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The Communist Manifesto
Das Kapital In Marx's critique of political economy, any labor-product has a value and a use value, and if it is traded as a commodity in markets, it additionally has an exchange value, most often expressed as a money-price. These four concepts (value, use value, exchange value and price) have a very long history in economic and philosophical thought, from Aristotle to Adam Smith, and their meanings evolved. Marx comments for example that "in English writers of the 17th century we frequently find worth in the sense of value in use, and value in the sense of exchange-value." With the expansion of market economy, however, the focus of economists has increasingly been on prices and price-relations, the social process of exchange as such being assumed to occur as a naturally given fact. Marx emphasizes that the use-value of a labor-product is practical and objectively determined, i.e. it inheres in the intrinsic characteristics of a product which enable it to satisfy a human need or want. The use-value of a product therefore exists as a material reality vis-a-vis social needs regardless of the individual need of any particular person. The use-value of a commodity is specifically a social use-value, meaning that it has a generally accepted use-value for others in society, and not just for the producer.
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