Wertform

Wertform, also called the value form, is the social form in which the value of commodities is expressed. In Marx’s critique of political economy, commodities possess use-value and exchange-value; value represents a form of social labor embodied in a thing, and the Wertform denotes how this value is represented in exchange.

The elementary form occurs in the simplest exchange, where one commodity is valued directly in terms of another, as in “a coat is worth 20 yards of linen.” This direct comparison reveals the social relation of labor through a concrete, observable ratio between two commodities.

The expanded form generalizes value across many commodities, each expressed in terms of a single commodity. The general form culminates in the money form, where money becomes the universal equivalent and all values are expressed in money terms.

The Wertform analysis helps explain how social relations of production appear as relations between things, and it underpins the concept of commodity fetishism by showing that value relations are reified in the market. It also distinguishes value—the socially necessary labor time embodied in a use-value—from price, the monetary expression of that value.

In Capital, Marx traces the historical development from simple exchange to a money-based economy, laying groundwork for later discussions of surplus-value and prices of production. Wertform remains a methodological lens for examining value as a social form rather than an intrinsic property of objects.