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

U of Utah Econ 5080 2005fa 67
Question 100 Coat and linen are qualitatively different use-values. Are they exchanged
because their use-values are different, or because the labors in them are different?
[112] Iblindone: content B– form 95% The coat and linen can be exchanged for many
different reasons – it is up to the individuals exchanging the goods. Due to social division
of labor, individuals specialize in different types of labor and therefore an individual that
specializes in producing linen uses less labor-time than another individual that specializes
in producing coats and vice versa. By these two trading they are not only trading the usevalues,
they are trading because the labor is different in them (labor-time). By trading they
both can have more commodities (use-values) for less labor.
Hans: Your answer to the question seems to be: the underlying reason of their trading is not the difference in the
use-values themselves, also not the differences in labor, but the savings in labor-time.
Message [112] referenced by [113], [2007SP:84], [2007SP:436], and [2007SP:509]. Next Message by Iblindone is
[538].
[113] Hans: How voluntary is our market participation? Iblindone’s answer [112]
gives a good overview of the mainstream economics approach to the exchange process via
absolute advantage. Individuals can decide whether to trade or not, and they trade only if it
is to their advantage. Marx’s approach is different. In his theory, it is not up to the individual
whether they exchange or not. Individuals cannot produce alone. They need society because
they need produced use-values. Society has an elaborate market system ready for them,
which the individuals must engage in if they do not want to starve.
The emphasis of Marx’s analysis is the structure of this market, i.e., how prices are determined
and which things are on the market (not only goods but also wage-labor and interestbearing
assets). This structure is not determined by individual preferences but by the underlying
organization of social production. A Marxist would say: as long as the individuals do
not really have a choice, individual preferences cannot explain much. The individuals are
embedded in a web of social relations which they have not created. You cannot start with
the individual to understand these social relations, but you have to understand the logic of
these relations in their own right. (For capitalist social relations, a good starting point is not
the individual but the commodity.)
Next Message by Hans is [116].
[114] Thugtorious: (graded A) Chicken and Egg. The question, in my opinion, still
remains a little unanswered. It is a sort of “chicken and the egg” paradox: is it the differing
useful labors or the use-values of the commodities themselves that allows for exchange? I
think that the question itself needs a little clarification: the commodities themselves are exchanged
amongst people because of their different use-values, i.e. you would not exchange
commodity A with a person for commodity B if you did not see a potential use-value within
commodity B. However, below this market transaction, you will find that the commodities
are able to be exchanged in this manner also because of their use-value. The useful labor
congealed in the commodities must be different in order for them to be able to be exchanged.
However, if the use-values of the final product are the same, then the labor expended within
production must also be the same. If two commodities have the same use-values then they
cannot be exchanged as commodities in the market. And, the congealed labor within the
commodities is the same. The inverse of this is also true: if the commodities have different
use-values, then they can be exchanged, and the labor congealed in them must be different.
68 2005fa Econ 5080 U of Utah
So, in answering the question, it is the use-value of the commodities being different that
allows them to be exchanged and also provides the reason of why they are exchanged.
The differing qualities of labor used within the production of each commodity are an
element within the exchange-value of the two commodities. The use value is the reason for
which they are exchanged, while the exchange-value is the way in which that is possible.
Hans: It is true that the use-values are different whenver the labors are different and vice versa. But despite their
simultaneous occurrence they still can have different causal effects. I say in [116] what the effects of different
labors might be.
Next Message by Thugtorious is [117].
[116] Hans: Pulling the strings in the background. If the use-values were equal, people
on the market would not see reason to exchange. But if the labors were equal, then there
might perhaps be no division of labor at all, rather everybody might produce everything for
themselves.
This intention of question 100 is to encourage you to think more about the effects which
the organization of production has for our daily lives. At the beginning of Das Kapital, Marx
makes exactly this kind of inference: he asks what the activity of the commodity owners on
the market tells us about the underlying relations of production.
Many things which we may take for granted in our daily lives have their unacknowledged
reasons in the sphere of production. For instance, one often hears that schools are so bad
because there is not enough money for them. Why isn’t there more money available for
schools? The deeper reason is that the exploitative capitalist relations do not need welleducated
wage-workers. If the cannon-fodder on the assembly lines is educated, this makes
things more difficult for the capitalists. All they need to learn is how to show up on time and
follow boring orders. Besides, it is useful for your employer if you are convinced that you
are dumb and do not deserve better. This is exactly what our school system teaches.
Message [116] referenced by [114], [134], and [2010fa:1209]. Next Message by Hans is [121].
[134] DarkKnight: graded A The coat and the linen are exchanged because their usevalues
are different, with the exception that one might wrap five yards of linen about oneself
to keep warm instead of exchanging it for a coat. Typically, however, they would be used for
different purposes. Though the labors used to produce each commodity might be qualitatively
different (the production processes are different), at a basic level, the abstract human
labor is the same. A laborer’s time and effort were used in the production process, regardless
of the commodity produced. Per Marx, the equality of the labor is expressed by the
exchange. The value of the labor of five yards of linen and the coat are equal because that is
what we find when they are exchanged on the market.
Hans: Your conclusion can be framed in the paradoxical formulation: commodities are exchanged because the
labors in them are different (otherwise everyone would just produce their own, see [116]), and because the labors
are equal (this provides the commonality on which the exchange is based). But we are no longer afraid of contradictions,
are we?
Next Message by DarkKnight is [398].
Question 106 is 79 in 1999SP, 94 in 2003fa, 105 in 2004fa, 119 in 2007SP, 120 in 2007fa,
and 130 in 2010fa: