Editing Use value (section)

== Origin of the concept ==
The concepts of value, use value, utility, exchange value and price have a very long history in economic and philosophical thought. From [[Aristotle]] to [[Adam Smith]] and [[David Ricardo]], their meanings have evolved.  Smith recognized that commodities may have an exchange-value but may satisfy no use-value, such as diamonds, while a commodity with a very high use-value may have a very low exchange-value, such as water.  Marx comments for example that "in English writers of the 17th century we frequently find ''worth'' in the sense of value in use, and ''value'' in the sense of exchange-value."<ref>{{cite web | editor-first=Karl | editor-last=Marx | title= Capital  | volume = I, Chapter 1, Note 4. |  work = referring to John Locke, "Some Considerations on the consequences of the lowering of interest, 1691," in Works Edit. London, 1777. Vol. II, p. 28.| url= http://www.efm.bris.ac.uk/het/marx/cap1/chap01 |access-date = 18 May 2009}}</ref> With the expansion of market economy, however, the focus of economists has increasingly been on prices and price-relations, the social process of exchange as such being assumed to occur as a naturally given fact.{{fact|date=January 2024}}

In ''The [[Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844]]'', Marx emphasizes that the use-value of a labour-product is practical and objectively determined;<ref>Karl Marx, Capital I, Chapter 1, two paragraphs starting "The utility of a thing makes it a use value." http://www.efm.bris.ac.uk/het/marx/cap1/chap01 accessed 18 May 2009.</ref> that is, it inheres in the intrinsic characteristics of a product that enable it to satisfy a [[human need]] or want. The use-value of a product therefore exists as a material reality according to social needs regardless of the individual need of any particular person. The use-value of a commodity is specifically a [[social]] use-value, meaning that it has a generally accepted use-value for others in society, and not just for the producer.{{fact|date=January 2024}}