‘transcendent’ and ‘immanent’. Such dichotomies or
dualisms, though they take the form of binary pairs or
verbal distinctions need not necessarily be understood as
contradictory opposites or antonyms. The specific
theoretical language or ‘discourse’ of Marxism itself for
example, though it revolves around a basic set of binary
verbal distinctions or dichotomies such as ‘use value and
exchange value’, ‘base and superstructure’, ‘man and
nature’, ‘idealism’ and ‘materialism’, ‘scientific’ and
‘utopian’ socialism etc., understands each term as
inseparable from its other – whilst the Marxist theoretical
framework as a whole is precisely intended to serve the
purpose of exploring the historical evolution and
transformations resulting from their inner ‘dialectical’
relation. It is to this purpose that we owe Marx’s historic
analysis of the relation between the use-value and exchange
value of a commodity. This begins on the level of simple
barter of commodities, progresses through the simple
market relation defined by the triadic formula ‘C-M-C’
(commodities being sold for money in order to purchase
other commodities) and ends up historically with capitalist
economies based on the formula ‘M-C-M’ – money
invested in commodities in order to obtain a monetary
return. At the same time the analysis of the commodity
form in its dual aspect of use- and exchange-value, shows
how the former use-value of things is progressively
subsumed by and made secondary to their exchange value
singke
(singke)
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