Exchange value, value and costs. How is exchange value determined?

Exchange value- one of the options for expressing price when exchanging goods. Essentially, it is a proportion and numerical ratio in which different objects of the transaction are assessed.

Exchange value- an external expression of the price that is relevant in commodity production in the case of equating different things (objects of transaction) to each other. Usually, exchange value is determined taking into account the time spent on the production of a particular product.

Exchange value- the main parameter taken into account in the process of commodity exchange between the owners of transaction objects (goods). In different concepts, the nature of exchange value can be explained by parameters that differ from each other - marginal utility, production costs, balance of supply and demand, time spent on creating a product, and so on.

The history of the emergence of exchange value and its structure

If you look into history, goods acted as an equivalent when making transactions (even before the advent of money). At the same time, the factor of exchange of goods was random in nature. In ancient times, exchange took a natural form, and any proportions were extremely rarely observed. When a community exchanged its goods for a product from a neighboring community, the object of the transaction could act as an equivalent in some separate (single) transactions.

At that time, the form of exchange was simple, random and isolated in nature. Over time, as the division of labor became more visible and stable, the number of exchange transactions also increased. Subsequently, the range of goods acting as objects of exchange transactions increased. Since then, the exchange of goods has moved from a simple to an expanded form. Its peculiarity is the use of consumer value for each of the goods instead of random equivalents (as was the case before).

If we consider the evolution and structure of the exchange price, we can distinguish three main elements:

1. Consumer price represents a group (set) of properties of a particular product. Its peculiarity is a direct connection with the product and related services, which make it possible to satisfy a variety of human needs (in social, industrial, personal terms). The real (objective) cost of each product was expressed through the consumer price. That is why such a parameter began to be called a natural property of a good.

Consumer price is characteristic of most things on our planet. However, it is not necessary that they be the product of human labor. Using this parameter, you can evaluate the fruits of a tree or the water in a source. On the other hand, not every thing that has a consumer price can be classified as a commodity. This is explained by the fact that a product is an object of human labor made exclusively for further sale.

An object of labor, characterized by a consumer price, must:

Easily change to another type of product. This means that one item can be easily exchanged for another item. This feature in some way characterizes the (demand) object of the transaction;

To cover the vital needs of not only the person who created the product, but also to be needed by other people;

To be a product of human labor.

2. Standard form consumer price eventually became public, that is, the purchased product became needed not by one individual, but by society as a whole. As a result, the social price began to reflect the value of the product (the object of the transaction) for a group of people, to show its social significance.

Signs of social consumer value include:

Benefit to society. This means that the product is not created for personal use, as was previously the case, but for the exchange of goods on the market;

Creation of goods in the structure and quantity required for coverage social need.

In addition, the social consumer price characterizes not only individual goods (things), but also the entire group of objects produced for sale and taking into account the needs of the goods in society.

3. Exchange value- this is the same consumer price discussed above, but only applied in commercial farming. Exchange value is a numerical ratio of two parameters - consumer prices of one kind (one category of goods) for consumer prices of a different kind (of a different category of product). For example, in ancient times people could exchange an ax for several skins. In modern exchange, two “cubes” of forest can be produced for 500 kilograms of fish or one pig for 15 kg of strawberries. In this case, the most important parameter in the transaction is the one that reflects the existing proportions of the exchange.

Exchange value: essence and concepts of formation

Since ancient times, many historians and economists have set out to understand why the exchange price has precisely these parameters and not others. In addition, they wanted to understand by what criteria they could compare seemingly dissimilar transaction objects.

There are two concepts on this matter:

1. The first is the labor theory of exchange value. Followers of this concept believe that the exchange price directly depends on the amount of labor expended in its production.

2. The second is the theory of marginal utility. Here the starting point is the utility of the product. That is, the more necessary a thing is to society, the greater its value.

Roughly speaking, the approaches described above can be called consumer and production, respectively.

Followers of marginal theory believe that main factor when forming an exchange price - the utility of the object of the transaction. Thus, researchers paid attention to one of the main properties of a product - its quality, not quantity. Thanks to this, the thing can be considered from the perspective of the conditions of exchange, and not as an equivalent.

