Exchange Value

The 19th century saw a new wave of pro-revolutionary, modernistic, athiestic writers. Many advocated the abrupt end of traditional forms of government, marriage, history, and philosophy.

Although these writers moved away from God, many of them had a great deal to say about the human spirit and refered to themselves as spiritual beings. I direct anyone who would say otherwise to examine Nietchze's Geneology of Morals.

Perhaps the most peculiar examples of this tendancy were among the communist writers. One needn't look further than the writings of Karl Marx.

Before Karl Marx started writing manifestos and grand political ideologies he was a romantic poet. One searches in vain to understand how one could derive a multi-national materialist plan out of romantic poetry.

Hard as it may be to believe, these romantic, subjective notions continued into his later writings.

The opening line of his Communist Manifesto declares that 'a spectre' (a spirit) has descended on the land, which he later describes as the spirit of communism.

Unfortunately a spirit has no place in a materialist ideology, so he describes the spirit as having to leave because it is a spirit of the communist system. Neither Communism nor a System can support a spirit. This bizarre doubleness has been criticized by many including Derrida.

Marx claimed the enemy of Communism was (what he called) 'subjective idealism'. The vagueries and elusivities of religion and spirituality were criminal opiates in this way of thinking.

And so he placed his dicotomies: communism versus capitalism, system vs. spirit, subjective idealism vs. objective materialism.

Another dicotomy he used to explain his system was a difference between 'use value' and 'exchange value'.

'Use value' can be defined as the value a thing has in terms of its utility.

A shovel can be used to move so much dirt in such an amount of time. A bulldozer can be used to move a great deal more dirt in the same time. A bulldozer therefore has more use value than a shovel.

Use value is objective. Everyone can witness a bulldozer move more dirt than a shovel, and, according to Marx, everyone ('the public' or 'society') can share in the prosperity.

By contrast Marx considered 'exchange value' to be an elusive, subjective criteria which is the basis of religion and subjectivity. A little boy goes to the store and decides to 'exchange' his allowance to buy a birthday present for his brother instead of candy.

In Marx's way of thinking, the (hidden and indirect) love of the little boy is a nice, warm thing, but of no use in constructing a political system.

Such a choice of the boy implies that he has the possibility of neglecting his brother's birthday (if it is really a choice). If all boys have the right to receive birthday gifts for their birthday, then there should be laws making sure all boys get the same birthday presents for their birthday.

And if those gifts are not the same, they should have the same 'use value'.

The aspect of 'it was his choice and he acted in love' is trivial and unreliable to Marx. In his view gifts of love should be replaced with redistribution to the point of equality for all.

Many atrocities have been commited with reference to this attitude.

As the citizens of Russia and China (both many years after Marx) came to accept these views they shared a commonality: millions upon millions of dead people.

During World War II the red state of Russia decided that if millions of its citizens were killed outright in purges, gulags, and semi-suicidal military campaigns it would be more "useful" to the country than avoiding these acts.

Stalin himself claimed that if one person died it was a tragedy. If a million people died it was a statistic.

The Russian state had no notion of what a single, innocent citizen could be 'exchanged' for. It had no interest in such a question. Exchange value was an elusive, spiritual, descretional thing which had no immediate benefit for the government.

The exchange worth of the individual was replaced with speculative, socialistic notions of what was best for so-called society.

Although there seems to be something mad, and truly wicked in accepting the purely objective Communist view of human worth it seems easier to accept than the paradoxical alternative: Christianity.

Christ prefers to leave the ninety-nine sheep -who do not need to be saved- so he can rescue the single sheep who has wandered off.

No human government -from the origin of man on earth to the present day- has ever rejoiced over a criminal who decides to obey the law. Government interest is more concerned with generalities: 'how bad is the crime in this country, generally?'

But Christ's priorities are completely different from every government, every social interest, every directly-understandable system. To this extent heaven rejoices over the single sinner that repents far more than the many who do not need to repent.

The paradox of the Bible, as Kierkegaard (the defender of subjectivity) noted, is that in Christianity the single individual is more important than the group.

The Bible also makes extensive use of the 'exchange value' question:

Do you want to be like Esau who exchanged his birthright for a bowl of soup? Do you want to be like Judas who exchanged his loyalty to Christ for money? Would you exchange the entire world for the possession of your soul?

The system asks choices of no one. It recognizes only the commonality, the group, the imaginary vagueness called the 'public'.

But the Bible is continually asking questions of its readers. Will you choose this day whom you will serve? Will you serve the flesh or the spirit? Will you bow to Ceasar or will you confess Christ?

Like the Communist system, it seems easier to give in. It seems easier to take the bowl of soup. It seems easier to take the money. It seems easier to gain the world.

The only drawback is a vague, inner notion that something is terribly wrong. And the Bible compares this to death.

From the perspective of exchange value: the meaning a man can find in life is to learn what matters to him and sticking to it.

Few people understand this.

But remember the world, the public, and the imaginary concept of society do not care a wooden nickel about what is important to a single person. The world demands everyone pursue its values, its system, its gimmicks, and its deceitfulness.

Or at least pretend to.

The one who recognizes the spiritual alternative to the system also realizes that apart from our ability to excerise personal descretion we are no more than mere robots carrying out the orders of an imaginary other.

The difference between such a living and true life is simply a matter of inwardness, obedience to the unseeable God, and mere devotion.

May God deliver us from such temptation, may He keep us from living a life of empty routine, may He continually teach and instruct his chosen ones of the wonder and mystery of His love as it works inside us.