From: Philip Dunn (pscumnud@dircon.co.uk)
Date: Thu Mar 27 2003 - 13:49:24 EST
Michael Eldred <artefact@t-online.de> said: > Cologne 27-Mar-2003 > > Re: [OPE-L:8673] > The question of commensurability (_symmetria_ 1133b19) presumably does not concern > what enables commodity exchange to exist, for the practice of exchange makes sense > and is, in truth (_alaetheiai_ 1133b19) practised. > > But Aristotle has already answered his own question in pointing out that it is > > "in truth, use, which holds everything together” (_touto d' esti taei men alaetheiai > hae chreia, hae panta synechei:_ 1133a28). > > Goods are exchanged only because they are useful and what one person lacks for a > given usage can be obtained by exchanging something else useful for it. Thus it is > "use" (_chreia_) which "holds everything together", not the manifold different > concrete uses, but rather usefulness as general, abstract usefulness. Money provides > a practical measure for this abstract usefulness which works in practice to mediate > exchange practically. Meikle (op. cit.) translates _chreia_ as "need". This seems to be well established in Greek. _chreia_ was rendered as _indigentia_ in Latin, but also as _opus_, "use". To add to the confusion _chrao_ means "use", "make use of". I have doubts about abstract usefulness, but abstact needfulness .. ? > > How is it that you say, "The house-artifact is matter relative to the > house-commodity whose form is the value-form"? The house is a useful thing, good for > living in, and therefore, like all useful things, it can also be exchanged for some > other useful thing or things which are good for something else in the usages of > practical life. Money is only something which mediates the exchange. > > Once the social practice of money-mediated commodity exchange is established, the > exchange-value of a house or a pair of shoes is expressed not in a multitude of > exchange relations with various other use-values, but in money. The exchange-value > of houses or shoes is then simply money-price. What does monetary price measure? It > measures, abstractly, use-value, i.e. the use-values of a multitude of useful > things. The exchange-value of a house gains the 'look' or _eidos_ or 'form' of > money. > > Only in this sense can one talk of the commodity's value-form -- money-price is the > 'look' which the commodity presents of itself as an exchange-value, once the > monetary mediation of exchange is developed as a social practice. > > It makes no sense to employ the schema of matter/form, i.e. _hylae_/_morphae (not > _eidos_) to the value-form, since the former comes from the paradigm of production > (_poiaesis_) and natural beings (_physei on_). > Is "look" so far away from "shape"? Also are they purely about appearance? Certainly, the "shape" can be used in many metaphorical senses that go beyond physical or geometrical shape. Surely the paradigm of production is relevant? The valoristion process is a process of value creation. Why cannot the commodity have a nature that is different from the nature of the use-value? Phil
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