Value: paragraphs quoted from Capital

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Below are the paragraphs I referred to, clipped from the online text,
which is the 1887 English edition. Note the fourth sentence, which begins
"In other words", the Vintage translation puts it a bit differently and, I
think, brings out the distinction -- and emphasizes its importance -- more
clearly: "In other words, the value of a commodity is independently
expressed through its presentation [Darstellung] as 'exchange-value'."

That passage is a precursor for the deconstructive earthquake
that Marx unleashes in the final section of Chapter One, on the Fetishism
of the Commodity. Value _appears_ to be a relationship between things
because it is _presented_ in the form of exchange-value. But this is an
upside-down appearance: the table "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."

    4. The Elementary Form of value considered as a whole

   The elementary form of value of a commodity is contained in the
   equation, expressing its value-relation to another commodity of a
   different kind, or in its exchange-relation to the-same. The value of
   commodity A, is qualitatively expressed, by the fact that commodity B
   is directly exchangeable with it. Its value is quantitatively
   expressed by the fact, that a definite quantity of B is exchangeable
   with a definite quantity of A. In other words, the value of a
   commodity obtains independent and definite expression, by taking the
   form of exchange-value. When, at the beginning of this chapter, we
   said, in common parlance, that a commodity is both a use-value and an
   exchange-value, we were, accurately speaking, wrong. A commodity is a
   use-value or object of utility, and a value. It manifests itself as
   this two-fold thing, that it is, as soon as its value assumes an
   independent form -- viz., the form of exchange-value. It never assumes
   this form when isolated, but only when placed in a value or exchange
   relation with another commodity of a different kind. When once we know
   this, such a mode of expression does no harm; it simply serves as an
   abbreviation.

   Our analysis has shown, that the form or expression of the value of a
   commodity originates in the nature of value, and not that value and
   its magnitude originate in the mode of their expression as
   exchange-value. This, however, is the delusion as well of the
   mercantilists and their recent revivers, Ferrier, Ganilh, [43][23] and
   others, as also of their antipodes, the modern bagmen of Free-trade,
   such as Bastiat. The mercantilists lay special stress on the
   qualitative aspect of the expression of value, and consequently on the
   equivalent form of commodities, which attains its full perfection in
   money. The modern hawkers of Free-trade, who must get rid of their
   article at any price, on the other hand, lay most stress on the
   quantitative aspect of the relative form of value. For them there
   consequently exists neither value, nor magnitude of value, anywhere
   except in its expression by means of the exchange relation of
   commodities, that is, in the daily list of prices current. Macleod,
   who has taken upon himself to dress up the confused ideas of Lombard
   Street in the most learned finery, is a successful cross between the
   superstitious mercantilists, and the enlightened Free-trade bagmen.


Tom Walker
Sandwichman and Deconsultant
215-2273