The trouble with Marxism is that most of the people use that expression have not got a clue what he was about.
And I am not referring the common man or woman in the street who has misconceptions. No, the people who really misunderstand him (or misrepresent him, which is worse) are the educated class. People who should know better, but park their critical faculties when it comes to Marx, because “everybody knows” he got it all wrong.
The Economist magazine recently reviewed “Karl Marx: Greatness and Illusion” by Gareth Stedman Jones. The reviewer, who is not named in the article, makes statements so stunningly ignorant you would have to wonder if they actually worked for The Economist. Perhaps they just sent in a review on spec, written while sitting in their bedroom, between reading chapters of ‘Marx for Idiots’.
The erudite reviewer wrote:
“In one passage Marx set out to answer a puzzle. Changing levels of supply and demand explain why the price of a commodity goes up and down, but does not explain what the equilibrium price of that commodity is what it is.”
In one patronising clause, our erudite reviewer reveals he has never even tried to read Capital. Does this reviewer really think that, in the three volumes of Capital, Marx only set out to answer the question of what determines price in one single passage? One of the central questions for Adam Smith and David Ricardo was dealt with by Marx “in one passage”?!
Leaving that to one side, the reviewer then summarises Marx’s solution to the puzzle – the labour theory of value. The reviewer quotes Stedman Jones saying Marx “arbitrarily ruled out the relative desirability or utility of commodities” which, according to the reviewer, would strike most people as the obvious explanation.
So where Marx was trying to work out the intricacies of the most complex and non-intuitive economic system in human history, our reviewer is satisfied with an explanation that “would strike most people as … obvious”.
Dear reviewer, I for one am a person to whom the obvious explanation does not appear obvious at all. If we believe you, price is determined not by supply and demand, but by “the relative desirability or utility” of a commodity. Or perhaps by both. But not ultimately by the amount of socially necessary labour needed for its production.
So let us compare a strawberry and a motor car. Why does a strawberry cost less than a car? Because the car has more desirability or utility? What does that even mean? A strawberry tastes better than a car, so the strawberry should be more expensive because it has more taste utility. But a car drives faster than a strawberry, so the car should cost more because it has more speed utility. Really? You think that is obvious?
Or compare the car with something less edible; say an aircraft carrier. The car costs less than the aircraft carrier because the car has less desirability or utility.
So how do we know how desirable an aircraft carrier is, compared to a car? How do we compare the utility or desirability of commodities which are qualitatively different? Compare a ballpoint pen with a bunch of flowers. Or a blockbuster movie with a rucksack.
My advice to this reviewer is simple and almost as patronising as their review. Pick up a copy of Capital, and read Chapter One. Just Chapter One. The rest will probably be too complex for you. Just read chapter one.
Learn what he difference is between use value and exchange value. And if you grasp that basic concept, then tell me how the hell do you imagine it would EVER be possible to make a direct comparison between different use values (or “utility” as you like to say)?