Exchange Value and Use Value

[Antonomon]

Hi,

Would somebody be willing to explain to me the difference between exchange value, value, and use value, and how to counter the argument in neoclassical economic theory that exchange value and use value are essentially the same? I know mainstream economics makes no distinction between the two.

Thanks & Solidarity!

[Blake's Baby]

'Value' on its own is so vague as to be meaningless. When Marx uses it, he sometimes says 'of course when I say 'value' I mean exchange value'.

Use value = what something is used for. A sandwich can be eaten to provide nourishment - it has 'the use value of a sandwich'. Not everyone likes egg and herring sandwiches however, so its real use value might be context-dependant.

Exchange value is predicated on two things - the first is use value (because if something is useless no-one will want to exchange anything for it) and the second is how much effort went into making it.

So, for example, I could sell you the knowledge that you own a million litres of water in the Pacific Ocean. Not the water per se, or a map of the location of the water (at the point the map was made, as water moves), just the knowledge that if you give me $100 you own the water. That is a completely useless thing (you don't even get a map). No-one would buy it, though they may pay $5 for a map of the Pacific.

It has no use value so no-one will exchange for it.

Or I could sell you some air. How about, you pay me $2 every time you breathe in and out? Air's useful, right? However this is a thing that you're quite capable of doing for yourself. No work for me involved, no reason for you to exchange anything for it.

Air on its own doesn't have exchange value though it does have use value. So they must be different.

The difference is other people's effort. If, for example, I spend some effort choking you, you might decide that (access to) air had exchange value as well as use value. You might pay me $2 to stop, which is the same as saying you'd pay me the $2 because I put in some labour to make air more valuable to you.


Well, there's a start... not sure if that's what you're looking for.

There's a thread from a couple of months ago called something like 'will exchange value exist under socialism?' that explores a whole lot of issues related to use-value and exchange-value. If you're feeling particularly hardy, I'd advise cautiously venturing into it. Everything I say in it is pithy, humane, well argued, tall and handsome, and everyone else is wrong and don't know what they're talking about and are probably smelly and ugly too.

Not everyone would agree with that however.

[citizen of industry]

Start with a commodity.


The wealth of those societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails, presents itself as “an immense accumulation of commodities,”[1] (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm#1) its unit being a single commodity. Our investigation must therefore begin with the analysis of a commodity. When you buy a commodity, you pay with money. X number of commodity A corresponds to Y number of commodity B. But it would be difficult to exchange commodity A for commodity B, so we use money, the universal equivalent (historically, money is good for this because it is rare and can be melted down, e.g., gold, silver). This is the exchange value. Take money out of the equation, and ask yourself what determines the exchange relationship between commodity X of A and Y of B?


Therefore, the common substance that manifests itself in the exchange value of commodities, whenever they are exchanged, is their value...A use value, or useful article, therefore, has value only because human labour in the abstract has been embodied or materialised in it. How, then, is the magnitude of this value to be measured? Plainly, by the quantity of the value-creating substance, the labour, contained in the article.Use value is the reason you bought the commodity in the first place. Take a paper cup. I buy the paper cup because I want to put coffee in it. That's the use value. Did the company make the paper cup so I could put coffee in it? No. They produced it for the exchange value, that I would buy the cup and they would make a profit. What determines the value of the cup? The amount of congealed labor contained in it. As you can imagine, there isn't much human labour involved in making paper cups, so it is cheap.

A common counterarguments is that it isn't labor, but supply and demand that determines the value of commodities. The problem with that is the tendency for the two to equalize.

If, then, the supply of a commodity is less than the demand for it, competition among the sellers is very slight, or there may be none at all among them. In the same proportion in which this competition decreases, the competition among the buyers increases. Result: a more or less considerable rise in the prices of commodities.
It is well known that the opposite case, with the opposite result, happens more frequently. Great excess of supply over demand; desperate competition among the sellers, and a lack of buyers; forced sales of commodities at ridiculously low prices.
We have just seen how the fluctuation of supply and demand always bring the price of a commodity back to its cost of production. The actual price of a commodity, indeed, stands always above or below the cost of production; but the rise and fall reciprocally balance each other, so that, within a certain period of time, if the ebbs and flows of the industry are reckoned up together, the commodities will be exchanged for one another in accordance with their cost of production. Their price is thus determined by their cost of production.