“Marginalists” managed to prove that the quantity and quality of goods do not depend on each other at all. If a person has a pair of gloves, then this will be the marginal utility (maximum good). When another person decides to exchange, for example, millet for gloves, he will proceed precisely from the marginal utility of the object for exchange. The owner of gloves who will exchange them for grain will think in a similar way.

The disadvantage of the described approach is its one-sidedness of consideration. In particular, the subjects of commodity relations are considered from the position of consumers, who act as ordinary buyers in the market. As a consequence, the valuation of the product is based on consumer views and is part of the exchange price. But here you need to remember that in commodity exchange Not only consumers (buyers) of products participate, but also manufacturers selling goods. In the theory of marginalism, minimal attention is paid to this category of market participants.

To eliminate this one-sidedness, a second concept is taken into account - labor. According to this theory, exchange value is formed taking into account the labor costs for the production of a particular thing. This is logical, because the manufacturer, as a rule, is of little interest in the real benefits of the product. It matters to him how much time and effort he spent on making it. That is, the more resources he invested in production, the higher the exchange value of the product.

Later, when calculating a unified measure of labor costs, other aspects were taken into account - the heterogeneity of factors, the role of each of them, the depth and method of participation in production process. Thus, taking into account the exchange value and labor costs of commodity producers, the theory of labor price was formed.

The theories described above (marginal utility and labor) have differences of a political, ideological and scientific nature. This is explained by the following aspects :

IN labor theory exchange value depends on social labor. Thus, it reflects the primary economic and social value labor, the importance of its results and participation in increasing productivity;

In marginal utility theory, the emphasis is on the fact that a good is simply the result of the characteristics of the market, that is, the level of demand for a particular thing. This concept has more of a trade (speculative) component of the exchange value of a product.

As a result, labor theory reflects the interests of society as a whole, the ideology of a certain group of people. As for the concept of marginal utility, it characterizes the needs exclusively of traders and representatives of activity.

At one time, Karl Marx dealt with the issue of exchange value. He managed to reveal the essence of this parameter and its direct connection with labor costs. On the other hand, he did not pay due attention to the peculiarities of the deviation of the exchange price of a particular transaction object (thing, commodity) from their prices in each specific exchange operation.

In his theory, Marx only partially notes that deviations are random and, ultimately, the total value of exchange prices for goods created in society is equal to the sum of their real prices. Over time, this theory was confirmed by the concept of the marginal utility of things. In turn, the labor concept has been repeatedly criticized due to its inability to accurately determine the features of the formation of equilibrium prices for goods in market conditions.

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Initially, people produced all the necessary goods for themselves (they ran a subsistence economy). As needs grew, it became increasingly difficult to satisfy them in this way; it became profitable to specialize in the production of one product, exchanging it for necessary goods. The result of this natural process was the emergence of goods and the emergence of commodity law.

A commodity is a type of organization of social production in which economic relations between people are carried out through the market, the purchase and sale of their labor. And the product natural production, and the product has utility, consumer value, i.e. ability to meet people's needs.

How use values goods cannot be comparable with each other, and therefore cannot be exchanged. Moreover, the exchange of goods with the same use value is generally meaningless (for example, one pair of boots for exactly the same pair of boots). Therefore, in addition to use value, a product must have the ability to be exchanged for other goods. The property of a commodity to be exchanged for other commodities in certain quantitative proportions is called exchange value.

Exchange value is a quantitative ratio, the proportion in which one product is exchanged for another. (T1=T2; T1=2T3) One product has many exchange values. The basis for the exchange of one product for another is value - that which is common to all goods, namely labor costs. Labor, embodied or materialized in a product, represents its value. This is an internal property of the product. Exchange value is a form of expression of this value.

