In the beginning of _Capital_, Marx investigates the commodity as the basic unit of wealth in capitalist society.
^^^^^ CB: Below is an outline of Chapter 1 of _Capital_ I.
Are you saying historically actually money came before commodities , but expounding their relationship within capitalism it is important to introduce them in reverse historical order ?
Are you saying that in pre-capitalist commodity producing modes commodities don't have a two-fold character, that they have only use-value, not exchange-value ?
Are commodities then exchanged based on imaginary marginal utility ? Whim and caprice ? heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour ? chivalrous enthusiasm ? philistine sentimentalism ?
What specific categories below are introduced in the text of _Capital_ in the opposite or a different order than they occur historically , Angelus ?
_Das Kapital_
Part I: Commodities and Money
Ch. 1: Commodities
Ch. 1 as per First German Edition
Section 1 - The Two Factors of a Commodity: Use-Value and Value Section 2 - The twofold Character of the Labour Embodied in Commodities Section 3 - The Form of Value or Exchange-Value
A. Elementary or Accidental Form of Value
1. The Two Poles of the Expression of Value: Relative Form and Equivalent Form 2. The Relative Form of Value
a. The Nature and Import of this Form b. Quantitative Determination of Relative Value
3. The Equivalent Form of Value 4. The Elementary Form of Value Considered as a Whole
B. Total or Expanded Form of Value
1. The Expanded Relative Form of Value 2. The Particular Equivalent Form 3. Defects of the Total or Expanded Form of Value
C. The General Form of Value
1. The Altered Character of the Form of Value 2. The Interdependent Development of the Relative Form of Value, and of the Equivalent Form 3. Transition from the General Form of Value to the Money-Form
D. The Money-Form
Section 4 - The Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret thereof
Ch. 2: Exchange
Ch. 3: Money, or the Circulation of Commodities
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How about lets take a look at _Value,Price and Profit_ to see how Marx tried to bring his theory of political economy into relation with practice ? Contra some claims Marx tried to develop his practice somewhat directaly out of his theory in that book, in his lectures to British workers, the theoretical grave diggers of capital.
Here's a Value, Price and Profit facebook page (!)
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Value-Price-and-Profit/113347615365681
http://slp.org/pdf/marx/vpp_km.pdf
http://www.mail-archive.com/pen-l@galaxy.csuchico.edu/msg51508.html
Table of Contents:
Preface, by Paul Zarembka (Sections through Section V, abridged) VI. Value and Labor VII. Laboring Power VIII. Production of Surplus Value IX. Value of Labor X. Profit is made by Selling a Commodity at its Value XI. The Different Parts into which Surplus Value is Decomposed XII. General Relation of Profits, Wages, and Prices XIII. Main Cases of Attempts at Raising Wages or Resisting Their Fall XIV. The Struggle between Capital and Labor and its Results
Every bit of exploitation builds toward economic crisis - John Heinrich