WEBVTT 00:00:00.673 --> 00:00:03.923 (intense violin music) 00:00:13.800 --> 00:00:15.870 - Page 19, the double character 00:00:15.869 --> 00:00:17.789 of the labor represented in commodities. 00:00:17.789 --> 00:00:20.399 First, the commodity presented itself to us 00:00:20.399 --> 00:00:21.899 as a double-something, 00:00:21.899 --> 00:00:24.479 both use value and exchange value, 00:00:24.480 --> 00:00:27.750 or, I would say, use and value, 00:00:27.750 --> 00:00:29.250 that's a better way to put it, 00:00:30.899 --> 00:00:32.609 more precise, 00:00:32.609 --> 00:00:34.112 or use value and value. 00:00:35.369 --> 00:00:36.899 We then saw that labor too, 00:00:36.899 --> 00:00:38.606 when it was expressed as value 00:00:38.606 --> 00:00:40.109 and it is expressed as value, 00:00:40.109 --> 00:00:42.600 loses the particular qualities it has 00:00:42.600 --> 00:00:45.600 as that which produces use values. 00:00:45.600 --> 00:00:47.550 When you're producing something for exchange, 00:00:47.549 --> 00:00:48.992 your labor changes. 00:00:49.859 --> 00:00:51.929 Interestingly, it doesn't change in content, 00:00:51.929 --> 00:00:53.159 at least at the beginning, 00:00:53.159 --> 00:00:55.832 until capitalism is well-developed, 00:00:57.179 --> 00:00:59.463 industrialized, expanded, 00:01:01.140 --> 00:01:05.609 then it starts to change the quality of concrete labor. 00:01:05.609 --> 00:01:09.239 But in this hypothetical, this heuristic, 00:01:09.239 --> 00:01:12.149 simple heuristic at the beginning of the book, 00:01:12.150 --> 00:01:14.670 which is, by the way, a theoretical heuristic, 00:01:14.670 --> 00:01:17.250 not a historical heuristic. 00:01:17.250 --> 00:01:20.972 It wasn't like we started with the commodity in AD 1, 00:01:22.019 --> 00:01:24.149 not true, we're starting with the commodity 00:01:24.150 --> 00:01:28.200 for the analytic, for analyzing capitalism, 00:01:28.200 --> 00:01:31.185 starting with its its cell form, 00:01:31.185 --> 00:01:33.030 what Marx calls its cell form, 00:01:33.030 --> 00:01:34.890 because he thought this would be easier. 00:01:34.890 --> 00:01:36.573 Hah, you know? 00:01:37.709 --> 00:01:39.269 But I don't think there is an easy way in, 00:01:39.269 --> 00:01:41.269 so we're taking this as our entry point. 00:01:43.469 --> 00:01:46.709 We saw then that labor too, when it's expressed as value, 00:01:46.709 --> 00:01:48.899 loses the particular qualities it has 00:01:48.900 --> 00:01:51.180 as that which produces use values. 00:01:51.180 --> 00:01:52.770 So briefly, we have to talk about 00:01:52.769 --> 00:01:54.542 the double character of labor, 00:01:55.980 --> 00:02:00.150 useful labor, and labor towards value or abstract labor, 00:02:00.150 --> 00:02:02.760 socially necessary average labor time, 00:02:02.760 --> 00:02:05.943 which is the measure of its magnitude. 00:02:09.240 --> 00:02:11.700 You can see the difference on page 23 00:02:11.699 --> 00:02:13.836 in a really clear formulation, 00:02:13.836 --> 00:02:18.179 "In and for itself a greater quantity of use value 00:02:18.180 --> 00:02:19.920 amounts to greater material wealth." 00:02:19.919 --> 00:02:23.522 This is like the third full paragraph on page 23. 00:02:24.599 --> 00:02:26.729 Two coats amount to more than one. 00:02:26.729 --> 00:02:30.389 If two people need coats, you need two coats. 00:02:30.389 --> 00:02:32.489 And the use value of two coats 00:02:32.490 --> 00:02:34.439 is two coats worth of use value. 00:02:34.439 --> 00:02:36.030 That make sense? 00:02:36.030 --> 00:02:38.189 But two coats of value 00:02:38.189 --> 00:02:40.889 might not be the value of what one coat was 00:02:40.889 --> 00:02:45.889 half an hour ago if exchange conditions change, he says. 00:02:46.139 --> 00:02:47.639 Two coats can clothe two people, 00:02:47.639 --> 00:02:48.809 one coat just one person, 00:02:48.810 --> 00:02:51.599 yet when the quantity of material wealth increases, 00:02:51.599 --> 00:02:54.603 this can correspond to a simultaneous drop in its values. 00:02:56.460 --> 00:02:59.520 If, for example, you can suddenly make coats 00:02:59.520 --> 00:03:03.248 much more quickly, with much less labor input, 00:03:03.247 --> 00:03:05.219 then the value drops. 00:03:05.219 --> 00:03:07.439 This would happen for all coats already on the market, 00:03:07.439 --> 00:03:10.109 even though they took 00:03:10.110 --> 00:03:12.720 a much higher socially necessary average labor time. 00:03:12.719 --> 00:03:14.129 Does that make sense? 00:03:14.129 --> 00:03:16.409 So value means something totally differently, 00:03:16.409 --> 00:03:18.960 this, we just need to put out of our minds right away, 00:03:18.960 --> 00:03:22.862 value is not the worth of something for me in my life, 00:03:24.449 --> 00:03:27.989 but the number of things something can be exchanged for 00:03:27.990 --> 00:03:28.983 on the market. 00:03:30.719 --> 00:03:33.000 There are two different systems, 00:03:33.000 --> 00:03:34.259 and as we'll start to see, 00:03:34.259 --> 00:03:36.449 there's what I call an eversion, 00:03:36.449 --> 00:03:40.622 it's an inversion with a change of values, 00:03:41.669 --> 00:03:44.459 use value and value evert. 00:03:44.460 --> 00:03:49.030 Value is number one, comes first, and is more important 00:03:49.919 --> 00:03:52.889 and subordinates use value to it. 00:03:52.889 --> 00:03:55.769 So you get useful things as a byproduct 00:03:55.770 --> 00:03:58.623 from the exchange process. 00:04:00.090 --> 00:04:02.640 Okay, today, we're gonna talk about a number of operations. 00:04:02.639 --> 00:04:04.589 We might get through chapter one, 00:04:04.590 --> 00:04:07.469 but if not, we'll leak over a little bit to Monday. 00:04:07.469 --> 00:04:08.639 This is the third week, 00:04:08.639 --> 00:04:10.239 and we're gonna be talking about 00:04:11.189 --> 00:04:13.983 one operation in particular, reflection. 00:04:16.649 --> 00:04:19.892 In exchange, you have this Hegelian operation. 00:04:20.819 --> 00:04:23.849 And these are not operations that the economist carries out, 00:04:23.850 --> 00:04:26.460 they are not operations that happen in your consciousness, 00:04:26.459 --> 00:04:30.750 they happen in actual exchange on a market. 00:04:30.750 --> 00:04:33.209 They're anticipated by production. 00:04:33.209 --> 00:04:35.819 You get the reflective determination 00:04:35.819 --> 00:04:37.230 of the value of one thing 00:04:37.230 --> 00:04:40.200 through another thing. 00:04:40.199 --> 00:04:43.413 You will have read the forms of value section. 00:04:44.430 --> 00:04:47.400 And then we're moving on to the best part, 00:04:47.399 --> 00:04:48.599 the fetish section, 00:04:48.600 --> 00:04:51.270 in which you get something like a distorting reflection. 00:04:51.269 --> 00:04:53.519 There's a lot of mirrors in these sections. 00:04:53.519 --> 00:04:58.169 So to make it clearer, let's stick with the mirror figure, 00:04:58.170 --> 00:04:59.580 the mirror image. 00:04:59.579 --> 00:05:02.789 We're still working on the cell form of the capital system, 00:05:02.790 --> 00:05:04.052 which is the commodity. 00:05:06.509 --> 00:05:09.269 What Marx does is gives us a set of categories 00:05:09.269 --> 00:05:10.649 which are operations, 00:05:10.649 --> 00:05:12.649 especially in these first four chapters. 00:05:13.529 --> 00:05:17.129 These are the operations that make commodities happen, 00:05:17.129 --> 00:05:19.620 so they aren't simply things that float around 00:05:19.620 --> 00:05:22.259 or that have qualities inherent to them. 00:05:22.259 --> 00:05:24.240 Those are, just to give you a list of them, 00:05:24.240 --> 00:05:28.199 reflection, eversion, abstraction, 00:05:28.199 --> 00:05:30.899 reification, or objectification, 00:05:30.899 --> 00:05:35.189 concentration, transformation, expression, fetishization. 00:05:35.189 --> 00:05:36.719 You see all these operations are going on, 00:05:36.720 --> 00:05:40.560 and this is Marx's unique contribution to the discussion, 00:05:40.560 --> 00:05:41.769 these operations 00:05:42.839 --> 00:05:45.599 that are societal operations, they're not individual. 00:05:45.600 --> 00:05:48.330 They happen in a social setting 00:05:48.329 --> 00:05:50.129 where certain things need to be done 00:05:52.290 --> 00:05:57.290 in order to preserve, maintain the society. 00:06:01.170 --> 00:06:03.270 His goal in this volume, we'll remember, 00:06:03.269 --> 00:06:07.680 is to show the perversion of our sociality 00:06:07.680 --> 00:06:10.560 by analyzing the workings of production. 00:06:10.560 --> 00:06:13.079 Sociality under capital is perverse, 00:06:13.079 --> 00:06:14.702 is a word he uses sometimes, 00:06:15.899 --> 00:06:20.579 and the verso words indicate the turnaround 00:06:20.579 --> 00:06:24.719 that capitalism enacts on history. 