1 00:00:00,673 --> 00:00:03,923 (intense violin music) 2 00:00:13,800 --> 00:00:15,870 - Page 19, the double character 3 00:00:15,869 --> 00:00:17,789 of the labor represented in commodities. 4 00:00:17,789 --> 00:00:20,399 First, the commodity presented itself to us 5 00:00:20,399 --> 00:00:21,899 as a double-something, 6 00:00:21,899 --> 00:00:24,479 both use value and exchange value, 7 00:00:24,480 --> 00:00:27,750 or, I would say, use and value, 8 00:00:27,750 --> 00:00:29,250 that's a better way to put it, 9 00:00:30,899 --> 00:00:32,609 more precise, 10 00:00:32,609 --> 00:00:34,112 or use value and value. 11 00:00:35,369 --> 00:00:36,899 We then saw that labor too, 12 00:00:36,899 --> 00:00:38,606 when it was expressed as value 13 00:00:38,606 --> 00:00:40,109 and it is expressed as value, 14 00:00:40,109 --> 00:00:42,600 loses the particular qualities it has 15 00:00:42,600 --> 00:00:45,600 as that which produces use values. 16 00:00:45,600 --> 00:00:47,550 When you're producing something for exchange, 17 00:00:47,549 --> 00:00:48,992 your labor changes. 18 00:00:49,859 --> 00:00:51,929 Interestingly, it doesn't change in content, 19 00:00:51,929 --> 00:00:53,159 at least at the beginning, 20 00:00:53,159 --> 00:00:55,832 until capitalism is well-developed, 21 00:00:57,179 --> 00:00:59,463 industrialized, expanded, 22 00:01:01,140 --> 00:01:05,609 then it starts to change the quality of concrete labor. 23 00:01:05,609 --> 00:01:09,239 But in this hypothetical, this heuristic, 24 00:01:09,239 --> 00:01:12,149 simple heuristic at the beginning of the book, 25 00:01:12,150 --> 00:01:14,670 which is, by the way, a theoretical heuristic, 26 00:01:14,670 --> 00:01:17,250 not a historical heuristic. 27 00:01:17,250 --> 00:01:20,972 It wasn't like we started with the commodity in AD 1, 28 00:01:22,019 --> 00:01:24,149 not true, we're starting with the commodity 29 00:01:24,150 --> 00:01:28,200 for the analytic, for analyzing capitalism, 30 00:01:28,200 --> 00:01:31,185 starting with its its cell form, 31 00:01:31,185 --> 00:01:33,030 what Marx calls its cell form, 32 00:01:33,030 --> 00:01:34,890 because he thought this would be easier. 33 00:01:34,890 --> 00:01:36,573 Hah, you know? 34 00:01:37,709 --> 00:01:39,269 But I don't think there is an easy way in, 35 00:01:39,269 --> 00:01:41,269 so we're taking this as our entry point. 36 00:01:43,469 --> 00:01:46,709 We saw then that labor too, when it's expressed as value, 37 00:01:46,709 --> 00:01:48,899 loses the particular qualities it has 38 00:01:48,900 --> 00:01:51,180 as that which produces use values. 39 00:01:51,180 --> 00:01:52,770 So briefly, we have to talk about 40 00:01:52,769 --> 00:01:54,542 the double character of labor, 41 00:01:55,980 --> 00:02:00,150 useful labor, and labor towards value or abstract labor, 42 00:02:00,150 --> 00:02:02,760 socially necessary average labor time, 43 00:02:02,760 --> 00:02:05,943 which is the measure of its magnitude. 44 00:02:09,240 --> 00:02:11,700 You can see the difference on page 23 45 00:02:11,699 --> 00:02:13,836 in a really clear formulation, 46 00:02:13,836 --> 00:02:18,179 "In and for itself a greater quantity of use value 47 00:02:18,180 --> 00:02:19,920 amounts to greater material wealth." 48 00:02:19,919 --> 00:02:23,522 This is like the third full paragraph on page 23. 49 00:02:24,599 --> 00:02:26,729 Two coats amount to more than one. 50 00:02:26,729 --> 00:02:30,389 If two people need coats, you need two coats. 51 00:02:30,389 --> 00:02:32,489 And the use value of two coats 52 00:02:32,490 --> 00:02:34,439 is two coats worth of use value. 53 00:02:34,439 --> 00:02:36,030 That make sense? 54 00:02:36,030 --> 00:02:38,189 But two coats of value 55 00:02:38,189 --> 00:02:40,889 might not be the value of what one coat was 56 00:02:40,889 --> 00:02:45,889 half an hour ago if exchange conditions change, he says. 57 00:02:46,139 --> 00:02:47,639 Two coats can clothe two people, 58 00:02:47,639 --> 00:02:48,809 one coat just one person, 59 00:02:48,810 --> 00:02:51,599 yet when the quantity of material wealth increases, 60 00:02:51,599 --> 00:02:54,603 this can correspond to a simultaneous drop in its values. 61 00:02:56,460 --> 00:02:59,520 If, for example, you can suddenly make coats 62 00:02:59,520 --> 00:03:03,248 much more quickly, with much less labor input, 63 00:03:03,247 --> 00:03:05,219 then the value drops. 64 00:03:05,219 --> 00:03:07,439 This would happen for all coats already on the market, 65 00:03:07,439 --> 00:03:10,109 even though they took 66 00:03:10,110 --> 00:03:12,720 a much higher socially necessary average labor time. 67 00:03:12,719 --> 00:03:14,129 Does that make sense? 68 00:03:14,129 --> 00:03:16,409 So value means something totally differently, 69 00:03:16,409 --> 00:03:18,960 this, we just need to put out of our minds right away, 70 00:03:18,960 --> 00:03:22,862 value is not the worth of something for me in my life, 71 00:03:24,449 --> 00:03:27,989 but the number of things something can be exchanged for 72 00:03:27,990 --> 00:03:28,983 on the market. 73 00:03:30,719 --> 00:03:33,000 There are two different systems, 74 00:03:33,000 --> 00:03:34,259 and as we'll start to see, 75 00:03:34,259 --> 00:03:36,449 there's what I call an eversion, 76 00:03:36,449 --> 00:03:40,622 it's an inversion with a change of values, 77 00:03:41,669 --> 00:03:44,459 use value and value evert. 78 00:03:44,460 --> 00:03:49,030 Value is number one, comes first, and is more important 79 00:03:49,919 --> 00:03:52,889 and subordinates use value to it. 80 00:03:52,889 --> 00:03:55,769 So you get useful things as a byproduct 81 00:03:55,770 --> 00:03:58,623 from the exchange process. 82 00:04:00,090 --> 00:04:02,640 Okay, today, we're gonna talk about a number of operations. 83 00:04:02,639 --> 00:04:04,589 We might get through chapter one, 84 00:04:04,590 --> 00:04:07,469 but if not, we'll leak over a little bit to Monday. 85 00:04:07,469 --> 00:04:08,639 This is the third week, 86 00:04:08,639 --> 00:04:10,239 and we're gonna be talking about 87 00:04:11,189 --> 00:04:13,983 one operation in particular, reflection. 88 00:04:16,649 --> 00:04:19,892 In exchange, you have this Hegelian operation. 89 00:04:20,819 --> 00:04:23,849 And these are not operations that the economist carries out, 90 00:04:23,850 --> 00:04:26,460 they are not operations that happen in your consciousness, 91 00:04:26,459 --> 00:04:30,750 they happen in actual exchange on a market. 92 00:04:30,750 --> 00:04:33,209 They're anticipated by production. 93 00:04:33,209 --> 00:04:35,819 You get the reflective determination 94 00:04:35,819 --> 00:04:37,230 of the value of one thing 95 00:04:37,230 --> 00:04:40,200 through another thing. 96 00:04:40,199 --> 00:04:43,413 You will have read the forms of value section. 97 00:04:44,430 --> 00:04:47,400 And then we're moving on to the best part, 98 00:04:47,399 --> 00:04:48,599 the fetish section, 99 00:04:48,600 --> 00:04:51,270 in which you get something like a distorting reflection. 100 00:04:51,269 --> 00:04:53,519 There's a lot of mirrors in these sections. 101 00:04:53,519 --> 00:04:58,169 So to make it clearer, let's stick with the mirror figure, 102 00:04:58,170 --> 00:04:59,580 the mirror image. 103 00:04:59,579 --> 00:05:02,789 We're still working on the cell form of the capital system, 104 00:05:02,790 --> 00:05:04,052 which is the commodity. 105 00:05:06,509 --> 00:05:09,269 What Marx does is gives us a set of categories 106 00:05:09,269 --> 00:05:10,649 which are operations, 107 00:05:10,649 --> 00:05:12,649 especially in these first four chapters. 108 00:05:13,529 --> 00:05:17,129 These are the operations that make commodities happen, 109 00:05:17,129 --> 00:05:19,620 so they aren't simply things that float around 110 00:05:19,620 --> 00:05:22,259 or that have qualities inherent to them. 111 00:05:22,259 --> 00:05:24,240 Those are, just to give you a list of them, 112 00:05:24,240 --> 00:05:28,199 reflection, eversion, abstraction, 113 00:05:28,199 --> 00:05:30,899 reification, or objectification, 114 00:05:30,899 --> 00:05:35,189 concentration, transformation, expression, fetishization. 115 00:05:35,189 --> 00:05:36,719 You see all these operations are going on, 116 00:05:36,720 --> 00:05:40,560 and this is Marx's unique contribution to the discussion, 117 00:05:40,560 --> 00:05:41,769 these operations 118 00:05:42,839 --> 00:05:45,599 that are societal operations, they're not individual. 119 00:05:45,600 --> 00:05:48,330 They happen in a social setting 120 00:05:48,329 --> 00:05:50,129 where certain things need to be done 121 00:05:52,290 --> 00:05:57,290 in order to preserve, maintain the society. 122 00:06:01,170 --> 00:06:03,270 His goal in this volume, we'll remember, 123 00:06:03,269 --> 00:06:07,680 is to show the perversion of our sociality 124 00:06:07,680 --> 00:06:10,560 by analyzing the workings of production. 125 00:06:10,560 --> 00:06:13,079 Sociality under capital is perverse, 126 00:06:13,079 --> 00:06:14,702 is a word he uses sometimes, 127 00:06:15,899 --> 00:06:20,579 and the verso words indicate the turnaround 128 00:06:20,579 --> 00:06:24,719 that capitalism enacts on history. 129 00:06:24,720 --> 00:06:29,720 It isn't just a continuation, it's a sharp verso, 130 00:06:30,240 --> 00:06:31,120 it's a turnaround 131 00:06:33,029 --> 00:06:35,462 that might produce vertigo if you knew about it. 132 00:06:36,720 --> 00:06:39,900 That's why, for example, economists and everyone else 133 00:06:39,899 --> 00:06:41,639 projected back across all history, 134 00:06:41,639 --> 00:06:43,409 because it was really vertiginous change 135 00:06:43,410 --> 00:06:46,203 that happened over a couple hundred years. 