WEBVTT 00:00:01.000 --> 00:00:03.916 (compelling music) 00:00:13.589 --> 00:00:16.199 - So, we are starting back into Chapter 1. 00:00:16.199 --> 00:00:20.399 The first seven pages are a kind of a bombshell. 00:00:20.399 --> 00:00:23.250 A lot is contained in them, which will be unfolded later. 00:00:25.140 --> 00:00:28.890 I want to mention that the first few chapters 00:00:28.890 --> 00:00:33.890 have a kind of hypothetical form, 00:00:34.289 --> 00:00:35.759 hypothetical situation. 00:00:35.759 --> 00:00:38.070 They take up simple commodity exchange 00:00:38.070 --> 00:00:39.960 under the capital system. 00:00:39.960 --> 00:00:40.792 That is, more or less, 00:00:40.792 --> 00:00:42.630 if I go to you and try to sell you something 00:00:42.630 --> 00:00:45.540 and you come to me and try to buy something from me. 00:00:45.539 --> 00:00:48.839 This is not possible outside of the whole capital system, 00:00:48.840 --> 00:00:50.400 but he has to find a way in 00:00:50.399 --> 00:00:53.039 and he wanted to find a way in that is familiar to you. 00:00:53.039 --> 00:00:54.990 I call this the entry point, 00:00:54.990 --> 00:00:56.670 and I still, even though it's difficult, 00:00:56.670 --> 00:00:58.679 don't think it's a bad way to start. 00:00:58.679 --> 00:01:00.990 The entry point into the capital system 00:01:00.990 --> 00:01:02.760 is through the commodity, 00:01:02.759 --> 00:01:04.769 and it's very narrow, 00:01:04.769 --> 00:01:07.533 and there's a lot of stuff stuck in that entryway. 00:01:09.659 --> 00:01:12.959 So, keep your eye on the reduced situations 00:01:12.959 --> 00:01:13.949 that Marx gives you, 00:01:13.950 --> 00:01:18.180 like simple commodity exchange between individuals, 00:01:18.180 --> 00:01:20.310 exchanging particular commodities 00:01:20.310 --> 00:01:22.683 from particular concrete acts of production. 00:01:23.730 --> 00:01:26.230 And when he talks about groups 00:01:28.680 --> 00:01:30.660 and phenomena in general, 00:01:30.659 --> 00:01:31.649 these are all different things 00:01:31.650 --> 00:01:33.810 that have to get worked out in their own analysis 00:01:33.810 --> 00:01:34.859 because, ultimately, 00:01:34.859 --> 00:01:36.150 the only way you can understand 00:01:36.150 --> 00:01:37.890 any individual phenomena in this system 00:01:37.890 --> 00:01:40.859 is by starting from the whole. 00:01:40.859 --> 00:01:44.250 This is, of course, impossible to do. 00:01:44.250 --> 00:01:49.109 Maybe the critical of capital can see the whole. 00:01:49.109 --> 00:01:51.692 Maybe Marx, after 30 years, could see the whole, 00:01:52.980 --> 00:01:55.920 but it might not be the case. 00:01:55.920 --> 00:01:57.469 He might not have gotten there. 00:01:58.620 --> 00:02:03.060 So the first four chapters has this heuristic situation, 00:02:03.060 --> 00:02:06.990 simple individuals, concrete commodities, 00:02:06.989 --> 00:02:11.340 and moving from there to the genesis of value 00:02:11.340 --> 00:02:12.712 and towards general questions 00:02:12.711 --> 00:02:16.409 and universal questions in this system. 00:02:16.409 --> 00:02:18.030 Anything universal, by the way, 00:02:18.030 --> 00:02:20.490 is historically bounded to the capital system. 00:02:20.490 --> 00:02:22.320 It's universal, meaning it's necessary, 00:02:22.319 --> 00:02:25.859 and applies in every situation under capital. 00:02:25.860 --> 00:02:29.790 That doesn't mean it's universal in our historical moment 00:02:29.789 --> 00:02:31.679 only where capital is touching it 00:02:31.680 --> 00:02:33.653 because that is a quality of the capital system 00:02:33.652 --> 00:02:35.819 that it universalizes 00:02:35.819 --> 00:02:38.972 and has moments of absolute necessity in it. 00:02:40.979 --> 00:02:42.899 We'll talk more about that as we go through. 00:02:42.900 --> 00:02:44.039 The guiding question 00:02:44.039 --> 00:02:45.840 for our reading of the first four chapters is: 00:02:45.840 --> 00:02:47.163 What is value? 00:02:49.979 --> 00:02:51.329 Where does it come from? 00:02:51.330 --> 00:02:52.469 And what does it do? 00:02:52.469 --> 00:02:56.009 Those are the ways he works out the what-is question 00:02:56.009 --> 00:02:59.399 because it has a source in the system 00:02:59.400 --> 00:03:01.533 and it is an operation. 00:03:02.909 --> 00:03:06.900 And also what is the apparatus that value needs around it 00:03:06.900 --> 00:03:08.733 in order to continue to exist? 00:03:10.469 --> 00:03:11.969 It needs a system. 00:03:11.969 --> 00:03:14.340 It isn't something that works just on its own. 00:03:14.340 --> 00:03:17.582 It calls into existence a system around it. 00:03:19.319 --> 00:03:23.310 His technique is the phenomenology of the commodity, 00:03:23.310 --> 00:03:24.960 this is the first four chapters, 00:03:24.960 --> 00:03:26.703 which I'm calling the entry point. 00:03:28.020 --> 00:03:31.620 It's the most familiar, or at least he thought so, 00:03:31.620 --> 00:03:33.629 even more familiar in a certain sense than labor, 00:03:33.629 --> 00:03:35.229 but he gets to labor right away. 00:03:36.330 --> 00:03:37.469 And it is... 00:03:37.469 --> 00:03:38.650 It's quite narrow 00:03:39.539 --> 00:03:42.299 and you can't totalize the system from the commodity. 00:03:42.300 --> 00:03:44.070 So this is not a book about the commodity. 00:03:44.069 --> 00:03:45.959 This is a book about capital, 00:03:45.960 --> 00:03:48.480 and the way in is through the commodity. 00:03:48.479 --> 00:03:49.709 Does that make sense? 00:03:49.710 --> 00:03:50.969 Because as I said last time, 00:03:50.969 --> 00:03:52.800 capital is not an elemental theory, 00:03:52.800 --> 00:03:55.260 like chemistry, let's say. 00:03:55.259 --> 00:03:56.519 Although chemistry is beautiful 00:03:56.520 --> 00:03:59.909 because the compounds have different emergent qualities 00:03:59.909 --> 00:04:00.742 than the elements. 00:04:00.742 --> 00:04:03.810 So you can't fully explain a compound from its elements. 00:04:03.810 --> 00:04:05.193 And capital is the same. 00:04:08.759 --> 00:04:10.889 So, if you're in doubt, 00:04:10.889 --> 00:04:12.989 I know this sounds like a salesman's trick, 00:04:12.990 --> 00:04:15.360 but if you're in doubt, read on. 00:04:15.360 --> 00:04:16.560 Things don't fully make sense 00:04:16.560 --> 00:04:19.019 from the perspective of the entry point. 00:04:19.019 --> 00:04:21.169 Like, you can't see a house from the foyer. 00:04:22.379 --> 00:04:24.360 You need to go through the rooms first. 00:04:24.360 --> 00:04:25.949 You get a sense of the whole layout. 00:04:25.949 --> 00:04:27.060 And then, it will make sense 00:04:27.060 --> 00:04:28.319 what the foyer does in the house. 00:04:28.319 --> 00:04:29.319 It's an entry point. 00:04:33.959 --> 00:04:37.289 You will go through a set of perspective switches. 00:04:37.290 --> 00:04:38.760 That's what Marx is gonna do for you 00:04:38.759 --> 00:04:41.670 and that's the phenomenological aspect of this book. 00:04:41.670 --> 00:04:44.939 Phenomenology just means the science of appearances 00:04:44.939 --> 00:04:47.129 or the way you experience things. 00:04:47.129 --> 00:04:49.569 Something always appears to someone else 00:04:51.870 --> 00:04:54.769 and it has another form that is the way it doesn't appear. 00:04:56.430 --> 00:04:58.530 And in this phenomenology, 00:04:58.529 --> 00:05:00.419 you will be asked to switch perspectives. 00:05:00.420 --> 00:05:01.980 I'm just gonna give you a little list here, 00:05:01.980 --> 00:05:04.920 from objects to processes, 00:05:04.920 --> 00:05:09.810 from things to ghostly qualities that hang around them, 00:05:09.810 --> 00:05:11.523 from singles to doubles, 00:05:13.139 --> 00:05:15.629 and from elements to the whole. 00:05:15.629 --> 00:05:17.069 These are the perspectives, 00:05:17.069 --> 00:05:18.569 these are the perspective switches 00:05:18.569 --> 00:05:22.230 you're going to be asked to accomplish as you read the book. 00:05:22.230 --> 00:05:25.020 So, it is a kind of training for your psyche, 00:05:25.019 --> 00:05:26.339 for your perceptual apparatus, 00:05:26.339 --> 00:05:27.989 for your understanding apparatus. 00:05:29.579 --> 00:05:31.229 Today, we have an objective, 00:05:31.230 --> 00:05:36.030 which is part of our objective is going to be to define use, 00:05:36.029 --> 00:05:39.209 use value exchange, exchange value, 00:05:39.209 --> 00:05:42.902 and the product of their relationship, which is value. 00:05:45.629 --> 00:05:47.250 You're gonna be introduced to a new term, 00:05:47.250 --> 00:05:49.923 which is value form, it's a Marxian term, 00:05:50.879 --> 00:05:52.230 and it's very important 00:05:52.230 --> 00:05:54.693 for understanding how the capital system works. 00:05:57.149 --> 00:05:59.339 Let's start with value. 00:05:59.339 --> 00:06:02.310 This is what the first seven pages leap into 00:06:02.310 --> 00:06:05.459 and the first four chapters try to define for you. 00:06:05.459 --> 00:06:09.870 You are witnessing the birth of a fantasm value, 00:06:09.870 --> 00:06:13.259 but more than a fantasm, a necessary fantasm, 00:06:13.259 --> 00:06:15.240 like freedom or democracy. 00:06:15.240 --> 00:06:17.370 But those belong to other systems. 00:06:17.370 --> 00:06:20.120 This is the fantasm that belongs to the capital system. 00:06:21.120 --> 00:06:24.360 Value is a fantasm born out of the lopsided relationship 00:06:24.360 --> 00:06:26.819 between use value and exchange value 00:06:26.819 --> 00:06:28.562 or between use and exchange. 00:06:30.689 --> 00:06:33.660 You're gonna hear how it comes to be treated 00:06:33.660 --> 00:06:36.600 as an independent quasi-natural substance, 00:06:36.600 --> 00:06:41.580 something like a substance in the philosophical sense. 00:06:41.579 --> 00:06:43.949 Value is a unique quality of things 00:06:43.949 --> 00:06:45.362 under the capital system. 