commodities
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- | ====== Commodities ====== | ||
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- | In his book //Das Kapital//, [[Karl Marx]] puts forward a theory of capitalism as a social system. His conceptualisation of **commodities** is central to his argument (see for instance Marx 1867: chap. 1). For [[Karl Marx|Marx]], | ||
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- | In another light, it is useful to think of the commodity as the logical opposite of a [[reciprocity|Maussian gift]], and gift systems and the capitalist system as two alternative forms of society. Of course, reality is always more complicated than that, but this is a simplified model meant to clarify different kinds of social and economic practice. | ||
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- | To understand what makes a commodity different than any other object, we have to talk about value. We have to ask what we mean by saying something is worthy, valuable, or good. Many things are useful, but it is hard to compare this value - its use value - to anything else. Shoes are good for keeping feet warm. Mobile phones are good for calling people… | ||
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- | And yet people do compare them when they exchange them. Somehow there must be a common basis for comparison. Like Adam Smith, David Ricardo and the other “worldly philosophers" | ||
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- | Unlike his predecessors, | ||
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- | Put another way, commodities are created under specific kinds of conditions in which a worker sells her labor for a wage. The products of her labor become the property of the owner of the capital—that is, the technology and money—who employs her. This capitalist sells the commodities. He does not have to pay the worker anything more than what other people pay workers; it has nothing to do with the price of the commodity he is selling. The difference between the prevalent wage rate and the price of a commodity is profit for the capitalist. He uses this to buy more capital, to replenish the technological means of production that he owns. So in this sense, the exchange of commodities in a system of capitalism is linked to the system of wage labor, which is for Marx a system in which owners of capital are in a privileged position and can exploit workers. | ||
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- | Thus, capitalism is also a class system. The worker and the owner both participate in the same system and both need each other, but each of them stands in a completely different relationship to the system, and this affects what they see. Owners think of all of this as hunky-dory. They would even say that it is what happens when human beings are allowed to follow their human nature. “[[Pangloss|Surely, | ||
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- | ===== References ====== | ||
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- | Heilbroner, Robert L. 2011 [1953]. The Worldly Philosophers: | ||
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- | Marx, Karl. 1867. “Chapter One: Commodities.” Capital, vol 1. https:// | ||
commodities.txt · Last modified: 2022/07/31 21:30 by Ryan Schram (admin)