Aristotle versus Marx: Modes of Use, Use Value or Useful Object?

In the first three pages of his Capital, without any warning to the reader, Marx introduces a modification of the traditional meaning of the term “use value”. For Locke, Quesnay, and Smith, “use value” was the ability of a thing to satisfy human needs, for Marx it becomes the thing itself. This change of meaning has not been properly perceived, and many authors continue to attribute to Marx the same conception of use value than his predecessors have. When Marx translates some passages of Aristotle’s Politics from English to German, his translation surprisingly attributes the term “use value” to Aristotle; worse, Marx does not attribute to Aristotle the predominant meaning of this term but the new meaning adopted by him. This note offers a brief history of the term “use value”, summarizes the significant change of meaning introduced by Marx, conjectures about the possible motivations of Marx to act this way, and finally documents the amazing translation of Marx.