"The hierarchy of use value" makes no sense as a phrase. If you mean, use-value's role in the hierarchy of productive social relations, I think it's co-equal with labor value and will always be.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
While every commodity, exchange-value has to have a use-value, not every use-value has to have an exchange-value i.e. a good or a service doesn't have to take the form of a commodity. I think Marx saw socialism as system for the production of use-values with the commodity form, exchange-value, stripped off. The perceived use-value of "labor value" is that by being able to buy labor power for wages, the capitalist can make a profit from the sale of commodities produced by labor. Use-value is bound up with human perception. Thus, a BIBLE may be perceived as useful to some, where a bottle of real ale might be perceived as far more useful to others. The balance of need fulfillment in a socialist society would have to be mediated by some kind of self-managing democractic system of collective consensus, as there would be no State nor any classes to interfere with the political equality of all.
Best,
Mike B)
Read "Penguins in Bondage": http://happystiletto.blogspot.com/
--------------------------------- Talk is cheap. Use Yahoo! Messenger to make PC-to-Phone calls. Great rates starting at 1¢/min. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <../attachments/20060926/3282ca57/attachment.htm>