 Chapter 1, Section 3, Part 1, of Capital Volume 1 this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer visit LibriVox.org this reading by Karl Manchester 2007 Capital Volume 1 by Karl Marx Section 3 the form of value or exchange value commodities come into the world in the shape of use values articles or goods such as iron linen corn etc this is their plain homely bodily form they are however commodities only because they are something two-fold both objects of utility and at the same time depositories of value they manifest themselves therefore as commodities or have the form of commodities only in so far as they have two forms a physical or natural form and a value form the reality of the value of commodities differs in this respect from Dame quickly that we don't know quote where to have it end quote the value of commodities is the very opposite of the course materiality of their substance not an atom of matter enters into its composition turn and examine a single commodity by itself as we will yet in so far as it remains an object of value it seems impossible to grasp it if however we bear in mind that the value of commodities has a purely social reality and that they acquire this reality only in so far as their expressions or embodiments of one identical social substance viz human labor it follows as a matter of course that value can only manifest itself in a social relation of commodity to commodity in fact we started from exchange value or the exchange relation of commodities in order to get at the value that lies hidden behind it we must now return to this form under which the value first appeared to us everyone knows if he knows nothing else that commodities have a value form common to them all and presenting a marked contrast with the varied bodily forms of their use values I mean their money form here however attests his setters the performance of which has never yet been attempted by bourgeois economy the task of tracing the genesis of this money form of developing the expression of value implied in the value relation of commodities from its simplest almost imperceptible outline to the dazzling money form by doing this we shall at the same time solve the riddle presented by money the simplest value relation is evidently that of one commodity to some one other commodity of a different kind hence the relation between the values of two commodities supplies us with the simplest expression of the value of a single commodity a elementary or accidental form of value x commodity a is worth y commodity b 20 yards of linen are worth one coat one the two poles of the expression of value relative form and equivalent form the whole mystery of the form of value lies hidden in this elementary form its analysis therefore is our real difficulty here two different kinds of commodities in our example the linen and the coat evidently play two different parts the linen expresses its value in the coat the coat serves as the material in which that value is expressed the former plays an active the latter a passive part the value of the linen is represented as relative value or appears in relative form the coat officiates as equivalent or appears in equivalent form the relative form and the equivalent form are two intimately connected mutually dependent and inseparable elements of the expression of value but at the same time a mutually exclusive antagonistic extremes i.e. poles of the same expression they are allotted respectively to the two different commodities brought into relation by that expression it is not possible to express the value of linen in linen 20 yards of linen equals 20 yards of linen is no expression of value on the contrary such an equation merely says that 20 yards of linen and nothing else than 20 yards of linen a definite quantity of the use value linen the value of the linen can therefore be expressed only relatively i.e. in some other commodity the relative form of the value of the linen presupposes therefore the presence of some other commodity here the coat under the form of an equivalent on the other hand the commodity that figures as the equivalent cannot at the same time assume the relative form that second commodity is not the one whose value is expressed its function is merely to serve as the material in which the value of the first commodity is expressed no doubt the expression at 20 yards of linen equals one coat or 20 yards of linen or worth one coat implies the opposite relation one coat equals 20 yards of linen or one coat is worth 20 yards of linen but in that case I must reverse the equation in order to express the value of the coat relatively and so soon as I do that the linen becomes the equivalent instead of the coat a single commodity cannot therefore simultaneously assume in the same expression of value both forms the very polarity of these forms makes them mutually exclusive whether then a commodity assumes the relative form or the opposite equivalent form depends entirely upon its accidental position in the expression of value that is upon whether it is the commodity whose value is being expressed or the commodity in which value is being expressed to the relative form of value a the nature and import of this form in order to discover how the elementary expression of the value of a commodity lies hidden in the value relation of two commodities we must in the first place consider the latter entirely apart from its quantitative aspect the usual mode of procedure is generally the reverse and in the value relation nothing is seen but the proportion between definite quantities of two different sorts of commodities that are considered equal to each other it is apt to be forgotten that the magnitudes of different things can be compared quantitatively only when those magnitudes are expressed in terms of the same unit it is only as expressions of such a unit that they are of the same denomination and therefore commensurable footnote the few economists amongst whom is s Bailey who have occupied themselves with the analysis of the form of value have been unable to arrive at any result first because they confuse the form of value with value itself and second because under the course influence of the practical bourgeois they exclusively give their attention to the quantitative aspects of the question quote the command of quantity constitutes value end quote money in its vicissitudes London 1837 by s Bailey and footnote whether 20 yards of linen equals one coat or equals 20 coats or equals X coats that is whether a given quantity of linen is worth few or many coats every such statement implies that the linen and coats as magnitudes of value are expressions of the same unit things of the same kind linen equals coat is the basis of the equation but the two commodities whose identity of quality is thus assumed do not play the same part it is only the value of the linen that is expressed and how by its reference to the coat as its equivalent as something that can be exchanged for it in this relation the coat is the mode of existence of value is value embodied for only as such is it the same as the linen on the other hand the linens own value comes to the front receives independent expression for it is only as being value that it is comparable with the coat as a thing of equal value or exchangeable with the coat to borrow an illustration from chemistry butyric acid is a different substance from proper format yet both are made up of the same chemical substances carbon C hydrogen H and oxygen O and that too in like proportions namely C4H8O2 if we now equate butyric acid to proper format then in the first place proper format would be in this relation merely a form of existence of C4H8O2 and in the second place we should be stating that butyric acid also consists of C4H8O2 therefore by thus equating the two substances expression would be given to their chemical composition while they different physical forms would be neglected if we say that as values commodities and mere conglulations of human labor we reduce them by our analysis it is true to the abstraction value but we ascribe to this value no form apart from their bodily form it is otherwise in the value relation of one commodity to another here the one stands forth in its character of value by reason of its relation to the other by making the coat the equivalent of the linen we equate the labor embodied in the former to that in the latter now it is true that the tailoring which makes the coat is concrete labor of a different sort from the weaving which makes the linen but the act of equating it to the weaving reduces the tailoring to that which is really equal in the two kinds of labor to their common character of human labor in this roundabout way then the fact is expressed that weaving also in so far as it weaves value has nothing to distinguish it from tailoring and consequently is abstract human labor it is the expression of equivalence between different sorts of commodities that alone brings into relief the specific character of value creating labor and this it does by actually reducing the different varieties of labor embodied in the different kinds of commodities to their common quality of human labor in the abstract footnote the celebrated Franklin one of the first economists after William Petty who saw through the nature of value says quote trade in general being nothing else but the exchange of labor for labor the value of all things is most justly measured by labor end quote the works of Franklin etc edited by sparks boston 1836 volume two Franklin is unconscious that by estimating the value of everything in labor he makes abstraction from any difference in the sorts of labor exchanged and thus reduces them all to equal human labor but although ignorant of this yet he says it he speaks first of quote the one labor end quote then of quote the other labor end quote and finally of quote labor quote without further qualification as the substance of the value of everything end footnote there is however something else required beyond the expression of the specific character of the labor of which the value of the linen consists human labor power in motion or human labor creates value but is not itself value it becomes value only in its congealed state when embodied in the form of some object in order to express the value of the linen as a conglulation of human labor that value must be expressed as having objective existence as being something materially different from the linen itself and yet as something common to the linen and all other commodities the problem is already solved when occupying the position of equivalent in the equation of value the coat ranks quantitatively as the equal of the linen as something of the same kind because it is value in this position it is a thing in which we see nothing but value or whose palpable bodily form represents value yet the coat itself the body of the commodity coat is a mere use value a coat as such no more tells us it is value than does the first piece of linen we take hold of this shows that when placed in value relation to the linen the coat signifies more than when out of that relation just as many a man strutting