CMNS 223W Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Nicotine, Semiotics, Social Relation
24 Mar 2016
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Document Summary
While marx"s revolutionary theories of socialism are not relevant to us in 223w, he does provide deep insights into capitalist society and the role of goods in our economic system. According to marx, the commodity form is speciic to capitalist societies. The commodity is the form goods and services take on when they are exchanged in a marketplace in the presence of money as an abstract medium of exchange. Commodities are deined not by use value or the value realized in consumption, but rather, goods become commodities the moment they are exchanged for goods of a diferent sort in a marketplace, via money. So commodities are deined by exchange value rather than use value. Thus exchange value is not determined by the physical characteristics of the product but how much of another commodity it can be exchanged for. Value is not the same thing as price, however.
