Do the questions below. ( every questions should be more than 200 words) - Term Paper Example

If, however, the apple goes rotten, then the use value diminishes to almost nothing. Utility is defined differently from use-value because the utility of an object can change depending on its condition. Many modern economists confuse these terms because they are very similar in meaning. But Marx says that utility can change because of the relationship between a human and an object such as the apple. Unlike use-value, which defines the usefulness of an object, the exchange-value is defined in terms of price.

Marx, however, was not referring to currency because the value of money can change dramatically. What Marx was alluding to was price in terms of the values of other commodities that can be traded in exchange for an item. When a trade takes place, the utility of the traded object is not gained, but rather the use-value of that object until such time when a person decides to gain the exchange-value of the item. No, Marx would not agree with this statement because the labor process contributes towards the production of an item of value.

Every commodity ever produced has required some form of labor to help the product be ready for sale. Labor can be broken down into many forms, but commodities that have an exchange-value do have value in the form of labor. For example, to produce a wooden desk or a pen requires a labor process to make sure that they are produced of high quality. The labor processes for these two items are very different, yet they both require labor to give the object some value. The wooden desk needs to have wood cut, sanded, and put together in order to produce the final product.

On the other hand, a pen does not require hard manual labor and in fact a machine can help to produce much of it. People make up much of the labor process (except for objects which can be produced by machines) and so they contribute value towards making the object. Without labor being counted as value, it would be difficult to define the value of an