Understanding Marx's Capital Volume 1 Chapter 1 - Commodities (Sections 1-2)

Karl Marx's Capital Volume 1
Part 1 - Commodities and Money
Chapter 1 - The Commodity (sections 1 and 2)

00:00 - Section 1 Commodities
00:36 - Use Values and Exchange Values
06:03 - Section 2
06:08 - Useful Labour
07:53 - Abstract Labour
09:02 - Socially Necessary Labour Time

This video is a look at the first 2 sections in Chapter 1, Part 1 of Marx's Capital, The Commodity. Marx is investigating the source of Value by examining Use-Value and Exchange-Value and the idea of the commodity. Here we begin to understand Marx' Labour Theory of Value.



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[hazel]

Thank you for your great explanation. I took one week to understand to this chapter. You help me to realize with 13 minutes video. I look forward to the rest of the series.

[has-been-hotl]

I find Marx's work so fun and interesting to study, not because I agree with everything he says, but because his intelligence is very clear and it's so intriguing to study his thoughts, but he's also *very* hard to read, some translations more than others, but all around difficult, and so I find it easier to understand if I watch a summary video like this first, and then read the actual text, or else I just end up skimming and confused. Thanks for this!

[thennavanthennavan]

Great work.To understand capital is one thing which is itself difficult.but to explain it with this much clarity is simply great.congrats.i wish you also incorporate the dialectical aspect marx follows throughout the course of his investigation and name the exact phrases marx himself mentioned for the things he explain(eg.substance of value and magnitude of value...Etc).

Thanks for spending your valuable time in explaining the most valuable work of valuable man in history.😊

[SpencerSnyder]

Great work with this! I'm looking forward to the rest of the series.

[KathaMukh]

That is a great presentation. In todays world when market is king. This values of marx is our hope, hope for a new world.

[rationalism_communism]

you earned a sub.
that was some good labour there buddy!

[ayohilary]

Thanks for this info excellent series. I'm reading Capital Volume 1 and these summary videos are very helpful!

[yaprakcetin]

ohhh my!!!! thank you, thank you, thank you finally i understood. You made it so simple !!!

[LatifoMudallali]

I see from your marvelous work that setting prices for commodities was and is and will never be an easy job, that's why they invented the myth of offering and demand... Thanks again...Thanks a lot for the good work and Lots of Love...

[objet-petit-chat]

You do a really great job explaining this, thank you!!

[ImAGeist]

Great explanation, it helped me with understanding this chapter a lot!! Thank you:)

[Diod]

Woa these videos are really good my dude!! <3

[Archive]

Well made series. Will continue to watch despite knowing everything :)

[maxmuller]

I have been trying to understand what marx is saying in his first chapters and after watching this vid i feel like i am still not getting it. HELP :(
I dont see anything interesting/important being revealed when thinking about labour/commodities in marxist terms. 

1. How are these definitions helping anyone understand the system? Are these specific terms used today for anything at all? Are they accepted as correct by contemporary professors or was it more like a foundation that other scholars elaborated upon and gave meaning to?

2. it seems to me that marx thought that the labour input influences or even determines the use-value of a commodity. Why would a great thinker like him omit the obvious effects that scarcity has in influencing values?

-( i know my questions are phrased in a condescending way. I do this to make it clear where my gaps and biases are, so that your answer can precisely inject knowledge where it is needed.)

[stupidbokoblins]

K now I need to figure out how to make this into a 8 page essay😅

[rainerlippert]

Marx's theory of value is wrong in relation to value formation.
According to Marx, surplus value is part of value. He describes the formation of value with the formula W = c + v + s. He applies this formula to the production side of commodity society, because the market has no meaning for him in terms of value formation.
But there is still no surplus value on the production side. There are only costs (c + v) and an expected surplus value that the entrepreneur can estimate based on market observation.
Furthermore, an amount of money handed down to him from heaven by an angel would not add any value, since this money would only replace part of the cost.
Since the suirplus value is part of the value, there can only be one expected value on the production side, matching the expected surplus value. The value formula needs to be specified for the production side:
W|expected = c|cost factor, replacement expected + v|cost factor, replacement expected + s|expected.
This expected value is made visible to potential buyers as an offer price.

Only if a buyer on the market buys the product and the entrepreneur succeeds in recovering the cost of the product (c + v) in full (!) and also succeeds in getting the buyer to pay even more money (equivalent in value to his goods) to move, there is surplus value.
The value formula for the market also needs to be specified:
W|real = c|cost replacing + v|cost replacing + s|real.
This makes it clear that the surplus value can only be paid for on the market. For the above reason, the value cannot be formed before it is clear whether surplus value is being paid and if so, to what extent, i.e. the formation of value entails the purchase of the product.
In addition, this formula makes it clear that the surplus value is not paid directly on the costs, but on the reimbursement of the costs. This is also a criterion for value being formed on the market.

One can only produce the prerequisites for value relationships and for values, but not the values themselves.

There is no difference between exchange value and real value. What Marx calls real or commodity value or labour value is merely an expected value. At this point in time there is no work for a product that can be described as socially useful, because work was only socially useful if the product was really useful for society. Only through exchange, when the product becomes a use value for others through exchange, can the labor expended on it be qualified as socially useful and the product of labor as a commodity.
The so-called socially necessary labor and the surplus labor can only be determined after the product has been sold, since only then can the surplus labor be determined as a proportion of the total labor through the real surplus value. Before that, the entrepreneur can only expect the workforce to “work more” for a certain period of time.

[ArtisticLayman]

“Contradiction”
You keep using that word. It doesn’t mean what you think it means.

[Ffkslawlnkn]

I'm not sure I'm completely satisfied with the arguments for marx' value theory. I don't see why the fact that commodities are exchanged implies that there is a common property. I also don't see why it would have to be this property would have to be being the product of labour instead of e. g. being useful to ppl.