I’ve puzzled about this a lot (which might be just an index of my being easily puzzled), and blathered in posts here and here etc. In short, I think exchange value should be understood as a subset of use value, such that what is sometimes characterized as a conflict of use value vs exchange value should instead be characterized as a conflict of some uses vs other uses (where one or the other side is understood to be — that use value which is — exchange value).
Marx writes that a commodity producer “not only produces use-values, but use-values for others, social use values.” In a parenthetical remark, Engels adds that “[t]o become a commodity a product must be transferred to another, whom it will serve as a use-value, by means of an exchange.” In a footnote Engels explains that he inserted his parenthetical to correct or avoid the common “misunderstanding that every product that is consumed by some one other than its producer is considered in Marx a commodity.” (41 International Publishers Edition, Moore and Aveling translation.) So, a commodity is something which is exchanged, and exchanged in a specific manner. The quit-rent-corn produced by edieval peasants for feudal lords and the tithe-corn produced by medieval peasants for parsons don’t count as commodities, which is to say, the exchange made between peasants and lords and parsons don’t count as exchanges in the sense of exchange-value. (The same goes for the intra-household and other exchanges described by the Boydston article.)
Marx writes that in capitalism “commodities must be realised as values before they can be realised as use values.” I take this to mean that in capitalism access to use values is mediated or impeded by values - monetary and labor-time.
(I commented briefly on “realised” in Marx in the second post linked to in this post. At some point treat the “real” in “real subsumption” and comparing it with the idea of being “fully capitalist” or the “specifically capitalist” mode of production as referred to here. Note also, “exchange (…) puts [commodities] in relation with each other as values, and realises them as values.” p85. Also “realised” as in make a reality: “Use values become a reality only by use” is the Moore and Aveling translation of what Fowkes renders as “Use values are only realized [verwirklicht] in use or in consumption.” 36 and 126 in the respective editions.) Marx continues, “On the other hand, they must show that they are use-values before they can be realised as use-values. For the labour spent upon them counts effectively, only in so far as it is spent in a form that is useful for others. Whether that labour is useful for others, and its product consequently capable of satisfying the wants of others, can be proved by only by the act of exchange.” (85.)
In the second post linked to above I wrote that use values are retroactively attributed to items at the moment of or after the moment of their use. Likewise for exchange value, retroactively attibuted to items at or after the moment of their exchange. Given that I think exchange value is a subspecies of use value, if I think use value is retroactively posited for all use values, I’m committed to holding this for exchange value. In both cases of retroactive attribution the past or present status (has use value/doesn’t have use value) hangs on a moment later on in time. In this passage on page 85 Marx hangs use values from exchange value. “Whether that labour is useful for others, and its product consequently capable of satisfying the wants of others, can be proved by only by the act of exchange.”
In one sense, this last line can not be true. Non-exchanged use values exist, including some involving labor. Engels’ examples of peasants are one case, intra-household exchanges are another. Marx says as much: “A thing can be useful, and the product of human labour, without being a commodity.” (40.) Plus, exchangers must have at least some belief that the items they are exchanging are useful or they wouldn’t exchange them. On the other hand, understood here in terms of what counts as labor or not - and thus can claim need for remuneration in wages - this is more true. Only labor that results in surplus value is counted as labor (and not all of the labor which contributes to surplus value), and only exchanges that result in - or have the possibility to result - increased wealth count as commodities. Exchange value dominates over or mediates other use values.
In any case, use value and exchange value. Some textual evidence. When someone brings a commodity to market, that commodity for that person “possesses (…) no immediate use-value. Otherwise [that person] would not bring it to market. It has use value for others” who are the buyers or potential buyers of the commodity. Marx then writes that for the commodity bearer the commodity brought to market’s “only direct use-value is that of being a depository of exchange value, and, consequently, a means of exchange.” That is, a commodity exchanged has the direct use value of being a means of exchange. (85.) Immediacy, direct-ness, and mediation here all bear further attention, as when Marx writes on 87 that a commodity exchanged “forms a superfluous portion of some article required for [the] immediate wants” of the person who brings it to market to sell. (This too: “What makes [commodities] exchangeable is the mutual desire of their owners to alienate them.” 87.)
Marx writes on 88 of “the distinction [which] becomes firmly established between the utility of an object for the purposes of consumption, and its utility for the purposes of exchange. Its use-value becomes distinguished from its exchange-value.” Exchange value is utility for exchange. Strictly speaking, this a use value. Use values satisfy or serve in the satisfaction of “human wants of some sort or another. Th e nature of such wants, whether, for instance, they spring from the stomach or from the fancy, makes no difference.” (35.)
