Use value
Encyclopedia
Use value or value in use is the utility of consuming a good; the want-satisfying power of a good or service in classical political economy
. In Marx's
critique of political economy
, any labor-product has a value
and a use-value, and if it is traded as a commodity
in markets, it additionally has an exchange value
, most often expressed as a money-price
. Marx acknowledges that commodities being traded also have a general utility, implied by the fact that people want them, but he argues that this by itself tells us nothing about the specific character of the economy in which they are produced and sold.
to Adam Smith
, and their meanings evolved. Adam Smith recognized that commodities may have an exchange-value but may satisfy no use-value, such as diamonds, while a commodity with a very high use-value may have a very low exchange-value, such as water. A modern example of the distinction is between financial instruments, which have a high exchange-value (they are only acquired for their exchange-value) but no practical use-value. Marx comments for example that "in English writers of the 17th century we frequently find worth in the sense of value in use, and value in the sense of exchange-value." With the expansion of market economy, however, the focus of economists has increasingly been on prices and price-relations, the social process of exchange as such being assumed to occur as a naturally given fact.
Marx emphasizes that the use-value of a labor-product is practical and objectively determined, i.e. it inheres in the intrinsic characteristics of a product which enable it to satisfy a human need or want. The use-value of a product therefore exists as a material
reality vis-a-vis social needs regardless of the individual need of any particular person. The use-value of a commodity is specifically a social
use-value, meaning that it has a generally accepted use-value for others in society, and not just for the producer.
The concept is also introduced at the beginning of Das Kapital
, where Marx writes:
This was a direct reference by Marx to Hegel's Elements of the Philosophy of Right
§63. Marx adds that:
Marx acknowledges that a nominal price or value can be imputed to goods or assets which are not reproducible goods and not produced by human labour.
(the process of commodification
) is not automatic or spontaneous, but has technical, social and political preconditions. For example, it must be possible to trade it, and to transfer ownership or access rights to it from one person or organisation to another in a secure way. There must also be a real market demand for it. And all that may depend greatly on the nature of the use-value itself, as well as the ability to package, store, preserve and transport it. In the case of information
or communication
as use-values, transforming them into commodities may be a complex and problem-fraught process.
Thus, the objective characteristics of use-values are very important for understanding (1) the development and expansion of market trade, and (2) necessary technical relationships between different economic activities (e.g. supply chain
s). To produce a car, for example, you objectively require steel, and this steel is required, regardless of what its price might be. Necessary relationships therefore exist between different use-values, because they are technically, materially and practically related. Some authors therefore write about an "industrial complex" or "technological complex", indicating thereby how different technological products are linked in a system. A good example would be all the different products involved in the production and use of motor cars.
The category of use-value is also important in distinguishing different economic sectors according to their specific type of output. Following Quesnay's analysis of economic reproduction
, Marx distinguished between the economic sector producing means of production and the sectors producing consumer goods and luxuries. In modern national accounts
more subtle distinctions are made, for example between primary, secondary and tertiary production, semi-durable and durable goods, and so on.
claimed that:
.
Curiously, Sweezy disregarded that in consuming (both intermediate
and final consumption), producers and consumers might also be socially related.
Likewise, in his influential Principles of Political Economy, the Japanese Marxist Kozo Uno
sums up the theory of a "purely capitalist society" in the three doctrines of circulation, production and distribution. Apparently it did not occur to him that even in the purest capitalist society, (final) consumption would have to occur as a necessary aspect of economic reproduction
, and that capitalist relations extended to, and included, the way in which consumption was organised in capitalist society - increasingly substituting private consumption for collective consumption.
