The Value Form and the Fetishism of the Commodity

Abstract

Based on Uno’s new insight that in the first chapter on the commodity, the value of a commodity is not yet defined as objectified abstract labor, this article first examines the problems in Marx’s value form theory and presents a new understanding of the simple, the expanded, and the general value form, and reformulates the theory of the commodity into a dialectical whole composed of the world of commodities. Second, the article responds to Elena Lange’s critique of Uno’s value theory. Third, the article argues that fetishism of the commodity never originates from alienated abstract labor but from a specific relationship between commodity owners; therefore, the theories of value form and fetishism of the commodity address the common theme. A reformulated theory of the value form should integrate, not omit, the fetishism of the commodity within it.

JEL Classification: B14, B41, D46

1. Introduction

Ever since the publication of Uno’s Genron [The Principles of Political Economy], volume 1, 1950, in Japan, ¹ Uno’s new method criticizing some parts of Marx’s Capital has caused a great controversy not only in Japan but also worldwide, particularly over his claim that the theory of circulation forms or the value form should not be based on abstract human labor (Uno and Sakisaka 1948). In 2021, Elena Lange published a voluminous work titled Value without Fetish criticizing Uno’s method, mainly based on Marx’s text. The present article aims to respond to her criticism, examining the problems found in Capital, volume 1, with the value form and the fetishism of the commodity.

Lange rightly notes that there are crucial differences between the presentation of Capital, volume 1, and that of Uno’s theory. She is convinced that the text of Capital is perfectly correct. However, if Marx has unwittingly committed some faults in Capital, what happens to her argument? Therefore, we must firstly address the examination of the problems with Marx’s theory of the value form.

Certainly, the object of Marx’s analysis of Capital, volume 1, as far as its theoretical parts are concerned, is an established capitalist economy constituted fundamentally by two classes, capitalists and wage workers. When Marx elucidates the theoretical parts of Capital, clearly he assumes a capitalist economy without intervention of the state, foreign trade, and petty commodity production. Kozo Uno calls this assumed capitalist economy “a purely capitalist society” or “pure capitalism.”

Capital as a whole is considered to be fundamentally composed of two dimensions: volumes 1 and 2 where the law of value directly prevails, and volume 3 where value is transformed into prices of production caused by competition of capitals seeking profit. Uno reformulates Capital into three “doctrines.” The first doctrine of circulation presents an analysis of the three circulation forms—commodity, money, and capital—abstracted from production and the substance of value, abstract labor. The second doctrine analyzes the production, circulation, and reproduction process of capital based on the law of value (Nagatani 2022: 578–81). Finally, the third doctrine examines the distribution of surplus value as profit, ground rent, and interest.

The capitalist economy is a market economy, but a market economy is not always a capitalist economy. It is only when the market economy is able to completely govern the production process by industrial capital that a market economy has transformed into capitalism. Uno’s first doctrine of circulation presents the aspect of a market economy contained in the capitalist economy; it is not the analysis of pre-capitalist market economy. We can analyze the commodity, money, and capital as pure forms only when they are abstracted from the pure capitalist economy. However, the theory of circulation forms can provide a key to solving the question of why a market economy preceded capitalist economy, or why a capitalist economy was not born merely out of expansion of market economy.

After an examination of the problems with Marx’s presentation of the value forms, I comment on Lange’s critique of Uno’s value theory. While I support Uno’s method, my aim does not lie just in the defense of Uno’s theory. My argument is based on my own view, which is not necessarily the same as Uno’s, as is shown in detail later. Finally, I highlight the distinction between Uno and Lange over the issue of the relationship between the value form and the fetishism of the commodity.

2. Problems with Marx’s Value Forms

2.1. How should chapter 1, “The Commodity,” be constituted?

The first chapter of Capital, volume 1, “The Commodity,” is composed of 4 sections as follows:

1. the two factors of the commodity, use value, and value

2. the dual character of labor, useful labor, and abstract labor

3. the value forms: the simple, expanded, general value form, and the money form

4. the fetishism of the commodity

Kozo Uno reformulated this chapter into three sections, notably omitting the specification of labor as the substance of value (Uno [1950] 1973), as follows:

1. the two factors: value and use value

2. the value forms: the simple, the expanded, and the general value form

3. the money form

Uno dropped sections 2 and 4 from the first chapter because the two sections are developed by Marx based on the substance of value, abstract labor.

I agree with this new method. However, my reason for the reformulation is somewhat different from Uno’s. In my view, section 1 is the world of commodities in the abstract, which is composed of all commodities including gold abstracted from money, where the value of a commodity is defined as homogeneity among all commodities because every commodity has the potential to be exchanged with any other, while use value is defined as heterogeneity among them. However, since the potentiality inherent in the commodity inevitably causes impossibility of direct exchange between two commodities, because every commodity owner wants a commodity he or she desires in exchange, but the opponent owner generally wants another commodity he or she desires. Consequently, the world of commodities without money is unable to realize in itself; it disappears at the end of section 1. Every commodity appears in the beginning of the section on the value form as a mere use value for exchange in the offer of exchange by use-value owners.

As I elaborate later on, use values obtain value in the relative value form or in the equivalent value form, and become commodities (the relative commodity and the equivalent commodity for short). In the general value form, however, unlike Capital, use values in the relative form are not yet able to have value in themselves because unification of the general equivalents is not yet achieved.

