 基本定義 |
商品：生產使用價值（Use
value）以作交換。
-- use value,
exchange value, value and price:
price:
商品的價格（因供需而起伏），
exchange
value: 商品和其他商品的對應交換關係（這裡重點並非以物易物，而是經由商品的比較，產生商品的社會關係和抽象價值。）
value: 決定商品之間的交換價值。
use
value: 決定商品的價值。
資本：投資的金錢，目的是生產更多金錢（也就是錢滾錢）。 |
| 重要論點 |
|
 議題： |
- 商品的價值如何界定？exchange
value, use value, symbolic value, etc.
- 資本主義的影響：對人的認同，社會關係和社會空間有何影響？
|
 重要引文：
Different kinds of Values
- Definition of value
-- p. 129 "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."
- exchange value
defined: "first: the valid exchange-values of a given commodity
express something equal; secondly, exchange-value, generally,
is only the mode of expression, the phenomenal form, of something
contained in it, yet distinguishable from it" (127)
- Marx's example:
" e.g., 1 quarter corn = x cwt. iron. What does this equation
tell us? It tells us that in two different things — in 1 quarter
of corn and x cwt. of iron, there exists in equal quantities
something common to both. The two things must therefore be
equal to a third, which in itself is neither the one nor the
other. Each of them, so far as it is exchange-value, must
therefore be reducible to this third. "
abstraction & exchange value--quantity; and use value--quality:
"the exchange of commodities is evidently an act characterised
by a total abstraction from use-value. Then one use-value
is just as good as another, provided only it be present in
sufficient quantity.. . . As use-values, commodities
are, above all, of different qualities, but as exchange-values
they are merely different quantities, and consequently
do not contain an atom of use-value. " (127-28)
- use value, value,
commodity with exchange value: "A thing can be a use-value,
without having value. . . . [e.g. air, virgin soil, natural meadows,
&c.] A thing can be useful, and the product of human
labour, without being a commodity. . . . In order to produce
the latter, he must not only produce use-values, but use-values
for others, social use-values." (131)
- use value--two
elements: "the material provided by nature and labour" (133)
- "The value
of commodities is the very opposite of the coarse materiality
of their bodies, not an atom of matter enters into it."
- "It is value, rather,
that converts every product into a social hieroglyphic.
Later on, we try to decipher the hieroglyphic, to get behind the
secret of our own social products; for to stamp an object of utility
as a value, is just as much a social product as language" (167)
- THE FORM OF VALUE:
Relative form and Equivalent form
20 yards of linen = 1 coat, 20 yards of linen are worth 1 coat.
"The linen expresses its value in the coat; the coat serves as
the material in which that value is expressed. The former plays
an active, the latter a passive, part. The value of the
linen is represented as relative value, or appears in relative
form. The coat officiates as equivalent, or appears in equivalent
form. " (139)
The relative form of the value of the linen pre-supposes,
therefore, the presence of some other commodity -- here the coat
-- under the form of an equivalent. On the other hand, the commodity
that figures as the equivalent cannot at the same time assume
the relative form. That second commodity is not the one whose
value is expressed. Its function is merely to serve as the
material in which the value of the first commodity is expressed.
(140)
- changes of values:
"The relative value of a commodity may vary, although its
value remains constant.
Its relative value may remain constant,
although its value varies; and finally, simultaneous
variations in the magnitude of
value and in that of its relative expression by no means
necessarily correspond in amount."
(146)
- abstraction: equivalent
form
"The natural form of the commodity becomes its value-form.
But, mark well, that this substitution only occurs in the case
of any commodity B, only when some other commodity A enters into
a value-relation with it, and then only within the limits of this
relation. Since no commodity can stand in the relation of equivalent
to itself, and thus turn its own bodily shape into the expression
of its own value, every commodity is compelled to choose some
other commodity for its equivalent, and to accept the use-value,
that is to say, the bodily shape of that other commodity as the
form of its own value. (148)
- Since the relative
form of value of a commodity -- the linen, for example-- expresses
the
value of that commodity, as being
something wholly different from its substance and
properties, as being, for instance,
coat-like, we see that this expression itself indicates that
some social relation lies at
the bottom of it. With the equivalent form it is just the
contrary.
The very essence of this form is
that the material commodity itself -- the coat -- just as it is,
expresses value, and is endowed
with the form of value by Nature itself. Of course this holds
good only so long as the value-relation
exists, in which the coat stands in the position of
equivalent to the linen.
- Marx's conclusion:
--the commodity's autonomy from use-values. "Could commodities
themselves speak, they would say: Our use-value may be a thing
that interests men. It is no part of us as objects. What, however,
does belong to us as objects, is our value. Our natural intercourse
as commodities proves it. In the eyes of each other we are nothing
but exchange-values" (176-77)
Abstraction:
Alienation:
alienation and exploitation:
"According to Marx alienation occurs in commodity production only.
Under such conditions the exchangerelations of market society
separate production from consumption, and the product acquires
a life of its own, independent of the producer, and comes to oppress
him as an alien force. Exploitation, on the other hand,
is not confined to situation of commodity production. .
.The serf is exploited by the feudal lord, even though he produces
only use-values. . . . Exploitation, for Marx, is the appropriation
of the surplus labour of one class by another class. (Barbalet 95)
"The theory of alienation
in Capital is derived from the labour theory of value and
the concomitant theory of surplus value.
- the value of all
commodities, including labour power, is determined by the
socially necessary labour time required for their production;
- the worker is
paid the full value of his labour power when he sells it to
the capitalist;
- that when the
already purchased labour power is consumed in production by
the capitalist it creates, in addition to its own value, a
surplus value which constitutes a nett gain to the
capitalist. (Barbalet 97)
- impoverishment
of the working class ensues.
". . . in Capital
the worker's alienation is a consequence of the sale of his
labour-power to the capitalist, rather than a result of his
labour -- in the form of a commodity -- being appropriated by
the capitalist, as it is in the Manuscripts. . . . While individual's
alienation is a consequence of commodity production, according
to Capital, it is not the individual's own production of commodities
which accounts for his alienation, for the individual labourer
does not produce commodities. The individual's alienation
is located in the alienation of his labour power. (Barbalet
114)
Works Cited:
Marx, Karl. Capital.
Schmitt, Richard. Introduction to Marx and Engels: A
Critical Reconstruction. London: Westview P, 1987.
Barbalet, J. M. Marx's Construction of Social Theory.
Routledge & Kegan Paul. Boston: 1983.
(external) 
Literary
Criticism Databank: Marxism ;
馬克思主義與文化研究（Fall,
1999） |