00:06:46.410 --> 00:06:48.870 You'll see that Marx uses an analogy of weight, 00:06:48.870 --> 00:06:51.209 like in a physical system. 00:06:51.209 --> 00:06:55.529 The capital system has this unique quality called value. 00:06:55.529 --> 00:06:57.839 Value is the weight of the capital system. 00:06:57.839 --> 00:07:00.359 Value is the substance that you can read 00:07:00.360 --> 00:07:02.430 through things like... 00:07:02.430 --> 00:07:04.742 You can read weight in a physical system. 00:07:08.879 --> 00:07:10.704 And there's a whole set of strange operations 00:07:10.704 --> 00:07:12.540 that the capital system uses 00:07:12.540 --> 00:07:14.819 that other social systems don't. 00:07:14.819 --> 00:07:16.349 Reflection, 00:07:16.350 --> 00:07:19.980 comparison, reduction, abstraction, 00:07:19.980 --> 00:07:22.379 reification, or objectification. 00:07:22.379 --> 00:07:25.230 These are all the processes of the capital system. 00:07:25.230 --> 00:07:26.973 This is Marx's discovery. 00:07:29.550 --> 00:07:31.410 I'm gonna give you one definition of value 00:07:31.410 --> 00:07:33.689 and then we'll come back to it a number of times. 00:07:33.689 --> 00:07:36.990 Value is a norm for comparing commodities 00:07:36.990 --> 00:07:40.052 in order to find the right ratio in which to exchange them. 00:07:42.899 --> 00:07:46.199 Value is a norm for comparing commodities 00:07:46.199 --> 00:07:49.502 in order to find the right ratio in which to exchange them. 00:07:51.209 --> 00:07:54.449 This doesn't quite get to the changes, 00:07:54.449 --> 00:07:57.872 the transformation of value, in under the capital system. 00:07:58.889 --> 00:08:03.419 The way it compares commodities, the way it comes to ratios, 00:08:03.420 --> 00:08:04.920 is gonna be different in capital 00:08:04.920 --> 00:08:07.682 than in simple non-capitalist exchange. 00:08:08.730 --> 00:08:10.110 But if you wanna know what value is 00:08:10.110 --> 00:08:11.910 in a non-capital setting, 00:08:11.910 --> 00:08:14.100 it is something like what you need 00:08:14.100 --> 00:08:16.720 when you're not producing solely for yourself 00:08:18.180 --> 00:08:20.160 and you don't live in paradise. 00:08:20.160 --> 00:08:22.230 Or you could say if you don't live in hell 00:08:22.230 --> 00:08:27.230 where desire is 100% and the supply is zero, 00:08:28.230 --> 00:08:29.580 and you don't live in paradise 00:08:29.579 --> 00:08:34.579 where desire is at zero and supply is at 100%. 00:08:35.070 --> 00:08:36.153 You need value. 00:08:37.080 --> 00:08:39.690 Value is what allows you to trade your thing 00:08:39.690 --> 00:08:42.780 for something else you need with someone else. 00:08:42.779 --> 00:08:47.279 It's the way you decide how many of your thing you're giving 00:08:47.279 --> 00:08:48.879 for how many of the other thing. 00:08:50.009 --> 00:08:51.600 Under the capital system, 00:08:51.600 --> 00:08:56.600 it isn't so much arrived at according to desire or demand, 00:08:57.179 --> 00:08:58.469 even in that case. 00:08:58.470 --> 00:09:03.470 It's arrived at according to reduction, hypothesization, 00:09:05.580 --> 00:09:09.270 equalization, expression, 00:09:09.269 --> 00:09:12.750 mirroring all of these weird processes 00:09:12.750 --> 00:09:14.190 that Marx is gonna lay out for us, 00:09:14.190 --> 00:09:16.560 as though the capital system were really very different 00:09:16.559 --> 00:09:17.909 than any other social system 00:09:17.909 --> 00:09:22.802 because this processes were totally different and abstract. 00:09:25.590 --> 00:09:27.753 Abstraction being one of the processes. 00:09:29.519 --> 00:09:30.539 So, about value, 00:09:30.539 --> 00:09:33.000 Marx is not saying there is something like value, 00:09:33.000 --> 00:09:35.972 like there is a chair in a room, we know this. 00:09:37.289 --> 00:09:38.309 He is saying, however, 00:09:38.309 --> 00:09:41.822 we act as though it's there like a chair in a room. 00:09:42.750 --> 00:09:44.789 It gets objectified. 00:09:44.789 --> 00:09:47.099 It has what he calls ghostly objecthood. 00:09:47.100 --> 00:09:49.899 A great translation by the new translator, Paul Reitter. 00:09:50.909 --> 00:09:52.740 It's true, ghostly objecthood. 00:09:52.740 --> 00:09:55.769 It's a kind of objecthood that you can't touch 00:09:55.769 --> 00:09:57.419 and it can dissolve easily. 00:09:57.419 --> 00:09:59.469 It goes through a lot of transformations. 00:10:00.330 --> 00:10:04.473 Capital has its own ecology and its own physics. 00:10:06.600 --> 00:10:08.790 So, on one hand, value has a subjective side. 00:10:08.789 --> 00:10:10.110 We feel it to be there. 00:10:10.110 --> 00:10:11.257 If someone comes up to you and say, 00:10:11.256 --> 00:10:12.899 "I'll give you this banana for your iPhone," 00:10:12.899 --> 00:10:16.746 you're like, "But that's not worth my iPhone." 00:10:16.746 --> 00:10:17.579 "How do you know?" 00:10:17.580 --> 00:10:18.509 "Well, I feel the value of this. 00:10:18.509 --> 00:10:20.759 I paid for it, or my parents paid for it, 00:10:20.759 --> 00:10:22.620 or the school paid for it, right?" 00:10:22.620 --> 00:10:25.620 You have a sense of its value, but it's not only subjective, 00:10:25.620 --> 00:10:27.570 it is an objective need of the system 00:10:27.570 --> 00:10:29.073 for things to have value. 00:10:32.789 --> 00:10:34.199 So, one thing to keep in mind 00:10:34.200 --> 00:10:36.270 is you cannot do away with value 00:10:36.269 --> 00:10:38.252 just by feeling differently. 00:10:40.769 --> 00:10:42.600 Debunking value is not gonna help you 00:10:42.600 --> 00:10:45.000 with the capital system directly, 00:10:45.000 --> 00:10:47.309 although it will help you make better decisions. 00:10:47.309 --> 00:10:49.259 If you all decided to give away all your stuff 00:10:49.259 --> 00:10:51.509 as if it were valueless, 00:10:51.509 --> 00:10:53.580 you would end up with no stuff, 00:10:53.580 --> 00:10:54.960 but capital would go on happily, 00:10:54.960 --> 00:10:57.360 especially in the people who got it, your stuff. 00:10:58.740 --> 00:10:59.970 Does that make sense? 00:10:59.970 --> 00:11:01.442 We'll track a little bit the difficulties 00:11:01.442 --> 00:11:05.253 in finding positions of resistance to the capital system. 00:11:06.240 --> 00:11:09.873 Debunking or refusing it doesn't seem to be enough. 00:11:13.049 --> 00:11:15.543 Okay, we're starting with value. 00:11:19.049 --> 00:11:22.952 And you'll see, if you open the book, 00:11:25.440 --> 00:11:28.020 we spent last time talking about the vocabulary 00:11:28.019 --> 00:11:29.552 of the opening paragraph. 00:11:33.750 --> 00:11:36.870 He begins talking about what he calls use value, 00:11:36.870 --> 00:11:37.702 which is, by the way, 00:11:37.702 --> 00:11:39.629 already something different than use. 00:11:39.629 --> 00:11:43.470 Value is only in play if you don't have the thing 00:11:43.470 --> 00:11:44.430 or if you're not using it. 00:11:44.429 --> 00:11:45.329 Once you're using a thing, 00:11:45.330 --> 00:11:47.883 it has no value because you have it. 00:11:49.500 --> 00:11:50.600 Once you have a thing, 00:11:50.600 --> 00:11:52.560 it really doesn't have the same kind of value. 00:11:52.559 --> 00:11:54.779 Value is only if it's threatened to be taken away 00:11:54.779 --> 00:11:56.129 or you need to get it. 00:11:56.129 --> 00:12:00.019 Value is a kind of teletechnology, a way... 00:12:01.620 --> 00:12:05.399 of relating to something that you need. 00:12:05.399 --> 00:12:08.100 That thing has value insofar as you need it. 00:12:08.100 --> 00:12:11.430 That is the value insofar as you need it for use, 00:12:11.429 --> 00:12:12.662 he calls a use value. 00:12:14.250 --> 00:12:17.610 This seems like the easiest thing all around, 00:12:17.610 --> 00:12:21.240 although value makes use already in a system of exchange. 00:12:21.240 --> 00:12:23.759 So really outside of an exchange system, 00:12:23.759 --> 00:12:24.720 there's no use value. 00:12:24.720 --> 00:12:25.950 Again, if you're in paradise, 00:12:25.950 --> 00:12:27.570 you don't need to exchange everything. 00:12:27.570 --> 00:12:30.900 Let's say all the smartphones and all the updates 00:12:30.899 --> 00:12:32.340 are all lying around on the ground. 00:12:32.340 --> 00:12:34.920 They fell from the tree of smartphones. 00:12:34.919 --> 00:12:37.879 They don't have any value for you. 00:12:37.879 --> 00:12:40.019 So value again is part of an exchange system. 00:12:40.019 --> 00:12:40.852 Samuel? 00:12:42.120 --> 00:12:46.049 - Can we have a personal sense of value? 00:12:46.049 --> 00:12:49.049 Like, just how much we want something, right? 00:12:49.049 --> 00:12:50.039 If we're in paradise 00:12:50.039 --> 00:12:52.192 and all the updates are lying on the ground, 00:12:54.000 --> 00:12:57.720 we might not need a sense of hierarchy. 00:12:57.720 --> 00:12:59.430 We might not need to hierarchize them, 00:12:59.429 --> 00:13:01.049 but we still couldn't do it, right? 00:13:01.049 --> 00:13:01.882 It's not... 00:13:01.883 --> 00:13:02.913 Doesn't seem like it's a product, 00:13:02.913 --> 00:13:05.070 it's a really straight system. 00:13:05.070 --> 00:13:06.990 - Well, it would be satisfied immediately. 00:13:06.990 --> 00:13:09.149 So, you wouldn't need value. 00:13:09.149 --> 00:13:12.480 Value is the delay of that satisfaction, right? 00:13:12.480 --> 00:13:14.519 Value is what comes into play 00:13:14.519 --> 00:13:17.069 while you're waiting or trying to get something 00:13:17.070 --> 00:13:18.090 that would be use value, 00:13:18.090 --> 00:13:21.690 insofar as it's valuable to you because you need it. 00:13:21.690 --> 00:13:23.146 But if it's right there, 00:13:23.145 --> 00:13:28.145 there's no real value for an infant until the feeder, 00:13:28.529 --> 00:13:30.486 whoever that is, says, 00:13:30.486 --> 00:13:32.730 "I'm tired, you're not gonna eat now." 00:13:32.730 --> 00:13:36.206 And you're like, "Wow, milk, valuable." 