Re-writing an already completed assignment

Vasquez 1

Vasquez 2

Ludwin Vasquez

Professor Paul Warren

Marxism

March 16, 2021

Study Questions #1 on the Critique of Capitalism

(Q1)  Because the capitalist mode of production is the economic system that produces the most commodities. It's whole economic system relies on the mass production of commodities. For example, other societies had objects of use but on a smaller scale. A shoemaker could make 10 shoes a day. Today a factory produces thousands to be distributed in the market. Most people used to have one or two pairs of shoes, if any. Today, in a capitalist society, many own more than one. Therefore, a capitalist society is definitely wealthier than a feudalist society by its amount of commodities.

(Q2)  The utility of a thing is the use-value. It is solely dependent upon the commodity and is not a property independent of it. It is also independent of the labor put into it. More labor does not necessarily mean more use-value. A shoe is useful for walking, whether it took 1 day, or 20 days of work does not change its worth in utility. A thing's use value is only realized when it is used or consumed. It must be noted that a thing's use value is not the price of things.

(Q3) The exchange value has a numerical or quantitative aspect to it. For it to be exchangeable to another thing it must first reach an equilibrium in which both things are congruent. For example, if I have 20 shoes and want to exchange them for x sweaters, a number must be found for x sweaters which would be equivalent to my 20 shoes that I want to exchange. The number reached will be exchange value. Let's say that 30 wool sweaters are equivalent to 20 shoes, then that's the exchange value. Use value does not deal with exchange per say, but only in the utility or purpose of things. For sweaters it is to shelter us from the cold and for shoes to protect our feet from the terrain. A thing can also have many exchange values depending on the conditions.

(Q4) By phenomenal he means changeable and subjective (I think this comes from the distinction of noumenal and phenomenal). So, the exchange value is relative and changeable rather than fixed and objective. By the phenomenal form of something equal, it means that the quantity varies. 20 shoes in another place may result in the equivalence of 40 sweaters rather than 30 in another place.

(Q5) Exchange value deals with quantities only because when one is exchanging things, use-values or qualities don't matter because one thing is as useful as the other thing if both are of the same quantity. Utility is independent of exchange value.

(Q6) Concrete forms of labor embodied in commodities are dependent upon use-value, which Marx considers as something concrete. A table or shoe is made by the labor of a carpenter and shoemaker. If we take the material element out, being use-value, then we also take out the concrete labor and are left with human labor in the abstract sense. 

(Q7) For a commodity or useful thing to have value, labor has to be put into it. The magnitude of value is measured in the duration of labor, Marx gives the example of it being either weeks, days, or hours. 

(Q8) The socially necessary labor time is the average time required to produce a commodity under normal conditions of production. This is an important notion because it is how value will be developed. The example he uses is that of the time required to turn yarn into cloth. The socially necessary labor time before industrial machines may have been one hour to turn x yarn into y cloth, but after the introduction of machines it changed to half of that, 30 minutes. If the handweavers still took one hour, the socially necessary labor time is still 30 minutes after the machinery was introduced. This also shows how efficiency comes into being. Since the machinery requires less socially necessary labor time, it is more efficient than handweavers. 

(Q9) The average amount of skill of the laborer, state of development of science and how that science is applied (technology), social organization of production, the extent or capabilities of the means of production, and physical conditions. 

 (Q10) Use-value is independent of value, the value deriving from labor. Therefore, a natural resource may be useful (have utility) and by definition it has not been joined with labor. Marx gives the example of air or parcels of empty and untampered land.

 

(Q11) Marx says that a person can satisfy his own needs and wants with his labor, thereby, creating use-value but for himself. However, if that is not transferred to others as a means of an exchange, it does not become a commodity. The distinction is that producing for others such as taxes is quite different as actually transferring to others. For example, if a king taxed a shoemaker with 100 shoes a year for his army, the shoes are not exchanged in a marketplace, they are only a tax

(Q12) In order to produce commodities, the division of labor is necessary but the division of labor can exist independently of commodities, that is, a group of people can use the division of labor and create use-value without having to exchange it on the marketplace. For example, an enclosed community of monks can turn wax into candles by the division of labor, one is focused on harvesting the beeswax, another one is tasked with boiling it and purifying it, one collects linen for the wick, and a final one pours the melted wax. The monks can use those candles for themselves instead of exchanging it in the marketplace, therefore not qualifying as commodities.

(Q13) The other source of material wealth is the earth or natural resources to be specific. Natural resources are needed along with labor for producing commodities.

(Q14) Simple labor is the labor that most of us are capable of, while skilled labor is simple labor intensified and more developed. Marx specifies that skilled labor is measured in the standards of simple labor alone.

(Q15) An increase in the quantity of use-values increases material wealth of society because there are more useful things for people to use. Marx gives the example that before one coat could clothe one person, now two clothes can clothe two and so on. However, the value of that wealth decreases because less labor is put into it per each individual thing of value. Marx explains this by using the productiveness of labor and how it is tied to how much labor is spent on things. More productiveness as a result of machinery or new forms of weaving and tailoring will mean less labor put into things while simultaneously creating more things of value. 

(Q16) The mystical and enigmatic character of commodities is that they are assigned a relation between things independent of men and the labor that they have put into those things. Marx makes the analogy of the eye, how light is sensed by us in our nerves, but we know that there is light independent of our eyes and nerves. Similarly, commodities are assigned a relationship between themselves while leaving out that they are the products of humans.

(Q17) Marx explains how fetishism arises by first explaining that since commodities are produced privately, there is no real contact or social relation between producers until they reach the marketplace or in the act of exchange. Since producers are private, they can only reassert their social labor in the market, indirectly through things. Thereby, things attain this mystical character by themselves. Similar to how a statue may be considered sacred by itself, forgetting that it is the result of a human sculptor.

(Q18) Marx means that value is not something outright given in the marketplace, simple to understand homogenous or with the same type of labor put into it. Rather, when we exchange and see values, we see the different types of labor put into it, something more complex. The labor in the abstract is not seen directly.

(Q19) Marx is saying here that although labor times vary as a result of private producers, the socially necessary labor time stays the same and it is what gives objects its value in order to be exchanged. The discovery of the socially necessary labor time does not change how value is determined.

(Q20) The first example is that of Robinson stranded on an island, in it he produces his own things of value for his own consumption, he knows the time and effort put into the things he consumes. He knows there is no mystery because they are “his own creation.

The second example is that the middle ages, in the feudal mode of production. In this age, every serf knows is his labor that brings the grains to the lord or any other type of service is given with the direct knowledge it is their labor. 

The third example is that of a self-subsistent peasant family. A family produces things to fulfil their human requirements, tilts the soil, weaves linen, raises cattle. It is evident that it is their own labor that is making things of use-value without any mystery or illusion of thinking that objects are independent of them.

The fourth example is that of a free community, or commune. In a commune, they all work towards fulfilling all of their needs. It is their labor and products of that labor what they consume. This is similar to the island example, but on a more numerical scale rather than individual.