00:06:24.720 --> 00:06:29.720 It isn't just a continuation, it's a sharp verso, 00:06:30.240 --> 00:06:31.120 it's a turnaround 00:06:33.029 --> 00:06:35.462 that might produce vertigo if you knew about it. 00:06:36.720 --> 00:06:39.900 That's why, for example, economists and everyone else 00:06:39.899 --> 00:06:41.639 projected back across all history, 00:06:41.639 --> 00:06:43.409 because it was really vertiginous change 00:06:43.410 --> 00:06:46.203 that happened over a couple hundred years. 00:06:48.329 --> 00:06:49.979 To do this, he starts with the nearest, 00:06:49.980 --> 00:06:52.500 and most familiar, and most obscure. 00:06:52.500 --> 00:06:53.639 He does a phenomenology, 00:06:53.639 --> 00:06:55.639 I'm just reminding you what we're doing, 00:06:57.269 --> 00:06:58.680 which I'm calling the entry point, 00:06:58.680 --> 00:07:00.900 the narrow way and the commodity. 00:07:00.899 --> 00:07:03.812 The commodity necessarily brings labor into view. 00:07:05.189 --> 00:07:07.142 The commodity is nothing without labor. 00:07:08.339 --> 00:07:10.139 And both are double. 00:07:10.139 --> 00:07:12.362 And each of the pairs gets everted. 00:07:13.199 --> 00:07:15.089 Use value gets subordinated 00:07:15.089 --> 00:07:20.089 and mated, put into a second position, 00:07:20.189 --> 00:07:23.250 vis-a-vis value. 00:07:23.250 --> 00:07:27.449 And abstract labor gets super-ordinated 00:07:27.449 --> 00:07:29.733 over useful, concrete labor. 00:07:31.199 --> 00:07:32.909 If you wanna know how big a commodity is, 00:07:32.910 --> 00:07:35.070 we know a commodity is a side of labor, 00:07:35.069 --> 00:07:37.110 if you wanna know how big a commodity is, 00:07:37.110 --> 00:07:40.050 it's the socially necessary average labor time 00:07:40.050 --> 00:07:41.370 involved in doing it. 00:07:41.370 --> 00:07:43.470 That's all, really, socially necessary average labor time 00:07:43.470 --> 00:07:44.970 tells you, is how big it is, 00:07:44.970 --> 00:07:46.710 because it's the one thing that's standard 00:07:46.709 --> 00:07:47.759 among all the commodities, 00:07:47.759 --> 00:07:51.180 they all have some amount of time it takes to do it 00:07:51.180 --> 00:07:52.680 that the society says this is, 00:07:53.579 --> 00:07:56.012 usually it's close to the minimum, 00:07:57.206 --> 00:08:00.783 with some adjustments for anomalies. 00:08:03.060 --> 00:08:04.439 It certainly wouldn't be the maximum, 00:08:04.439 --> 00:08:06.389 that would not be a capitalist society. 00:08:09.000 --> 00:08:11.459 So the magnitude of value is measured 00:08:11.459 --> 00:08:13.799 by the socially necessary average labor time 00:08:13.800 --> 00:08:15.812 it takes to produce it. 00:08:17.670 --> 00:08:19.680 And value is something that 00:08:19.680 --> 00:08:21.720 you could say hovers around the commodity, 00:08:21.720 --> 00:08:25.470 it's a strange metaphysical, quasi-metaphysical, 00:08:25.470 --> 00:08:30.470 quasi-physical thing, a phantasm that the system puts up. 00:08:31.740 --> 00:08:34.139 But it's also social, 00:08:34.139 --> 00:08:35.909 and this is what we're gonna talk about a little bit 00:08:35.909 --> 00:08:37.649 today as well. 00:08:37.649 --> 00:08:42.153 Value organizes social life under a capitalistic economy. 00:08:43.049 --> 00:08:44.899 It is not just a thing that hovers there, 00:08:44.899 --> 00:08:47.699 it is the measure of everything we do, 00:08:47.700 --> 00:08:49.620 it's the impetus of everything we do, 00:08:49.620 --> 00:08:52.110 it's in the impetus of everything we do, 00:08:52.110 --> 00:08:53.702 even if we have other impeti. 00:08:55.980 --> 00:08:57.539 It organizes economic life, 00:08:57.539 --> 00:08:59.490 and it also organizes social life 00:08:59.490 --> 00:09:02.072 because the social is subordinated to the economic. 00:09:03.659 --> 00:09:05.669 So the social or the societal 00:09:05.669 --> 00:09:09.870 is ground zero for Marx's interpretation, 00:09:09.870 --> 00:09:11.163 and for all reflection. 00:09:12.240 --> 00:09:14.009 The economy is not, 00:09:14.009 --> 00:09:15.659 politics is not, 00:09:15.659 --> 00:09:17.370 nature is not, 00:09:17.370 --> 00:09:18.450 God is not. 00:09:18.450 --> 00:09:20.160 It is what he calls the social, 00:09:20.159 --> 00:09:21.110 or (speaks German), 00:09:22.769 --> 00:09:24.990 which I would translate as "societal." 00:09:24.990 --> 00:09:26.850 Social is very confusing when he uses it, 00:09:26.850 --> 00:09:28.440 I don't know if you found it odd 00:09:28.440 --> 00:09:31.170 when he says things have a social life. 00:09:31.169 --> 00:09:32.769 It's not that they go to dances, 00:09:34.019 --> 00:09:37.322 it's that they are making society go. 00:09:39.450 --> 00:09:42.240 Society is a grouping principle, 00:09:42.240 --> 00:09:43.710 a name for a grouping principle 00:09:43.710 --> 00:09:46.650 in which people are independent on one another. 00:09:46.649 --> 00:09:49.529 So society will always be both our lowest common denominator 00:09:49.529 --> 00:09:51.329 when we're reading capital, 00:09:51.330 --> 00:09:53.070 that's what makes everything go. 00:09:53.070 --> 00:09:56.100 Human being is a social being, a societal being. 00:09:56.100 --> 00:09:57.420 Can't live outside of society, 00:09:57.419 --> 00:10:00.899 that's why he has these tirades about Robinson Crusoe, 00:10:00.899 --> 00:10:02.379 this fictional individual 00:10:03.840 --> 00:10:05.430 who brings his whole society with him 00:10:05.429 --> 00:10:08.309 and acts as though he's still in the middle of London 00:10:08.309 --> 00:10:09.929 with his lists of things to do, 00:10:09.929 --> 00:10:11.039 and his religion, 00:10:11.039 --> 00:10:12.302 and his slave. 00:10:14.591 --> 00:10:16.933 (Paul chuckling) 00:10:16.933 --> 00:10:19.202 And it's also the highest goal, the societal. 00:10:20.610 --> 00:10:22.169 The answer will be societal, 00:10:22.169 --> 00:10:25.019 be making society much more important, 00:10:25.019 --> 00:10:28.139 we'll be desubordinating it to the economy, 00:10:28.139 --> 00:10:31.860 or making a free association of producers 00:10:31.860 --> 00:10:33.513 who are in control of production, 00:10:34.950 --> 00:10:37.533 Marx's minimal idea of socialism here. 00:10:38.460 --> 00:10:40.830 That is, you strengthen this ground zero, 00:10:40.830 --> 00:10:42.960 you bring it back to the front. 00:10:42.960 --> 00:10:44.250 How to do that? 00:10:44.250 --> 00:10:45.480 I'll let you tell me 00:10:45.480 --> 00:10:47.942 as you ruminate over this for the next 10 years. 00:10:50.549 --> 00:10:52.229 But we learn in this section also 00:10:52.230 --> 00:10:56.370 that use value is not only something that comes 00:10:56.370 --> 00:11:01.370 at the end of production, exchange, circulation, 00:11:01.620 --> 00:11:02.759 et cetera, et cetera, 00:11:02.759 --> 00:11:04.710 when you finally get the thing home and you use it, 00:11:04.710 --> 00:11:05.940 or use it up. 00:11:05.940 --> 00:11:09.690 Use value is something that also structures the society, 00:11:09.690 --> 00:11:12.903 it structures the society as a social division of labor. 00:11:14.190 --> 00:11:17.760 So remember, we're talking about a big enough society 00:11:17.759 --> 00:11:20.789 where no individual can produce 00:11:20.789 --> 00:11:21.899 everything they need themselves 00:11:21.899 --> 00:11:25.379 and no family really either, as a unit. 00:11:25.379 --> 00:11:27.240 You need the whole society, 00:11:27.240 --> 00:11:31.019 and so the production of use values is spread out. 00:11:31.019 --> 00:11:33.779 This is of course why you need exchange, 00:11:33.779 --> 00:11:34.980 exchange of raw materials, 00:11:34.980 --> 00:11:36.360 you need to get the rock over here 00:11:36.360 --> 00:11:37.759 for the whatever over there. 00:11:38.639 --> 00:11:39.472 Right? 00:11:39.472 --> 00:11:44.219 So we're imagining this zone in an ever-widening image 00:11:45.750 --> 00:11:47.970 from an individual act of exchange 00:11:47.970 --> 00:11:50.910 to, ultimately, the totality of society 00:11:50.909 --> 00:11:53.913 whose exchanges are contingent, 00:11:55.289 --> 00:11:57.419 can be affected by random events, 00:11:57.419 --> 00:12:00.959 but ultimately work out according to the system's laws. 00:12:00.960 --> 00:12:03.389 That's all about concrete labor and who needs what when 00:12:03.389 --> 00:12:05.490 and who can make what when. 00:12:05.490 --> 00:12:07.980 But the social division of labor is one of the tools, 00:12:07.980 --> 00:12:10.590 one of the instruments of the capital system. 00:12:10.590 --> 00:12:11.759 It can use that. 00:12:11.759 --> 00:12:14.913 It can divide it more, beyond what use value dictates. 00:12:16.379 --> 00:12:19.769 It can divide labor even within a factory. 00:12:19.769 --> 00:12:22.259 Take Adam Smith's example of the pin factory, 00:12:22.259 --> 00:12:24.990 where it used to be that someone hammered out a little pin 00:12:24.990 --> 00:12:26.072 with a tiny hammer, 00:12:26.940 --> 00:12:28.440 and eventually there was someone 00:12:28.440 --> 00:12:29.490 who made the head of the pin, 00:12:29.490 --> 00:12:32.159 someone who extruded the metal, 00:12:32.159 --> 00:12:33.299 someone who sharpened the pin, 00:12:33.299 --> 00:12:34.889 someone who polished the pin. 00:12:34.889 --> 00:12:37.590 And labor can be divided even in an individual, 00:12:37.590 --> 00:12:39.940 where I am now no longer making a whole object. 