Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Author-Name: Francesco Aqueci
Author-Email:
Author-Workplace-Name: Università di Messina - Dipartimento di Filosofia
Title: L’arbitrarietà della merce 
(The arbitrariness of the commodity)
Abstract: This paper deals with the question of the labour theory of value in the context of a genetic theory of
the social mind; by investigating the transformations of the commodity, our aim is to resume the concept
of alienation, in the belief that this particular category maintains its own validity in describing
the late-modern capitalism. In particular, Marx’s notion of exchange value of can be seen as the economic
side of a structural reality that was later independently discovered by Saussure in linguistics.
The sign and the commodity are therefore ruled by the same laws of difference and changeableness,
and generate an overall social alienation that makes public speaking problematic, even when, as in
Sraffa, the goods are reduced to a simple technological relationship. Hence the need to analyze the
subject/object relationship, as already done by Lukács, but in our case focusing on the ethical and ontological
aspects of this relationship
Classification-JEL: B50, B51
Keywords: merce; segno; strutturalismo; alienazione 
(commodity; sign; structuralism; alienation)
Journal: Il Pensiero Economico Italiano
Pages: 129-158
Volume: 17
Issue: 2
Year: 2009
File-URL: http://www.libraweb.net/articoli.php?chiave=200906302&rivista=63
Handle: RePEc:pei:journl:v:17:y:2009:2:7:p:129-158