In his analysis of the commodity (Capital: Volume One, Chapter One), Karl Marx distinguishes two different aspects to the commodity. It has both a use-value and an exchange value. Its ‘use-value’ simply means the commodity is prized for its capacity to satisfy a particular human want. It is valued in this sense because of its usefulness. But commodities are also prized in another way as well – they can be exchanged for any other commodity on the basis they share, in varying degrees, different quantities of exchange-value. So, to take an example where the quantities of exchange value broadly match, an apple can be exchanged for a pencil or a packet of cigarette rolling papers.
The reason why this has emancipatory implications lies in considering what happens if you need that pencil or those cigarette rolling papers, but you do not posess the apple in the first place. Obviously then, you go without. If you cannot afford something, you do not get it. Therefore, the human freedom is, in some sense, curtailed. The product may exist, but you do not get it unless you have an equivalent amount of exchange-value with which to obtain it, usually a quantity of money. So, for example, supermarkets throw away around a third of their quickly-perishable foodstuffs whilst the United Nations estimates 10% of the world population is hungry or malnourished. This is not a moralistic criticism: the supermarket management, now matter how benign they may be, really cannot just give away that food because then everyone would be demanding it for free, in which case they would not be in business. The criticism is levelled at the law of value which governs all economic transactions in a capitalist society. This economic law is inhibiting freedom.
What is worse, as market conditions deteriorate, wages have less purchasing power. So, the level of unfreedom increases in capitalism – ‘progress’ is very mixed, to say the least.
To change the law of value, society would need to be producing directly to meet the needs of the individual consumer, rather than producing goods for sale. The only way this can be done is via the mediation of a social plan. Using powerful online technologies, society could adapt its production to what is reasonably requested, and distribute the common bounty without the need for money, or any other token of exchange-value. It is only in this way, humanity will become largely free and happy.
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