I finished the chapter and reading back towards section 2 really helped made me better understand it I think. I still have to like process it all. I liked how Marx mention of like saying how like 20 linen = 1 coat, mainly more so how like, that mainly reflected itself? I almost typed Lenin instead of lenin. Anyways, it's that it's own value is only found in a relation with another commodity, being reflected. that relation value was really neat. But it reminded me of a video I watched, where the person talked about like, how she discovered herself more through others or like relations through others.

anyways I was confused on something. Like from the footnotes? Mainly this part.

"26. It is by no means self-evident that this character of direct and universal exchangeability is, so to speak, a polar one, and as intimately connected with its opposite pole, the absence of direct exchangeability, as the positive pole of the magnet is with its negative counterpart. It may therefore be imagined that all commodities can simultaneously have this character impressed upon them, just as it can be imagined that all Catholics can be popes together. It is, of course, highly desirable in the eyes of the petit bourgeois, for whom the production of commodities is the nec plus ultra of human freedom and individual independence, that the inconveniences resulting from this character of commodities not being directly exchangeable, should be removed."

There was like more to it but I was more confused about that part? It was the footnote for this part in section 3 of chapter 1.

"Finally, the form C gives to the world of commodities a general social relative form of value, because, and in so far as, thereby all commodities, with the exception of one, are excluded from the equivalent form. A single commodity, the linen, appears therefore to have acquired the character of direct exchangeability with every other commodity because, and in so far as, this character is denied to every other commodity"

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm#26b

I'm not exactly sure what that footnote is saying? Is that passage just saying like, not everything can be like a universal exchangeability and emphasizing that? with like that footnote emphasizing that with the example in it about like catholics and popes? I dont understand what is meant by poles, or like, near the end about

"It is, of course, highly desirable in the eyes of the petit bourgeois, for whom the production of commodities is the nec plus ultra of human freedom and individual independence, that the inconveniences resulting from this character of commodities not being directly exchangeable, should be removed."

I'm not sure what that passage exactly saying then maybe like, petit bourgeois want commodities to be directly exchangeable? and to remove to that general form of value or money value? or just like removing any inconvenience that rise from things not being directly exchangeable and nothing to do with like the general form of value and stuff? or I dunno.

"Let us now picture to ourselves, by way of change, a community of free individuals, carrying on their work with the means of production in common, in which the labour power of all the different individuals is consciously applied as the combined labour power of the community. All the characteristics of Robinson [Crusoe]’s labour are here repeated, but with this difference, that they are social, instead of individual. Everything produced by him was exclusively the result of his own personal labour, and therefore simply an object of use for himself. The total product of our community is a social product. One portion serves as fresh means of production and remains social. But another portion is consumed by the members as means of subsistence. A distribution of this portion amongst them is consequently necessary. The mode of this distribution will vary with the productive organisation of the community, and the degree of historical development attained by the producers. We will assume, but merely for the sake of a parallel with the production of commodities, that the share of each individual producer in the means of subsistence is determined by his labour time. Labour time would, in that case, play a double part. Its apportionment in accordance with a definite social plan maintains the proper proportion between the different kinds of work to be done and the various wants of the community. On the other hand, it also serves as a measure of the portion of the common labour borne by each individual, and of his share in the part of the total product destined for individual consumption. The social relations of the individual producers, with regard both to their labour and to its products, are in this case perfectly simple and intelligible, and that with regard not only to production but also to distribution."

This is a suuuuuper interesting paragraph and actually totally different from all the others. Here Marx is "imagining" a better world, dabbling dareisay in utopianism, whereas in the rest of it he is analysing the real world. He even mentions a "definite social plan", i.e. planned economy.

Could I be added to the tag list please?

@[email protected]

Do you just read on your own time?

The religious world is but the reflex of the real world. Note. This oft-quoted aphorism was included in the first English translation prepared by Engels and published in 1887. Readers should note that this observation is consistent with Marx's explanation above. There are numerous divergences between this English edition and the first German edition. [MIA]

Putting this here for the Fowkes folks who won't see it otherwise.

I've finally done it! I finally got through Chapter 1! What a ride.

Edit:

My thoughts after completing this chapter:

While not a historical “origins of money” it is an excellent logical argument as to WHY money arises within a society based on commodity exchange. I've been in the middle of conversations with libs/conservatives about “returning to a barter system” and this just eviscerates that whole train of thinking right at the root. At some point, the act of equating all these commodities with each other will eventually unearth the universal equivalent commodity within that market. This process is driven by the likely desire to simplify this process of exchange and make the exchange more efficient and easier to measure and track. What collection of people would, in their right minds, want to engage in a market where its principal method of exchange is the same process as the “I traded a paperclip for a house” guy?

It also illuminated the Gold Standard in a way that not only allowed me to understand why the Gold Standard came into existence, but also why liberal economics needed it to die. Transitioning the US$ to the universal equivalent commodity gives more control over its supply and nearly decouples it from labor as a source of value. This is my highly uneducated take, anyway. My only thinking in this regard is that the act of printing dollars (baring significant modifications to the physical dollar itself) is a nearly automated task. In comparison to the acquisition of gold from the earth, it might as well be manifested by magic.