In section 3, the money form, the world of commodities is in reality established with all commodities except gold in the general relative form, and with gold as a sole universal equivalent commodity. Consequently, use values in the relative form have values in themselves from the beginning, and the commodity form has been finally completed. The money form is not a mere extension of the 3 value forms, but a unity of sections 1 and 2; hence, it makes the conclusion of the chapter on the commodity.

Uno gives no explanation for his three-section constitution of the chapter. In my view, section 1 is the world of commodities in the abstract, section 2 the disappearance of the world of commodities, and section 3 realization of the world of commodities with money—this constitutes a dialectical unity of A thesis, B antithesis, C synthesis.

There are not a few people who oppose Uno’s development of the value form and the money form without reference to abstract labor because it is totally opposed to Marx’s. Most Marxian economists are convinced that the value of a commodity is, from the outset, constituted by objectified abstract labor; therefore, to separate value from abstract labor is unthinkable. Uno challenges this conventional view that price belongs to circulation whereas value belongs to production. In my view, the value of a commodity is originally determined in the world of commodities and later in the second dimension under the production process of capital the value is founded on abstract labor or socially necessary labor time that is created through social division of labor by capital.

The commodity is the most elemental concept abstracted from pure capitalism; this never means that the commodity is a capitalist labor product, because at the abstract level of the commodity, industrial capital itself is abstracted form; in this sense the commodity is abstracted from a purely capitalist economy. ²

Therefore, Marx’s definition of the commodity there as the product of labor is inconsistent with his epoch-making insight that the commodity is the most abstract category with which a theory of pure capitalist economy must start.

2.2. Specificity of commodity exchange

In section 1, a commodity is defined to possess a value as exchangeable with each other, but in actuality a commodity cannot be exchanged directly with another commodity. This is because every commodity owner wishes to exchange his or her commodity for another one they want, but the other person usually wants a commodity different from the offered one; this means that direct commodity exchange is impossible in principle; when exchanged, therefore, it is not an accidental commodity exchange as Marx puts it, but an exchange between different use values, barter.

Marx’s determination of the value of a commodity in section 1, chapter 1, as objectified abstract human labor by supposing direct exchange between two commodities, “corn and iron,” is problematic. Marx claims that direct exchange between two commodities implies an abstraction from two different use values reducing to value, and at the same time abstraction from different useful labors reducing to abstract human labor; consequently, the value of a commodity is constituted by objectified abstract human labor. This determination of value becomes invalid if direct commodity exchange is confirmed to be no commodity exchange. ³ In the market economy, commodity exchange takes place as the exchange between money and commodity, purchase or sale. We can and must abstract commodity exchange from monetary exchange.

Unlike barter, which is composed of one phase (A = B, B = A), commodity exchange is composed of two opposite phases, excluding direct exchange: an owner’s offer of exchange and the realization of the exchange by the opponent owner, namely subjective commodity exchange and objective commodity exchange. The simple value form is the first phase where the linen owner who wants 1 coat offers to exchange 20 yards of linen for it to unknown numerous coat owners on the market; it is the second phase that when a coat owner wanting the linen appears and agrees with the offered exchange rate the coat owner can immediately realize the exchange; however, in the first phase no coat owner shows up as yet.

Commodity exchange has such a specific structure composed of two owners, whereas barter exchange is performed based on the direct contact between use-value owners and their agreement. The characteristic of commodity exchange lies in the fact that although it is the exchange relation of different use values between two owners, the exchange is performed avoiding direct contact with the opponent owners; therefore, it consists of two phases. This is the reason that commodity exchange or market economy arose and developed between foreign communities, races, or nations that did not share the same blood, language, or religion.

It is true that commodity exchange generated from barter, but only certain forms of barter with such a specific relationship developed into commodity exchange, and then further into a market economy. This means that in order to analyze the value form, we have to assume a primitive market, outside the theory, where use values are supposed to be directly exchanged without the medium of money.

The first phase of commodity exchange is the expression of commodity value; this includes the simple, the expanded, the general value forms, and the money form. The second phase is the measure of value that belongs to the chapter on money because realization of commodity exchange is in practice performed by the money owner through the purchase of a commodity.

Let us take a closer look at Marx’s simple value form:

$$20\mathrm{yards}\mathrm{of}\mathrm{linen}\mathrm{commodity}=1\mathrm{coat}\mathrm{commodity}$$

This means that the linen owner who wants 1 coat offers an exchange of his or her 20 yards of linen for 1 coat. Such an exchange proposal does not require any actual contact with a coat owner. In this phase it is uncertain whether or not the coat owner will agree with the offer, so 20 yards is not assured to be exchanged. In this sense, the expression of value is an expectation, subjective as Uno points out. In the discussion of the Measure of Value in chapter 3, Marx emphasizes the subjectivity of value expression in price, but it must be explained firstly in the simple value form.

Marx’s premature definition of the value of a commodity as objectified labor and his assumption that value expression is based on the equal amount of labor objectified in two commodities lead to his failure to distinguish the two phases of commodity exchange. Uno, in 1950, is the first to analyze the simple value form by restricting it to the first phase of commodity exchange.

2.3. Difficulty with understanding the simple value form

In the opening of the section on the value form, Marx stresses that it is impossible to directly grasp a value within a commodity. Marx states, “we may twist and turn a single commodity as we wish; it remains impossible to grasp it as a thing possessing value” (Marx [1867] 1976: 138). Marx considers that a commodity has a value as objectified labor, but we cannot grasp it directly. In my view, since a single commodity in isolation is unable to possess a value, it is impossible to grasp it.

