Value-form

The value-form or form of value (German: Wertform) is an important concept in Karl Marx's critique of political economy, discussed in the first three chapters of Capital, Volume 1 (a book first published in 1867). It refers to the social form of tradeable things as units of value, which contrast with their tangible features, as objects which can satisfy human needs and wants or serve a useful purpose. The physical appearance or the price tag of a traded object may be directly observable, but the meaning of its social form (as an object of value) is not. Marx intended to correct errors made by the classical economists in their definitions of exchange, value, money and capital, by showing more precisely how these economic categories evolved out of the development of trading relations themselves.

Playfully narrating the "metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties" of ordinary things when they become instruments of trade, Marx provides a brief social morphology of economic value — what its substance really is, the forms which this substance takes, and how its magnitude is determined or expressed. He analyzes the evolution of the form of value in the first instance by considering the meaning of the simple value-relationship that exists between two quantities of traded objects. He then shows how, as the exchange process develops, it gives rise to the money-form of value – which facilitates trade, by providing standard units of exchange value.