Angela wrote:
>nonetheless, when you say that use value corresponds to 'intrinsic
>utility', then we would perhaps disagree. my concern was to provoke
>some thinking about why some marxists see use value as intrinsic
>rather than a result of the commodity form itself, where there is a
>tendency to see it as outside capitalism, and outside the law of
>value.
Actually I tried to use the term intrinsic to indicate that which is inherent to the commodity form.
>my understanding of marx's comments on use value is that he saw it as
>a) only relevant to the buyer; and b) relevant insofar as what is
>defined as use is socially validated as a need.
Yes. Use value is important in so far as it is socially validated as need, i.e., it enters into the basket of goods that determine the reproduction cost of labor. But the aim of capitalist production is exchange, not social usefulness. Use value is outside, irrelevant to, the logic of capital.
>I should perhaps elaborate a little on the immediate context of my
>comments. there have been two occasion recently in which use value
>was presented as outside value: the first as a definition of the aim
>of socialism (where socialism consists of freeing use values from
>their distortion by exchange), and the second as a definition of the
>specific difference of racism and sexism (where capitalism was defined
>as exchange and sexism and racism where defined as productive of use
>values, because, presumably, to do so would make them prior to capital
>and capitalism).
>
>the first makes use value a promise for a purified future, the second
>a purified thing of the past. (there are numerous other comments to
>make on these, but for another post) the term 'use value' was used in
>two very different ways here; but in both cases, it was the separation
>of it from exchange which allowed for this to be posed as the
>foundational or promissory real outside of the artifices of exchange.
>so, I like your substitution of 'masks' for my 'moments'.
The first explanation makes sense. Production for use, while eliminating the distortions of capitalist production for exchange, is a primary basis for socialism and communisnm.
The second point is problematic. As I have said elsewhere, regardless of whether you think racism and sexism produce use value, outside of exchange, which can't be accumulated by capital (because it's not exchanged for money), it is clear that racism and sexism *do* produce exchange value for capital. They limit wages, thus increasing the surplus value realized by capital in exchange.