There is an interesting trend line post Gold Standard where national debt seems to never deflate, and even liberal thinkers on this topic seem to agree it is related to the ease of the dollars' production. Often, I suspect, they miss the forest for the trees, in regard to why the Gold Standard truly prevented that type of economic intervention. That being the labor required for its extraction. Likewise, the growing movement of dedollarization has parallels to the rejection of the Bretton Woods system by some nations that eventually resulted in the dismantling of the Gold Standard in 1971 by Nixon. It would seem that once a given society has dominant control over the universal equivalent commodity within a global economic system, it erodes the social bonds that forged that universal commodity to begin with. The fascinating bit, to me, is you can then see the dollar transition into a pure fetishized form as it is decoupled from gold.

But as soon as it emerges as a commodity, it changes into a thing which transcends sensuousness. It not only stands with its feet on the ground, but, in relation to all other commodities, it stands on its head, and evolves out of its wooden brain grotesque ideas, far more wonderful than if it were to begin dancing of its own free will.

The dollar, a simple amalgamation of fibers and inks, printed in seconds at an industrial scale, runs away with nearly all, if not more, of the value originating from gold. It is propelled through the economy, powered purely by faith. Faith imparted on society by the daily sermons of its acolytes, a desperate ritual akin to a dog frantically attempting to keep a balloon in the air.

The dual nature of the commodity, how it is both something material and social in its existence, was very revealing. While it is something I feel I naturally understood, it was not something, I had ever given serious thought. As a mundane comparison, it's akin to learning how parallax movement or forward or reverse zooming was accomplished pre-digital animation at Walt Disney: Several pains of glass, each with a painted segment of the backdrop on it, affixed to rails that allowed each to be moved independently and then recorded into a single flat frame, its 3-dimensional nature obscured and transposed into a 2-dimensional reality that serves as your point of view. It isn't until you see the process in its true dimensionality that you can fully grasp how it works. This dual nature also exposes the potential reality where, a society with different goals and structures, operates purely on use-values. Something Marx makes a few winks and nods to throughout the chapter, and eventually explores more intentionally near the end.

It reveals that the only real concern of an individual seeking an object is of its usefulness to himself, and that how the exchange of that object happens defines all exchanges and, ultimately, how society is structured. It dissolves the notion that the kind of commodity exchanges we participate in daily are “natural”, meaning, it shows how it is not part of nature or the nature of people both past or present.

I might edit this with more to say later.

Simple average labour, it is true, varies in character in different countries and at different cultural epochs, but in a particular society it is given. More complex labour counts only as intensified, or rather multiplied simple labour, so that a smaller quantity of complex labour is considered equal to a larger quantity of simple labour. Experience shows that this reduction is constantly being made. A commodity may be the outcome of the most complicated labour, but through its value it is posited as equal to the product of simple labour, hence it represents only a specific quantity of simple labour.15 The various proportions in which different kinds of labour are reduced to simple labour as their unit of measurement are established by a social process that goes on behind the backs of the producers; these proportions therefore appear to the producers to have been handed down by tradition. In the interests of simplification, we shall henceforth view every form of labour-power directly as simple labour-power; by this we shall simply be saving ourselves the trouble of making the reduction. p. 135

Is intensified/multiplied labor referring to the use of fixed capital in production? I.e. the machinery as dead-labor whose value is then transferred to the product through living labor, intensifying the value transferred into a commodity per unit of labor-time? Or to forms of labor which are more difficult/intensive/complex?

If the latter, is Marx always considering that 1 hour = 1 hour? I understand how this works in the abstract, but I guess I am just curious how this has implications for the later imagined association of "free men" (though perhaps I am subjecting his "parallel" to too much scrutiny):

We shall assume, but only for the sake of a parallel with the production of commodities, that the share of each individual producer in the means of subsistence is determined by his labour-time. Labour-time would in that case play a double part. Its apportionment in accordance with a definite social plan maintains the correct proportion between the different functions of labour and the various needs of the associations. On the other hand, labour-time also serves as a measure of the part taken by each individual in the common labour, and of his share in the part of the total product destined for individual consumption. p 172

Both quotes from the Fowkes translation.

Reading section 3 now. I got confused about the relation between relative and equivalent forms on the one hand, and use value and exchange value on the other. Marx:

The value of A, thus expressed in the use value of B, has taken the form of relative value.

Also Marx:

The opposition or contrast existing internally in each commodity between use value and value, is, therefore, made evident externally by two commodities being placed in such relation to each other, that the commodity whose value it is sought to express, figures directly as a mere use value, while the commodity in which that value is to be expressed, figures directly as mere exchange value.

Am I reading this wrong or is he saying that in the equation x A = y B, B figures directly as mere exchange value, but at the same time the value of A is expressed in the use value of B? This is not clear to me unfortunately. Not the only idea I do not fully understand, but this feels like an important point.