about in a gorgeous uniform counts for no more than when in Mufti in the production of the coat human labor power in the shape of tailoring must have been actually expended human labor is therefore accumulated in it in this aspect the coat is a depository of value but though worn to a thread it does not let this fact show through and as equivalent of the linen in the value equation it exists under this aspect alone counts therefore as embodied value as a body that is value a for instance cannot be your majesty to be unless at the same time majesty in b's eyes assumes the bodily form of a and what is more with every new father of the people changes its features hair and many other things besides hence in the value equation in which the coat is the equivalent of the linen the coat officiates as the form of value the value of the commodity linen is expressed by the bodily form of the commodity coat the value of one by the use value of the other as a use value the linen is something palpably different from the coat as value it is the same as the coat and now has the appearance of a coat thus the linen acquires a value form different from its physical form the fact that it is value is made manifest by its equality with the coat just as the sheep's nature of a christian is shown in his resemblance to the lamb of god we see then all that our analysis of the value of commodities has already told us is told us by the linen itself so soon as it comes into communication with another commodity the coat only it betrays its thoughts in that language with which alone it is familiar the language of commodities in order to tell us that its own worth value is created by labor in its abstract character of human labor it says that the coat insofar as it is worth as much as the linen and therefore is value consists of the same labor as the linen in order to inform us that its sublime reality as value is not the same as its bookran body it says that the value has the appearance of a coat and consequently that so far as the linen is value it and the coat are as like as two peas we may hear remark that the language of commodities has besides Hebrew many more or less correct dialects the German verstein to be worth for instance expresses in a less striking manner than the romance verbs valere valer valoir that the equating of commodity b to commodity a is commodity a's own mode of expressing its value paris vaut bien une messe by means therefore of the value relation expressed in our equation the bodily form of commodity b becomes the value form of commodity a or the body of commodity b acts as a mirror to the value of commodity a footnote in a sort of way it is with man as with commodities since he comes into the world neither with a looking glass in his hand nor as a fictinian philosopher to whom i am i is sufficient man first seeks and recognizes himself in other men peter only establishes his own identity as a man by first comparing himself with paul as being of like kind and thereby paul just as he stands in his pauline personality becomes to peter the type of the genus homo end footnote by putting itself in relation with commodity b as value in proporia persona as the matter of which human labor is made up the commodity a converts the value in use b into the substance in which to express its a's own value the value of a thus expressed in the use value of b has taken the form of relative value b quantitative determination of relative value every commodity whose value it is intended to express is a useful object of given quantity as 15 bushels of corn or 100 pounds of coffee and a given quantity of any commodity contains a definite quantity of human labor the value form must therefore not only express value generally but also value in definite quantity therefore in the value relation of commodity a to commodity b of the linen to the coat not only is the latter as value in general made the equal in quality of the linen but a definite quantity of coat one coat is made the equivalent of a definite quantity 20 yards of linen the equation 20 yards of linen equals one coat or 20 yards of linen are worth one coat implies that the same quantity of value substance congealed labor is embodied in both that the two commodities have each cost the same amount of labor of the same quantity of labor time but the labor time necessary for the production of 20 yards of linen or one coat varies with every change in the productiveness of weaving or tailoring we have now to consider the influence of such changes on the quantitative aspect of the relative expression of value one let the value of the linen vary that of the coat remaining constant footnote value is here as occasionally in the preceding pages used in the sense of value determined as to quantity or of magnitude of value end footnote if say in consequence of the exhaustion of flax growing soil the labor time necessary for the production of the linen be doubled the value of the linen will also be doubled instead of the equation 20 yards of linen equals one coat we should have 20 yards of linen equals two coats since one coat would now contain only half the labor time embodied in 20 yards of linen if on the other hand in consequence say of improved looms this labor time be reduced by one half the value of the linen would fall by one half consequently we should have 20 yards of linen equals half a coat the relative value of commodity a i.e its value expressed in commodity b rises and falls directly as the value of a the value of b being supposed constant two let the value of the linen remain constant while the value of the coat varies if under these circumstances in consequence for instance of a poor crop of wool the labor time necessary for the production of a coat becomes doubled we have instead of 20 yards of linen equals one coat 20 yards of linen equals half a coat if on the other hand the value of the coat sinks by one half then 20 yards of linen equals two coats hence if the value of commodity a remain constant its relative value expressed in commodity b rises and falls inversely as the value of b if we compare the different cases in one and two we see that the same change of magnitude in relative value may arise from totally opposite causes thus the equation 20 yards of linen equals one coat becomes 20 yards of linen equals two coats either because the value of the linen has doubled or because the value of the coat has fallen by one half and it becomes 20 yards of linen equals half a coat either because the value of the linen has fallen by one half or because the value of the coat has doubled three let the quantities of labor time respectively necessary for the production of the linen and the coat vary simultaneously in the same direction and in the same proportion in this case 20 yards of linen continue to equal one coat however much their values have altered their change of value is seen as soon as they are compared with the third commodity whose value has remained constant if the values of all commodities rose and fell simultaneously and in the same proportion their relative values would remain unaltered their real change of value would appear from the diminished or increased quantity of commodities produced in a given time four the labor time respectively necessary for the production of the linen and the coat and therefore the value of these commodities may simultaneously vary in the same direction but at unequal rates or in opposite directions or in other ways the effect of all these possible different variations on the relative value of a commodity may be deduced from the results of one two and three thus real changes in the magnitude of value are neither unequivocally nor exhaustively reflected in their relative expression that is in the equation expressing the magnitude of relative value the relative value of a commodity may vary although its value remains constant its relative value may remain constant although its value varies and finally simultaneous variations in the magnitude of value and in that of its relative expression by no means necessarily correspond in amount footnote this incongruity between the magnitude of value and its relative expression has with customary ingenuity been exploited by vulgar economists for example quote once admit that a falls because b with which it is exchanged rises while no less labor is bestowed in the meantime on a and your general principle of value falls to the ground if he Ricardo allowed that when a rises in value relatively to b b falls in value relatively to a he cuts away the ground on which he rested his grand proposition that the value of a commodity is ever determined by the labor embodied in it for if a change in the cost of a alters not only its own value in relation to b for which it is exchanged but also the value of b relatively to that of a though no change has taken place in the quantity of labor to produce b then not only the doctrine falls to the ground which asserts that the quantity of labor bestowed on an article regulates its value but also that which affirms the cost of an article to regulate its value end quote j broadhurst political economy london 1842 mr broadhurst might just as well say considered the fractions 10 over 20 10 over 50 10 over 100 etc the number 10 remains unchanged and yet its proportional magnitude its magnitude relatively to the numbers 20 50 100 etc continually diminishes therefore the great principle that the magnitude of a whole number such as 10 is regulated by the number of times unity is contained in it falls to the ground editorial note the author explains in section four of this chapter what he understands by vulgar economy angles and editorial note and footnote three the equivalent form of value we have seen that commodity a the linen by expressing its value in the use value of a commodity differing in kind the coat at the same time impresses upon the latter a specific form of value namely that of the equivalent the commodity linen manifests its quality of having a value by the fact that the coat without having assumed a value form different from its bodily form is equated to the linen the fact that the latter therefore has a value is expressed by saying that the coat is directly exchangeable with it therefore when we say that the commodity is in the equivalent form we express the fact that it is directly exchangeable with other commodities when one commodity such as a coat serves as the equivalent of another such as linen and coats consequently acquire the characteristic property of being directly exchangeable with linen we are far from knowing in what proportion the two are exchangeable the value of the linen being given in magnitude the proportion depends on the value of the coat whether the coat serves as the equivalent and the linen as relative value or the linen as the equivalent of the coat as relative value the magnitude of the coat's value is determined independently of its value form by the labour time necessary for its production but whenever the coat assumes in the equation of value the position of equivalent its value acquires no quantitative expression on the contrary the commodity coat now figures only