00:13:37.950 --> 00:13:39.573 Rudimentary value systems. 00:13:41.519 --> 00:13:45.389 Use values satisfy a human want or need of whatever kind. 00:13:45.389 --> 00:13:49.052 They are multiple, they differ in quality, 00:13:51.330 --> 00:13:53.790 and Marx is not interested in this. 00:13:53.789 --> 00:13:56.099 So, if you're concerned about use things, 00:13:56.100 --> 00:13:58.830 like some people are, who live their life. 00:13:58.830 --> 00:14:00.660 You need a hammer, you need to go get a hammer. 00:14:00.659 --> 00:14:02.339 Marx is not gonna talk about that. 00:14:02.340 --> 00:14:03.173 In the beginning, 00:14:03.173 --> 00:14:07.110 he is setting aside the spheres he's not going to go into, 00:14:07.110 --> 00:14:12.110 and one of them is the infinite world of useful things. 00:14:12.899 --> 00:14:14.490 Anything can become useful, 00:14:14.490 --> 00:14:18.060 and your tasks that you use it for will change 00:14:18.059 --> 00:14:19.319 according to what you imagine, 00:14:19.320 --> 00:14:21.600 according to what someone tells you you need, 00:14:21.600 --> 00:14:26.600 according to what confronts you at any moment. 00:14:27.629 --> 00:14:29.490 This is on page 14. 00:14:29.490 --> 00:14:32.940 The usefulness of a thing makes it into a use value. 00:14:32.940 --> 00:14:36.000 Again, I think it's a little bit more complicated than that, 00:14:36.000 --> 00:14:37.649 but this is very important 00:14:37.649 --> 00:14:40.860 'cause he's going to contrast it with exchange value. 00:14:40.860 --> 00:14:42.060 Usefulness, in this sense, 00:14:42.059 --> 00:14:43.500 doesn't hover above us in the air. 00:14:43.500 --> 00:14:46.299 It's determined by the properties of a commodity's body. 00:14:49.860 --> 00:14:53.220 Just so we know, that does not have to be physical. 00:14:53.220 --> 00:14:56.310 It can be a word document. 00:14:56.309 --> 00:14:59.819 That's not physical; it has a physical manifestation. 00:14:59.820 --> 00:15:02.010 It can be a dream if you're... 00:15:02.009 --> 00:15:04.860 Whatever you're doing with that dream is useful to you, 00:15:04.860 --> 00:15:06.243 doing psychoanalysis, 00:15:07.230 --> 00:15:08.580 whatever those qualities are. 00:15:08.580 --> 00:15:12.389 It can be a service, which is not a physical object, right? 00:15:12.389 --> 00:15:14.009 A service can be commodified. 00:15:14.009 --> 00:15:19.009 I sew your shirt for you, let's say, your shirt is fine. 00:15:19.679 --> 00:15:20.829 Nice shirt, by the way. 00:15:22.769 --> 00:15:27.769 And you pay me for it, that act has a delimited contours, 00:15:30.000 --> 00:15:31.679 you know when it starts, you know when it's done, 00:15:31.679 --> 00:15:33.539 you know how long it takes. 00:15:33.539 --> 00:15:37.079 It has a use value to the shirt owner, 00:15:37.080 --> 00:15:39.960 and that is perfectly well commodifiable. 00:15:39.960 --> 00:15:40.793 There's no difference 00:15:40.793 --> 00:15:44.879 between physical commodities and services. 00:15:44.879 --> 00:15:46.679 So, if they tell you the service economy 00:15:46.679 --> 00:15:47.512 is fundamentally different, 00:15:47.513 --> 00:15:49.740 it is not fundamentally different. 00:15:49.740 --> 00:15:51.509 It certainly changes the way people live, 00:15:51.509 --> 00:15:53.639 what kind of concrete jobs you do. 00:15:53.639 --> 00:15:54.600 But in terms of value, 00:15:54.600 --> 00:15:56.600 the value moves around exactly the same. 00:16:00.990 --> 00:16:03.930 This is the province of what he calls commodity studies, 00:16:03.929 --> 00:16:05.159 which I'm not sure exists, 00:16:05.159 --> 00:16:07.923 but that's not what he's gonna do. 00:16:09.149 --> 00:16:10.889 Okay, so use value is the property 00:16:10.889 --> 00:16:13.322 of being able to satisfy a human want or need. 00:16:15.539 --> 00:16:18.870 It involves actually doing this as a practice 00:16:18.870 --> 00:16:20.702 and activity use. 00:16:22.289 --> 00:16:25.293 So, we know that use value is already abstracted. 00:16:27.870 --> 00:16:29.072 It's potential, 00:16:30.659 --> 00:16:32.159 it means it can be used; 00:16:32.159 --> 00:16:34.079 and it's abstracted in the sense 00:16:34.080 --> 00:16:37.379 that in any of the concrete situations 00:16:37.379 --> 00:16:38.909 in which you use something, 00:16:38.909 --> 00:16:40.112 this is called use. 00:16:42.179 --> 00:16:45.659 Value is realized, use value is realized, when? 00:16:45.659 --> 00:16:48.329 When a thing is used, right? 00:16:48.330 --> 00:16:50.490 And the thing is, in a sense, 00:16:50.490 --> 00:16:53.399 has a use value used up when you're done using it. 00:16:53.399 --> 00:16:56.009 You may actually use up the usefulness of the thing, too, 00:16:56.009 --> 00:16:58.143 if it's, let's say, a banana. 00:16:59.159 --> 00:17:01.110 When you eat it, it's no longer useful. 00:17:01.110 --> 00:17:02.789 The peel is not useful. 00:17:02.789 --> 00:17:06.663 And incidentally, the value body of a commodity, 00:17:07.650 --> 00:17:10.560 very different than the use body of a commodity. 00:17:10.559 --> 00:17:12.659 Well, it's related to the use body of the commodity. 00:17:12.660 --> 00:17:14.670 The peel is not really part of the value. 00:17:14.670 --> 00:17:15.962 Well, it is kind of, 00:17:16.950 --> 00:17:19.799 say it's part of the value in that it protects the fruit. 00:17:20.670 --> 00:17:22.769 But there's many physical qualities of a body 00:17:22.769 --> 00:17:26.879 that are not related to the use or the exchange. 00:17:26.880 --> 00:17:29.700 So, for example, a banana can be green, it can be yellow, 00:17:29.700 --> 00:17:32.549 it can be slightly brown, it can be small, it can be big, 00:17:32.549 --> 00:17:36.692 it can be like cardboard, it can be like sugar. 00:17:37.680 --> 00:17:38.820 And in all of those cases, 00:17:38.819 --> 00:17:41.133 in fact, the exchange value remains. 00:17:42.258 --> 00:17:47.192 What's required is that there's the usable part is usable. 00:17:48.690 --> 00:17:52.799 Now, it could be that cardboard bananas end up... 00:17:52.799 --> 00:17:55.230 You end up not buying that brand anymore. 00:17:55.230 --> 00:17:56.670 So, the usable, 00:17:56.670 --> 00:17:59.070 that is a quality that relates to its use value. 00:17:59.069 --> 00:18:00.779 You have a question? - Is it... 00:18:00.779 --> 00:18:02.899 Or what, like humans value (indistinct)? 00:18:04.289 --> 00:18:07.170 - Humans value this particular thing socially. 00:18:07.170 --> 00:18:08.003 - Socially. 00:18:08.940 --> 00:18:11.182 - We'll talk a little bit about what that is. 00:18:12.569 --> 00:18:14.399 The kinds of things that have use values, again, 00:18:14.400 --> 00:18:19.397 are physical objects, services, intellectual objects, media, 00:18:20.309 --> 00:18:23.579 processes like education or defense. 00:18:23.579 --> 00:18:24.899 They can all have use value. 00:18:24.900 --> 00:18:25.950 So, under capitalism, 00:18:25.950 --> 00:18:29.519 they can all have exchange value potentially. 00:18:29.519 --> 00:18:31.410 There is a world of useful things here: 00:18:31.410 --> 00:18:33.960 food, energy, clothing, tools, 00:18:33.960 --> 00:18:37.710 we can think of many of them that you could study. 00:18:37.710 --> 00:18:41.462 And think about a kind of anthropology of human activities. 00:18:43.380 --> 00:18:45.960 Anthropology had to change under capital, though, 00:18:45.960 --> 00:18:49.019 to be an anthropology of the way human activities 00:18:49.019 --> 00:18:52.863 are used by the system to produce value. 00:18:55.859 --> 00:18:57.512 Let's talk about exchange value. 00:18:59.309 --> 00:19:01.723 So, we need to talk about... 00:19:01.723 --> 00:19:04.832 It's a very peculiar phenomenon. 00:19:11.670 --> 00:19:14.279 It seems like this is the double in the commodity, 00:19:14.279 --> 00:19:16.410 use value and exchange value. 00:19:16.410 --> 00:19:18.303 But really, the double is this. 00:19:20.430 --> 00:19:21.390 That's the double 00:19:21.390 --> 00:19:25.323 'cause exchange value really only appears briefly. 00:19:27.119 --> 00:19:29.939 This is a longstanding misunderstanding of the text, 00:19:29.940 --> 00:19:31.893 and Marx is not so clear about it. 00:19:35.369 --> 00:19:38.612 Exchange value is also potential and abstract. 00:19:40.200 --> 00:19:43.593 Something has value when it still has a use, 00:19:46.049 --> 00:19:49.859 but it has to be able to do something else beyond its use 00:19:49.859 --> 00:19:51.959 in the capital system. 00:19:51.960 --> 00:19:55.170 So, again, exchange value is not just a quality 00:19:55.170 --> 00:19:56.700 that resides in the thing, 00:19:56.700 --> 00:19:59.100 it's a quality that tends toward an activity, 00:19:59.099 --> 00:20:01.649 a capitalist activity, which is exchange. 00:20:01.650 --> 00:20:02.850 Does that make sense? 00:20:02.849 --> 00:20:06.119 It doesn't just sit there, it happens, 00:20:06.119 --> 00:20:09.209 and it's called up when you're exchanging. 00:20:09.210 --> 00:20:12.019 - Would you mind explaining, like, that (indistinct)? 00:20:13.029 --> 00:20:15.180 - Yeah, I'm gonna do that in just a second. 00:20:20.130 --> 00:20:22.830 Value is potential use and exchange, 00:20:22.829 --> 00:20:24.929 but it is also a ghostly substance 00:20:24.930 --> 00:20:27.640 that persists through all changes of form 00:20:29.220 --> 00:20:31.890 in commodities and labor. 00:20:31.890 --> 00:20:35.460 Labor can go from being reserve to being active. 00:20:35.460 --> 00:20:37.803 A commodity can go from being used, 00:20:38.880 --> 00:20:43.880 that is to say when it's being worked in labor 00:20:44.220 --> 00:20:47.100 to being exchanged, to being used, to being exchanged, 00:20:47.099 --> 00:20:50.492 to being totally consumed and turning into waste. 00:20:52.049 --> 00:20:53.579 The value is conserved, 00:20:53.579 --> 00:20:55.349 even when something is totally consumed. 