00:12:40.830 --> 00:12:44.190 This is a capitalist use of the social division of labor, 00:12:44.190 --> 00:12:45.240 it's still social, 00:12:45.240 --> 00:12:48.570 because I depend on someone else to sharpen my pin. 00:12:48.570 --> 00:12:49.970 That sounds vaguely obscene. 00:12:57.899 --> 00:13:01.199 Use value produces a vast differential 00:13:01.200 --> 00:13:02.850 of who makes what, when, and how, 00:13:03.809 --> 00:13:05.792 and where it gets traded, et cetera. 00:13:11.190 --> 00:13:13.230 But you can see also how it contributes 00:13:13.230 --> 00:13:17.296 to the abstraction of labor in so far as labor is now 00:13:17.296 --> 00:13:20.640 a function of exchange, 00:13:20.639 --> 00:13:24.509 labor is now a something that, itself, 00:13:24.509 --> 00:13:27.929 can be an adjustable lever in the capital system. 00:13:27.929 --> 00:13:30.209 You can do much less or much more. 00:13:30.210 --> 00:13:33.570 How can I even tell what labor is if I'm sharpening pins? 00:13:33.570 --> 00:13:34.980 There has to be some average 00:13:34.980 --> 00:13:38.373 that makes it equal to someone knitting a sweater. 00:13:39.240 --> 00:13:40.649 Who knows the sweater, 00:13:40.649 --> 00:13:41.490 in Aristotle's sense, 00:13:41.490 --> 00:13:43.919 it's an image of the sweater before they start, 00:13:43.919 --> 00:13:45.779 they know how to use the tools, they have know-how, 00:13:45.779 --> 00:13:46.949 and they have an image of the sweater, 00:13:46.950 --> 00:13:49.950 and they take that image out of their consciousness 00:13:49.950 --> 00:13:51.153 into yarn. 00:13:54.720 --> 00:13:58.050 The idea is that as you make commodities 00:13:58.049 --> 00:14:00.029 that have to be exchanged, 00:14:00.029 --> 00:14:02.159 the pressure to make commodities 00:14:02.159 --> 00:14:04.773 makes you work the average amount of time. 00:14:07.019 --> 00:14:11.872 If you work more, you are just cutting into your own wages. 00:14:13.169 --> 00:14:15.329 If you work less, you're increasing them, 00:14:15.330 --> 00:14:18.870 so there is a kind of pressure to speed up 00:14:18.870 --> 00:14:20.133 to increase productivity. 00:14:21.990 --> 00:14:24.299 Okay, just to say how labor gets abstract, 00:14:24.299 --> 00:14:27.179 it goes through an operation which I didn't mention, 00:14:27.179 --> 00:14:28.799 which is reduction. 00:14:28.799 --> 00:14:30.899 Marx says in this section 00:14:30.899 --> 00:14:34.769 that it gets reduced to a simple from a complex, 00:14:34.769 --> 00:14:39.769 it gets reduced to one quality, value, or labor power, 00:14:39.779 --> 00:14:43.919 socially necessary average labor time. 00:14:43.919 --> 00:14:45.209 It gets homogenized, 00:14:45.210 --> 00:14:47.670 it gets all the other qualities stripped off it, 00:14:47.669 --> 00:14:48.962 it becomes bare. 00:14:50.909 --> 00:14:53.039 These are not the only forces on value, 00:14:53.039 --> 00:14:54.719 you will see, in fact, that we're starting with 00:14:54.720 --> 00:14:57.509 a very simplistic view of the economy. 00:14:57.509 --> 00:14:59.582 And later, when we get to volume three, 00:15:00.480 --> 00:15:01.710 we're not doing volume three, 00:15:01.710 --> 00:15:03.753 but you all can read on to volume three, 00:15:04.649 --> 00:15:05.639 when you get to volume three, 00:15:05.639 --> 00:15:07.590 you have to see these all things in a different way 00:15:07.590 --> 00:15:09.120 when the pressures of competition 00:15:09.120 --> 00:15:11.429 between different sectors of the economy 00:15:11.429 --> 00:15:13.049 change the way value is made. 00:15:13.049 --> 00:15:14.759 So, for now, these are provisional ways 00:15:14.759 --> 00:15:17.702 to understand the inputs to value. 00:15:19.320 --> 00:15:20.310 Once it's been reduced, 00:15:20.309 --> 00:15:24.599 like these values have what he calls value objecthood, 00:15:24.600 --> 00:15:25.920 which is ghostly. 00:15:25.919 --> 00:15:28.799 Every time you have a thing like this thing, 00:15:28.799 --> 00:15:31.259 it has its physical and use objecthood, 00:15:31.259 --> 00:15:33.000 but it also has a value objecthood. 00:15:33.000 --> 00:15:35.610 Whereas if this were, I don't know, 00:15:35.610 --> 00:15:37.649 something cheap, I might drop it. 00:15:37.649 --> 00:15:38.942 But since it isn't, 00:15:40.645 --> 00:15:43.676 I respect, preserve its valuehood, 00:15:45.299 --> 00:15:48.059 which is here in a contained form, 00:15:48.059 --> 00:15:48.892 though you can't see it, 00:15:48.893 --> 00:15:52.537 it's not exactly equivalent to its physical characteristics. 00:15:52.537 --> 00:15:53.370 Okay. 00:15:57.389 --> 00:16:00.850 You can see how the use side of labor 00:16:02.159 --> 00:16:05.259 gets used by the value or abstract side of labor 00:16:06.539 --> 00:16:08.159 in the capital system. 00:16:08.159 --> 00:16:10.259 You have questions about that section too? 00:16:14.195 --> 00:16:16.140 Isn't it good to read a book very slowly? 00:16:16.139 --> 00:16:18.689 I just love it, it's my favorite thing. 00:16:18.690 --> 00:16:21.333 I always get anxious about large amounts of text. 00:16:22.169 --> 00:16:23.002 Yeah? 00:16:23.003 --> 00:16:24.325 - Just really quick. 00:16:24.325 --> 00:16:25.158 The last time, 00:16:25.158 --> 00:16:28.169 you just mentioned like value object perfect something. 00:16:28.169 --> 00:16:30.783 Is that the same as exchange value? 00:16:32.580 --> 00:16:35.070 - No exchange value really is, 00:16:35.070 --> 00:16:37.860 we're about to see that in more detail. 00:16:37.860 --> 00:16:41.730 Again, use value and exchange value 00:16:41.730 --> 00:16:43.620 live in a kind of contradiction 00:16:43.620 --> 00:16:48.620 whose odd and tense solution is value. 00:16:49.409 --> 00:16:53.549 So really, Marx wants you to focus on use value and value. 00:16:53.549 --> 00:16:56.549 Exchange value is like the technical number of things 00:16:56.549 --> 00:16:57.899 you can get for this thing. 00:16:58.919 --> 00:17:00.839 What it seems to contain, 00:17:00.840 --> 00:17:04.200 what it appears, in the real appearance, to contain 00:17:04.200 --> 00:17:05.033 is value. 00:17:06.089 --> 00:17:07.049 I'm not thinking about how much, 00:17:07.049 --> 00:17:08.819 when I hold onto this and protect it, 00:17:08.819 --> 00:17:10.619 this is a very psychologistic way of putting it, 00:17:10.619 --> 00:17:12.899 but when I hold onto this and protect it, 00:17:12.900 --> 00:17:15.180 I'm not thinking because I can get, 00:17:15.180 --> 00:17:16.620 you know, 1/10th of a car for this, 00:17:16.619 --> 00:17:19.019 or 1/20th of a car for this. 00:17:19.019 --> 00:17:21.089 Right? I'm not thinking about that. 00:17:21.089 --> 00:17:22.919 But the whole exchange market, 00:17:22.920 --> 00:17:27.920 the whole exchange phantasmagoria has conditioned me 00:17:28.589 --> 00:17:31.319 such that I know this is a container of value. 00:17:31.319 --> 00:17:33.269 And I know this is a container of value 00:17:34.170 --> 00:17:38.253 much higher than this, oddly. 00:17:39.539 --> 00:17:40.373 Yeah? 00:17:41.549 --> 00:17:46.549 - Is this value objecthood a feature of the capital system? 00:17:46.890 --> 00:17:49.680 - No other system has value objecthood. 00:17:49.680 --> 00:17:53.493 It's a total perversion of ontology under capital. 00:17:54.569 --> 00:17:56.483 Does that? - I'm not convinced. 00:17:56.483 --> 00:17:57.359 (student speaking faintly) 00:17:57.359 --> 00:17:58.192 - Okay. 00:17:59.130 --> 00:18:01.620 I mean, there's no... 00:18:01.619 --> 00:18:03.000 What could? 00:18:03.000 --> 00:18:03.992 Convincing? 00:18:05.220 --> 00:18:07.350 I think it's better to understand the system. 00:18:07.349 --> 00:18:10.102 We could have an argument about that, which I would win. 00:18:11.549 --> 00:18:14.069 It would take up a lot of time, yeah. 00:18:14.069 --> 00:18:15.869 Sorry, wait, David behind you first. 00:18:16.950 --> 00:18:20.400 - What's the pedagogy that like Marx has opined, 00:18:20.400 --> 00:18:22.920 like you earn the obvious value, 00:18:22.920 --> 00:18:24.936 or is it just assumed to us? 00:18:24.935 --> 00:18:27.659 (student speaking faintly) 00:18:27.660 --> 00:18:29.550 - It's all objective. 00:18:29.549 --> 00:18:33.269 The question was, what is the pedagogy of object valuehood? 00:18:33.269 --> 00:18:35.369 When do we learn it? 00:18:35.369 --> 00:18:39.179 And I'm talking about it in psychologistic terms, 00:18:39.180 --> 00:18:41.070 but really, it's purely objective. 