Mustafa Neemuchwala

Professor James Galbraith

2/6/19
Reading Notes
 What is a commodity’s value?
o Utility
o Exchange value
o Work
o Social
 Fetishism of commodities comes from the social character of labor
 Material relations between people, social relations between things
 What does Marx mean by social character/social relationships?
 Objects have value, and those values govern social relationships
 Producers are driven by object value rather than the reverse
 Robinson Crusoe
o Shipwreck, extracts few things of value
o Starts documenting in book
o Produces things of value
 Common means of production
o Labor is social instead of individual
o Distribution by labor time
 What about efficiency/productivity differences?
 Quality differences?
 Religion driven by lack of relations with fellow men and Nature
 Physiocratic delusion that rents grow out of soil rather than society
 Capitalist buys labor power to create objects of value
o Value delivered after labor power has been in action and product can be sold
 The less attracted by the work the more attention has to be consciously paid
 Labor process factors
o Work itself
o Subject of that work
o Instruments used in that work
 Same use value is the product of labor for previous labor and means of production for
later labor
 Things that do not serve the purposes of labor are useless
 Labor has to convert potential use value to real use value
 Product of individual consumption is the consumer himself vs product distinct from the
consumer for productive labor
 Social conditions of laborer can’t be seen when consuming product
 Capitalist owns labor and labor process and production is owned by capitalist
 Not just use value, but exchange value + surplus value (surplus to input costs)
 Is he saying value is derived from input costs/labor or exchange (i.e. how much someone
is willing to pay for it?)
 Value things in labor necessary to produce
 What about incentives to produce?