ABSTRACT
In a Marxist approach, unequal exchange concerns the essential dimension of value, and it can be defined as a systematic divergence between value created in production and value realized in circulation. The potential for this decoupling arises from the dual character of abstract labour as a substance of value, constituting the specific social form assumed by social labour in capitalism. Abstract labour is at the same time social labour necessary for production and social labour necessary for satisfying social needs. The real abstraction of value, acting as a social algorithm of equivalence in market exchange, determines the coherent division of social labour between private producers in capitalism. The dual nature of abstract labour is reflected in the dual nature of exchange value, as its social form of expression resulting from the social algorithm of value. The dualism of exchange value determines a correspondingly dual measure of its magnitude, the intrinsic measure as abstract labour time objectified in production, and the extrinsic measure as a given market exchange ratio with other commodities. The existence of two measures of exchange value, one extrinsic and visible and the other intrinsic and invisible, makes possible the discordance between them, thus giving rise to non-equivalent market exchange.