Exchange value on the surface of phenomena is determined by the relationship between supply and demand for the goods being exchanged. Buyer demand for a particular product depends on price. At high prices it decreases, at low prices it increases. Supply also depends on prices. At low prices sellers hold goods and do not sell them. At high prices, on the contrary, they try to sell as much as possible. At first glance, exchange value is determined by supply and demand. But then the question arises - what determines supply and demand itself? It turns out to be a vicious circle. And most importantly, there is no answer to the question - what determines the exchange value (proportion, exchange of two goods) when supply and demand coincide? Various schools answer this question differently. According to Marxist economic theory two goods are exchanged for each other (in a certain proportion) because the same amount of socially necessary labor is spent on their production. According to the marginalist school, exchange proportions (exchange value) are determined by the usefulness of a thing, people's subjective assessment of what they buy.

EXCHANGE VALUE

EXCHANGE VALUE

(exchange value) A quantitative ratio expressing the value of one product in terms of the value of another. For example, if a pair of shoes can be exchanged for two chairs, then this means that the exchange value of a pair of shoes is two chairs, and the exchange value of two chairs is a pair of shoes. When these exchange relations are expressed in in cash(2 chairs = £40), the exchange value becomes the price of the commodity. From Aristotle, who first put forward this concept, to the classical economists Adam Smith and David Ricardo, the main difficulty has been in finding the factors that determine the exchange value of a commodity. Utility, rarity, labor cost, and capital cost were suggested as solutions. The debate culminated with the work of Marx, who argued that exchange value was not an expression of labor time embodied in a product, as Ricardo had argued. It is rather a “form”, acquired “value” in the process of exchange. “Value” itself is the socially necessary labor time spent on a commodity, i.e. that part of the working time of society as a whole which cannot be discovered until the product reaches the market. This implied that the exchange of one commodity for another is a form public relations

between people, which is “similar” to quantitative relations between things, i.e. goods. Orthodox theorists who do not adhere to Marxist views ignore the social basis of exchange and see exchange value as a simple expression of price determined by supply and demand. Policy. Dictionary . - M.: "INFRA-M", Publishing House "Ves Mir". D. Underhill, S. Barrett, P. Burnell, P. Burnham, et al. General edition. 2001 .

: Doctor of Economics Osadchaya I.M. Political science. Dictionary. - RSU

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V.N. Konovalov. 2010.

See what “EXCHANGE VALUE” is in other dictionaries: Broadly speaking, the ability of a good or service to be exchanged for other goods or services. In English: Value in exchange See also: Value Value of assets Financial Dictionary Finam. Exchange value Exchange value current value of rights... ...

Financial Dictionary See EXCHANGE VALUE. Antinazi. Encyclopedia of Sociology, 2009 ...

Encyclopedia of Sociology Market value Dictionary of Russian synonyms ...

According to Marxist economic doctrine, the ability of a commodity to be exchanged for another commodity in a certain proportion, which is expressed in monetary value, in the price of the goods. Differs from the use value that characterizes the product... ... Economic dictionary

Exchange value- (value in exchange) is the amount of money or purchasing power (in the form of goods or services) for which real estate can most likely be sold. Exchange value is thus synonymous with objective value or market value... Glossary of terms on expertise and real estate management

Cost basis quantitative relationships with equivalent exchange. Different economic schools explain the nature of value in different ways: by the cost of working time, the balance of supply and demand, production costs, marginal utility.... ... Wikipedia

EXCHANGE VALUE- (exchange value) see Use value and exchange value... Large explanatory sociological dictionary

See Art. Price … Great Soviet Encyclopedia

exchange value- Syn: market price … Thesaurus of Russian business vocabulary

Books

• A study of the nature and causes of the wealth of nations. (Complete work in one volume). Per. from English, Smith, Adam. Before the reader is a seminal work on classical economics, written more than two centuries ago by the outstanding economist and philosopher Adam Smith and which had a huge influence on…
• A study of the nature and causes of the wealth of nations. In two volumes. Volume I, Volume II in one book, Smith A.. Before the reader is a fundamental work on classical economics, written more than two centuries ago by the outstanding economist and philosopher Adam Smith and had a huge influence on ...

To satisfy human needs, things or services are exchanged for other things or services. To be exchanged, different use values ​​must have something in common. This cannot be the consumer costs of employment themselves, since they are qualitatively and essentially different and are not comparable. Boots and flour satisfy such different needs that it is impossible to reduce them to something simple.

