I’m sure I’ve had this thought for years and I’m equally sure that this thought is not original to me. Human Use-Value (HUV). If I weren’t so lazy, I’m certain that, with a little research, I could find extensive Marxist literature on the idea of human beings as intra-personal capital. Not your classic idea of human capital–not the grist for the mill of bourgeois, capitalist exploitation–but something more psycho/sociological, a kind of use-value that we attribute to one another in the course of our human relationships vis à vis how important the subject is to the object at any given moment in any given interaction. I’ve been thinking about my own use-value of late and I realize that, in the hearts and minds of most of the people I interact with on a daily basis, I am essentially the human equivalent of a mortgage-backed security or the entire Greek economy. I do not, however, foresee an emotional TARP bailout or IMF loan coming my way any time soon.
A case in point: In the sphere of my human romantic relationships I now hold less UV than the pizza delivery boy or the guy bagging groceries (especially since the pizza boy and the bag boy are the same person, thus, double the UV). I am, I realize, measured only by (a) the amount of money ($) I can loan my significant other and/or (b) the frequency and quality of sexual interactions (O) I can provide the aforementioned other. I suppose the calculus of my UV, then, resembles this formula:
UVs = ($ + O)
In this example, then, I can provide some use value if I am providing either money or sex. I do, however, wonder if the equation is actually more in line with a formula where the Sisyphusian Use Value (UVs) is not a matter of the sum of money loaned or sexual interactions performed, but is instead represented by the product of the amount of money loaned and sexual interactions performed. In that case,
UVs = ($ * O)
While this variant of the equation has the potential to produce a significantly higher UV by virtue of multiplication, in my particular case this equation can be particularly troubling, because if I am unable to provide either monetary compensation ($=0) or sexual satisfaction (O=0), then my UV, by definition, equals zero.
My socio/sexual economic index (SSE) resembles the following: I am a single parent whose gross hourly income is approximately $18.50. I also have a series of minor health conditions–(un)Lyme Disease, recent emergency gall bladder removal, anxiety, mild depression, and fifteen years of slothfulness. I live above the poverty line and can, more or less, function normally as a physical entity with some minor limitations (chronic fatigue, frequent irritability, an immune system that plays defense like the Run TMC Warriors of old). In short, I feel like a typical American citizen, struggling to live but living nonetheless. Regarding my place on the SSE Index, I earn approximately enough money to support myself and my child and my heath concerns do not render me incapable of sexual function or desire. I am, however, beholden to the rigors of an exploitative work place and the needs of single-parenting a precocious toddler. What little time, money, desire, and energy I have left over, though, I freely give to the people in my life who ask of it. This approach, apparently, is not sufficient for my significant other. Given my finite income and my limited free time I am afraid I have begun racking up a dangerously low UV, so low, in fact, that I am beginning to wonder if I am really of any use to my significant other at all, especially given the binomial nature of our particular equation.
I realize there are any number of variables that could fit the UV equation. The variables are unique to each relationship and each person; they also change over time. It just sucks, though, knowing that my own particular UVs has been reduced to ($*O).