Another argument is that if you put a bunch of labor into something it doesn't necessarily mean it has value. Marx deals with this:

A thing can be a use value, without having value. This is the case whenever its utility to man is not due to labour. Such are air, virgin soil, natural meadows, &c. A thing can be useful, and the product of human labour, without being a commodity. Whoever directly satisfies his wants with the produce of his own labour, creates, indeed, use values, but not commodities. In order to produce the latter, he must not only produce use values, but use values for others, social use values. (And not only for others, without more. The mediaeval peasant produced quit-rent-corn for his feudal lord and tithe-corn for his parson. But neither the quit-rent-corn nor the tithe-corn became commodities by reason of the fact that they had been produced for others. To become a commodity a product must be transferred to another, whom it will serve as a use value, by means of an exchange.)[12] (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm#12) Lastly nothing can have value, without being an object of utility. If the thing is useless, so is the labour contained in it; the labour does not count as labour, and therefore creates no value.

[Blake's Baby]

The final point Marx makes in the last quote Siembra Socialismo posted is important. Critics of LTV constantly assert that Marx says that piling up shit generates wealth, or digging holes then filling them in again creates wealth, etc, when it obviously doesn't.

What Marx says is that nothing has value without being an object of utility; someone has to want it, ie it has to have a 'use' (even if that use is pretty abstract sometimes, such as being locked away in a vault to appreciate in value away from prying eyes; but that's still a 'use').

In this sense, LTV's critics are correct - labour alone doesn't produce 'value', only labour to produce or extend use-value.

[Lucretia]

The final point Marx makes in the last quote Siembra Socialismo posted is important. Critics of LTV constantly assert that Marx says that piling up shit generates wealth, or digging holes then filling them in again creates wealth, etc, when it obviously doesn't.

What Marx says is that nothing has value without being an object of utility; someone has to want it, ie it has to have a 'use' (even if that use is pretty abstract sometimes, such as being locked away in a vault to appreciate in value away from prying eyes; but that's still a 'use').

In this sense, LTV's critics are correct - labour alone doesn't produce 'value', only labour to produce or extend use-value.

You are conflating wealth and value, and in any event nobody - including Marx - says that labour is the only source of value. For example, uncleared land has value on the real estate mark as a commodity (or rather 'pseudo-commodity'). What Marx insisted, and the LTV upholds, is the idea that only labour creates new value.

[citizen of industry]

You are conflating wealth and value, and in any event nobody - including Marx - says that labour is the only source of value. For example, uncleared land has value on the real estate mark as a commodity (or rather 'pseudo-commodity'). What Marx insisted, and the LTV upholds, is the idea that only labour creates new value.

Here is what he says about nature in Capital vol. I:

We see, then, that labour is not the only source of material wealth, of use values produced by labour. As William Petty puts it, labour is its father and the earth its mother.Regarding real estate he talks about it a lot in Vol.III of capital. Basically that the value of real estate is determined by social labor. For example less fertile land may be more valuable than fertile land based on its proximity to roads, railways, ports, etc:

Thus, the State of Michigan was one of the first Western States to become an exporter of grain. Yet its soil on the whole is poor. But its proximity to the State of New York and its water-ways via the Lakes and Erie Canal initially gave it the advantage over the States endowed by Nature with more fertile soil, but situated farther to the West. The example of this State, as compared with the State of New York, also demonstrates the transition from superior to inferior soil. The soil of the State of New York, particularly its western part, is incomparably more fertile, especially for the cultivation of wheat. This fertile soil was transformed into infertile soil by rapacious methods of cultivation, and now the soil of Michigan appeared as the more fertile. Or land with a waterfall may be more valuable because the motive power of the river can be used in the production process and save constant capital (thus the value of the land would be higher based on the money saved - called differential rent).


He owes it in the first instance to a natural force — the motive power of the waterfall — which is found readily available in Nature and is not itself a product of labour like the coal which transforms water into steam. The coal, therefore, has value, must be paid for by an equivalent, and has a cost. The waterfall is a natural production agent in the production of which no labour enters.
But this is not all. The manufacturer who operates with steam also employs natural forces which cost him nothing yet make the labour more productive and increase the surplus-value and thereby the profit, inasmuch as they thus cheapen the manufacture of the means of subsistence required for the labourers. These natural forces are thus quite as much monopolised by capital as the social natural forces of labour arising from co-operation, division of labour, etc. The manufacturer pays for coal, but not for the capacity of water to alter its physical state, to turn into steam, not for the elasticity of the steam, etc. This monopolisation of natural forces, that is, of the increase in labour-power produced by them, is common to all capital operating with steam-engines. It may increase that portion of the product of labour which represents surplus-value in relation to that portion which is transformed into wages. In so far as it does this, it raises the general rate of profit, but it does not create any surplus-profit, for this consists of the excess of individual profit over average profit. The fact that the application of a natural force, a waterfall, creates surplus-profit in this case, cannot therefore be due solely to the circumstance that the increased productivity of labour here results from the application of a natural force...