136 00:06:48,329 --> 00:06:49,979 To do this, he starts with the nearest, 137 00:06:49,980 --> 00:06:52,500 and most familiar, and most obscure. 138 00:06:52,500 --> 00:06:53,639 He does a phenomenology, 139 00:06:53,639 --> 00:06:55,639 I'm just reminding you what we're doing, 140 00:06:57,269 --> 00:06:58,680 which I'm calling the entry point, 141 00:06:58,680 --> 00:07:00,900 the narrow way and the commodity. 142 00:07:00,899 --> 00:07:03,812 The commodity necessarily brings labor into view. 143 00:07:05,189 --> 00:07:07,142 The commodity is nothing without labor. 144 00:07:08,339 --> 00:07:10,139 And both are double. 145 00:07:10,139 --> 00:07:12,362 And each of the pairs gets everted. 146 00:07:13,199 --> 00:07:15,089 Use value gets subordinated 147 00:07:15,089 --> 00:07:20,089 and mated, put into a second position, 148 00:07:20,189 --> 00:07:23,250 vis-a-vis value. 149 00:07:23,250 --> 00:07:27,449 And abstract labor gets super-ordinated 150 00:07:27,449 --> 00:07:29,733 over useful, concrete labor. 151 00:07:31,199 --> 00:07:32,909 If you wanna know how big a commodity is, 152 00:07:32,910 --> 00:07:35,070 we know a commodity is a side of labor, 153 00:07:35,069 --> 00:07:37,110 if you wanna know how big a commodity is, 154 00:07:37,110 --> 00:07:40,050 it's the socially necessary average labor time 155 00:07:40,050 --> 00:07:41,370 involved in doing it. 156 00:07:41,370 --> 00:07:43,470 That's all, really, socially necessary average labor time 157 00:07:43,470 --> 00:07:44,970 tells you, is how big it is, 158 00:07:44,970 --> 00:07:46,710 because it's the one thing that's standard 159 00:07:46,709 --> 00:07:47,759 among all the commodities, 160 00:07:47,759 --> 00:07:51,180 they all have some amount of time it takes to do it 161 00:07:51,180 --> 00:07:52,680 that the society says this is, 162 00:07:53,579 --> 00:07:56,012 usually it's close to the minimum, 163 00:07:57,206 --> 00:08:00,783 with some adjustments for anomalies. 164 00:08:03,060 --> 00:08:04,439 It certainly wouldn't be the maximum, 165 00:08:04,439 --> 00:08:06,389 that would not be a capitalist society. 166 00:08:09,000 --> 00:08:11,459 So the magnitude of value is measured 167 00:08:11,459 --> 00:08:13,799 by the socially necessary average labor time 168 00:08:13,800 --> 00:08:15,812 it takes to produce it. 169 00:08:17,670 --> 00:08:19,680 And value is something that 170 00:08:19,680 --> 00:08:21,720 you could say hovers around the commodity, 171 00:08:21,720 --> 00:08:25,470 it's a strange metaphysical, quasi-metaphysical, 172 00:08:25,470 --> 00:08:30,470 quasi-physical thing, a phantasm that the system puts up. 173 00:08:31,740 --> 00:08:34,139 But it's also social, 174 00:08:34,139 --> 00:08:35,909 and this is what we're gonna talk about a little bit 175 00:08:35,909 --> 00:08:37,649 today as well. 176 00:08:37,649 --> 00:08:42,153 Value organizes social life under a capitalistic economy. 177 00:08:43,049 --> 00:08:44,899 It is not just a thing that hovers there, 178 00:08:44,899 --> 00:08:47,699 it is the measure of everything we do, 179 00:08:47,700 --> 00:08:49,620 it's the impetus of everything we do, 180 00:08:49,620 --> 00:08:52,110 it's in the impetus of everything we do, 181 00:08:52,110 --> 00:08:53,702 even if we have other impeti. 182 00:08:55,980 --> 00:08:57,539 It organizes economic life, 183 00:08:57,539 --> 00:08:59,490 and it also organizes social life 184 00:08:59,490 --> 00:09:02,072 because the social is subordinated to the economic. 185 00:09:03,659 --> 00:09:05,669 So the social or the societal 186 00:09:05,669 --> 00:09:09,870 is ground zero for Marx's interpretation, 187 00:09:09,870 --> 00:09:11,163 and for all reflection. 188 00:09:12,240 --> 00:09:14,009 The economy is not, 189 00:09:14,009 --> 00:09:15,659 politics is not, 190 00:09:15,659 --> 00:09:17,370 nature is not, 191 00:09:17,370 --> 00:09:18,450 God is not. 192 00:09:18,450 --> 00:09:20,160 It is what he calls the social, 193 00:09:20,159 --> 00:09:21,110 or (speaks German), 194 00:09:22,769 --> 00:09:24,990 which I would translate as "societal." 195 00:09:24,990 --> 00:09:26,850 Social is very confusing when he uses it, 196 00:09:26,850 --> 00:09:28,440 I don't know if you found it odd 197 00:09:28,440 --> 00:09:31,170 when he says things have a social life. 198 00:09:31,169 --> 00:09:32,769 It's not that they go to dances, 199 00:09:34,019 --> 00:09:37,322 it's that they are making society go. 200 00:09:39,450 --> 00:09:42,240 Society is a grouping principle, 201 00:09:42,240 --> 00:09:43,710 a name for a grouping principle 202 00:09:43,710 --> 00:09:46,650 in which people are independent on one another. 203 00:09:46,649 --> 00:09:49,529 So society will always be both our lowest common denominator 204 00:09:49,529 --> 00:09:51,329 when we're reading capital, 205 00:09:51,330 --> 00:09:53,070 that's what makes everything go. 206 00:09:53,070 --> 00:09:56,100 Human being is a social being, a societal being. 207 00:09:56,100 --> 00:09:57,420 Can't live outside of society, 208 00:09:57,419 --> 00:10:00,899 that's why he has these tirades about Robinson Crusoe, 209 00:10:00,899 --> 00:10:02,379 this fictional individual 210 00:10:03,840 --> 00:10:05,430 who brings his whole society with him 211 00:10:05,429 --> 00:10:08,309 and acts as though he's still in the middle of London 212 00:10:08,309 --> 00:10:09,929 with his lists of things to do, 213 00:10:09,929 --> 00:10:11,039 and his religion, 214 00:10:11,039 --> 00:10:12,302 and his slave. 215 00:10:14,591 --> 00:10:16,933 (Paul chuckling) 216 00:10:16,933 --> 00:10:19,202 And it's also the highest goal, the societal. 217 00:10:20,610 --> 00:10:22,169 The answer will be societal, 218 00:10:22,169 --> 00:10:25,019 be making society much more important, 219 00:10:25,019 --> 00:10:28,139 we'll be desubordinating it to the economy, 220 00:10:28,139 --> 00:10:31,860 or making a free association of producers 221 00:10:31,860 --> 00:10:33,513 who are in control of production, 222 00:10:34,950 --> 00:10:37,533 Marx's minimal idea of socialism here. 223 00:10:38,460 --> 00:10:40,830 That is, you strengthen this ground zero, 224 00:10:40,830 --> 00:10:42,960 you bring it back to the front. 225 00:10:42,960 --> 00:10:44,250 How to do that? 226 00:10:44,250 --> 00:10:45,480 I'll let you tell me 227 00:10:45,480 --> 00:10:47,942 as you ruminate over this for the next 10 years. 228 00:10:50,549 --> 00:10:52,229 But we learn in this section also 229 00:10:52,230 --> 00:10:56,370 that use value is not only something that comes 230 00:10:56,370 --> 00:11:01,370 at the end of production, exchange, circulation, 231 00:11:01,620 --> 00:11:02,759 et cetera, et cetera, 232 00:11:02,759 --> 00:11:04,710 when you finally get the thing home and you use it, 233 00:11:04,710 --> 00:11:05,940 or use it up. 234 00:11:05,940 --> 00:11:09,690 Use value is something that also structures the society, 235 00:11:09,690 --> 00:11:12,903 it structures the society as a social division of labor. 236 00:11:14,190 --> 00:11:17,760 So remember, we're talking about a big enough society 237 00:11:17,759 --> 00:11:20,789 where no individual can produce 238 00:11:20,789 --> 00:11:21,899 everything they need themselves 239 00:11:21,899 --> 00:11:25,379 and no family really either, as a unit. 240 00:11:25,379 --> 00:11:27,240 You need the whole society, 241 00:11:27,240 --> 00:11:31,019 and so the production of use values is spread out. 242 00:11:31,019 --> 00:11:33,779 This is of course why you need exchange, 243 00:11:33,779 --> 00:11:34,980 exchange of raw materials, 244 00:11:34,980 --> 00:11:36,360 you need to get the rock over here 245 00:11:36,360 --> 00:11:37,759 for the whatever over there. 246 00:11:38,639 --> 00:11:39,472 Right? 247 00:11:39,472 --> 00:11:44,219 So we're imagining this zone in an ever-widening image 248 00:11:45,750 --> 00:11:47,970 from an individual act of exchange 249 00:11:47,970 --> 00:11:50,910 to, ultimately, the totality of society 250 00:11:50,909 --> 00:11:53,913 whose exchanges are contingent, 251 00:11:55,289 --> 00:11:57,419 can be affected by random events, 252 00:11:57,419 --> 00:12:00,959 but ultimately work out according to the system's laws. 253 00:12:00,960 --> 00:12:03,389 That's all about concrete labor and who needs what when 254 00:12:03,389 --> 00:12:05,490 and who can make what when. 255 00:12:05,490 --> 00:12:07,980 But the social division of labor is one of the tools, 256 00:12:07,980 --> 00:12:10,590 one of the instruments of the capital system. 257 00:12:10,590 --> 00:12:11,759 It can use that. 258 00:12:11,759 --> 00:12:14,913 It can divide it more, beyond what use value dictates. 259 00:12:16,379 --> 00:12:19,769 It can divide labor even within a factory. 260 00:12:19,769 --> 00:12:22,259 Take Adam Smith's example of the pin factory, 261 00:12:22,259 --> 00:12:24,990 where it used to be that someone hammered out a little pin 262 00:12:24,990 --> 00:12:26,072 with a tiny hammer, 263 00:12:26,940 --> 00:12:28,440 and eventually there was someone 264 00:12:28,440 --> 00:12:29,490 who made the head of the pin, 265 00:12:29,490 --> 00:12:32,159 someone who extruded the metal, 266 00:12:32,159 --> 00:12:33,299 someone who sharpened the pin, 267 00:12:33,299 --> 00:12:34,889 someone who polished the pin. 268 00:12:34,889 --> 00:12:37,590 And labor can be divided even in an individual, 269 00:12:37,590 --> 00:12:39,940 where I am now no longer making a whole object. 