Thread by @adnanahusain

#WeeklyMarx Instalment 3, #GoodMorningMarx Day 28 of Capital v. 1, pgs.181-208, Chps 2, 3 sec 1-2a. Last week Marx developed exchange value, the origin of money, and the secret of the commodity fetish. This week, we summarize his initial discussion of the process of exchange.

Chp 2 begins by postulating that to understand that commodities are exchanged in the market through social and legal agreements depending on the mutual recognition of possession as private property--recognizing guardians of commodities as owners and commodities as alienable.

He is setting up in this chapter his mammoth chp 3 discussion of "money, or the circulation of commodities." So he clarifies that his abstract characterization of buyers and sellers etc..., is as a personification of economic relations.

The chapter's main point is to underscore how money crystallizes as the universal equivalent through the process of commodity exchange, elaborating again on the opposition between use value and value in the system of exchange. The use value of commodities he is already hinting

is in their exchange value to others, the form of appearance of value, in a social process. He remarks that only the action of society can turn a particular commodity into the universal equivalent, the social function of a particular commodity and it becomes money.

Marx makes an interesting suggestion on p. 183 about nomadic peoples arriving at the money-form early because all their wealth in cattle/herds are mobile and alienable while their life brings them into contact with others to create the need and opportunity for exchange.

Cattle, however, cede status to precious metals. Money is a commodity with dual use value in the form of gold. Just because it is symbolic does not make it real because its objective content is social. All commodities, he notes, are in fact symbolic in the sense that they bear

the appearance of value, which is actually based in human labour. He argues against the enlightenment habit of simply characterizing such a concept, money, as an arbitrary social construction (something we might notice in postmodern habits of thought too), partially demystifying

the "mysterious shapes assumed by human relations whose origins they were unable to decipher." As a result, the issue for him is not to comprehend money as a commodity but to examine and determine how, why and by what means a commodity becomes money.

He concludes by accepting the principles of classical political economy for the sake of his critique: "Men are henceforth related to each other in their social process of production in a purely atomistic way. Their own relations of production therefore assume a material shape

which is independent of their control and their conscious individual action. This situation is manifested first by the fact that the products of men's labour universally take on the form of commodities. The riddle of the money fetish is therefore the riddle of the commodity

fetish now become visible and dazzling to our eyes." Cho 3 is very long and difficult to read, so we'll defer the discussion of sec 1 and 2a to next week. 4 pages a day will see you through, comrades! Enjoy your daily #GoodMorningMarx and be prepared for #WeeklyMarx next Sunday!