as a definite quantity of some article for instance 40 yards of linen a worth what two coats because the commodity coat here plays the part of equivalent because the use value of coat as opposed to the linen figures as an embodiment of value therefore a definite number of coats suffices to express the definite quantity of value in the linen two coats may therefore express the quantity of value of 40 yards of linen but they can never express the quantity of their own value a superficial observation of this fact namely that in the question of value the equivalent figures exclusively as a simple quantity of some article of some use value as misled Bailey as also many others both before and after him into seeing in the expression of value merely a quantitative relation the truth being that when a commodity acts as equivalent no quantitative determination of its value is expressed the first peculiarity that strikes us in considering the form of the equivalent is this use value becomes the form of manifestation the phenomenal form of its opposite value the bodily form of the commodity becomes its value form but mark well that this quid pro quo exists in the case of any commodity b only when some other commodity a enters into a value relation with it and then only within the limits of this relation since no commodity can stand in the relation of equivalent to itself and thus turn its own bodily shape into the expression of its own value every commodity is compelled to choose some other commodity for its equivalent and to accept the use value that is to say the bodily shape of that other commodity as the form of its own value one of the measures that we apply to commodities as material substances as use values will serve to illustrate this point a sugarloaf being a body is heavy and therefore has weight but we can neither see nor touch this weight we then take various pieces of iron whose weight has been determined beforehand the iron as iron is no more the form of manifestation of weight than is the sugarloaf nevertheless in order to express the sugarloaf as so much weight we put it into a weight relation with the iron in this relation the iron officiates as a body representing nothing but weight a certain quantity of iron therefore serves as the measure of the weight of the sugar and represents in relation to the sugarloaf weight embodied the form of manifestation of weight this part is played by the iron only within this relation into which the sugar or any other body whose weight has to be determined enters with the iron were they not both heavy they could not enter into this relation and the one could therefore not serve as the expression of the weight of the other when we throw both into the scales we see in reality that as weight they are both the same and that therefore when taken in proper proportions they have the same weight just as the substance iron as a measure of weight represents in relation to the sugarloaf weight alone so in our expression of value the material object coat in relation to the linen represents value alone here however the analogy ceases the iron in the expression of weight of the sugarloaf represents a natural property common to both bodies namely their weight but the coat in the expression of value of the linen represents a non-natural property of both something purely social namely their value since the relative form of value of a commodity the linen for example expresses the value of that commodity as being something wholly different from its substance and properties as being for instance coat like we see that this expression itself indicates that some social relation lies at the bottom of it with the equivalent form it is just the contrary the very essence of this form is that the material commodity itself the coat just as it is expresses value and is endowed with the form of value by nature itself of course this holds good only so long as the value relation exists in which the coat stands in the position of equivalent to the linen footnote such expressions of relations in general called by hagel reflex categories form a very curious class for instance one man is king only because other men stand in the relation of subjects to him they on the contrary imagined that they are subjects because he is king end footnote since however the properties of a thing are not the result of its relations to other things but only manifest themselves in such relations the coat seems to be endowed with its equivalent form its property of being directly exchangeable just as much by nature as it is endowed with the property of being heavy or the capacity to keep us warm hence the enigmatic character of the equivalent form which escapes the notice of the bourgeois political economist until this form completely developed confronts him in the shape of money he then seeks to explain away the mystical character of gold and silver by substituting for them less dazzling commodities and by reciting with ever renewed satisfaction the catalog of all possible commodities which at one time or another have played the part of equivalent he has not the least suspicion that the most simple expression of value such as twenty yards of linen equals one coat already propounds the riddle of the equivalent form for our solution the body of the commodity that serves as the equivalent figures as the materialization of human labor in the abstract and is at the same time the product of some specifically useful concrete labor this concrete labor becomes therefore the medium for expressing abstract human labor if on the one hand the coat ranks as nothing but the embodiment of abstract human labor so on the other hand the tailoring which is actually embodied in it counts as nothing but the form under which that abstract labor is realized in the expression of value of the linen the utility of the tailoring consists not in making clothes but in making an object which we at once recognize to be value and therefore to be a conglulation of labor but of labor indistinguishable from that realized in the value of the linen in order to act as such a mirror of value the labor of tailoring must reflect nothing besides its own abstract quality of being human labor generally in tailoring as well as in weaving human labor power is expended both therefore possess the general property of being human labor and may therefore in certain cases such as in the production of value have to be considered under this aspect alone there is nothing mysterious in this but in the expression of value there is a complete turn of the tables for instance how is the fact to be expressed that weaving creates the value of the linen not by virtue of being weaving as such but by reason of its general property of being human labor simply by opposing to weaving that other particular form of concrete labor in this instance tailoring which produces the equivalent of the product of weaving just as the coat in its bodily form became a direct expression of value so now does tailoring a concrete form of labor appear as the direct and palpable embodiment of human labor generally hence the second peculiarity of the equivalent form is that concrete labor becomes the form under which its opposite abstract human labor manifests itself but because this concrete labor tailoring in our case ranks as and is directly identified with undifferentiated human labor it also ranks as identical with any other sort of labor and therefore with that embodied in the linen consequently although like all other commodity producing labor it is the labor of private individuals yet at the same time it ranks as labor directly social in its character this is the reason why it results in a product directly exchangeable with other commodities we have then a third peculiarity of the equivalent form namely that the labor of private individuals takes the form of its opposite labor directly social in its form the two latter peculiarities of the equivalent form will become more intelligible if we go back to the great thinker who was the first to analyze so many forms whether of thought society or nature and amongst them also the form of value I mean Aristotle in the first place he clearly enunciates that the money form of commodities is only the further development of the simple form of value i.e of the expression of the value of one commodity in some other commodity taken at random for he says five beds equals one house is not to be distinguished from five beds equals so much money he further sees that the value relation which gives rise to this expression makes it necessary that the house should qualitatively be made the equal of the bed and that without such an equalization these two clearly different things could not be compared with each other as commensurable quantities exchange he says cannot take place without equality and equality not without commensurability here however he comes to a stop and gives up the further analysis of the form of value quote it is however in reality impossible that such unlike things can be commensurable end quote i.e qualitatively equal such an equalization can only be something foreign to their real nature consequently only quote a makeshift for practical purposes end quote Aristotle therefore himself tells us what barred the way to his further analysis it was the absence of any concept of value what is that equal something that common substance which admits of the value of the beds being expressed by a house such a thing in truth cannot exist says Aristotle and why not compared with the beds the house does represent something equal to them insofar as it represents what is really equal both in the beds and the house and that is human labor there was however an important fact which prevented Aristotle from seeing that to attribute value to commodities is merely a mode of expressing all labor as equal human labor and consequently as labor of equal quality greek society was founded upon slavery and had therefore for its natural basis the inequality of men and their labor powers the secret of the expression of value namely that all kinds of labor are equal and equivalent because and so far as they are human labor in general cannot be deciphered until the notion of human equality has already acquired the fixity of a popular prejudice this however is possible only in a society in which the great mass of the produce of labor takes the form of commodities in which consequently the dominant relation between man and man is that of owners of commodities the brilliancy of Aristotle's genius is shown by this alone that he discovered in the expression of the value of commodities a relation of equality the peculiar conditions of the society in which he lived alone prevented him from discovering what in truth was at the bottom of this equality for the elementary form of value considered as a whole the elementary form of value of a commodity is contained in the equation expressing its value relation to another commodity of a different kind or in its exchange relation to the same the value of commodity a is qualitatively expressed by the fact that commodity b is directly exchangeable with it its value is quantitatively