Use Value

Going back to Jessica’s question “Is the idea of money and prices a form of indicating an object’s use-value or is it a way of expressing its exchange-value?” Like Jaden, I also believe that it is too simplistic to directly equate price to exchange value.

I think it might be helpful to apply the pattern we learned today in class: Capital (C1)→Money (M)→Capital (C2). I apologize in advance if this is incorrect and makes us all way more confused, but I think it may go something like this.

We can see that the price we pay for a commodity (i.e. something of use-value) is demonstrated by the M. At this M stage, we can look at the money we pay as a process of exchanging for what we want to use: C2. This is the hypothetical “currency” I believe that Jaden is referring to. Where exchange-value comes in is the symbol, the “→”. It really is the mechanism of the “→” that transitions consumers throughout the course of attaining different use-values. The “→” helps to establish the relation from C1 to M or from M to C2.

To attempt to answer Jessica’s question, I think price is just a middle step in the pattern. And the exchange value “→” itself is really the mechanism that allows people to be able to transform utilities of some sort (C1) in order to attain another utility they are seeking (M or C2). Likewise, the exchange value can allow for transitioning from M to C2.