270 00:12:40,830 --> 00:12:44,190 This is a capitalist use of the social division of labor, 271 00:12:44,190 --> 00:12:45,240 it's still social, 272 00:12:45,240 --> 00:12:48,570 because I depend on someone else to sharpen my pin. 273 00:12:48,570 --> 00:12:49,970 That sounds vaguely obscene. 274 00:12:57,899 --> 00:13:01,199 Use value produces a vast differential 275 00:13:01,200 --> 00:13:02,850 of who makes what, when, and how, 276 00:13:03,809 --> 00:13:05,792 and where it gets traded, et cetera. 277 00:13:11,190 --> 00:13:13,230 But you can see also how it contributes 278 00:13:13,230 --> 00:13:17,296 to the abstraction of labor in so far as labor is now 279 00:13:17,296 --> 00:13:20,640 a function of exchange, 280 00:13:20,639 --> 00:13:24,509 labor is now a something that, itself, 281 00:13:24,509 --> 00:13:27,929 can be an adjustable lever in the capital system. 282 00:13:27,929 --> 00:13:30,209 You can do much less or much more. 283 00:13:30,210 --> 00:13:33,570 How can I even tell what labor is if I'm sharpening pins? 284 00:13:33,570 --> 00:13:34,980 There has to be some average 285 00:13:34,980 --> 00:13:38,373 that makes it equal to someone knitting a sweater. 286 00:13:39,240 --> 00:13:40,649 Who knows the sweater, 287 00:13:40,649 --> 00:13:41,490 in Aristotle's sense, 288 00:13:41,490 --> 00:13:43,919 it's an image of the sweater before they start, 289 00:13:43,919 --> 00:13:45,779 they know how to use the tools, they have know-how, 290 00:13:45,779 --> 00:13:46,949 and they have an image of the sweater, 291 00:13:46,950 --> 00:13:49,950 and they take that image out of their consciousness 292 00:13:49,950 --> 00:13:51,153 into yarn. 293 00:13:54,720 --> 00:13:58,050 The idea is that as you make commodities 294 00:13:58,049 --> 00:14:00,029 that have to be exchanged, 295 00:14:00,029 --> 00:14:02,159 the pressure to make commodities 296 00:14:02,159 --> 00:14:04,773 makes you work the average amount of time. 297 00:14:07,019 --> 00:14:11,872 If you work more, you are just cutting into your own wages. 298 00:14:13,169 --> 00:14:15,329 If you work less, you're increasing them, 299 00:14:15,330 --> 00:14:18,870 so there is a kind of pressure to speed up 300 00:14:18,870 --> 00:14:20,133 to increase productivity. 301 00:14:21,990 --> 00:14:24,299 Okay, just to say how labor gets abstract, 302 00:14:24,299 --> 00:14:27,179 it goes through an operation which I didn't mention, 303 00:14:27,179 --> 00:14:28,799 which is reduction. 304 00:14:28,799 --> 00:14:30,899 Marx says in this section 305 00:14:30,899 --> 00:14:34,769 that it gets reduced to a simple from a complex, 306 00:14:34,769 --> 00:14:39,769 it gets reduced to one quality, value, or labor power, 307 00:14:39,779 --> 00:14:43,919 socially necessary average labor time. 308 00:14:43,919 --> 00:14:45,209 It gets homogenized, 309 00:14:45,210 --> 00:14:47,670 it gets all the other qualities stripped off it, 310 00:14:47,669 --> 00:14:48,962 it becomes bare. 311 00:14:50,909 --> 00:14:53,039 These are not the only forces on value, 312 00:14:53,039 --> 00:14:54,719 you will see, in fact, that we're starting with 313 00:14:54,720 --> 00:14:57,509 a very simplistic view of the economy. 314 00:14:57,509 --> 00:14:59,582 And later, when we get to volume three, 315 00:15:00,480 --> 00:15:01,710 we're not doing volume three, 316 00:15:01,710 --> 00:15:03,753 but you all can read on to volume three, 317 00:15:04,649 --> 00:15:05,639 when you get to volume three, 318 00:15:05,639 --> 00:15:07,590 you have to see these all things in a different way 319 00:15:07,590 --> 00:15:09,120 when the pressures of competition 320 00:15:09,120 --> 00:15:11,429 between different sectors of the economy 321 00:15:11,429 --> 00:15:13,049 change the way value is made. 322 00:15:13,049 --> 00:15:14,759 So, for now, these are provisional ways 323 00:15:14,759 --> 00:15:17,702 to understand the inputs to value. 324 00:15:19,320 --> 00:15:20,310 Once it's been reduced, 325 00:15:20,309 --> 00:15:24,599 like these values have what he calls value objecthood, 326 00:15:24,600 --> 00:15:25,920 which is ghostly. 327 00:15:25,919 --> 00:15:28,799 Every time you have a thing like this thing, 328 00:15:28,799 --> 00:15:31,259 it has its physical and use objecthood, 329 00:15:31,259 --> 00:15:33,000 but it also has a value objecthood. 330 00:15:33,000 --> 00:15:35,610 Whereas if this were, I don't know, 331 00:15:35,610 --> 00:15:37,649 something cheap, I might drop it. 332 00:15:37,649 --> 00:15:38,942 But since it isn't, 333 00:15:40,645 --> 00:15:43,676 I respect, preserve its valuehood, 334 00:15:45,299 --> 00:15:48,059 which is here in a contained form, 335 00:15:48,059 --> 00:15:48,892 though you can't see it, 336 00:15:48,893 --> 00:15:52,537 it's not exactly equivalent to its physical characteristics. 337 00:15:52,537 --> 00:15:53,370 Okay. 338 00:15:57,389 --> 00:16:00,850 You can see how the use side of labor 339 00:16:02,159 --> 00:16:05,259 gets used by the value or abstract side of labor 340 00:16:06,539 --> 00:16:08,159 in the capital system. 341 00:16:08,159 --> 00:16:10,259 You have questions about that section too? 342 00:16:14,195 --> 00:16:16,140 Isn't it good to read a book very slowly? 343 00:16:16,139 --> 00:16:18,689 I just love it, it's my favorite thing. 344 00:16:18,690 --> 00:16:21,333 I always get anxious about large amounts of text. 345 00:16:22,169 --> 00:16:23,002 Yeah? 346 00:16:23,003 --> 00:16:24,325 - Just really quick. 347 00:16:24,325 --> 00:16:25,158 The last time, 348 00:16:25,158 --> 00:16:28,169 you just mentioned like value object perfect something. 349 00:16:28,169 --> 00:16:30,783 Is that the same as exchange value? 350 00:16:32,580 --> 00:16:35,070 - No exchange value really is, 351 00:16:35,070 --> 00:16:37,860 we're about to see that in more detail. 352 00:16:37,860 --> 00:16:41,730 Again, use value and exchange value 353 00:16:41,730 --> 00:16:43,620 live in a kind of contradiction 354 00:16:43,620 --> 00:16:48,620 whose odd and tense solution is value. 355 00:16:49,409 --> 00:16:53,549 So really, Marx wants you to focus on use value and value. 356 00:16:53,549 --> 00:16:56,549 Exchange value is like the technical number of things 357 00:16:56,549 --> 00:16:57,899 you can get for this thing. 358 00:16:58,919 --> 00:17:00,839 What it seems to contain, 359 00:17:00,840 --> 00:17:04,200 what it appears, in the real appearance, to contain 360 00:17:04,200 --> 00:17:05,033 is value. 361 00:17:06,089 --> 00:17:07,049 I'm not thinking about how much, 362 00:17:07,049 --> 00:17:08,819 when I hold onto this and protect it, 363 00:17:08,819 --> 00:17:10,619 this is a very psychologistic way of putting it, 364 00:17:10,619 --> 00:17:12,899 but when I hold onto this and protect it, 365 00:17:12,900 --> 00:17:15,180 I'm not thinking because I can get, 366 00:17:15,180 --> 00:17:16,620 you know, 1/10th of a car for this, 367 00:17:16,619 --> 00:17:19,019 or 1/20th of a car for this. 368 00:17:19,019 --> 00:17:21,089 Right? I'm not thinking about that. 369 00:17:21,089 --> 00:17:22,919 But the whole exchange market, 370 00:17:22,920 --> 00:17:27,920 the whole exchange phantasmagoria has conditioned me 371 00:17:28,589 --> 00:17:31,319 such that I know this is a container of value. 372 00:17:31,319 --> 00:17:33,269 And I know this is a container of value 373 00:17:34,170 --> 00:17:38,253 much higher than this, oddly. 374 00:17:39,539 --> 00:17:40,373 Yeah? 375 00:17:41,549 --> 00:17:46,549 - Is this value objecthood a feature of the capital system? 376 00:17:46,890 --> 00:17:49,680 - No other system has value objecthood. 377 00:17:49,680 --> 00:17:53,493 It's a total perversion of ontology under capital. 378 00:17:54,569 --> 00:17:56,483 Does that? - I'm not convinced. 379 00:17:56,483 --> 00:17:57,359 (student speaking faintly) 380 00:17:57,359 --> 00:17:58,192 - Okay. 381 00:17:59,130 --> 00:18:01,620 I mean, there's no... 382 00:18:01,619 --> 00:18:03,000 What could? 383 00:18:03,000 --> 00:18:03,992 Convincing? 384 00:18:05,220 --> 00:18:07,350 I think it's better to understand the system. 385 00:18:07,349 --> 00:18:10,102 We could have an argument about that, which I would win. 386 00:18:11,549 --> 00:18:14,069 It would take up a lot of time, yeah. 387 00:18:14,069 --> 00:18:15,869 Sorry, wait, David behind you first. 388 00:18:16,950 --> 00:18:20,400 - What's the pedagogy that like Marx has opined, 389 00:18:20,400 --> 00:18:22,920 like you earn the obvious value, 390 00:18:22,920 --> 00:18:24,936 or is it just assumed to us? 391 00:18:24,935 --> 00:18:27,659 (student speaking faintly) 392 00:18:27,660 --> 00:18:29,550 - It's all objective. 393 00:18:29,549 --> 00:18:33,269 The question was, what is the pedagogy of object valuehood? 394 00:18:33,269 --> 00:18:35,369 When do we learn it? 395 00:18:35,369 --> 00:18:39,179 And I'm talking about it in psychologistic terms, 396 00:18:39,180 --> 00:18:41,070 but really, it's purely objective. 