00:18:41.069 --> 00:18:44.639 If you don't treat these things as though they have value, 00:18:44.640 --> 00:18:46.170 you'll lose out. 00:18:46.170 --> 00:18:48.930 If you don't treat your car as though it had value, 00:18:48.930 --> 00:18:51.783 which is the way I've beat up a number of cars, 00:18:53.190 --> 00:18:55.650 you lose out, you don't get to sell it for anything, 00:18:55.650 --> 00:18:57.930 and you know this is the case when you're doing it, 00:18:57.930 --> 00:18:59.220 that's why, as a teenager, 00:18:59.220 --> 00:19:03.450 I rebelled and beat up a lot of cars, right? 00:19:03.450 --> 00:19:05.759 It's just, it's a matter of conditioning. 00:19:05.759 --> 00:19:07.740 And you could choose differently, 00:19:07.740 --> 00:19:09.690 but you can't do any differently, 00:19:09.690 --> 00:19:11.100 you'll just be stuck. 00:19:11.099 --> 00:19:13.319 Samuel, and then David. 00:19:13.319 --> 00:19:18.319 - So if I understand what we're talking about, 00:19:18.839 --> 00:19:22.859 we have use value and exchange value, 00:19:22.859 --> 00:19:27.779 which together kind of like synthesize 00:19:27.779 --> 00:19:30.750 into this notion of value which we project onto things. 00:19:30.750 --> 00:19:32.789 So into this notion of value goes use value, 00:19:32.789 --> 00:19:35.099 which depends on the body of the object, 00:19:35.099 --> 00:19:36.389 and exchange value, 00:19:36.390 --> 00:19:38.940 which depends on the socially average labor time 00:19:38.940 --> 00:19:40.890 that goes into to its creation. 00:19:40.890 --> 00:19:43.440 And then from value, we get to value objecthood, 00:19:43.440 --> 00:19:46.200 which I assume is sort of a property of an object 00:19:46.200 --> 00:19:48.930 we project onto it somehow? 00:19:48.930 --> 00:19:50.430 But then he says the body 00:19:50.430 --> 00:19:52.350 doesn't play a role in this at all. 00:19:52.349 --> 00:19:54.629 - The physical body does not play a role. That's right. 00:19:54.630 --> 00:19:56.370 - The physical body, through use value, 00:19:56.369 --> 00:19:58.199 plays a role in value? 00:19:58.200 --> 00:20:01.230 - Well, not every commodity has a physical body. 00:20:01.230 --> 00:20:03.120 But let's talk about bodies, 00:20:03.119 --> 00:20:04.719 the funny body theory, this one. 00:20:05.579 --> 00:20:07.289 Commodity, let's say it's a physical commodity, 00:20:07.289 --> 00:20:08.940 has a physical body, 00:20:08.940 --> 00:20:12.360 but its value body, which adheres to its physical body, 00:20:12.359 --> 00:20:13.529 and in fact it's the other way around, 00:20:13.529 --> 00:20:15.299 the physical body only moves around 00:20:15.299 --> 00:20:16.680 because it has a value body, 00:20:16.680 --> 00:20:19.080 it's only made because it's making a value body 00:20:19.079 --> 00:20:20.159 at the same time, 00:20:20.160 --> 00:20:22.500 it's only traded because it has a value body, 00:20:22.500 --> 00:20:24.450 the value body you can't see. 00:20:24.450 --> 00:20:26.460 But you understand Marx is using 00:20:26.460 --> 00:20:29.400 a kind of idealist vocabulary here 00:20:29.400 --> 00:20:33.780 to demonstrate to you that capitalism is a religion. 00:20:33.779 --> 00:20:35.069 Something like a religion. 00:20:35.069 --> 00:20:37.230 It has these phantasms 00:20:37.230 --> 00:20:39.089 that are absolutely real in the system, 00:20:39.089 --> 00:20:40.682 you can't live without them, 00:20:42.599 --> 00:20:45.872 and they can't be wished away psychologically. 00:20:48.420 --> 00:20:49.980 - I guess I'm kind of stuck, 00:20:49.980 --> 00:20:52.470 that if the body plays a role, a use value, 00:20:52.470 --> 00:20:54.329 which plays a use in value, 00:20:54.329 --> 00:20:57.480 which plays a role in value objecthood, 00:20:57.480 --> 00:20:59.779 how does the body not play a role within loss? 00:21:00.630 --> 00:21:02.310 And second, a kind of circular thing. 00:21:02.309 --> 00:21:06.240 - Right, well, it is just subordinated. 00:21:06.240 --> 00:21:07.710 - Okay. 00:21:07.710 --> 00:21:09.779 - You know, let's say a digital object, 00:21:09.779 --> 00:21:12.029 it doesn't have a physical body. 00:21:12.029 --> 00:21:14.549 It's related to some physical residing place 00:21:14.549 --> 00:21:19.139 which uses a ton of electricity, but let's just say. 00:21:19.140 --> 00:21:23.670 It has some sort of distinct boundaries as a use item. 00:21:23.670 --> 00:21:25.529 Right? This PDF. 00:21:25.529 --> 00:21:27.363 Distinct boundaries as a use item. 00:21:28.200 --> 00:21:29.700 All that value requires 00:21:29.700 --> 00:21:32.400 is that it has distinct boundaries as a use item 00:21:32.400 --> 00:21:34.923 and that someone needs to use it for something. 00:21:36.059 --> 00:21:37.889 But that gets completely subordinated. 00:21:37.890 --> 00:21:39.390 In fact, in the end, 00:21:39.390 --> 00:21:42.630 the things are made only because of their value body. 00:21:42.630 --> 00:21:44.100 So it gets subordinated 00:21:44.099 --> 00:21:48.449 from the very cause of their existence later down the line. 00:21:48.450 --> 00:21:51.569 It isn't that value is added on in capitalism, 00:21:51.569 --> 00:21:56.569 this is a mistake that some mainstream economists make 00:21:56.910 --> 00:21:58.140 that he wants to avoid. 00:21:58.140 --> 00:21:59.759 Value is not added on. 00:21:59.759 --> 00:22:03.509 The whole system will work such that value comes first, 00:22:03.509 --> 00:22:06.269 and in fact, it's only because there's going to be value 00:22:06.269 --> 00:22:08.099 that you decide between a physical body. 00:22:08.099 --> 00:22:09.929 Imagine, you're gonna make a business. 00:22:09.930 --> 00:22:11.400 Am I gonna make water bottles? 00:22:11.400 --> 00:22:14.160 Sneakers? Digital objects? 00:22:14.160 --> 00:22:17.040 Bitcoin? What am I gonna make? 00:22:17.039 --> 00:22:19.893 It's all determined by value to some degree. 00:22:21.630 --> 00:22:22.530 Even if you're like, 00:22:22.529 --> 00:22:27.529 how I really like to make big, metal, ugly electric trucks 00:22:28.109 --> 00:22:30.059 that never come off the assembly lines. 00:22:31.769 --> 00:22:34.230 You might think this is like a designer's dream, 00:22:34.230 --> 00:22:36.779 but no, there had to be a market for it to begin with. 00:22:36.779 --> 00:22:39.389 The market figures into the decision-making. 00:22:39.390 --> 00:22:40.980 So the idea of capital 00:22:40.980 --> 00:22:44.430 is that it turns those relations around. 00:22:44.430 --> 00:22:45.990 We have to talk about value form. 00:22:45.990 --> 00:22:46.920 David, quickly. 00:22:46.920 --> 00:22:48.150 - Yeah, could you talk a bit more 00:22:48.150 --> 00:22:50.340 about why it's use value and not exchange value 00:22:50.339 --> 00:22:54.929 that performs a function of differentiation in labor? 00:22:54.930 --> 00:22:55.763 Because I take it, 00:22:55.762 --> 00:22:58.259 and maybe this is what Marx goes to in Volume 3, 00:22:58.259 --> 00:23:00.660 but it seems to me the capitalist logic 00:23:00.660 --> 00:23:02.759 and the competition that it entails 00:23:02.759 --> 00:23:05.369 actually forces firms and producers 00:23:05.369 --> 00:23:07.469 to try to minimize their exchange value, 00:23:07.470 --> 00:23:10.043 and that's what's determining the social division of labor. 00:23:11.460 --> 00:23:12.390 - So the question is, 00:23:12.390 --> 00:23:15.870 why does use value determine the social division of labor? 00:23:15.869 --> 00:23:17.792 And that is, 00:23:21.029 --> 00:23:23.039 let's say for now, 00:23:23.039 --> 00:23:25.202 we'll say only in production, 00:23:26.339 --> 00:23:30.029 and only because use value is a necessary 00:23:30.029 --> 00:23:34.232 but insufficient cause for value. 00:23:35.430 --> 00:23:38.850 And I guess because of a practical consideration, 00:23:38.849 --> 00:23:41.399 I think this is the best way to think about it, 00:23:41.400 --> 00:23:42.840 in Marxian terms, 00:23:42.839 --> 00:23:46.199 use value becomes the content of value, 00:23:46.200 --> 00:23:47.580 and value becomes the form. 00:23:47.579 --> 00:23:49.949 So value carries around this use value. 00:23:49.950 --> 00:23:50.910 It can't do without it, 00:23:50.910 --> 00:23:53.210 because if no one ends up using it in the end, 00:23:54.106 --> 00:23:55.829 the value disappears. 00:23:55.829 --> 00:23:58.802 But it is at the behest of value that it moves around. 00:24:01.380 --> 00:24:06.380 And ultimately too, value depends in part on use value, 00:24:06.990 --> 00:24:08.940 but much more in the capital system 00:24:08.940 --> 00:24:10.833 does use value depend on value. 00:24:11.789 --> 00:24:13.339 That's what we call innovation, 00:24:14.730 --> 00:24:17.339 entrepreneurship and innovation. 00:24:17.339 --> 00:24:18.539 That's where value, 00:24:18.539 --> 00:24:20.639 like, where could we find the most value? 00:24:20.640 --> 00:24:23.220 Let's invent this crap, 00:24:23.220 --> 00:24:26.309 this giant pile of crap, like AI. 00:24:26.309 --> 00:24:27.299 Let's invent this. 00:24:27.299 --> 00:24:31.409 Let's give $150 million to support this here, 00:24:31.410 --> 00:24:33.990 because value's gonna come out of it, we can't not do it. 00:24:33.990 --> 00:24:37.019 You can't not do it, you'll fall behind, 00:24:37.019 --> 00:24:39.329 you'll become like a small liberal arts college 00:24:39.329 --> 00:24:40.383 with no research. 