You want to discuss diminishing marginal utility, which is okay. It is a stretch to use that meme in regard to money, since they have [it has] no direct utility, but I guess you could apply it to value itself if it is large enough, except it does not seem to work that way in practice. The very rich seem to be just as eager to keep and expand their wealth as a poor one. Anyway it does not touch the problem of money value being real, or representing what you migh get for the money. Ah...It seems this was your point. Ok I get it. Money value does not seem to diminish, therefore there is a fundamental difference. I am ok with that, except that the money value is not therefore in any way unreal, or representing something else. The difference is just the exchange value contra the direct use value, general value contra the more specific. Maybe we are mostly in agreement.
Money has "direct" utility (note that I am double-quoting the word
direct, since it makes no sense), which I explained earlier. And exactly towards this utility I was suggesting to apply the law of diminishing marginal utility. As i said, I don't think that the utility of money ("direct use value") abides by this law, but I haven't given this idea much thought myself. In fact, I was hoping that someone would pick it up and give us a proof (or a rebuttal) that I would just agree with...
I'm using your terminology but it is superfluous and only further confuses things ("direct use value", "exchange value", and the like)
Here we go again. How can it be possible for money to have direct utility, when you have in detail described what direct utility is ("something that you can eat, figuratively speaking"). How can direct not be a useful word. Either you can utilize the money directly, or you have to make a trade before you can utilize the value? The trade is the limit between the direct and indirect utility. Indirect utility -> trade -> direct utility. You transform the indirect value of the money to something useful using a trade.