values, commodities are, above all, of different qualities, but as exchange-values they are merely different quantities and consequently do not contain an atom of use-value. If, then, we leave out of consideration the use-value of commodities, they have only one common property left, that of being products of labor. But even the product of labor itself has undergone a change in our hands. If we make abstraction from its use-value we make abstraction at the same time from the material elements and shapes that make the product a use-value; we see in it no longer a table, a house, yarn, or any other useful thing. Its existence as a material thing is put out of sight. Neither can it any longer be regarded as the product of the labor of the joiner, the mason, the spinner, or of any other definite kind of productive labor. Along with the useful qualities of the products themselves, we put out of sight both the useful character of the various kinds of labor embodied in them, and the concrete forms of that labor, there is nothing left but what is common to them all; all are reduced to one and the same sort of labor, human labor in the abstract."
To which Böhm-Bawerk: "How is that? Where is the difference between labor and utility? While it is true that in the exchange relation of commodities the particularly useful qualities of the articles exchanged do not matter, the general usefulness of the commodities is not abstracted from. On the contrary, it remains common to them all. It does not matter whether the commodity can be used as an eatable, wearing-apparel, or for shelter, but it does matter that it be of some use, of use in general. Why, then, is utility rejected as a cause and measure of exchange-value, why is it 'abstracted' from? Again, when considering labor Marx is compelled to abstract from the particular kind of labor contained in the commodity, so that what is left to all commodities in common is general labor, labor in the abstract. Just as there still remains in common to all of them general usefulness, usefulness in the abstract. Why, then, this partiality for labor as against usefulness? Where is
