Commodities.
The Two Factors Of A Commodity: UseValue And Value.
The Substance Of Value And The Magnitude Of Value.
The Wealth of societies in which the capitalist mode of production presvails, presents itself as "an immense accumulation of commodities," its unit being a single commodity. Our investigation must therefore begin with the analysis of a commodity.
A Commodity is, in the first place, an object outside us, a thing that by its properties satisfies human
wants of some sort or another. The nature of such wants, whether, for instance, they spring from the stomach or from fancy, makes no difference. Neither are we here concerned to know how the object satisfies these wants, whether directly as means of subsistence, or indirectly as means of production.
Every useful thing, as iron, paper, &c. may be looked at from two points of view of quality and quantity. It is an assemblage of many properties, and may therefore be of use in various ways.
To diversity of these measures has its origin partly in the diverse nature of the objects to be measured, partly in convention.
The utility a thing makes it a usevalue. But this utility is not a thing of air. Being by the physical properties of the commodity, it has no existence apart from that commodity. A commodity, such as iron, corn, or a diamond, is therefore, so far as it is a material thing, a usevalue, something useful.
This property of a commodity is independent of the amount of labour required to appropriate its useful qualities. When treating of usevalue, we always assume to be dealing with definite quantities, such as dozens of watches, ards of linen, or tons of iron. The usevalues of commodities furnish the material for a special study, that of the coomercial knowledge of commodities. UseValues become a reality only by use or consumption: They also constitute the substance of all wealth, whatever may be the social form of that wealth. In the form of society we are about to consider, They are, in addition, The Material Depitories of ExchangeValue.
ExchangeValues, At First Sight, presents itself as a quantitative relation, as the proportion in which values in use of one sort are exchanged for those of another sort, a relation constantly changing with time and place. Hence exchangevalue appears to be something accidental and purely relative, and consequently an IntrinsicValue, I.E. an ExchangeValue that is inseparably connected with, inherent in commodities, seems a contradiction in terms. Let us consider the matter a little more closely.
A Given commodity, E.G. a quarter of wheat is exchanged for x blacking, y silk, or z gold, & c. in short, for other commodities in the most diffferent proportions. instead of one exchangevalue, the wheat has, therefore, a great many. but since x blacking, y silk, or z gold & c. must, as exchangevalues, be replaceable by eachother, or equal to eachother. therefore, first: the validexchangevalues of a given commodity express something eqaal: secondly, exchangevalue, generally, is only the mode of expression, the phenomenal form, of something contained in it, yet distinguishable from it.
Let us take two commodities, E.G. corn and iron. the proportions in which they are exchangeable, whatever those proportions maybe, can always be represented by an equation in which a given quantity of corn is equated to some quantity of iron: E.G. quatercorn = X. CWT. iron. what does this equation tell us. it tells us that in two different things in quarter of corn and X. CWT. of iron, there exists in equal quantities something common to both. the two things must therefore be equal to a third, which in itself is neither the one nor the other. each of them, so far as it is exchangevalue, must therefore be reducible to this third.
a simple geometrical illustration will make this clear. in order to calculate and compare the areas of rectilinear figures, wedecompose them into triangles. but the area of the triangle itself is expressed by something totally different from its visible figure, namely, by half tthe product of the base multiplied by the altitude. in the same way the exchangevalues of commodities must be capable of being expressed in terms of something common to them all, of which thing they represent a greater or less quantity.
this common "somthing" cannot be either a geometrical, a chemical, or any other natural property of commodities. such properties claim our attention only in so far as they affect the utility of those commodities, make them usevalue. but the exchange of commodities is evidently an act characterised by a total abstraction from usevalue. then one usevalue is just as good as another, provided only it be present in suffcient quantity. or, as old barbon says,
"one sort of wares are as good as another, if the values be equal. there is no difference or distinction in things of equalvalue ... hundred pounds' worth of lead or iron, is of as greatvalue one hundred pounds' worth of silver or gold."
as usevalues, commodities are, abovve all, of different qualities, but as exchangevalues they are merely different quantities, and consequently do not contain an atom of usevalue.
if then we leave out of consideration the usevalue of commodities, they have only one common property left, that of being products of labour. but even the product of labour itself has undergone a change in ourhands. if we make abstraction from its usevalue, we make abstraction at the sametime from the materialelements and shapes that make the product a usevalue. we see in it no longer a table, a house, a yarn, or anyother usefulthing. its existence as a materialthing is pit out of sight. neither can it any longer be regarded as the product of the labour of the joiner, the manson, the spinner, or of anyother definite kind of productive labour. along with the useful qualities of the products themselves, we put out of sight both the useful character of the various kinds of labour embodied in them, and the concrete forms of that labour. there is nothing left but what is common to them all. all are reduced to one and the same sort of labour, humanlabour in the abstract.
let us now consider the rsidue of each of these products. it consists of the same unsubstantial reality in each, a mere congelation of homogeneous humanlabour, of labour power expended without regard to the mode of its expenditure. all that these things now tell us is, that humanlabour power has been expended in their producton, that humanlabour is embodied in them. when looked at as crystals of this social substance, common to them all, they are values.
