Exchange Value - Marx's Quote On Commodities and Their Exchange

Marx's Quote On Commodities and Their Exchange

Marx's view of commodities in Capital is illustrated by the following quote:

“We have seen that when commodities are in the relation of exchange, their exchange-value manifests itself as something totally independent of their use-value. But if we abstract from their use-value, there remains their value, as has just been defined. The common factor in the exchange relation, or in the exchange-value of the commodity, is therefore its value.” (Vintage/Penguin edition, p. 128, chapter 1, §1, para. 12)

This first part says that the value of commodities as they are exchanged for each other –- or when stated in terms of money units, their prices –- are very different from their value in use to human beings, their use-value.

Next, Marx describes how he had abstracted from the differences in use-value and thus from the concrete differences amongst commodities, looking for their shared characteristics. He famously claimed to find that what's left is that all commodities have value (or "labor-value"), the abstract labor time needed to produce it. That is, all commodities are social products of labor, created and exchanged by a community, with each commodity producer contributing his or her time to the societal division of labor. Each commodity is a social product by nature.

Third, value is not the same thing as exchange-value (or price). Rather, the value is the shared characteristic of the exchange-values of all the commodities. He calls this the “common factor,” whereas someone else might call it the “essence.” In contrast, the exchange-value represents the appearance or "form" of expression of value in trade. Just as with used cars, the shiny appearance may differ radically from the lemony essence. In fact, one of his major themes (the theory of “commodity fetishism”) is that the system of commodity exchange that dominates capitalism obscures the class nature of that institution.

To Marx, the "exchange value" of a commodity also represents its owner's purchasing power, the ability to command labor, i.e., the amount of labor time that is claimed in acquiring it. This aspect appears not only in the modern services economy, but in the market for tangible goods: by purchasing a good, one is gaining the results of the labor done to produce it, while one is also commanding (directing) labor to produce more of it.