With the development of society, both exchange proportions and utility changed. So, in the 14th century, Italian merchants sold pepper to feudal lords. Western. Europe, they received a gram of gold for a gram of pepper; aluminum a hundred years ago was several hundred times more expensive, but its usefulness in our time has increased incomparably. Exchange value has other properties that change during evolution commodity production twa.

. Exchange value- the ability of a product to be exchanged for others in certain quantitative proportions, the form of manifestation of value

When goods are exchanged, it may seem that their exchange proportions arise by chance. First determined by the relationship between supply and demand, there is indeed an element of chance. But in general the process is fine. ESI of exchange establishes a certain pattern, which lies in the fact that the exchange proportions of goods over a relatively long period tend to some average level. This equation of exchanged goods, their quantitative comparison means that they have something in common - all goods are the embodiment of social useful work spent on their production. This makes them quantitatively comparable, therefore, their form is their value.

. Price- production relations between people arising in direct production and the sphere of exchange associated with the labor process, production activities person, as well as regarding the comparison of the amount of socially useful labor embodied in the compared goods.

Therefore, value embodies not just the amount of socially necessary labor, but also the quality of the product, its beneficial effect

Equating goods to each other, their comparison is the only possible way identifying public character labor in conditions of commodity production results in exchange value as external manifestation Cost indirectly characterizes production relations between people both in the process of creating goods and in the process of their sale. With the development of organization and planning within individual enterprises and the national economy as a whole, with a comprehensive study of the effective demand of the population, preliminary conclusion contracts between enterprises and sales organizations, state and supranational reregulation of micro- and macroeconomic processes, the role of exchange value in identifying the social nature of labor is significantly weakened.

Cost has qualitative and quantitative aspects. The qualitative aspect of the cost in modern conditions expresses economic relations between commodity producers. The elements of these relations are technical-economic, organizational-economic and production (or property relations) relations. Technical and economic relations arise in the production of modern cars, for example. Tens of thousands of workers from different professions take part in it, each of whom performs their part. collective work with the help of specific means of labor, etc. Organizational and economic relations are embodied in management, various organizational forms of the enterprise, etc. Relations economic property between commodity producers, producers of individual car parts are manifested in the amount of additional product created by each worker and wages, in the cost of component parts for the car created by each of several tens of thousands of related enterprises and the prices established by the parent company when purchasing these parts; in the amount of income received by owners and chief managers; in the amount of profit withdrawn through the mechanism of taxes, etc. The quantitative aspect of value expresses the amount of social labor of the producer embodied in the product and the social utility of the product. This definition synthesizes the achievements Marxist theory production costs and the concept of marginal utility. The basis of the cost is the socially required working hours.

. Socially necessary work time - the time required to create any consumer value ( material wealth or services) with existing social normal conditions production and average public level intensity and product productivity of labor, technology, as well as corresponding economic relations.

Socially necessary working time is the result of interaction with individual

. Individual working hours- time spent by an individual enterprise (or commodity producer) on the production of a product or service

If a certain product is produced by several (many) enterprises, then socially necessary labor time tends toward individual labor time at those enterprises where the bulk of the product is produced. Sa ame therefore the averages are set here standard conditions production (labor intensity and productivity, level of qualifications and skills of workers, level of development of equipment, technology, forms and methods of organizing production, etc.) and corresponding economic relations.

Socially necessary working time is formed in the process of competition among commodity producers. Labor costs that are large in terms of socially necessary labor time do not create value under competitive conditions. This encourages commodity producers to introduce new technology, improve the organization of production and other measures to reduce individual working hours.

So, there is a constant between socially necessary and individual working time. There is a contradiction, is important source development of production, increasing its technical level, introduction of progressive pho. Orm and methods of organizing production, wages, increasing the general educational and qualification level of workers, etc. This means that the sphere of production is decisive in the process of interaction between sus. Freely necessary expenditure of working time with the individual, the law of value and its modified forms (price of production, monopoly price of production) operate primarily in the sphere of direct production a. Marketing services study the relationship between these costs and the corresponding forms of time for modern enterprises(before exporting goods to the market).

