Diamonds Are a Capitalist's Best Friends

A detailed Summary of Diamonds Are a Capitalist's Best Friends

Everyone knows that we as humans need only a few material things for survival (food, clothing, and shelter). Yet, the capitalist society in which we live today is centered around the production, marketing, and exchange of commodities (no matter how trivial and useless they may be). It follows then that capitalists, in their constant search for profit, must engineer reasons for us to buy their products. They must convince us that while yes, we can live without them, we cannot live happily without them. They do this by attributing seemingly magical personalitites to those products. This fetish, which is exemplified in every diamond ring, converts societal relations involving people into relations involving things. Since labor has become abstract, we are no longer conscious of the methods of human labor that produces commodities, and we are thus left with only the market factions to classify the value of these goods-and the qualities of our lives.

To deepen our understanding, let us first examine what a commodity is and why it's so special. A commodity is anything produced for exchange-by its properties it satisfies some type of human desire. The odd thing about a commodity is it leads a "double life" so to speak. It is a pr

To fully grasp capitalist production we must recognize that value and use-value clash-that is, "alien" exchange dominates "natural" use. For a commodity to be bought, it must be or seem useful. But usefulness is not the main concern. As a commodity, in order to be used the product must be sold. So, sale becomes "the necessary and indispensable prerequisite for use. Without exchange, there can be no use. [Therefore], if a commodity should fail to demonstrate exchangeability, its usefulness too will be cancelled." Take that diamond ring, for instance. Sitting in a botique, its usefulness lies utterly latent. It must prove its exchange-value before it van be worn. "the same is true for every commodity: NO SALE, NO USE. This is a principle of private property. Commodities are not made to be given away. Capitalists do not share with workers."

In the act of exchange all these useful characteristics of the work product have not disappeared, and neither have the concrete forms of the labor required for their production: rather, they are all reduced to one, and the same sort of labor, human labor in the abstract.

As use-values, commodities are, above all, of different qualities, but as exchange-values they are merely different quantities, and consecuently do not contain an atom of use-value.

In other words: abstract labor is useful labor treated as if it has no distinguishing attributes. X hours of one kind of quality-less labor equals X hours of another kind of quality-less labor. Abstractness, therefore, allows exchange. "Equal quantities of abstract labour may exchange for one another. With the fact of exchange itself, abstract labour is certified as real. The product proves itself to be a commodity, an embodiment of value.

Another distortion of use-value is made manifest in so-called "over-production

Some common words found in the essay are:
Commodities Capitalists, , useful labor, prices profits, useful labor treated, relations involving, abstract labour, diamond ring, quality-less labor, labor treated, exchange commodities, labor abstract, human labor,

Approximate Word count = 1226
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: History