Marx himself explicitly rejected Sweezy's and Uno's interpretation (see the quotation from 1859 cited previously, in which use-value is distinguished from the general concept of utility). In a draft included in the Grundrisse
manuscripts, which inspired the starting point of A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy
and Das Kapital
, Marx explicitly states that:
In an important essay Roman Rosdolsky
http://maximumred.blogspot.com/2005/05/rosdolsky-on-marxs-use-value.html shows the important role of use value in Marx's economics. The fact is that Marx himself, in the introduction to his Grundrisse manuscript, had defined the economic sphere as the totality of production, circulation, distribution and consumption. He did not however live to finish Das Kapital
, and did not theorise how commercial relations would reshape the sphere of personal consumption in accordance with the requirements of capital accumulation
.
It was only later that scholars such as Walter Benjamin
, Fernand Braudel
, Ben Fine
, Manuel Castells
and Michel Aglietta
tried to fill this gap in Marx's unfinished work.
concept of utility
.
In summary, different concepts of use value lead to different interpretations and explanations of trade
, commerce
and capitalism
. Marx's main argument is that if we focus only on the general utility of a commodity, we abstract from and ignore precisely the specific social relations of production
which created it.
But this is arguably a misunderstanding of business activity and the bourgeoisie
as a class http://www.mises.org/epofe/c5sec3.asp. Marx thought that capitalists can never be totally "indifferent" to use-values, because inputs of sufficient quality (labour, materials, equipment) must be bought and managed to produce outputs that:
For this purpose, the inputs in production must moreover be used in an economical way, and care must be taken not to waste resources to the extent that this would mean additional costs for an enterprise, or reduce productivity.
It is just that from the point of view of the financier or investor, the main concern is not what exactly is being produced as such or how useful that is for society, but whether the investment can make a profit for him. If the products of the enterprise being invested in sell and make a profit, then that is regarded as sufficient indication of usefulness. Even so, the investor is obviously interested in "the state of the market" for the enterprise's products - if certain products are being used less or used more, this affects sales and profits. So to evaluate "the state of the market", the investor needs knowledge about the place of a product in the value chain
and how it is being used.
Often Marx just assumed in Das Kapital
for argument's sake that supply and demand will balance, and that products do sell. Even so, Marx carefully defines the production process both as a labour
process creating use-values, and a valorisation
process creating new value. He asserts only that "capital in general" as an abstract social power, or as a property claim to surplus value
, is indifferent to particular use-values - what matters in this financial relation is only whether more value can be appropriated through the exchanges that occur. Most share-holders are not interested in whether a company actually satisfies customers, they want an adequate profit on their investment (but a countertrend is so-called "socially responsible investing
").
In modern times, business leaders are often very concerned with total quality management
in production, which has become the object of scientific studies, as well as a new source of industrial conflict, since attempts are made to integrate everything a worker is and does (both his creative potential and how he relates to others) in the battle for improved quality. In that case, it could be argued not just labour power
but the whole person is a use-value (see further Richard Sennett's books such as The Culture of the New Capitalism, Yale (2006). Some regard this practice as a kind of "wage-slavery".
In truth, from beginning to end, and from production to consumption, use-value and exchange-value form a dialectical unity. If this is not fully clear from Marx's writings, that is perhaps mainly because he never theorised the sphere of final consumption in any detail, nor the way in which commerce reshapes the way that final consumption takes place.
Classical economics
Classical economics is widely regarded as the first modern school of economic thought. Its major developers include Adam Smith, Jean-Baptiste Say, David Ricardo, Thomas Malthus and John Stuart Mill....
. In Marx's
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
critique of political economy
Political economy
Political economy originally was the term for studying production, buying, and selling, and their relations with law, custom, and government, as well as with the distribution of national income and wealth, including through the budget process. Political economy originated in moral philosophy...
, any labor-product has a value
Value (economics)
An economic value is the worth of a good or service as determined by the market.The economic value of a good or service has puzzled economists since the beginning of the discipline. First, economists tried to estimate the value of a good to an individual alone, and extend that definition to goods...
and a use-value, and if it is traded as a commodity
Commodity
In economics, a commodity is the generic term for any marketable item produced to satisfy wants or needs. Economic commodities comprise goods and services....
in markets, it additionally has an exchange value
Exchange value
In political economy and especially Marxian economics, exchange value refers to one of four major attributes of a commodity, i.e., an item or service produced for, and sold on the market...