The cause of the surplus-profit, then, arises here from the capital itself (which includes the labour set in motion by it) whether it be due to the greater magnitude of capital employed or to its more efficient application; and, as a matter of fact, there is no particular reason why all capital in the same production sphere should not be invested in the same manner. On the contrary, the competition between capitals tends to cancel these differences more and more. The determination of value by the socially necessary labour-time asserts itself through the cheapening of commodities and the compulsion to produce commodities under the same favourable conditions. But matters are different with the surplus-profit of an industrial capitalist who makes use of the waterfall. The increased productiveness of the labour used by him comes neither from the capital and labour itself, nor from the mere application of some natural force different from capital and labour but incorporated in the capital. It arises from the greater natural productiveness of labour bound up with the application of a force of Nature, but not a force of Nature that is at the command of all capital in the same sphere of production, as for example the elasticity of steam. In other words, its application is not to be taken for granted whenever capital is generally invested in this sphere of production. On the contrary, it is a monopolisable force of Nature which, like the waterfall, is only at the command of those who have at their disposal particular portions of the earth and its appurtenances. It is by no means within the power of capital to call into existence this natural premise for a greater productivity of labour in the same manner as any capital may transform water into steam. It is found only locally in Nature and, wherever it does not exist, it cannot be established by a definite investment of capital. It is not bound to goods which labour can produce, such as machines and coal, but to specific natural conditions prevailing in certain portions of land. Those manufacturers who own waterfalls exclude those who do not from using this natural force, because land, and particularly land endowed with water-power, is scarce. This does not prevent the amount of water-power available for industrial purposes from being increased, even though the number of natural waterfalls in a given country is limited. The waterfall may be harnessed by man in order to fully exploit its motive force. If such exists, the water-wheel may be improved so as to make use of as much of the water-power as possible; where the ordinary wheel is not suitable for the water-supply, turbines may be used, etc. The possession of this natural force constitutes a monopoly in the hands of its owner; it is a condition for an increase in the productiveness of the invested capital that cannot be established by the production process of the capital itself; [33] (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch38.htm#33) this natural force, which can be monopolised in this manner, is always bound to the land. Such a natural force does not belong to the general conditions of the sphere of production in question, nor to those conditions of the latter which may be generally established.
So in the end the value of land is based on society and human labour. Hence why real estate in the city is more expensive than in the countryside.

[Blake's Baby]

You are conflating wealth and value, and in any event nobody - including Marx - says that labour is the only source of value. For example, uncleared land has value on the real estate mark as a commodity (or rather 'pseudo-commodity'). What Marx insisted, and the LTV upholds, is the idea that only labour creates new value.

Oh, do we have a 'banging head against wall' emoticon?

No-one says that labour is the only source of value.

But critics of the LTV wrongly claim that Marx says labour is the only source of value, and therefore (according to the said critics of the LTV, not to me and not to Marx) that Marx's logic implies that digging holes and filling them in again creates 'wealth'.

But they're wrong because only labour to produce or extend use-values (as I said in my previous post, and as Marx says in the quote that Siembro Socialismo posted and I referred to) is what increases the total social wealth (what you refer to as 'only labour creates new value').

[Lucretia]

Here is what he says about nature in Capital vol. I:
Regarding real estate he talks about it a lot in Vol.III of capital. Basically that the value of real estate is determined by social labor. For example less fertile land may be more valuable than fertile land based on its proximity to roads, railways, ports, etc:
Or land with a waterfall may be more valuable because the motive power of the river can be used in the production process and save constant capital (thus the value of the land would be higher based on the money saved - called differential rent).

So in the end the value of land is based on society and human labour. Hence why real estate in the city is more expensive than in the countryside.