When the linen owner wanting 1 coat offers the exchange, the owner thinks, looking at the primitive market, as follows: if he or she can get the coat with less than 19 yards of linen it is advantageous, but the exchange will be difficult; if with more than 21 yards of linen the exchange will be easier, but it is disadvantageous; after vacillating between the two ratios the linen owner finally decides 20 yards of linen will be appropriate to exchange.

That the linen owners can decide unilaterally the exchange ratio never means that the linen owner can decide it as he or she wishes. The linen owner’s decision never fails to be enforced by the primitive market. As long as this force has a tendency to converge on a certain ratio and it can influence their decision, we can recognize that the 20 yards of linen and 1 coat have an equal amount of value. Hence 20 yards of linen have a value and take the commodity form. This is the relative value form.

On the other pole, the coat acquires direct exchangeability with 20 yards of linen because the linen owner has beforehand offered an exchange of 20 yards of their linen for it; insofar as the coat gains direct exchangeability with 20 yards of linen, 1 coat acquires a value and becomes a commodity. The coat’s direct exchangeability with 20 yards of linen implies that 1 coat has the equal amount of value with 20 yards of linen; thus, it becomes a commodity. This is the equivalent value form. ⁴

Marx defines the commodity coat as “the equivalent form.” In my view, the equivalent value form is a precise term, because the task of the value form lies in the fact that value is unable to exist apart from the value form. The value of 20 yards of linen shows itself only with a relation with 1 coat relatively, whereas the value of 1 coat emerges in its direct exchangeability with 20 yards of linen; thus, there is no need for the equivalent commodity to express its value with the other commodity relatively. Therefore, Marx’s definition of the relative value form and the equivalent form is insufficient.

On the equivalent form Marx states, “the natural form of the commodity becomes its value form” (Marx [1867] 1976: 148). In the simple value form, the natural form of 1 coat can become the equivalent value form only when 1 coat is wanted by the linen owner and hence acquires the direct exchangeability with 20 yards of linen. It is only when the expression of value has reached the money form, the value expression in price, that for the first time the natural form of gold itself becomes its equivalent value form.

Marx’s assertion that the use value of the equivalent commodity is “the appearance of value” comes from his presupposition of every commodity having value as objectified labor. In this case, we can apply the example of weight as analogous to the expression of value. Each material object has its own weight prior to being put in the scale. The weight of each object can be expressed in the volume of any other object in principle. In the same way, Marx assumes the value of a commodity to be expressed with the use value of any other commodity. However, this idea is nothing but the notion “exchange value,” not the value form.

The relative value form and the equivalent value form cannot be conversed, because 1 coat = 20 yards of linen means that the coat owner expresses the value of his or her coat with 20 yards of linen they want. However, it is not certain at present whether or not the coat owner wants the linen, much less with the same exchange rate. This implies that the value form is never conversed; when conversed it becomes another simple value form. As opposed to exchange value, asymmetry of two poles is characteristic of the value form.

From Marx’s definition of the relative value form and the equivalent form that the former is an agent of value expression, the latter serves the material for it (Marx [1867] 1976: 139) never comes out Marx’s epoch-making explanation about the two opposite forms following:

The relative form of value and the equivalent form are two inseparable moments, which belong to and mutually condition each other; at the same time, they are mutually exclusive or opposed extremes, i.e., poles of the expression of value. (Marx [1867] 1976: 140)

Marx’s explanation of value expression without the linen owner’s desire for 1 coat stems directly from the expression of commodity value in price, where no commodity owners express the value of a commodity in gold with their desire for the use value of gold. On this point, I agree with Uno’s simple value form. However, simply asserting the existence of the linen owner and his or her desire for 1 coat is not enough to clarify the simple value form.

The direct exchangeability that the coat obtains in the equivalent form is a crucial point leading us to unravel the mystery of the money form, but Marx does not give us a clear explanation for the reason why the coat obtains this ability. From his emphasis that 1 coat becomes “the appearance of value” of 20 yards of linen, Marx’s reason will be that the coat obtains this exchangeability by becoming the appearance of value, that is, objectified abstract labor. However, the coat becomes the appearance of the value of 20 yards of linen, not appearance of the value of 1 coat itself, so this does not explain why 1 coat obtains the direct exchangeability. My reason is clear, because beforehand the linen owner shows the desire for 1 coat in exchange for 20 yards of linen.

What was lacking in the controversy in postwar Japan between Uno and Kuruma was this point; the debate went on over the issue of whether or not the equivalent commodity coat is desired by the linen owner (Uno and Sakisaka 1948). But, at issue was why the coat acquires the direct exchangeability with 20 yards of linen. Uno’s view is correct, but just claiming the linen owner’s desire is insufficient.

However, this is just the start of the difficulty with the simple value form. Most people reading Capital tend to understand that the simple value form begins with the expression of the value of 20 yards of linen commodity. This turns out to be untrue. As I pointed out earlier, because of the disappearance of the world of commodities, in the theory of value form, the linen and the coat first come into being as mere use values and their owners as mere owners of exchangeable use values. The two use values become commodities through a specific social relation of exchange relation set up by the linen owner, at two opposite poles: the relative form and the equivalent form. At the former pole is the unilateral offer of exchange of his or her use value to unknown owners of the use value he or she wants. Here, the linen owner is present but the coat owner absent. Twenty yards of linen can have value and become a commodity as long as the specific quantity of 20 yards is decided by the linen owner to be equivalent to 1 coat in his or her mind, enforced by the primitive market situation. Therefore, we cannot start with the value of 20 yards of linen in the simple value form, but with 1 coat, at the other pole, desired by the linen owner. Consequently, the value of 20 yards of linen is only the outcome of the linen owner’s adjusting an appropriate exchange ratio.

