Now, I can’t see you – this is a YouTube video – you could be wearing a top-end tuxedo
or nothing at all at the moment.
But, indulge me for a second so we can play out this scenario.
I’m gonna assume that you, my attractive friend, are wearing a hat.
It’s absolutely gorgeous.
I’m jealous and want my own.
I tell you “Nice hat”, then ask “How much are you gonna sell it for?”, to which
you respond like any normal human would “Feck off, Paul.
This is my personal property – I’m not selling it.
This hat is to be used, not exchanged.
Take that commodity trade nonsense elsewhere.”
Now, I’m understandably heartbroken at having been shut down and run home with my tail between
my legs – all dreams of ever owning such a gorgeous hat myself having been thoroughly
crushed by your cruel words.
But on the way back, I pass by a shop and see that very same type of gorgeous hat in
the window for sale.
Excited, I run inside and pick it up.
The shop-owner is alarmed and sternly warns me, “Put that hat down, it’s the company’s
private property.
If you want it, you’re gonna have to pay for it”.
Now, naturally, I’m baffled.
I was assured that this hat was personal property and was thus meant to be used, now I’m being
told that it’s private property – and that if I want access to its warm ___ embrace,
then I’ll have to exchange money for it.
How can it be, that the purpose of this hat for you, my attractive friend, is Use, while
its purpose for the shop-owner is Exchange…?
That it can be either Personal Property or Private Property, depending on who owns it
and what their intentions for it are…?
Well, let’s get to the bottom of this.
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So, we’ve run into some difficulty here.
The gorgeous hat seems to be both personal property and private property – it has “use-value”
(in its usefulness as a protector of my head against the cruelty of the wind and the rain,
as well as looking stylish as fuck) but it also has “exchange-value” (in that it
can be exchanged for a certain price on the market).
Hmmm….
Well, in fact, this is one of the most basic building blocks of the capitalist system:
the commodity.
And a key feature of commodities is that they possess both use-value and exchange-value.
They can be both personal property and private property.
However, they’re produced primarily for exchange (as private property to make profits
for capitalists), and secondarily produced for use, to become personal property.
This goes for all commodities produced under the capitalist mode of production from food,
to clothing, to Nintendos.
If you look at the place you’re living right now, whether that’s an apartment, a house,
or anything else, for you this has use-value or usefulness: for you, it’s shelter, it
keeps you warm, protected, you get to relax with friends and family, get drunk, talk socialism,
etc.
But your home likely wasn’t created primarily for that purpose.
Your home was created to make a profit for private capitalists.
It was created primarily to be the private property of the bourgeoisie that would be
exchanged and make them more money.
Okay, so now we can see that there’s a fundamental difference emerging between how the working-class
proletariat engages with personal property (your home as a place to live), and how the
capitalist bourgeoisie engages with private property (that home they acquired solely to
make profit).
In fact, let’s take a moment to clearly map out these differences.
In the last video, we talked about labour power.
This is also a commodity as it possesses use-value (in its ability to produce) as well as exchange-value
(as capitalists purchase it from us for a certain price in the form of wages and salaries).
For most working-class people, we sell our labour power, our commodity (C), to bosses.
In return for this, our bosses give us a little bit of money (M).
We then take this money that we receive from our wage or salary and use that to purchase
commodities (C) for us to use – like food, clothes, toothbrushes etc.
This is the C-M-C circuit that the working-class engages in.
We have our commodity, labour power, that we sell for money, and with that money we
purchase more commodities.
C-M-C.
Capitalists, on the other hand, operate not on this C-M-C circuit, but on an inverted
the M-C-M circuit.
The capitalist circuit begins with money (M), which they use to purchase commodities (C),
primarily labour power, in order to get back more money (M).
And importantly, that final M includes the initial sum of money invested PLUS profit
that has been generated through labour power (we can signify the presence of this added
profit with M-prime (M’)).
Capitalists can then take this profit and use it to purchase more commodities, to get
more profit, to purchase even more commodities, and so on and so on *sniff*, virtually into
infinity.
Give yourself an aul’ pat on the back; you’ve just learned the General Formula of Capital:
M-C-M.
Now this is the simplified version of the capitalist circuit – there are a few more
steps in between that we’ll return to in a later video.
But we can see from this already that the proletariat (on the C-M-C circuit) and the
bourgeoisie (on the M-C-M’ circuit) interact quite differently with property.
The proletariat acquires personal property for us to use.
The bourgeoisie acquires private property for exchange in order to make more profits.
Communists seek to abolish private property, not personal property.
We seek to abolish Exchange value, and instead produce exclusively for Use.
To, as the old saying goes, abolish the commodity form.
Now, onto the ever-pressing question of toothbrushes…
Yes, you get to keep your toothbrush personal use.
But if there are capitalists who are producing toothbrushes for profit, for exchange, then
you better believe we’re gonna track them down and redistribute those toothbrushes for
the good of the people.
The people's toothbrushes.
Today we’ve looked at the difference between Personal Property and Private Property.
As a general rule, personal property is the property that we possess in order to actually
use (use-values).
Private property, on the other hand, is property that we possess for the purpose of making
profits (exchange-values).
We’ve also mapped out the ways in which workers and capitalists relate to commodities,
either on the proletarian C-M-C circuit or the bourgeois M-C-M’ circuit: the General
Formula of Capital.
Next up, that burning question of our time; “What is capitalism?”
Thank you for watching this video – hopefully you’ve found it useful.
For more on housing and the question of use-value and exchange-value, I strongly recommend checking
out the second episode of Space Babies’ Marx in the House series, linked in the description
box below.
If you’re able to support this work, please consider donating a euro or dollar per month
on Patreon, or a once-off donation on Ko-Fi.
Links in the description box below.
Thank you to Rare Hero, Cormac Ó Broin, Dan Hunter, Red Corridor Raya, Christian Nipales,
Comrade Romano, Jason, Michaela Schmid, Mammarius Hex, Ryan Hodgson, Donal O Coisdealbha, Gabriel
Bailey, lepanneän (leh-PAH-neigh-uhn), Hugh Jass, the rjienrlwey condition, Jess, Ian
McShea, Libertarian Stalinist, Dan Hunter, soup, Pontus, Colm Walsh, Hagen Michels, Evan
Crossland, “..”, Boricua Guerilla, Roja and Daniel Hamilton.
I wouldn’t be able to make these videos without yous and I certainly wouldn’t be
able to pay my bills.
Cheers, everyone.
Slán go Fóill.