Marx Response for July 21

According to Marx, there are four key aspects of a commodity, which he defines as “…an object outside us, a thing that by its properties satisfies human wants of some sort or another.”(303) The four attributes are: Use-Value, (Actual) Value, an Exchange Value, and the Price given to the product. The use-value of a commodity is “independent of the amount of labor required to appropriate its useful quantities”. (303) It is simply the usefulness of that item. The Real Value of a commodity is the worth of that item based on the value derived from the consumption of a product or service. Exchange-Value is the value of the commodity pertaining to the market in which it is present (Marx believes the only way that this value can be determined is by the amount of labor time put into the commodity.) The price given to the commodity is the cost of production plus the average rate of profit.