00:24:45.420 --> 00:24:47.329 You better cut this out of the video. 00:24:47.328 --> 00:24:50.250 (students laughing) 00:24:50.250 --> 00:24:55.250 So the system depends on, 00:24:56.339 --> 00:24:59.069 but takes completely under its control, 00:24:59.069 --> 00:25:01.710 a variety of qualitatively different things. 00:25:01.710 --> 00:25:05.250 So it requires this as, we'll call it a basis, 00:25:05.250 --> 00:25:06.390 a use value basis, 00:25:06.390 --> 00:25:09.243 and that's what determines the social division of labor. 00:25:10.765 --> 00:25:13.620 There's other divisions in the labor field, 00:25:13.619 --> 00:25:15.750 like merchants and truck drivers, 00:25:15.750 --> 00:25:17.130 and other people 00:25:17.130 --> 00:25:19.260 who are not directly involved in production. 00:25:19.259 --> 00:25:20.730 There's a division of labor there too 00:25:20.730 --> 00:25:22.440 that has to do with circulation. 00:25:22.440 --> 00:25:23.850 But for now, we're not talking about this, 00:25:23.849 --> 00:25:26.969 we're talking about how a socialist economy 00:25:26.970 --> 00:25:28.559 where everybody's making something, 00:25:28.559 --> 00:25:32.129 and they exchange it without exploiting one another, 00:25:32.130 --> 00:25:33.727 and they're in control so they can say, 00:25:33.727 --> 00:25:35.277 "Hey, that's exploitation," 00:25:37.410 --> 00:25:40.620 is the beginning and the end of capitalism. 00:25:40.619 --> 00:25:43.109 It's in there, we actually are socialists. 00:25:43.109 --> 00:25:45.509 When you get to the chapter on cooperation, 00:25:45.509 --> 00:25:47.859 you'll discover that we already are socialists. 00:25:50.728 --> 00:25:55.533 Okay, section three, the value form or exchange value. 00:26:04.440 --> 00:26:07.890 This is a complicated section, confusing. 00:26:07.890 --> 00:26:09.630 It is developmental, 00:26:09.630 --> 00:26:12.330 so you can see that you go from 00:26:12.329 --> 00:26:14.579 simple or individual value form, 00:26:14.579 --> 00:26:16.470 to total or expanded value form, 00:26:16.470 --> 00:26:21.210 to the general value form, to money. 00:26:21.210 --> 00:26:23.789 Money's the big one, the biggest fetish, 00:26:23.789 --> 00:26:27.032 that without which the sine qua non of capitalism, 00:26:28.079 --> 00:26:29.460 for a number of reasons, 00:26:29.460 --> 00:26:32.789 you can see that Marx is a pragmatist in this way, 00:26:32.789 --> 00:26:34.230 he doesn't want to tell you, 00:26:34.230 --> 00:26:35.819 he doesn't wanna define capitalism, 00:26:35.819 --> 00:26:38.399 give you some sort of lofty, theoretical explanation, 00:26:38.400 --> 00:26:40.110 he wants to tell you how it works. 00:26:40.109 --> 00:26:42.179 These are the operations, 00:26:42.180 --> 00:26:43.170 as if it were like 00:26:43.170 --> 00:26:47.913 a kind of quasi-ideal, quasi-material factory, capital, 00:26:50.460 --> 00:26:54.029 that equates things, that reflects things, 00:26:54.029 --> 00:26:58.230 that reifies things, that transforms value. 00:26:58.230 --> 00:26:59.910 So it's absolutely crucial 00:26:59.910 --> 00:27:01.110 for everything that comes after 00:27:01.109 --> 00:27:05.579 to know that value transforms, comes in different forms. 00:27:05.579 --> 00:27:06.750 Two of its main forms, 00:27:06.750 --> 00:27:08.579 which we'll get to I think for next week, 00:27:08.579 --> 00:27:10.679 are the commodity, 00:27:10.680 --> 00:27:12.930 and money, which is a special type of commodity 00:27:12.930 --> 00:27:14.529 that takes on a life of its own. 00:27:16.289 --> 00:27:17.159 But before we get there, 00:27:17.160 --> 00:27:19.050 he's gonna derive these theoretically, 00:27:19.049 --> 00:27:21.722 analytically in steps. 00:27:22.680 --> 00:27:24.603 Value takes different forms. 00:27:28.079 --> 00:27:32.913 And it does this through and for exchange. 00:27:35.099 --> 00:27:37.799 Now our entry point is widening out, 00:27:37.799 --> 00:27:39.359 as you go deeper into the commodity, 00:27:39.359 --> 00:27:42.689 it opens up a whole vista for you 00:27:42.690 --> 00:27:44.640 within the commodity and among commodities. 00:27:44.640 --> 00:27:46.410 It turns out that a commodity is not a commodity 00:27:46.410 --> 00:27:48.630 if there isn't another commodity 00:27:48.630 --> 00:27:50.647 through which it reflects itself to say, 00:27:50.646 --> 00:27:51.569 "I am a commodity. 00:27:51.569 --> 00:27:54.866 I'm this commodity, and this is how much I'm worth." 00:28:00.960 --> 00:28:03.360 Value has to have a number of forms 00:28:03.359 --> 00:28:06.359 and a constant cycle of transformations through those forms 00:28:06.359 --> 00:28:09.869 as if it were the kind of work of the capital system 00:28:09.869 --> 00:28:11.789 to be putting these things through its form. 00:28:11.789 --> 00:28:15.720 You cannot do capital, which we haven't brought up yet, 00:28:15.720 --> 00:28:20.720 which is value that makes more value out of the same value. 00:28:22.500 --> 00:28:26.430 That's the mystified account of capital, 00:28:26.430 --> 00:28:27.480 let's stick with that for a minute, 00:28:27.480 --> 00:28:30.269 value that makes more value out of the same value. 00:28:30.269 --> 00:28:31.440 You can't have capital 00:28:31.440 --> 00:28:34.620 unless you can transform a commodity into money. 00:28:34.619 --> 00:28:36.209 We call that a sale. 00:28:36.210 --> 00:28:39.210 We also call it a purchase, so that's confusing. 00:28:39.210 --> 00:28:40.920 There are perspectives involved in this 00:28:40.920 --> 00:28:44.493 in which things look different than from other perspectives. 00:28:46.019 --> 00:28:48.180 This cycle of value forms, 00:28:48.180 --> 00:28:49.890 which is crucial to the capital system, 00:28:49.890 --> 00:28:53.190 depends on money as its lubricant, 00:28:53.190 --> 00:28:55.380 as it's representative, 00:28:55.380 --> 00:28:59.147 as a mode of delay, right? 00:29:01.049 --> 00:29:04.113 If I need to, how does it delay? 00:29:06.450 --> 00:29:08.759 I give you money, and you have that money, 00:29:08.759 --> 00:29:11.549 and it gives you time to go and buy 00:29:11.549 --> 00:29:13.742 whatever the next thing you wanna buy is. 00:29:14.579 --> 00:29:17.730 You don't have to do it immediately as in a barter system, 00:29:17.730 --> 00:29:19.380 I guess you could barter around a lot, 00:29:19.380 --> 00:29:21.123 but that's very time-consuming. 00:29:22.920 --> 00:29:23.940 Okay so, as usual, 00:29:23.940 --> 00:29:27.299 he starts with the simple or individual value form. 00:29:27.299 --> 00:29:30.149 This, again, is a conceptual heuristic, 00:29:30.150 --> 00:29:32.580 it's an analytic construction, but it is powerful, 00:29:32.579 --> 00:29:34.712 So, let's look at page 25, 00:29:35.730 --> 00:29:37.563 simple or individual value form. 00:29:39.397 --> 00:29:41.459 He says, "The entire mystery of the value form 00:29:41.460 --> 00:29:44.130 lies hidden in this simple value form, 00:29:44.130 --> 00:29:47.010 to analyze this form is therefore our real challenge." 00:29:47.009 --> 00:29:48.542 This is the bottom of page 25. 00:29:49.680 --> 00:29:51.423 He likes to make grand statements. 00:29:53.047 --> 00:29:54.450 "Here are two different commodities, 00:29:54.450 --> 00:29:56.490 A and B, the linen and the coat. 00:29:56.490 --> 00:29:59.160 They play two distinctively different roles, as we can see. 00:29:59.160 --> 00:30:01.529 The linen expresses its value through the coat, 00:30:01.529 --> 00:30:03.299 the coat serves as the material 00:30:03.299 --> 00:30:05.307 for expressing the linen's value." 00:30:06.690 --> 00:30:08.850 So you can see that one becomes the form 00:30:08.849 --> 00:30:10.469 and one becomes the content, 00:30:10.470 --> 00:30:12.059 or one becomes the expression 00:30:12.059 --> 00:30:14.460 and the other becomes the expressed. 00:30:14.460 --> 00:30:16.079 One becomes the representation, 00:30:16.079 --> 00:30:18.269 the other becomes the represented. 00:30:18.269 --> 00:30:21.569 Or one is a mirror that reflects 00:30:21.569 --> 00:30:25.710 only the value quality of the thing that is reflected in it. 00:30:25.710 --> 00:30:28.019 This is Marx's image, and it's a very good one. 00:30:28.019 --> 00:30:30.089 It's a peculiar mirror. 00:30:30.089 --> 00:30:31.949 It's not the distorting mirror, 00:30:31.950 --> 00:30:33.930 it gives a reflective determination. 00:30:33.930 --> 00:30:36.360 This is a Hegelian term from the Logic. 00:30:36.359 --> 00:30:39.329 It's a funny way to think about how things come to be. 00:30:39.329 --> 00:30:44.329 I come to be because, next to you, I look like this. 00:30:45.420 --> 00:30:49.050 Like, if I'm standing next to a tree, I look like a human. 00:30:49.049 --> 00:30:53.039 If I'm standing next to a child human, I look like an adult. 