Intro to Theory of Values | Chapter 1 

Finally, a theory channel for dumbasses like me who refuse to read

Lovely work! This is a great resource for beginners. Will you do all of the first volume of capital?

This came at the perfect time, I’m currently struggling with the book and I was very happy to see this pop up. Keep up the good work comrade

I feel so much much better about my life after watching this. My brain melted down midway through chapter 3 and I didn't realise just how much tension had built up in my psyche that I couldn't get past it. I know it's no substitute for reading it but I feel now I can tackle it again with the basic parameters of what I'm reading set out. If I had any money I would seek out a way of giving some of it to you fine young people. Thank you!!!

I started reading das kapital a few days ago and was struggling a lot, but watching this alongside reading the book has made the material much more digestibl, this video was extremely helpful, thank you!

Very nice. This is a chapter I have struggled to understand for a long time and you have summarized it extremely professionally. I hope you will continue through all 3 volumes of Kapital.

Thank god I found you I just bought this book and i feel like I’m reading hieroglyphics. You’re hilarious and made it so easy to understand 🖤

Super well done; the review sessions in the middle of the video and timestamps with corresponding terms/ideas are really helpful!

This was a great recap prior to reading the next chapter! It made things easy to freshen within my mind prior to moving on while also clarifying any nuances I may have lost myself in

Guys, I cannot stress that we, the viewers, supported the creators who offer so much value to us. Reward their labour!!!!

I recommend this vid for those who want to learn the main points of Das Kapital. This is a time saver!

This is an absolutely great video for people to understand Marx- thank you 🙏🏻 I will be sharing whenever the situation arises!

I wish I'd seen this before I'd listened to chapter 1! I'll do it in the right order going forward. Thanks for the clever arrangement of vocab words, too! This is really well done.

Thank you! I'm so happy I found this channel, great humor and great explanations on his theory in bite size chunks!

Cannot wait for more of these. I literally take notes. My mind has been spurred

Great explanation! You guys are doing a great service by making these concepts very much accessible! Really appreciate the effort and creativity. Thank you very much.

This was SO helpful for me! Thank you so much! I'm in a master's level political economy course, which brings many new concepts to me, but this made the content easily digestible.

Does this count as reading theory? Trying to stop being a lib.

Great video! It is tough to read and I am glad to have someone to help me along the way

You worked hard for this straightforward informative video, with little humor in it, thank you !

I am awed. Just thinking of how much someone put energy to this. This lady should get paid like a professor does at a university. I know it doesn't compensate, but at least for now, i can offer you my gratitude. 😊

Excellent presentation! finally a beautiful commodity.... Thank you for your labor🥰

Okay!!! this channel is criminally underrated

Useful bite sized summary. I'm buying the book, but don't fancy painstakingly reading every word! Thanks.

As a new Economics student, I thank you!

Clear, concise and insightful. Thanks a lot!

Thank you so much for making this video! Much appreciated

Thanks for making such useful video on the topic, concepts were explained in very understandable manner with good examples and overall video quality is very good..!!

pressed the rewind button for 23927 times in this video a lot of thanks for the lesson !!

Just found out about these series. Entertaining and educational. So far I have some issues with her understanding of money (money in Marx that is), but I'm definitely watching the other videos soon.

Too good. Please keep doing this

I'm so excited to have a channel that is not only entertaining but informative with no bias ( that is in your face). Just subscribed and will try to like every video I can

thank you for this! i've read most of the book but i'm more of a visual person so this is pretty helpful for filling in the parts that i wasn't able to accurately conceptualize

Thank you for this. This is really helpful in understanding Capital. Just started reading it today after being inspired by Bhagat Singh’s writings. ❤️ P.s. this was witty too. You have good sense of humour. 👍

You really helped me understand this tricky topic. Thank you!

Thank God! Found a way to sort of understand. The book is brutal. Wish me luck 🤞

"The air we breathe doesn't have a value as a commodity" Capitalists: "Hold my beer!" That said, thank you very much for putting this video together. I can't seem to find very many unbiased resources that look at any of the Marx and later Leninist philosophies/ideologies without attaching the spectre of "Communism" to them, and being highly biased against them, presupposing that Capitalism is in fact how society should be modeled.

Awesome summary!

It makes me feel like back to high school😂. I really hope my politics teacher can explain this as organized and logical as you do.

Holy moly, this is outstanding. Thank you so much!!!!!

Excelent. Im an in-depth reader of Marx from Brazil. Thats the best online introduction to Das Kapital I've ever seen. Thank you very much for the effort.

Thank you so much for this!

