On The Social Historical Connotation Of Marx's Concept Of Use Value

Use value is an important category used by Marx to launch critique of political economics,it has its own unique social-historical connotation,but most people understand and grasp this concept mainly from the level of general commodities to emphasize its natural attributes,and did not reveal its rich social-historical connotation from the perspective of historical materialism or scientific political economics,so that they misunderstood the concept of use value in Marx's “Das Capital”.In fact,from the perspective of Marx's thinking,the concept of use value is a historical category.And only based on the historical materialism and conducting historical discussions on it can we accurately and completely grasp its social-historical connotation.This paper is mainly composed of the following four chapters:The first chapter analyzes and combs the two dimensions of Marx's concept of use value from the perspective of the text,trying to excavate the political economic premise of the concept of use value in “Das Capital”.Before the 1950 s,Marx's understanding of the concept of use value was mainly based on the understanding of the concept of use value by classical economists,namely “utility”.In the “Economic Philosophy Manuscript in 1844”,Marx's “utility” is full of alienation,since the “men” here is alien,the utility that meets the needs of men also shows the usefulness of “for others”.In “Philosophy's Dilemma”,Marx criticized Proudhon's “utility” as an empty concept,and pointed out that “utility” only manifests as the needs of things and men.But the use value(that is,utility)here not only excludes the carriers of natural objects and products,but also has a casual relationship with men.Therefore,Marx's discussion of use value during this period is not within the scope of political economics.After the 1950 s,Marx began to use the historical materialism to understand the concept of use value.In “Economic Manuscripts in 1857-1858”,Marx clarified the development of use value in the capitalist production and demand system through the discussion and regulation of whether use value is within the scope of political economics.In “Das Capital”,use value as the use value of “commodities” in a capitalist society gradually entered the scope of political economics discussion with the existence of a social relationship.Therefore,Marx's political economics discussion of use value is premised on historical materialism.The second chapter discusses Marx's scientific transformation of the concept of use value in classical economics.In the classical economists Adam Smith and David Ricardo,the understanding of the concept of use value was carried out under the abstraction of specific production relations and social conditions.Therefore,the use value becomes a general,eternal,and historically undefined category,which is abstracted from the discussion of political economics.But these cognitive defects of the classical economists were quickly exploited by the vulgar economist Say,who like the English utilitarian Bentham,functionalized the use value,which led to the realization of the use value turned to the other extreme,that is,only this usefulness as a premise.Based on these two kinds of misconceptions,Marx divided the concept of use value into political economy,he not only established the scientific research object and method of political economics,but also established the analysis of use value on the logical starting point of the economic cell of capitalism,namely “commodity”.Therefore,it is under the premise of historical materialism that Marx realized the transformation and transcendence of the concept of use value in classical economics.The third chapter focuses on the social-historical connotation of Marx's concept of use value in “Das Capital”.The social-historical connotation of Marx's concept of use value is fully reflected in the four distinct elements that constitute the capitalist production relationship: general commodity,monetary,labor commodity and capital.After establishing the “commodity” as the logical starting point of political economics research,Marx not only reveals the use value as a carrier of value into the social form from the internal connection of the two factors of commodities,but also reveals the use value is transformed into social use value under the regulations of social labor form the dual contradiction of labor,these two aspects together constitute the social-historical connotation of the use value of general commodity.The social-historical connotation of the use value of monetary is not only manifested as the duality of the differentiation of commodity into commodity and monetary in the development of commodity value forms,that is,the special use value of common commodity and general use value of monetary,but also manifested in the social-historical regulations of the monetary itself excavated during the conversion of monetary into capital,that is the new regulation of the use value of the monetary as capital.The social-historical connotation of the use value of labor commodity,on the one hand,manifests in the emergence of labor commodity as a peculiar phenomenon in capitalist society,on the other hand,in the use value of labor commodity is the source of capital production.Capital is not only expressed as the external regulations of things,but also contains the essential regulations of social production relations,this dual social-historical regulation constitutes the social-historical connotation of the use value of capital.The fourth chapter clarifies the theoretical significance of the social-historical connotation of Marx's concept of use value.Marx's interpretation of the concept of use value is different from traditional political economics,the latter believes that use value only represents the natural attributes of commodities and thus puts this concept outside of Marxist political economics,on the contrary,because the use value has undergone a series of social forms of transformation under the special regulations of the capitalist mode of production,it has achieved a basic and prerequisite position and role in the study of Marxist political economics.Therefore,on the one hand,Marx's change in the concept of use value is conducive to a better understanding of the research objects and methods of political economics in the construction of perfect Marxist political economics,so as to achieve an accurate grasp of Marx's value theory;on the other hand,it is also helpful to clarify and correct the wrong views of non-difficult Marxist economic theory represented by Sweezy and Baudrillard to a certain extent.At the same time,in promoting the construction of socialist political economy with Chinese characteristics,Marx's interpretation of the connotation that the use value of commodities meets the needs of men in social history also provides certain theoretical guidance and motivation for the indepth development of China's economic reform under the “supply-side structural reform” and “the new normal economy”.