In that quote you cite, Marx is talking about how nature is the source of wealth and use values. What I said was that you were conflating value with wealth/use values. If you don't know the distinction between value and use value, then I recommend you re-read the first chapter of Capital vol 1. Only labour power creates new value, though new "use values" might be transferred into the commodity market, thereby acquiring a value and increasing the total sum of value in the economy. But that, of course, is different than the creation of new value under capitalism. This is totally consistent with Marx's analysis of land rents in Vol. 3, and the idea of labour power increasing the value of already commodified land, etc.

[Lucretia]

But critics of the LTV wrongly claim that Marx says labour is the only source of value

The specifics of how this is formulated are important here, because we're not dealing with common sense. Marx makes it perfectly clear that something has value because it is useful, or has a use value. If an object were not useful to anybody, it could not be a commodity -- which by definition has an exchange value (a phenomenal form of value) and a use value. In that sense, yes, natural resources are a "source of value" as you put it.

But does this mean that use-value is the "source" of value in the sense that it creates or produces value? Of course not. Usefulness is a prerequisite for value, but it does not "create" value in the capitalist process of production. The only commodity input in a capitalist labour process capable of producing new value is labour power. And that is the key to unlocking the secret of capitalist exploitation, as well as the internal laws of motion governing the capitalist mode of production. To repeat: labour is the sole source of the creation of new value within the capitalist mode of production.


... and therefore (according to the said critics of the LTV, not to me and not to Marx) that Marx's logic implies that digging holes and filling them in again creates 'wealth'.

But they're wrong because only labour to produce or extend use-values (as I said in my previous post, and as Marx says in the quote that Siembro Socialismo posted and I referred to) is what increases the total social wealth (what you refer to as 'only labour creates new value').

Here you go again talking about the creation of "wealth" and using Marx's comments on the creation of "wealth" to draw conclusions about the production of value. To repeat one more time: value is not the same as wealth, and Marx very clearly distinguishes the two in the first chapter of the first volume of Capital. Value is the substance, equivalent to the socially necessary labor time for a commodity's production, that dictates how exchange takes place among politically/economically autonomous units of production. As production is geared increasingly toward commodities, value also instantiates itself into social relations such that the reproduction of individuals begins to occur on the basis of uncoordinated market exchanges representing value.

As for the digging the hole then filling it in example, actually -- yes -- such a silly thing can create value (and accumulation of the money commodity) under capitalism. In countless examples from present-day capitalist society, value is created through the process of doing then undoing something. For instance, value is created through selling people unhealthy food, then it is created by treating people for their high cholesterol at the hospital. Does this create "wealth"? Of course not. But Marx's whole critique of capitalism is that it is regulated by "value" as an abstraction, and not "use value" or "wealth" or something more rational.

[citizen of industry]

Cite. My first post is all from the first chapter of capital. Exchange value, value and use value are clearly distinquished.

[Lucretia]

Cite. My first post is all from the first chapter of capital. Exchange value, value and use value are clearly distinquished.

Then why do you try to take statements Marx makes about "wealth," and draw conclusions about his understanding of "value"?

In the first chapter, Marx clearly distinguishes between these things.

[citizen of industry]

Then why do you try to take statements Marx makes about "wealth," and draw conclusions about his understanding of "value"?

In the first chapter, Marx clearly distinguishes between these things.

Show me where I used the word "wealth" once in this thread. I stuck to use value, exchange value and value in response to the OP and cited Marx from Volumes I and III of Capital and Wage Labour and Capital. You're the one who hasn't cited anything to back up your arguments and is going on about wealth.

[Lucretia]

Show me where I used the word "wealth" once in this thread. I stuck to use value, exchange value and value in response to the OP and cited Marx from Volumes I and III of Capital and Wage Labour and Capital. You're the one who hasn't cited anything to back up your arguments and is going on about wealth.

My apologies. Somehow I was confusing your remarks with B's baby. But no, I am not "going on about wealth." I am responding to the other poster who keeps going on about wealth. And I suppose I could cite huge chunks of Capital as well as Marx's other texts to support my positions, but to be honest, I am not making claims that are particularly controversial here. It's a pretty straightforward reading of Marxian political economy. Which claim of mine do you find questionable and in need of further textual support?

[citizen of industry]

My apologies. Somehow I was confusing your remarks with B's baby. But no, I am not "going on about wealth." I am responding to the other poster who keeps going on about wealth. And I suppose I could cite huge chunks of Capital as well as Marx's other texts to support my positions, but to be honest, I am not making claims that are particularly controversial here. It's a pretty straightforward reading of Marxian political economy. Which claim of mine do you find questionable and in need of further textual support?

