Value

2019 ◽  
pp. 28-46
Author(s):  
Timothy Alborn
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Gold Standard ◽  
Focused Attention ◽  
Use Value ◽  
Exchange Value ◽  
Shared Space ◽  
History Of ◽  
Artistic Genius ◽  
Wealth Of Nations

Especially after the British Parliament formally adopted the gold standard in 1821, economists reinforced its legitimacy by building on Adam Smith’s account of value in The Wealth of Nations, which followed gold from its decorative uses to its use as a basis of credit. They also sharpened his distinction between gold’s minimal use-value and its exchange-value; and, under newfound conditions of scarcity, they focused attention on the diversion of gold away from ornamental purposes. In laying out this multipronged elaboration of gold’s value, political economy shared space with numerous other discourses—evident in novels, poems, essays, and sermons—that used gold as a metaphor for Christian virtue, artistic genius, and class; or that emphasized gold’s poisonous potential, building on a long history of the metal as an object of monstrous desire.

The Social Character of Value

2018 ◽  
pp. 19-20
Author(s):  
Rosa Luxemburg
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Use Value ◽  
Social Character ◽  
Exchange Value ◽  
Classical Political Economy ◽  
The Social ◽  
Complete Failure ◽  
Abstract Labor ◽  
Clear Conception ◽  
Rosa Luxemburg

In this excerpt from The Accumulation of Capital, Rosa Luxemburg explains how classical political economy lacks a clear conception of the commodity—both in the terms of the distinctions between use value and exchange value, as well as between concrete and abstract labor. This metaphysical, essentialist framework leads to a complete failure to understand the social character of labor's capacity to create value.

scholarly journals All That Glitters: Devaluing the Gold Standard in the Utopias of Thomas More, Francis Bacon, and Margaret Cavendish

2018 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Gimelli Martin
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Economy ◽  
Gold Standard ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
Conspicuous Consumption ◽  
Francis Bacon ◽  
Margaret Cavendish ◽  
Use Value ◽  
Thomas More ◽  
Exchange Value ◽  
New Atlantis

Francis Bacon’s and Margaret Cavendish’s ideal societies unexpectedly follow Thomas More’s Utopia in eliminating the exchange value of gold and replacing it with a knowledge economy. Bacon’s New Atlantis (1627) and Cavendish’s Blazing World (1666) similarly pursue new “light” and shun selfish profit, private trade, capital accumulation, and conspicuous consumption. Unlike More, they allow gold to retain its traditional decorative and symbolic functions, but its “use value” completely trumps its exchange value. Cavendish uses gold to construct and glorify her Blazing World and to forge astonishing defensive weapons, but it cannot be bought, sold, or even earned since it remains exclusively imperial. Bacon restricts gold to buying new “light” or knowledge and honouring thriving families with symbolic golden grape clusters, but like the Fathers of Salomon’s House, all three societies value only beneficial knowledge and the collaborative virtues taught by their new or improved religions to further universal peace and brotherhood. Les sociétés idéales imaginées par Francis Bacon et Margaret Cavendish emboîtent étonnamment le pas à l’Utopie de Thomas More lorsqu’elles éliminent la valeur monétaire de l’or pour la remplacer par une économie du savoir. La New Atlantis de Bacon (1627) et le Blazing World de Cavendish (1666) proposent de façon comparable la quête d’une nouvelle lumière et le refus du profit égoïste, du commerce privé, de l’accumulation du capital et de la consommation ostentatoire. Toutefois, à la différence de More, ils permettent que soit maintenue la valeur esthétique et symbolique de l’or, qui éclipse ainsi complètement sa valeur de monnaie d’échange. Cavendish utilise l’or pour construire et glorifier son univers flamboyant et pour créer d’étonnantes armes défensives, mais il ne peut être ni acheté, ni vendu, ni même gagné, puisqu’il est exclusivement impérial. Bacon limite l’usage de l’or à l’achat d’une nouvelle lumière, c’est-à-dire de la connaissance, et à l’hommage des familles florissantes en leur offrant de symboliques grappes de raisins en or, mais tout comme les Pères de la Maison de Salomon, cettes trois sociétés valorisent uniquement la connaissance bénéfique et les vertus de collaboration qu’enseignent leur religion nouvelle et améliorée afin de favoriser la paix universelle et la fraternité.

scholarly journals The Political Economy of Sustainability

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 1537 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriela Sabau
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Political Development ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Use Value ◽  
Economic Activities ◽  
Economic Values ◽  
Classical Economics ◽  
Human Needs ◽  
Exchange Value