expressed by the fact that a definite quantity of b is exchangeable with a definite quantity of a in other words the value of a commodity obtains independent and definite expression by taking the form of exchange value when at the beginning of this chapter we said in common parlance that a commodity is both a use value and an exchange value we were accurately speaking wrong a commodity is a use value or object of utility and a value it manifests itself as this twofold thing that it is as soon as its value assumes an independent form fizz the form of exchange value it never assumes this form when isolated but only when placed in a value or exchange relation with another commodity of a different kind when once we know this such a mode of expression does no harm it simply serves as an abbreviation our analysis has shown that the form or expression of the value of a commodity originates in the nature of value and not that value and its magnitude originate in the mode of their expression as exchange value this however is the delusion as well of the mercantilists and their recent revivers ferria ganil and others as also of their antipodes the modern bagmen of free trade such as bastia footnote fla ferria sous inspecteur des douanes du gouvernement considéré dans ces rapports avec le commerce paris 1805 and charle ganil des systèmes d'économie politique second edition paris 1821 end footnote the mercantilists lay special stress on the qualitative aspect of the expression of value and consequently on the equivalent form of commodities which attains its full perfection in money the modern hawkers of free trade who must get rid of their article at any price on the other hand lay most stress on the quantitative aspect of the relative form of value for them they consequently exist neither value nor magnitude of value anywhere except in its expression by means of the exchange relation of commodities that is in the daily list of prices current mccloud who has taken upon himself to dress up the confused ideas of lombard street in the most learned finery is a successful cross between the superstitious mercantilists and the enlightened free trade bagman a close scrutiny of the expression of the value of a in terms of b contained in the equation expressing the value relation of a to b has shown us that within that relation the bodily form of a figures only as a use value the bodily form of b only as the form or aspect of value the opposition or contrast existing internally in each commodity between use value and value is therefore made evident externally by two commodities being placed in such relation to each other that the commodity whose value it is sought to express figures directly as a mere use value while the commodity in which that value is to be expressed figures directly as a mere exchange value hence the elementary form of value of a commodity is the elementary form in which the contrast contained in that commodity between use value and value becomes apparent every product of labor is in all states of society a use value but it is only at a definite historical epoch in a society's development that such a product becomes a commodity viz at the epoch when the labor spent on the production of a useful article becomes expressed as one of the objective qualities of that article i.e. as its value it therefore follows that the elementary value form is also the primitive form under which a product of labor appears historically as a commodity and that the gradual transformation of such products into commodities proceeds paripassu with the development of the value form we perceive at first sight the deficiencies of the elementary form of value it is a mere germ which must undergo a series of metamorphoses before it can ripen into the price form the expression of the value commodity a in terms of any other commodity b merely distinguishes the value from the use value of a and therefore places a merely in a relation of exchange with a single different commodity b but it is still far from expressing a's qualitative equality and quantitative proportionality to all commodities to the elementary relative value form of a commodity there corresponds the single equivalent form of one other commodity thus in the relative expression of value of the linen the coat assumes the form of equivalent or of being directly exchangeable only in relation to a single commodity the linen nevertheless the elementary form of value passes by an easy transition into a more complete form it is true that by means of the elementary form the value of a commodity a becomes expressed in terms of one and only one other commodity but that one may be a commodity of any kind coat iron corn or anything else therefore according as a is placed in relation with one or the other we get from one and the same commodity different elementary expressions of value footnote in Homer for instance the value of an article is expressed in a series of different things and footnote the number of such possible expressions is limited only by the number of different kinds of commodities distinct from it the isolated expression of a's value is therefore convertible into a series prolonged to any length of the different elementary expressions of that value end of chapter one section three part one chapter one section three part two of capital volume one this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer visit LibriVox.org this reading by Karl Manchester 2007 capital volume one by Karl Marx chapter one section three B total or expanded form of value z of commodity a equals u of commodity b or v of commodity c or equals w of commodity d or equals commodity e or equals etc 20 yards of linen equals one coat or equals 10 pounds of tea or equals 40 pounds of coffee or equals one quarter of corn or equals two ounces of gold or equals half a ton of iron or equals etc one the expanded relative form of value the value of a single commodity the linen for example is now expressed in terms of numberless other elements of the world of commodities every other commodity now becomes a mirror of the linen's value footnote for this reason we can speak of the coat value of the linen when its value is expressed in coats or of its corn value when expressed in corn and so on every such expression tells us that what appears in the use of values cost corn etc is the value of the linen quote the value of any commodity denoting its relation in exchange we may speak of it as corn value cloth value according to the commodity with which it is compared and hence there are a thousand different kinds of value as many kinds of value as there are commodities in existence and all are equally real and equally nominal end quote a critical dissertation on the nature measures and causes of value chiefly in reference to the writings of mr ricardo and his followers by the author of essays on the formation etc of opinions london 1825 s bailey the author of this anonymous work a work which in its day created much stir in england fancied that by thus pointing out the various relative expressions of one and the same value he had proved the impossibility of any determination of the concept of value however narrow his own views may have been yet that he laid his finger on some serious defects in the ricardian theory is proved by the animosity with which he was attacked by ricardo's followers see the west minster review for example end footnote it is thus that for the first time this value shows itself in its true light as a conglulation of undifferentiated human labor for the labor that creates it now stands expressly revealed as labor that ranks equally with every other sort of human labor no matter what its form whether tailoring plowing mining etc and no matter therefore whether it is realized in coats corn iron or gold the linen by virtue of the form of its value now stands in a social relation no longer with only one kind of commodity but with the whole world of commodities as a commodity it is a citizen of that world at the same time the interminable series of value equations implies that as regards the value of a commodity it is a matter of indifference under what particular form or kind of use value it appears in the first form 20 yards of linen equals one coat it might for all that otherwise appears be pure accident that these two commodities are exchangeable indefinite quantities in the second form on the contrary we perceive it once the background that determines and is essentially different from this accidental appearance the value of the linen remains unaltered in magnitude whether expressed in coats coffee or iron or in the numberless different commodities the property of as many different owners the accidental relation between two individual commodity owners disappears it becomes plain that it is not the exchange of commodities which regulates the magnitude of their value but on the contrary that it is the magnitude of their value which controls their exchange proportions two the particular equivalent form each commodity such as coat tea corn iron etc figures in the expression of value of the linen as an equivalent and consequently as a thing that is value the bodily form of each of these commodities figures now as a particular equivalent form one out of many in the same way the manifold concrete useful kinds of labor embodied in these different commodities rank now as so many different forms of the realization or manifestation of undifferentiated human labor three defects of the total or expanded form of value in the first place the relative expression of value is incomplete because the series representing it is interminable the chain of which each equation of value is a link is liable at any moment to be lengthened by each new kind of commodity that comes into existence and furnishes the material for a fresh expression of value in the second place it is a many colored mosaic of disparate and independent expressions of value and lastly if as must be the case the relative value of each commodity in turn becomes expressed in this expanded form we get for each of them a relative value form different in every case and consisting of an interminable series of expressions of value the defects of the expanded relative value form are reflected in the corresponding equivalent form since the bodily form of each single commodity is one particular equivalent form amongst numberless others we have on the whole nothing but fragmentary equivalent forms each excluding the others in the same way also the special concrete useful kind of labor embodied in each particular equivalent is presented only as a particular kind of labor and therefore not as an exhaustive representative of human labor generally the latter indeed gains adequate manifestation in the totality of its manifold particular concrete forms but in that case its expression in an infinite series is ever incomplete and deficient in unity the expanded relative form is however nothing but the sum of the elementary relative expressions or equations of the first kind such as 20 yards of linen equals one coat 20 yards of linen equals 10 pounds of tea etc each of these implies the corresponding inverted