Exchange Value Quotes

“As use-values, commodities differ above all in quality, while as exchange-values they can only differ in quantity, and therefore do not contain an atom of use-value.”
― Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy Volume 1

“As exchange-values, all commodities are merely definite quantities of congealed labour-time.”
― Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy Volume 1

“Cuando no se produce ya para el valor de uso sino únicamente para el valor de cambio, cuando el trabajo no sirve para satisfacer ninguna necesidad concreta sino solamente para fabricar unos objetos cualesquiera para venderlos en el mercado (lo que Marx llamó "trabajo abstracto"), entonces la abstracción, lo puramente cuantitativo, el predominio de la forma, y concretamente de la forma-mercancía, sobre cualquier contenido, determinan la entera vida social. El valor de cambio, la simple cantidad de trabajo social que se ha incorporado a una mercancía, es el triunfo de la cantidad, de la abstracción de toda cualidad.”
― Anselm Jappe, El absurdo mercado de los hombres sin cualidades: Ensayos sobre el fetichismo de la mercancía

“I'm here to give a tithe," she told the Heartwood. "I give you my voice---and with it, my dreams beyond the woods. I'll be your new Song Mage, if you'll have me."
Breathing in sharply, Emeline thought of the cost. She would never again sing her songs beneath the lights. Never walk out on a new stage or record an album she was proud of. She would never get the chance to prove she could make it on her terms.
Emeline breathed out, letting it go.
It hurt when the woods took her offering. Like hands reaching in and plucking out her soul, severing her from her oldest dream.
But when she breathed, something new flooded in.
It felt like the night she sang to the elm tree cage, asking the trees to set Hawthorne free. She'd felt the power in her voice flow out of her that night. This time, though, it was the reverse. Power was flowing in. Infusing her marrow and blood. Folding itself into her skin.
It was like Grace said: there was magic in sacrifice. Emeline had tithed the most precious thing she owned, and something equally precious was filling in the gaps.
It coursed through her---thick as honey, bright as starlight. Pushing like a blazing-hot sun. Humming like a swarm of contented bees.
Power.
It tasted like sugared sunshine on her tongue.”
― Kristen Ciccarelli, Edgewood