Use-value is a purely formal, historically produced concept within political economy

Evidence

Material substance as such is not use-value; rather, use-value merely contains a ‘natural element’. The only things which can meaningfully be described as use-values are those whose utility constitutes an element of society, which is to say that use-value is itself a purely formal concept with an arbitrary relationship to the various qualities to which it is applied. Its ‘discovery’ is ‘the work of history’, as is claimed Capital. Use-value is not only ‘use value as such’, but is also ‘determined economic form’, and as such, it again enters into the ‘sphere of investigation of political economy’. — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1285

Categorization

• QUESTION: The claim that use-value is historically produced and ‘the work of history’ is hard to square with the intuition that usefulness is natural — worth chasing how this plays out in Adorno’s aesthetic theory.
• XREF: connects to: Use-value’s definition is circular within value-producing society. — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1277; Economic abstractions are historically determined, not universal or extra-historical; Emotions, education, and health become surplus value through formal subsumption — Grant Bollmer, Katherine Guinness, The Influencer Factory: A Marxist…, 103 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Economic abstractions are historically determined, not universal or extra-historical #expands (0.88)
• Use-value’s definition is circular within value-producing society. #expands (0.85) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1277
• Emotions, education, and health become surplus value through formal subsumption #exemplifies (0.80) — Grant Bollmer, Katherine Guinness, The Influencer Factory, 103
• Economic concepts actively constitute the economic behavior they describe #expands (0.75) — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 105