equation one coat equals 20 yards of linen 10 pounds of tea equals 20 yards of linen etc in fact when a person exchanges his linen for many other commodities unless expresses its value in a series of other commodities it necessarily follows that the various owners of the latter exchange them for linen and consequently express the value of their various commodities in one and the same third commodity the linen if then we reverse the series 20 yards of linen equals one coat or equals 10 pounds of tea etc that is to say if we give expression to the converse relation already implied in the series we get the general form of value end of chapter one section three part two part one chapter one section three part three of capital this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer visit LibriVox.org this reading by Karl Manchester 2007 capital by Karl Marx part one chapter one section three part three see the general form of value one coat 10 pounds of tea 40 pounds of coffee one quarter of corn two ounces of gold half a ton of iron x commodity a etc equal 10 yards of linen one the altered character of the form of value all commodities now express their value one in an elementary form because in a single commodity two with unity because in one and the same commodity the form of value is elementary and the same for all therefore general the forms a and b would fit only to express the value of a commodity as something distinct from its use value or material form the first form a furnishes such questions as the following one coat equals 20 yards of linen 10 pounds of tea equals half a ton of iron the value of the coat is equated to linen and that of tea to iron but to be equated to linen and again to iron is to be as different as are linen and iron this form it is plain occurs practically only in the first beginning when the products of labor are converted into commodities by accidental and occasional exchanges the second form b distinguishes in a more adequate manner than the first the value of a commodity from its use value for the value of the coat is there placed in contrast under all possible shapes with the bodily form of the coat it is equated to linen to iron to tea in short to everything else only not to itself the coat on the other hand any general expression of value common to all is directly excluded for in the equation of value of each commodity all other commodities now appear only under the form of equivalence the expanded form of value comes into actual existence for the first time so soon as a particular product of labor such as cattle is no longer exceptionally but habitually exchanged for various other commodities the third and lastly developed form expresses the values of the whole world of commodities in terms of a single commodity set apart for the purpose namely the linen and thus represents to us their values by means of their equality with linen the value of every commodity is now by being equated to linen not only different from its own use value but from all other use values generally and is by that very fact expressed as that which is common to all commodities by this form commodities are for the first time effectively brought into relation with one another as values or made to appear as exchange values the two earlier forms either express the value of each commodity in terms of a single commodity of a different kind or in a series of many such commodities in both cases it is so to say the special business of each single commodity to find an expression for its value and this it does without the help of the others these others with respect to the former play the passive parts of equivalents the general form of value c results from the joint action of the whole world of commodities and from that alone a commodity can acquire a general expression of its value only by all other commodities simultaneously with it expressing their values in the same equivalent and every new commodity must follow suit it thus becomes evident that since the existence of commodities as values is purely social this social existence can be expressed by the totality of their social relations alone and consequently that the form of their value must be a socially recognized form all commodities being equated to linen now appear not only as qualitatively equal as values generally but also as values whose magnitudes are capable of comparison by expressing the magnitudes of their value in one of the same material the linen those magnitudes are also compared with each other for instance 10 pounds of tea equals 20 yards of linen and 40 pounds of coffee equals 20 yards of linen therefore 10 pounds of tea equals 40 pounds of coffee in other words there is contained in one pound of coffee only one fourth as much substance of value labor as is contained in one pound of tea the general form of relative value embracing the whole world of commodities converts the single commodity that is excluded from the rest and made to play the part of equivalent here the linen into the universal equivalent the bodily form of the linen is now the form assumed in common by the values of all commodities it therefore becomes directly exchangeable with all and every of them the substance linen becomes the visible incarnation the social chrysalis state of every kind of human labor weaving which is the labor of certain private individuals producing a particular article linen acquires in consequence a social character the character of equality with all other kinds of labor the innumerable equations of which the general form of value is composed equate in turn the labor embodied in the linen to that embodied in every other commodity and they thus convert weaving into the general form of manifestation of undifferentiated human labor in this manner the labor realized in the values of commodities is presented not only under its negative aspect under which abstraction is made from every concrete form and useful property of actual work but its own positive nature is made to reveal itself expressly the general value form is the reduction of all kinds of actual labor to their common character of being human labor generally of being the expenditure of human labor power the general value form which represents all products of labor as mere conglulations of undifferentiated human labor shows by its very structure that it is the social resume of the world of commodities that form consequently makes it indisputably evident that in the world of commodities the character possessed by all labor of being human labor constitutes its specific social character two the interdependent development of the relative form of value and of the equivalent form the degree of development of the relative form of value corresponds to that of the equivalent form but we must bear in mind that the development of the latter is only the expression and result of the development of the former the primary or isolated relative form of value of one commodity converts some other commodity into an isolated equivalent the expanded form of relative value which is the expression of the value of one commodity in terms of all other commodities endows those other commodities with the character of particular equivalents differing in kind and lastly a particular kind of commodity acquires the character of universal equivalent because all other commodities make it the material in which they uniformly express their value the antagonism between the relative form of value and the equivalent form the two poles of the value form is developed concurrently with that form itself the first form 20 yards of linen equals one coat already contains this antagonism without as yet fixing it according as we read this equation forwards or backwards the parts played by the linen and the coat are different in the one case the relative value of the linen is expressed in the coat in the other case the relative value of the coat is expressed in the linen in this first form of value therefore it is difficult to grasp the polar contrast form B shows that only one single commodity at a time can completely expand its relative value and that it acquires this expanded form only because and in so far as all other commodities are with respect to it equivalents here we cannot reverse the equation as we can the equation 20 yards of linen equals one coat without altering its general character and converting it from the expanded form of value into the general form of value finally the form C gives to the world of commodities a general social relative form of value because and in so far as thereby all commodities with the exception of one are excluded from the equivalent form a single commodity the linen appears therefore to have acquired the character of direct exchangeability with every other commodity because and in so far as this character is denied to every other commodity footnote it is by no means self-evident that this character of direct and universal exchangeability is so to speak a polar one and as intimately connected with its opposite pole the absence of direct exchangeability as the positive pole of the magnet is with its negative counterpart it may therefore be imagined that all commodities can simultaneously have this character impressed upon them just as it can be imagined that all catholics can be popes together it is of course highly desirable in the eyes of the petit bourgeois for whom the production of commodities is the neck plus ultra of human freedom and individual independence that the inconveniences resulting from this character of commodities not being directly exchangeable should be removed prudon socialism is a working out of this philistine utopia a form of socialism which as I have elsewhere shown does not possess even the merit of originality long before his time the task was attempted with much better success by gray bray and others but for all that wisdom of this kind flourishes even now in certain circles under the name of science never has any school played more tricks with the word science than that of prudon for where thoughts are absent words are brought in as convenient replacements see prudon's philosophy of poverty end of footnote the commodity that figures as universal equivalent is on the other hand excluded from the relative value form if the linen or any other commodity serving as universal equivalent were at the same time to share in the relative form of value it would have to serve as its own equivalent we should then have 20 yards of linen equals 20 yards of linen this tautology expresses neither value nor magnitude of value in order to express the relative value of the universal equivalent we must rather reverse the form c this equivalent has no relative form of value in common with other commodities but its value is relatively expressed by a never-ending series of other commodities thus the expanded form of value or form b now shows itself as the specific form of relative value for the equivalent commodity three transition from the general form of value to the money form the universal equivalent form is a form of value in general it can therefore be assumed by any commodity on the other hand if a commodity be found to