Marx also writes of the “use-value of the money-commodity” specific to its being money. Aside from other use values it might have - “gold, for instance, serving to stop teeth, to form the raw material of articles of luxury, etc” - “it acquires a formal use-value, originating in its specific social function.” (89.) Marx insists that money is a commodity. Since all commodities have use value and exchange value, money must have use value and exchange value. This could be understood in the sense that money is always made up of some or the other commodity which serves the money function(s). This commodity which serves as money would have its own use values (gold can be made into fillings), its own exchange value (gold can be bought), and serves the role of being money. Marx calls the money function(s) specifically a use-value, though, which means that money qua money has a use value, as opposed to money qua gold (or paper or cattle or whatever) having a use value and money qua money having no use value. (Question: does money have exchange value? Clearly currencies do, as they are traded, but in that sense are they serving as money or as a commodity other than money?)
Money is exchange value. Marx shows in Ch. 1, Sec. 3 that money has developed, through the overall develeopment of the exchange relation, into the universal equivalent of all commodities. I.e. it is the one thing that always has exchange value, for it has no use other than to exchange for another commodity. Especially minted money, something made with the express purpose of serving as exchange value.
Comment by Rob — April 22, 2007 @ 4:31 pm
hi Rob,
I get that part I think. Money is exchange value and enforces (so to speak) the exchange value of other objects, or enforces the relation of other objects to exchange so they have exchange value - money as measure. But does money _have_ exchange value? Not some quantity of money, but money. Currencies can have exchange value relative to each other, the value of the dollar vs the yen etc (I admit that stuff confuses me a lot). I’ll have to look up Marx’s remarks on gold and stuff, he makes some brief comment about the workers who mine gold being an exception somehow…
take care,
Nate
Comment by Nate — April 22, 2007 @ 9:55 pm
I think the key thing with exchange value is that it’s relational and quantitative, whereas use value is qualitative and specific to the individual commodity. So exchange value links the commodity to the whole social division of labour (at least that part of it that produces commodities).
As I read it commodity money has exchange value since its value is based on the portion of socially necessary labour producing it. But non-commodity money (and credit tokens) is more complex, it stands in for value rather than ‘containing’ it.
Comment by Mike Beggs — April 22, 2007 @ 10:43 pm
hi Mike,
That makes sense. I’m not sure much hangs on this point I’m trying to make. Here’s one way to try and put it. Exchange values differs solely quantitatively because exchange values are qualitatively the same. Use values can quantitatively, but the differences between use values are more interesting in that use values can also differ qualitatively. So, exchange values = quantitative difference, qualitative difference is always a matter of use values. But, exchange values still have a quality. Quality is just bracketed because exchange values all have the same quality. Insofar as exchange values have a quality, they fall under use value (since use value is the category that admits qualitative differences), as one quality (one use value) among many. Again, there may be nothing that hangs on the point, it’s just me working out kinks in the way I learned Marx earlier.
take care,
Nate
Comment by Nate — April 23, 2007 @ 2:08 pm
What’s also interesting is not that exchange-value doesn’t have a quality, it’s that the quality of one thing doesn’t tell us anything about it’s value, it is only through the quality of another thing that we find exchange-value. I.e. one thing finds its exhange-value, it’s quantity(?), expressed in the use-value, quality, of another thing. Only throught this act of relation does exchange-value have a reality and quality.
So exchange-value has a quality but not any particular quality of the thing finding value.
This particular section confused the hell out of me because of all these little hegelianisms like this.
Comment by Rob — April 23, 2007 @ 5:32 pm
the way the Jamesians read it is that use value and exchange value are in a dialectical relationship in capitalism, and one that mirrors the perspectives of the working class and the ruling class. They do have opposing perspectives that are corollaries in society and marx seems to be exploring this in capital, though I think dialects are a bunch of crap.
Also money isn’t exchange value but is a commodity that expresses exchange value almost exclusively.
Comment by todd — April 23, 2007 @ 5:53 pm
There’s an interesting article related to Todd’s point on the Sojourer Truth Organization archive, called Working Class Self-Activity by Lee Holstein. One of it’s points throughout is exactly what Todd is saying, that the proletariat and the bourgeoisie are manifestations of the use/exchange value dialectic.
Good point as well on money not being exchange-value, that was a broad stroke on my part. Money is the unversal equivlent commodity that officiates as the expression of all other commodities’ value. You are quite right sir.
