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

U of Utah Econ 5080 2005fa 35
phenomenon is appropriate in order to build a better foundation with which to build later
using the more appropriate causal agents to describe what is truly going on.
Hans: You seem to think the question asked why Marx is using a literary (or philosophical) text, Das Kapital, to
understand the economy, instead of just explaining what the people in a capitalist economy are doing.
This is not what the question asked, and I am not even sure if this was indeed your interpretation of the question,
but I would like to just make two points regarding your answer as I understand it:
1. The behavior of the individuals cannot by itself explain capitalism, because this behavior does not explain
the conditions under which people act.
2. The philosophical-sounding arguments at the beginning of Das Kapital are not preliminaries setting the stage
for the real explanation, but they are Marx’s attempts to infer the conditions of people’s actions from these actions
themselves.
Next Message by Xerho is [216].
Question 62 is 31 in 1995WI, 40 in 1996ut, 38 in 1997ut, 55 in 2002fa, 57 in 2003fa, 73
in 2007SP, 73 in 2007fa, 74 in 2008fa, 77 in 2010fa, and 90 in 2011fa:
Question 62 Marx argues that commodities are exchangeable only because they contain
some common substance. Bailey denies this. He compares the exchange-value of commodities
with the distance between points, which is not based on a commonality between the two
points but is purely relative: “As we cannot speak of the distance of any object without
implying some other object, between which and the former this relation exists, so we cannot
speak of the value of a commodity but in reference to another commodity compared with it.
A thing cannot be valuable in itself without reference to another thing” . Comment.
[83] Thugtorious: graded A Bailey’s Critique of Marx. In deriving the exchange relationship
between two commodities, Marx argues that there is a common substance within
the commodities that makes them exchangeable. We find out later that this “element” is
abstract human labor. However, Bailey argues that the exchangeability of two commodities
has nothing to do with a commonality between the two commodities, but can be likened to
the distance between two points, which is purely relative. Unfortunately, the distance between
two points remains completely relative and has not applicability to market operations
or exchange unless there is a denomination or mechanism at which the two “points” can be
related. Let me explain:
There is two ways to look at this situation. The first example elaborates on Bailey’s geometric
example about two points. Bailey’s focus is on the line connecting the two points,
but if you do not define a mechanism of measurement to evaluate the length of such a line
then the line itself is irrelevant. For example, if Bailey chose to use “feet” as the basis of
comparison, then the distance would be X amount of feet showing a quantified relationship
between the two points. This is what abstract human labor is equated to: defining the “distance”
between two commodities in the market place. Marx chose labor as his proverbial
“yard stick.” Without such a yard stick, the two points may be connected, but there is no way
to tell at what extent they are connected.
The second example is arithmetic in nature. If you want to compare two fractions while
cooking because you are increasing the size of your recipe, then you have to make the
denominators of both fractions equal. Much the same thing is going on in transactions in
the market. When comparing two commodities for exchange in the market, the common
36 2005fa Econ 5080 U of Utah
denominator is abstract human labor. The denominator is just like the “yard stick” in the
previous example: without it, there is no relevant relationship between the two commodities.
Overall, I think Bailey missed a large part of Marx’s argument: on the surface of the
exchange, the decided values of each commodity may appear purely relative. However, if
you dig deeper into each commodity, down into the mode of production, you find that there
is a common element: abstract human labor. Bailey did not go deep enough into Marx’s
argument but decided to take the contradiction of exchange as a given and move on with the
analysis without resolving the contradiction.
Message [83] referenced by [106]. Next Message by Thugtorious is [100].
[106] Hans: How distant is a relative? Oops, I meant, how relative is a distance? In a
manuscript discussing the above quote from Bailey, Marx argues that the distance between
two points is not as relative as it may seem. He brings two considerations. Both points are
written by Marx in English, although most of the manuscript is German. Marx was probably
sitting in the British Museum in London while writing this. The next two paragraphs are
literal quotes from Marx:
(1) When a thing is distant from another, the distance is in fact a relation
between the one thing and the other; but at the same time the distance is
something different from this relation between the two things. It is a dimension
of the space, it is some length which may as well express the
distance of two other things besides those compared.
(2) If we speak of the distance as a relation between two things, we suppose
something “intrinsic,” some “property” of the things themselves, which enables
them to be distant from each other. What is the distance between the
syllable A and a table? The question would be nonsensical. In speaking
of the distance of two things, we speak of their difference in space. Thus
we suppose both of them to be contained in the space, to be points of the
space. Thus we equalize them as being both existences of the space, and
only after having them equalized sub specie spatii we distinguish them as
different points of space. To belong to space is their unity.
These are interesting arguments worth pondering. Should question 62 show up in the
exam, this is what you ought to remember.
Here are some additional points which are not as important as the above food for thought:
(a) Even in this example of points in space, the relation between the points is only possible
because they have something in common. This of course resonates with Marx’s argument
that also the exchange relation between commodities is based on a commonality in these
commodities.
(b) How does all this relate to Thugtorious’s [83]? I will not go into the details but give
just one general observation. Marx is always very careful to investigate the qualities of
things before looking at their quantities. Modern sciences have forgotten how to deal with
qualities, everything has been quantified. Thugtorious in his argument also gives too much
importance to the quantities of things.