have assumed the universal equivalent form form c it is only because and in so far as it has been excluded from the rest of all other commodities as their equivalent and that by their own act and from the moment that this exclusion becomes finally restricted to one particular commodity from that moment only the general form of relative value of the world of commodities obtains real consistency and general social validity the particular commodity with whose bodily form the equivalent form is thus socially identified now becomes the money commodity or serves as money it becomes the special social function of that commodity and consequently its social monopoly to play within the world of commodities the part of the universal equivalent amongst the commodities which in form b figure as particular equivalents of the linen and in form c express in common their relative values in linen this foremost place has been attained by one in particular namely gold if then in form c we replace the linen by gold we get d the money form 20 yards of linen one coat 10 pounds of tea 40 pounds of coffee one quarter of corn two ounces of gold half a tonne of iron x of commodity a equals two ounces of gold in passing from form a to form b and from the latter to form c the changes are fundamental on the other hand there is no difference between form c and d except that in the latter gold has assumed the equivalent form in the place of linen gold is in form d what linen was in form c the universal equivalent the progress consists in this alone that the character of direct and universal exchangeability in other words that the universal equivalent form has now by social custom become finally identified with the substance gold gold is now money with reference to all other commodities only because it was previously with reference to them a simple commodity like all other commodities it was also capable of serving as an equivalent either as a simple equivalent in isolated exchanges or as a particular equivalent by the side of others gradually it became to serve within varying limits as universal equivalent so soon as it monopolizes this position in the expression of value for the world of commodities it becomes the money commodity and then and not till then does form d become distinct from form c and the general form of value becomes changed into the money form the elementary expression of the relative value of a single commodity such as linen in terms of the commodity such as gold that plays the part of money is the price form of that commodity the price form of linen is therefore twenty yards of linen equals two ounces of gold or if two ounces of gold when kind are two pounds twenty yards of linen equals two pounds the difficulty in forming a concept of the money form consists in clearly comprehending the universal equivalent form and as a necessary corollary the general form of value form c the latter is deducible from form b the expanded form of value the essential component element of which we saw is form a twenty yards of linen equals one coat or x of commodity a equals y of commodity b the simple commodity form is therefore the germ of the money form end of part one chapter one section three part three chapter one section four of capital volume one this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer visit LibriVox.org capital volume one by Karl Marx chapter one section four the fetishism of commodities and the secret thereof a commodity appears at first sight a very trivial thing and easily understood its analysis shows that it is in reality a very queer thing abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties so far as it is a value in use there is nothing mysterious about it whether we consider it from the point of view that by its properties it is capable of satisfying human wants or from the point that those properties are the product of human labour it is as clear as noon day that man by his industry changes the forms of the materials furnished by nature in such a way as to make them useful to him the form of wood for instance is altered by making a table out of it yet for all that the table continues to be that common everyday thing wood but so soon as it steps forth as a commodity it is changed into something transcendent it not only stands with its feet on the ground but in relation to all other commodities it stands on its head and evolves out of its wooden brain grotesque ideas far more wonderful than table turning ever was footnote in the german edition there is the following footnote here quote one may recall that china and the tables began to dance when the rest of the world appeared to be standing still pour encourager les autres end quote the defeat of the 1848 49 revolutions was followed by a period of dismal political reaction in europe at that time spiritualism especially table turning became the rage among the european aristocracy in 1850 to 64 china was swept by an anti feudal liberation movement in the form of a large-scale peasant war the typing revolt end footnote the mystical character of commodities does not originate therefore in their use value just as little does it proceed from the nature of the determining factors of value for in the first place however varied the useful kinds of labor or productive activities may be it is a physiological fact that there are functions of the human organism and that each such function whatever maybe its nature or form is essentially the expenditure of human brain nerves muscles etc secondly with regard to that which forms the groundwork for the quantitative determination of value namely the duration of that expenditure or the quantity of labor it is quite clear that there is a palpable difference between its quantity and quality in all states of society the labor time that it costs to produce the means of subsistence must necessarily be an object of interest to mankind though not of equal interest in different stages of development footnote among the ancient germans the unit for measuring land was what could be harvested in a day and it was called tagwerk tagvana genali or terogenalis or deonalis man's mad etc end footnote and lastly from the moment that men in any way work for one another their labor assumes a social form whence then arises the enigmatic character of the product of labor so soon as it assumes the form of commodities clearly from this form itself the quality of all sorts of human labor is expressed objectively by their products all being equally values the measure of the expenditure of labor power by the duration of that expenditure takes the form of the quantity of value of the products of labor and finally the mutual relations of the producers within which the social character of their labor affirms itself take the form of a social relation between the products a commodity is therefore a mysterious thing simply because in it the social character of men's labor appears to them as an objective character stamped upon the product of that labor because the relation of the producers to the sum total of their own labor is presented to them as a social relation existing not between themselves but between the products of their labor this is the reason why the products of labor become commodities social things whose qualities are at the same time perceptible and imperceptible by the senses in the same way the light from an object is perceived by us not as the subjective excitation of our optic nerve but as the objective form of something outside the eye itself but in the act of seeing there is at all events an actual passage of light from one thing to another from the external object to the eye there is a physical relation between physical things but it is different with commodities there the existence of things commodities and the value relation between the products of labor which stamps them as commodities have absolutely no connection with their physical properties and with material relations arising there from there it is a definite social relation between men that assumes in their eyes the fantastic form of a relation between things in order therefore to find an analogy we must have recourse to the missed envelope regions of the religious world in that world the productions of the human brain appear as independent beings endowed with life and entering into relation both with one another and the human race so it is in the world of commodities with the products of men's hands this i call the fetishism which attaches itself to the products of labor so soon as they are produced as commodities and which is therefore inseparable from the production of commodities this fetishism of commodities has its origin as the foregoing analysis has already shown in the peculiar social character of the labor that produces them as a general rule articles of utility become commodities only because they are products of the labor of private individuals or groups of individuals who carry on their work independently of each other the sum total of the labor of all these private individuals forms the aggregate labor of society since the producers do not come into social contact with each other until they exchange their products the specific social character of each producer's labor does not show itself except in the act of exchange in other words the labor of the individual asserts itself as a part of the labor of society only by means of the relations which the act of exchange establishes directly between the products and indirectly through them between the producers to the latter therefore the relations connecting the labor of one individual with that of the rest appear not as direct social relations between individuals at work but as what they really are material relations between persons and social relations between things it is only by being exchanged that the products of labor acquire as values one uniform social status distinct from their varied forms of existence as objects of utility this division of a product into a useful thing and a value becomes practically important only when exchange has acquired such an extension that useful articles are produced for the purpose of being exchanged and their character as values has therefore to be taken into account beforehand during production from this moment the labor of the individual producer acquires socially a two-fold character on the one hand it must as a definite useful kind of labor satisfy a definite social want and thus hold its place as part and parcel of the collective labor of all as a branch of a social division of labor that has sprung up spontaneously on the other hand it can satisfy the manifold wants of the individual producer himself only in so far as the mutual exchangeability of all kinds of useful private labor is an established social fact and therefore the private useful labor of each producer ranks on an equality with that of all others the equalization of the most different kinds of labor can be the result only of an abstraction from their inequalities or of reducing them to their common denominator fizz expenditure of human labor power or human labor in the abstract the two-fold social character of the labor of the individual