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mystery-commodities [2017/09/14 16:18]
admin created
mystery-commodities [2017/09/30 15:55]
Richard Greeman
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 "Like many militants of your generation, you confuse two things: The natural market, on the one hand, a social institution going back to the beginnings of human culture, and on the other, this dangerous animal that invades society with capitalism, this monster hybrid half-thing and half- abstraction,​ this fetish of capitalism, merchandise! "Like many militants of your generation, you confuse two things: The natural market, on the one hand, a social institution going back to the beginnings of human culture, and on the other, this dangerous animal that invades society with capitalism, this monster hybrid half-thing and half- abstraction,​ this fetish of capitalism, merchandise!
  
-"​Historically",​ she explained, "​markets were friendly places where people got together to trade produce while at the same time chatting, exchanging news and ideas, weaving relationships clan to clan, village to country, people to people . . . +"​Historically",​ she explained, "​markets were friendly places where people got together to trade produce ​and handicrafts ​while at the same time chatting, exchanging news and ideas, weaving relationships clan to clan, village to country, people to people . . . 
  
 "I understand. I’ve just been told that an herbs market had its origin around the year 1000 in the city of Montpellier in the present south of France. Arab and Jewish doctors coming here from Spain found Italians and Bulgarians who brought herbs from India. From the herbs market was born the city, its Faculty of Medicine, and the pharmacy industry has always been very strong in the region. On reflection, you’d have to say the market is the source of civilization. . ." "I understand. I’ve just been told that an herbs market had its origin around the year 1000 in the city of Montpellier in the present south of France. Arab and Jewish doctors coming here from Spain found Italians and Bulgarians who brought herbs from India. From the herbs market was born the city, its Faculty of Medicine, and the pharmacy industry has always been very strong in the region. On reflection, you’d have to say the market is the source of civilization. . ."
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 "One of the sources,"​ my gracious interlocutor answered indulgently. "One of the sources,"​ my gracious interlocutor answered indulgently.
  
-" . . . and they sold here merchandise !" I said maliciously.+" . . . and they sold here as merchandise !" I said maliciously.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    
-"​Indeed,"​ smiled the scholar. "You could call merchandise anything natural or manufactured as long as it is traded. The peasant from Mali who happens to feed her family and take to the village market ​her surplus of yams expects to go back home with things that she doesn’t know how to make herself: a copper pot, a comb. . ."+"​Indeed,"​ smiled the scholar. "You could call merchandise anything natural or manufactured as long as it is traded. The peasant from Mali who happens to feed her family and take her surplus of yams to the village market ​expects to go back home with things that she doesn’t know how to make herself: a copper pot, a comb. . ."
  
 "I think I understand: those yams of the Malienne are only the, so to speak, occasional merchandise,​ therefore innocent. But whence come your merchandise-fetishes that are so mysterious and dangerous?"​ "I think I understand: those yams of the Malienne are only the, so to speak, occasional merchandise,​ therefore innocent. But whence come your merchandise-fetishes that are so mysterious and dangerous?"​
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 "I give up, explain it to me," I begged, really distressed now. "I give up, explain it to me," I begged, really distressed now.
  
-"But you knew it already!"​ smiled the philosophe, indulgently. "​It’s only that useful human labor is not, as we’ve seen, quantifiable. The activity of a knitter gives us, after all, only a sweater that’s more or less warm and more or less beautiful. You need abstract labor to create the abstract (quantifiable) value of merchandise. And in order to establish its potential price you have to place it in relationship to other merchandise in the same category that could have been manufactured by machine, and that will embody more or less necessary social labor.+"But you knew it already!"​ smiled the philosopher, indulgently. "​It’s only that useful human labor is not, as we’ve seen, quantifiable. The activity of a knitter gives us, after all, only a sweater that’s more or less warm and more or less beautiful. You need abstract labor to create the abstract (quantifiable) value of merchandise. And in order to establish its potential price you have to place it in relationship to other merchandise in the same category that could have been manufactured by machine, and that will embody more or less necessary social labor.
  
 All the same, you wouldn’t be wrong in proposing that the quality of human labor that a product has cost were the origin of its value. But, as we’ve seen, it’s not the quality of concrete labor (an example being the slow knitter) that determines the value of product, but the average quantity necessary to make such a product in competition with others of the same variety on the world market. Obviously, in order to establish the integral value of merchandise,​ for example the men’s suit, you’d have to add the necessary labor of the peasants who grew the cotton, the labor of the weavers who transformed it into cloth, the labor of the tailors and transporters. All the same, you wouldn’t be wrong in proposing that the quality of human labor that a product has cost were the origin of its value. But, as we’ve seen, it’s not the quality of concrete labor (an example being the slow knitter) that determines the value of product, but the average quantity necessary to make such a product in competition with others of the same variety on the world market. Obviously, in order to establish the integral value of merchandise,​ for example the men’s suit, you’d have to add the necessary labor of the peasants who grew the cotton, the labor of the weavers who transformed it into cloth, the labor of the tailors and transporters.
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 "Good. I agree. It’s therefore not the market, but the alienated labor that gives birth to that capitalist merchandise become universal fetish. But let’s admit that this dialectic was not very well understood in the period of globalization. Each time they talk to us about markets, we know they’re going to have a rough time of it, that they’re going to lose the slim fringe benefits that they have, that life becomes less human, that they’re going to take from us even the air and the water to make merchandise out of them." "Good. I agree. It’s therefore not the market, but the alienated labor that gives birth to that capitalist merchandise become universal fetish. But let’s admit that this dialectic was not very well understood in the period of globalization. Each time they talk to us about markets, we know they’re going to have a rough time of it, that they’re going to lose the slim fringe benefits that they have, that life becomes less human, that they’re going to take from us even the air and the water to make merchandise out of them."
  
-[[monopolies|Monopolies ​– The Transformation of Work]]+[[monopolies|Monopolies]]
mystery-commodities.txt · Last modified: 2017/09/30 15:55 by Richard Greeman