I'm working through my second reading of Capital vol. 1 right now. This time around, I wanted to take copious notes and work through the study questions that Marxist Internet Archive provides.
I figured I'd post the questions and my responses here, for two reasons. The first is in case my responses might help provide insight to someone out there. But also, I'm interested to hear any critiques or follow-up questions regarding my responses.
Chapter 1, § 1 - The Two Factors of a Commodity: Use-Value and Value
1. Which of the following industries produce commodities: the movies, prostitution, the public education system, the private schools, public transport, the military, “housewives”, domestic servants?
The movies
The movie industry creates films made by human labor for the purpose of exchange (audiences exchanging money to for the experience of seeing a film in a theater), so it is a commodity. The movies themselves are created by the effort of producers, actors, directors, the filming crew, and others. The final commodity of the industry could be a physical product or a service. Selling DVDs or film rolls to theaters would be a physical commodity, and tickets to a movie or streaming would be a service.
Prostitution
Prostitution involves providing a service that someone values, through human labor; thus it is a commodity. The fact that this industry is often illegal or operates underground does not impact whether or not it is a commodity.
The public education system
While public education is something that is the product of teachers’ labor, it is not a commodity because it is not produced for exchange. Public education is provided to all children, and they don’t have to pay anything for it. The purpose is to provide education without any exchange being involved. Teachers are paid through taxes, but that is not the type of exchange we’re talking about here as it is not mediating two commodities.
The private schools
Unlike public schools, private education is a commodity. Similar to pubic schools, private education is the product of human labor. However, unlike public education, private education is a commodity since it is produced for exchange. It would be a commodity even in the absence of public education from a society. Private education is provided not as a means of educating children, but as a service sold for money. If you do not pay your bill the school, your child is removed. Even if we say the purpose is to provide education to specific children and not the broader population, it’s still a commodity as the purpose is ultimately to provide education in exchange for money.
Public transport
Public transport seems similar to public education in that it’s a service provided to the public. However, unlike public education there is often (but not always) monetary exchange involved. So at first glance, I can see an argument to be made that public transportation – at least when you have to pay to ride – is a commodity because the ride is exchanged for money. However, I do not believe public transportation is a commodity. Note that the exchange for money is often the case, but not always. This points to exchange not necessarily being an essential component. But more importantly, the ultimate reason why public transportation is provided isn’t for exchange. The purpose of public transportation is to provide a service to society. Money is exchanged, but this is usually done in order to help defray costs so that the entire cost of transportation does not fall on the government. The exchange of commodities is not the reason that public transportation is provided, it’s secondary to the purpose thus it is not a commodity
The military
While there are some aspects of the broader military industry that involve commodities in certain circumstances (a private contractor building bombs to sell to the military involves a commodity – the bomb), the broader “military” is not a commodity. A military exists to protect the people of a country from outside threats. Militaries are funded by taxes, which is not exchange; nor is there any exchange involved in the purpose of the military. Thus it’s not a commodity in itself.
Housewives
While housework (cooking, cleaning, child care, etc.) is necessary for life and involves a significant component of a society’s overall labor, it is not a commodity. Housework is not exchanged for anything, it’s done as a part of living life.
Domestic servants
While domestic servants may do the same housework as housewives/husbands, unlike them the work of domestic servants is a commodity. It is performing housework labor in exchange for money. This exchange is the entire reason why the work of domestic servants is performed.
2. Why is a ton of gold worth more than a ton of sugar? And is gold dug from a thousand metres underground worth more than gold found on the ground?*
A ton of gold is worth more than a ton of sugar because (significantly) more abstract human labor is involved in producing the gold versus sugar. A ton of sugar can be produced on a relatively small plot of land with a handful of laborers working for a few hours. A ton of gold, however, requires a tremendous amount of labor, orders of magnitude more laborers and labor hours involved to mine that much gold (NOTE: I could talk about how much more capital intensive it is to mine and refine gold versus sugar, and how the labor used to build that equipment must be included in the calculation, but Marx hasn’t gotten to that point yet, so I’m leaving it just with physical human labor.
Gold has the same worth (value) whether it’s mined deep underground versus picked up off the surface (the former requiring much more human labor). This is because worth/value is based on abstract human labor and not actual labor incurred. This means, worth/value is determined by the average and/or prevailing conditions of production. An ounce of gold has one measure of worth/value, and that is determined by the overall societal conditions for how gold in general is mined. In other words, it’s the socially necessary labor that determines the value, not the specific labor conditions of each ounce.
3. Does advertising add value to the products it advertises?
Advertising does not add value to the products it advertises. Human labor creates advertising, but it does not add to the use-value of the commodity it is selling. When someone purchases a product, the advertising component is not something that person would consider a useful part of the product. (NOTE: I find it hard to answer this question without jumping ahead to volume 2 of Capital, where Marx outlines how it’s only in the sphere of production where value is created. How some activities like transportation and storage might be value-creating because they are absolutely necessary to bring the product to be exchanged, but advertising is an example of an activity that is not production and not necessary for the value of production to be realized, so in itself it doesn’t create value).
Setting aside the weirdness of this comment, the DPRK’s birth rate is significantly ahead of ROK’s, to the point that I wouldn’t entire rule out ROK seeking reunification eventually in order to avoid demographic collapse.