If a commodity is taken as a measure for the exchangeability of another commodity, it presents a market value. Market supply and market demand make the commodities measurable in each other, and so a market value is given only in the efficient demand and supply for commodities. Yet the value is not simply another expression of a good but a designation of an economic good in real exchange. A commodity is exchangeable for another commodity, so a specific quantity of one is equivalent to a specific quantity of another. Through the quantifying services of value, all commodities on the market are just quantities in a general commodity: since a commodity – to be an actual commodity – is required to serve as a part, at least, of a pair. Cost, value in use, and intrinsic value reveal further all the specifics of value.
Historical Backdrop
• ARISTOTLE Politics: equivalent value.
• ADAM SMITH The Wealth of Nations: exchangeable value of goods.
• GEORG HEGEL Philosophy of Right; Encyclopaedia of Philosophical Sciences III; Jena Real Philosophy: value.
• DAVID RICARDO On the Principle of Political Economy and Taxation: value in exchange.
• KARL MARX The Capital: exchange value.
• JOHN COMMONS Legal Foundations of Capitalism: the principle of offering and withholding supply.
• FRIEDRICH HAYEK Individualism and Economic Order: rates of equivalence.