Question about the economics of information On 2002.05.23 05:16 AM, "Jurriaan Bendien" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > All we really get from Marx about the concept of the commodity itself > however is the idea that the commodity has a value, an exchange-value > and a use-value. The value is abstract labour, the exchange-value is > expressed in money sums and prices, and the use-value resides in the > physical properties a commodity has (not its utility in the eyes of > the consumer(s), Marx has in mind an objective social use-value > existing independently of individual consumers). ^^^^^^^^^ CB: I'm not sure that use-value cannot be rooted in the "eyes of the consumer" in part. A use-value satifies a want. The want can spring from the stomach or from fancy, fancy being something like "in the eyes of the consumer". At one point Marx uses Bibles as an example of a commodity. "A commodity is, in the first place, an object outside us, a thing that by its properties satisfies human wants of some sort or another. The nature of such wants, whether, for instance, they spring from the stomach or from fancy, makes no difference. [2] Neither are we here concerned to know how the object satisfies these wants, whether directly as means of subsistence, or indirectly as means of production. " http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm#S1 So, an information commodity might have its use-value depend on its utility to an individual, be "in their eyes only" useful, i.e. have no objective social use. As an example, I guess, a doctor's report on me might only be of use-value to me.
