 So, this is a kind of golden goose here, this commodity labor power, because of this aspect of it, which is that if you're a buyer, you get something, it's used value, which has the capacity to create more in value than what it costs you to acquire it. If there is an excess, you get it as the buyer. Marxian theory, in a sense, Marxian theory, or Marxian value theory, is a way for the workers to understand what it is they're getting rid of. It teaches them, if they struggle with it, it teaches them that what they're getting rid of is this wonderful golden egg, okay, which the use value is going to the buyer. And that's not, they're not the buyers in capitalism, it's going to the buyers who are the capitalists. So it teaches them what they have lost in capitalism, but it also gives them another kind of incentive. They can begin to ask themselves, individually and collectively, why can't they be in the position to buy their own labor power? And if that were the case, if they were in the position, not only to sell as a collectivity, but also as a collectivity to be in the position to buy their labor power, they would then acquire its use value, this golden egg. Well, when workers are in that position, not only to sell their labor power to themselves, but also to acquire the use value of labor power to themselves, that's called communism. So Marx is providing a theory, this interesting economic theory, which he thinks may be able to liberate workers, give them a freedom from class exploitation, and put them in the position in which they can get the use value, and hence the surplus of their own labor power. Let me return then to these exchanges, okay? What makes a coat equal to linen, what makes a Mercedes equal to a toothbrush, can't be the different use values of each, you know, as I said, because those use values are different. Indeed, the seller is alienating the use value of the commodity in order to, in order to get rid of it, okay? So step one is what makes C equal to L, what makes toothbrushes equal to Mercedes, can't be these different use values, okay? Indeed, in order to have exchange to begin with, you have to have different use values. In your readings, you'll notice Marx continually says that, the things have to be different, have to have different use values in order to have exchange, otherwise you'll have coat for coat, linen for linen, that's not interesting. So the moment, so you need different use values, then the moment there is exchange, then you're alienating, you're separating the use value for each of the sellers, okay? It's the buyers that are getting the use value. Step two, okay? These different use values are a product of concrete labor, if you recall, that's how we started. Step three is the unique qualities of coat and linen and toothbrushes and Mercedes and all the other commodities you can think of are a complex product of the specific kinds of labor engaged to produce those specific kinds of qualities associated with each of these commodities. So when we equate these different commodities having these different use values, okay? We not only abstract from the use value for the seller of the commodity, we also abstract from the concrete labor that produces that particular use value, hence step three. We are left with only one thing then in considering these exchanges, which is, let me put it together, abstracted concrete labor. Marx calls that for sure abstract labor and that's what's common to all the commodities in capitalist society. So the reason, the answer, why one cloth, one, I'm sorry, one coat is equal to 20 yards of linen and so forth, is that both commodities have in common a common substance which is this kind of labor in general to produce that commodity which Marx calls for short abstract labor. He measures that in time so he argues that what all these commodities have in common is the socially necessary abstract labor time, socially necessary abstract labor time to produce a commodity. That's the missing property that he's come up with. He presents then an abstract labor theory of value and just to go back to that foot note again, that's to be compared and contrasted with a non-Marxian neoclassical economic theory which confronts these same equations and that non-Marxian theory comes up with, if you have studied this or you will study this, a utility theory of values or you have an abstract labor theory of value versus a utility theory of value and we can go back to the first part of this course and ask that interesting epistemological question of which one of them is right and remember what we did. You can't answer that question. You have two different theories of value with two different consequences on our lives. Let me give you the finally to wrap this up. Let me give you the example staying with Coates and Lennon here. So let me get rid of these two equations if I may and let's go back. We have this labor process that we've talked about in the course but I'm going to change it. If you remember this is the labor taking place times its productivity gives its wealth but I'm going to change the L now. This is going to be because we just did it abstract labor to produce, in this case, let me start with the coat. And the productivity of this abstract labor. Suppose it takes one hour of labor in general. So it takes an hour. That's the socially necessary abstract labor time. This is the assumption. It takes an hour to produce one coat. So let me write this carefully. It's trivial but it's important to see it. One coat per one hour of abstract labor then multiplying through we have the result of one coat. By the same logic we have the labor, the abstract labor to produce, I'll use a different letter here, what was it, the Lennon. Suppose it takes one hour of abstract labor and one hour we get twenty yards of Lennon per that same abstract labor. And that gives us the twenty yards of Lennon. So let's go back. What is Mark's done here? When he examines, let me put it over here. Can we get that on the camera? Okay, good. So when he has one coat equals twenty yards of Lennon, let's take each of these, let me get the same L here so I don't get you all followed up, one coat equals twenty yards of Lennon. Let's take the perspective of the coat maker. The coat maker produces a coat. What is the cost of doing that in terms of labor? It takes one hour. What kind of hour? Abstract labor, labor in general, that which is common to everybody. So we're abstracting from the concrete labor. So we're just asking the question, how much labor does it take on the average social labor to produce a coat that takes an hour? That's what we just did. So the coat maker gets rid of that, it's getting rid of an hour. And what is he, she, acquiring? Twenty yards of Lennon, he asked the question. In Moxian terms, what is that worth? Well that notion of worth is abstract labor. So the seller of the coat is acquiring the Lennon, twenty yards, and that's worth, we just did it, one hour of the same kind of labor, labor in general, because that's what it took to produce twenty yards of Lennon, right over here. So what Marx has done here is to establish an equivalence in the market, very, very important. That is, and this goes for all commodities, what the seller sells is precisely equal to what he, she, gets. So the coat maker gets rid of an hour of labor, of his or her labor, and acquires an hour of labor from the other producer, in this case Lennon. So the market is a place, or sometimes Marx calls a sphere, of equivalent exchange. That's what Marx literally constructed this. No one gets cheated, no one gets exploited in capitalism in the exchange of commodities. That's so important, let me do it again. No one gets cheated, no one gets exploited in the exchange of commodities in capitalism. Everybody is treated fairly and justly in the market. Irrespective of what you may have heard, Marxism is not a theory that is going to argue that the market in capitalism is a place of exploitation, that's just wrong. What the market does is redistribute value from one party to the other in this equivalent way. So the conclusion of this is that exploitation, which we've talked about in this course, has to occur outside the market in a different sphere. So the market of commodities between buyers and sellers, that equivalent exchange becomes a condition of existence of a profound inequality and exploitation, which is going to occur outside the market and for Marx, as we're going to see very quickly, is going to occur in production. Let me do that again. The market is a place of equivalence, no cheating, which is going to become a condition of existence for a profound inequality and class exploitation that's going to occur outside the market in this sphere of exchange. Let me pause until the next lecture.