Only with the money form, the value expression in price, are we able to start with the value of a commodity in the relative form. Marx states, “what initially concerns producers in practice when they make an exchange is how much of some other product they get for their own” (Marx [1867] 1976: 167). This value expression occurs for the first time in value expression in price. In the simple value form, 20 yards are determined afterward by being picked up out of plenty of linen of their own: the defect of the simple value form lies in this fact that the owner of use value cannot express all use values of their own for exchange at once.

2.4. Problems with Marx’s expanded value form

Marx opens his analysis of the expanded value form as follows:

The value of a commodity, the linen for example, is now expressed in terms of innumerable other members of the world of commodities. Every other physical commodity now becomes a mirror of the linen’s value. It is thus that this value first shows itself as being, in reality, a congealed quantity of undifferentiated human labor. (Marx [1867] 1976: 155)

This view is nothing but the notion of exchange value; a commodity is supposed to have its own value prior to value expression just as a material has its own weight prior to weight expression; thus, a commodity can be considered to be expressed with any other commodity whatever. Marx’s view stems from his definition of commodity value as objectified labor in section 1.

From our understanding of the simple value form, the linen owners, after expressing its value in 1 coat, chooses another kind of use value they want in exchange for their own remaining linen. This process can continue until their linen is exhausted. This is the expanded value form. In this case, therefore, as Uno points out, the amount of the linen in the relative form must vary depending on another use value the linen owner wants. Consequently, the amount of the linen offered in exchange cannot remain the same 20 yards but different in quantity in each equation. In this case too, the linen owner’s offer of the quantity of linen in exchange is enforced by the market. Therefore, Marx combines different expanded value forms with “or,” but they must be combined with “and.”

In the expanded value form, Marx states, “it becomes plain that it is not the exchange of commodities which regulates the magnitude of their values, but rather the reverse, the magnitude of the value of commodities which regulates the proportion in which they exchange” (Marx [1867] 1976: 156). This value regulation of the exchange proportion must have been pointed out in the simple value form, when the linen owner wanting 1 coat adjusts the amount of his or her own linen to 1 coat enforced by the market. Without this implication, the value form cannot be called the expression of the value of a commodity.

The expanded commodity exchange proposal is not infinite as Marx claims, because the amount of linen the linen owner possess is limited, thus it is not “the total value form.” The use values chosen as the equivalent by the linen owner in the relative form tend to start with daily necessary use values but gradually changed to more luxurious ones. All use value owners express their value in other use value they want. The number of use values the owners possess to exchange differs from owner to owner, namely, there arise inevitably the rich and the poor. However, this tendency gets more intensified as the number of commodities gets larger.

The expanded value form means that every commodity owner, including the gold owner, can stand in the relative value form, or his or her commodity can be chosen in the equivalent form. This gives rise to innumerable value forms all jumbled up. Out of this chaos a division into two opposite groups emerges; the one is overwhelmingly many daily necessary, common commodities, which are liable to stand as relative commodities, and the other a few rare luxury commodities, which are liable to be chosen as the equivalent commodities, because most people as they become rich, wish to have the latter, particularly precious metals because of their beauty, durability, ease of storage, uniformity, and so on of their use value.

The world of commodities, which is egalitarian in form but a discriminate world in substance, where the majority of abundant necessary goods are less appreciated and the minority of unnecessary scarce goods are highly admired like an aristocratic society, where the majority of necessary working people, farmers, and artisans are looked down on whereas the minority of nonworking people are respected.

Out of the chaos of value expression the general value form emerges. A group of owners jointly desire precious metal as the common equivalent commodity. The characteristic of this form is that firstly the position of the general equivalent form is restricted to prestigious metals such as copper, silver, gold and so on, and secondly several general equivalent commodities stand simultaneously side by side. This means that although this form has a tendency toward unification of one equivalent commodity, it cannot yet achieve it.

2.5. Problems with Marx’s general value form and money form

Marx introduces the general value form by reversing the total value form. But the characteristic of the value form lies in the irreversibility of two poles, so this is wrong. ⁵ The linen, a common daily necessary use value, is never able to obtain such a prestigious position. The general value form finally stops short of the unification of plural general equivalent commodities, because the general equivalent is chosen by the joint desire of commodity owners in the relative form; this is the defect of the general value form.

With gold standing as the sole general equivalent commodity and all other commodities lining up in the relative value form, all commodity owners express the value of their own commodity with the amount of gold at once: this is the money form, the expression of commodity value in price.

In Capital, the money form is introduced by just replacing the linen as the general equivalent commodity, with gold, and Marx states, “fundamental changes have taken place in the course of transition from form A to form B, and from form B to form C. As against this, form D [the money form] differs not at all from form C [the general value form]” (Marx [1867] 1976: 162). In my view, on the contrary, “fundamental changes” have indeed taken place in the transition from the general value form to the money form. For the first time in the money form, all commodity (except gold) owners stand in the relative form and express the value of their own whole commodities with a certain amount of gold without their desire for the use value of gold.

It is the task of the money form to analyze why and how such a fundamental change has taken place. At this stage, we must take into account the constitution of the chapter on the commodity that Uno first proposed and that I reinterpret: section 1, the world of commodities in the abstract; section 2, the value forms (the simple, the expanded, the general), disappearance of the world of commodities; section 3, the money form, the world of commodities is established in reality—a dialectical unity of section 1 and 2.