00:20:55.349 --> 00:20:57.799 Because if you eat food, where does the value go? 00:20:58.980 --> 00:21:00.722 Yeah, you become the value, 00:21:01.680 --> 00:21:04.830 the value goes into you as a laborer. 00:21:04.829 --> 00:21:05.879 So, you will notice 00:21:05.880 --> 00:21:08.250 that value goes through a set of transformations 00:21:08.250 --> 00:21:09.869 that is a circuit. 00:21:09.869 --> 00:21:11.639 As a closed circuit. 00:21:11.640 --> 00:21:13.950 It comes back around, you go back to labor the next day, 00:21:13.950 --> 00:21:18.120 or you go back to your class the next day with the energy. 00:21:18.119 --> 00:21:22.409 Again, energy and value seem to be 00:21:22.410 --> 00:21:25.680 in a kind of E equals mc squared relationship here. 00:21:25.680 --> 00:21:28.529 They can neither be created nor destroyed in this system. 00:21:34.049 --> 00:21:35.879 Value is potential use in exchange, 00:21:35.880 --> 00:21:37.720 but it's also a substance 00:21:39.359 --> 00:21:41.009 that changes form from material, 00:21:41.009 --> 00:21:43.710 to immaterial, to material, to immaterial, 00:21:43.710 --> 00:21:46.590 from commodity, to money, to commodity. 00:21:46.589 --> 00:21:49.859 That's one of Marx's famous formula, C-M-C. 00:21:49.859 --> 00:21:52.889 And you can also use it the other way around, M-C-M. 00:21:52.890 --> 00:21:54.063 Value is conserved. 00:21:54.960 --> 00:21:56.553 Love the conservation of value. 00:21:58.470 --> 00:22:00.779 The odd thing about the capital mode, 00:22:00.779 --> 00:22:02.279 which we're gonna get to the operation 00:22:02.279 --> 00:22:03.480 that this is all about, 00:22:03.480 --> 00:22:07.500 is that value is conserved and augmented. 00:22:07.500 --> 00:22:12.500 That's where the capital system perverts physics. 00:22:14.849 --> 00:22:16.919 It doesn't, Marx will say, 00:22:16.920 --> 00:22:20.432 ultimately because you get it out of the laborers. 00:22:22.140 --> 00:22:23.670 But it looks like it perverts physics. 00:22:23.670 --> 00:22:26.430 It looks like you put the money into an investment 00:22:26.430 --> 00:22:30.930 and you get back 10% more, right? 00:22:30.930 --> 00:22:32.340 What's the rate now of return? 00:22:32.339 --> 00:22:33.419 I don't know, 7% more. 00:22:33.420 --> 00:22:36.483 To me, it's always like going down in my mind. 00:22:38.819 --> 00:22:42.960 I guess it's the privilege of a Marxian 00:22:42.960 --> 00:22:45.910 to not really understand where their investments are going. 00:22:48.089 --> 00:22:52.619 The oddity of this is that it only becomes exchange value 00:22:53.970 --> 00:22:55.803 when it's not being used, 00:22:58.589 --> 00:23:01.923 and it only becomes use value when it's not being exchanged. 00:23:03.420 --> 00:23:04.500 When it's being exchanged, 00:23:04.500 --> 00:23:06.420 it holds the use value in reserve. 00:23:06.420 --> 00:23:08.170 It depends on it, it can't go away. 00:23:09.180 --> 00:23:10.410 But it's not being exercised. 00:23:10.410 --> 00:23:12.753 So only one can be activated at a time, 00:23:13.829 --> 00:23:18.000 and this is what Marx calls a contradiction. 00:23:18.000 --> 00:23:20.299 And we get back to the question about doubles. 00:23:23.309 --> 00:23:24.240 Before we get to doubles, 00:23:24.240 --> 00:23:26.940 you can see here is a different world 00:23:26.940 --> 00:23:28.230 from the world of use values, 00:23:28.230 --> 00:23:30.630 it's a world of exchangeables. 00:23:30.630 --> 00:23:31.800 You could talk about what they are, 00:23:31.799 --> 00:23:33.419 but they're not the same thing as use values 00:23:33.420 --> 00:23:34.890 'cause things can be exchanged 00:23:34.890 --> 00:23:36.060 that have very little use value, 00:23:36.059 --> 00:23:41.059 like junk plastic toys that you get in a goodie bag 00:23:41.460 --> 00:23:42.603 at a birthday party. 00:23:43.470 --> 00:23:45.450 Barely, you barely have any use value. 00:23:45.450 --> 00:23:48.600 The use value is like, "Oh, that's it." 00:23:48.599 --> 00:23:50.399 Then they go right in the garbage. 00:23:50.400 --> 00:23:52.900 It's a brilliant, it's a stroke of genius plastic, 00:23:55.200 --> 00:23:56.043 and an evil. 00:23:57.029 --> 00:23:59.220 So here, you would plug in a picture. 00:23:59.220 --> 00:24:00.660 I'm so bad at PowerPoint, 00:24:00.660 --> 00:24:04.019 so you're just gonna have to listen to this discourse 00:24:04.019 --> 00:24:05.317 because I was gonna, like, 00:24:05.317 --> 00:24:08.370 "Wouldn't it be nice to show all the crazy commodities?" 00:24:08.369 --> 00:24:09.202 But, 00:24:10.500 --> 00:24:11.613 I'm not a visual guy. 00:24:14.160 --> 00:24:18.960 So, these doubles are in attention with one another, 00:24:18.960 --> 00:24:21.452 which Marx sometimes calls a contradiction, 00:24:23.220 --> 00:24:25.620 and a single thing like a commodity 00:24:25.619 --> 00:24:30.272 is a strange and strained unity of contradictories. 00:24:31.920 --> 00:24:34.860 But we have to understand what this relationship is. 00:24:34.859 --> 00:24:37.319 Obviously, use value and exchange value 00:24:37.319 --> 00:24:39.182 are not logical opposites. 00:24:40.440 --> 00:24:44.460 It is true that like Aristotle's idea of a logical opposite, 00:24:44.460 --> 00:24:45.870 they cannot exist in the... 00:24:45.869 --> 00:24:47.339 They cannot be active in the same thing, 00:24:47.339 --> 00:24:50.039 in the same respect, at the same time. 00:24:50.039 --> 00:24:52.440 So, that's why he uses this Aristotelian figure, 00:24:52.440 --> 00:24:54.360 logical figure contradiction. 00:24:54.359 --> 00:24:56.099 Does that make sense? 00:24:56.099 --> 00:24:59.189 Exchange value means it's not being used. 00:24:59.190 --> 00:25:01.890 Using means it's not being exchanged, 00:25:01.890 --> 00:25:03.590 but they have to both be in there. 00:25:07.380 --> 00:25:10.200 Now, you can make something for use that isn't exchanged, 00:25:10.200 --> 00:25:12.779 but that's outside of the capital system for him. 00:25:12.779 --> 00:25:15.210 You can make something for yourself 00:25:15.210 --> 00:25:17.309 or you can use something that's not exchangeable 00:25:17.309 --> 00:25:19.019 because it's common to everybody. 00:25:19.019 --> 00:25:21.660 This is why the enclosure of the commons 00:25:21.660 --> 00:25:23.759 was very important for capital. 00:25:23.759 --> 00:25:26.460 If they start to enclose air and water 00:25:26.460 --> 00:25:27.990 more than they already do, 00:25:27.990 --> 00:25:29.519 they will become commodified, too. 00:25:29.519 --> 00:25:31.289 Water is already on the way, 00:25:31.289 --> 00:25:35.252 but air, so far, is not, this is Marx's example. 00:25:38.039 --> 00:25:41.670 So obviously, they're not opposites, they're just different. 00:25:41.670 --> 00:25:44.009 And they could be complementary under some systems, 00:25:44.009 --> 00:25:46.893 but in this system, they're antagonistic to one another. 00:25:48.390 --> 00:25:49.710 Exchange value and use value. 00:25:49.710 --> 00:25:51.480 Okay, I'm spending a bunch of time on this 00:25:51.480 --> 00:25:55.019 because these sorts of strange, 00:25:55.019 --> 00:25:59.009 and strained unities are gonna come up over and over 00:25:59.009 --> 00:26:00.272 in the capital system. 00:26:01.890 --> 00:26:03.690 Yeah? - Does Marx argue 00:26:03.690 --> 00:26:06.840 that these two concepts use exchange value 00:26:06.839 --> 00:26:09.374 exists within all systems of production? 00:26:09.374 --> 00:26:10.293 - Mm-mm. 00:26:11.279 --> 00:26:12.113 Nope. 00:26:13.079 --> 00:26:13.913 They don't. 00:26:14.970 --> 00:26:17.549 In any society bigger than one, 00:26:17.549 --> 00:26:20.133 you're likely to have use and exchange. 00:26:21.029 --> 00:26:26.029 But again, remember that these terms, these concepts, 00:26:26.609 --> 00:26:28.559 this is a very important Marxian thought. 00:26:28.559 --> 00:26:29.460 It's a Hegelian thought, 00:26:29.460 --> 00:26:32.970 but Marx brings it back to real living history. 00:26:32.970 --> 00:26:34.009 These terms are only necessary 00:26:34.009 --> 00:26:38.220 when society gets into a shape where it needs those terms. 00:26:38.220 --> 00:26:40.860 So, again, if you're in paradise, 00:26:40.859 --> 00:26:44.429 you don't need the term use or exchange because... 00:26:44.430 --> 00:26:45.570 Or think of an infant. 00:26:45.569 --> 00:26:46.589 You're just kind of eating, 00:26:46.589 --> 00:26:48.720 and pooping, and wandering around, 00:26:48.720 --> 00:26:52.799 and you don't have to distinguish your activities 00:26:52.799 --> 00:26:55.863 because you're never in a situation of lack. 00:26:57.269 --> 00:26:58.170 Yeah. 00:26:58.170 --> 00:27:02.370 - And (indistinct) is about the idea of work (indistinct) 00:27:02.369 --> 00:27:04.679 being somewhat separate from the strength, 00:27:04.680 --> 00:27:07.560 in the sense that like our commodities 00:27:07.559 --> 00:27:08.460 are still part of us, 00:27:08.460 --> 00:27:12.360 like many people have through commodities or art occlusion, 00:27:12.359 --> 00:27:14.620 then this is the cell. 00:27:14.621 --> 00:27:17.280 (indistinct) 00:27:17.279 --> 00:27:20.940 - Well, humans separate from the system 00:27:20.940 --> 00:27:25.140 is gonna be hard to justify as we go on. 00:27:25.140 --> 00:27:25.980 So, let's just... 00:27:25.980 --> 00:27:27.509 Let's take the system in itself. 00:27:27.509 --> 00:27:29.339 It feels a little bit cold and distant, 00:27:29.339 --> 00:27:31.529 but Marx will argue that humans 00:27:31.529 --> 00:27:33.990 are in service of commodities, 00:27:33.990 --> 00:27:35.849 and that's the big difference. 00:27:35.849 --> 00:27:38.673 So, it's dehumanizing, for sure. 00:27:41.400 --> 00:27:43.509 So, let's hold that question. Yeah. 00:27:43.509 --> 00:27:46.169 - Marx says that something is a use value 00:27:46.169 --> 00:27:47.700 or is exchange value. 