appears to him when reflected in his brain only under those forms which are impressed upon that labor in everyday practice by the exchange of products in this way the character that his own labor possesses of being socially useful takes the form of the condition that the product must be not only useful but useful for others and the social character that his particular labor has of being the equal of all other particular kinds of labor takes the form that all the physically different articles that are the products of labor have one common quality viz that of having value hence when we bring the products of our labor into relation with each other as values it is not because we see in these articles the material receptacles of homogeneous human labor quite the contrary whenever by an exchange we equate as values our different products by that very act we also equate as human labor the different kinds of labor expended upon them we are not aware of this nevertheless we do it footnote when therefore Galeani says value is a relation between persons he ought to have added a relation between persons expressed as a relation between things end footnote value therefore does not stalk about with a label describing what it is it is value rather that converts every product into a social hieroglyphic later on we try to decipher the hieroglyphic to get behind the secret of our own social products for to stamp an object of utility as a value is just as much a social product as language the recent scientific discovery that the products of labor so far as they are values are but material expressions of the human labor spent in their production marks indeed an epoch in the history of the development of the human race but by no means dissipates the mists through which the social character of labor appears to us to be an objective character of the products themselves the fact that in the particular form of production with which we are dealing viz the production of commodities the specific social character of private labor carried on independently consists in the equality of every kind of that labor by virtue of its being human labor which character therefore assumes in the product the form of value this fact appears to the producers notwithstanding the discovery above referred to to be just as real and final as the fact that after the discovery by science of the component gases of air the atmosphere itself remained unaltered what first of all practically concerns producers when they make an exchange is the question how much of some other product they get for their own in what proportions the products are exchangeable when these proportions have by custom attained a certain stability they appear to result from the nature of the products so that for instance one ton of iron and two ounces of gold appear as naturally to be of equal value as a pound of gold and a pound of iron in spite of their different physical and chemical qualities appear to be of equal weight the character of having value when once impressed upon products obtains fixity only by reason of their acting and reacting upon each other as quantities of value these quantities vary continually independently of the will foresight and action of the producers to them their own social action takes the form of the action of objects which rule the producers instead of being ruled by them it requires a fully developed production of commodities before from accumulated experience alone the scientific convictions brings up that all the different kinds of private labor which are carried on independently of each other and yet as spontaneously developed branches of the social division of labor are continually being reduced to the quantitative proportions in which society requires them and why because in the midst of all the accidental and ever fluctuating exchange relations between the products the labor time socially necessary for their production forcibly asserts itself like an overriding law of nature the law of gravity thus asserts itself when a house falls about our ears footnote what are we to think of a law that asserts itself only by periodical revolutions it is just nothing but a law of nature founded on the want of knowledge of those whose action is the subject of it frideric engels end footnote the determination of the magnitude of value by labor time is therefore a secret hidden under the apparent fluctuations in the relative values of commodities its discovery while removing all appearance of mere accidentality from the determination of the magnitude of the values of products yet in no way alters the mode in which that determination takes place man's reflections on the forms of social life and consequently also his scientific analysis of those forms takes a course directly opposite to that of their actual historical development he begins post-festum with the results of the process of development ready to hand before him the characters that stamp products as commodities and whose establishment is a necessary preliminary to the circulation of commodities have already acquired the stability of natural self-understood forms of social life before man seeks to decipher not their historical character for in his eyes they are immutable but their meaning consequently it was the analysis of the prices of commodities that alone led to the determination of the magnitude of value and it was the common expression of all commodities in money that alone led to the establishment of their characters as values it is however just this ultimate money form of the world of commodities that actually conceals instead of disclosing the social character of private labor and the social relations between the individual producers when i state that coats or boots stand in a relation to linen because it is the universal incarnation of abstract human labor the absurdity of the statement is self-evident nevertheless when the producers of coats and boots compare those articles with linen or what is the same thing with gold or silver as the universal equivalent they express the relation between their own private labor and the collective labor of society in the same absurd form the categories of bourgeois economy consist of such like forms they are forms of thought expressing with social validity the conditions and relations of a definite historically determined mode of production vis the production of commodities the whole mystery of commodities all the magic and necromancy that surrounds the products of labor as long as they take the form of commodities vanishes therefore so soon as we come to other forms of production since robinson crusoe's experiences are a favorite theme with political economists let us take a look at him on his island footnote even ricardo has his stories ala robinson he makes the primitive hunter and the primitive fisher straight away as owners of commodities exchange fish and game in the proportion in which labor time is incorporated in these exchange values on this occasion he commits the anachronism of making these men apply to the calculation so far as their implements have to be taken into account the annuity tables in current use on the london exchange in the year 1817 the parallelograms of mr owin appear to be the only form of society besides the bourgeois form with which he was acquainted carl marx zoo critique etc end footnote moderate though he be yet some few once he has to satisfy and must therefore do a little useful work of various sorts such as making tools and furniture taming goats fishing and hunting of his prayers and the like we take no account since they are a source of pleasure to him and he looks upon them as so much recreation in spite of the variety of his work he knows that his labor whatever its form is but the activity of one and the same robinson and consequently that it consists of nothing but different modes of human labor necessity itself compels him to apportion his time accurately between his different kinds of work whether one kind occupies a greater space in his general activity than another depends on the difficulties greater or less as the case may be to be overcome in attaining the useful effect aimed at this our friend robinson soon learns by experience and having rescued a watch ledger and pen and ink from the wreck commences like a true born britain to keep a set of books his stock book contains a list of the objects of utility that belong to him of the operations necessary for their production and lastly of the labour time that definite quantities of those objects have on average cost him all the relations between robinson and the objects that form this wealth of his own creation are here so simple and clear as to be intelligible without exertion even to mr sadly taylor and yet those relations contain all that is essential to the determination of value let us now transport ourselves from robinson's island bathed in light to the european middle ages shrouded in darkness here instead of the independent man we find everyone dependent serfs and lords vassals and caesareans layman and clergy personal dependent here characterizes the social relations of production just as much as it does the other spheres of life organized on the basis of that production but for the very reason that personal dependence forms the groundwork of society there is no necessity for labour in its products to assume a fantastic form different from their reality they take the shape in the transitions of society of services in kind and payments in kind here the particular and natural form of labour and not as in a society based on production of commodities its general abstract form is the immediate form of social labour compulsory labour is just as properly measured by time as commodity producing labour but every serf knows that what he expands in the service of his lord is a definite quantity of his own personal labour power the tithes to be rendered to the priest is more a matter of fact than his blessing no matter then what we may think of the parts played by the different classes of people themselves in this society the social relations between individuals in the performance of their labour appear at all events as their own mutual personal relations and are not disguised under the shape of social relations between the products of labour for an example of labour in common or directly associated labour we have no occasion to go back to that spontaneously developed form which we find on the threshold of the history of all civilized races footnote quote a ridiculous presumption has latterly got abroad that common property in its primitive form is specifically a slovenian or even exclusively russian form it is the primitive form that we can prove to have existed amongst romans chutans and kelts and even to this day we find numerous examples ruins though they may be in india a more exhaustive study of asiatic and especially indian forms of common property would show how from the different forms of primitive property different forms of its dissolution have been developed thus for instance the various original types of roman and teutonic private property are deduceable from different forms of indian common