, most often expressed as a money-price
Price
-Definition:In ordinary usage, price is the quantity of payment or compensation given by one party to another in return for goods or services.In modern economies, prices are generally expressed in units of some form of currency...
. Marx acknowledges that commodities being traded also have a general utility, implied by the fact that people want them, but he argues that this by itself tells us nothing about the specific character of the economy in which they are produced and sold.
Origin of the concept
The concepts of value, use value, utility, exchange value and price have a very long history in economic and philosophical thought, from AristotleAristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
to Adam Smith
Adam Smith
Adam Smith was a Scottish social philosopher and a pioneer of political economy. One of the key figures of the Scottish Enlightenment, Smith is the author of The Theory of Moral Sentiments and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations...
, and their meanings evolved. Adam Smith recognized that commodities may have an exchange-value but may satisfy no use-value, such as diamonds, while a commodity with a very high use-value may have a very low exchange-value, such as water. A modern example of the distinction is between financial instruments, which have a high exchange-value (they are only acquired for their exchange-value) but no practical use-value. Marx comments for example that "in English writers of the 17th century we frequently find worth in the sense of value in use, and value in the sense of exchange-value." With the expansion of market economy, however, the focus of economists has increasingly been on prices and price-relations, the social process of exchange as such being assumed to occur as a naturally given fact.
Marx emphasizes that the use-value of a labor-product is practical and objectively determined, i.e. it inheres in the intrinsic characteristics of a product which enable it to satisfy a human need or want. The use-value of a product therefore exists as a material
Material
Material is anything made of matter, constituted of one or more substances. Wood, cement, hydrogen, air and water are all examples of materials. Sometimes the term "material" is used more narrowly to refer to substances or components with certain physical properties that are used as inputs to...
reality vis-a-vis social needs regardless of the individual need of any particular person. The use-value of a commodity is specifically a social
Social
The term social refers to a characteristic of living organisms...
use-value, meaning that it has a generally accepted use-value for others in society, and not just for the producer.
How Marx defines use value
Marx first defines use-value precisely in A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859) where he explains that:The concept is also introduced at the beginning of Das Kapital
Das Kapital
Das Kapital, Kritik der politischen Ökonomie , by Karl Marx, is a critical analysis of capitalism as political economy, meant to reveal the economic laws of the capitalist mode of production, and how it was the precursor of the socialist mode of production.- Themes :In Capital: Critique of...
, where Marx writes:
This was a direct reference by Marx to Hegel's Elements of the Philosophy of Right
Elements of the Philosophy of Right
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's Elements of the Philosophy of Right was published in 1820, though the book's original title page dates it to 1821...
§63. Marx adds that:
Marx acknowledges that a nominal price or value can be imputed to goods or assets which are not reproducible goods and not produced by human labour.
Transformation of a use value into a commodity
The transformation of a use-value into a social use-value and into a commodityCommodity (Marxism)
In classical political economy and especially Karl Marx's critique of political economy, a commodity is any good or service produced by human labour and offered as a product for general sale on the market. Some other priced goods are also treated as commodities, e.g...
(the process of commodification
Commodification
Commodification is the transformation of goods, ideas, or other entities that may not normally be regarded as goods into a commodity....
) is not automatic or spontaneous, but has technical, social and political preconditions. For example, it must be possible to trade it, and to transfer ownership or access rights to it from one person or organisation to another in a secure way. There must also be a real market demand for it. And all that may depend greatly on the nature of the use-value itself, as well as the ability to package, store, preserve and transport it. In the case of information
Information
Information in its most restricted technical sense is a message or collection of messages that consists of an ordered sequence of symbols, or it is the meaning that can be interpreted from such a message or collection of messages. Information can be recorded or transmitted. It can be recorded as...
or communication
Communication
Communication is the activity of conveying meaningful information. Communication requires a sender, a message, and an intended recipient, although the receiver need not be present or aware of the sender's intent to communicate at the time of communication; thus communication can occur across vast...
as use-values, transforming them into commodities may be a complex and problem-fraught process.
