Assess The Relationship Between Commodity And Use-Value

According to Marx, surplus value is obtained in the form of profit in which the capitalist owns the means of production (private property), thus the workers have no choice but to sell their ability to work to the capitalists in order to live. This means that labor is the source of profit under capitalism. Capitalism has a historically specific relation of production, as capitalists pay for labor power (gained by paying wages) and get labor in return. The exploitation of worker’s potential through wages produces surplus value, which is the reason why capital tends to grow. Money put into capitalist relations will then grow; thereby, resulting in the creation of labor markets that give value to things we consider capital. For example, surplus value was extracted under feudalism in this order: commodities are produced (essentials of living) and then feudal lords extracted this surplus by charging rent to the serfs (sometimes through

Marx believes that money has a misused transformative power in Bourgeois society, one which he argues, that we are currently subjected to. He claims that, “Money is the pimp between man’s need and the object, between his life and his means of life. But that which

According to Karl Marx, commodity fetishism is the collective belief that the human labor necessary for the production of an object is concealed once the object is assigned a monetary value for exchange. As a result, "phantom-like" qualities are often attributed to such objects, perpetuating the misconception that products possess intrinsic value as opposed to Marx’s view that the amount of human labor expended defines product value (Marx, Capital, 128). In a contemporary context, the industrialization of the automobile industry is a prime example of a commodity fetish, depicting the disconnect between worker and consumer, the expendability of the human laborer, and the apparent mystical characteristics ascribed to commodities.

Marx believed that commodities often receive extreme, unnecessary attention, and are valued much more than they should be in terms of their use and actual value, and thus commodities begin to control our wants and possessions. There is an ambiguous relationship of a product and the labor that was put into that product. By only viewing the exchange value, they miss the social relations of production. We are giving great value and causal power to something that in reality didn't really do anything for us at all. We value things more than the process. This concept of commodity fetishism ties in with most of Marx's concepts of alienation, and exploitation because these commodities become so important to the capitalist in that he will go to any

Marx claims that in a market, that there a lot of buyers and sellers, in which they either buy a product or try to sell it with the greatest advantage. The main idea of the quote is to allow the readers to understand commodity as it is ascribed with a value, price and exchange

Marx stated that the capacity of production of the commodities was the labor power (Prychitko, Marxism 2008). Marx explained the labor power by using the Ricardo’s and Smith’s notions of the labor value and added that in order to work for feeding, sheltering and clothing, labor power heavily depended on labor’s capacities related to number of working hours (King J. E. 2006). For example, if a worker consumes commodities that took 4 hours to produce, the value of this worker is the money equal to the 4 hours of labor and the value of this worker was paid by the capitalist farmers which was the least cost that they had received.

In chapter one, Marx says that a commodity is a use value and exchange value. The commodity as a use value is something that humans want or need, the use value of the commodity is determined by how useful the commodity is, but Marx says it is immeasurable and explains that it can only be determined when consumed. After he explains, use-value Marx explains commodities as an exchange value. He explains that commodities’ value as the quantity of other commodities that it will exchange for. Later in this chapter, Marx says that the exchange value of a commodity is merely a measurement of its value, he says that value connects all commodities so that they can be exchanged with each other. In the text, he says this value is determined by "the labor time socially necessary that is required

Since the eighteenth century, Karl Marx has perhaps been capitalism 's greatest critic. Writing many volumes of texts ranging from the co-authored “The Communist Manifesto” to “Capital: Critique of Political Economy”. This paper, however, will concentrate on one of his lesser known works. In 1844 Marx wrote the “Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844”, this was not published during his lifetime and first appeared in 1927,an astounding forty-four years after his death. The manuscripts themselves explore a wide range of topics, this paper will be looking at Marx’s theory of the “alienation of labour”. For Marx, the product of your labour is you itself. He believed that the product of your labour is “labour itself objectified” as a mere inanimate object. A plate, for example, is not simply a plate, but the labour of the worker objectified into a real and physical object. For Marx, a society under capitalism produces two classes of people; “property owners” (the Bourgeoisie) and the “propertyless” (the Proletariat) and Marx was more concerned with the latter. Marx believed that the Proletariat, under capitalism, had nothing of value to sell other than his labour and due to the fact that the Proletariat does not own what he makes he is thus estranged from his labour, with this ultimately ending in the Proletariat becoming estranged or alienated from himself. This paper will seek to critically examine, analyse and explain this abstract theory using both the source text and