Sustainability is a “contested” concept introduced at the beginning of the 18th century in German forestry circles concerned about sustainable harvests and rebranded in 1987 as “sustainable development” by the Brundtland Report, which defined it as harmonious economic, social, and ecological development that enhances both current and future potential to meet human needs and aspirations. However, after more than three decades of sustainable development, humanity is on an unsustainable path featuring rampant ecosystem damage, rising social inequality, and harmful cultural homogenization. This paper is a book review of Fred P. Gale’s Political Economy of Sustainability, a book published in 2018 by Edward Elgar Publishers. The book advances the innovative idea that the current lack of progress in implementation of the sustainable development goals is due to the narrow understanding by individuals, firms, states, and political parties of the values underlying sustainability. The book thus starts a much-needed conversation about economic values, a conversation ousted from the neo-classical economics discipline in the late 19th century by the marginalist thinkers who wanted to make it a positive science. The book identifies four elemental economic values—exchange value, labor value, use value, and function value—and argues that basing our socio-economic and political development on only one type of value with the exclusion of the others has led to the current dangerously unsustainable path humankind is on. Achieving sustainability value requires a balanced integration of all four types of values in all deliberations about socio-economic activities. How can this be accomplished? The author proposes a pragmatic solution in the form of a “tetravaluation” process, a dialogue involving multiple value holders able to reflexively negotiate and compromise until the pluralistic sustainability value is discovered and accepted by all the parties. The book challenges the unsustainable functioning of existing economic, political, and cultural institutions and invites a rethinking of their governance, which should deliberately embrace the pluralistic value of sustainability. The tetravaluation process has the potential to generate sustainable choices and inform better policy decisions able to protect at the same time the proponents of exchange value (consumers), the promoters of labor value (workers, producers), the beneficiaries of use value (communities), and the holder of functional values (the environment).

Rediscovering Use Value

2021 ◽  
pp. 119-134
Author(s):  
Christoph Hermann
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Marginal Utility ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Use Value ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Exchange Value ◽  
Ancient Greek Philosophy ◽  
Economic Thinking ◽  
Individual Value

This chapter rediscovers use value as an essential category for understanding commodification and capitalism more generally. The distinction between use value and exchange value goes back to ancient Greek philosophy and it played an important role in classical political economy. However, with the invention of marginal utility in the late nineteenth century, use value moved from the center to the fringes of economic thinking. Even where it survived, such as in Marxist scholarship, there was considerable disagreement about the role of use value in a critical political economy. The chapter, furthermore, explores the value of nature and by doing so unveils the shortcomings of the concept of marginal utility. One problem is that marginal utility denies the existence of collective value. Following Polanyi, the chapter argues that products not only have individual value, but also have a social and ecological utility. And social and ecological utility can differ considerably from individual valuation.

scholarly journals Economia política da informação e comunicação em tempos de internet: revisitando a teoria do valor nas redes e no espetáculo | Political economy of information and communication in the internet era: revisiting value theory in networks and in entertainment

2012 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcos Dantas
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Value Theory ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Use Value ◽  
Information Communication ◽  
Exchange Value ◽  
Information And Communication ◽  
Current Production ◽  
The Media ◽  
Production Conditions

Resumo o pilar teórico da Economia Política é a teoria do valor-trabalho. O capitalismo contemporâneo vem submetendo essa teoria a desafios teóricos e práticos pois, nas atuais condições de produção, o valor de troca estaria sendo esvaziado, subsistindo o valor de uso. O texto procura mostrar que a compreensão desses problemas pode estar no cerne das preocupações da Economia Política da Informação, Comunicação e Cultura (EPICC), já que o seu objeto de estudo é o processo de trabalho e valorização nos meios de comunicação, na produção de espetáculos e, agora, também, na internet.Palavras-chave valor de uso, valor de troca, trabalho, informação, internet, "jardins murados"Abstract the pillar of Political Economy theory is the theory of labor value. Contemporary capitalism has subjected this theory to theoretical and practical challenges because, under current production conditions, the exchange value was being emptied, subsisting use value. The text seeks to show that understanding of these problems can be at the core concerns of the Political Economy of Information, Communication and Culture (PEICC), since its subject is the process of work and valorization in the media, the production of entertanment, and now also on the Internet. Keywords: use value, exchange value, labour, information, internet, "walled gardens"

The Illusive Search for Justificatory Theories: Copyright, Commodification and Capital

2003 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 217-241 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel E. Trosow
Keyword(s):  
Economic Theory ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Copyright Law ◽  
Use Value ◽  
Current Policy ◽  
Policy Initiatives ◽  
Exchange Value ◽  
Policy Alternatives

The traditional philosophical justifications for copyright policy fail to account for current expansionary trends. The proprietary logic of contemporary copyright policies is justified on neither utilitarian nor rights-based grounds. Instead, copyright developments are located within the broader framework of commodification and the logic of capital itself. Since copyright law has been outpaced by a technology that undermines both the legal framework and the underlying economic theory on which it is based, a critical theoretical framework rooted in political economy is needed to harmonize the use and dissemination of information with the developing productive forces in society. Central to this framework is the contradiction between use-value and exchange-value, which is inherent in every commodity. This tension, which is particularly acute in the case of the information commodity, becomes sharper with the use of new technologically enabled exclusion mechanisms, as well as with various policy initiatives that seek to expand the duration, scope, and intensity of the copyright monopoly. Reconceptualizing copyright theory through the lens of critical political economy will help raise issues that are often overlooked in the current policy environment, and should decrease the acceptance of traditional justifications without considering all of the policy alternatives.