00:27:47.700 --> 00:27:50.789 Why does he say is relevant, has this value, 00:27:50.789 --> 00:27:52.994 or have a value? - Uh-huh. 00:27:52.994 --> 00:27:54.479 That's a great question. 00:27:54.480 --> 00:27:55.860 Did you hear that question? 00:27:55.859 --> 00:27:58.619 Marx says that things are use values 00:27:58.619 --> 00:27:59.939 and are exchange values, 00:27:59.940 --> 00:28:01.559 not that they have them. 00:28:01.559 --> 00:28:03.659 Because that is the being of the thing. 00:28:03.660 --> 00:28:08.519 The being of the thing is not some independent, God-given, 00:28:08.519 --> 00:28:11.192 or nature-given set of qualities. 00:28:12.240 --> 00:28:13.859 When in a social setting, 00:28:13.859 --> 00:28:15.869 which is all we're talking about here, 00:28:15.869 --> 00:28:19.622 you have a thing for use, its qualities are the thing. 00:28:20.880 --> 00:28:25.650 When you encounter a hammer, you could have an aesthetic, 00:28:25.650 --> 00:28:28.769 now we're getting into the precincts of German philosophy. 00:28:28.769 --> 00:28:31.109 You could have an aesthetic relationship to that hammer 00:28:31.109 --> 00:28:33.240 and be like, "What a beautiful hammer." 00:28:33.240 --> 00:28:35.009 But let's put that aside for now. 00:28:35.009 --> 00:28:37.383 I think that's fairly artificial. 00:28:39.359 --> 00:28:42.002 The hammer is weight, shape, 00:28:43.251 --> 00:28:47.220 the useful qualities for hammering a nail. 00:28:47.220 --> 00:28:49.380 And you don't really see a hammer otherwise, 00:28:49.380 --> 00:28:53.250 unless you go to the market, or Home Depot, 00:28:53.250 --> 00:28:57.210 and you're like, "How much does this hammer cost?" 00:28:57.210 --> 00:28:58.829 And you're negotiating between cost 00:28:58.829 --> 00:28:59.759 and the kinds of qualities 00:28:59.759 --> 00:29:01.920 that will get your particular job done. 00:29:01.920 --> 00:29:04.590 So for him, things are double, 00:29:04.589 --> 00:29:07.109 so much so that you have a double consciousness. 00:29:07.109 --> 00:29:09.306 The double consciousness is, 00:29:09.307 --> 00:29:11.549 "Oh, my gosh, I can get $5 for this hammer." 00:29:11.549 --> 00:29:12.629 Or, "Oh, my gosh, 00:29:12.630 --> 00:29:16.140 I can hammer in 20 nails with this hammer in today. 00:29:16.140 --> 00:29:18.030 I can hammer just the kind of nail in 00:29:18.029 --> 00:29:22.019 that will hang my picture or frame my barn." 00:29:22.019 --> 00:29:22.980 Does that make sense? 00:29:22.980 --> 00:29:26.099 And the thing is only that. 00:29:26.099 --> 00:29:29.039 There's nothing subsisting outside of the capital system 00:29:29.039 --> 00:29:30.423 that is a thing in itself. 00:29:33.420 --> 00:29:34.253 Yeah. 00:29:37.349 --> 00:29:38.509 - So, if, like... 00:29:40.170 --> 00:29:42.570 Just like on the point on like the contradiction 00:29:42.569 --> 00:29:45.899 between something having use value 00:29:45.900 --> 00:29:49.160 and exchange value at the same time, like surely that's... 00:29:50.039 --> 00:29:53.039 I'm just not sure why like they're applying to... 00:29:53.039 --> 00:29:56.430 Or those two concepts can apply to like the same object 00:29:56.430 --> 00:30:00.269 because surely, like, say I have like an apple, 00:30:00.269 --> 00:30:03.599 but that presents use value or that has use value, 00:30:03.599 --> 00:30:06.809 insofar as the apple is like an object of mine, 00:30:06.809 --> 00:30:07.919 desire to eat the apple. 00:30:07.920 --> 00:30:11.279 So, it's like a property of the apple. 00:30:11.279 --> 00:30:15.106 But then like the exchange value is, surely then, not... 00:30:16.470 --> 00:30:18.390 It's not just like a property of the apple, 00:30:18.390 --> 00:30:21.030 it's like a relation between the apple 00:30:21.029 --> 00:30:22.440 and say, like, an arm. 00:30:22.440 --> 00:30:24.390 So it's not like- - Well, both in that case... 00:30:24.390 --> 00:30:25.560 It's a good question. 00:30:25.559 --> 00:30:28.166 In both of those cases, the apple has a use value 00:30:28.166 --> 00:30:30.480 and the apple has an exchange value. 00:30:30.480 --> 00:30:34.349 They are relational characteristics of the apple. 00:30:34.349 --> 00:30:36.272 The apple is useful to you. 00:30:37.259 --> 00:30:40.202 So apples in themselves belong to, I don't know, 00:30:41.339 --> 00:30:44.309 some alien observer from an asteroid passing by. 00:30:44.309 --> 00:30:45.626 They're like, "Apple." 00:30:47.640 --> 00:30:48.630 But they wouldn't point it out 00:30:48.630 --> 00:30:52.350 because it's of no use to them one way or the other. 00:30:52.349 --> 00:30:54.480 So, both are social qualities. 00:30:54.480 --> 00:30:59.279 That is to say they are related to you as a desirer, 00:30:59.279 --> 00:31:01.379 and you desire apples because in your culture, 00:31:01.380 --> 00:31:03.510 apples are things that get eaten, 00:31:03.509 --> 00:31:05.190 as opposed to using them 00:31:05.190 --> 00:31:07.890 to build a house or something like that. 00:31:07.890 --> 00:31:10.840 So there are two different kinds of social characteristics, 00:31:12.990 --> 00:31:15.089 and you can tell immediately 00:31:15.089 --> 00:31:17.459 that these two things go together 00:31:17.460 --> 00:31:19.410 in a strange and strained way. 00:31:19.410 --> 00:31:21.033 They're always both there. 00:31:22.259 --> 00:31:27.089 One comes forward in exchange and one comes forward in use. 00:31:27.089 --> 00:31:28.319 When you go to the supermarket, 00:31:28.319 --> 00:31:30.960 if you just shove your face into the apple, 00:31:30.960 --> 00:31:31.793 someone's gonna be like, 00:31:31.792 --> 00:31:35.339 "Wait, this is an exchange place, we're not doing that here. 00:31:35.339 --> 00:31:38.519 You take that out, you pay for it, right?" 00:31:38.519 --> 00:31:40.200 And you always feel bad when you eat the apple 00:31:40.200 --> 00:31:42.299 and then you're gonna pay for it up at the register. 00:31:42.299 --> 00:31:44.097 Like, "I was just so hungry." 00:31:44.097 --> 00:31:45.930 (Paul laughing) 00:31:45.930 --> 00:31:50.583 In fact, it has to be an exchange first under capital. 00:31:51.599 --> 00:31:55.109 Just like you give your labor first before you get paid, 00:31:55.109 --> 00:31:56.279 the thing is exchange, 00:31:56.279 --> 00:31:57.809 and Marx is going to show 00:31:57.809 --> 00:32:02.069 that not only are these things strange and strained doubles, 00:32:02.069 --> 00:32:05.879 but they are reversed from what you imagine them to be 00:32:05.880 --> 00:32:09.030 in your humanistic way of thinking 00:32:09.029 --> 00:32:11.029 and from what they are in other systems. 00:32:13.289 --> 00:32:15.659 You don't look convinced, but let's keep going. 00:32:15.660 --> 00:32:18.881 We have a lot to get through and we barely started. 00:32:18.881 --> 00:32:22.410 (Paul clears throat) 00:32:22.410 --> 00:32:26.880 Okay, what we know about things as use values, right? 00:32:26.880 --> 00:32:28.230 The thing is a use value. 00:32:28.230 --> 00:32:29.250 It's a use value 00:32:29.250 --> 00:32:31.920 because someone put concrete characteristics in it 00:32:31.920 --> 00:32:35.700 through their concrete labor, right? 00:32:35.700 --> 00:32:38.130 Somebody put the characteristics into an apple. 00:32:38.130 --> 00:32:39.570 They're not just born there. 00:32:39.569 --> 00:32:42.179 They've been refining these trees for years, 00:32:42.180 --> 00:32:44.519 for decades, for centuries. 00:32:44.519 --> 00:32:47.339 And putting in the fertilizer and putting in the work, 00:32:47.339 --> 00:32:49.049 and picking them right, and polishing them, 00:32:49.049 --> 00:32:51.242 and all that kind of stuff. 00:32:52.319 --> 00:32:55.509 A skilled person uses qualitatively specific activities 00:32:56.910 --> 00:33:00.000 to make something that satisfies a human want or need. 00:33:00.000 --> 00:33:02.313 This is called production, by the way. 00:33:03.599 --> 00:33:05.612 This is called product production. 00:33:07.349 --> 00:33:10.382 At a later point, a thing gets taken for exchange. 00:33:11.849 --> 00:33:15.299 Temporally, production of a use value 00:33:15.299 --> 00:33:17.789 comes before production of an exchange value. 00:33:17.789 --> 00:33:19.950 But logically, in the capital system, 00:33:19.950 --> 00:33:21.269 production of exchange value 00:33:21.269 --> 00:33:24.032 comes before production of use value. 00:33:25.319 --> 00:33:28.619 The way the contradictions can exist in capital 00:33:28.619 --> 00:33:31.439 is that they get spread out in time, 00:33:31.440 --> 00:33:33.393 they get unfolded in time. 00:33:35.791 --> 00:33:38.789 And we will talk about why exchange comes first. 00:33:38.789 --> 00:33:41.430 Again, in a capital system, 00:33:41.430 --> 00:33:44.549 commodities are things that are produced for exchange. 00:33:44.549 --> 00:33:48.492 So, before they get thought of as use values, 00:33:48.492 --> 00:33:50.519 no, that's not exactly right. 00:33:50.519 --> 00:33:51.839 They're both thought of as use values 00:33:51.839 --> 00:33:54.269 and exchange values at the same time. 00:33:54.269 --> 00:33:59.009 But exchange is the original impetus for producing them 00:33:59.009 --> 00:34:00.093 in a capital system. 00:34:02.460 --> 00:34:03.293 Okay. 00:34:08.400 --> 00:34:09.420 I think we're doing good. 00:34:09.420 --> 00:34:11.342 You are totally confused. 00:34:25.170 --> 00:34:29.163 Let's take a look at page 15 to 16. 00:34:31.230 --> 00:34:32.063 Here. 00:34:34.889 --> 00:34:37.379 At the very bottom of 15, as use values, 00:34:37.380 --> 00:34:39.423 commodities differ above all, 00:34:40.469 --> 00:34:42.569 with respect to quality. 00:34:42.570 --> 00:34:43.830 As exchange values, 00:34:43.829 --> 00:34:46.529 they can differ only with respect to quantity, 00:34:46.530 --> 00:34:49.890 and they contain not even an atom of use value. 00:34:49.889 --> 00:34:51.940 That's why these are so peculiar, Samuel. 