“Moral Depreciation”,“Wear and Tear,” and the Value-Determinations of Knowledge-Intensive Commodities: Recovering Marx’s Original Ideas

The Marxian notions of “wear and tear” and “moral depreciation” have been employed in the scholarly debate on the value-determinations of knowledge-intensive commodities (KICs) to account for their alleged “peculiar cost structure”. The latter refers to the substantial disparity between the high costs incurred in the production of the first unit or “prototype” of KICs, on the one hand, and the relatively negligible costs associated with the generation of their subsequent copies, on the other. This paper examines the relevant literature to elucidate whether “moral depreciation” and “wear and tear” have been utilized in a manner consistent with Marx’s own analysis. His original account is reconstructed through an exegetical reading of key passages found across the three volumes of Capital. It is demonstrated that Marx’s original ideas have been misinterpreted and distorted, resulting in an inaccurate and unrealistic characterization of the value-determinations of KICs. The paper also challenges the idea that the “peculiar cost structure” is a distinctive feature of KICs, thereby suggesting that the entire debate may be misplaced. This contribution adds to the growing body of Marxist scholarship that affirms the actuality and validity of the core categories of Marx and Engels’s Critique of Political Economy under contemporary capitalist conditions of production.