Intrinsic Value?

This is absolutely muddled. An exchange value
is the means by which value is expressed. An exchange value is the definite quantity of a commodity that expresses the value of another quantity. Since a commodity's value only has a "spectral objectivity", i.e. it is not a tangible, physiological magnitude, it requires an exchange value to be expressed.

Again, let's quote from Marx:

This is the second time I've resorted to actually quoting Marx to clarify his categories. You didn't respond the first time.

How about you sit and think about the quotation from Marx I presented concerning how he defines socially necessary labor?

Or are you just interested in trolling? Your posts always have the same content: "None of you understand that Marx's categories don't mean what Marx said, they mean what I say, by way of my half-understood reading of Postone and the fragments from the Grundrisse he quotes. Oh, and by the way, state fiat money. And furthermore, fascist state."

Well, at least Dave B. provided a certain consistency by regurgitating the standard Engels/Kautsky orthodoxy.

Jehu, on the other, just seems to be arbitrarily re-defining Marx's terminology with his own content. It's like when Westerners get tattoos of Chinese characters; Jehu isn't clear on what Marx's categories mean; he just likes the way they sound.

"In other words, the value of a commodity obtains independent and definite expression, by taking the form of exchange value."

Excuse me, but what about independent is difficult to understand in Marx's statement? Can the labor embedded in an object achieve actual independence from the commodity? Can it jump out of the commodity and remain with the seller? Clearly not. It is exchange for something else having value -- or perhaps not, depending on the actual circumstance. If I receive in return for my commodity counterfeited money, has the value contained in my commodity achieved this independent and definite expression?

The argument Marx is making here depends on a number of other assumptions, which, for purposes of explication, he can leave to one side. However, when we are actually looking at the actual circumstances surrounding the transaction, these assumptions must each be tested and verified. Among these, we have to ask:

1. Does the object being sold actually contain value (as Marx assumes) in the first place?

2. Is the money a commodity money (as Marx assumes) or valueless fascist state fiat?

@ADDL:

If the object sold has no value, for instance virgin land, what has achieved an independent and definite expression in the transaction?

If the means of exchange used in the transaction is a valueless state issued inconvertible tokens with no commodity backing can the value of the commodity still obtain an independent expression?

couldn't agree more Angelus - are we sure Jehu isn't Rosa in disguise????!!

it is rare to see such a sustained avoidance of the objections raised or such an obstinate refusal to entertain the thought of personal fallibility.

guess i am just a tool of the fascist state in thinking so......taking the piss has lost its appeal now - enjoy folks!

Andy,

Hey, don't accuse me of ad hominems -- I never called anyone anything but by their names.

amazing - even the rebuttals prove my point!

try to remember us mere mortals can only follow your stellar logic if you actually make an argument rather than assemble a range of half arsed remarks and supposed supporting quotations that actually aren't

Andy,

I know this is dense stuff for you, so let me put it in simple terms you can understand:

Marx's Capital is a theoretical argument of how Capitalism works in its idealized form. As such it is stripped of all the ambiguities we find in real life. For instance, what impact does state issued fiat currency with no backing have on the functioning of the mode of production.

There are two I can think of that have significance for this discussion:

First, the exchange of a commodity for a valueless piece of paper or electronic digits does not transfer any actual exchange value from buyer to seller. Yes. It transfers these token, but the token have no value and are not fixed to any commodity having value. There is, as Marx states, no standard for prices. Price becomes a meaningless category from the point of view of the law of value. The currency is not money or even a token of money, but something else.

Second, who controls this money? In Marx's theory no one control what is money. But in the case of valueless fiat, the control is in the hands of the fascist state. Who issues it? In marx's theory the money is a produced commodity requiring actual labor to produce. But, this valueless fiat is issued by the fascist state from a computer terminal . Who regulates the quantity of this money in circulation? In Marx's theory, the circulation of commodities regulates the quantity of money in circulation. But the quantity of this fiat in circulation is regulated by fascist state monetary policy.

So in Marx theory, commodity money regulates the activities of the producers, but with this fiat the state now regulates this activity. And whose state is this? Is it your state? Is it the state of the working class. Or is it the capitalist state?

It is the capitalist state, that is, the state of the class for which the production of surplus value is the beginning and end of the process of circulation. And with control over what constitutes money in an exchange, it can control the prices of everything, including the price of labor power through its economic policy. It can, for instance, deliberately depreciate the "purchasing power" of the currency forcing ever greater quantities of labor time out of the working class. It can also print as much of this currency up as it needs to "buy" its nuclear missile submarines, or bailout the bondholders of GM, or prop up the banks. The currency, once created out of nothing, can be expended on anything it desires, whether this expenditure satisfies human need or not.

The point of the exercise is not how much of Marx you can quote, but how much of it you can actually apply to actual conditions of society today.

Yes, your argument about socially necessary labor time; your confusion of superfluous labor for surplus labor, your misunderstanding of use value; your confusion of use value and capital values and on and on and on and on.

I don't have nightmares.

@S. Artesian

Good, I was worried about that. I am happy to hear it. You can go back to sleep in peace, now.

Nope. It can print whatever it wants, doesn't mean it's going to be able to "prop up" the banks, as the Eurozone proves.

"The crisis of the eurozone is not a crisis of liquidity; it is one of solvency." Mervyn God Save the Ring a Ding Ding, guv bank of England.

@S. Artesian

This is true, but it nevertheless proves my point. In case you did not notice, the euro-zone countries do not have control of their monetary policy. They handed control of monetary policy over to the ECB.

The following countries also cannot just print money because they use the dollar as their domestic currency:

British Indian Ocean Territory
British Virgin Islands
East Timor
Ecuador
El Salvador
Marshall Islands
Northern Mariana Islands
Palau
Panama
Turks and Caicos Islands

A country can only have a monetary policy if it has not divested itself of the sovereign right and/or it have been taken away from it by developments within the world market.