00:34:52.829 --> 00:34:57.829 - It seems that this taking exchange values to be constant, 00:35:00.539 --> 00:35:02.780 which is what he says at the top of that. 00:35:02.780 --> 00:35:03.900 And at the bottom, 00:35:03.900 --> 00:35:06.166 he said they're for only relative (indistinct). 00:35:08.519 --> 00:35:12.913 Can't an object have exchange values to each person? 00:35:12.913 --> 00:35:16.199 - Not to each person, but to each commodity. 00:35:16.199 --> 00:35:20.699 Exchange values do not have any relations to people 00:35:20.699 --> 00:35:23.489 until they have relations to other commodities. 00:35:23.489 --> 00:35:26.062 - So it could have simultaneously, say, 00:35:26.063 --> 00:35:29.070 Saraiya is willing to pay the victim bananas for an iPhone 00:35:29.070 --> 00:35:29.970 and I'm willing to pay, 00:35:29.969 --> 00:35:32.699 to exchange 10 bananas for an iPhone. 00:35:32.699 --> 00:35:34.500 - Unrelated to what you're willing to pay. 00:35:34.500 --> 00:35:39.500 It's only related to what socially a thing is worth 00:35:39.630 --> 00:35:42.093 compared to other commodities. 00:35:44.250 --> 00:35:46.920 - We're not talking about price as we know it around that. 00:35:46.920 --> 00:35:49.170 - We're not talking about price, 00:35:49.170 --> 00:35:52.650 we're talking about value and the way value gets set up. 00:35:52.650 --> 00:35:55.260 The way you know that value and price are different 00:35:55.260 --> 00:36:00.260 is that if something is trading for above its value, 00:36:00.599 --> 00:36:02.489 people invest in that. 00:36:02.489 --> 00:36:04.559 And if something is trading for below its value, 00:36:04.559 --> 00:36:06.119 people don't invest in that. 00:36:06.119 --> 00:36:09.719 And in fact, those firms can go out of business 00:36:09.719 --> 00:36:11.219 because they're not making back what they need 00:36:11.219 --> 00:36:12.899 to make back to cover their costs 00:36:12.900 --> 00:36:16.650 and to prepare for the following year, et cetera. 00:36:16.650 --> 00:36:19.083 So, price and value are absolutely different. 00:36:20.730 --> 00:36:22.800 The relationship between value and price 00:36:22.800 --> 00:36:26.373 is a controversial topic in Marxian studies. 00:36:27.210 --> 00:36:30.960 It goes back to the infamous cliche, 00:36:30.960 --> 00:36:33.090 the transformation problem. 00:36:33.090 --> 00:36:35.460 And I don't think it's worth talking about here 00:36:35.460 --> 00:36:36.869 because we are interested 00:36:36.869 --> 00:36:41.869 in the social outcome of abstraction, 00:36:42.630 --> 00:36:44.163 and we have to get there. 00:36:46.409 --> 00:36:49.619 For those people who try to make economics work out 00:36:49.619 --> 00:36:51.752 so they can predict what prices will be, 00:36:52.980 --> 00:36:55.500 it's a question of the relation of value to price, 00:36:55.500 --> 00:36:57.210 and different economic theories 00:36:57.210 --> 00:36:59.159 settle this question in different ways. 00:36:59.159 --> 00:37:02.309 And Marx was famously unable to settle it, 00:37:02.309 --> 00:37:05.789 but it doesn't touch the basic insight, 00:37:05.789 --> 00:37:10.789 which is that exchange value, value, rules our lives, 00:37:12.389 --> 00:37:15.299 determines the quality of our labor, 00:37:15.300 --> 00:37:17.910 determines the amount of leisure time we have, 00:37:17.909 --> 00:37:20.192 determines the way we relate to one another. 00:37:24.150 --> 00:37:24.983 Yeah. 00:37:24.983 --> 00:37:27.269 - Can you think of price and value 00:37:27.269 --> 00:37:30.300 as kind of one of those weird doubles, 00:37:30.300 --> 00:37:32.910 where one losing into the other, right? 00:37:32.909 --> 00:37:36.059 You question kind of like why a price is this way 00:37:36.059 --> 00:37:38.639 and that's the phenomenology of it. 00:37:38.639 --> 00:37:39.789 And then, (indistinct). 00:37:41.760 --> 00:37:43.170 - There's a lot to be said about price. 00:37:43.170 --> 00:37:44.460 Maybe we set aside, 00:37:44.460 --> 00:37:46.740 once we understand these things down the line, 00:37:46.739 --> 00:37:49.049 half of a session to talk about price. 00:37:49.050 --> 00:37:52.140 It's worth thinking about Adam Smith 00:37:52.139 --> 00:37:54.929 and David Ricardo who thought about this a lot. 00:37:54.929 --> 00:37:56.250 And they also recognized 00:37:56.250 --> 00:37:59.880 that one thing that's characteristic of prices, 00:37:59.880 --> 00:38:01.200 which is not characteristic of value, 00:38:01.199 --> 00:38:06.199 is that they fluctuate wildly day to day, minute to minute. 00:38:07.769 --> 00:38:09.690 But they fluctuate around a center, 00:38:09.690 --> 00:38:13.679 Smith called this a natural price, around a center, 00:38:13.679 --> 00:38:15.929 which is thought to be something like the value 00:38:15.929 --> 00:38:17.879 is not gonna get too crazy. 00:38:17.880 --> 00:38:22.470 Like, you will never have an iPhone selling for 25 cents. 00:38:22.469 --> 00:38:25.469 And you can see when you compare commodities, 00:38:25.469 --> 00:38:27.299 that value is real. 00:38:27.300 --> 00:38:29.280 You see, you might have a banana selling for 25 cents, 00:38:29.280 --> 00:38:31.800 you'll never have it selling for $1,000, 00:38:31.800 --> 00:38:33.573 unless things go really haywire. 00:38:35.219 --> 00:38:37.230 And the opposite is also true. 00:38:37.230 --> 00:38:41.519 You'll never trade a banana for an iPhone. 00:38:41.519 --> 00:38:43.050 Yeah. 00:38:43.050 --> 00:38:46.470 - So, you said that use value strictly relates to quality. 00:38:46.469 --> 00:38:49.139 Is it the quality of the total actions 00:38:49.139 --> 00:38:51.472 that encourage people to use that commodity? 00:38:53.099 --> 00:38:54.719 - Let's look at the sentence again. 00:38:54.719 --> 00:38:57.089 I love it when we do philological work. 00:38:57.090 --> 00:38:58.200 As use values, 00:38:58.199 --> 00:39:01.379 commodities differ above all with respect to quality, 00:39:01.380 --> 00:39:04.050 that is in their qualities. 00:39:04.050 --> 00:39:05.789 So that as a banana is peelable 00:39:05.789 --> 00:39:09.452 and an iPhone is not peelable, et cetera. 00:39:11.250 --> 00:39:12.510 A banana is nutritious, 00:39:12.510 --> 00:39:14.370 and this is what Marx is thinking of. 00:39:14.369 --> 00:39:18.000 In one sense, he has a kind of Spinozistic ontology. 00:39:18.000 --> 00:39:20.010 Things have qualities. 00:39:20.010 --> 00:39:20.843 Yeah. 00:39:20.842 --> 00:39:25.842 - So there's a lot of different value terms going around. 00:39:26.070 --> 00:39:27.539 And sometimes, 00:39:27.539 --> 00:39:30.989 I'll hear you talk about, say, exchange value or use value, 00:39:30.989 --> 00:39:33.719 and then you'll just dive into the topic 00:39:33.719 --> 00:39:35.730 with the shorthand of value. 00:39:35.730 --> 00:39:37.170 Just for my comprehension going- 00:39:37.170 --> 00:39:39.599 - Oh, yeah. - Or whenever you say value, 00:39:39.599 --> 00:39:41.190 maybe with a capital V, 00:39:41.190 --> 00:39:44.340 are you talking about that sort of value 00:39:44.340 --> 00:39:46.623 that's derived from abstract labor? 00:39:53.250 --> 00:39:55.110 - Use value, you understand it, 00:39:55.110 --> 00:39:58.713 is something that corresponds to your wants and needs. 00:40:00.300 --> 00:40:02.490 Exchange value, you understand it, 00:40:02.489 --> 00:40:06.089 is how much you can get for your thing, 00:40:06.090 --> 00:40:08.190 how much you can get by exchanging it. 00:40:08.190 --> 00:40:10.862 So, he uses coats and linen. 00:40:10.862 --> 00:40:15.119 It's 19th century, it's Germany or he was in London. 00:40:15.119 --> 00:40:17.519 It's cold, you need a coat. 00:40:17.519 --> 00:40:19.380 The coats are not made of linen. 00:40:19.380 --> 00:40:21.570 For a long time, I was confused by that. 00:40:21.570 --> 00:40:24.150 Coats are wool, the linen is a separate thing. 00:40:24.150 --> 00:40:26.610 It's like we have these things that are different, 00:40:26.610 --> 00:40:27.870 and he is very clear. 00:40:27.869 --> 00:40:29.579 You can't exchange linen for linen. 00:40:29.579 --> 00:40:31.590 The same amount of linen for the same amount of linen. 00:40:31.590 --> 00:40:33.930 This is how you know there's something like value 00:40:34.769 --> 00:40:36.849 and how it's parasitic on use value 00:40:37.800 --> 00:40:39.780 because you already have the linen. 00:40:39.780 --> 00:40:42.630 If you have it, you don't need it unless you need more. 00:40:42.630 --> 00:40:45.510 But then you'd have to exchange something else, right? 00:40:45.510 --> 00:40:47.850 There is no market of exchanging the same for the same. 00:40:47.849 --> 00:40:50.250 You need to exchange things with different qualities. 00:40:50.250 --> 00:40:51.083 One second. 00:40:52.380 --> 00:40:56.670 So, use value as a kind of basis is a sufficient... 00:40:56.670 --> 00:40:58.713 Is a necessary, but not sufficient, 00:41:00.150 --> 00:41:01.769 characteristic of a commodity. 00:41:01.769 --> 00:41:03.300 It must have the use value 00:41:03.300 --> 00:41:05.100 'cause no one will buy it otherwise. 00:41:05.099 --> 00:41:06.659 But when it comes to exchanging, 00:41:06.659 --> 00:41:10.502 it only matters how much it exchanges for of another thing. 00:41:12.539 --> 00:41:16.293 Out of these two comes a phantom. 00:41:21.630 --> 00:41:24.420 Because when you exchange it for something else, 00:41:24.420 --> 00:41:27.300 you think it has this thing intrinsic to it 00:41:27.300 --> 00:41:28.323 that is of value. 00:41:29.639 --> 00:41:31.559 The value appears in the thing 00:41:31.559 --> 00:41:33.539 as something it seems to carry with it 00:41:33.539 --> 00:41:36.269 and have with it everywhere it goes. 00:41:36.269 --> 00:41:38.190 So, value as a product 00:41:38.190 --> 00:41:41.943 is the unity of exchange value and use value. 