For starters, your example of selling unhealthy food and treating people for high cholestoral as a comparison for digging a hole and filling it back up again. Unhealthy food is a use value. It also has an exchange value. Surplus value can be had from the production and subsequent sale of unhealthy food. The same goes for the production and sale of pharmaceuticals.

If I go and dig a hole and fill it up again it might have a use value for me, but not an exchange value. I cannot generate wealth from the process. Likewise I could walk around all day and expend labour collecting rocks, but it wouldn't have a use value for others, no exchange value and I could not generate wealth this way.

It is the most common criticism of the LTV that doing useless shit like collecting rocks, digging holes and breaking things expends labour but doesn't create value.

[Lucretia]

For starters, your example of selling unhealthy food and treating people for high cholestoral as a comparison for digging a hole and filling it back up again. Unhealthy food is a use value. It also has an exchange value. Surplus value can be had from the production and subsequent sale of unhealthy food. The same goes for the production and sale of pharmaceuticals.

Yes, and somebody might have had a use for the holes that were dug. Then the land might have potentially been resold to somebody who had no use for the holes, or plans by the same owner for the site might have changed, and the holes might have needed to be filled in (at a cost, of course) to make it flat again. The same construction or landscaping company could very well perform both services, with the owners accumulating surplus value from both services, while actually leaving the land no different than when it was originally purchased. That's my point. Due to the division of labor, and the way exchanges occur in uncoordinated, asocial ways on the basis of private ownership and the law of value, inefficiency and waste is inevitable. Holes are dug and filled in, commodities made then thrown away because they cannot be sold, etc. (disposal performed increasingly by for-profit companies, I might add). This is not controversial.


If I go and dig a hole and fill it up again it might have a use value for me, but not an exchange value. I cannot generate wealth from the process. Likewise I could walk around all day and expend labour collecting rocks, but it wouldn't have a use value for others, no exchange value and I could not generate wealth this way.Really? There's a rule that the digging of holes can not possibly ever have an exchange value as a service? This is news to me. There are many construction workers, surveyors, and others involved in the process of hole-digging who will be shocked to hear this as well.


It is the most common criticism of the LTV that doing useless shit like collecting rocks, digging holes and breaking things expends labour but doesn't create value.The problem in that line of thinking is a clear logical fallacy. Just because labour power is the sole source of new value under capitalism does not mean that all expenditure of labour power results in value, much less "wealth." This logical fallacy should be addressed by pointing out its logical flaws, not by making sweeping generalizations about the service of hole-digging never having an exchange value, which is just idiotic.

[citizen of industry]

Your taking it out of context though. Obviously if I employ workers to dig a trench for a piping system, turn stone into gravel or tear down a building I am creating a commodity for exchange with a use value (pipes, gravel and real estate). I create surplus value in the process and realize that value in the sale.


What I'm warning the OP of, as this is in the learning thread, is that he will likely encounter the ignorant argument:

"What?! Labour creates value! I could go and smash up your car. Did I create any value? That took labour. I took away value. Marx was wrong!"

The point is the busted up car cannot be exchanged now, has lost its use-value. Is essentially valueless.

Now you are going to go on and tell me a recycling company can employ workers to smash up cars, generate surplus value congealed in the raw material commodity of the destroyed vehicle. But when you tack that argument on to the original one about smashing up cars it is absurd. Hence why B's Baby and I brought up the point about an object having use-values for others. I was using as an example digging a hole by myself in my backyard (no use values for others).

[Lucretia]

Your taking it out of context though. Obviously if I employ workers to dig a trench for a piping system, turn stone into gravel or tear down a building I am creating a commodity for exchange with a use value (pipes, gravel and real estate). I create surplus value in the process and realize that value in the sale.


What I'm warning the OP of, as this is in the learning thread, is that he will likely encounter the ignorant argument:

"What?! Labour creates value! I could go and smash up your car. Did I create any value? That took labour. I took away value. Marx was wrong!"

The point is the busted up car cannot be exchanged now, has lost its use-value. Is essentially valueless.

Now you are going to go on and tell me a recycling company can employ workers to smash up cars, generate surplus value congealed in the raw material commodity of the destroyed vehicle. But when you tack that argument on to the original one about smashing up cars it is absurd. Hence why B's Baby and I brought up the point about an object having use-values for others. I was using as an example digging a hole by myself in my backyard (no use values for others).