The ratio of socially necessary working time to individual working time also depends on social needs, social effective demand for certain types products have the scope of the law in value, which expresses the deep essence of commodity production, is also exchange, where it (the law) reflects steel, significant connections between supply and demand, and therefore between the quality of goods, their utility on the one hand, and public spending- with another. Utility, in turn, is the ratio of the internal properties of things to human needs, people's use of such properties. Therefore, utility combines objective and subjective side consumer value, which means the presence in the law of value not only objective side(dominant), but also subjective. In this case, it is necessary to distinguish between consumer variability of an individual product or service and social consumer value. Consumer cost of an individual product depends on whether it satisfies a certain need, and the consumer value of the mass of social products depends on whether it satisfies a quantitatively determined social need for the products of each individual kind.

Social consumer value is also influenced by the proportionality of the distribution of money spent on production. specific product labor between various areas production, the size of social needs to be satisfied. If in a field or industry National economy If more labor is expended than is necessary to satisfy social needs, then only a portion of the goods produced in typical enterprises with average production conditions are sold. The real value of the cost of the product shifts to individual costs at the most favorable conditions, to individual working time, are spent at individual enterprises with modern equipment, perfect forms and methods of organizing production etc.

time in some sectors of the national economy (for example, agriculture) socially necessary costs are formed with a focus not on averages, but on heavy expenses, the largest individual working time. Only under such conditions can a producer working on plots of land of poorer quality be interested in producing products.

In most industries, a product is sold at value (taking into account its modified forms) only when the amount of social labor expended on its production coincides with the size of the social need that must be satisfied. Consequently, the cost of goods in this case depends on the amount of socially necessary labor and utility (individual and social consumer utility). Due to the untimely sale of goods (a more standardized period of stay in a warehouse, etc.), their value is determined not by the socially necessary labor time spent on their production, but by the time spent on their reproduction in new conditions (during this period of socially necessary labor time could decrease due to increased labor productivity and other factorsc).

Such properties of the interaction of individual and socially necessary labor time for most goods. D. Ricardo called reproducible, i.e. ones that are constantly updated. At the same time, the socially necessary need for working hours, taking into account the reproducible aspect, the coincidence of supply and demand determines the cost of goods during long term, while experiencing increased influence of effective demand (and therefore utility) over short periods of time.

For non-reproducible goods (masterpieces of art, rare books, etc.), an additional substance of value is rarity: depending on its degree, each of the value-forming factors can come to the fore, pushing other factors into second or third place. . However, the statement. Ricardo, for non-reproducible goods the only value-forming factor is rarity, the unreasonable. The productivity of these specific goods largely depends on the labor costs of talented sculptors, artists, and people of other professions.

Socially necessary working time is one of the basis of pricing, price proportions, especially when free competition. The fulfillment of this function is complicated by the dominance of monopolies (including their collective monopolies or oligopolies), state-corporate capitalism, and the internationalization of production.

Definition and essence of goods

There are many definitions of the concept of product. Here are a few of them:

Product - this is the result of human interaction with the means of production (personal and material factors of production), which receives a material or intangible form.

Product - this is specific economic benefit, produced for exchange.

Product is a good that is the result of the production of one subject of the economy and enters the consumption of another subject through exchange in the form of purchase and sale. Behind this definition lies quite complex set economic relations.

Firstly, a product reflects ownership relations. Any product acts as an object of property. The owner of the goods is ready to transfer it to another in exchange for something of equal value.

Secondly, there are relations regarding the production of goods. These include relationships that ensure specialization in the production of a particular product and the possibility of cooperation arising on its basis. When producing a product, competition also arises, during which producers strive to make the product more attractive to buyers.

Thirdly, distribution relations develop regarding the product. Since each product acts as a part of a social product, then by selling and buying goods, people thereby participate in the distribution of this product.

Fourthly, the product becomes an object of consumption, since, ultimately, it is created to satisfy some needs.

Distinctive feature goods are relations in the form of purchase and sale. Exchange is characterized by remuneration and equivalence, which means the transfer of a product from the hands of its owner to the hands of another in response to the return transfer of its substitute, and the substitute must be equivalent to the given product.