397 00:18:41,069 --> 00:18:44,639 If you don't treat these things as though they have value, 398 00:18:44,640 --> 00:18:46,170 you'll lose out. 399 00:18:46,170 --> 00:18:48,930 If you don't treat your car as though it had value, 400 00:18:48,930 --> 00:18:51,783 which is the way I've beat up a number of cars, 401 00:18:53,190 --> 00:18:55,650 you lose out, you don't get to sell it for anything, 402 00:18:55,650 --> 00:18:57,930 and you know this is the case when you're doing it, 403 00:18:57,930 --> 00:18:59,220 that's why, as a teenager, 404 00:18:59,220 --> 00:19:03,450 I rebelled and beat up a lot of cars, right? 405 00:19:03,450 --> 00:19:05,759 It's just, it's a matter of conditioning. 406 00:19:05,759 --> 00:19:07,740 And you could choose differently, 407 00:19:07,740 --> 00:19:09,690 but you can't do any differently, 408 00:19:09,690 --> 00:19:11,100 you'll just be stuck. 409 00:19:11,099 --> 00:19:13,319 Samuel, and then David. 410 00:19:13,319 --> 00:19:18,319 - So if I understand what we're talking about, 411 00:19:18,839 --> 00:19:22,859 we have use value and exchange value, 412 00:19:22,859 --> 00:19:27,779 which together kind of like synthesize 413 00:19:27,779 --> 00:19:30,750 into this notion of value which we project onto things. 414 00:19:30,750 --> 00:19:32,789 So into this notion of value goes use value, 415 00:19:32,789 --> 00:19:35,099 which depends on the body of the object, 416 00:19:35,099 --> 00:19:36,389 and exchange value, 417 00:19:36,390 --> 00:19:38,940 which depends on the socially average labor time 418 00:19:38,940 --> 00:19:40,890 that goes into to its creation. 419 00:19:40,890 --> 00:19:43,440 And then from value, we get to value objecthood, 420 00:19:43,440 --> 00:19:46,200 which I assume is sort of a property of an object 421 00:19:46,200 --> 00:19:48,930 we project onto it somehow? 422 00:19:48,930 --> 00:19:50,430 But then he says the body 423 00:19:50,430 --> 00:19:52,350 doesn't play a role in this at all. 424 00:19:52,349 --> 00:19:54,629 - The physical body does not play a role. That's right. 425 00:19:54,630 --> 00:19:56,370 - The physical body, through use value, 426 00:19:56,369 --> 00:19:58,199 plays a role in value? 427 00:19:58,200 --> 00:20:01,230 - Well, not every commodity has a physical body. 428 00:20:01,230 --> 00:20:03,120 But let's talk about bodies, 429 00:20:03,119 --> 00:20:04,719 the funny body theory, this one. 430 00:20:05,579 --> 00:20:07,289 Commodity, let's say it's a physical commodity, 431 00:20:07,289 --> 00:20:08,940 has a physical body, 432 00:20:08,940 --> 00:20:12,360 but its value body, which adheres to its physical body, 433 00:20:12,359 --> 00:20:13,529 and in fact it's the other way around, 434 00:20:13,529 --> 00:20:15,299 the physical body only moves around 435 00:20:15,299 --> 00:20:16,680 because it has a value body, 436 00:20:16,680 --> 00:20:19,080 it's only made because it's making a value body 437 00:20:19,079 --> 00:20:20,159 at the same time, 438 00:20:20,160 --> 00:20:22,500 it's only traded because it has a value body, 439 00:20:22,500 --> 00:20:24,450 the value body you can't see. 440 00:20:24,450 --> 00:20:26,460 But you understand Marx is using 441 00:20:26,460 --> 00:20:29,400 a kind of idealist vocabulary here 442 00:20:29,400 --> 00:20:33,780 to demonstrate to you that capitalism is a religion. 443 00:20:33,779 --> 00:20:35,069 Something like a religion. 444 00:20:35,069 --> 00:20:37,230 It has these phantasms 445 00:20:37,230 --> 00:20:39,089 that are absolutely real in the system, 446 00:20:39,089 --> 00:20:40,682 you can't live without them, 447 00:20:42,599 --> 00:20:45,872 and they can't be wished away psychologically. 448 00:20:48,420 --> 00:20:49,980 - I guess I'm kind of stuck, 449 00:20:49,980 --> 00:20:52,470 that if the body plays a role, a use value, 450 00:20:52,470 --> 00:20:54,329 which plays a use in value, 451 00:20:54,329 --> 00:20:57,480 which plays a role in value objecthood, 452 00:20:57,480 --> 00:20:59,779 how does the body not play a role within loss? 453 00:21:00,630 --> 00:21:02,310 And second, a kind of circular thing. 454 00:21:02,309 --> 00:21:06,240 - Right, well, it is just subordinated. 455 00:21:06,240 --> 00:21:07,710 - Okay. 456 00:21:07,710 --> 00:21:09,779 - You know, let's say a digital object, 457 00:21:09,779 --> 00:21:12,029 it doesn't have a physical body. 458 00:21:12,029 --> 00:21:14,549 It's related to some physical residing place 459 00:21:14,549 --> 00:21:19,139 which uses a ton of electricity, but let's just say. 460 00:21:19,140 --> 00:21:23,670 It has some sort of distinct boundaries as a use item. 461 00:21:23,670 --> 00:21:25,529 Right? This PDF. 462 00:21:25,529 --> 00:21:27,363 Distinct boundaries as a use item. 463 00:21:28,200 --> 00:21:29,700 All that value requires 464 00:21:29,700 --> 00:21:32,400 is that it has distinct boundaries as a use item 465 00:21:32,400 --> 00:21:34,923 and that someone needs to use it for something. 466 00:21:36,059 --> 00:21:37,889 But that gets completely subordinated. 467 00:21:37,890 --> 00:21:39,390 In fact, in the end, 468 00:21:39,390 --> 00:21:42,630 the things are made only because of their value body. 469 00:21:42,630 --> 00:21:44,100 So it gets subordinated 470 00:21:44,099 --> 00:21:48,449 from the very cause of their existence later down the line. 471 00:21:48,450 --> 00:21:51,569 It isn't that value is added on in capitalism, 472 00:21:51,569 --> 00:21:56,569 this is a mistake that some mainstream economists make 473 00:21:56,910 --> 00:21:58,140 that he wants to avoid. 474 00:21:58,140 --> 00:21:59,759 Value is not added on. 475 00:21:59,759 --> 00:22:03,509 The whole system will work such that value comes first, 476 00:22:03,509 --> 00:22:06,269 and in fact, it's only because there's going to be value 477 00:22:06,269 --> 00:22:08,099 that you decide between a physical body. 478 00:22:08,099 --> 00:22:09,929 Imagine, you're gonna make a business. 479 00:22:09,930 --> 00:22:11,400 Am I gonna make water bottles? 480 00:22:11,400 --> 00:22:14,160 Sneakers? Digital objects? 481 00:22:14,160 --> 00:22:17,040 Bitcoin? What am I gonna make? 482 00:22:17,039 --> 00:22:19,893 It's all determined by value to some degree. 483 00:22:21,630 --> 00:22:22,530 Even if you're like, 484 00:22:22,529 --> 00:22:27,529 how I really like to make big, metal, ugly electric trucks 485 00:22:28,109 --> 00:22:30,059 that never come off the assembly lines. 486 00:22:31,769 --> 00:22:34,230 You might think this is like a designer's dream, 487 00:22:34,230 --> 00:22:36,779 but no, there had to be a market for it to begin with. 488 00:22:36,779 --> 00:22:39,389 The market figures into the decision-making. 489 00:22:39,390 --> 00:22:40,980 So the idea of capital 490 00:22:40,980 --> 00:22:44,430 is that it turns those relations around. 491 00:22:44,430 --> 00:22:45,990 We have to talk about value form. 492 00:22:45,990 --> 00:22:46,920 David, quickly. 493 00:22:46,920 --> 00:22:48,150 - Yeah, could you talk a bit more 494 00:22:48,150 --> 00:22:50,340 about why it's use value and not exchange value 495 00:22:50,339 --> 00:22:54,929 that performs a function of differentiation in labor? 496 00:22:54,930 --> 00:22:55,763 Because I take it, 497 00:22:55,762 --> 00:22:58,259 and maybe this is what Marx goes to in Volume 3, 498 00:22:58,259 --> 00:23:00,660 but it seems to me the capitalist logic 499 00:23:00,660 --> 00:23:02,759 and the competition that it entails 500 00:23:02,759 --> 00:23:05,369 actually forces firms and producers 501 00:23:05,369 --> 00:23:07,469 to try to minimize their exchange value, 502 00:23:07,470 --> 00:23:10,043 and that's what's determining the social division of labor. 503 00:23:11,460 --> 00:23:12,390 - So the question is, 504 00:23:12,390 --> 00:23:15,870 why does use value determine the social division of labor? 505 00:23:15,869 --> 00:23:17,792 And that is, 506 00:23:21,029 --> 00:23:23,039 let's say for now, 507 00:23:23,039 --> 00:23:25,202 we'll say only in production, 508 00:23:26,339 --> 00:23:30,029 and only because use value is a necessary 509 00:23:30,029 --> 00:23:34,232 but insufficient cause for value. 510 00:23:35,430 --> 00:23:38,850 And I guess because of a practical consideration, 511 00:23:38,849 --> 00:23:41,399 I think this is the best way to think about it, 512 00:23:41,400 --> 00:23:42,840 in Marxian terms, 513 00:23:42,839 --> 00:23:46,199 use value becomes the content of value, 514 00:23:46,200 --> 00:23:47,580 and value becomes the form. 515 00:23:47,579 --> 00:23:49,949 So value carries around this use value. 516 00:23:49,950 --> 00:23:50,910 It can't do without it, 517 00:23:50,910 --> 00:23:53,210 because if no one ends up using it in the end, 518 00:23:54,106 --> 00:23:55,829 the value disappears. 519 00:23:55,829 --> 00:23:58,802 But it is at the behest of value that it moves around. 520 00:24:01,380 --> 00:24:06,380 And ultimately too, value depends in part on use value, 521 00:24:06,990 --> 00:24:08,940 but much more in the capital system 522 00:24:08,940 --> 00:24:10,833 does use value depend on value. 523 00:24:11,789 --> 00:24:13,339 That's what we call innovation, 524 00:24:14,730 --> 00:24:17,339 entrepreneurship and innovation. 525 00:24:17,339 --> 00:24:18,539 That's where value, 526 00:24:18,539 --> 00:24:20,639 like, where could we find the most value? 527 00:24:20,640 --> 00:24:23,220 Let's invent this crap, 528 00:24:23,220 --> 00:24:26,309 this giant pile of crap, like AI. 529 00:24:26,309 --> 00:24:27,299 Let's invent this. 530 00:24:27,299 --> 00:24:31,409 Let's give $150 million to support this here, 531 00:24:31,410 --> 00:24:33,990 because value's gonna come out of it, we can't not do it. 532 00:24:33,990 --> 00:24:37,019 You can't not do it, you'll fall behind, 533 00:24:37,019 --> 00:24:39,329 you'll become like a small liberal arts college 534 00:24:39,329 --> 00:24:40,383 with no research. 