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/lit/ - Literature

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1042729 No.1042729 [Reply] [Original]

Hey guys, im reading Marx's Capital, but i'm really confused by his concepts. What exactly does Marx believe the relationship between use-value and exchange-value is? Is the exchange-value set by use-value? In other words, is he saying that exchange values in a supply/demand equilibrium are based on quantities of 'units' of use-value?

The way I see it, this is what he's saying:

1. 2 commodities can be exchanged, but not all commodities are equal. Some have a greater use value than others. Thus, a lb of gold is worth more than a pair of socks.
2. 2 commodities however can be equated in use value when their matched up in seperate quantities. So for example, 100 pairs of socks might = 1 lb of gold.
3. The very fact that these two items are interchangeable on a free market, explains that they have some factor in common. The knee-jerk response is that they have use-value in common. But use value is based on a commodities physical properties. And since a sock does not derive it's utility from the same physical properties that a lb of gold does, that common factor cannot be use-value.
4. use-value excluded, the only common factor in all commodities is the labour required to produce them.

Am I getting this right so far?

>> No.1042735

reading Karl Marx? Why?

>> No.1042742

You're really not allowed to drink on the job, mein Herr.

>> No.1042769

>>1042729
Heres how it goes: Lets say a bunch of niggers in africa have some gold but they dont have socks.Its hot over there so the ground burns there feet and causes blister.So they want socks.Whites have socks.So they want to trade their gold for x amount of socks, because socks are more valuable to them.Therefore, to them, socks have a greater value than gold.

Basically that's what it comes down to.Also, karl marx is a quack and your wasting your time reading his books.

>> No.1042772

>>1042769
Why is he a "quack"?

>> No.1042780

>>1042772
Why are you responding to someone who lacks basic punctuation skills?

>> No.1042782

Will someone just explain Marx's reasoning to me please?

>> No.1042785

>>1042780
Because I am bored and procrastinating before I read The Fall by Albert Camus.

>> No.1042788

>>1042772
Alot of his work is about how great it would be to overthrow governments and cultures and implement socialism.If you like reading marxist revolutionary material I guess you would like it, but he's a real uptight bastard that thinks he can think for "the common folk".

>> No.1042789

>>1042782
You might be in for a long wait.

>> No.1042798
File: 90 KB, 800x600, ALOT.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
1042798

>>1042788
Marx writes about alots? You're shitting me!

>> No.1042816

>>1042798
so how long did it take you to make that pic? you're a asspained hipster neo-communist right?

>> No.1042822

>>1042816
>"asspained"
God, you must be 15.

>> No.1042827
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1042827

>>1042822
Are you butthurt because I'm right?

>> No.1042834

Yes. Some things are more expensive than others and in order to compensate you most adjust the quantity of good to make it worth while for the other party. Now pull your head out of your ass and quit following forgotten socialists who's ideas are practically non existent in this modern world due to there complete and utter FAIL.

>> No.1042835

>>1042827
I'm not even a Marxist, you are just clearly immature.

>> No.1042830

>>1042816
You think I made that picture? Just to use it in response to you? Don't flatter yourself, babycakes.

I've never read Marx in my life.

>> No.1042853

Being a socialist stopped being cool in the 60s.

>> No.1042856

>>1042834
Gee, thanks for the explanation. Could you explain possessive adjectives as well, please?

>> No.1042867

>>1042853

It become the norm. The new trend is anarcho-capitalism.

>> No.1042872

>there complete and utter FAIL
>there

Pretty much sums up the intelligence of Marx bashers.

>> No.1042875

>>1042856

I'm posting on 4chan, not writing a dissertation. Whenever your come up with a worthwhile criticism, I'd be glad to hear it.

>> No.1042877

>>1042867
Not in this country.

>> No.1042878

>>1042877
What country is that?

>> No.1042879

>>1042834
>order to compensate you most adjust the quantity

>> No.1042882

>>1042875
>I'm posting on 4chan, not writing a dissertation.

Thankfully. You're going to need a lot more practice before you attempt something that serious.

>> No.1042891

ITT: People who know nothing of Conflict Theory and who think things have an innate value talking out of their asses, and one or two people who actually want to learn.

>> No.1042897

The only commodities that really should be redistributed are grains and rices and the means to plant them. The surplus of basic human needs here and the deficit "there" is really just staggering.

I hate hippies as much as the next man, but they don't completely talk out of their asses. Cutting back the meat industr(ies) would free up a lot of cereals too, because rather than feeding a person, you're feeding the animal to feed the person.

>> No.1043447
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1043447

>>1042729

3 and 4 are good. they also contradict 1 and 2 which are wrong.

basically use value cannot be quantified. a commodity has to have a use value in order to be a commodity (otherwise nobody would want it). that is all.

when commodities are exchanged they are exchanged according to thei exchange value ( (average) socially necessary labour time).

these resources are good:
http://davidharvey.org/reading-capital/
http://www.amazon.com/Marxs-Capital-Fifth-Ben-Fine/dp/0745330169/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&
qid=1281884713&sr=1-1
http://www.amazon.com/Companion-Marxs-Capital-David-Harvey/dp/1844673596/ref=pd_sim_b_3

>> No.1043482

Hey OP, perhaps this link can help you, it's a translation of a text of the infamous german "Marxistische Gruppe", I think they capture Marx's reasoning pretty well.
http://www.ruthlesscriticism.com/Marxwealth.htm

On the distinction between use value and exchange-value: think of use-value as the pure material qualities of the thing you look at and how you can relate to them, i.e. use them as means to satisfy your needs. For example, a chair's use value is the possibility to sit on it, the use value of a liter of coke is that it you can drink it etc.
This also means that there is no objective order of use-values, a chair doesn't have a "higher" use value than a car, they both satisfy completely different needs, which also vary from person to person.

Now, with regards to Capitalism: Marx presupposes private property. You see that from the first sentence, "The wealth of those societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails, presents itself as 'an immense accumulation of commodities'" - this means the producers in such a society are principally seperated from each other. In order to nevertheless satisfy their needs, they have to exchange their products. Exchange is (on this level of analysis, later on Marx introduces factors which partly negate this) exchange of equivalents, i.e. the commodities must have a common property in which this equivalence expresses itself, and as you said, the only quality all commodities have in common is that they are products of human labour.

Marx then goes on to specify the special "type" of labour which produces value: abstract labour, i.e. labour as required by society's needs (a product which no one needs has no exchange value), this is where supply and demand come in in Marxist theory.

I hope that helped a little, I'm not really used to write about critique of economy in English.