Thus, the objective characteristics of use-values are very important for understanding (1) the development and expansion of market trade, and (2) necessary technical relationships between different economic activities (e.g. supply chain
Supply chain
A supply chain is a system of organizations, people, technology, activities, information and resources involved in moving a product or service from supplier to customer. Supply chain activities transform natural resources, raw materials and components into a finished product that is delivered to...
s). To produce a car, for example, you objectively require steel, and this steel is required, regardless of what its price might be. Necessary relationships therefore exist between different use-values, because they are technically, materially and practically related. Some authors therefore write about an "industrial complex" or "technological complex", indicating thereby how different technological products are linked in a system. A good example would be all the different products involved in the production and use of motor cars.
The category of use-value is also important in distinguishing different economic sectors according to their specific type of output. Following Quesnay's analysis of economic reproduction
Reproduction (economics)
In Marxian economics, economic reproduction refers to recurrent processes by which the initial conditions necessary for economic activity to occur are constantly re-created...
, Marx distinguished between the economic sector producing means of production and the sectors producing consumer goods and luxuries. In modern national accounts
National accounts
National accounts or national account systems are the implementation of complete and consistent accounting techniques for measuring the economic activity of a nation. These include detailed underlying measures that rely on double-entry accounting...
more subtle distinctions are made, for example between primary, secondary and tertiary production, semi-durable and durable goods, and so on.
The role of use value in political economy
In his textbook The Theory of Capitalist Development (1942), American Marxist Paul SweezyPaul Sweezy
Paul Marlor Sweezy was a Marxist economist, political activist, publisher, and founding editor of the long-running magazine Monthly Review...
claimed that:
.
Curiously, Sweezy disregarded that in consuming (both intermediate
Intermediate consumption
Intermediate consumption is an economic concept used in national accounts, such as the United Nations System of National Accounts , the US National Income and Product Accounts and the European System of Accounts .Conceptually, the aggregate "intermediate consumption" is equal to the amount of the...
and final consumption), producers and consumers might also be socially related.
Likewise, in his influential Principles of Political Economy, the Japanese Marxist Kozo Uno
Kozo Uno
was a Japanese economist and is considered to be one of the most important theorists on the field of Marx's theory of value. His main work Principles of Political Economy was published in 1964. Among his scholars are Thomas T. Sekine and Makoto Itoh.-Thought:...
sums up the theory of a "purely capitalist society" in the three doctrines of circulation, production and distribution. Apparently it did not occur to him that even in the purest capitalist society, (final) consumption would have to occur as a necessary aspect of economic reproduction
Reproduction (economics)
In Marxian economics, economic reproduction refers to recurrent processes by which the initial conditions necessary for economic activity to occur are constantly re-created...
, and that capitalist relations extended to, and included, the way in which consumption was organised in capitalist society - increasingly substituting private consumption for collective consumption.
Marx himself explicitly rejected Sweezy's and Uno's interpretation (see the quotation from 1859 cited previously, in which use-value is distinguished from the general concept of utility). In a draft included in the Grundrisse
Grundrisse
The Grundrisse der Kritik der Politischen Ökonomie is a lengthy manuscript by the German philosopher Karl Marx, completed in 1858. However, as it existed primarily as a collection of unedited notes, the work remained unpublished until 1939...
manuscripts, which inspired the starting point of A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy
A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy
A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy is a book by Karl Marx, first published in 1859. The book is mainly an analysis of capitalism, achieved by critiquing the writings of the leading theoretical exponents of capitalism at that time: these were the political economists, nowadays often...
and Das Kapital
Das Kapital
Das Kapital, Kritik der politischen Ökonomie , by Karl Marx, is a critical analysis of capitalism as political economy, meant to reveal the economic laws of the capitalist mode of production, and how it was the precursor of the socialist mode of production.- Themes :In Capital: Critique of...
