s unpaid labor."

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch18.htm

So if we assume that the prices of things coincide with their values, and we understand (1) that the value of stuff that goes into constant capital doesnt add value to the product beyond what ultimately gets consumed in the production process and (2) that exchange doesnt create new value- I can only guess the idea that exchange does create new value is probably a consequence of prices of things widely not coinciding with their values- then Marx's position that labor-power and labor-power alone can add more value than it consumes, that labor-power is the wild card in all of this business, is ~100% unassailable and correct.

I'm not sure what to make of USUFRUCT though. The word appears nowhere in my Penguin translation.

Usufruct is the legal right to use and derive profit or benefit from property that belongs to another person, as long as the property is not damaged. In many legal systems of property, buyers of property may only purchase the usufruct of the property.Usufruct originates from civil law, where it is a real right of limited duration on the property of another. The holder of a usufruct, known as the usufructuary, has the right to use and enjoy the property, as well as the right to receive profits from the fruits of the property. The Latin words usus and fructus refer to the rights of use and fruit, respectively, and the English word usufruct derives from these Latin roots. -wiki

The legal right to use and/or derive income or other benefits from the property of someone else. The condition for this situation is that the property cannot be damaged in any way. This legal right is not recognized in many locations. - "The Business Dictionary"

Using the fruit of someone else's living organism...

Labor is the source of all value.

In the succinct distillation you've posted we see here what is, to me, the pre-eminent historical example of the dialectic. Capitalism is the higher form of slavery. Once (and still, in places like Dubai), expropriation of labor was tantamount to outright ownership of the living organism that produced that labor. Now, that labor is bought as a market a commodity, a unique on in that it is the sole commodity which is able to generate more value than that which trades for it in the "labor market." And of course this surplus of value is the source of this uniqueness, and it is indeed unpaid labor expropriated under a higher form of social organization.

So, no, you are not even a little bit off topic, even if you are skipping ahead just a tad.

Do chime in. This is all much easier with added perspectives.

(and yes usufruct literally comes from "use fruit") but one thing I've learned (the hard way) is that talking about things like "dialectic" outside of its own specific context or it but in a casual/offhand way, is typically a lose-lose proposition.

Either it comes off as too doctrinaire or too glib/flippant. Either way, what I've personally found (again, the hard way) is that it doesn't tend to be very revealing and people tend to assume you are introducing/expounding some mystified mumbo (of which I've been guilty as charged many times). There is simply alot of dirty laundry/baggage that comes attached with this material, and if we hope to be able to convey or demonstrate or even impart a materialist worldview to others, we sort of have an obligation to hold ourselves to a higher standard

Again, I wouldn't say what you wrote is wrong, but I do think we labor under a sort of self-imposed obligation to be as careful and as precise as we're able.

Just a hard won observation on my part; not meant at all to detract from the gist of brother cakes post and your worthy follow-up

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