Socioeconomic formations, where there is commodity production and exchange – and these go back 10,000 years – also see The Law of Value expressed in a different form to that of slave society, or the primitive commune, or the direct production of the peasant household. A commodity is produced specifically to be exchanged for some other commodity or money – the general commodity. If I am Robinson, or a peasant household, the value of my product is inseparable from its use value. Its value is never a social value, because the product itself never exists as a social product, compared to other social products. Its value is always an individual value. I apply my labour directly to this production to be able to obtain the specific use to consume. This is the point that Marx makes in relation to James Mill, who does not understand that, with commodity production, value becomes separable from use value, and the obvious manifestation of this is money.
When I produce a commodity rather than a product, the value created by my labour stops being measured directly by labour-time, and starts to be measured indirectly by the quantity of other use values that I can obtain in exchange for it. The value of each commodity continues to determine this relation, but it now operates behind the backs of those exchanging these commodities, i.e. it gives rise to commodity fetishism. Value stops being measured intrinsically, and immediately, by labour-time, and starts to be measured externally, and indirectly as exchange-value, and, in its money form, as price. But, The Law of Value has continued to operate, just as much as it does for Robinson or the primitive commune. The commodity producers do not see it, because it occurs behind their backs, but the exchange-value of the commodities they produce continues to be determined by their value, i.e. by the labour-time required for their production, but this required labour-time, is now itself socially determined, because it is no longer the embodied labour of the producer/consumer that is determinant, but the average labour-time of all producers, who bring such commodities to market. And, because the consumers are no longer the producers, what constitutes socially necessary labour now also depends upon the level of demand for these commodities. The commodity producers, however, see the commodities they produce as having this intrinsic value, as a result of commodity fetishism. Exchange-value is simply, as Marx sets out in his Letter to Kugelmann, the form that The Law of Value takes in a mode of production founded upon commodity production and exchange.
Similarly, in systems of direct production, the producers, having determined value directly, by labour-time, allocate it so as to maximise use value. Under feudalism, and Labour Rent, the feudal lord also pumps surplus labour from the producer in this direct form as labour performed on his land. But, under commodity production and exchange, the labourer now allocates their labour to producing those commodities that will produce the greatest exchange-value, relative to the labour they expend, i.e. to those commodities in which they have some comparative advantage. But, this is still governed by The Law of Value. Comparative advantage is simply an expression of the fact that the individual value of production of one producer is lower than the market value of that output, i.e. lower than the aggregate of the individual values for all other producers. In short, they are able to exchange less labour for more labour, but the value of the total output of this commodity, its market value, is equal to the total labour that all producers expend on its production, in conformance with The Law of Value. In systems of commodity production and exchange, The Law of Value is expressed through exchange-value, and this leads producers to produce commodities that provide them with the maximum exchange-value compared to the labour they expend, rather than producing use values that provide them with the greatest utility.
However, the purpose remains the same. The independent direct producer does not engage in commodity production and exchange specifically to obtain exchange-value. Their primary goal remains to acquire those use values required for their own consumption, C – C, or in a money economy, C – M - C. It is simply that they now seek to achieve this by buying them in the market, and to do this requires exchange-value, whether this exchange-value takes the form of the commodity they produce (systems of barter), or of exchange-value incarnate, money. To do this they must produce commodities themselves, which they either exchange directly for the use values they require, or else they sell them for money, in order to exchange money for those use values.
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