00:41:43.619 --> 00:41:47.489 You say that is worth X, Y, and Z 00:41:47.489 --> 00:41:50.792 because it has this ghostly quality that adheres to it. 00:41:53.429 --> 00:41:55.440 You could say, if you want, 00:41:55.440 --> 00:41:58.320 that this is the antithesis and this is the synthesis, 00:41:58.320 --> 00:42:02.010 but Marx is not so clear about that, okay? 00:42:02.010 --> 00:42:04.290 He will not talk about exchange value 00:42:04.289 --> 00:42:06.960 as a separate and interesting thing after this. 00:42:06.960 --> 00:42:09.900 He's just gonna talk about use value and value 00:42:09.900 --> 00:42:13.773 because it's value that will end up making capital work. 00:42:15.690 --> 00:42:17.420 Value is... 00:42:19.769 --> 00:42:23.670 based in use value and realized in exchange value, 00:42:23.670 --> 00:42:26.070 and it looks like an independent thing 00:42:26.070 --> 00:42:28.500 that you could trade on a market. 00:42:28.500 --> 00:42:33.389 And it comes to be represented through one of the processes, 00:42:33.389 --> 00:42:36.842 representation, or expression of capital in what form? 00:42:40.619 --> 00:42:43.889 Value is represented independently as money. 00:42:43.889 --> 00:42:46.230 It's as though you took it out of the thing 00:42:46.230 --> 00:42:48.030 and value started living on its own. 00:42:49.050 --> 00:42:50.370 And I said, "I'll give you this money, 00:42:50.369 --> 00:42:52.710 which is equal in value to what you're having 00:42:52.710 --> 00:42:55.559 because that thing has intrinsically, in it, value." 00:42:55.559 --> 00:42:56.610 Does that make sense? 00:42:58.860 --> 00:43:01.053 - There were some questions. 00:43:03.329 --> 00:43:04.163 - Yeah. 00:43:04.163 --> 00:43:05.206 - So this value, 00:43:05.206 --> 00:43:08.789 because I think you mentioned that this so thing 00:43:08.789 --> 00:43:10.067 of you starting it... 00:43:10.067 --> 00:43:12.567 (indistinct) 00:43:15.420 --> 00:43:16.950 - Ultimately, we'll talk about value, 00:43:16.949 --> 00:43:19.169 but this is the genesis of value. 00:43:19.170 --> 00:43:22.530 You have something that's useful, socially useful. 00:43:22.530 --> 00:43:24.960 People use it in our culture, right? 00:43:24.960 --> 00:43:27.389 Something that's totally outside 00:43:27.389 --> 00:43:30.210 of what other people recognize as useful 00:43:30.210 --> 00:43:32.130 might be useful to you individually, 00:43:32.130 --> 00:43:33.730 but it doesn't have a use value. 00:43:35.130 --> 00:43:36.599 And you have exchange value, 00:43:36.599 --> 00:43:40.599 which is what you get for it on a market 00:43:42.030 --> 00:43:43.533 related to an equivalent. 00:43:44.489 --> 00:43:46.919 And these two together 00:43:46.920 --> 00:43:50.190 make it seem as though there's this special substance 00:43:50.190 --> 00:43:52.409 that adheres to all commodities, 00:43:52.409 --> 00:43:54.092 just in different quantities. 00:43:57.449 --> 00:44:01.230 And it's not purely psychological, it is ontological. 00:44:01.230 --> 00:44:04.800 You live in a world as though this was real. 00:44:04.800 --> 00:44:05.972 And so it's real. 00:44:06.840 --> 00:44:08.673 Value is real under capital. 00:44:10.829 --> 00:44:12.929 As I say, give away all your things, 00:44:12.929 --> 00:44:14.129 and you'll just have no things. 00:44:14.130 --> 00:44:15.900 But value will go on happily. 00:44:15.900 --> 00:44:17.940 And if you wanna get them back, 00:44:17.940 --> 00:44:20.139 you'll have to concede the reality of value. 00:44:23.909 --> 00:44:25.559 Okay. 00:44:25.559 --> 00:44:27.869 Wow, you're really pushing me. 00:44:27.869 --> 00:44:28.712 This is good. 00:44:30.000 --> 00:44:31.230 What else do we need to talk about? 00:44:31.230 --> 00:44:33.119 We need to talk about the double character of labor. 00:44:33.119 --> 00:44:33.952 So, 00:44:35.940 --> 00:44:38.970 actually, a commodity has this double character, 00:44:38.969 --> 00:44:40.442 use value and value, 00:44:46.349 --> 00:44:47.779 and labor has a double... 00:44:49.679 --> 00:44:51.062 double character, too. 00:44:59.639 --> 00:45:02.279 Useful labor makes useful things. 00:45:02.280 --> 00:45:05.733 That is a qualitative act that requires skill and knowledge. 00:45:07.440 --> 00:45:09.273 As machines tape go over that, 00:45:10.380 --> 00:45:12.543 you can put less skill into it, 00:45:14.579 --> 00:45:17.072 but nonetheless it requires some skill. 00:45:19.320 --> 00:45:21.600 From the perspective of a useful object, 00:45:21.599 --> 00:45:23.612 labor is useful labor. 00:45:24.780 --> 00:45:25.613 So, the question is: 00:45:25.612 --> 00:45:29.699 What is labor from the perspective of value? 00:45:29.699 --> 00:45:32.429 It is a bare gelatinous blob. 00:45:32.429 --> 00:45:34.019 Don't you love this translation? 00:45:34.019 --> 00:45:37.380 It's a translation by a writer whom I admire 00:45:37.380 --> 00:45:39.630 of a German word gallerte, 00:45:39.630 --> 00:45:41.579 which is something like sue it. 00:45:41.579 --> 00:45:43.739 It's when you took everything that was left over 00:45:43.739 --> 00:45:46.142 and you boiled it down into a gelatinous blob. 00:45:48.059 --> 00:45:49.529 We thought of using sue it, 00:45:49.530 --> 00:45:52.320 but we didn't think anyone would know really what that was. 00:45:52.320 --> 00:45:54.180 So we put a bare gelatinous blob. 00:45:54.179 --> 00:45:55.829 It's everything kind of mixed together 00:45:55.829 --> 00:45:59.759 until all of its qualitative characteristics disappear 00:45:59.760 --> 00:46:02.060 and you just have a kind of quantity of stuff. 00:46:03.210 --> 00:46:06.119 That's the second characteristic of labor, 00:46:06.119 --> 00:46:07.742 which he calls abstract labor. 00:46:09.630 --> 00:46:11.890 So you have concrete labor 00:46:14.489 --> 00:46:16.052 and abstract labor. 00:46:18.239 --> 00:46:20.639 Clearly, abstract labor makes value 00:46:20.639 --> 00:46:22.772 and concrete labor makes use values. 00:46:25.980 --> 00:46:27.152 In capital, 00:46:31.289 --> 00:46:36.289 these get inverted so that you do concrete labor, 00:46:37.590 --> 00:46:39.360 so that you can get abstract labor 00:46:39.360 --> 00:46:40.829 and you'd make useful things, 00:46:40.829 --> 00:46:42.630 so that you can get value out of it. 00:46:45.599 --> 00:46:46.697 I'm jumping ahead. 00:46:46.697 --> 00:46:49.143 That's like the climax of the first project. 00:46:50.369 --> 00:46:52.980 We will go from commodity production 00:46:52.980 --> 00:46:56.909 or production of products to production of value. 00:46:56.909 --> 00:46:59.109 Commodity production to production of value. 00:47:01.440 --> 00:47:04.289 You don't get the second type of labor 00:47:04.289 --> 00:47:07.829 from concrete differentiated labor. 00:47:07.829 --> 00:47:10.559 If you look at the world of useful things, 00:47:10.559 --> 00:47:12.690 you see all these different qualities. 00:47:12.690 --> 00:47:15.090 They're edible, they're sweet, they're sour, 00:47:15.090 --> 00:47:18.750 they're tools to make other things, they're entertainment. 00:47:18.750 --> 00:47:21.179 Whatever it does for you, it does for you. 00:47:21.179 --> 00:47:22.949 The same thing with the labor that goes into it, 00:47:22.949 --> 00:47:25.379 it's absolutely an infinite, 00:47:25.380 --> 00:47:28.110 potentially infinitely differentiated. 00:47:28.110 --> 00:47:30.960 That's why if someone plays the trumpet 00:47:30.960 --> 00:47:32.190 and I play the guitar, 00:47:32.190 --> 00:47:34.050 that doesn't mean I can play the trumpet 00:47:34.050 --> 00:47:34.950 and they can play the guitar. 00:47:34.949 --> 00:47:36.210 Although musicians are pretty good 00:47:36.210 --> 00:47:38.400 at different things like that, right? 00:47:38.400 --> 00:47:39.930 But this divides us as people. 00:47:39.929 --> 00:47:43.112 So we have a social division of labor, as Marx calls it. 00:47:44.039 --> 00:47:48.449 But when it comes down to the labor that makes up value, 00:47:48.449 --> 00:47:51.599 it is undifferentiated, homogenized, 00:47:51.599 --> 00:47:54.480 reduced to one particular quality, 00:47:54.480 --> 00:47:57.182 which is, according to Marx, how long it took to do. 00:47:58.530 --> 00:48:01.170 How long it took to do according to the average 00:48:01.170 --> 00:48:04.233 that it takes to do that in the society. 00:48:08.340 --> 00:48:10.769 Okay, let's say a couple of other things. 00:48:10.769 --> 00:48:12.329 We need like a four-hour lecture, 00:48:12.329 --> 00:48:14.762 but you're probably happy you don't have that. 00:48:16.619 --> 00:48:21.619 Let's talk about socially necessary average labor time. 00:48:22.679 --> 00:48:24.719 Socially necessary average labor time 00:48:24.719 --> 00:48:27.209 is what distinguishes Marxist theory of value 00:48:27.210 --> 00:48:30.572 from Ricardo's theory of value or Smith's theory of value. 00:48:32.099 --> 00:48:34.980 Value is not just what the worker put into it 00:48:34.980 --> 00:48:39.063 in producing a useful product. 00:48:40.590 --> 00:48:44.700 Value goes through this homogenizing process, 00:48:44.699 --> 00:48:49.699 and you can tell the magnitude of value 00:48:50.340 --> 00:48:53.563 by the socially necessary average labor time 00:48:53.563 --> 00:48:55.619 that went into it. 00:48:55.619 --> 00:48:59.069 Because labor goes through its homogenizing process, too. 00:48:59.070 --> 00:49:00.150 And you are being compared 00:49:00.150 --> 00:49:02.639 to everyone else on the labor market, 00:49:02.639 --> 00:49:04.686 so that when you go to work, they don't say, 00:49:04.686 --> 00:49:07.500 "Take your time, you do it in five days. 00:49:07.500 --> 00:49:09.780 Do it in five days." 00:49:09.780 --> 00:49:12.930 No, they say, "Well, the average for this is two hours, 00:49:12.929 --> 00:49:14.219 so you've got two hours to do this." 00:49:14.219 --> 00:49:15.989 If not, (Paul mimicking air whooshing) 00:49:15.989 --> 00:49:16.822 you're out. 00:49:17.789 --> 00:49:19.380 Right? 