Tony Hughes – Exchange-Value and Use in Psychoanalysis
 
THE LETTER 15 (Spring 1999) pages 84-89
 
One of the topics dealt with in the seminar on the Logic of Phantasy concerns the question as to whether or not, at the level of the unconscious, we are structured as male or female subjects. In order to tease out this idea Lacan initially refers to Marx’s discussion on the value and its subsystem of use-value and exchange-value.
 
In order to give an understanding of Marx, I believe it best to let him speak for himself, for it is not possible for me to gild that lily.
 
Use-value derives from the material properties of a commodity, such as the ability of a watch to tell the time, or a car to get us to our destination.Exchange-value is related to use-value in a quantitative relation and represents the proportion in which the use- value of one commodity is exchanged for the use-value of another commodity. This relation changes constantly with time and place and appears to be something accidental and purely relative, and consequently an intrinsic value, that is, an exchange value that is inseperably connected with the commodity, inherent in it, seems a contradiction in terms. If, for example, a kilo of wheat is exchanged for x boot-polish, y silk or z gold etc., this is in effect done so in the most diverse proportions.