But could you expand on “dialectics is a bunch of crap”, I, falling heavily onto the Jamesian side of things, would like to hear what you have to say concerning that statement.
Comment by Rob — April 23, 2007 @ 6:16 pm
What’s a Jamesian??
Comment by Mike B — April 25, 2007 @ 6:43 am
hi Mike,
It’s in reference to CLR James. Details here:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/james-clr/index.htm
The other version of “Jamesian” is “Johnsonite” after James’s occasional pseudonym. Martin Glaberman, who I have a lot of respect for, described himself as a Johnsonite -
http://www.marxists.org/archive/glaberman/index.htm
The introduction to Harry Cleaver’s book Reading Capital Politically is good for placing James in relation to other heterodox marxists, that’s online here:
http://www.eco.utexas.edu/~hmcleave/357krcp.html
take care,
Nate
Comment by Nate — April 25, 2007 @ 1:57 pm
this probably isn’t the best place to lay out my critiques of dialectics. In essence I think that dialectics are extremely ad hoc and really do no theoretical work. I doubt any claims about the existence of binaries within objects (metaphysical claim) that are such that they produce a synthesis and so on. If you want to use that as a way to understand stuff, maybe, but I think we have better models for society and history (namely that its heterogenous, complex and adaptive, and non-deterministic).
Comment by todd — April 25, 2007 @ 6:05 pm
Cool, thanks Todd. Obviously I’m sure you have more to say than that and you’re right a blog comment board is not the best place. Do you have any suggestions for reading that may be useful in expounding upon what you’re trying to get at?
I for one don’t find anything at all in Hegelian/Marxian/Jamesian dialectics that is hostile or antagonistic to any of the descriptives you’ve used. In fact I think complex and adaptive is the cornerstone of my dialectical thought, never rigid and deterministic, though it’s a fair assessment of those who’ve claimed dialectics in the past.
But I’m the first to admit I’ve been wrong before and I’ll probably be wrong again before all is said and done. However it’s usually been thinking dialectically that has helped me to see that I was thinking rigidly and categorically.
Thanks again for the short exchange.
Comment by Rob — April 25, 2007 @ 9:58 pm
Hey Nate,
Oh right, CLR James… I was thinking Henry for some reason and so confused. I have heard a lot about CLR but never read anything by him need to get around to reading Selma.
As for Harry Cleaver… yes, I have read that book and I think it’s great. Actually I used Cleaver’s Capital reading guide (also on the website) when I had my first go at reading Capital a few years ago. It’s good to come back to it (thanks for the link) - it is a much-needed corrective to the political economy tradition I come from. Though I think a lot of marxist PE today has learned some of these lessons. You still see the tendency in PE of trying to predict a crisis, which becomes basically just waiting for crisis. (The Canadians Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin have written some good stuff on this lately in debate with Monthly Review, who always see a crisis around the corner.)
That said, I do think understanding how capitalism works on all its levels to be essential for fighting it politically. Especially since working class power in and out of the workplace is affected so drastically by macro phenomena like unemployment. As I see it, the great value of the marxist tradition is its ability to understand these levels of capitalism as political, not as a separate area of inquiry.
Comment by Mike B — April 26, 2007 @ 12:11 am
hi Mike,
I agree but I have to say, that stuff is _hard_ to read! I mean, I read obtuse and opaque shit, as you probly noticed from this little blog of mine, but like … all the, you know, numbers and whatnot… it saps my will to keep reading. I imagine it gets easier the more you do it though.
Rob, I’d be into reading something on dialectics or from the dialectical tradition. Have you ever read this book Change The World Without Taking Power by John Holloway? (I’m not suggesting that for a reading.) I think it’s good, though the language is a bit rough sometimes, and his dialectics sounds to me a lot like Todd’s perspective.
take care,
Nate
Comment by Nate — April 26, 2007 @ 4:21 am
Nate,
I haven’t read that, nor have I even heard of it, but I’ll try to check it out. I’m in a real fiction kick right now that was inspired by ol’ C.L.R. His take on popular culture and the arts in general has really inspired me to get into more fiction and artistic work in generally lately.
However, when I don’t read the theoretical/philosophical stuff regularly I find that it’s hard to return to, I almost feel too dumb to read it, if that makes any sense. That is why I appreciate this dialogue, it’s been well over a year since I finished Vol. I of Capital and I put Vol. II aside to read James and then moved on to where I am now so it’s nice to return to these things once in awhile to brush up and to remember what I forgot and forget some of the erroneous things that I remember.