First thing, your language was not "well, in certain circumstances hole-digging might create value - it's just that we can't tell because the example is too vague." Rather, it was a sweeping declaration that hole-digging, as a rule, cannot create value. If that's not what you intended to convey, I accept that. But it's a good idea to take care in how you express your thoughts when they could easily be interpreted in ways you might not intend.

To the crux of your response, obviously somebody who does gardening as a hobby and decides to dig a hole in their backyard is not creating value in the Marxian sense (though, depending on what they plant for themselves, they may be creating "wealth" for themselves or friends). But does this really need to be spelled out? Again, the response to anybody moronic enough to make that argument is to point out that Marx was adamant that not all labour power deployed within the market, much less individually undertaken acts of concrete labour performed outside of the market, creates value.

[citizen of industry]

That isn't what I intended to convey. Hence, "If I dig a hole..." Not "If a corporation digs a hole with the intent of producing surplus value..."

Anyone moronic enough to make that statement is basically anyone who has not read Marx and is regurgitating some propoganda about the LTV they heard second hand, which is most people in society outside the left. In those cases I think the simplest answer is best. "You may have expended your labor digging a big hole, but you didn't produce anything anybody wants, and you can't exchange it, so you didn't create value."

[Lucretia]

That isn't what I intended to convey. Hence, "If I dig a hole..." Not "If a corporation digs a hole with the intent of producing surplus value..."

Anyone moronic enough to make that statement is basically anyone who has not read Marx and is regurgitating some propoganda about the LTV they heard second hand, which is most people in society outside the left. In those cases I think the simplest answer is best. "You may have expended your labor digging a big hole, but you didn't produce anything anybody wants, and you can't exchange it, so you didn't create value."

I disagree. Even people who have not read Marx would probably not make such a ridiculous argument. It defies common sense and any test of reasonableness. Only the most disingenuous or desperate of shills for capitalism would bother to deploy it, since it sounds like it was torn from a Monty Python script.

[Blake's Baby]

You don't spend much time arguing with the ridiculous, disingenuous or desperate shills of capitalism, then, do you? I have on quite literally dozens of occassions come across precisely that argument against LTV from the defenders of marginal utility theory, mostly 'anarcho-capitalists' or 'market anarchists' or whatever foolish name the people who believe that capitalism and the state are not symbiotic.

The idea about 'reasonableness' is a total red herring. The argument is reasonable in itself: labour on unecessary/unwanted things does not produce value - that is, does not extend social wealth - so as a criticism on it's own terms it's absolutely accurate. If Marx had said 'all labour produces value' then he would be wrong. This is what is being argued.

Of course he didn't; but how is someone who has never read Marx to know that?

[Lucretia]

You don't spend much time arguing with the ridiculous, disingenuous or desperate shills of capitalism, then, do you? I have on quite literally dozens of occassions come across precisely that argument against LTV from the defenders of marginal utility theory, mostly 'anarcho-capitalists' or 'market anarchists' or whatever foolish name the people who believe that capitalism and the state are not symbiotic.

The idea about 'reasonableness' is a total red herring. The argument is reasonable in itself: labour on unecessary/unwanted things does not produce value - that is, does not extend social wealth - so as a criticism on it's own terms it's absolutely accurate. If Marx had said 'all labour produces value' then he would be wrong. This is what is being argued.

Of course he didn't; but how is someone who has never read Marx to know that?

And if your response to those dozens of anarcho-capitalists indicated to them that "production of value" is the same as "extension of wealth," then Marx is getting misconstrued all around by critics and defenders alike. Take the example of hole-digging I provided above: a lot of value, even surplus value, is produced, but literally no wealth. If it's one thing I want you to take away from this thread, it's a solid understanding of the distinction Marx makes between wealth and value.

See, for example, this passage from Capital vol. 1:


In itself, an increase in the quantity of use-values constitutes an increase in material wealth. Two coats will clothe two men, one coat will only clothe one man, etc. Nevertheless, an increase in the amount of material wealth may correspond to a simultaneous fall in the magnitude of its value. This contradictory movement arises out of the twofold character of labour.

[Davide]

We can say that it's just like Performance vs. Price or we can say, Use value is the consumer surplus that he has enjoyed and exchange value is (money+time+effort) that is incurred by the consumer.