We Have seen that when commodities are exchanged, their exchangevalue manifests itself as something totally independment of their usevalue. But If we abstract from their usevalue. there remains theri value as defined above. therefore, the common substnce that manifests itself in the exchangevalue of commodities, whenever they are exchanged, is their value. the progress of out investigation will show that exchangevalue is the only form in which the value of commodities can manifest itself or bbe expressed. for the present, however, we have to consider the nature of value independently of this, its form.
A UseValue, or useful article, therefore, has value only because humanlabour in the abstract has been embodied or materialised in it. How, then, is the magnitude of this value to be measured. plainly, by the quantity of the valuecreatingsubstance, The Labour, contained in the article. the quantity of labour, however, is measured by its duration, and labourtime in its turn finds its standard in weeks, days, and hours.
some people might think that if the value of commodity is determinded by the quantity of labour spent on it, the more idle and unskilful the labourer, the more valuable would his commodity be, because more time would be required in its production. The Labour, however, that forms the substance of value, is homogeneous humanlabour, expenditure of one uniformlabourpower. the totallabourpower of society. which is embodied in the sumtotal of the values of all commodities produced by that society. counts here as one homogeneous mass of humanlabourpower, composed though it be of innumerable individual units. each of these units is the same as anyother, so far as it has the character of the averagelabourpower of society, and takes effect as such. that is, so far as it requires for producing a commodity, no more time than is needed on an average, no more than is socially necessary. the labourtime socially necessary is that required to produce an article under the noraml conditions of production, and with the average degree of skill and intensity prevalent at the time. the introduction of powerlooms into England probably reduced by onehalf the labour required to weave a given quantity of yarn into cloth. the handloomweavers, as a mattter of fact, continued to require the sametime as before, but for all that, the product of onehour of their labour represented after the change onlyhalf an hour's sociallabour, and consequently fell to onehalf its formervalue.
we see then that that which determines the magnitude of the value of any article is the amount of labour socially necessary, or the labour time socially necessary for its production. each individual commodity, in this connexion, is to be considered as an average sample of its calss. commodities, therefore, in which equal quantities of labour are embodied, or which can be produced in the sametime, have the samevalue. the value of one commodity is to the value of anyother, as the labourtime necessary ffor the production of the one is to that necessary for the production of the other. "as values, all commodities are only definite masses of congealed labourtime.
the value of a commodity would therefore remain constant, if the labourtime required for its production also reamined constant. but the latter changes with everyvariation in the productiveness of labour. this productiveness is determined by various circumstances, amongst others, by the average amount of skill of the workmen, the state of science, and the degree of its practical application, the social organisation of production, the extent and capabilities of the means of production, and by physical conditions. for example, the sameamount of labour in favourable seasons is embodied in 8 bushels of corn, and in unfavouralbe, only in four. the samelabour extracts from richmines more metal than from poormines. diamonds are of very rare occcurence on the earth's surface, and hence their discovery costs, on an average, a great deal of labourtime. consequently much labour is represented in a small compass. jacob doubts whether gold has ever been pain for at its full value. this applies still more to diamonds. according to eschwege, the total produce of the braziliandiamondmines for the eighty years, ending in 1823, had not realised the price of one and a hlafyears' average produce of the sugar and coffee plantations of the samecountry, although the diamonds cost much omre labour, and therefore represented more value. with richermines, the same quantity of labour would embody itself in more diamonds, and their value would fall. if we could succeed at a small expenditure of labour, in converting carbon into diamonds. their value might fall below that of bricks. in general, the greater the productiveness of labour, the less is the labourtime required for the production of an article, and the less is its value. and vice versa, the less the productiveness of labour, the greater is its value. the value of a commodity, therefore, varies directly as the quantity, and inversely as the productiveness, of the labour incorporated in it.
a thing can be a usevalue, without having value. this is the case whenever its utility to man is not due to labour. such are air, virginsoil, natural meadows, &C. a thing can be useful, and the product of humanlabour, without being a commodity. whoever directly satisfies his wants with the produce of his own labour, creates, indeed, usevalues, but not commodities. in order to produce the latter, he must not only produce usevalues, but usevalues for others, social usevalues. and not only for other, without more. the mediaeval peasant produced quitrentcorn for his feudal lord and tithecorn for his parson. but neither the quitrentcorn nor the tithecorn became commodities by reason of the fact that they had been produced for others. to become a commodity a product must be transferred to another, whom it will serve as a usevalue, by means of an exchange. lastly nothing can have value, without being an object of utility. if the thing is useless, so is the labour contained in it. the labour does not count as labour, and therefore creates no value.