Along with the concept of “product” there is the concept of “commodity unit”. Product unit - separate integrity, characterized by indicators of size, price, appearance and other attributes. Each individual product offered to consumers can be considered on three levels:

product by design - this is the main service that the buyer actually purchases;

goods in real performance - is a product offered for sale with a certain set of properties, external design, quality level, brand name and packaging;

reinforced goods - this is a product in actual execution together with the services accompanying it, such as warranty, installation or assembly, preventive maintenance and free delivery.

Product properties

The product has two main properties:

a) the ability to satisfy any human need.

b) ability to exchange.

The ability of a product to satisfy a particular human need constitutes its consumer value. Any product has it. The nature of the needs can be very different (physical, spiritual). The way to satisfy them may also be different.

Some things can satisfy needs directly as consumer goods (bread, clothing, etc.), others indirectly, indirectly as a means of production (machines, raw materials). Many use values ​​can satisfy not one, but a number of social needs (wood, for example, is used as a chemical raw material, as fuel, for the production of furniture).

Use values ​​constitute the material content of the wealth of any society. Use value has three forms of manifestation:

a) quantity;

b) natural form;

c) quality.

The latter is the degree of utility of a given use value, its correspondence, its suitability to satisfy the need for specific conditions consumption. A buyer, when purchasing a product on the market, evaluates its beneficial effect, and not the labor costs for its production. Only what is valuable in the eyes of the buyer has value.

People value a wide variety of material and spiritual goods and services not as a result of the social costs spent on their production. necessary labor, but because these goods have utility. But everyone individual product different people give different assessment usefulness. The subjective assessment of utility depends on two factors: on the available supply of a given good and on the degree of saturation of the need for it. As the need is satisfied, the “degree of saturation” increases, and the value of competitive utility decreases.

A product has not only the property of satisfying human needs, but also the property of entering into relationships with other goods and being exchanged for other goods. Miscellaneous Products have only one general property, making them comparable to each other in exchange, namely, that they are products of labor.

The neoclassical school emphasizes that a commodity is an economic good intended for exchange, but this definition does not indicate that a commodity is a product of labor. Proponents of the labor theory of value, starting with A. Smith, believed that goods in certain quantities are equal to each other because they have common ground- labor. Wherein a necessary condition exchange is the difference in the use values ​​of goods. In modern economic theory, a different approach has been adopted, which originates from the works of representatives of the theory of marginal utility: K. Menger, E. Böhm-Bawerk, F. Wieser. They expressed the idea that labor cost is the basis of exchange, and utility. The ability of a commodity to be exchanged in certain quantitative proportions is exchange value.

Use and exchange values

Use value - a set of properties of a product related directly to both the product itself and related services, determining its ability to satisfy production, social, personal and other needs of people. It constitutes the material content of wealth. Therefore, in its initial manifestation, use value is a natural property of a good. Any product has it.

Many things that are not created by human labor have use value, for example, water in a source, the fruits of wild trees. But not every thing that has use value is a commodity. For a thing to become a commodity, it must be a product of labor produced for sale.

The use value should:

To be created by labor;

Satisfy the needs not of its creator, but of other people;

Exchange for another product (purchase and sale mechanism), that is, the product must have the ability to exchange for other goods.

Social form use value means that the purchased product is necessary for society. From this we can conclude that social use value represents the social significance of a good or its value for society. Social use value is also use value which:

has utility, that is, it was created not for one’s own consumption, but for exchange on the market;

created in quantities and structure corresponding to social needs or, in any case, not exceeding it;

It should also be added that social use value is the use value not only of individual things, but of the entire mass of things of this kind, intended for sale in comparison with their need in society.

In a commodity economy, use value is the carrier of the exchange value of a commodity.

Exchange value of goods is a quantitative relationship in which use values ​​of one kind are exchanged for use values ​​of another kind. For example, one ax is exchanged for two skins, as happened in ancient times, or a ton of fish is exchanged for three cubic meters of forest, as is the case with modern barter.