Exam 2 Flashcards
(5 cards)
Historical materialism vs. idealism (dialectic, “life determines consciousness”, base -> superstructure)
- Idealism was an idea thought up by Hegel. He believed that expanding consciousness leads to new ideas. He says that ideas create material existence, and every idea creates its opposite. For example, you can’t have idea of life without death and you can’t’ have idea of being wealthy, without idea of being poor. He says that contradiction is intrinsic to the advancements of ideas in history and this oppositional tension is a dialect.
- Marx says the opposite of Hegel. He says that society consists of a base and a superstructure, the base being the mode of production/ economy, and the superstructure being things like ideas, religion, culture, politics. The base influences the superstructure. Marx is basically saying that ideas don’t shape material existence, but rather material existence influences our ideas. Our economy/ mode of production forms our ideas, politics, religion, and cultures. He believes that expanding productive forces under capitalism leads to new economy and that humans share a common need: the need to sustain life through the material world.
Use-value vs. exchange value
- The utility of a thing makes it have use- value. Basically, if someone finds a use for something, then it has use value. An object can have a use value to one person, but no use value to another person. For example, a brush may have a use value for someone with lots of hair, but the same brush may have no use value to a bald person. Something can have use- value, but no value. A stick could be found and used as a walking stick when hiking, no one put their labor into making it, so there is no value and value, but it is useful so there is use-value. Air is another example of this. Something can also have use-value without being considered a commodity. For example, If i grow fruit in my garden, i am putting my labor into it which gives it value, and I plan to eat it, so it has use-value. But, there is no exchange of money/economic involvement, so it is not a commodity
- Exchange value is the exchange of money for a commodity. Giving someone money for a good, or even bartering creates the exchange- value. Whatever amount of money I am selling/buying an item for, is it’s exchange value. Basically, exchange value has to do with economic involvement. A commodity is made a commodity through having some sort of exchange value.
Commodity fetish (including its relation to realm of production and realm of exchange)
Commodity fetishsm separates the private realm of production (where use values are created through organized social relations), and the public realm of exchange (where there is an appearance of equal social relations between commodities, including labor). The commodity fetish, according to Marx, is an illusion, a mystical thing. It is a veil which hides the true social source of commodities. Labor power is what gives something value, but people often don’t see this, they sort of see commodities as just having intrinsic value. Marx basically argues that we need to lift this veil of the commodity fetish.
M-C-M’ vs. C-M-C (Focus on an analysis of economic classes of people, not on individual people)
- There is a difference between money and money from capital and this difference is simply what type of circulation is happening in relation to the commodity. Marx says that there is C-M-C which represents the commodity turning into money, then back into commodity again. Basically, workers have labor power, which is a commodity (C), which they then turn into wages (M), then they buy other commodities with these wages ( C). The end result is simply the commodity rather than money. C-M-C is representative of the working class
- Then there is M-C-M which represents money turning into a commodity, then back to money. Basically it is buying in order to sell. M-C-M’ would be like buying a commodity and then selling it for more than you bought it for, thus creating capital. This is where profit/surplus value comes from. A simple example would be buying a pair of shoes for 20 dollars, and then selling them to someone else for 30 dollars, making a 10 dollar profit. M-C-M is representative of the bourgeoisie/capitalists.
Absolute vs. relative surplus value
In the realm of production workers produce more value than they are worth (for example, a worker might make 40 dollars worth of products in an hour, but he is only getting paid 10 dollars). This is where the idea of surplus value comes from. Basically surplus value is the profit made by exploiting the worker and extracting the unpaid labor by manipulation of the working day along with use of technology. Marx says that the two methods for extracting this surplus value. The first is lengthening the working day, which he calls absolute surplus value. This would be like working overtime. The second is producing more in the same amount of time, or intensification of labor, which he calls relative surplus value.
