JazzRemington
4th December 2007, 20:00
I've been re-reading Das Kapital and I have found something very strange. I'm not sure if I am simply misunderstanding what I am reading, but I would like to discuss it and present my reasoning about it.
Ultimately, I would like to discuss how something becomes a commodity. According to Marx, a commodity is comprised of use-value and exchange value (otherwise known as value). For the longest time, I always thought that for a thing to become a commodity it must both possess utility (be or have a use-value) and possess abstract, general labor (i.e. socially necessary labor otherwise known to be the embodiment of exchange value).
But, further on he states:
The price-form, however, is not only compatible with the possibility of a quantitative incongruity between magnitude of value and price, i.e., between the former and its expression in money, but it may also conceal a qualitative inconsistency, so much so, that, although money is nothing but the value-form of commodities, price ceases altogether to express value. Objects that in themselves are no commodities, such as conscience, honour, &c., are capable of being offered for sale by their holders, and of thus acquiring, through their price, the form of commodities. Hence an object may have a price without having value.
So, am I to understand that a commodity is a material object external to humans and while abstract concepts such as conscience and honor are not material objects, they can take the form of commodities by merely being given a price? Does this mean that anything can become a commodity if it is given a price? If this is true, what about the whole exchange-value concept? What effect would giving something that is not normally a commodity a price, thus turning it into a commodity?
Ultimately, I would like to discuss how something becomes a commodity. According to Marx, a commodity is comprised of use-value and exchange value (otherwise known as value). For the longest time, I always thought that for a thing to become a commodity it must both possess utility (be or have a use-value) and possess abstract, general labor (i.e. socially necessary labor otherwise known to be the embodiment of exchange value).
But, further on he states:
The price-form, however, is not only compatible with the possibility of a quantitative incongruity between magnitude of value and price, i.e., between the former and its expression in money, but it may also conceal a qualitative inconsistency, so much so, that, although money is nothing but the value-form of commodities, price ceases altogether to express value. Objects that in themselves are no commodities, such as conscience, honour, &c., are capable of being offered for sale by their holders, and of thus acquiring, through their price, the form of commodities. Hence an object may have a price without having value.
So, am I to understand that a commodity is a material object external to humans and while abstract concepts such as conscience and honor are not material objects, they can take the form of commodities by merely being given a price? Does this mean that anything can become a commodity if it is given a price? If this is true, what about the whole exchange-value concept? What effect would giving something that is not normally a commodity a price, thus turning it into a commodity?