00:30:53.039 --> 00:30:55.680 My being is reflected through that other being 00:30:55.680 --> 00:30:57.570 and gets its specific determinations 00:30:57.569 --> 00:30:59.369 by the relationship between the two. 00:31:00.750 --> 00:31:01.950 Do you have a question, Zoe? 00:31:01.950 --> 00:31:03.289 - Yeah. 00:31:03.289 --> 00:31:08.156 Why is value becoming the form and not the content? 00:31:08.156 --> 00:31:13.126 - Why is value then becoming the form and not the content? 00:31:13.126 --> 00:31:14.613 That's a good question. 00:31:21.750 --> 00:31:23.819 Value forms. 00:31:23.819 --> 00:31:25.980 What is, what content? 00:31:25.980 --> 00:31:30.450 I think the content is value, but it takes different forms. 00:31:30.450 --> 00:31:32.850 There's no other content but value here either, 00:31:32.849 --> 00:31:36.299 so maybe the form content distinction 00:31:36.299 --> 00:31:39.509 is not so important here as the transformation, 00:31:39.509 --> 00:31:42.900 the metamorphosis of one thing into the next. 00:31:42.900 --> 00:31:46.590 That's a term that he uses a lot as well, metamorphosis. 00:31:46.589 --> 00:31:49.372 Let's talk about it and see if we can answer your question. 00:31:54.990 --> 00:31:57.269 The linen expresses its value through the coat. 00:31:57.269 --> 00:31:59.639 No thing can express its value itself. 00:31:59.640 --> 00:32:01.500 It'd be like my saying, 00:32:01.500 --> 00:32:03.930 Leland, I'll trade you your white shirt 00:32:03.930 --> 00:32:05.789 for your white shirt. 00:32:05.789 --> 00:32:07.170 You're like, "Huh?" 00:32:07.170 --> 00:32:08.400 That's not getting me anywhere, 00:32:08.400 --> 00:32:10.680 in terms of use value or value. 00:32:10.680 --> 00:32:11.580 From that idea, 00:32:11.579 --> 00:32:13.769 you can derive the whole capital system as well 00:32:13.769 --> 00:32:14.970 if you want to. 00:32:14.970 --> 00:32:16.890 It has to be qualitatively different things, 00:32:16.890 --> 00:32:18.540 they have to be useful to someone 00:32:19.380 --> 00:32:20.910 and then you trade them. 00:32:20.910 --> 00:32:22.560 Value arises when you put together 00:32:22.559 --> 00:32:23.759 qualitatively different things. 00:32:23.759 --> 00:32:25.769 Because why else would I say 00:32:25.769 --> 00:32:29.522 I'm trading you a book for a shirt? 00:32:30.359 --> 00:32:33.452 How would you possibly know that was a good trade? 00:32:39.119 --> 00:32:41.159 The first commodity plays an active role, 00:32:41.160 --> 00:32:42.960 the second plays a passive one. 00:32:42.960 --> 00:32:44.460 The value of the first commodity 00:32:44.460 --> 00:32:46.590 is represented as relative value, 00:32:46.589 --> 00:32:49.199 the commodity is in the relative value form. 00:32:49.200 --> 00:32:51.690 The second commodity acts as the equivalent, 00:32:51.690 --> 00:32:53.373 it is in the equivalent form. 00:32:55.769 --> 00:32:59.490 As you saw when you moved to the second section of this, 00:32:59.490 --> 00:33:00.359 an equivalent form 00:33:00.359 --> 00:33:02.399 can have many, many, many, many relatives, 00:33:02.400 --> 00:33:04.680 can have infinite relatives. 00:33:04.680 --> 00:33:07.890 If we didn't have that, we wouldn't be able to have money. 00:33:07.890 --> 00:33:11.009 Money is the universal equivalent 00:33:11.009 --> 00:33:14.970 to which anything that has value can become the relative. 00:33:14.970 --> 00:33:16.620 They're all relative to money, 00:33:16.619 --> 00:33:17.919 that's another way to say, 00:33:20.130 --> 00:33:24.150 to say the difference that the capital system makes, 00:33:24.150 --> 00:33:26.730 every commodity is relative to money. 00:33:26.730 --> 00:33:30.000 But he shows you how money takes over, 00:33:30.000 --> 00:33:31.710 and this is true historically too, 00:33:31.710 --> 00:33:34.440 from a specific commodity that had a certain value 00:33:34.440 --> 00:33:35.940 and maybe had certain qualities 00:33:35.940 --> 00:33:40.023 that made it easy to cut up in pieces or weigh. 00:33:40.890 --> 00:33:42.930 He will say, in the money section, 00:33:42.930 --> 00:33:45.960 it's interesting that most money names are weight names 00:33:45.960 --> 00:33:48.539 for the metals that represented money 00:33:48.539 --> 00:33:49.889 so it's easy to quantify them. 00:33:49.890 --> 00:33:51.360 Easy to quantify, right? 00:33:51.359 --> 00:33:53.459 Coats, eh, you know, 00:33:53.460 --> 00:33:55.319 like, "Here, have a piece of gum. 00:33:55.319 --> 00:33:58.950 Okay, I'll give you 1/100th of my coat." 00:33:58.950 --> 00:34:00.779 Makes it a little bit difficult. 00:34:00.779 --> 00:34:02.700 Again, these are practical considerations, 00:34:02.700 --> 00:34:04.529 how can exchanges be made? 00:34:04.529 --> 00:34:08.219 And the forms take off from the practical considerations. 00:34:08.219 --> 00:34:09.779 Okay, in value formation, 00:34:09.780 --> 00:34:13.293 there are at least three operations. 00:34:14.340 --> 00:34:16.980 Expression or reflection, which are the same thing, 00:34:16.980 --> 00:34:19.409 reflection is the form of expression here. 00:34:19.409 --> 00:34:21.632 Equivalence and objectification. 00:34:23.880 --> 00:34:26.970 Only if I reflect my value in the other thing, 00:34:26.969 --> 00:34:28.589 can I have an equivalence, 00:34:28.590 --> 00:34:31.890 'cause I know how many of that thing is worth anything, 00:34:31.889 --> 00:34:34.500 and it has to be objectified in a thing 00:34:34.500 --> 00:34:37.293 so it has a bounded limit, and I can count them. 00:34:38.579 --> 00:34:39.630 Does that make sense? 00:34:47.400 --> 00:34:49.829 Remembering that the value object 00:34:49.829 --> 00:34:53.670 is not continuous with the physical object, 00:34:53.670 --> 00:34:56.190 because there may be many qualities in the physical object, 00:34:56.190 --> 00:34:59.670 or non-physical object, that don't contribute to its value 00:34:59.670 --> 00:35:02.070 and that don't take away from its value. 00:35:02.070 --> 00:35:05.160 You could see a seat can be any color, 00:35:05.159 --> 00:35:08.219 even the most hideous possible fabric. 00:35:08.219 --> 00:35:10.559 Okay, we've added something to our question 00:35:10.559 --> 00:35:11.853 about what value is. 00:35:12.750 --> 00:35:15.659 Value is something that is always in a particular form, 00:35:15.659 --> 00:35:19.889 relative form, equivalent form, simple forms, 00:35:19.889 --> 00:35:22.559 complex forms, expanded forms, 00:35:22.559 --> 00:35:24.572 as a commodity, as money, 00:35:26.369 --> 00:35:30.063 as labor, which is a commodity too. 00:35:31.889 --> 00:35:34.518 But it only exists in relations. 00:35:34.518 --> 00:35:37.980 You can take something out of the market for a little while, 00:35:37.980 --> 00:35:39.599 but if you took it completely out of the market, 00:35:39.599 --> 00:35:40.619 it would be valueless, 00:35:40.619 --> 00:35:42.819 if you separated it totally from the market. 00:35:45.891 --> 00:35:46.724 Okay. 00:35:54.119 --> 00:35:57.869 It is in this exchange of reflection 00:35:57.869 --> 00:36:00.869 that things get homogenized. 00:36:00.869 --> 00:36:03.663 A commodity becomes a gelatinous blob of value. 00:36:04.500 --> 00:36:05.849 A bare, gelatinous blob, 00:36:05.849 --> 00:36:08.579 it's coming to be a very unappetizing thing, 00:36:08.579 --> 00:36:11.039 a bare gelatinous blob of value 00:36:11.039 --> 00:36:15.119 when it reflects through this mirror that says 00:36:15.119 --> 00:36:17.552 you're worth one of me, you're worth two of me. 00:36:22.980 --> 00:36:24.932 It is headed for that since production, 00:36:26.190 --> 00:36:27.750 the owners, the managers, 00:36:27.750 --> 00:36:30.869 the efficiency coordinators, the supervisors, 00:36:30.869 --> 00:36:34.230 even the workers who have internalized this, 00:36:34.230 --> 00:36:36.690 they know that they better get the value 00:36:36.690 --> 00:36:38.373 in its gelatinous blob in there, 00:36:39.750 --> 00:36:41.432 you know, whatever it is, 00:36:42.780 --> 00:36:43.893 however much it is. 00:36:45.840 --> 00:36:48.990 But it doesn't show up, it doesn't identify itself, 00:36:48.989 --> 00:36:51.719 it shows itself in exchange. 00:36:51.719 --> 00:36:55.079 And simple exchange is the the heuristic form 00:36:55.079 --> 00:36:57.059 in which he can show you how value shows itself. 00:36:57.059 --> 00:37:00.929 It says, "Oh, I'm a coat," when it is not a coat. 00:37:00.929 --> 00:37:01.916 Or, "I'm money." 00:37:03.210 --> 00:37:07.559 This is, if you want to know, an ontology of equivalence, 00:37:07.559 --> 00:37:10.023 this is where the is means equals. 00:37:13.019 --> 00:37:14.429 Which is another way to say 00:37:14.429 --> 00:37:19.139 what economism does to sociality, is means equals. 00:37:19.139 --> 00:37:22.592 These things, for the purpose of value, are equivalent. 