535 00:24:45,420 --> 00:24:47,329 You better cut this out of the video. 536 00:24:47,328 --> 00:24:50,250 (students laughing) 537 00:24:50,250 --> 00:24:55,250 So the system depends on, 538 00:24:56,339 --> 00:24:59,069 but takes completely under its control, 539 00:24:59,069 --> 00:25:01,710 a variety of qualitatively different things. 540 00:25:01,710 --> 00:25:05,250 So it requires this as, we'll call it a basis, 541 00:25:05,250 --> 00:25:06,390 a use value basis, 542 00:25:06,390 --> 00:25:09,243 and that's what determines the social division of labor. 543 00:25:10,765 --> 00:25:13,620 There's other divisions in the labor field, 544 00:25:13,619 --> 00:25:15,750 like merchants and truck drivers, 545 00:25:15,750 --> 00:25:17,130 and other people 546 00:25:17,130 --> 00:25:19,260 who are not directly involved in production. 547 00:25:19,259 --> 00:25:20,730 There's a division of labor there too 548 00:25:20,730 --> 00:25:22,440 that has to do with circulation. 549 00:25:22,440 --> 00:25:23,850 But for now, we're not talking about this, 550 00:25:23,849 --> 00:25:26,969 we're talking about how a socialist economy 551 00:25:26,970 --> 00:25:28,559 where everybody's making something, 552 00:25:28,559 --> 00:25:32,129 and they exchange it without exploiting one another, 553 00:25:32,130 --> 00:25:33,727 and they're in control so they can say, 554 00:25:33,727 --> 00:25:35,277 "Hey, that's exploitation," 555 00:25:37,410 --> 00:25:40,620 is the beginning and the end of capitalism. 556 00:25:40,619 --> 00:25:43,109 It's in there, we actually are socialists. 557 00:25:43,109 --> 00:25:45,509 When you get to the chapter on cooperation, 558 00:25:45,509 --> 00:25:47,859 you'll discover that we already are socialists. 559 00:25:50,728 --> 00:25:55,533 Okay, section three, the value form or exchange value. 560 00:26:04,440 --> 00:26:07,890 This is a complicated section, confusing. 561 00:26:07,890 --> 00:26:09,630 It is developmental, 562 00:26:09,630 --> 00:26:12,330 so you can see that you go from 563 00:26:12,329 --> 00:26:14,579 simple or individual value form, 564 00:26:14,579 --> 00:26:16,470 to total or expanded value form, 565 00:26:16,470 --> 00:26:21,210 to the general value form, to money. 566 00:26:21,210 --> 00:26:23,789 Money's the big one, the biggest fetish, 567 00:26:23,789 --> 00:26:27,032 that without which the sine qua non of capitalism, 568 00:26:28,079 --> 00:26:29,460 for a number of reasons, 569 00:26:29,460 --> 00:26:32,789 you can see that Marx is a pragmatist in this way, 570 00:26:32,789 --> 00:26:34,230 he doesn't want to tell you, 571 00:26:34,230 --> 00:26:35,819 he doesn't wanna define capitalism, 572 00:26:35,819 --> 00:26:38,399 give you some sort of lofty, theoretical explanation, 573 00:26:38,400 --> 00:26:40,110 he wants to tell you how it works. 574 00:26:40,109 --> 00:26:42,179 These are the operations, 575 00:26:42,180 --> 00:26:43,170 as if it were like 576 00:26:43,170 --> 00:26:47,913 a kind of quasi-ideal, quasi-material factory, capital, 577 00:26:50,460 --> 00:26:54,029 that equates things, that reflects things, 578 00:26:54,029 --> 00:26:58,230 that reifies things, that transforms value. 579 00:26:58,230 --> 00:26:59,910 So it's absolutely crucial 580 00:26:59,910 --> 00:27:01,110 for everything that comes after 581 00:27:01,109 --> 00:27:05,579 to know that value transforms, comes in different forms. 582 00:27:05,579 --> 00:27:06,750 Two of its main forms, 583 00:27:06,750 --> 00:27:08,579 which we'll get to I think for next week, 584 00:27:08,579 --> 00:27:10,679 are the commodity, 585 00:27:10,680 --> 00:27:12,930 and money, which is a special type of commodity 586 00:27:12,930 --> 00:27:14,529 that takes on a life of its own. 587 00:27:16,289 --> 00:27:17,159 But before we get there, 588 00:27:17,160 --> 00:27:19,050 he's gonna derive these theoretically, 589 00:27:19,049 --> 00:27:21,722 analytically in steps. 590 00:27:22,680 --> 00:27:24,603 Value takes different forms. 591 00:27:28,079 --> 00:27:32,913 And it does this through and for exchange. 592 00:27:35,099 --> 00:27:37,799 Now our entry point is widening out, 593 00:27:37,799 --> 00:27:39,359 as you go deeper into the commodity, 594 00:27:39,359 --> 00:27:42,689 it opens up a whole vista for you 595 00:27:42,690 --> 00:27:44,640 within the commodity and among commodities. 596 00:27:44,640 --> 00:27:46,410 It turns out that a commodity is not a commodity 597 00:27:46,410 --> 00:27:48,630 if there isn't another commodity 598 00:27:48,630 --> 00:27:50,647 through which it reflects itself to say, 599 00:27:50,646 --> 00:27:51,569 "I am a commodity. 600 00:27:51,569 --> 00:27:54,866 I'm this commodity, and this is how much I'm worth." 601 00:28:00,960 --> 00:28:03,360 Value has to have a number of forms 602 00:28:03,359 --> 00:28:06,359 and a constant cycle of transformations through those forms 603 00:28:06,359 --> 00:28:09,869 as if it were the kind of work of the capital system 604 00:28:09,869 --> 00:28:11,789 to be putting these things through its form. 605 00:28:11,789 --> 00:28:15,720 You cannot do capital, which we haven't brought up yet, 606 00:28:15,720 --> 00:28:20,720 which is value that makes more value out of the same value. 607 00:28:22,500 --> 00:28:26,430 That's the mystified account of capital, 608 00:28:26,430 --> 00:28:27,480 let's stick with that for a minute, 609 00:28:27,480 --> 00:28:30,269 value that makes more value out of the same value. 610 00:28:30,269 --> 00:28:31,440 You can't have capital 611 00:28:31,440 --> 00:28:34,620 unless you can transform a commodity into money. 612 00:28:34,619 --> 00:28:36,209 We call that a sale. 613 00:28:36,210 --> 00:28:39,210 We also call it a purchase, so that's confusing. 614 00:28:39,210 --> 00:28:40,920 There are perspectives involved in this 615 00:28:40,920 --> 00:28:44,493 in which things look different than from other perspectives. 616 00:28:46,019 --> 00:28:48,180 This cycle of value forms, 617 00:28:48,180 --> 00:28:49,890 which is crucial to the capital system, 618 00:28:49,890 --> 00:28:53,190 depends on money as its lubricant, 619 00:28:53,190 --> 00:28:55,380 as it's representative, 620 00:28:55,380 --> 00:28:59,147 as a mode of delay, right? 621 00:29:01,049 --> 00:29:04,113 If I need to, how does it delay? 622 00:29:06,450 --> 00:29:08,759 I give you money, and you have that money, 623 00:29:08,759 --> 00:29:11,549 and it gives you time to go and buy 624 00:29:11,549 --> 00:29:13,742 whatever the next thing you wanna buy is. 625 00:29:14,579 --> 00:29:17,730 You don't have to do it immediately as in a barter system, 626 00:29:17,730 --> 00:29:19,380 I guess you could barter around a lot, 627 00:29:19,380 --> 00:29:21,123 but that's very time-consuming. 628 00:29:22,920 --> 00:29:23,940 Okay so, as usual, 629 00:29:23,940 --> 00:29:27,299 he starts with the simple or individual value form. 630 00:29:27,299 --> 00:29:30,149 This, again, is a conceptual heuristic, 631 00:29:30,150 --> 00:29:32,580 it's an analytic construction, but it is powerful, 632 00:29:32,579 --> 00:29:34,712 So, let's look at page 25, 633 00:29:35,730 --> 00:29:37,563 simple or individual value form. 634 00:29:39,397 --> 00:29:41,459 He says, "The entire mystery of the value form 635 00:29:41,460 --> 00:29:44,130 lies hidden in this simple value form, 636 00:29:44,130 --> 00:29:47,010 to analyze this form is therefore our real challenge." 637 00:29:47,009 --> 00:29:48,542 This is the bottom of page 25. 638 00:29:49,680 --> 00:29:51,423 He likes to make grand statements. 639 00:29:53,047 --> 00:29:54,450 "Here are two different commodities, 640 00:29:54,450 --> 00:29:56,490 A and B, the linen and the coat. 641 00:29:56,490 --> 00:29:59,160 They play two distinctively different roles, as we can see. 642 00:29:59,160 --> 00:30:01,529 The linen expresses its value through the coat, 643 00:30:01,529 --> 00:30:03,299 the coat serves as the material 644 00:30:03,299 --> 00:30:05,307 for expressing the linen's value." 645 00:30:06,690 --> 00:30:08,850 So you can see that one becomes the form 646 00:30:08,849 --> 00:30:10,469 and one becomes the content, 647 00:30:10,470 --> 00:30:12,059 or one becomes the expression 648 00:30:12,059 --> 00:30:14,460 and the other becomes the expressed. 649 00:30:14,460 --> 00:30:16,079 One becomes the representation, 650 00:30:16,079 --> 00:30:18,269 the other becomes the represented. 651 00:30:18,269 --> 00:30:21,569 Or one is a mirror that reflects 652 00:30:21,569 --> 00:30:25,710 only the value quality of the thing that is reflected in it. 653 00:30:25,710 --> 00:30:28,019 This is Marx's image, and it's a very good one. 654 00:30:28,019 --> 00:30:30,089 It's a peculiar mirror. 655 00:30:30,089 --> 00:30:31,949 It's not the distorting mirror, 656 00:30:31,950 --> 00:30:33,930 it gives a reflective determination. 657 00:30:33,930 --> 00:30:36,360 This is a Hegelian term from the Logic. 658 00:30:36,359 --> 00:30:39,329 It's a funny way to think about how things come to be. 659 00:30:39,329 --> 00:30:44,329 I come to be because, next to you, I look like this. 660 00:30:45,420 --> 00:30:49,050 Like, if I'm standing next to a tree, I look like a human. 661 00:30:49,049 --> 00:30:53,039 If I'm standing next to a child human, I look like an adult. 