From Marx’s money and commodities, people think that they have mystical powers, but the powers come from us from own creative labor. If we take a look inside a workplace it could be any place of work a capitalist factory, a peasant commune, or a family farm, the relations between different workers are direct, you make a widget and hand it directly to the next person. If something needs to change by the labor process, someone brings workers together and says now we will organize things differently. The organization happened directly between people. Now if we take a look at the market outside the workplace, things were different. The relations are not direct between individual. In the market, these interactions happen between things because to change their work, to produced more or less, and go out of business or expand the business. Farmers, electricians and auto workers do not directly relate to each other as workers instead the products of their labor beat in the market and are exchanged with one another. The material relations between people become social relations between things. For example, When we look at car, corn, tv, and peanut butter we do not see the worker created them. We just see commodities standing in relation one to

Marx 's conception of history and society’s future is illustrated through constant class struggle. In fact, Marx’s sociology is more often than not called “The sociology of class conflict” (Priya, 2015). The idea of class struggle or conflict surfaces from the concept of materialism (or greediness) throughout history and constant surplus value. Surplus value is the difference between a worker 's wages (also known as exchange value) and the value of goods and services he or she produces (also known as use value)

However, through commodity fetishism these commodities now have a monetary value; this value gives the commodity a “supernatural/unnatural quality” Karl Marx expresses that commodity fetishism, “is nothing but the definite social relation between men themselves which assumes…the fantastic form of a relation between things” (Marx, 165). Through this establishment of monetary value one forgets that this value is something one created, and individuals end up valuing the object more than they value on another. In this capitalist society the real producers of these commodities remain invincible, and when it comes to the exchange of commodities it results in class struggle as individuals feel uncomfortable asking for a higher price due to their social standing in comparison to the authoritive figure they are dealing with. Through the use of historical materialism which looks into historical events that were determined by materialist circumstances, one finds that capitalism is the root of class struggle. This established monetary value governing individual’s perceptions on how society should work was the pathology one needs to solve, but it was avoided through one’s “actively forgetting.” This only leads to the exploitation of lower classes due to one’s actively forgetting that these values are one’s creations. Marx looked into the past to uncover this “truth” and find the root of the

Surplus value is the most significant concept in Marx’s analysis of the political economy. Marx himself in a letter to Engels said that his theory of surplus value is one of his best concept and contribution to economic analysis. (Letter to Engels 1867) It is the main source of oppression and exploitation over the proletariat within a capitalist society. It allows Marx’s ideas to follow a consecutive lineage, from the oppression of the proletariat, to overcoming false class-consciousness, finally leading to the Proletarian revolution. Surplus value is the key reason why the proletariat must rebel and regain the true value of their labour, instead of it being appropriated by the capitalist class (Bourgeoisie). The extraction of surplus value is important in helping explain other vital Marxist concepts such as the alienation of labourer from their humanity and also the alienation from the product of their labour. Marx goes as far as saying surplus value is the foundation of capitalism. Surplus value was originally a concept written about by David Ricardo, but simply it is the difference between the wages a worker received compared to the value of the goods or services their labour has produced. In Capital, Volume I it is vividly described: In six hours worth of labour, the capitalist has given the worker a real wage, meaning their labour is paid equal to the value of their production, however their shift lasts another six hours, this extra six hours would be where the surplus

According to Marx, Value can be described as the socially necessary labor needed to produce a commodity. In order to form a foundation of the understand value, we must first understand what exactly the term ‘socially necessary labor’ means and of course, how its process gives us a true value of a given commodity.

Karl Marx divided society into two groups: the dynamic forces of production in the form of technology and labour skills and the stagnant relations of production. This forms the two classes, the proletariat who are the owners of their labour and the bourgeoisie who own the means of production. The relationship between the two is assessed using the labour theory of value, which demonstrates the exploitation of workers in the aim of getting surplus value: “the difference between the wages…labour

The ruling class increased at the expense of the subject class and a conflict of interest developed between them. This can be demonstrated by Marx’s view of the nature of ownership and production in capitalist societies. According to Marx, in a capitalist economy, goods are the labour power; raw materials and machinery used to produce them are given an economic value. The employer buys labour power, Marx says: “more accurately, I think, he buys the right to use the worker's powers for a day”. Also, he argued that capital was owned by the capitalist class which produced nothing and gained its wealth from the exploitation of the mass of the population the labour.