“Every commodity has value in so far as it incorporates socially necessary labour time, and is the outcome of a social process of production. It enters the process of exchange as a bearer of value. This is the sense of Marx's remark that, `the act of exchange gives to the commodity converted into money, not its value, but its specific value form'. /Capital, /vol. I, p. 103. [MECW 35, p101]” MoneyValueCommoditySocially Necessary Labour TimeValue Form Book:Finance Capital: A study in the latest phase of capitalist development Source: Finance Capital: A study in the latest phase of capitalist development
“This is what the bourgeois political economists have done: they have treated value as a fact of nature, not a social construction arising out of a particular mode of production. What Marx is interested in is a revolutionary transformation of society, and that means an overthrow of the capitalist value-form, the construction of an alternative value-structure, an alternative value-system that does not have the specific character of that achieved under capitalism. I cannot overemphasize this point, because the value theory in Marx is frequently interpreted as a universal norm with which we should comply. I have lost count of the number of times I have heard people complain that the problem with Marx is that he believes the only valid notion of value derives from labor inputs. It is not that at all; it is a historical social product. The problem, therefore, for socialist, communist, revolutionary, anarchist or whatever, is to find an alternative value-form that will work in terms of the social reproduction of society in a different image. By introducing the concept of fetishism, Marx shows how the naturalized value of classical political economy dictates a norm; we foreclose on revolutionary possibilities if we blindly follow that norm and replicate commodity fetishism. Our task is to question it.” PossibilityRevolutionCapitalismLaborValueSocialismCommunismLabourCapitalHarveyMarxValue SystemCommodity FetishismFetishismValue FormLabour Theory Of ValueLtvValue Structure Book:A Companion to Marx's Capital, Volume 1 Source: A Companion to Marx's Capital, Volume 1