Constant Capital - Value and Price

Value and Price

Other Marxian economists note that, at any time, most of the stock of objects of value in a society has no actual market price, because those objects are not being traded (i.e. they are withdrawn from the market); they are either being used in production or consumption activities, or else stored for later use. This can be easily verified by striking a ratio between gross product and the estimated total asset wealth of a country in money units.

In other words, this stock of owned objects has, at best, an ideal price which is estimated or hypothesized (the price it might have, if it was traded in the market).

Nobody however will say that because this stock of objects has no actual market price, that it has no value; everybody knows that its exchange value could be expressed in money, within a certain range of probable prices; they may also know approximately that a quantity of one good is "worth" a certain quantity of another good.

This simple insight may help to clarify Marx's concept of value, because it shows that beyond prices there are also economic value relations referring to the changing relationships between objects of value which have no specific, defined or actual market price, and to the social outcome of the interactions between a myriad of prices. In turn, these value relations between objects reflect social relations between people.