The world of commodities is unable to realize itself without money; therefore, the world remains in the abstract in section 1. Section 2, where the world of commodities has vanished, reveals that a use value really has a value and becomes a commodity only when a use value is put in the relative form or in the equivalent form, by a use value owner’s offer of exchange. In section 3, with all owners of commodities except gold standing in the general relative form and gold as a sole general equivalent commodity, the world of commodities is restored and realized. In this case, all commodities including gold have intrinsic values in themselves from the outset in the respective poles. This means that in the money form the independence of the general relative value form and the independence of the general equivalent value form occur at the same time. The former signifies the completion of the commodity form, while the latter signifies the transformation of gold commodity into money.

Hence, in the money form, for the first time, the expression of commodity value can start with the value of the commodity that its owner wants to exchange for money by adjusting the amount of money through watching the market, because gold as money has now won the direct exchangeability with all commodities as gold’s natural property.

However, explaining that the value expression with money in price is just the value expression with the amount of gold is not enough for understanding the money form; it must always involve the commodity owner’s decisions of price prior to the sale, enforced by the market, after wavering between advantageous and disadvantageous prices in their minds. Everyone living in the market economy knows this fact and practices in this way in making the value expression of a commodity in price. Only economists familiar with the labor theory of value do miss this essential part of value expression. Even the value form and the money form of Marx and Uno do not point out this clearly.

Consequently, we can find out that Uno’s reformulation of the chapter on the commodity into 3 sections is well grounded. The second chapter, “The Process of Exchange” in Capital, volume 1, must be deleted in the theory of pure capitalist economy because it fails to distinguish the two phases of commodity exchange.

3. Critique of Uno’s Value Theory by Elena Lange

Lange criticizes Uno’s value theory in defense of Marx’s value theory in chapter 1. She opposes all of Uno’s views different from Marx’s text, particularly such issues as denial of the definition of value as objectified abstract labor through a direct exchange between two commodities, the presentation of value and the value form without reference to abstract labor, the substance of value, whether or not the use value of the equivalent commodity is an object desired by the commodity owner in the relative form, and the omission of fetishism of the commodity in chapter 1.

Lange tries to criticize Uno’s value theory based on her faithful interpretation of the value theory of Capital. However, if Capital volume 1 contains some hidden flaws, what happens with her argument? The critical comments made so far by Uno or here on the problems in Capital can be applied to her value theory as well; so, against these issues she has taken up, there is no need to repeat the same counterargument.

Lange states, “Uno regards the analysis of the value form as an analysis of exchange relation between commodity owners, and not as an analysis of the money form of the commodity” (Lange 2021: 190).

Uno regards the simple value form as an offer of exchange by the linen owner without contact with the coat owner, the first phase of commodity exchange, neither as “exchange relation between commodity owners,” nor direct exchange of commodities disregarding two owners. This is the simplest value expression abstracted from the money form, because the commodity owners offer the exchange of their commodity for money without either contact or agreement with money owners. She misunderstands Uno’s simple value form simply for “exchange relation between commodity owners.”

Just as value expression in price made by commodity owners is subjective as Marx emphasizes in the measure of value (section 1, chapter 3), so value expression in the simple value form by the linen owner as well is subjective. This point is missing in Lange following Marx.

Concerning the 3 peculiarities of the equivalent form in Capital, volume 1 (Marx [1867] 1976: 148–51), Lange stresses these as “the single most important theoretical insight Marx gains from the analysis of the value form” (Lange 2021: 198) and criticizes Uno for not grasping the first peculiarity—that is, “the use value of the coat assumes the appearance of its opposite, value” (Marx [1867] 1976: 148). Lange states, “it presents the explanatory framework of the inherent nexus between abstract labor, value, and money” (Lange 2021: 198).

However, Marx’s statement that the use value of another commodity becomes the appearance of value is based on his assumption that every commodity has value as objectified abstract labor beforehand. Weight exists independently from the expression of weight, whereas value never exists prior to the expression of value, the value form.

Furthermore, Marx’s statement that “the use value of the coat assumes the appearance of its opposite, value,” namely, value form, is problematic because the coat becomes the appearance of the value of 20 yards of linen, not that of the value of 1 coat. When Marx explains about the peculiarity of the equivalent form, that “the natural form of the commodity becomes its value form,” he unwittingly mistakes the appearance of linen’s value for that of 1 coat’s value. This is a crucial error that led to Marx’s failure to define the equivalent value form. As explained earlier, as long as the coat acquires the direct exchangeability with 20 yards of linen, the coat shows the existence of value in itself; this is the equivalent value form. On the contrary, Marx seems to consider that because use value of 1 coat becomes the appearance of the value of itself, the coat acquires the direct exchangeability with 20 yards of linen.

Consequently, Marx’s first peculiarity of the equivalent form is invalid; accordingly, Marx’s second one that “concrete labor becomes the form of manifestation of its opposite, abstract human labor,” and Marx’s third one that “private labor takes the form of its opposite, namely social labor” (Marx [1867] 1976: 150), also become invalid. Hence, Lange’s claim that 3 peculiarities of the equivalent commodity is “the inherent nexus between abstract labor, value, and money, as the emergence of the fetish character of the value form, i.e., the nexus that Uno fails to identify” collapses (Lange 2021: 198). The peculiarity of the simple equivalent commodity lies in the fact that its use value as such is not yet able to fully become the appearance of value, namely immature fetish character.