Thanks again,
Peace
Comment by Rob — April 26, 2007 @ 6:32 am
hi Rob,
I know that feeling. I’ve been reading a lot of history lately and I find shifting back to reading philosophy really hard. I’m a car with a bad clutch, my gears just grind and grind. I’d be down to go through v2 of Capital w/ you if you’re interested. I’ve read the first 50 or 150 pages a while ago but never finished.
take care,
Nate
Comment by Nate — April 26, 2007 @ 4:19 pm
There might be non-hegelian dialectics out there… I’m not real sure. Essentially I’ve worked off intuitions and critiques of Hegel from philosophy, but the model I increasingly use is complex adaptive systems which there are a bunch of non-political books on, but takes some mental leaps to apply (i’m working on it). Karl Popper is good, he developed his theory of falsifiability based on Marx and Freud, wherein he said that something is not scientific if there is no context in which its claims could be falsified. Dialectics seem to fall into there as one could allows jerry-rig some context in which the binary is altered, the conflict delayed, etc., to fit the data without having to jetison the hypothesis.
Comment by todd — April 26, 2007 @ 5:03 pm
Nate,
I’d love to do Capital 2 as well some time, I’ve never done internet reading together but I’m up to give it a go. I’ve been laboring with Hegel’s Phenomonology for a little while, so v2 may have to wait for a little bit. But let me know if you ever get the itch to dive in, and I’ll do the same and maybe we can catch each other at the same time.
Todd,
I see where you’re going a little bit more clearly now. I’ll try to peruse some Popper to get better acquainted. I would argue, however that social sciences are a bit hard to pin down to begin with, and may take years, generations, or even centuries to be worked out, proven or disproven, and are pliable enough that they may never be proven or disproven. A good argument for jettisoning them altogther or a good argument for rolling with one that accepts that it will never have all the material it needs to be a complete closed system, which is what I get from the dialectics of Marx, Lenin, James, and even Hegel when he’s not being hampered by his overriding idealism. Anyway thanks again for the reading tip and the exchange, it’s a pleasure.
Peace
Comment by Rob — April 26, 2007 @ 7:55 pm
Hi Nate,
Yeah, I love reading economicsy stuff but find philosophy hard-going… Negri for example I find dull and difficult, though a lot of people make good stuff out of it. I guess I’ve always found the more I learn about something the more I enjoy it. I had to go back to maths when I moved over from sociology to economics… but I think maths looks much harder than it actually is once you learn the language.
I actually think reading some secondary texts on Capital can be more fruitful than the original if you have limited time to spend, especially one that gives a sense of marxian political economy after Marx, the interpretations and developments. Capital in the original is not that well organised, and not complete - as Engels complains hilariously in the Preface to v3, all he could do with some large chunks was copy out Marx’s own copies of parliamentary report with Marx’s marginal notes - mostly “sarcastic comments”.
This year I’ve been running a reading group in Sydney on David Harvey’s ‘Limits to Capital’, which in my opinion is an excellent ‘textbook’ version of Capital. It’s just been re-released by Verso. It is very maths-lite.
If you have lots of time I also recommend Anwar Shaikh’s New School course prospectus for “Historical Foundations of Political Economy I”: http://homepage.newschool.edu/~AShaikh/ec10401.doc
Comment by Mike B — April 26, 2007 @ 11:20 pm
Thanks Mike.
Rob, where are you at in the Phenomenology? I think I have that out of the library right now, but maybe I took it back I can’t remember. I’ve been wanting to go back over Hegel. I’ve read the Encyclopedia Logic (fucked if I understood it, though, and I can’t remember it at all), and little bits of the Science of Logic and the Phenomenology (same thing, except I do remember stuff about 3 paragraphs early on in the Science of Logic that I think I did understand).
take care,
Nate
Comment by Nate — April 28, 2007 @ 11:08 pm
Nate,
Not very far. I had finished the preface some time ago, but other work intervened so I’m kind of brushing up on the preface again right now to try and get back into it, and trying to catch up to my girlfriend she’s done with the preface and itching to move forward now that her semester’s done and she has the time.
I thought about starting with the Encyclopedia, but since reading James’ Notes on Dialectics I think that since that came way later and Hegel’s all about building up to things that I’d start with the Phenomonology which he called the basis to his overall system, so that’s where I’m at. But I feel you, light reading it is not, every sentence is so chock full that it can be difficult to digest, but man when you get it, it makes you feel like a genius.
Comment by Rob — April 29, 2007 @ 1:41 am