Jim asked > where is it in the first chapter of the first volume of CAPITAL that > Marx clearly expressed the distinction between the "value" of a > comodity (the socially necessary abstract labor time [SNALT] that made > it) and its "exchange value" (the amount of SNALT that a commodity can > purchase)?
At the end of the 6th paragraph in chapter 1, in MECW 35, p. 46/47, Vintage edition p. 127 and German MEW 23 p. 51 he writes: > But secondly, exchange-value itself cannot be anything > other than the mere mode of expression, "form of > appearance," of some content distinguishable from it. This content is value, i.e., here he calls value something distinguishable from exchange-value. This text is from the 4th edtion of *Capital*. Marx sharpens this distinction between exchange-value and value only in his editorial changes for the second edition of *Capital*. The first German edition, MEGA II/5, p. 18:4/o or Fischer Studienausgabe, p. 217:1, still writes: > A given commodity, e.g., one quarter of wheat, exchanges > itself for other articles in *the most diverse > proportions. Nevertheless, its exchange-value remains > *unchanged* whether expressed in x shoe polish, y silk, z > gold, etc. It must therefore be distinguishable from its > different *modes of expression*. I.e., here the distinction is not between value and exchange-value, but between exchange-value and its modes of expressions. Another place where Marx makes this distinction explicitly is section 3 of chapter 1, MECW 35 p. 70/71 or Vintage edition p. 152 or German MEW 23 p. 74/5: > When, at the beginning of this chapter, we said, in common > parlance, that a commodity is both a use-value and an > exchange-value, we were, precisely speaking, wrong. A > commodity is a use-value or object of utility, and a > 'value'. It manifests itself as this twofold thing which > it is, as soon as *its value* assumes an independent *form > of appearance distinct* from its natural form---the form > of *exchange-value*, ... He quotes this passage in his Notes on Wagner, MECW 24 p. 544/45, or German MEW 19, p. 368/9 (this is where the *emphasis* is from in the above quote), and adds: > Thus I do not divide *value* into use-value and > exchange-value as opposites into which the abstraction > "value" splits up, but the *concrete social form* of the > product of labor, the "*commodity*," is on the one hand, > use-value and on the other, "value," not exchange value, > since the mere *form* of appearance is not its own > *content*. Hans G. Ehrbar