662 00:30:53,039 --> 00:30:55,680 My being is reflected through that other being 663 00:30:55,680 --> 00:30:57,570 and gets its specific determinations 664 00:30:57,569 --> 00:30:59,369 by the relationship between the two. 665 00:31:00,750 --> 00:31:01,950 Do you have a question, Zoe? 666 00:31:01,950 --> 00:31:03,289 - Yeah. 667 00:31:03,289 --> 00:31:08,156 Why is value becoming the form and not the content? 668 00:31:08,156 --> 00:31:13,126 - Why is value then becoming the form and not the content? 669 00:31:13,126 --> 00:31:14,613 That's a good question. 670 00:31:21,750 --> 00:31:23,819 Value forms. 671 00:31:23,819 --> 00:31:25,980 What is, what content? 672 00:31:25,980 --> 00:31:30,450 I think the content is value, but it takes different forms. 673 00:31:30,450 --> 00:31:32,850 There's no other content but value here either, 674 00:31:32,849 --> 00:31:36,299 so maybe the form content distinction 675 00:31:36,299 --> 00:31:39,509 is not so important here as the transformation, 676 00:31:39,509 --> 00:31:42,900 the metamorphosis of one thing into the next. 677 00:31:42,900 --> 00:31:46,590 That's a term that he uses a lot as well, metamorphosis. 678 00:31:46,589 --> 00:31:49,372 Let's talk about it and see if we can answer your question. 679 00:31:54,990 --> 00:31:57,269 The linen expresses its value through the coat. 680 00:31:57,269 --> 00:31:59,639 No thing can express its value itself. 681 00:31:59,640 --> 00:32:01,500 It'd be like my saying, 682 00:32:01,500 --> 00:32:03,930 Leland, I'll trade you your white shirt 683 00:32:03,930 --> 00:32:05,789 for your white shirt. 684 00:32:05,789 --> 00:32:07,170 You're like, "Huh?" 685 00:32:07,170 --> 00:32:08,400 That's not getting me anywhere, 686 00:32:08,400 --> 00:32:10,680 in terms of use value or value. 687 00:32:10,680 --> 00:32:11,580 From that idea, 688 00:32:11,579 --> 00:32:13,769 you can derive the whole capital system as well 689 00:32:13,769 --> 00:32:14,970 if you want to. 690 00:32:14,970 --> 00:32:16,890 It has to be qualitatively different things, 691 00:32:16,890 --> 00:32:18,540 they have to be useful to someone 692 00:32:19,380 --> 00:32:20,910 and then you trade them. 693 00:32:20,910 --> 00:32:22,560 Value arises when you put together 694 00:32:22,559 --> 00:32:23,759 qualitatively different things. 695 00:32:23,759 --> 00:32:25,769 Because why else would I say 696 00:32:25,769 --> 00:32:29,522 I'm trading you a book for a shirt? 697 00:32:30,359 --> 00:32:33,452 How would you possibly know that was a good trade? 698 00:32:39,119 --> 00:32:41,159 The first commodity plays an active role, 699 00:32:41,160 --> 00:32:42,960 the second plays a passive one. 700 00:32:42,960 --> 00:32:44,460 The value of the first commodity 701 00:32:44,460 --> 00:32:46,590 is represented as relative value, 702 00:32:46,589 --> 00:32:49,199 the commodity is in the relative value form. 703 00:32:49,200 --> 00:32:51,690 The second commodity acts as the equivalent, 704 00:32:51,690 --> 00:32:53,373 it is in the equivalent form. 705 00:32:55,769 --> 00:32:59,490 As you saw when you moved to the second section of this, 706 00:32:59,490 --> 00:33:00,359 an equivalent form 707 00:33:00,359 --> 00:33:02,399 can have many, many, many, many relatives, 708 00:33:02,400 --> 00:33:04,680 can have infinite relatives. 709 00:33:04,680 --> 00:33:07,890 If we didn't have that, we wouldn't be able to have money. 710 00:33:07,890 --> 00:33:11,009 Money is the universal equivalent 711 00:33:11,009 --> 00:33:14,970 to which anything that has value can become the relative. 712 00:33:14,970 --> 00:33:16,620 They're all relative to money, 713 00:33:16,619 --> 00:33:17,919 that's another way to say, 714 00:33:20,130 --> 00:33:24,150 to say the difference that the capital system makes, 715 00:33:24,150 --> 00:33:26,730 every commodity is relative to money. 716 00:33:26,730 --> 00:33:30,000 But he shows you how money takes over, 717 00:33:30,000 --> 00:33:31,710 and this is true historically too, 718 00:33:31,710 --> 00:33:34,440 from a specific commodity that had a certain value 719 00:33:34,440 --> 00:33:35,940 and maybe had certain qualities 720 00:33:35,940 --> 00:33:40,023 that made it easy to cut up in pieces or weigh. 721 00:33:40,890 --> 00:33:42,930 He will say, in the money section, 722 00:33:42,930 --> 00:33:45,960 it's interesting that most money names are weight names 723 00:33:45,960 --> 00:33:48,539 for the metals that represented money 724 00:33:48,539 --> 00:33:49,889 so it's easy to quantify them. 725 00:33:49,890 --> 00:33:51,360 Easy to quantify, right? 726 00:33:51,359 --> 00:33:53,459 Coats, eh, you know, 727 00:33:53,460 --> 00:33:55,319 like, "Here, have a piece of gum. 728 00:33:55,319 --> 00:33:58,950 Okay, I'll give you 1/100th of my coat." 729 00:33:58,950 --> 00:34:00,779 Makes it a little bit difficult. 730 00:34:00,779 --> 00:34:02,700 Again, these are practical considerations, 731 00:34:02,700 --> 00:34:04,529 how can exchanges be made? 732 00:34:04,529 --> 00:34:08,219 And the forms take off from the practical considerations. 733 00:34:08,219 --> 00:34:09,779 Okay, in value formation, 734 00:34:09,780 --> 00:34:13,293 there are at least three operations. 735 00:34:14,340 --> 00:34:16,980 Expression or reflection, which are the same thing, 736 00:34:16,980 --> 00:34:19,409 reflection is the form of expression here. 737 00:34:19,409 --> 00:34:21,632 Equivalence and objectification. 738 00:34:23,880 --> 00:34:26,970 Only if I reflect my value in the other thing, 739 00:34:26,969 --> 00:34:28,589 can I have an equivalence, 740 00:34:28,590 --> 00:34:31,890 'cause I know how many of that thing is worth anything, 741 00:34:31,889 --> 00:34:34,500 and it has to be objectified in a thing 742 00:34:34,500 --> 00:34:37,293 so it has a bounded limit, and I can count them. 743 00:34:38,579 --> 00:34:39,630 Does that make sense? 744 00:34:47,400 --> 00:34:49,829 Remembering that the value object 745 00:34:49,829 --> 00:34:53,670 is not continuous with the physical object, 746 00:34:53,670 --> 00:34:56,190 because there may be many qualities in the physical object, 747 00:34:56,190 --> 00:34:59,670 or non-physical object, that don't contribute to its value 748 00:34:59,670 --> 00:35:02,070 and that don't take away from its value. 749 00:35:02,070 --> 00:35:05,160 You could see a seat can be any color, 750 00:35:05,159 --> 00:35:08,219 even the most hideous possible fabric. 751 00:35:08,219 --> 00:35:10,559 Okay, we've added something to our question 752 00:35:10,559 --> 00:35:11,853 about what value is. 753 00:35:12,750 --> 00:35:15,659 Value is something that is always in a particular form, 754 00:35:15,659 --> 00:35:19,889 relative form, equivalent form, simple forms, 755 00:35:19,889 --> 00:35:22,559 complex forms, expanded forms, 756 00:35:22,559 --> 00:35:24,572 as a commodity, as money, 757 00:35:26,369 --> 00:35:30,063 as labor, which is a commodity too. 758 00:35:31,889 --> 00:35:34,518 But it only exists in relations. 759 00:35:34,518 --> 00:35:37,980 You can take something out of the market for a little while, 760 00:35:37,980 --> 00:35:39,599 but if you took it completely out of the market, 761 00:35:39,599 --> 00:35:40,619 it would be valueless, 762 00:35:40,619 --> 00:35:42,819 if you separated it totally from the market. 763 00:35:45,891 --> 00:35:46,724 Okay. 764 00:35:54,119 --> 00:35:57,869 It is in this exchange of reflection 765 00:35:57,869 --> 00:36:00,869 that things get homogenized. 766 00:36:00,869 --> 00:36:03,663 A commodity becomes a gelatinous blob of value. 767 00:36:04,500 --> 00:36:05,849 A bare, gelatinous blob, 768 00:36:05,849 --> 00:36:08,579 it's coming to be a very unappetizing thing, 769 00:36:08,579 --> 00:36:11,039 a bare gelatinous blob of value 770 00:36:11,039 --> 00:36:15,119 when it reflects through this mirror that says 771 00:36:15,119 --> 00:36:17,552 you're worth one of me, you're worth two of me. 772 00:36:22,980 --> 00:36:24,932 It is headed for that since production, 773 00:36:26,190 --> 00:36:27,750 the owners, the managers, 774 00:36:27,750 --> 00:36:30,869 the efficiency coordinators, the supervisors, 775 00:36:30,869 --> 00:36:34,230 even the workers who have internalized this, 776 00:36:34,230 --> 00:36:36,690 they know that they better get the value 777 00:36:36,690 --> 00:36:38,373 in its gelatinous blob in there, 778 00:36:39,750 --> 00:36:41,432 you know, whatever it is, 779 00:36:42,780 --> 00:36:43,893 however much it is. 780 00:36:45,840 --> 00:36:48,990 But it doesn't show up, it doesn't identify itself, 781 00:36:48,989 --> 00:36:51,719 it shows itself in exchange. 782 00:36:51,719 --> 00:36:55,079 And simple exchange is the the heuristic form 783 00:36:55,079 --> 00:36:57,059 in which he can show you how value shows itself. 784 00:36:57,059 --> 00:37:00,929 It says, "Oh, I'm a coat," when it is not a coat. 785 00:37:00,929 --> 00:37:01,916 Or, "I'm money." 786 00:37:03,210 --> 00:37:07,559 This is, if you want to know, an ontology of equivalence, 787 00:37:07,559 --> 00:37:10,023 this is where the is means equals. 788 00:37:13,019 --> 00:37:14,429 Which is another way to say 789 00:37:14,429 --> 00:37:19,139 what economism does to sociality, is means equals. 790 00:37:19,139 --> 00:37:22,592 These things, for the purpose of value, are equivalent. 791 00:37:23,849 --> 00:37:25,440 Nothing is equivalent to itself, 792 00:37:25,440 --> 00:37:27,840 so that's why it needs the panoply of use values 793 00:37:27,840 --> 00:37:30,150 and the social division of labor to keep that up. 794 00:37:30,150 --> 00:37:32,670 You couldn't trade, right, 795 00:37:32,670 --> 00:37:36,240 imagine we all started making the same widget. 