Value-form

The value-form or form of value (German: Wertform) is a concept in Marxist theory. It refers to the social form (a socially attributed status) of a commodity (any product traded in markets), which contrasts with the tangible use-value or utility (its "useful form" or "natural form") which it has, as a product which satisfies some human need. Marx seeks to provide a brief morphology of the category of economic value as such, with regard to its substance, the forms which this substance takes, and how its magnitude is determined or expressed.

Sources

Marx borrowed, criticized and developed the idea of the form of value from the Greek philosopher Aristotle, who pondered the nature of exchange value in chapter 5 of Book 5 in his Nicomachean Ethics. In so doing, Marx was also influenced by, and responding to, the classical political economy discourse about the economic laws governing commodity values and money, beginning with William Petty's Quantulumcunque Concerning Money (1682) and culminating with David Ricardo's Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (1817).