(no subject)
The commodity form bears within it the general 'contradictions'--centers of tension, the places where structural forces work against each other--of capitalism; this is why Marx begins Capital with a detailed consideration of it. Through analyzing it, we can come to a certain understanding of of the total workings of capitalist systems, and reflect upon the way which capitalist production necessitates the use-value of products to become irrelevant to their exchange-value, and what it means when, in fact, something takes on a use-value in virtue of of being exchanged. The method required to do this, the dialectic, is distinct and intellectually demanding, and its use leads us to an understanding of other positivising methods of inquiry that cannot properly grasp said tensions; these methods are shown to be instantiations of the very forces which work to ensure the smooth functioning of things inherently contradictory, such as the commodity form. To see this though, we must approach commodities not on the terms in which they present themselves, but according to the their ultimate logic. That is, we must approach them critically, not as if they were given to us immediately.
Commodities are peculiar objects. For one, considering them implicates a consideration of market economies: you really can't get at the logic of commodity production by looking at the physical constitution of, say, pork bellies. Like many other of the more important things we might consider, commodities resist an essentializing approach that would attempt to list out their characteristics and hammer them down for mathematicized analysis. Which is not to say that people haven't tried or that entire disciplines have not sprung up to attempt it. On the face of it, Marx's analysis of commodities can be said to be just this: a commodity is any given object that contains three sorts of values: value proper, exchange-value, and use-value. And within commodity production, it is taken as a given that the exchange-value takes precedence over the other two. What does it mean for something to be a commodity then? It means that its use-value is no longer the reason for its production. Simple enough.
However, this sort of isolated considering of the aspects of commodities will not do, because in fact it does not cohere, and it doesn't really lead us toward the concrete unity of real commodities. It is a deflated abstraction. You cannot treat a commodity as if it bore within it three distinct and self-complete values and proceed with analysis. This courts madness (it's also typical of historic bourgeois engagements with Marx's analysis): is the use-value of a commodity independent of its exchange-value? And what is the relation of value without an adjective to the two previous? The only way to come to a sensible understanding of any of the sorts of value inherent in the commodity is to consider them relationally, to see how one works upon the other and the other works back. Let's take a look at a rather simple and ubiquitous commodity: the ball point pen. Its use-value might appear as rather uninteresting, unimportant, and its exchange-value may appear as ultimately insignificant. All the same the exchange-value of the pen cannot be isolated from the pen's social use value: if it weren't socially necessary to scribble out records in the millions of bureaucratic offices of the world, not to mention for angsty teens to vent their frustration on lined legal pads, there would be no exchange. At the same time, the end goal of commodity production is quite blatantly not the satisfaction of human want and need, though this want and need must fulfill its role in the process; wants and needs are a means to an end: the realization of surplus-value. An interesting side effect of this is that commodity production can in fact create new needs that will be met through further expansion of the productive process, thus ensuring another interval of possible capital growth. This is why there is such a staggering need for billions of Bic blue ink pens: to fill in the data sheets of the world's financial ledgers. How can you get at this without a dialectical approach? You tell me.
I want to make sure everyone sees the radical absurdity in this before I go on. The radical irrationality in the fact that global society can devote tens of billions of labor hours every single day to ensure not that the great mass of humanity can meet basic and vital wants and needs, but rather that an infinitesimal segment of humanity can continue to sap profit from other peoples' efforts, and the nauseating absurdity of how it continues despite how glaringly obvious it is.
Commodities are peculiar objects. For one, considering them implicates a consideration of market economies: you really can't get at the logic of commodity production by looking at the physical constitution of, say, pork bellies. Like many other of the more important things we might consider, commodities resist an essentializing approach that would attempt to list out their characteristics and hammer them down for mathematicized analysis. Which is not to say that people haven't tried or that entire disciplines have not sprung up to attempt it. On the face of it, Marx's analysis of commodities can be said to be just this: a commodity is any given object that contains three sorts of values: value proper, exchange-value, and use-value. And within commodity production, it is taken as a given that the exchange-value takes precedence over the other two. What does it mean for something to be a commodity then? It means that its use-value is no longer the reason for its production. Simple enough.
However, this sort of isolated considering of the aspects of commodities will not do, because in fact it does not cohere, and it doesn't really lead us toward the concrete unity of real commodities. It is a deflated abstraction. You cannot treat a commodity as if it bore within it three distinct and self-complete values and proceed with analysis. This courts madness (it's also typical of historic bourgeois engagements with Marx's analysis): is the use-value of a commodity independent of its exchange-value? And what is the relation of value without an adjective to the two previous? The only way to come to a sensible understanding of any of the sorts of value inherent in the commodity is to consider them relationally, to see how one works upon the other and the other works back. Let's take a look at a rather simple and ubiquitous commodity: the ball point pen. Its use-value might appear as rather uninteresting, unimportant, and its exchange-value may appear as ultimately insignificant. All the same the exchange-value of the pen cannot be isolated from the pen's social use value: if it weren't socially necessary to scribble out records in the millions of bureaucratic offices of the world, not to mention for angsty teens to vent their frustration on lined legal pads, there would be no exchange. At the same time, the end goal of commodity production is quite blatantly not the satisfaction of human want and need, though this want and need must fulfill its role in the process; wants and needs are a means to an end: the realization of surplus-value. An interesting side effect of this is that commodity production can in fact create new needs that will be met through further expansion of the productive process, thus ensuring another interval of possible capital growth. This is why there is such a staggering need for billions of Bic blue ink pens: to fill in the data sheets of the world's financial ledgers. How can you get at this without a dialectical approach? You tell me.
I want to make sure everyone sees the radical absurdity in this before I go on. The radical irrationality in the fact that global society can devote tens of billions of labor hours every single day to ensure not that the great mass of humanity can meet basic and vital wants and needs, but rather that an infinitesimal segment of humanity can continue to sap profit from other peoples' efforts, and the nauseating absurdity of how it continues despite how glaringly obvious it is.