796 00:37:36,239 --> 00:37:38,609 This would be like a funny movie, 797 00:37:38,610 --> 00:37:41,059 or a tragedy depending on how you think about it. 798 00:37:42,570 --> 00:37:44,720 There's no value if there's only one thing. 799 00:37:48,449 --> 00:37:50,039 And equivalence is an operation 800 00:37:50,039 --> 00:37:52,353 for making unlike things exchangeable. 801 00:37:57,210 --> 00:38:00,720 You can see that equivalence in the equivalent form 802 00:38:00,719 --> 00:38:05,199 is where the socially necessary average labor time 803 00:38:06,300 --> 00:38:07,323 meets the road. 804 00:38:17,489 --> 00:38:20,406 He says on 28, towards the top, 805 00:38:20,407 --> 00:38:23,970 "Equating it, tailoring with weaving, 806 00:38:23,969 --> 00:38:25,529 does in fact reduce the tailoring 807 00:38:25,530 --> 00:38:28,230 to what is actually the same and both forms of labor, 808 00:38:28,230 --> 00:38:30,210 to their common character as human labor." 809 00:38:30,210 --> 00:38:32,159 Philosophically, this is very interesting, 810 00:38:32,159 --> 00:38:35,279 because nothing has to go on in anyone's mind, 811 00:38:35,280 --> 00:38:37,170 nothing has to go on in any kind of logic, 812 00:38:37,170 --> 00:38:39,150 you don't need a metaphysics for this. 813 00:38:39,150 --> 00:38:41,950 This is what happens when you put these things together. 814 00:38:43,500 --> 00:38:45,599 It conjures up something that must be the same 815 00:38:45,599 --> 00:38:46,432 in both of them. 816 00:38:49,769 --> 00:38:50,909 And it brings into view 817 00:38:50,909 --> 00:38:53,519 the specific character of value generating labor, 818 00:38:53,519 --> 00:38:54,353 and it does that 819 00:38:54,353 --> 00:38:56,220 by actually reducing the different forms of labor 820 00:38:56,219 --> 00:38:58,379 embedded in the different kinds of commodities 821 00:38:58,380 --> 00:39:01,500 to their common something, human labor as such. 822 00:39:01,500 --> 00:39:03,210 These are very important foundations 823 00:39:03,210 --> 00:39:07,653 for understanding this market sociality that we live in. 824 00:39:17,010 --> 00:39:20,430 It requires the operation of expressing your value 825 00:39:20,429 --> 00:39:21,839 through something else, 826 00:39:21,840 --> 00:39:24,780 of reflecting your being into something else. 827 00:39:24,780 --> 00:39:29,250 And eventually, the entire commodity phantasmagorium, 828 00:39:29,250 --> 00:39:32,670 the entire world of commodities has to exist 829 00:39:32,670 --> 00:39:34,889 and be constantly interacting with one another 830 00:39:34,889 --> 00:39:37,089 as potential relatives and equivalents 831 00:39:38,309 --> 00:39:40,469 to make anything have its own value. 832 00:39:40,469 --> 00:39:44,309 So you really need capitalism developed in its full extent. 833 00:39:44,309 --> 00:39:47,610 Even if it's not geographically taken over the world, 834 00:39:47,610 --> 00:39:49,890 it has to be a full capital system 835 00:39:49,889 --> 00:39:52,259 for any bit of value to exist. 836 00:39:52,260 --> 00:39:56,670 Again, so this is a theoretical abstraction 837 00:39:56,670 --> 00:39:58,260 talking about just a simple form. 838 00:39:58,260 --> 00:39:59,093 Yeah? 839 00:39:59,092 --> 00:40:01,206 - Is there also a way in which we just, 840 00:40:01,206 --> 00:40:02,039 (student speaking faintly) 841 00:40:02,039 --> 00:40:02,873 in homogenized labors, 842 00:40:02,873 --> 00:40:07,289 saying like this person's, you know, labor is worth $18. 843 00:40:07,289 --> 00:40:09,719 Say like I'm a proofreader or whatever, 844 00:40:09,719 --> 00:40:11,009 and I'm making $18 an hour, 845 00:40:11,010 --> 00:40:12,330 someone working as tailor, 846 00:40:12,329 --> 00:40:14,309 they're also making $18 an hour, right? 847 00:40:14,309 --> 00:40:17,279 Does that equivalence of value, 848 00:40:17,280 --> 00:40:19,980 to be ascribed to a standard labor, also do this? 849 00:40:19,980 --> 00:40:24,780 - Labor is a commodity, but it is the strangest commodity, 850 00:40:24,780 --> 00:40:26,430 and its value is determined 851 00:40:26,429 --> 00:40:28,440 by the amount you need to pay someone 852 00:40:28,440 --> 00:40:30,483 for them to reproduce their labor power. 853 00:40:32,070 --> 00:40:33,300 So that's different than a commodity, 854 00:40:33,300 --> 00:40:34,590 it doesn't have to reproduce itself, 855 00:40:34,590 --> 00:40:38,039 it can be totally consumed, but labor cannot be. 856 00:40:38,039 --> 00:40:43,019 And the value of labor is also a lie, 857 00:40:43,019 --> 00:40:44,702 a very pernicious fetish, 858 00:40:45,599 --> 00:40:49,922 because it conceals the exploitation, 859 00:40:50,849 --> 00:40:53,522 the production of surplus value, 860 00:40:54,750 --> 00:40:56,282 the extraction of free labor. 861 00:40:57,376 --> 00:40:58,950 We're getting there. 862 00:40:58,949 --> 00:41:00,059 Yes? 863 00:41:00,059 --> 00:41:02,070 - I'm just getting confused about like, 864 00:41:02,070 --> 00:41:04,650 us moving between capitalism as law 865 00:41:04,650 --> 00:41:06,539 and capitalism as religion. 866 00:41:06,539 --> 00:41:09,779 Like, how is capitalism both like this mechanistic system 867 00:41:09,780 --> 00:41:13,079 of shifting gears and also a very spectacular system, 868 00:41:13,079 --> 00:41:14,162 or why? 869 00:41:14,161 --> 00:41:16,019 - Great question. 870 00:41:16,019 --> 00:41:17,159 The question was, 871 00:41:17,159 --> 00:41:21,089 how is capitalism like a law, or a mechanism, or a system, 872 00:41:21,090 --> 00:41:24,240 and how is it like a religion both at the same time? 873 00:41:24,239 --> 00:41:25,109 Well, I don't know. 874 00:41:25,110 --> 00:41:26,910 You know, he made this up, 875 00:41:26,909 --> 00:41:28,259 he was trying to get a handle on it, 876 00:41:28,260 --> 00:41:31,440 and he was using what he could to understand it. 877 00:41:31,440 --> 00:41:33,510 For Marx, I would say, 878 00:41:33,510 --> 00:41:36,333 this is an interesting fact that the, 879 00:41:38,639 --> 00:41:40,172 how do I wanna say this? 880 00:41:43,980 --> 00:41:47,670 The images that capital throws up are systematic, 881 00:41:47,670 --> 00:41:48,782 are systemic. 882 00:41:50,340 --> 00:41:53,160 These operations are absolutely part of the system. 883 00:41:53,159 --> 00:41:55,829 They aren't religious in the sense of belief, 884 00:41:55,829 --> 00:41:57,389 you don't have to believe at all 885 00:41:57,389 --> 00:41:59,822 that money will buy you love, 886 00:42:00,989 --> 00:42:01,822 but it will. 887 00:42:07,679 --> 00:42:09,980 I've got a few good lines myself occasionally. 888 00:42:12,539 --> 00:42:13,373 Okay. 889 00:42:15,269 --> 00:42:17,789 When you get to the total or expanded value form, 890 00:42:17,789 --> 00:42:21,719 you see the world explode into all its commodities, 891 00:42:21,719 --> 00:42:23,099 and it becomes crazy, 892 00:42:23,099 --> 00:42:25,409 anything could be exchanged for anything else. 893 00:42:25,409 --> 00:42:27,539 The question is just how to do that efficiently, 894 00:42:27,539 --> 00:42:30,858 and the answer is one commodity steps out and says, 895 00:42:30,858 --> 00:42:33,360 because of certain qualities I have, 896 00:42:33,360 --> 00:42:35,970 imagine it to be linen, or wampum, 897 00:42:35,969 --> 00:42:38,789 or in one society, bat wings. 898 00:42:38,789 --> 00:42:40,922 Don't ask me, it's true. 899 00:42:42,119 --> 00:42:43,920 Or gold. 900 00:42:43,920 --> 00:42:45,420 I will devote all of my, 901 00:42:45,420 --> 00:42:47,400 although I could be used for something else, 902 00:42:47,400 --> 00:42:50,150 I'll devote all of my energies to being the equivalent. 903 00:42:51,210 --> 00:42:52,532 It's much more efficient. 904 00:42:53,550 --> 00:42:54,660 It'd be very hard for us 905 00:42:54,659 --> 00:42:56,369 to have a full-fledged capital system, 906 00:42:56,369 --> 00:42:58,980 including bankers who invest, 907 00:42:58,980 --> 00:43:01,380 if the standard of value is always changing. 908 00:43:01,380 --> 00:43:03,360 If I was like, "Well, I trade things in bananas," 909 00:43:03,360 --> 00:43:06,017 and he was like, "Well, I trade things in hair clippings." 910 00:43:07,170 --> 00:43:09,452 Clearly, I lost out on that deal. 911 00:43:13,260 --> 00:43:14,490 That's the expanded form, 912 00:43:14,489 --> 00:43:15,869 we don't have to talk about it too much 913 00:43:15,869 --> 00:43:17,432 unless you have questions. 914 00:43:18,449 --> 00:43:20,639 Again, he's building this up conceptually for you, 915 00:43:20,639 --> 00:43:22,769 which is something a lot of people don't do. 916 00:43:22,769 --> 00:43:24,449 Marx got that from Hegel. 917 00:43:24,449 --> 00:43:29,159 It's a beautiful talent to break down a concept 918 00:43:29,159 --> 00:43:31,832 into the parts that make it make sense. 919 00:43:38,730 --> 00:43:41,530 There is a peculiarity of the equivalent for him though. 920 00:43:42,869 --> 00:43:45,420 So we know the equivalent does the reducing, 921 00:43:45,420 --> 00:43:48,180 it does the homogenizing, right? 922 00:43:48,179 --> 00:43:50,219 It is an abstracting, homogenizing, 923 00:43:50,219 --> 00:43:52,139 reducing, averaging mirror. 924 00:43:52,139 --> 00:43:53,826 It says, you know, 925 00:43:53,827 --> 00:43:58,197 "Your labor is worth to me 16 bushels of corn." 926 00:44:00,599 --> 00:44:02,190 Do you notice by the way, that, 927 00:44:02,190 --> 00:44:04,639 well, has anyone read the Penguin edition before? 