Albert & Hahnel on use-value and exchange-value (from *Marxism and Socialist Theory*)

Virtually all economic theories distinguish economic value into two aspects—"use-value"  and "exchange value." A good has use-value if it is desired (or shunned)—a qualitative  attribute—and also has exchange-value if it has worth in the sense of being exchangable  for particular amounts of other items—a quantitative feature. This far we agree with the usual approach, but in understanding what determines use- and exchange-values we diverge considerably.

For example, although almost all economic theorists recognize that the technical relations of production—which determine how much of every item must be used, both directly and indirectly, to produce each good—are part of what determines relative exchange values of final goods, they either exclude the social relations between actors in the economy, or permit only one economic social relation to influence relative prices. It is our emphasis on the importance of all social relations between economic agents that influence their relative bargaining strengths and not just a single class relation that distinguishes our explanation of exchange values from more traditional approaches.

But an even greater problem is that use-values are usually understood to be economically important only as preconditions of exchange-values: something won't fetch anything in return if no one wants it. Yet actually use-values are in part a function of exchange-value, not merely a determinant of it. Use-values, or what we desire, come about as a result of  our interactions with our environments as well as due to our genetically inherited characteristics. As we discussed earlier, any change in our activities can also modify our  personalities, skills, and consciousness, thereby changing our derived needs and what has use-value for us. What is and what is not a use-value therefore depends upon historical and also economic events. For example, if the process of meeting survival needs via economic activity isolates us or compels competition, this will affect our personalities and also the social needs expressed in other parts of our lives.

What distinguishes our approach is that we emphasize the direct and indirect effects economic activity and social relations can have on the formation and development of use-values.

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I find this analysis of use- and exchange-value very intriguing, as instead of the usual Marxist idea of labor being the source of use-value, it is hinged on a variety of factors a la overdetermination. It also helps give theoretical backing to the idea that people may buy less of something the more expensive it is, an assumption they make for their imperfection theorem of markets in A Quiet Revolution in Welfare Economics.

Part of me wonders if this conception of use-value can actually be analyzed based on primary sources like diaries or newspapers. Only time will tell, I assume.