I consider that the peculiarity of the equivalent commodity lies in the use value of 1 coat acquires the direct exchangeability with 20 yards of linen, as long as it is desired by the linen owner; this has nothing to do with abstract/concrete labor, or social/individual labor.

Lange criticizes Uno for his disavowal of reduction to “the third thing,” and states, “for Uno, commensurability is not generated by a third thing that is open to speculation but generated by money itself. There can be no doubt: money substitutes the third thing” (Lange 2021: 223); hence, she calls Uno Baileyan.

If we say that all commodities can for the first time become commensurable in the value expression in price, this view leads to Bailey’s view: the price is value. Uno never says so. In section 1, he defines the value of a commodity as homogeneity of all commodities, namely, commensurable with each other; however, this commensurability as value is not immediately realized because of impossibility of direct exchange of commodity. On this point Uno’s denial of reduction to a third thing means that value is not proved to be objectified abstract labor as yet.

In section 2, however, the simple value form clarifies that the commensurability as value is in practice realized only between a commodity in the relative form and another in the equivalent form, that is, in the first phase of commodity exchange; this point is missed in Uno’s value form. As a result, Lange misunderstood that Uno claims only money to make commodities commensurable.

In the money form, with all commodities except gold lining up in the general relative form and with gold monopolizing the sole general equivalent form, the abstract commensurability in section 1 is for the first time realized in the value expression in price. This never means that money for the first time makes all commodities commensurable, but money for the first time has realized abstract commensurability inherent in commodities.

What Uno rejects is the reduction to the third thing as abstract labor in direct commodity exchange, and the recognition of money as incarnation of abstract labor. Therefore, Lange’s judgement that “money substitutes the third thing” in Uno, and her conclusion of calling Uno “nominalist” or “functionalist” like Bailey (Lange 2021: 223) is one sided and prejudiced, despite the merit of her work written based on reading Uno’s original works in Japanese. Lange’s (2014) “Failed abstraction: The problem of Uno Kozo’s reading of Marx’s theory of value form” totally criticizes Uno’s theory of circulation forms, because Uno’s reading is different from Marx’s text. She is unaware of some defects hidden in Capital.

She uses Uno’s Theory of Value (Uno [1947] 1973) written earlier than The Principles of Political Economy (Uno [1950] 1973). In the former, Uno had admitted Marx’s exposition of the value forms based on the substance of value, but the latter work was written on the basis of self-criticism of the former. Hence the former is helpful to investigate the formation process of Uno’s value theory, but it is inappropriate to use it in a critique of Uno’s value theory.

Concerning Uno’s value form not based on the substance of value, Lange (2021: 196) states that “it aligns itself with Bailey’s view that determines the emergence of value exclusively in the exchange of commodities, so that value denotes nothing positive or intrinsic, but merely the relation in which two objects stand to each other” (Bailey [1825] 1967: 4–5).

Indeed, Uno presents in the first Doctrine, the emergence of value exclusively in the exchange relationship of commodities. He claims, however, that value is intrinsic to a commodity and regulates the exchange ratio of commodities, the price, and the fluctuation of price. Uno considers that this value regulation, however, in the first Doctrine stops short as necessary tendency; in the second Doctrine, the production process of capital, this value regulation is established based on abstract labor or socially necessary labor created in the production process of capital, and turns into the law of value.

Even in this case, what regulates the price fluctuation is not directly the socially necessary labor time, but value itself. Uno’s determination of value in the circulation forms presents an abstraction of this aspect of the law of value in pure capitalism. It is a critique of the conventional labor theory of value: price is determined in circulation but value in production by labor. Therefore, in order to understand the law of value in the production process of capital, beforehand regulation by value of the value form, price, or price fluctuation must be clarified in the first Doctrine without reference to abstract labor.

Uno’s value theory has nothing to do with Bailey’s view, which denies the intrinsic value in a commodity by the fact that value cannot appear without the value form or price; for Bailey exchange value or price is value. The task of the value form is to reveal the necessity of the value form for value; Uno’s value form is an attempt to solve this necessity. This method will better clarify the necessity of money for the commodity than Capital does.

Lange uses Marx’s following remark in Capital, which matches Marx’s critique of Bailey in The Theories of Surplus Value, ⁶ in order to put a label “Baileyan” to Uno.

Marx states in Capital as follows:

It is not money that renders the commodities commensurable. Quite the contrary. Because all commodities as values, are objectified human labor, and therefore in themselves commensurable, their values can be communally measured in one and the same specific commodity, and this commodity can be converted into the common measure of their values, that is into money. (Marx [1867] 1976: 188)

Lange is content with Marx’s above remark, but there is a problem with Marx’s reasoning of the money form. If we consider merely that “money. . . renders the commodities commensurable,” we fall into Bailey’s error: price is value. Marx’s reference to abstract labor appears effective in criticizing Bailey but contains another problem. Just stating that the value is expressed with money because all commodities communally have values as objectified labor reminds us of the failure of the classical value theory, which regarded money as a convenient device to facilitate difficult commodity exchange. If commodities are already commensurable with each other as embodied labor by themselves, there is no need to express their values with money; this idea led to their losing sight of the value form or the necessity of money for commodity. Presupposition of commensurability causes trouble, but no such presupposition too does another.

The only way to extricate ourselves from this dilemma is the reformulation of chapter 1 into 3 sections based on the world of commodities. Marx’s remark above does not make the most of his achievement of the value form; commodities become in reality commensurable only in the money form although commodities are inherently commensurable in the abstract in section 1.

