Aristotle and Marx: on the determination of value

Abstract

The paper discusses the problem of the determination of value, which is essential for the exchange or circulation of commodities. This problem was formulated by Aristotle, whose answer was to postulate an exterior meter to measure the commodities A and B to be exchanged, and that meter is money. Thus, for the Greek philosopher commodities have no substance or essence that makes it possible to compare them. Marx, in turn, in the wake of modern political economy, proposed a radically different alternative for the determination of value. Commodities are no longer compared on the basis of an external meter, but of a common essence, which, since the classical economists, is placed on labor, on the amount of labor time invested in their production. In this respect, the paper emphasizes the reversal that took place in modernity, in which subjectivity becomes primary. Like Luther had done in the realm of religion was now done in political economy: the value of commodities is determined on the basis of subjectivity, which is objectified through labor.