, Marx explicitly states that:
In an important essay Roman Rosdolsky
Roman Rosdolsky
Roman Rosdolsky was an important Marxian scholar and political activist. He was born in Lviv in Galicia, at that time in the Austro-Hungarian empire, now in Ukraine, and died in Detroit, MI...
http://maximumred.blogspot.com/2005/05/rosdolsky-on-marxs-use-value.html shows the important role of use value in Marx's economics. The fact is that Marx himself, in the introduction to his Grundrisse manuscript, had defined the economic sphere as the totality of production, circulation, distribution and consumption. He did not however live to finish Das Kapital
Das Kapital
Das Kapital, Kritik der politischen Ökonomie , by Karl Marx, is a critical analysis of capitalism as political economy, meant to reveal the economic laws of the capitalist mode of production, and how it was the precursor of the socialist mode of production.- Themes :In Capital: Critique of...
, and did not theorise how commercial relations would reshape the sphere of personal consumption in accordance with the requirements of capital accumulation
Capital accumulation
The accumulation of capital refers to the gathering or amassing of objects of value; the increase in wealth through concentration; or the creation of wealth. Capital is money or a financial asset invested for the purpose of making more money...
.
It was only later that scholars such as Walter Benjamin
Walter Benjamin
Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin was a German-Jewish intellectual, who functioned variously as a literary critic, philosopher, sociologist, translator, radio broadcaster and essayist...
, Fernand Braudel
Fernand Braudel
Fernand Braudel was a French historian and a leader of the Annales School. His scholarship focused on three main projects, each representing several decades of intense study: The Mediterranean , Civilization and Capitalism , and the unfinished Identity of France...
, Ben Fine
Ben Fine
For the New York Times reporter see Benjamin FineBen Fine is Professor of Economics at the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies. He is the author of a number of works in the broad tradition of Marxist economics, and has made contributions on economic imperialism and social...
, Manuel Castells
Manuel Castells
Manuel Castells is a sociologist especially associated with information society and communication research....
and Michel Aglietta
Michel Aglietta
Michel Aglietta is a French economist, currently Professor of Economics at the University of Paris X: Nanterre. Michel Aglietta is a scientific counsellor at CEPII, a member of the University Institute of France, and a consultant to Groupama. An alumnus of the École Polytechnique, from 1998 to...
tried to fill this gap in Marx's unfinished work.
Use value and utility
Marx's concept of use-value seems akin to, but in reality differs from the neoclassicalNeoclassical economics
Neoclassical economics is a term variously used for approaches to economics focusing on the determination of prices, outputs, and income distributions in markets through supply and demand, often mediated through a hypothesized maximization of utility by income-constrained individuals and of profits...
concept of utility
Utility
In economics, utility is a measure of customer satisfaction, referring to the total satisfaction received by a consumer from consuming a good or service....
.
- Marx usually assumes in his analysis that products sold in the marketMarketA market is one of many varieties of systems, institutions, procedures, social relations and infrastructures whereby parties engage in exchange. While parties may exchange goods and services by barter, most markets rely on sellers offering their goods or services in exchange for money from buyers...
have a use-value to the buyer, without attempting to quantify that use-value other than in product units (this caused some of his readers to think wrongly that use-value played no role in his theory). The neoclassicalsNeoclassicismNeoclassicism is the name given to Western movements in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that draw inspiration from the "classical" art and culture of Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome...
, on the other hand, typically see prices as the quantitative expression of the general utility of products for buyers and sellers, instead of expressing their exchange-value.
