verðmyndum

Verðmyndir is Icelandic for price forms, a term used in political economy to describe the social forms in which value is expressed as prices within a capitalist market. The concept distinguishes between value, understood as the socially necessary labor time embodied in a commodity, and price, the monetary expression of that value in exchange.

In Marxist theory, the price form develops as commodities are traded and money emerges as a universal equivalent. The progression from simple price form to expanded and general price form traces how value becomes increasingly expressed through prices across many commodities, leading to a fully monetized system of exchange. Money thus functions not only as a medium of exchange but as a social organizer of value relations.

Price formation is rooted in production relations, property relations, and credit, and it is shaped by market dynamics such as supply and demand, competition, and institutional arrangements. Because price can diverge from underlying value, verðmyndir is often used to analyze how markets redistribute surplus, influence distribution, and reflect power structures within capitalism.

In Icelandic scholarship, the idea is employed to study how prices embody social relations and how monetary prices influence economic and social outcomes. While rooted in the broader theory of value and price, discussions of verðmyndir often emphasize the historical and institutional conditions under which price forms emerge and change.