The producers news. [volume] (Plentywood, Mont.) 1918-1937, 1927-02-11
FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTIONS OF
POLITICAL ECONOMY
CONTINUED from Last Week.
1T IS CAPITALISTIC COMMODITY


At the basis of capitalistic commodity economy
is the separation from the producer of the means
of production and the conversion of them into
the private property of the capitalists. In capt.
alistic commodity economy the owner of the COM
modities exchanges or sells them not for the sat
sfaction Of his needs but with the aim of extract
ing profits; accommodating capital.
Capitalist economy arose out of simple commo-
dity economy The deprivation of the independ-
ent producer of the means of production is an
essential condition of capitalist economy In it
we discern on the one hand the capitalist owners
of the means of production who do not take any
direct part in production themselves, and on the
other hand the wage workers, proletarians, who
have no other property but their workers
hands. These hands, or in other words their la
Dor power, they were forced to sell to the owners
of the means of production, who extract certain
profit from this purchase. In this way in capital
stic commodity economy, labor power itself is
already commodity.
s. WHAT ARE THE TWO KINDS OF VALUE
POSSESSED BY A COMMODITY?
On the one hand-use value; on the other-ex-
change value.
8. WHAT IS USE VALUE?
Every commodity having any sort of use as an
article of consumption or as a means of produc-
ton has a use value. Things which are not COM
modities but objects of general use such as air,
water, virgin soil, meadows, etc., also have use
values. The capitalist system is not interested in
use values however, but only in exchange values
10. WHAT is EXCHANGE VALUE?
In a commodity system products are produced
not for individual use, but for sale for exchange
for money, which in its turn can be exchanged for
whatever other commodity may be desired. Here
the product acquires exchange value alongside
with use value Thus the exchange value of a
commodity is its capacity or quality to be ex-
changed for any other commodity. But here the
question arises: If exchange value is the capa-
city of the commodity to be exchanged, does not
the exchange value depend upon the operation of
exchange? No. The exchange value of a commo-
dity depends upon something else On what, then Z?
On that qaulity which commodities to be exchang-
ed have in common, something that permits us to
compare them. This common quality is not the
usefulness of commodities, but the human labor
which has been put into the production of COM
modities
We cannot compare the quantity of usefulness.
for example, of a gram of. cholera vaccine and a
pound OF butter, because the use derived from
antl-cholera incubation and the number of food
calorles"T contained in pound of butter are
qualltatlvely different Use value cannot be tax
en- as the basis of comparison and exchange In
order to compare two commodities, so that one
can say that gram of cholera vaccine is eouiva-
lent to one pound of butter it is essential to com
pare both one and the other with some third GUAM
| tity common to both of these commodities. This
third quantity common to both of these commodi-
ties and to every other kind of commodity, is hui
man labor.
Thus If commodities cannot be compared bv
their use values, use values cannot be the basis of
exchange values. A gram of cholera vaccine and
pound of butter, which are absolutely different
IN usefulness, may be compared and balanced
against each other only because each of these COM
modities is the result of an equal quantity of hui
man labor.
IL. HOW is THE EXCHANGE VALUE OF A
COMMODITY MEASURED?
Inc exchange value of commodity is meas
ured by the quantity of socially necessary labor
which is required for its production
On the market various kinds of commodities are
exchanged AS products of human labor. as OBJ
JecCs satisfying one another need thew are sub
stantlaLy equivalent But quantatively they are
not equal, because different commodities REQUIRE
different quantities of labor for their production
IN one case more In another case less. How. one
might ask, does the cost of the commodity depend
on the amount of labor? Really, if one more
SKlllful worker spent on the making of some OBJ
Ject live hours, and another, a loafer, ten hours
VIII the product of the latter be worth twice as
J mucn just because twice as many hours were used
up IN Its production not. 1t is in material to So
clety how one another worker works II takes
INTO consideration not the manner of work of anv
individual producer, but the level of productivity
winch has been reached by society as a whole.
II for example, hundred cigarettes can he
MADE IN an hour by hand and the same hundred
can be made in five machines the handmade cig
arettes will not be valued twelve times dearar
because hundred cigarettes represent the ex
cnang worth of only five working minutes. This
i've minutes labor is the quantity of socially
necessary labor which determines the exchange
Value OF the object Tin this case the hundred cea-
rettes). This quantity of labor is of course. not
constant A new invention, improvement of the
process, the Increasing of the productivity of the
LABOR ETC., lead to the lessening of the amounr IF
work necessary for the production of the commo-
dlty as result of which, the exchange value for
II we express it in the generally accepted form
OF money, its price) becomes lower.
1t is clear that labor is the source Of excnanoo
value
This exchange value of comrod;tv l. r,u