- In neoclassical economics this utility is ultimately subjectively determined by the buyer of a good, and not objectively by the intrinsic characteristics of the good. Thus, neoclassical economists often talk about the marginal utilityMarginal utilityIn economics, the marginal utility of a good or service is the utility gained from an increase in the consumption of that good or service...
of a product, i.e., how its utility fluctuates according to consumption patterns. This kind of utility is a "general utility" which exists independently from particular uses that can be made of a product, the assumption being that if somebody wants, demands, desires or needs a good, then it has this general utility .
- Marx rejects any economic doctrine of consumer sovereigntyConsumer sovereigntyConsumer sovereignty is a term used in economics. It refers to consumers determining the production of goods. The term can prescribe what consumers should be permitted, or describe what consumers are permitted...
, stating among other things in his first chapter to Das KapitalDas KapitalDas Kapital, Kritik der politischen Ökonomie , by Karl Marx, is a critical analysis of capitalism as political economy, meant to reveal the economic laws of the capitalist mode of production, and how it was the precursor of the socialist mode of production.- Themes :In Capital: Critique of...
that "In bourgeois societies the economic fictio juris prevails, that every one, as a buyer, possesses an encyclopedic knowledge of commodities".
In summary, different concepts of use value lead to different interpretations and explanations of trade
Trade
Trade is the transfer of ownership of goods and services from one person or entity to another. Trade is sometimes loosely called commerce or financial transaction or barter. A network that allows trade is called a market. The original form of trade was barter, the direct exchange of goods and...
, commerce
Commerce
While business refers to the value-creating activities of an organization for profit, commerce means the whole system of an economy that constitutes an environment for business. The system includes legal, economic, political, social, cultural, and technological systems that are in operation in any...
and capitalism
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
. Marx's main argument is that if we focus only on the general utility of a commodity, we abstract from and ignore precisely the specific social relations of production
Relations of production
Relations of production is a concept frequently used by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in their theory of historical materialism, and in Das Kapital...
which created it.
Indifferent to use value?
Some academics such as Professor Robert Albritton, a Canadian political scientist, have claimed that according to Marx capitalists are basically "indifferent" to the use-value of the goods and services in which they trade, since what matters to capitalists is just the money they make; whatever the buyer does with the goods and services produced is, so it seems, of no real concern.But this is arguably a misunderstanding of business activity and the bourgeoisie
Bourgeoisie
In sociology and political science, bourgeoisie describes a range of groups across history. In the Western world, between the late 18th century and the present day, the bourgeoisie is a social class "characterized by their ownership of capital and their related culture." A member of the...
as a class http://www.mises.org/epofe/c5sec3.asp. Marx thought that capitalists can never be totally "indifferent" to use-values, because inputs of sufficient quality (labour, materials, equipment) must be bought and managed to produce outputs that:
- will sell at an adequate profit,
- are legally permitted by the stateState (polity)A state is an organized political community, living under a government. States may be sovereign and may enjoy a monopoly on the legal initiation of force and are not dependent on, or subject to any other power or state. Many states are federated states which participate in a federal union...
to be sold, - do not destroy the reputation of the supplier (with its obvious effect on sales).
For this purpose, the inputs in production must moreover be used in an economical way, and care must be taken not to waste resources to the extent that this would mean additional costs for an enterprise, or reduce productivity.
It is just that from the point of view of the financier or investor, the main concern is not what exactly is being produced as such or how useful that is for society, but whether the investment can make a profit for him. If the products of the enterprise being invested in sell and make a profit, then that is regarded as sufficient indication of usefulness. Even so, the investor is obviously interested in "the state of the market" for the enterprise's products - if certain products are being used less or used more, this affects sales and profits. So to evaluate "the state of the market", the investor needs knowledge about the place of a product in the value chain
Value chain
The value chain, is a concept from business management that was first described and popularized by Michael Porter in his 1985 best-seller, Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance.-Firm Level:...
and how it is being used.
