Words    Words    Words

This subsection is called, “Elementary or Accidental form of Value”
Page 48:  “x commodity A=y commodity B, or
x commodity A is worth y commodity B, or
20 yards of linen= 1 coat, or
20 yards of linen is worth 1 coat.”
Subsection 1: The two poles of the expression of value: Relative form and Equivalent form
“The whole mystery of [...]

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This section is called “The form of value or exchange-value”
Page 47: “Commodities come into the world in the shape of use-values, articles, or goods, such as iron, linen, corn, &c.  This is their plain, homely, bodily form.  They are, however commodities, only because they are something two-fold, both objects of utility, and, at the same [...]

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Page 44: “Just as, therefore, in viewing the coat and linen as values, we abstract from their different use-values, so it is with the labour represented by those values: we disregard the difference between its useful forms, weaving and tailoring.  As the use-values, coat and linen, are combinations of special productive activities with cloth and [...]

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Page 43: “The use-value, coat, linen, &c., i.e., the bodies of commodities, are combinations of two elements–matter and labour.  If we take away the useful labour expended upon them, a material substratum is always left, which is furnished by Nature without the help of man.  The latter can work only as Nature does, that is [...]

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Page 42: “In the use-value of each commodity there is contained useful labour, i.e., productive labour of a definite kind, and exercised with a definite aim.  Use-values cannot confront each other as commodities, unless the useful labour embodied in them is qualitatively different in each of them.”
Right.  As we were discussing in the last post.  [...]

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Section 2 is “The two-fold character of the labour embodied in commodities”
Page 41: “At first sight a commodity presented itself to us a complex of two things–use-value and exchange-value.  Later on, we saw also that labour, too, possesses the same two-fold nature: for, so far as it finds expression in value, it does not possess [...]

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Page 39: “We see then that that which determines the magnitude of the value of any article is the amount of labour socially necessary, or the labour-time socially necessary for its production.  Each individual commodity, in this connexion, is to be considered as an average sample of its class.  Commodities, therefore, in which equal quantities [...]

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Brust’s Law is as follows: Truth is counter-intuitive.
I remember the first time a teacher explained to me that a gas took up more volume per weight than the same substance as a solid.  That was obviously ridiculous; gas is malleable, so clearly it can be pressed into a smaller space than a solid would.  Right?  [...]

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We now have three concepts: use-value, exchange-value, and value.  (I’m not sure under what conditions Marx capitalizes the V in value; it seems inconsistent, but I’m guessing there is a reason for it somewhere).
Use-value refers to the material particulars of the commodity; size, weight, chemical composition, shape, &c.  Exchange-value refers to the quantity of that [...]

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Page 38: “If then we leave out of consideration the use-value of commodities, they have only one common property left, that of being products of labour.  But even the product of labour itself has undergone a change in our hands.  If we make abstraction from its use-value, we make abstraction at the same time from [...]

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