00:37:23.849 --> 00:37:25.440 Nothing is equivalent to itself, 00:37:25.440 --> 00:37:27.840 so that's why it needs the panoply of use values 00:37:27.840 --> 00:37:30.150 and the social division of labor to keep that up. 00:37:30.150 --> 00:37:32.670 You couldn't trade, right, 00:37:32.670 --> 00:37:36.240 imagine we all started making the same widget. 00:37:36.239 --> 00:37:38.609 This would be like a funny movie, 00:37:38.610 --> 00:37:41.059 or a tragedy depending on how you think about it. 00:37:42.570 --> 00:37:44.720 There's no value if there's only one thing. 00:37:48.449 --> 00:37:50.039 And equivalence is an operation 00:37:50.039 --> 00:37:52.353 for making unlike things exchangeable. 00:37:57.210 --> 00:38:00.720 You can see that equivalence in the equivalent form 00:38:00.719 --> 00:38:05.199 is where the socially necessary average labor time 00:38:06.300 --> 00:38:07.323 meets the road. 00:38:17.489 --> 00:38:20.406 He says on 28, towards the top, 00:38:20.407 --> 00:38:23.970 "Equating it, tailoring with weaving, 00:38:23.969 --> 00:38:25.529 does in fact reduce the tailoring 00:38:25.530 --> 00:38:28.230 to what is actually the same and both forms of labor, 00:38:28.230 --> 00:38:30.210 to their common character as human labor." 00:38:30.210 --> 00:38:32.159 Philosophically, this is very interesting, 00:38:32.159 --> 00:38:35.279 because nothing has to go on in anyone's mind, 00:38:35.280 --> 00:38:37.170 nothing has to go on in any kind of logic, 00:38:37.170 --> 00:38:39.150 you don't need a metaphysics for this. 00:38:39.150 --> 00:38:41.950 This is what happens when you put these things together. 00:38:43.500 --> 00:38:45.599 It conjures up something that must be the same 00:38:45.599 --> 00:38:46.432 in both of them. 00:38:49.769 --> 00:38:50.909 And it brings into view 00:38:50.909 --> 00:38:53.519 the specific character of value generating labor, 00:38:53.519 --> 00:38:54.353 and it does that 00:38:54.353 --> 00:38:56.220 by actually reducing the different forms of labor 00:38:56.219 --> 00:38:58.379 embedded in the different kinds of commodities 00:38:58.380 --> 00:39:01.500 to their common something, human labor as such. 00:39:01.500 --> 00:39:03.210 These are very important foundations 00:39:03.210 --> 00:39:07.653 for understanding this market sociality that we live in. 00:39:17.010 --> 00:39:20.430 It requires the operation of expressing your value 00:39:20.429 --> 00:39:21.839 through something else, 00:39:21.840 --> 00:39:24.780 of reflecting your being into something else. 00:39:24.780 --> 00:39:29.250 And eventually, the entire commodity phantasmagorium, 00:39:29.250 --> 00:39:32.670 the entire world of commodities has to exist 00:39:32.670 --> 00:39:34.889 and be constantly interacting with one another 00:39:34.889 --> 00:39:37.089 as potential relatives and equivalents 00:39:38.309 --> 00:39:40.469 to make anything have its own value. 00:39:40.469 --> 00:39:44.309 So you really need capitalism developed in its full extent. 00:39:44.309 --> 00:39:47.610 Even if it's not geographically taken over the world, 00:39:47.610 --> 00:39:49.890 it has to be a full capital system 00:39:49.889 --> 00:39:52.259 for any bit of value to exist. 00:39:52.260 --> 00:39:56.670 Again, so this is a theoretical abstraction 00:39:56.670 --> 00:39:58.260 talking about just a simple form. 00:39:58.260 --> 00:39:59.093 Yeah? 00:39:59.092 --> 00:40:01.206 - Is there also a way in which we just, 00:40:01.206 --> 00:40:02.039 (student speaking faintly) 00:40:02.039 --> 00:40:02.873 in homogenized labors, 00:40:02.873 --> 00:40:07.289 saying like this person's, you know, labor is worth $18. 00:40:07.289 --> 00:40:09.719 Say like I'm a proofreader or whatever, 00:40:09.719 --> 00:40:11.009 and I'm making $18 an hour, 00:40:11.010 --> 00:40:12.330 someone working as tailor, 00:40:12.329 --> 00:40:14.309 they're also making $18 an hour, right? 00:40:14.309 --> 00:40:17.279 Does that equivalence of value, 00:40:17.280 --> 00:40:19.980 to be ascribed to a standard labor, also do this? 00:40:19.980 --> 00:40:24.780 - Labor is a commodity, but it is the strangest commodity, 00:40:24.780 --> 00:40:26.430 and its value is determined 00:40:26.429 --> 00:40:28.440 by the amount you need to pay someone 00:40:28.440 --> 00:40:30.483 for them to reproduce their labor power. 00:40:32.070 --> 00:40:33.300 So that's different than a commodity, 00:40:33.300 --> 00:40:34.590 it doesn't have to reproduce itself, 00:40:34.590 --> 00:40:38.039 it can be totally consumed, but labor cannot be. 00:40:38.039 --> 00:40:43.019 And the value of labor is also a lie, 00:40:43.019 --> 00:40:44.702 a very pernicious fetish, 00:40:45.599 --> 00:40:49.922 because it conceals the exploitation, 00:40:50.849 --> 00:40:53.522 the production of surplus value, 00:40:54.750 --> 00:40:56.282 the extraction of free labor. 00:40:57.376 --> 00:40:58.950 We're getting there. 00:40:58.949 --> 00:41:00.059 Yes? 00:41:00.059 --> 00:41:02.070 - I'm just getting confused about like, 00:41:02.070 --> 00:41:04.650 us moving between capitalism as law 00:41:04.650 --> 00:41:06.539 and capitalism as religion. 00:41:06.539 --> 00:41:09.779 Like, how is capitalism both like this mechanistic system 00:41:09.780 --> 00:41:13.079 of shifting gears and also a very spectacular system, 00:41:13.079 --> 00:41:14.162 or why? 00:41:14.161 --> 00:41:16.019 - Great question. 00:41:16.019 --> 00:41:17.159 The question was, 00:41:17.159 --> 00:41:21.089 how is capitalism like a law, or a mechanism, or a system, 00:41:21.090 --> 00:41:24.240 and how is it like a religion both at the same time? 00:41:24.239 --> 00:41:25.109 Well, I don't know. 00:41:25.110 --> 00:41:26.910 You know, he made this up, 00:41:26.909 --> 00:41:28.259 he was trying to get a handle on it, 00:41:28.260 --> 00:41:31.440 and he was using what he could to understand it. 00:41:31.440 --> 00:41:33.510 For Marx, I would say, 00:41:33.510 --> 00:41:36.333 this is an interesting fact that the, 00:41:38.639 --> 00:41:40.172 how do I wanna say this? 00:41:43.980 --> 00:41:47.670 The images that capital throws up are systematic, 00:41:47.670 --> 00:41:48.782 are systemic. 00:41:50.340 --> 00:41:53.160 These operations are absolutely part of the system. 00:41:53.159 --> 00:41:55.829 They aren't religious in the sense of belief, 00:41:55.829 --> 00:41:57.389 you don't have to believe at all 00:41:57.389 --> 00:41:59.822 that money will buy you love, 00:42:00.989 --> 00:42:01.822 but it will. 00:42:07.679 --> 00:42:09.980 I've got a few good lines myself occasionally. 00:42:12.539 --> 00:42:13.373 Okay. 00:42:15.269 --> 00:42:17.789 When you get to the total or expanded value form, 00:42:17.789 --> 00:42:21.719 you see the world explode into all its commodities, 00:42:21.719 --> 00:42:23.099 and it becomes crazy, 00:42:23.099 --> 00:42:25.409 anything could be exchanged for anything else. 00:42:25.409 --> 00:42:27.539 The question is just how to do that efficiently, 00:42:27.539 --> 00:42:30.858 and the answer is one commodity steps out and says, 00:42:30.858 --> 00:42:33.360 because of certain qualities I have, 00:42:33.360 --> 00:42:35.970 imagine it to be linen, or wampum, 00:42:35.969 --> 00:42:38.789 or in one society, bat wings. 00:42:38.789 --> 00:42:40.922 Don't ask me, it's true. 00:42:42.119 --> 00:42:43.920 Or gold. 00:42:43.920 --> 00:42:45.420 I will devote all of my, 00:42:45.420 --> 00:42:47.400 although I could be used for something else, 00:42:47.400 --> 00:42:50.150 I'll devote all of my energies to being the equivalent. 00:42:51.210 --> 00:42:52.532 It's much more efficient. 00:42:53.550 --> 00:42:54.660 It'd be very hard for us 00:42:54.659 --> 00:42:56.369 to have a full-fledged capital system, 00:42:56.369 --> 00:42:58.980 including bankers who invest, 00:42:58.980 --> 00:43:01.380 if the standard of value is always changing. 00:43:01.380 --> 00:43:03.360 If I was like, "Well, I trade things in bananas," 00:43:03.360 --> 00:43:06.017 and he was like, "Well, I trade things in hair clippings." 00:43:07.170 --> 00:43:09.452 Clearly, I lost out on that deal. 00:43:13.260 --> 00:43:14.490 That's the expanded form, 00:43:14.489 --> 00:43:15.869 we don't have to talk about it too much 00:43:15.869 --> 00:43:17.432 unless you have questions. 00:43:18.449 --> 00:43:20.639 Again, he's building this up conceptually for you, 00:43:20.639 --> 00:43:22.769 which is something a lot of people don't do. 00:43:22.769 --> 00:43:24.449 Marx got that from Hegel. 00:43:24.449 --> 00:43:29.159 It's a beautiful talent to break down a concept 00:43:29.159 --> 00:43:31.832 into the parts that make it make sense. 00:43:38.730 --> 00:43:41.530 There is a peculiarity of the equivalent for him though. 00:43:42.869 --> 00:43:45.420 So we know the equivalent does the reducing, 00:43:45.420 --> 00:43:48.180 it does the homogenizing, right? 00:43:48.179 --> 00:43:50.219 It is an abstracting, homogenizing, 00:43:50.219 --> 00:43:52.139 reducing, averaging mirror. 