Marx, use value, and the Colosseum

Reading through the likes of Karl Marx’s ‘The Fetishism of commodities and the secret thereof’ sheds a few glimmers of light on the trappings of use value. Here he presents us with the idea of a metaphysical conflict, a battle, between our grasp of the concept of ‘use value’. Is the value of a commodity marked by the labour, or even travails, expended in its production? Or is it simply marked by the use as perceived by the recipient?


If we look at the properties of certain objects or commodities “from the point that those properties are the product of human labour”, then a glittering example of toil and graft from a significant body of men producing something worth its weight in gold would be the construction of Rome’s Flavian Amphitheatre (Colosseum). Its construction commenced in 72AD and finished in 80AD, spanning 8 years in human labour and requiring thousands of skilled labourers and slaves to produce such a structure.
Though always an aesthetically pleasing amphitheatre (especially before devastating earthquakes and stone robbers left it partially ruined) it was neither originally nor primarily there for the public to bask in its splendorous structure or to admire the human labour exerted its construction. Never more so than when it housed mock sea battles, animal hunts and re-enactments of famous battles did it act as a true commodity, a source of entertainment, an object of desire; its value marked by recipients concept of its value towards their social lives.
In the present day, when the Colosseum no longer houses spectacles but is simply a spectacle itself, it draws in around 3.9 million tourists each year. Our concept of its value is now transferred to the rich fruits of labour involved, the iconoclastic nature of the architecture involved. It is an iconic symbol of Imperial Rome, and whilst the people involved in its construction at the time were merely put upon slaves, they are now greatly admired and their architectural endeavour induces awe.
The value of commodities is perceived differently by everybody, but each perception is cut from the same cloth and is undoubtedly connected.