"The late scientific discovery that the

products of labour, insofar as they are

Commodity fetishism is not an attempt to values, are mere thing-like expressions of
Labour being imbued in a commodity
uncover mystical labour value, this can be the human labour expended on them in
should not be seen as a way to avoid value/
seen in commodity fetishism being an production opens an epoch in the history
labour as necessarily social
extension of value-form analysis of the development of humanity but in no
way banishes the objective semblance of
the social character of labour"

a. For "human relations are defined as "

social connection of private labours" or
also as "social relations of the producer to
the total labour". What is to be understood
by the concepts "relation" and "total"
labour"?

b. What characterizes the ground for "

social connections" necessarily "appearing"
to consciousness as an other?

c. What constitutes the reality of this

semblance; in which way is this semblance
itself still a moment of reality?

d. [...] 1. How is the "social relationship of things"

structured for Marx?
The setting equal of 2 use-values
They are set equal to a third, money;
producing a "relation" is misleading: they 2. Why and to what extent can the "
therefore, they are already equal to each
are already set equal rather than coming relationship of things only be conceived
other
to be equal as "a mere form of appearance, external to
the relation, of human relations hidden
In the price form, commodities can be As prices the products are "only different behind it"?
compared because they are already quanta of the same object...only imaged
compared quanta of gold of different magnitudes"

Ricardian stance defines value and the

"absolute value" is seen as "something
peculiar in the commodity", "living within
it" -> "scholastic invention"
The relation of commodity and money is
not only quantitative but qualitative -> as
commodities the products are ideal
quanta of gold; however, gold is the reality
of its own price
value-form separate metaphysically, it
cannot be reconciled because it is seen as
use-values are always posited in the price-
axiomatic
form
Subjectivists see the relationship between
value and exchange-value/price as only
quantitative

PolEcon hasn't questioned why labour

represents itself in the value of the product
of labour The "value relation" is an "expression of
value", the relation of commodity and
Contradiction expresses itself in the money
derived contradiction that the exchange of
activities and products must be mediated
by a particular and simultaneously
universal product: money

Critique contains the conditions for

abolition
Marx claimed that value calculation was
Ricardo's defective value-form analysis had realisable with the abolition of commodity
the further consequence that the Gestalt is production
not investigated -> No connection
between determination of exchange-value
by labour-time and the necessity of Connection between law of
commodities of proceeding to the value and reification is silly
formation of money In commodity production social labour is
only performed as the social labour of
Lenin as use-value is not representable by private producers
As value the linen is equal to the gold -> As gold, the products are relative values only
value it is money; as value the linen is gold as absolute values with the same essence
in gold

Commodity exchange produces a

doubling of the commodity into
commodity and money, an external
opposition in which they represent their
immanent opposition of use-value and
value

The commodity becomes a "thing-like

other" but remains itself in its other-being 20 yards of linen = x grams of gold

The other becomes the form of

appearance of the commodity-value in
contrast to the commodity-body through
the other having the same essence as the
commodity, as value
A commodity sets itself equal to another
Money as money is a contradictory as value while it remains different from
structured unity: a particular appears that same other as use-object
immediately as its own counterpart, as
universal instead of finding itself in other The expression of a commodity as itself
commodities. It is the universal equivalent, and as its monetary form is doubling (
the essential form of which all uniting difference)
commodities must take in order to set
itself equal to another

Value is not something "immanent" to

consciousness, it counterposes itself as
something alien to consciousness

As use-values, commodities exist without

specific connection to one another

The relation of a use-value to itself in the

It differentiates itself from itself as use-
value and wins concrete identity
sense of having a relation to another
appears as an immediate connection of 2
use-values which are identical with
themselves
As something unequal to itself the thing
remains in the difference which it
inherently has in itself, it remains identical
with itself
Marx was simply repeating Ricardo
Universal is a unity which contains in itself Common mistakes
Economistic reading sees the *Critique of Positivist interpretation reduces Marx to a
the totality of all determinations in their
PolEcon* as one "economic theory" series of facts
difference
Marx, Engels, and Lenin specifically
warned away from neglecting the value-

Value is not an unmoving substance but

An inversion enters: the value of the
commodity which first makes gold into
The unity of value and use-value, the unity
in self-differentiation presents itself as the
ON THE DIALECTICS DO NOT NEGLECT THE VALUE
form

rather something which unfolds itself in
differentiations: subject
money appears in the commodity still as
an ideal quanta of gold: as exchange value
doubling of the commodity into
commodity and money
OF THE VALUE- FORM "For bourgeois society, however, the
commodity form of the products of labour
or price
FORM or the value form of the commodity is the
economic cell form.*To the uneducated its
Inaugurates Marx's critique of ideology Point of confluence of sociology and analysis appears to turn on minutae." (
and a specific theory of money economic theory Marx, Foreword to Capital)
Value-form analysis has a three-fold
Money is no sign but semblance and significance for Marx's social theory
reality as the same time -> the objectified
social connection of isolated individuals No finished version of LTV left by
Marx
Impossible to accept law of value while
rejecting Marx's theory of money Ignorance of law of value to
Value theory adequately interpreted when derive money as money ->
Arbitrary relation of spheres of production commodity grasped in a way which posits
itself as money in the process of an "
revision of money theory ->
and circulation in a relation of
understanding ( immanent going beyond itself" indistinguishable from classical
Reflexionszusammenhang) [Typical of LTV
austro-marxist school] is an expression of
incapacity to understand the value theory
as value-form analysis

Marx's analysis of the commodity presents

Mediation of essence and form of
"The universal exists...not independently of
appearance necessarily construed as
the individual appearances. It is contained
pseudo-dialectical movement of pseudo-
in them as universal, invariant"
dialectical contradiction
itself as an 'unmediated jump from the
simple to the complicated, from the
substance to the form of appearance' (
Appears to skip a step)
Essence is defined as formal, logical as the
universal, typical, principal.
If not understandable as a dialectical
movement from immediate 'being'
through the 'essence' to mediated '
Exchange-value - value - value-
essence' so that 'immediacy is sublated
and again posited as mediated form
existence' -> "dialectical" caricatures
become understandable

Section 4 was originally an extension to Commodity fetishism (section 4) only Break between first 2 sections and the Theory of the value-form is often
section 3!! (fetishism as a "fourth understandable through the lens of the third section obscures understanding of seen as a 'dialectical' ornament
peculiarity" of the equivalent-form) value-form (section 3) commodity fetishism
of what was already derived

Popularisation etc. lead to

obscuring 'why this content
assumes that form' (in reference
to the value-form)

Money is no sig
objectified socia
LTV is explicitly dialectical in
Marx's presentation