The last thread got close to no replies, strange given the amount of interest there seems to be on this board for Marxism and the number of self-proclaimed Marxists that lurk here.
Let's talk Marxian philosophy.
I can't be the only one outside of academia (for god's sake Pareto had an issue with this when considering professional academics) who has troubles with Marx's method in this passage.
Tell me this Veeky Forums what does it mean for two things to be equal?
Alright, I'll go ahead and say what Frege did (and he knew a thing or two about equality) x equals y just means x is the same as y.
Let's say x is the same as y, now if x and y are two different things this obviously means that in some "mode of perception" (I believe that's what Frege called it) they are equal. If we're talking about two goods being the equivalent, in the context of Chapter 1 of Capital, we're obviously talking about their exchange values and "the two things must therefore be equal to a third, which in itself is neither the one nor the other."
This third is obviously just their value as exchange value, so now, knowing that exchange value is itself the third thing, explain this whole shit to me:
>Let us take two commodities, e.g., corn and iron. The proportions in which they are exchangeable, whatever those proportions may be, can always be represented by an equation in which a given quantity of corn is equated to some quantity of iron: e.g., 1 quarter corn = x cwt. iron. What does this equation tell us? It tells us that in two different things – in 1 quarter of corn and x cwt. of iron, there exists in equal quantities something common to both. The two things must therefore be equal to a third, which in itself is neither the one nor the other. Each of them, so far as it is exchange value, must therefore be reducible to this third.
The problem sentence is this:
>Each of them, so far as it is exchange value, must therefore be reducible to this third.
Our arguments will eventually center around trying to show how "warranted" the following statement is, or what convincing argument can be made for someone to assent to it:
>secondly, exchange value, generally, is only the mode of expression, the phenomenal form, of something contained in it, yet distinguishable from it.
For those oblivious, said phenomenal form is embodied labour value and it is also the "third thing" two "equal" commodities are reducible to.
I have issues with, as Croce puts it, "this standard [he is speaking of value], which we have endowed with the dignity of law"