00:49:19.380 --> 00:49:21.599 This is the way it works 'cause if one firm 00:49:21.599 --> 00:49:24.119 is working much more slowly than another firm, 00:49:24.119 --> 00:49:25.420 they won't last very long. 00:49:26.460 --> 00:49:28.889 Here is where competitive pressures come in. 00:49:28.889 --> 00:49:31.319 You don't actually get those very much in this volume. 00:49:31.320 --> 00:49:33.539 You get them much more in Volume 3. 00:49:33.539 --> 00:49:34.650 But you have to keep in mind 00:49:34.650 --> 00:49:36.150 that we're looking for the whole system. 00:49:36.150 --> 00:49:38.019 So ultimately, competitive pressures 00:49:39.360 --> 00:49:41.910 push these things in a particular direction. 00:49:41.909 --> 00:49:44.309 We'll see this a bit later in this book. 00:49:44.309 --> 00:49:46.289 Socially necessary labor time. 00:49:46.289 --> 00:49:48.900 The labor time necessary in this society 00:49:48.900 --> 00:49:50.160 to make a certain thing. 00:49:50.159 --> 00:49:53.279 Marx is gonna use the prefix social a lot. 00:49:53.280 --> 00:49:54.810 What does social mean? 00:49:54.809 --> 00:49:59.809 It has three opposites: natural, individual, and ideal. 00:50:01.530 --> 00:50:02.363 In this way, 00:50:02.362 --> 00:50:06.089 he gets rid of a kind of by a logistic anthropology. 00:50:06.090 --> 00:50:09.900 He gets rid of the Hegelian 00:50:09.900 --> 00:50:12.900 or liberal concentration on an individual, 00:50:12.900 --> 00:50:15.510 and he gets rid of German idealism. 00:50:15.510 --> 00:50:17.580 Social is not natural. 00:50:17.579 --> 00:50:19.682 It means something that was made, 00:50:21.389 --> 00:50:25.109 something historically specific to a given society 00:50:25.110 --> 00:50:26.460 to a certain way of living, 00:50:27.329 --> 00:50:29.639 which has institutions, 00:50:29.639 --> 00:50:31.650 although he will say often 00:50:31.650 --> 00:50:35.280 that the social is natural for human beings. 00:50:35.280 --> 00:50:36.269 Don't be confused. 00:50:36.269 --> 00:50:38.369 The social is quite different than nature. 00:50:38.369 --> 00:50:42.179 Although Marx understood that nature had its own history, 00:50:42.179 --> 00:50:45.179 at that time, he read the "Origin of Species" 00:50:45.179 --> 00:50:47.552 and was really keen about it. 00:50:49.679 --> 00:50:52.710 The social is its own category. 00:50:52.710 --> 00:50:54.840 It also means not individual, 00:50:54.840 --> 00:50:58.660 that is, it's something that applies to the whole society 00:51:00.389 --> 00:51:03.842 and emerges from the interactions of individuals, 00:51:06.539 --> 00:51:08.730 the individuals in the largest collective 00:51:08.730 --> 00:51:10.262 that shares a way of living. 00:51:11.099 --> 00:51:13.440 And social is also not ideal, 00:51:13.440 --> 00:51:16.320 that is to say it's not a prescription 00:51:16.320 --> 00:51:19.559 or a description of some abstract truth, 00:51:19.559 --> 00:51:21.422 but a set of practices. 00:51:23.010 --> 00:51:25.230 Practices that make sense for a group 00:51:25.230 --> 00:51:26.612 under certain pressures. 00:51:28.110 --> 00:51:30.903 A group whose members are completely interdependent, 00:51:33.809 --> 00:51:37.349 for whom an individual is a falsification 00:51:37.349 --> 00:51:39.449 of their real way of living 00:51:39.449 --> 00:51:43.029 because they collaborate on everything 00:51:43.889 --> 00:51:45.289 through a division of labor. 00:51:47.309 --> 00:51:49.199 Social or societal names, 00:51:49.199 --> 00:51:51.599 the interdependent group that cannot be reduced 00:51:51.599 --> 00:51:53.369 to an individual free will, 00:51:53.369 --> 00:51:57.179 to individual inclinations, or individual drives. 00:51:57.179 --> 00:51:58.859 So, the social is a ground zero 00:51:58.860 --> 00:52:00.360 for all of Marx's reflection. 00:52:00.360 --> 00:52:02.849 That's what makes him useful 00:52:02.849 --> 00:52:05.460 and the course is called Foundations of Social Thought. 00:52:05.460 --> 00:52:06.293 Yeah, Samuel. 00:52:08.250 --> 00:52:10.980 - Yeah, Marx is living in a Kingdom. 00:52:10.980 --> 00:52:12.610 They are true, right? 00:52:12.610 --> 00:52:13.950 Like, living in pressure, right, which he was- 00:52:13.949 --> 00:52:16.500 - Well, he is living in London at this time. 00:52:16.500 --> 00:52:18.929 - But he dropped in (indistinct), which is a kingdom. 00:52:18.929 --> 00:52:22.739 And arguably, a lot of societal pressures 00:52:22.739 --> 00:52:26.099 are coming from the whims of the leader of that society. 00:52:26.099 --> 00:52:27.389 But how do we work that? 00:52:28.853 --> 00:52:33.000 - Well, he is not talking about political forms 00:52:33.000 --> 00:52:34.019 or government. 00:52:34.019 --> 00:52:36.250 He is talking about the way people 00:52:37.409 --> 00:52:41.019 have to collaborate on their social life 00:52:42.378 --> 00:52:44.940 to make their means of subsistence, 00:52:44.940 --> 00:52:46.950 which he saw as quite independent 00:52:46.949 --> 00:52:49.619 of the whims of the Prussian leaders, 00:52:49.619 --> 00:52:52.083 although they could infringe on it. 00:52:53.159 --> 00:52:56.009 But people tended to do that on their own, 00:52:56.010 --> 00:52:57.960 they could benefit from it, 00:52:57.960 --> 00:53:00.780 but the people tended to do that on their own, yeah. 00:53:00.780 --> 00:53:02.640 - What is he describing as society? 00:53:02.639 --> 00:53:07.529 Is it particularly London Revolution or IWA Society? 00:53:07.530 --> 00:53:09.269 - Capitalist Society. 00:53:09.269 --> 00:53:13.112 Society under the domination of capital. 00:53:15.840 --> 00:53:19.289 Okay, we're coming up to the end of our time. 00:53:19.289 --> 00:53:21.719 Let me see if there's any questions. 00:53:21.719 --> 00:53:24.669 We're crawling along, but it's gonna get faster, I promise. 00:53:29.264 --> 00:53:31.440 (indistinct) 00:53:31.440 --> 00:53:34.831 - So, capitalism is neither a political system 00:53:34.831 --> 00:53:38.427 nor (indistinct) for a social sector? 00:53:38.427 --> 00:53:41.343 And the key, does he need practical? 00:53:42.300 --> 00:53:44.940 - Oh, yeah, the last chapter is about colonialism. 00:53:44.940 --> 00:53:46.769 Uh-huh, he links it to colonialism 00:53:46.769 --> 00:53:51.769 and the types of colonial-type activities in Europe 00:53:53.489 --> 00:53:56.009 in which people were dispossessed of their land 00:53:56.010 --> 00:53:57.993 and forced into factories. 00:54:00.119 --> 00:54:00.952 Yeah. 00:54:02.429 --> 00:54:03.262 Very loud. 00:54:03.262 --> 00:54:04.096 - This might be too big a question to ask, 00:54:04.096 --> 00:54:05.519 and we're at the end, 00:54:05.519 --> 00:54:09.840 but how much of the rest of Marx's economic analysis 00:54:09.840 --> 00:54:13.200 depends on his labor theory of value? 00:54:13.199 --> 00:54:15.899 - He does not have a labor theory of value. 00:54:15.900 --> 00:54:18.030 He has an abstraction theory of value 00:54:18.030 --> 00:54:22.983 or something people have called a value theory of labor. 00:54:24.510 --> 00:54:25.650 I think it's a good turn 00:54:25.650 --> 00:54:26.940 because he's really interested 00:54:26.940 --> 00:54:31.829 in what being forced to produce value first does to labor. 00:54:31.829 --> 00:54:33.000 He is not interested 00:54:33.000 --> 00:54:37.079 in working out how we can get the most out of a market. 00:54:37.079 --> 00:54:38.699 And so his goal is very different 00:54:38.699 --> 00:54:42.509 than mainstream economists. 00:54:42.510 --> 00:54:44.430 But, we can talk more about that. 00:54:44.429 --> 00:54:47.882 It's the last minute where a bone of contention has come up. 00:54:48.900 --> 00:54:51.930 Other questions before we cut? 00:54:51.929 --> 00:54:52.762 Yeah. 00:54:52.762 --> 00:54:57.599 - (indistinct) together, like exchange value, used value, 00:54:57.599 --> 00:55:00.152 and how value is determined by (indistinct)? 00:55:04.016 --> 00:55:06.419 - The only thing about value that's determined by... 00:55:06.420 --> 00:55:09.389 Value is determined by exchange, 00:55:09.389 --> 00:55:13.259 and its magnitude is determined by the abstraction of labor 00:55:13.260 --> 00:55:16.170 such that those things become comparable. 00:55:16.170 --> 00:55:17.760 It's complicated. 00:55:17.760 --> 00:55:19.140 He says, "When you take all these things 00:55:19.139 --> 00:55:22.859 of totally different qualitative characteristics 00:55:22.860 --> 00:55:24.329 that are used for totally different things 00:55:24.329 --> 00:55:25.319 by different people, 00:55:25.320 --> 00:55:29.430 incidentally, not everyone wants a hammer, right?" 00:55:29.429 --> 00:55:31.049 We are not philosophizing with a hammer, 00:55:31.050 --> 00:55:33.123 we're philosophizing with a MacBook. 00:55:37.230 --> 00:55:39.599 How do they become comparable? 00:55:39.599 --> 00:55:42.480 They become comparable through exchange. 00:55:42.480 --> 00:55:44.159 Where do they get their magnitude? 00:55:44.159 --> 00:55:45.210 They get their magnitude 00:55:45.210 --> 00:55:48.090 from the socially necessary average labor time used in them 00:55:48.090 --> 00:55:49.320 because that's the only thing 00:55:49.320 --> 00:55:52.380 that differentiates different commodities 00:55:52.380 --> 00:55:53.789 in their magnitude of value. 00:55:53.789 --> 00:55:55.409 Says Marx. 00:55:55.409 --> 00:55:58.349 Not the only way to look at it, but it's fairly logical. 00:55:58.349 --> 00:56:01.199 The only thing that's different between a banana, 00:56:01.199 --> 00:56:03.029 aside from its qualitative characteristics, 00:56:03.030 --> 00:56:07.215 and an iPhone is how much average labor it takes 00:56:07.215 --> 00:56:09.000 to go into it. 00:56:09.000 --> 00:56:10.050 Does that make sense? 00:56:11.550 --> 00:56:12.423 For Marx. 00:56:14.190 --> 00:56:15.090 See you next time. 00:56:16.360 --> 00:56:19.277 (uplifting music)