Marx response: Charles-Antoine, Charlotte, Jos

Karl Marx is describing his opinion that assigning value to objects is a bit ridiculous, unnatural (will not be seen in nature), and has a dangerous effect on people in the way that labour is what defines human quality. Marx expresses his disappointment in the fact that our society assigns value on people’s work based on the value of the commodity their labour will produce. The text expresses a fear of the potentially harmful effects of money concealing the social character of private labour; it was by analysing something's trade value that determined its value. Marx draws the parallel that something that is highly in demand should cause it to have more value.

Assigning value to objects appears in nature, even today. Although it does not appear in the form of diamonds or pearls, animals hide, hoard, and protect objects all of their lives: items which provide nourishment: in other words, food. And this includes all types of food, animals rarely eat one seed or bug or animal their entire lives; they make a choice, whether it be consciously or unconsciously. Gold may be valued more than iron only because of its anti-oxidizing properties, which attributes to its beauty. Marx mentioned that unnecessary commodities are just that and are produced only through a state of commodity ‘Fetishism’. He suggests that people should have a functional and practical use in society in order to have something to trade for, that they cannot produce themselves. So what does he consider being useful and useless? Without the production of unnecessary commodities such as duplicates (branding), Marx forgets or simply fails to mention, that there would be no choice, and thus no freedom of.
It may be agreed, to a certain extent, that society values a person’s labour based on the end-result ‘commodity’. However, such a concept is not always so ridiculous as Marx suggests. A commodity may be more than a material product, i.e. a skill, like the skill to perform surgery. How does the work of a surgeon differ from that of a custodian? According to this text, it does not. The work is both required in society: to heal and repair the unwell and to maintain a clean and thus healthy environment. Agreed. But should not years of study, training and promotions to larger responsibilities be rewarded? It is naïve to assume that all surgeons endure such intensive and extensive training out of the goodness of their hearts alone. If such work, including study and training, is valued equally and is then paid equally to all others, it is not so far-fetched to say that the world will lose a lot of surgeons. Removing the praise that we give as a society to the hard work and excellent skill of a surgeon and other highly regarded professions, removes the motivation in entering this profession as well. Is it wrong for society to reward those who choose hard labour, physically or mentally, depending on the ‘commodity’, or service, that results? Not at all: like a pat on the back after a hard day. The only danger here is that we are often unable to make such rankings fairly: who is to say that one person works harder than another? It is up to society to decide, and society does not always know what is best.

Question: Could we say that the principle of open-source software adheres to Marx's idea which stipulates that duplicates (branding) are unnecessary? Is it realistic to think of open-source for an analog world?