928 00:44:05,610 --> 00:44:06,443 Just bringing that up. 929 00:44:06,443 --> 00:44:09,960 Well, they translate the German word corn as corn, 930 00:44:09,960 --> 00:44:11,940 so everyone thought the opening of this 931 00:44:11,940 --> 00:44:13,470 was all about trading corn for iron, 932 00:44:13,469 --> 00:44:17,129 but corn in German means grain used for making bread, 933 00:44:17,130 --> 00:44:19,829 so we translated it as wheat. 934 00:44:19,829 --> 00:44:22,079 We're getting a lot of flack about the corn problem. 935 00:44:22,079 --> 00:44:25,623 - Yeah, I guess before we sort of fully skip, 936 00:44:26,789 --> 00:44:27,960 and this is a question 937 00:44:27,960 --> 00:44:30,980 that I could read just a little bit in this section, 938 00:44:30,980 --> 00:44:35,909 why is Marx spending like seven, eight pages 939 00:44:35,909 --> 00:44:37,299 on the simple value form? 940 00:44:37,300 --> 00:44:38,282 Whereas it seems like. 941 00:44:38,282 --> 00:44:39,480 (student speaking faintly) 942 00:44:39,480 --> 00:44:41,699 - Yes, why is Marx spending so much time 943 00:44:41,699 --> 00:44:42,929 on the simple value form? 944 00:44:42,929 --> 00:44:45,750 He says a number of times in here 945 00:44:45,750 --> 00:44:50,400 that it is like a monad of the whole system, 946 00:44:50,400 --> 00:44:53,550 it contains the whole system in miniature. 947 00:44:53,550 --> 00:44:55,230 That's what he thinks, the simple value form. 948 00:44:55,230 --> 00:44:58,440 The relation between the equivalent and the relative 949 00:44:58,440 --> 00:45:00,179 is value in miniature. 950 00:45:00,179 --> 00:45:01,919 This is how it works, practically, 951 00:45:01,920 --> 00:45:04,070 so that's why he spends so much time there. 952 00:45:05,280 --> 00:45:06,780 The expanded value form 953 00:45:06,780 --> 00:45:09,330 just shows you that, with a world of commodities, 954 00:45:09,329 --> 00:45:11,610 it's not, not only, 955 00:45:11,610 --> 00:45:13,110 well, it's not efficient I guess I would say, 956 00:45:13,110 --> 00:45:17,193 it's not even practical to have multiple standards, 957 00:45:18,119 --> 00:45:19,262 so money emerges. 958 00:45:21,570 --> 00:45:23,580 A commodity looks in the equivalent form 959 00:45:23,579 --> 00:45:25,529 and sees itself as value. 960 00:45:25,530 --> 00:45:26,363 Okay? 961 00:45:30,929 --> 00:45:34,532 So first, you have concrete labor that makes a useful thing, 962 00:45:35,639 --> 00:45:37,349 but then it sees itself, 963 00:45:37,349 --> 00:45:40,110 and he uses these, again, personifying terms, 964 00:45:40,110 --> 00:45:41,913 to show you how capital works. 965 00:45:42,869 --> 00:45:46,022 Depersonalizing, de-socializing. 966 00:45:48,367 --> 00:45:50,789 The thing sees that it's just an expression 967 00:45:50,789 --> 00:45:51,809 of the abstract labor 968 00:45:51,809 --> 00:45:54,239 that society deems average for making it, 969 00:45:54,239 --> 00:45:57,629 and which becomes comparable to all other labors 970 00:45:57,630 --> 00:45:59,280 in order to be exchanged. 971 00:45:59,280 --> 00:46:01,833 That's what the coat says back to the linen. 972 00:46:02,737 --> 00:46:05,550 "Well, you're just as much labor time 973 00:46:05,550 --> 00:46:07,560 that was socially necessary to make you 974 00:46:07,559 --> 00:46:10,322 as it was to make three of me. 975 00:46:12,300 --> 00:46:14,487 And look what you can do with all of this." 976 00:46:17,639 --> 00:46:21,809 Marx says, and this is important, in the equivalent form, 977 00:46:21,809 --> 00:46:24,663 labor transforms from private labor to social labor. 978 00:46:25,860 --> 00:46:28,440 Any individual thing that was made by someone, 979 00:46:28,440 --> 00:46:30,000 this is why the simple form is important, 980 00:46:30,000 --> 00:46:33,663 because you can see it in an exploded view, 981 00:46:34,590 --> 00:46:35,700 goes up against something else 982 00:46:35,699 --> 00:46:39,809 and realizes that it's related to all other commodities, 983 00:46:39,809 --> 00:46:41,909 and its labor is averaged 984 00:46:41,909 --> 00:46:43,759 because everyone else is working too. 985 00:46:46,619 --> 00:46:49,592 Labor is not private, it is social, or societal. 986 00:46:51,690 --> 00:46:54,210 Or value is the social form of labor 987 00:46:54,210 --> 00:46:55,893 in a capitalist society. 988 00:46:57,360 --> 00:46:59,849 Value is the social or societal form of labor 989 00:46:59,849 --> 00:47:01,293 in a capitalist society. 990 00:47:02,880 --> 00:47:06,030 So you can see that the relative forms 991 00:47:06,030 --> 00:47:08,820 are just kind of wandering around, looking to become value, 992 00:47:08,820 --> 00:47:11,070 but the equivalent form does a lot of work. 993 00:47:11,070 --> 00:47:13,470 And when it becomes the universal equivalent, money, 994 00:47:13,469 --> 00:47:15,359 you can see, it is kind of an operation. 995 00:47:15,360 --> 00:47:17,403 Money is an operation in itself. 996 00:47:18,809 --> 00:47:20,820 It takes an internal issue value, 997 00:47:20,820 --> 00:47:23,730 and externalizes it into something else. 998 00:47:23,730 --> 00:47:25,710 Capital system would not work 999 00:47:25,710 --> 00:47:30,090 without the externalized value object 1000 00:47:30,090 --> 00:47:32,430 that becomes the universal equivalent. 1001 00:47:32,429 --> 00:47:34,922 It takes a private issue and socializes it. 1002 00:47:36,389 --> 00:47:38,702 It takes a concrete thing and abstracts it. 1003 00:47:39,630 --> 00:47:42,630 This is why he spends so much time on the simple value form. 1004 00:47:43,980 --> 00:47:46,889 And this is where we could take a couple of questions 1005 00:47:46,889 --> 00:47:48,119 and then stop on time. 1006 00:47:48,119 --> 00:47:49,019 Yes? 1007 00:47:49,019 --> 00:47:51,239 - Yeah, I guess I'm still confused 1008 00:47:51,239 --> 00:47:53,729 as to how Marx makes the jump from, 1009 00:47:53,730 --> 00:47:55,260 and in quite a few pages 1010 00:47:55,260 --> 00:47:58,225 he seems to be saying that the external value 1011 00:47:58,224 --> 00:48:01,110 is the form of value itself, right? 1012 00:48:01,110 --> 00:48:02,460 But in one of its peculiarities 1013 00:48:02,460 --> 00:48:04,710 and mentions about the appearance, 1014 00:48:04,710 --> 00:48:08,460 that the use value becomes the appearance of value itself. 1015 00:48:08,460 --> 00:48:11,099 So how does he make that jump from saying, 1016 00:48:11,099 --> 00:48:14,159 that exchange value becomes the appearance value, 1017 00:48:14,159 --> 00:48:16,659 now he's saying use value is that from our theory? 1018 00:48:17,693 --> 00:48:19,740 - Yeah, I'd have to look back 1019 00:48:19,739 --> 00:48:21,899 and understand when he says that use value 1020 00:48:21,900 --> 00:48:23,190 is the form of appearance. 1021 00:48:23,190 --> 00:48:24,960 But exchange value is the form of appearance, 1022 00:48:24,960 --> 00:48:27,599 you can see it right here in the simple value form. 1023 00:48:27,599 --> 00:48:31,440 When you go to exchange linen for a coat, 1024 00:48:31,440 --> 00:48:36,440 the value in the coat shows up as its exchange value for, 1025 00:48:36,659 --> 00:48:37,889 sorry, the value in the linen 1026 00:48:37,889 --> 00:48:40,322 shows up as its exchange value for the coat. 1027 00:48:41,460 --> 00:48:42,659 It's a very subtle difference, 1028 00:48:42,659 --> 00:48:43,980 it becomes very important later. 1029 00:48:43,980 --> 00:48:44,820 Value is something 1030 00:48:44,820 --> 00:48:46,980 that is supposedly contained in the linen. 1031 00:48:46,980 --> 00:48:50,012 The linen is value, is a value, 1032 00:48:51,000 --> 00:48:51,900 but it only shows up 1033 00:48:51,900 --> 00:48:54,869 when put up against the thing it's gonna be exchanged for. 1034 00:48:54,869 --> 00:48:56,342 That's what he means. 1035 00:48:57,420 --> 00:49:00,090 We act, and we're forced to live, 1036 00:49:00,090 --> 00:49:05,010 as though things have value or are values, right? 1037 00:49:05,010 --> 00:49:07,620 Think of a warehouse full of things to be sold. 1038 00:49:07,619 --> 00:49:09,839 That's value, those are commodities, 1039 00:49:09,840 --> 00:49:11,163 they are value. 1040 00:49:12,449 --> 00:49:13,649 But the value only shows up 1041 00:49:13,650 --> 00:49:15,813 when it's put up against money. 1042 00:49:16,739 --> 00:49:17,759 Yeah? 1043 00:49:17,760 --> 00:49:21,666 - Is Marx invoking Spinoza by saying that the values. 1044 00:49:21,666 --> 00:49:24,300 (student speaking faintly) 1045 00:49:24,300 --> 00:49:26,820 - You could say, people have written about this, 1046 00:49:26,820 --> 00:49:28,230 Althusser, to begin with, 1047 00:49:28,230 --> 00:49:29,733 Jacques Lezra also, 1048 00:49:30,869 --> 00:49:33,779 there is a nod to Spinoza here 1049 00:49:33,780 --> 00:49:35,793 that value is substance, 1050 00:49:37,829 --> 00:49:39,690 and all of the different commodities 1051 00:49:39,690 --> 00:49:42,119 are just kind of attributes of value. 1052 00:49:42,119 --> 00:49:43,670 You could think of it that way, 1053 00:49:45,090 --> 00:49:48,269 but I think we should think of doing fetish next time, 1054 00:49:48,269 --> 00:49:50,670 and we'll try to get you the books. 1055 00:49:50,670 --> 00:49:53,430 We will then move into chapters two to four, 1056 00:49:53,429 --> 00:49:56,672 and nothing will be as crazy as chapter one again. 1057 00:49:58,586 --> 00:50:01,086 (outro music)