use value

English

Alternative forms

• use-value

Etymology

Calque of German Gebrauchswert.

Noun

use value (plural use values)

1. (economics, especially Marxism) The ability of an object (not necessarily a commodity) to satisfy a human need; a utility.
   1. (economics, especially Marxism) An object with such ability.
      • 1887, Karl Marx, “Commodities”, in Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling, transl., edited by Frederick [i.e., Friedrich] Engels, Capital: A Critical Analysis of Capitalist Production: Translated from the Third German Edition, volume I, London: Swan Sonnenschein, Lowrey, & Co., […], →OCLC, part I (Commodities and Money), section 1 (The Two Factors of a Commodity: Use-Value and Value (The Substance of Value and the Magnitude of Value)), page 2:

        The utility of a thing makes it a use-value. But this utility is not a thing of air. Being limited by the physical properties of the commodity, it has no existence apart from that commodity. A commodity, such as iron, corn, or a diamond, is therefore, so far as it is a material thing, a use-value, something useful. This property of a commodity is independent of the amount of labour required to appropriate its useful qualities.

      • 1970 [1915], Vladimir Lenin, “Marx's Economic Doctrine”, in Karl Marx: A Brief Biographical Sketch with an Exposition of Marxism, Foreign Languages Press, page 19:

        A commodity is, in the first place, a thing that satisfies a human want; in the second place, it is a thing that can be exchanged for another thing. The utility of a thing makes it a use-value. Exchange-value (or simply, value) presents itself first of all as the ratio, the proportion, in which a certain number of use-values of one sort are exchanged for a certain number of use-values of another sort.

Coordinate terms

• exchange value

Translations

Translations

• Chinese: 使用價值／使用价值 (zh) (shǐyòng jiàzhí)
• Spanish: valor de uso m