CAMEO APPEARANCES: THE DISCOURSE OF JEWELRY IN MIDDLEMARCH

2002 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 265-288 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean Arnold
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Gender Roles ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Discursive Practice ◽  
Modern History ◽  
History Of ◽  
Wealth Of Nations ◽  
Cultural Cohesion ◽  
Victorian Age

IN RECENT TIMES, the covert yet insistent relation between aesthetics and political economy has claimed significant critical focus, for these two discourses have implicated and complicated each other in puzzling ways.1 In offering some background to this relation, Mary Poovey has traced the modern history of aesthetics and political economy to a common origin within the eighteenth-century field of moral philosophy.2 As a study in search of cultural cohesion, moral philosophy drew together a wide-ranging set of critiques including ethics, aesthetics, economics, and government. Then, in the second half of the eighteenth century, the field branched, Poovey tells us, shaping new categories of knowledge through such works as Edmund Burke’s Enquiry (1757) on aesthetics and Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations (1776) on political economy. As these divisions in knowledge became further refined through discursive practice in the Victorian Age, aesthetics and political economy appeared to have little to do with each other; however, Poovey argues that “one way to remember the originary relationship between these two discourses — and to measure the toll exacted by their division — is to tease from each its past and present entanglements with gender” (“Aesthetics” 8). In this essay, I take up her call by examining the relation between aesthetics and political economy, as they inscribe their mediations on gender roles in George Eliot’s Middlemarch.

scholarly journals Attitudes to Credit in Britain, 1680–1790

1990 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 305-322 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julian Hoppit
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
The Other ◽  
Economic Order ◽  
The Political ◽  
Scottish Enlightenment ◽  
History Of ◽  
Great Tradition ◽  
Wealth Of Nations ◽  
Vast Range

The history of economic ideas in Britain is dominated by a great tradition which in its early stages focuses on Adam Smith. For the century before the publication of the Wealth of nations in 1776, economic ideas are most often studied in relation to the ‘arrival’ of Smith and commented on with regard to the degree to which they may be considered precursors of his ideas. Though this imposes a sense of order and establishes some principles with which to select from the vast range of economic writings, the dangers of certain whiggishness in this approach are readily apparent. Writers can appear to be winners or losers depending on the extent to which their ideas were denied, adapted or adopted by Smith and the other classical economists.1 Such problems have been acknowledged by many historians, not least by those who have fruitfully examined the political and philosophical bases of the emergence of political economy, particularly with regard to the Scottish enlightenment. Despite this, the force of the great tradition remains very strong. The authors and ideas that are examined are the ‘major’ ones, that is to say contributions that were, or attempted to be, either comprehensive or clearly attached to what, with hindsight, were the main strands of development. The emphasis has been upon theories or systematic explanations of the economic order. Not surprisingly the unsystematic and more casually formulated reflections of non-economists and ‘amateurs’, such as Defoe, are often swept under the carpet, even if their ideas on economic matters were more widely disseminated (and perhaps more influential) at the time. Consequently, our perception of economic ideas between the Restoration and the Wealth of nations continues to be highly and perhaps atypically selective.

27. Marx and Engels

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Thomas
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
The State ◽  
European History ◽  
Use Value ◽  
Surplus Value ◽  
Exchange Value ◽  
Political Activist ◽  
Friedrich Engels ◽  
Western European

This chapter examines Karl Marx's relationship to Friedrich Engels and their joint works of the 1840s, along with those works each of them published separately. Marx is regarded as Engels regarded him; that is, as the more important of the two, both as a theorist and political activist in the First International. The chapter begins with a discussion of the Manifesto of the Communist Party, with particular emphasis on Marx and Engels's views on ideology. It then considers Marx's critique of political economy; his concepts of use value, exchange value, and surplus value; and the ‘fetishism of commodities’ as discussed in the first volume of Capital. It also explores Marx's insights about Western European history and his theory of the state before concluding with an overview of Engels's contribution to Marxism.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Timothy Alborn
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Dual Role ◽  
British Society ◽  
Class Division ◽  
Shared Space ◽  
The Face ◽  
History Of ◽  
Conjectural History ◽  
Class And Status ◽  
Wealth Of Nations

Abstract: This chapter provides an overview of the central themes and arguments in the book, a brief chapter outline, and a discussion of research methodology. Besides being in the forefront of commercial credit, Britain also led the way during the eighteenth century in creating and sustaining an intellectual justification for a credit economy based on gold, most clearly articulated in Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations (1776). Smith’s conjectural history of gold and later modifications hewed closely to the twin categories of class and status, which molded the changing contours of British society during the decades on either side of 1800. Gold’s dual role in this history provides a useful map for exploring Britain’s ascendance during the century after 1750. The dominant British discourse on gold, which privileged its use as currency over decoration, aligns with an interpretation of that century as radically modern, whereby Britain took a comfortable if short-lived lead in the race among nations for wealth and power. Against a forward-looking story that identifies gold as a modernizing motor, the nagging prevalence of decorative gold in Britain and its empire supports a contrary narrative that emphasizes continuity rather than a radical break. In this story, the rise of a modern credit economy shared space with an empire that depended as much on ornamental splendor as on economic and racial subordination and an impulse to draw from the past in order to create a habitable present in the face of rising levels of population and class division.

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