Summary Of "Contribution To The Critique Of Political Economy" By Karl Marx - UNIVERSITY SUMMARIES - E-book - ePub

We have summarized the essential of this book by the author. All merchandise has a double aspect: the USE VALUE and the EXCHANGE VALUE. The merchandise is in the first place a means of subsistence, in that consists its VALUE OF USE. From this point of view, a commodity only has value for use and is only made in the CONSUMPTION PROCESS. Here Marx refers to the possible useful applications of a commodity, which are limited by being a tangible physical object with determined properties.
For example, the use value of wheat consists of its ability to provide food, and is different from the use value of cotton, which consists of its properties to provide clothing, shelter, etc. Bourgeois wealth, which always appears as an immense accumulation of merchandise, is always constituted by use values. They are your content. But the use value of a commodity is not linked to any social relation of production: a good taken as use value is outside the scope of political economy research.
THE USE VALUE IS ONLY THE MATERIAL BASIS ON WHICH A DETERMINED ECONOMIC RELATIONSHIP IS EXPRESSED: THE EXCHANGE VALUE.