(Exchange-Value as the Receptacle/Mirror of Conceptual-Perception Within the General Commodity-Form)
According to Karl Marx, the basic datum-bit of the capitalist mode of production and/or capitalist society in general, is the commodity, in the sense that “the individual commodity appears as its elementary form”. And due to this nucleus of the capitalist mode of production, Marx begins his analysis of Capital (Volume One) by specifically analyzing the commodity in its most elementary form as “an object with a dual character, possessing both use-value and exchange-value”, inherent in its structure. Foremost, Marx states that “the usefulness of a thing makes it a use-value”, the utility of things are multi-varied and plural, there are many uses for things, regardless of shape and/or form, “every useful thing is…useful in various ways”, depending on what a person perceived as its utility. However, what makes a commodity a commodity is not its use-value, per se, but its use-value in combination with its exchange-value. For instance, Marx states, “a thing can be useful….without being a commodity. He who satisfies his own need with the product of his own labor admittedly creates use-values, but not commodities.
In order to produce the latter, he must not only produce use-values, but use-values for others”, namely, exchange-values, that is, things which can be consumed by others and not for oneself. Therefore, for Marx, exchange-value is the…