00:43:52.139 --> 00:43:53.826 It says, you know, 00:43:53.827 --> 00:43:58.197 "Your labor is worth to me 16 bushels of corn." 00:44:00.599 --> 00:44:02.190 Do you notice by the way, that, 00:44:02.190 --> 00:44:04.639 well, has anyone read the Penguin edition before? 00:44:05.610 --> 00:44:06.443 Just bringing that up. 00:44:06.443 --> 00:44:09.960 Well, they translate the German word corn as corn, 00:44:09.960 --> 00:44:11.940 so everyone thought the opening of this 00:44:11.940 --> 00:44:13.470 was all about trading corn for iron, 00:44:13.469 --> 00:44:17.129 but corn in German means grain used for making bread, 00:44:17.130 --> 00:44:19.829 so we translated it as wheat. 00:44:19.829 --> 00:44:22.079 We're getting a lot of flack about the corn problem. 00:44:22.079 --> 00:44:25.623 - Yeah, I guess before we sort of fully skip, 00:44:26.789 --> 00:44:27.960 and this is a question 00:44:27.960 --> 00:44:30.980 that I could read just a little bit in this section, 00:44:30.980 --> 00:44:35.909 why is Marx spending like seven, eight pages 00:44:35.909 --> 00:44:37.299 on the simple value form? 00:44:37.300 --> 00:44:38.282 Whereas it seems like. 00:44:38.282 --> 00:44:39.480 (student speaking faintly) 00:44:39.480 --> 00:44:41.699 - Yes, why is Marx spending so much time 00:44:41.699 --> 00:44:42.929 on the simple value form? 00:44:42.929 --> 00:44:45.750 He says a number of times in here 00:44:45.750 --> 00:44:50.400 that it is like a monad of the whole system, 00:44:50.400 --> 00:44:53.550 it contains the whole system in miniature. 00:44:53.550 --> 00:44:55.230 That's what he thinks, the simple value form. 00:44:55.230 --> 00:44:58.440 The relation between the equivalent and the relative 00:44:58.440 --> 00:45:00.179 is value in miniature. 00:45:00.179 --> 00:45:01.919 This is how it works, practically, 00:45:01.920 --> 00:45:04.070 so that's why he spends so much time there. 00:45:05.280 --> 00:45:06.780 The expanded value form 00:45:06.780 --> 00:45:09.330 just shows you that, with a world of commodities, 00:45:09.329 --> 00:45:11.610 it's not, not only, 00:45:11.610 --> 00:45:13.110 well, it's not efficient I guess I would say, 00:45:13.110 --> 00:45:17.193 it's not even practical to have multiple standards, 00:45:18.119 --> 00:45:19.262 so money emerges. 00:45:21.570 --> 00:45:23.580 A commodity looks in the equivalent form 00:45:23.579 --> 00:45:25.529 and sees itself as value. 00:45:25.530 --> 00:45:26.363 Okay? 00:45:30.929 --> 00:45:34.532 So first, you have concrete labor that makes a useful thing, 00:45:35.639 --> 00:45:37.349 but then it sees itself, 00:45:37.349 --> 00:45:40.110 and he uses these, again, personifying terms, 00:45:40.110 --> 00:45:41.913 to show you how capital works. 00:45:42.869 --> 00:45:46.022 Depersonalizing, de-socializing. 00:45:48.367 --> 00:45:50.789 The thing sees that it's just an expression 00:45:50.789 --> 00:45:51.809 of the abstract labor 00:45:51.809 --> 00:45:54.239 that society deems average for making it, 00:45:54.239 --> 00:45:57.629 and which becomes comparable to all other labors 00:45:57.630 --> 00:45:59.280 in order to be exchanged. 00:45:59.280 --> 00:46:01.833 That's what the coat says back to the linen. 00:46:02.737 --> 00:46:05.550 "Well, you're just as much labor time 00:46:05.550 --> 00:46:07.560 that was socially necessary to make you 00:46:07.559 --> 00:46:10.322 as it was to make three of me. 00:46:12.300 --> 00:46:14.487 And look what you can do with all of this." 00:46:17.639 --> 00:46:21.809 Marx says, and this is important, in the equivalent form, 00:46:21.809 --> 00:46:24.663 labor transforms from private labor to social labor. 00:46:25.860 --> 00:46:28.440 Any individual thing that was made by someone, 00:46:28.440 --> 00:46:30.000 this is why the simple form is important, 00:46:30.000 --> 00:46:33.663 because you can see it in an exploded view, 00:46:34.590 --> 00:46:35.700 goes up against something else 00:46:35.699 --> 00:46:39.809 and realizes that it's related to all other commodities, 00:46:39.809 --> 00:46:41.909 and its labor is averaged 00:46:41.909 --> 00:46:43.759 because everyone else is working too. 00:46:46.619 --> 00:46:49.592 Labor is not private, it is social, or societal. 00:46:51.690 --> 00:46:54.210 Or value is the social form of labor 00:46:54.210 --> 00:46:55.893 in a capitalist society. 00:46:57.360 --> 00:46:59.849 Value is the social or societal form of labor 00:46:59.849 --> 00:47:01.293 in a capitalist society. 00:47:02.880 --> 00:47:06.030 So you can see that the relative forms 00:47:06.030 --> 00:47:08.820 are just kind of wandering around, looking to become value, 00:47:08.820 --> 00:47:11.070 but the equivalent form does a lot of work. 00:47:11.070 --> 00:47:13.470 And when it becomes the universal equivalent, money, 00:47:13.469 --> 00:47:15.359 you can see, it is kind of an operation. 00:47:15.360 --> 00:47:17.403 Money is an operation in itself. 00:47:18.809 --> 00:47:20.820 It takes an internal issue value, 00:47:20.820 --> 00:47:23.730 and externalizes it into something else. 00:47:23.730 --> 00:47:25.710 Capital system would not work 00:47:25.710 --> 00:47:30.090 without the externalized value object 00:47:30.090 --> 00:47:32.430 that becomes the universal equivalent. 00:47:32.429 --> 00:47:34.922 It takes a private issue and socializes it. 00:47:36.389 --> 00:47:38.702 It takes a concrete thing and abstracts it. 00:47:39.630 --> 00:47:42.630 This is why he spends so much time on the simple value form. 00:47:43.980 --> 00:47:46.889 And this is where we could take a couple of questions 00:47:46.889 --> 00:47:48.119 and then stop on time. 00:47:48.119 --> 00:47:49.019 Yes? 00:47:49.019 --> 00:47:51.239 - Yeah, I guess I'm still confused 00:47:51.239 --> 00:47:53.729 as to how Marx makes the jump from, 00:47:53.730 --> 00:47:55.260 and in quite a few pages 00:47:55.260 --> 00:47:58.225 he seems to be saying that the external value 00:47:58.224 --> 00:48:01.110 is the form of value itself, right? 00:48:01.110 --> 00:48:02.460 But in one of its peculiarities 00:48:02.460 --> 00:48:04.710 and mentions about the appearance, 00:48:04.710 --> 00:48:08.460 that the use value becomes the appearance of value itself. 00:48:08.460 --> 00:48:11.099 So how does he make that jump from saying, 00:48:11.099 --> 00:48:14.159 that exchange value becomes the appearance value, 00:48:14.159 --> 00:48:16.659 now he's saying use value is that from our theory? 00:48:17.693 --> 00:48:19.740 - Yeah, I'd have to look back 00:48:19.739 --> 00:48:21.899 and understand when he says that use value 00:48:21.900 --> 00:48:23.190 is the form of appearance. 00:48:23.190 --> 00:48:24.960 But exchange value is the form of appearance, 00:48:24.960 --> 00:48:27.599 you can see it right here in the simple value form. 00:48:27.599 --> 00:48:31.440 When you go to exchange linen for a coat, 00:48:31.440 --> 00:48:36.440 the value in the coat shows up as its exchange value for, 00:48:36.659 --> 00:48:37.889 sorry, the value in the linen 00:48:37.889 --> 00:48:40.322 shows up as its exchange value for the coat. 00:48:41.460 --> 00:48:42.659 It's a very subtle difference, 00:48:42.659 --> 00:48:43.980 it becomes very important later. 00:48:43.980 --> 00:48:44.820 Value is something 00:48:44.820 --> 00:48:46.980 that is supposedly contained in the linen. 00:48:46.980 --> 00:48:50.012 The linen is value, is a value, 00:48:51.000 --> 00:48:51.900 but it only shows up 00:48:51.900 --> 00:48:54.869 when put up against the thing it's gonna be exchanged for. 00:48:54.869 --> 00:48:56.342 That's what he means. 00:48:57.420 --> 00:49:00.090 We act, and we're forced to live, 00:49:00.090 --> 00:49:05.010 as though things have value or are values, right? 00:49:05.010 --> 00:49:07.620 Think of a warehouse full of things to be sold. 00:49:07.619 --> 00:49:09.839 That's value, those are commodities, 00:49:09.840 --> 00:49:11.163 they are value. 00:49:12.449 --> 00:49:13.649 But the value only shows up 00:49:13.650 --> 00:49:15.813 when it's put up against money. 00:49:16.739 --> 00:49:17.759 Yeah? 00:49:17.760 --> 00:49:21.666 - Is Marx invoking Spinoza by saying that the values. 00:49:21.666 --> 00:49:24.300 (student speaking faintly) 00:49:24.300 --> 00:49:26.820 - You could say, people have written about this, 00:49:26.820 --> 00:49:28.230 Althusser, to begin with, 00:49:28.230 --> 00:49:29.733 Jacques Lezra also, 00:49:30.869 --> 00:49:33.779 there is a nod to Spinoza here 00:49:33.780 --> 00:49:35.793 that value is substance, 00:49:37.829 --> 00:49:39.690 and all of the different commodities 00:49:39.690 --> 00:49:42.119 are just kind of attributes of value. 00:49:42.119 --> 00:49:43.670 You could think of it that way, 00:49:45.090 --> 00:49:48.269 but I think we should think of doing fetish next time, 00:49:48.269 --> 00:49:50.670 and we'll try to get you the books. 00:49:50.670 --> 00:49:53.430 We will then move into chapters two to four, 00:49:53.429 --> 00:49:56.672 and nothing will be as crazy as chapter one again. 00:49:58.586 --> 00:50:01.086 (outro music)