Questions and Homework

Please feel free to comment on this post with answers to any of these questions: 1. What is the jump from value to "use value"? Why can't value be determined at the moment of transaction based on the commodity's use-value to the buyer? It seems that Marx is trying to set up the introduction of money as a constant-value commodity. Is this an accurage assumption to make? 2. Does Marx address inflation/currency changing value? This seems like it would change the whole system. 3. Is communism Marx's answer to 'bad' capitalism? Is the M=C=M cycle bad? 4. How are the special use value and formal use value related? How do they compare to actual use value? 5. You keep talking about how Marx would not necessarily agree with our current interpretations of communism. What are those differences between how he views it and we do? 6. Marx describes the overthrowing of the bourgeoise as violent and a veiled civil war. Is that the only effective way to get rid of bourgeoisie? 7. How would Marx characterize the ideal revolution? 8. If the bourgeoisie become unnecessary and are eventually ousted by the proletariats what system will come next? Will this be a better economic system or a more even and fair system? 9. Where do societies come from? Is there any kind of living beyond the societal and economic ways we live? 10. What would Marx think about the massive communies that were created in Soviet Russia? Although they were created for the benefit of the people, they seem eerily similar to a capitalist factory. 11. How do the lumpenproletariat effect the system if the system falls apart with the impoverishment of the proletariat? HOMEWORK: READ MARX, "ON THE JEWISH QUESTION" FOR MONDAY, NOVEMBER 26th (AND HAPPY THANKSGIVING BREAK)