Saturday, January 31, 2009

Theory of Labor Value


I read Capital Volume 1 Chapter 1. I'm puzzling over it.

We start with commodities. Commodities have use value and exchange value. Use value comes from desire. Exchange value is the value that a commodity has in the market place. It must always be an equal exchange. What makes them equal and exchangeable? It is because they have value. What is value? Socially necessary labor time. If its on the market, then it is a product of human labor. What else do they have in common? They have use value, but that alone does not make an object something in need of exchange. Air has a use value. If a thing is useless, then the labor counts for nothing. Price lowering can be seen as a way to make the labor count for more, that is, to make it have a use value to people. Price is always affected by labor. Use affects it only in relation to labor.

I think....


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