Glass has additional use value when i fight with my +1! Can throw it to the floor for drama! Very useful. Actually your explanation is very good. I finally get it.

Thank you for making such a great video keep up the good work

Omg finally! Been looking for something like this

I can see this channel growing huge

Helped a lot! Thank you!

H a t c h e t Awesome video, can't wait for more

Great job red! You couldn’t have explained it any more eloquently/accurately.

Excellent presentation! 😍

I tried reading Capital when I was 15 years old. I think I read about one page and didn't understand a thing! Didn't dare looking at it again until now, some 45 years later, and I'm ready to give it another try. Luckily for me there is this brilliant little youtube vid to help guide me through the first chapter of the book. Looking forward to watching more. Thank you.

great work!

Awesome explanation 👌👌👌

These videos should be played in all high school economic classes.

Next time someone says "Socialists don't understand basic economics" I'm going to show them this video.

thank you thank you so much for making these!

thank you so much!! this truly saved my life when it comes to my social theory class. amazing work!

> a commodity is defined as an object that through its physical properties is able to satisfy some sort of human need and is additionally traded for something else thought of to be of equal value A commodity is not an "object". Service can also be a commodity. Also, commodity should be defined as something produced for exchange.Simply adding "satisfaction of some human need" as necessary quality can be misleading, as it suggests possibility of something that does not qualify as such - i.e. does not satisfy some human need in a way commodities do. For example, one can assume that raw materials are not "real" commodities, as they are not consumed by the immediate buyer. It is good that this bit is clarified later, but it does not excuse this mess. > my hair is tangled - here's commodity for that > I'm hungry - here's the ... here's the commodity for that If pizza is consumed by the immediate producer, it is production for use. I.e. pizza does not function as a commodity (ingredients might). Either way, it is not commodities that are presented here, but use-values (and specifically use-values of non-service variety). > so now Marx begins to lay out his theory of values That's not really *Marx's* theory of values. Marx even made multiple references to preceding economists, > there are three sorts of values for us to talk about > here use value, exchange value, and value There are two values: Use-Value and Exchange-Value. Marx is talking about Exchange-Value when he is talking about "Value". > first use values are the utility of the thing > the utility of a commodity is limited by the physical properties of that object and has no existence outside of that object This is literally *the opposite* of Marxist theory. Use-Value of commodity is determined *subjectively* - Use-Value is different for each person. There is no some special *inherent* - and imperceptible - value. I.e. it does depend on actual quality of goods/service, but it exists only outside of object (in the eye of the beholder, yes). For example: "His commodity possesses *for himself* no immediate use-value. Otherwise, he would not bring it to the market. It has use-value *for others*; but *for himself* its only direct use-value is that of being a depository of exchange-value, and, consequently, a means of exchange.[3] Therefore, he makes up his mind to part with it for commodities whose value in use is of service *to him*. All commodities are non-use-values *for their owners*, and use-values *for their non-owners*. Consequently, they must all change hands. But this change of hands is what constitutes their exchange, and the latter puts them in relation with each other as values, and realises them as values. Hence commodities must be realised as values before they can be realised as use-values." Karl Marx: [Capital Vol.1, Chapter II - Exchange](marxists.catbull.com/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch02.htm), 1867 The whole existence of the concept of Use-Value in Marxist theory is to demonstrate the difference between evaluation of commodities by different people, to account for the *personal* component of the exchange (and to permit Exchange-Value to be purely *social* factor). The idea that objects have inherent value - that cannot be measured, as it exists *independently from actual humans*, but still *somehow* "exists" - is a blatant Idealism. I.e. religious thinking that is the opposite of Marxist materialism that deals with the things as they actually exist. > I know that's a bit confusing Because it's *wrong*. > so let's think for a moment about this glass cup > so the utility of a glass cup for us is I can hold water and we can drink from it and it's able to do so because of the properties of glass > essentially that th water doesn't seep through the class and all over the floor > so those are the physical properties of the glass which allow it to become a utility for us So how the fuck does it become a utility if not through *being useful* to _specific_ humans for _specific_ purpose? If the utility is determined by specific situation, then why would it have some fixed value that "has no existence outside of that object"? > however the only reason it's being a utility because I'm actively taking the glass building up with water and drinking from it BECAUSE YOU _DESIRE_ THE UTILITY IT PROVIDES It doesn't matter what you are *doing* with it. > next let's look at exchange value Please, no. Stop. > exchange value as the value created entirely by humans and influenced by the quantity of the commodity Quality doesn't matter? I'm pretty sure that I'll pay more for commodities of higher quality. Maybe Marx had meant the Exchange-Value (i.e. price) - and not the commodity itself - when he was talking about quantity? No? Are you absolutely certain?

this helped me get an A in my Marxist Theory class! Thank you so much!!