This logic can explain the necessity of the value expression with money without relying on abstract human labor. Rather, in my view, its reference hinders Marx from grasping this logic, and makes Marx’s value forms too complicated to resolve.

4. The Value Form and the Fetishism of the Commodity

The title of Elena Lange’s book, Value without Fetish, suggests that she is most strongly against Uno’s omitting the section of the fetishism of the commodity in Capital, volume 1. Uno left no explicit explanation for this omission from the first chapter, so what is presented here belongs exclusively to my own view. ⁷

In section 4, chapter 1, after the value form, Marx states:

The mysterious character of the commodity form consists therefore simply in the fact that the commodity reflects the social characteristics of men’s own labor as objective characteristics of the products of labor themselves, as the socio-natural properties of these things. (Marx [1867] 1976: 164)

For Marx, the fetishism of the commodity means that abstract social labor appears “as objective characteristics of products themselves”, i.e., as value. Hence, Marx says, “I call this the fetishism which attaches itself to the products of labor as soon as they are produced as commodities, and is therefore inseparable from the production of commodities” (Marx [1867] 1976: 165). Marx considers that the fetishism of the commodity is created by specific abstract labor in “the production of commodities.” Lange follows this idea of Marx.

Based on my understanding of the value form, however, “the mysterious character of the commodity form” consists in the fact that it reflects the specific characteristic of exchange relation between commodity owners: a unilateral offer of exchange without contact with the opposite owner, not the specific characteristic of the relation between commodity producers or the specific social labors. This is the reason that although the world of commodities is composed of commodity owners, it does not appear as the world of commodity owners but as the world of commodities; it is not the commodity production that produces “the mysterious character of the commodity form” but the world of commodities.

In the theory of the value form, the commodity can yet neither be defined as “labor product,” nor commodity owner as commodity producer. However, Marx is convinced that the origin of the fetishism lies in the fact that the value of a commodity is specific objectified abstract human labor. Therefore, when he states, “they do not appear as direct social relations between persons. . . but rather as material relations between persons and social relations between things” (Marx [1867] 1976: 166), “direct social relation between persons” means that between commodity producers, or between specific abstract labors. This view stems from Marx’s too earlier determination of value as objectified abstract labor in section 1.

In my view of the value form, the fetishism of the commodity originates in specific exchange relation between commodity owners. This is shown first in the simple value form in the most abstract shape. Although it would be an exchange relation between two use-value owners, this exchange relation is unilaterally made in the linen owner’s mind without contact with the coat owner. Consequently, 20 yards of linen acquires value and becomes commodities in the relative form, and 1 coat acquires value and becomes a commodity in the equivalent form; specific exchange relationship of different use values between use-value owners generates values in their use values.

Twenty yards of linen and 1 coat obtain value as “socio-natural properties” in the relative form or in the equivalent form respectively; in other words, the simple value form is the simplest fetishism of the commodity, which appears in the relative pole or in the equivalent pole. The fetishism of the commodity arises from a peculiar relationship between commodity owners, not from specific abstract labor.

However, this is the germ of fetishism because from 20 yards of linen = 1 coat does not follow 40 yards = 2 coat or 200 yards = 10 coats, because the linen or the coat as such has not yet fully acquired a value, for it is not ensured whether the linen owner wants 2 or 10 coats at the same exchange rate. On the other hand, this premature fetishism in the simple value form, at the same time, reveals how the fetishism arises from peculiar relationship between commodity owners: a unilateral offer of exchange by the linen owner to unknown coat owners on the market.

In the general value form, only precious metals such as copper, silver, gold, and so on are capable to play the role of general equivalent side by side. They can play this role, however, as long as they are chosen, by relative commodity owners, in their joint desire for the same use value of general equivalent commodity. Thereby the fetish character of value in the commodity in the relative form and in the equivalent form respectively get strengthened, more objectified, that is, more fetishized.

In the general value form, however, the semblance that the use value has value as natural property stops short of its completion either in the general relative form or in the general equivalent form. In the general value form, therefore we are able to solve why the commodities have values in the general relative form and why the general equivalent commodity acquires the general direct exchangeability.

When general equivalent commodities are unified into one commodity gold, and all commodities except gold line up in the general relative form, the independence of the general relative form and that of the general equivalent form occur simultaneously at each opposite pole. Consequently, without the action of all commodity owners to jointly choose the same equivalent commodity, gold, all commodities can have values from the beginning “as the socio-natural property,” and on the other pole gold has the direct exchangeability with all commodities by nature and has value “as a socio-natural property,” this is the accomplishment of the commodity form and the money form respectively; hence the fetishism of the commodity and the fetishism of money is established simultaneously in the two opposite poles; this is the money form, namely, value expression of a commodity in price.

In this money form, for the first time, commodity owners can start to express the value of all commodities of their own adjusting the quantity of money to it, without their desires for the use value of gold, rather with their desire for gold as universal direct exchangeability with any commodity, that is, their desire for value. At this moment money gold has become incarnation of value, not incarnation of abstract labor, as Marx and Lange claim. Consequently, the expression of commodity value in price is usually made with a unit price, because every unit use value contains one and the same value.

In the money form, we can no longer solve the riddle of money: why the commodity emerges with an inherent value from the outset, and why gold has the general direct exchangeability and has value by nature. The direct exchangeability becomes “a formal use value” of money gold (Marx [1867] 1976: 184); ⁸ this is the completion of the fetishism of the commodity and money.

