this post was submitted on 01 Jan 2024
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We are reading Volumes 1, 2, and 3 in one year. This will repeat yearly until communism is achieved. (Volume IV, often published under the title Theories of Surplus Value, will not be included, but comrades are welcome to set up other bookclubs.) This works out to about 6½ pages a day for a year, 46 pages a week.

I'll post the readings at the start of each week and @mention anybody interested.

Week 1, Jan 1-7, we are reading Volume 1, Chapter 1 'The Commodity'

Discuss the week's reading in the comments.

Use any translation/edition you like. Marxists.org has the Moore and Aveling translation in various file formats including epub and PDF: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/

Ben Fowkes translation, PDF: http://libgen.is/book/index.php?md5=9C4A100BD61BB2DB9BE26773E4DBC5D

AernaLingus says: I noticed that the linked copy of the Fowkes translation doesn't have bookmarks, so I took the liberty of adding them myself. You can either download my version with the bookmarks added, or if you're a bit paranoid (can't blame ya) and don't mind some light command line work you can use the same simple script that I did with my formatted plaintext bookmarks to take the PDF from libgen and add the bookmarks yourself.


Resources

(These are not expected reading, these are here to help you if you so choose)


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[–] PorkrollPosadist@hexbear.net 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Use value is not synonymous with abstract usefulness and it isn't a quantity. It's more like a true/false, a product either is or is not a use value, depending on whether it is actually consumed.

I'm no expert, but I think there is some additional nuance. A cork screw and a bottle of wine both have use-values, even though one is consumed through its use while the other is not. I don't think consumption is key here. Though if you add the derivative of time, you could argue the cork screw is being consumed for a period of time - Engles cannot open a bottle of wine with the cork screw if it is currently being used by Marx to do the same.

While this example is silly, it can have more profound implications if we think about time spent in the context of production. If it takes a machine tool five minutes to make a nut and ten minutes to make a screw, it cannot make both 12 nuts and 6 screws within the same hour-long slice of time.

I think it is also worth highlighting the non-fungibility of use-values. Not that objects simply have or do not have use-values, but that use-values are unique and concrete. A saw has a use-value and a hammer has a use-value, but at the level of use-values, one cannot substitute another. This requires the introduction of value in abstract as you point out.

[–] quarrk@hexbear.net 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Consumption makes more sense when viewed in the aggregate of society. A corkscrew industry presupposes the social need for not only producing, but reproducing corkscrews on a regular basis, depending on the rate of consumption. Corkscrews have a limited lifespan due to corrosion, dulling, breaking apart, being lost, etc. which results in some definite number of corkscrews needing to be produced regularly for replacement, in addition to first-time consumers. In this view, you can think of consumption occurring piecemeal each time a corkscrew is used, just like a machine is used up a little bit each time it is used before eventually needing to be replaced.

I agree with your point on fungibility, although I think it is more accurately termed commensurability. At least, the latter is the term Marx uses. All commodities are fungible, meaning a commodity of type A is interchangeable with another commodity A. They are indistinguishable as instances of the same commodity. However, different use-values are of different quality as use-values and therefore incommensurate, not directly able to be compared quantitatively without a "third thing" common to both. They are different as use-value and the same as value.

When I say use-value is a boolean, I'm talking about one step up in abstraction. A commodity is "a" use-value, and its use value is its physical characteristics which are sought for consumption. Although commodities A and B are different use-values, they are both the same in that they are use-values, and therefore can be exchanged.