Michael Perelman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
For those of you with any interest in getting into the nuts and bolts of Marx, you should
check out his annotations of Marx at his web site.
On Tue, Apr 04, 2006 at 04:03:17PM -0600, Hans G. Ehrbar wrote:
> 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
--
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929
Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
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