Often Marx just assumed in Das Kapital
Das Kapital
Das Kapital, Kritik der politischen Ökonomie , by Karl Marx, is a critical analysis of capitalism as political economy, meant to reveal the economic laws of the capitalist mode of production, and how it was the precursor of the socialist mode of production.- Themes :In Capital: Critique of...
for argument's sake that supply and demand will balance, and that products do sell. Even so, Marx carefully defines the production process both as a labour
Abstract labour and concrete labour
Abstract labour and concrete labour refer to a distinction made by Karl Marx in his critique of political economy.- Origin :Marx first advanced this distinction in A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy and is discussed in more detail in chapter 1 of Capital, where Marx writes:The...
process creating use-values, and a valorisation
Valorisation
The valorisation or valorization of capital is a theoretical concept created by Karl Marx in his critique of political economy. The German original term is "Verwertung" but this is difficult to translate, and often wrongly rendered as "realisation of capital", "creation of surplus-value" or...
process creating new value. He asserts only that "capital in general" as an abstract social power, or as a property claim to surplus value
Surplus value
Surplus value is a concept used famously by Karl Marx in his critique of political economy. Although Marx did not himself invent the term, he developed the concept...
, is indifferent to particular use-values - what matters in this financial relation is only whether more value can be appropriated through the exchanges that occur. Most share-holders are not interested in whether a company actually satisfies customers, they want an adequate profit on their investment (but a countertrend is so-called "socially responsible investing
Socially responsible investing
Socially responsible investing , also known as sustainable, socially conscious, or ethical investing, describes an investment strategy which seeks to consider both financial return and social good....
").
In modern times, business leaders are often very concerned with total quality management
Total Quality Management
Total quality management or TQM is an integrative philosophy of management for continuously improving the quality of products and processes....
in production, which has become the object of scientific studies, as well as a new source of industrial conflict, since attempts are made to integrate everything a worker is and does (both his creative potential and how he relates to others) in the battle for improved quality. In that case, it could be argued not just labour power
Labor power
Labour power is a crucial concept used by Karl Marx in his critique of capitalist political economy. He regarded labour power as the most important of the productive forces of human beings. Labour power can be simply defined as work-capacity, the ability to do work...
but the whole person is a use-value (see further Richard Sennett's books such as The Culture of the New Capitalism, Yale (2006). Some regard this practice as a kind of "wage-slavery".
In truth, from beginning to end, and from production to consumption, use-value and exchange-value form a dialectical unity. If this is not fully clear from Marx's writings, that is perhaps mainly because he never theorised the sphere of final consumption in any detail, nor the way in which commerce reshapes the way that final consumption takes place.
See also
- commodityCommodityIn economics, a commodity is the generic term for any marketable item produced to satisfy wants or needs. Economic commodities comprise goods and services....
- exchange valueExchange valueIn political economy and especially Marxian economics, exchange value refers to one of four major attributes of a commodity, i.e., an item or service produced for, and sold on the market...
- Value-formValue-formThe value-form or form of value is a concept in Karl Marx’s critique of the political economy. It refers to a socially attributed characteristic of a commodity which contrasts with its tangible use-value or utility .The concept is introduced in the first chapter of Das Kapital where Marx argues...
- labor theory of valueLabor theory of valueThe labor theories of value are heterodox economic theories of value which argue that the value of a commodity is related to the labor needed to produce or obtain that commodity. The concept is most often associated with Marxian economics...
- productivityProductivityProductivity is a measure of the efficiency of production. Productivity is a ratio of what is produced to what is required to produce it. Usually this ratio is in the form of an average, expressing the total output divided by the total input...
- Abstract labour and concrete labourAbstract labour and concrete labourAbstract labour and concrete labour refer to a distinction made by Karl Marx in his critique of political economy.- Origin :Marx first advanced this distinction in A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy and is discussed in more detail in chapter 1 of Capital, where Marx writes:The...