This is brilliant!! Thank you SO much ☺

this really helped a lot. thank you.

You're an amazing teacher

all i can say is thank you and please keep making videos! haha💕

lovely, Thank you! What do you mean by "while analizing value don't forget about Use Value and the fundamental connection of commodities to nature as sth separete from exchange value"? What is the fundamental connection of commodities to Nature? regards from Brazil.

Thank you so much for producing this content!! It means a lot to me as a woman studying philosophy to see another woman engaging with the discipline. Almost all the philosophy youtubers are men, the western canon is all men, and the majority of my college professors are men. In my three years of undergrad I've only been taught by a woman once and now you through these videos. Not to exaggerate but seeing you present on Das Kapital made me feel represented, it might sound trivial but that's how it made me feel. Keep it up! :D

Great work!

does anyone know which page/section the quote at 10:31 is on? i wanna highlight it but can’t find it to save my life.

I just finished writing a wordy article on the theory of value! This is so much more, well, graphic and dramatic. Kudos.

I have a question. Wouldn't the rock and hatchet example show that useful labor "increases" use values, rather than create them? I don't see how useful labor is the "source" of use-values if things CAN have use-values if they don't have useful-labor put into them.

Thank you so much this is so helpful

Awesome video!

Good work on the video.

Thank you!

this really saves me the time to read and struggle to understand the whole chapter.

I cannot wait to watch this video with my partner, thank you so much comrade! We've both not read Capital yet and I think this will help us a lot. Wish you the best of luck in doing these summaries.

This is great thank you 🙂

Well done!

amazing. Thanks!

Love this video ⚒️🛠️⚒️🛠️

When you said that commodities are looked at for their quantitative characteristics and qualitative characteristics, for the quantitative portion, did you mean in terms of supply and demand? Like if there is more of it, it will be cheaper?

love for you from Bangladesh.

Omg I love your video very educational and funny at the same time

I cannot find the quote at 7:05 of the video about bringing commodities to market in my edition of Kapital. Can you tell me which edition of Kapital you are reading from and what page your quote is on? I am following your Smith and Marx videos by reading the chapters at the same time and making notes. Thanks.

a m a z i n'

Value is not the attribute of the commodity itself, but the private ownership of the means of production materializes the labor time of the produced commodity in the commodity, rather than directly expressed, so it is expressed as the value of the commodity

Thanks from Bengaluru, India

😂 good thing I found this tomorrow my final and I couldn't find my professors lecture daym

Is there any way you could re-upload this series without the background music? Unfortunately, it is impossible for me to concentrate on the words that you are speaking. Thank you for all of your hard work.

Thanks for this simple breakdown. Can you help me understand a bit more? (I have a fun example!) So, if I understand, this first chapter of the first book (volume 1 of Das Kapital) is really just an explanation of terms. Is this somewhat correct? I have a question involving Star Wars Jedi that I'm hoping you can help me understand using ideas in this chapter. The way Jedi use the Force is by utilizing the midi-chlorian in their blood. Every Jedi has a different amount (and we know that Palpatine/Darth Sidious covets Anakin Skywalker because his blood has an obscene amount of midi-chlorian). Anakin is still, simply, a commodity.. just with higher use-value than other Jedi/Force-users. Am I thinking about this the right way?

This is great

Hi! I'd love to make CC in Spanish and English. Can we get in touch? Maybe activate user submitted closed captions? Beautiful job! EDIT: Nevermind, it's activated. I'll do them :)

Thanks!

Thank god this video was uploaded my old ass german was getting rusty

The several forms of value expressed by Marx are to illustrate the labor time materialized in commodities. Under the public ownership of the means of production, the labor time for producing commodities will be directly expressed as social labor time, so the value of commodities will not exist.

Thank you

I read chapters multiple times with no understanding .. now I could correlate

amazing! I love your videos. so funny, smart easy to understand. great work

Thanks comrade. :D 🎉

One thing I'm curious about is how Marx accounts for market manipulation of price. If price is determined by the exchange value of commodities (or at least correlates with it), and exchange value is determined by congealed social labour in the abstract, what about when corporations artificially inflate the value of a commodity? For example, via advertisement campaigns, in the case of the wedding ring and diamond markets. The amount of labour time necessary to produce these commodities hasn't changed, but the demand for them has as a result of market manipulation. How is this reconciled in Marxian economic theory?

thanks alot