Marx, exchange-value is inherent in a commodity, or that it is independent of its usefulness. Marx, as we have already seen, specifically says that exchange-value is not something inherent in a commodity, that it could not be inherent in it, for it changes with social relations; that the whole thing is merely the expression of a social relation and appears only under a certain social system. Marx also says specifically, as also already stated, that no commodity can have exchange-value without its having use-value, that use-value is the substratum of exchange-value, although it is neither its cause nor its measure. But then,—Marx contradicts himself! Poor Marx! he contradicts himself so much and so radically that one is forced to the conclusion that he must have been a raving maniac, and one is surprised to see the big regiment of these very learned and clever gentlemen bothering with the scribblings of such a poor wretch.
Böhm-Bawerk, who thinks that Marx's was one of the greatest minds that applied themselves to this subject, also finds great comfort in Marx's supposed neglect of usefulness as influencing the exchange-value of commodities. He does not say that Marx contradicts himself, but he thinks that he caught Marx in a mental faux pas. Indeed, this is one of the greatest, if not the chief point, in his whole argument against Marx's analysis of a commodity, by which he arrives at his labor theory of value. Marx says:
"The exchange-values of commodities must be capable of being expressed in terms of something common to them all, of which thing they represent a greater or less quantity. This common "something" can not be either a geometrical, a chemical, or any other natural property of commodities. Such properties claim our attention only in so far as they affect the utility of these commodities, make them use-values. But the exchange of commodities is evidently an act characterized by a total abstraction from use-value. Then one use-value is just as good as another, provided, only, it be present in sufficient quantity. . . . As use-
