Question 1 What did Marx mean with his formu - University of Utah

U of Utah Econ 5080 2007fa 71
Marx describes the second peculiarity with the definition: concrete labor is the expression
of abstract labor. This means that abstract labor such as writing a book expresses the concrete
labor which would be the printing of the book which then creates the value for paper.
Marx defines the third peculiarity: a privately produced commodity in equivalent form
counts as its opposite, directly social labor. An example of this might be a mining company
that mines gold and so has direct social powers meaning they can directly exchange for all
other commodities.
Hans: Your third point is good, the other two are worthless. Just to avoid confusion by the readers, abstract and
concrete labor are not the same as mental and physical labor, and paper has value even if it is not printed or written
on.
Message [152] referenced by [161] and [201]. Next Message by MichaelM is [174].
[160] Melissa: graded A– This is peculiar. In Marx’s words the three peculiarities of the
equivalent form are as follows:
1- “Use value becomes the form of appearance of its opposite, value”.
2- “Concrete labor is the expression of abstract labor.”
3- “A privately produced commodity in its equivalent form counts as its opposite, directly
social labor.”
How I interpret these three peculiarities is as follows:
1-For my example I am going to use the two commodities flour and bread. Both of these
commodities have their own different use value. Let’s say the baker wants to exchange a loaf
of bread for one pound of flour. By accepting this offer and exchanging one pound of flour
for one loaf of bread, the market now has an idea of how much labor is required to produce
one pound of flour, it is equivalent to one loaf of bread. The bread has an equivalent form of
one pound of flour.
2-If the bread and the flour are exchanged it is for the fact that both commodities require
human labor. The baker would not exchange his bread for something that does not have
human labor in it, such as water.
3-Now let’s say that the baker is producing bread for his own use, to better his family and
social status. If he bakes too much bread and exchanges it for another commodity, the bread
now has social worth. It can be exchanged socially to “purchase” other commodities, acting
like money.
Hans: I am struck that you use water as example for a commodity that has no labor in it. A lot of labor is necessary
before water can come out of the faucet in your home. The most critical issue of global warming for Utah is that the
area will become increasingly arid. The winter snowpack in our mountains is a gift of nature which will be difficult
and expensive to replace. Water is a precious, and potentially a very expensive, commodity.
Ashley: While reading this submission, I thought of the same thing that Hans thought of. How can water be an
example of something that does not require labor? I see it as having the same characteristics as flour in terms of
using labor. I think the point that you were trying to make is that if you were to go to a lake or an ocean, it doesn’t
cost anything for you to take water there, however, you can’t get flour just anywhere. It requires labor to make flour
because it doesn’t come like that in its natural form. It’s not like water where you can drink it in its natural form.
Flour has to be made. Is that what you were trying to say?
Other than that, I agree with what you are saying. You can figure out the value of one item in comparison
to another when it is exchanged in the market. Along the same lines, if a baker produces bread, and has excess
amounts of it, it’s a great idea for them to use it as a social worth.
72 2007fa Econ 5080 U of Utah
Hans: Good work, Ashley, trying to understand how Melissa came to say what she was saying. This is part of
“immanent critique:” if someone comes to a conclusion other than your own, you are trying to understand why that
person came to that conclusion.
Message [160] referenced by [161] and [163]. Next Message by Melissa is [181].
[161] Hans: Spontaneous Mirroring and Spontaneous Mystification. In section 3 of
the first chapter, Marx describes how the commodity owners, by exchanging their commodities,
spontaneously mirror the inner structure of their relations of production on the surface
of the market. Two examples of this mirroring:
(1) The invisible commonality and inner measure in all commodities, their value (congealed
abstract labor), is reflected on the surface as their exterior common measure in money.
(2) At the beginning of this class I admonished you that whenever you think of commodities
you must be aware that each commodity has two separate aspects, its use-value and
its exchange-value. Now you can see this inner separation reproduced in the separation of
the world of commodities into the ordinary commodities (use-value) and money (exchangevalue).
Such mirroring is not unusual. Examples can be found in all sciences and in real life
where things, through their activity, reveal their inner structure. It is much more unusual if
things can be effective for a long time without revealing themselves. Capitalism is unusual
in this second sense. It is a social order which can only thrive because and as long as
individuals in capitalism do not understand their own social relations. That is why Marx
explores in section 4 of the first chapter the limits of this spontaneous mirroring, i.e., the
mystification inherent in the commodity relations.
This mystification does not start in section 4. Already in section 3, Marx shows that the
development of the value form has a contradictory character: it reveals the inner relations
more and more accurately on the side of the relative form of value, but at the same time it
mystifies them if one looks at the other pole, the equivalent form of value. Let me explain.
If an ordinary commodity expresses its value in a certain amount of the general equivalent,
it reveals the structure in which it is embedded. It says that it has something in common
with all other commodities that has nothing to do with its use-value. It says that in this relationship
with other commodities its labor does not count as useful labor but abstract labor.
And it says that this labor will only get social credit if it fits into the social division of labor.
But if you look at it from the other side, from the side of the money commodity (gold),
then the underlying social structure is mystified rather than revealed. Now it is the special
use-value of the commodity, namely, it being gold, which gives it value, i.e., direct access
to every other commodity. The private labor producing gold does not need to pass the test
whether it fits into the social division of labor, but it gives immediate social powers. This
labor has these powers not because it is the expenditure of abstract human labor, but because
it is the specific concrete labor of producing gold.
I just repeated the three peculiarities of the equivalent form. In view of this dissonance
between form and content of the private labor producing gold, it is not surprising that this
weirdness has been eliminated since Marx wrote Capital. Today we are no longer in a
commodity money regime. The value of money is no longer guaranteed by the labor going