My reasoning of the value form from the simple value form through the money form, not based on the abstract labor, perfectly matches with Marx’s following remark:

What appears to happen is not that a particular commodity becomes money because all other commodities express their values in it, but, on the contrary, that all other commodities universally express their values in a particular commodity because it is money. The movement through which this process has been mediated vanishes in its own result, leaving no trace behind. Without any initiative on their part, commodities find their value configuration ready to hand, in the form of physical commodity existing outside but also alongside them. (Marx [1867] 1976: 187)

However, Marx shows this epoch-making insight based on his presupposition that value is objectified labor, and money is the incarnation of abstract labor. Marx declares, “whence, then, arises the enigmatic character of the products of labor, as soon as it assumes the form of a commodity? Clearly, it arises from this form itself” (Marx [1867] 1976: 164). Is this remark inconsistent with Marx’s account of the fetishism of the commodity and money based on specific abstract labor?

From my foregoing analysis of the value form, I consider that the exploration into the value form and the fetishism of the commodity is overlapped, rather, if the presentation of the value form is corrected and more refined, the fetishism of the commodity and money will be integrated into the theory of the value form, because the theory of the value form and that of the fetishism of the commodity address the same theme only from different angles; therefore, just omitting of it is inappropriate. ⁹

When the commodity form and money form is accomplished no one can solve the fetishism of commodity and money in the shape as they directly appear. In order to solve its fetishism, we have to abstract the general value form from the money form; to solve the fetishism in the general value form we have to abstract the expanded value form from the general value form, and further abstract the simple value form from the expanded value form.

In this sense, Uno’s method by which to reformulate chapter 1 on the commodity into 3 sections dropping section 4 has progressed in the right direction, but Uno’s theory of the value form remains yet incomplete, and his account of the fetishism of commodity and money is insufficient. I think Marx’s separation of the fetishism of the commodity from the value form stemmed from his defective value form theory, and caused the fetishism of the commodity also defective.

That the fetishism of the commodity should be analyzed and presented without reference to abstract labor in the first dimension never means that the abstract labor is nothing to do with the fetishism of the commodity and money in the first dimension, because the fetishism of value originally arises from the specific relation of commodity owners, the world of commodities, that is, circulation process. In the second dimension, the production process of capital, however, the fetishism of commodity and money together with capital has been established based on the abstract labor, which should have been for the first time developed in “Labor Process and Valorization Process” (Capital, volume 1, chapter 7). ¹⁰ This logic can explain why the fetishism of commodity, money, and capital has been completed nationwide in capitalism, and at the same time why the fetishism of commodity and money emerged even in precapitalist market economy fragmentally.

This fact never means that the fetishism of the commodity is created by specific alienated abstract labor as Marx and most Marxian economists believe. Marx states, “But it [classical political economy] has never once asked the question why the content has assumed that particular form, that is to say, why labor is expressed in value” (Marx [1867] 1976: 174). In our view, in the production process of capital, alienated abstract labor is not objectified or crystalized as value, or transformed into the value of a commodity, but the value of a commodity is established by being grounded on abstract labor or socially necessary labor. Abstract labor is not the content of value but its ground. Therefore, abstract labor belongs to general conditions for any society, that is, the labor process, together with useful labor and social division of labor. Flaws of the classical economists stem from their belief that capitalism is an eternal, natural society because the substance of value, labor, is a general condition for any society.

Lange is opposed to Uno’s view following Marx’s remark above. There are still not a few Marxian economists who hold that abstract labor is alienated, specific labor proper to capitalism; the typical is Rubin, who, considering the value form to be value as the appearance of abstract labor, have created the value theory of fetishism without the value form (Rubin 1973 [1928]: 107–23). Lange’s value theory has some similarity to Rubin’s.

5. Conclusion

Most Marxian economists tend to oppose especially Uno’s first Doctrine, the circulation forms: presentation of forms of commodity, money, and capital without reference to the substance of value, abstract labor. This opposition stems from popular conviction of the labor theory of value: price prevails in circulation, but value is determined in production by labor. Hence value without reference to abstract labor becomes out of the question.

Capital, volume 1, assumes the working of the law of value from the beginning of the first chapter. In the first dimension of circulation forms, however, value regulation of price remains a necessary tendency, because it is yet devoid of the foundation of production. Whereas in the second dimension, the production process of capital, the value regulation of price turns into the law of value, because value regulation of price is developed necessarily based on abstract labor or socially necessary labor time, which is produced by social division of labor. So-called substance of value is determined in this context.

Based on this idea, I have examined the problems with Marx’s value forms and the fetishism of the commodity. In my view, most of them stem from Marx’s involvement of abstract labor in both theories. Therefore, the task of this article is to reveal how these problems can be solved or improved without relying on abstract labor. As Marx states, particularly the simple value form is crucial and most difficult. The relative value form and the equivalent value form are key concepts; I have presented new definitions of them, respectively, and emphasized the concept of the world of commodities. ¹¹

Regarding the relationship between the value form and the fetishism of the commodity, I consider that theory of value form is inseparably connected with the fetishism of the commodity and money; hence, the former theory can absorb the latter theory.

The abstract labor has nothing to do with the fetishism of commodity and money in the first dimension, but in the second, it plays a crucial role in establishing the fetishism of commodity and money nationwide; this is a theme in the second dimension.

I have pointed out a number of defects in Marx’s value form; however, I believe criticizing them by no means depreciates Marx’s epoch-making achievement of the value form, but seeking new solutions will contribute toward making it more illuminating.