Ling Yang
English 395
Feb 11, 1997
The first part of my essay will be a response to Jason's exploration of the
theft problem. Since I started this watch thing, I feel responsible to share
with you some after-thoughts about it. In class, I was a kind of stunned by the question "how about if the watch is stolen?" I felt that it was irrelevant to the fetishism of commodities, which, as I understand it is an alienation of product of labor from its producer. Now I still think so. I disagree with Jason that "the value of the object changes if it is stolen rather than
purchased." Here it is necessary to clarify some concepts surrounded the word "value". For all I know, Marx mainly discusses three concepts, use-value, or the substance if value, as appeared in the subtitle of Chapter 1; Value, or the magnitude of value (different from the small letter "value", which seems to refer to exchange value, as appeared in the statement Jason has quoted); and exchange value, which is a concept he borrowed from bourgeois economists, as the note (6) on page 438 has indicated. "The value of any article is the amount of labor socially necessary, or the labour time socially necessary for its production."(442) Marx reiterates this concept in slightly different way several times in this chapter. Use value is fairly simple, just the utility of things and the "material depositories of exchange value."(438) It"becomes a reality only by use or consumption."(438) Exchange value, in an ideal society, should reflect the Values in different products. It can be expressed by some kind of figure of ratio. Both use-value and exchange value are the extrinsic properties of a product. Only Value is the extrinsic property. I wonder where Jason got this term:"social value."(He uses it at least three times in his essay) The confusion about these concepts is largely Marx's own fault.He didn't stick to them consistently from beginning to end. Thus define the concepts according to my own understanding,let's see whether a stolen watch has altered any of these "values."The fact that the watch is stolen certainly has not changed its Value (the amount of social labor in it).Since Value is the
intrinsic property of the watch, whether the watch is purchased by money or robbed by violence dosen't affect it at all. And as Jason has mentioned
"stealing a Rolex doesn't change the fact that it is a watch and that it tells
time," so the use-value of the stolen watch also remains unchanged. Now, the last touchstone, exchange value.Again, exchange value is merely an
exppression of the relationship between two objects.For Marx writes that
"exchange value, generally,is only the mode of expression, the phenomenal form, of something contained in it, yet distinguishable from it."(439).This "something" is "human labor in the abstract."(441) So if a Rolex equals one kilogram of iron in terms of social labor,even a thief steals it, he cannot change its exchange value,making a Rolex equal two kilo of iron. Then where is the problem? Why everyone thinks that it is not right to steal a watch? My answer is that the act of stealing violates private property.This Rolex is supposed to belong to the store who ordered it from the watch company (the owner of the company bought it from the workers in the form of wage). One has to pay for it in money to realize the "exchange value"that is, the price on the little price tag set up by the owner of the store,according to its wholesale price set up by the company and the market.It is exactly the logic of commodity in a capitalist society that Marx sought to critque by introducing a new concept "Value"--the amount of social labor in a product.Theft needs not to be advocated (Jason dosen't have to be worry about that). It is an ancient social problem, as old as prostitution. It will never disappear as long as social
products, like sex, become commodities which can be and have to be bought by money. It will remain a problem as long as some people in a society have,and other have not. If hard-working people can survive only by stealing, a revolution is not far away.Read Chinese history, it is full of starvations and insurrections.
So much for the Rolex, now I want to examine the Lexus stuff in Jason's
essay.He unpacked a statement from page 447-48 to argue about fetishism of commodities. But he seems to have misinterpreted his citation.I might as well quote it here again.I want to start from the sentence before his."To the latter(producers),therefore, the relations connecting the labor of one individual with that of the rest appear, not as direct social relations between individuals at work, but as what they really are, material relations between persons and social relations between things. It is only by being exchanged that the products of labor acquire,as value, one uniform social status distinct from, their varied forms of existence as objects of utility. This division of a product into a uesful thing and a value becomes practicallyimportant, only when exchange has acquired such an extension that useful articles are produced for the purpose of being exchanged."In the first sentence, Marx sums up the essence of fetishism of commodity--the distortion of social relations among producers of products.According to an example given by Harvey, it is like this: we use money to buy bread,so that every morning, when we have bread for breakfast, we would not think about the workers who produce this bread, we would not care about his or her working condition, whether he or she is exploited by the capitalists, we would only think about the money(price) we pay for the bread.
The appearance of the product as a commodity,like a veil,hides away the true social relations.Jason's reading of the next sentencesis "once certain products of labor acquire an objective social value that designates social status, that is, once they have become fetishized, they are continually produced for that express(ed?) purpose."In fact, Marx is really talking about how the commodity status of the product is created(by exchange) and how commodity becomes important(by the wide extension of exchange).How commodity acquires some extra value other than its Value, ues-value,and exchange value,such as the symbol of social status(is that what he means by using the term "social value"?) is not very pertinent here. But I'd like to argue that this kind of phenomenon is rooted in the inequality among human beings.If everyone can have access to Lexus, then it can not indicate any social distiction,thus lose its symbolic meaning of social status.It is because some people are rich can afford it,and other are poor, cannot afford it,that a Lexus becomes an indicator of social status.It is not a matter of "self image"(Jason),no matter one wants it or not, one puchases a Lexus and a upper-class status at the same time.But it is not to say that this "social value" is intrinsic value of Lexus,on the contrary, it is an extrinsic one and imposed by the society.What's more, it is never objective,it changes from society to society. For example, Marlboro certainly cannot be an indicator of status in the U.S., but it can be that way in China,for 2 dollars equal 17 yuanthe monetary unit in China).When I worked as an instuctor in university, my monthly salary is 350 yuans.
I am quite interested in the book Jason mentioned and I wonder what "
situationist" really means. This anthology is published by "Bureau of Public Secrets," what's that? Is it a publisher's name? I intended to talk some more about Rise's and Nicole's essays. They are all very interesting. But I've already worked here for more than five hours.I enjoy debating with classmates by e-mail,so that I can have enough time to think. Yet I can not typy fast and keep making mistakes.