property end quote Karl Marx zoo critique etc end footnote we have one close at hand in the patriarchal industries of a peasant family that produces corn cattle yarn linen and clothing for home use these different articles are as regards the family so many products of its labour but as between themselves they are not commodities the different kinds of labour such as tillage cattle tending spinning weaving and making clothes which result in the various products are in themselves and such as they are direct social functions because functions of the family which just as much as society based on the production of commodities possesses a spontaneously developed system of division of labour the distribution of the work within the family and the regulation of the labour time of the several members depend as well upon the differences of age and sex as upon the natural conditions varying with the seasons the labour power of each individual by its very nature operates in this case merely as a definite portion of the whole labour power of the family and therefore the measure of the expenditure of individual labour by its duration appears here by its very nature as a social character of their labour let us now picture to ourselves by way of change a community of free individuals carrying on their work with the means of production in common in which the labour power of all the different individuals is consciously applied as the combined labour power of the community all the characteristics of robinson's labour are here repeated but with this difference that they are social instead of individual everything produced by him was exclusively the result of his own personal labour and therefore simply an object of use for himself the total product of our community is a social product one portion serves as fresh means of production and remains social but another portion is consumed by the members as means of subsistence a distribution of this portion amongst them is consequently necessary the mode of this distribution will vary with the productive organization of the community and the degree of historical development attained by the producers we will assume but merely for the sake of a parallel with the production of commodities that the share of each individual producer in the means of subsistence is determined by his labour time labour time would in that case play a double part its apportionment in accordance with the definite social plan maintains the proper proportion between the different kinds of work to be done and the various wants of the community on the other hand it also serves as a measure of the portion of the common labour born by each individual and his share in the part of the total product destined for individual consumption the social relations of the individual producers with regard both to their labour and to its products are in this case perfectly simple and intelligible and that with regard not only to production but also to distribution the religious world is but the reflex of the real world and for a society based upon the production of commodities in which the producers in general enter into social relations with one another by treating their products as commodities and values whereby they reduce their individual private labour to the standard of homogeneous human labour for such a society Christianity with its cultists of abstract man more especially in its bourgeois developments Protestantism deism etc is the most fitting form of religion in the ancient asiatic and other ancient modes of production we find that the conversion of products into commodities and therefore the conversion of men into producers of commodities holds a subordinate place which however increases in importance as the primitive communities approach nearer and nearer to their dissolution trading nations properly so-called exist in the ancient world only in its interstices like the gods of Epicurus in the inter Mundia or like Jews in the pores of Polish society those ancient social organisms of production are as compared with bourgeois society extremely simple and transparent but they are founded either on the immature development of man individually who has not yet severed the umbilical cord that unites him with his fellow men in a primitive tribal community or upon direct relations of subjection they can arise and exist only when the development of the productive power of labour has not risen beyond a low stage and when therefore the social relations within the sphere of material life between man and man and between man and nature are correspondingly narrow this narrowness is reflected in the ancient worship of nature and in the other elements of the popular religions the religious reflex of the real world can in any case only then finally vanish when the practical relations of everyday life offer to man none but perfectly intelligible and reasonable relations with regard to his fellow men and to nature the life process of society which is based on the process of material production does not strip off its mystical veil until it is treated as production by freely associated men and is consciously regulated by them in accordance with a settled plan this however demands for society a certain material groundwork or set of conditions of existence which in their turn are the spontaneous product of a long and painful process of development political economy has indeed analyzed however incompletely value and its magnitude and has discovered what lies beneath these forms footnote the insufficiency of ricardo's analysis of the magnitude of value and his analysis is by far the best will appear from the third and fourth books of this work as regards value in general it is the weak point of the classical school of political economy that it nowhere expressly and with full consciousness distinguishes between labour as it appears in the value of a product and the same labour as it appears in the use value of that product of course the distinction is practically made since this school treats labour at one time under its quantitative aspect and at another under its qualitative aspect but it has not the least idea that when the difference between various kinds of labour is treated as purely quantitative their qualitative unity or equality and therefore their reduction to abstract human labour is implied for instance ricardo declares that he agrees with destut de tracy in this proposition quote as it is certain that our physical and moral faculties are alone our original riches the employment of those faculties labour of some kind is our only original treasure and it is always from this employment that all those things are created which we call riches it is certain too that all those things only represent the labour which has created them and if they have a value or even two distinct values they can only derive them from that the value of the labour from which they emanate end quote ricardo the principles of political economy we would hear only point out that ricardo puts his own more profound interpretation on the words of destut what the latter really says is that on the one hand all things which constitute wealth represent the labour that creates them but on the other hand they acquire their two different values use value and exchange value from the values of labour he thus falls into the commonplace error of the vulgar economists who assume the value of one commodity in this case labour in order to determine the values of the rest but ricardo reads him as if he had said that labour not the value of labour is embodied both in use value and exchange value nevertheless ricardo himself pays so little attention to the twofold character of the labour which has a twofold embodiment that he devotes the whole of his chapter on value and riches their distinctive properties to a laborious examination of the trivialities of a jbc and at the finish he is quite astonished to find that destut on the one hand agrees with him as to labour being the source of value and on the other hand with jbc as to the notion of value end footnote but it has never once asked the question why labour is represented by the value of its product and labour time by the magnitude of that value footnote it is one of the chief failings of classical economy that it has never succeeded by means of its analysis of commodities and in particular of their value in discovering that form under which value becomes exchange value even adam smith and ricardo the best representatives of the school treat the form of value as a thing of no importance as having no connection with the inherent nature of commodities the reason for this is not solely because their attention is entirely absorbed in the analysis of the magnitude of value it lies deeper the value form of the product of labour is not only the most abstract but is also the most universal form taken by the product in bourgeois production and stamps that production as a particular species of social production and thereby gives it its special historical character if then we treat this mode of production as one eternally fixed by nature for every state of society we necessarily overlook that which is the differential specific of the value form and consequently of the commodity form and of its further developments money form capital form etc we consequently find that economists who are thoroughly agreed as to labour time being the measure of the magnitude of value have the most strange and contradictory ideas of money the perfected form of the general equivalent this is seen in a striking manner when they treat of banking where the commonplace definitions of money will no longer hold water this led to the rise of a restored mercantile system guanille etc which sees in value nothing but a social form or rather the unsubstantial ghost of that form once for all i may state here that by classical political economy i understand that economy which since the time of w petty has investigated the real relations of production in bourgeois society in contradistinction to vulgar economy which deals with appearances only ruminates without ceasing on the materials long since provided by scientific economy and there seeks plausible explanations of the most obtrusive phenomena for bourgeois daily use but for the rest confines itself to systematising in a pedantic way and proclaiming for everlasting truths the trite ideas held by the self-complacent bourgeoisie with regard to their own world to them the best of all possible worlds end footnote these formulae which bear it stamped upon them in unmistakable letters that they belong to a state of society in which the process of production has the mastery over man instead of being controlled by him such formally appear to the bourgeois intellect to be as much a self-evident necessity imposed by nature as productive labor itself hence forms of social production that preceded the bourgeois form are treated by the bourgeoisie in much the same way as the fathers of the church treated pre-christian religions footnote les économistes ont une singulière manière de procéder il n'y a pour eux que deux sortes d'institutions celles de l'art et celles de la nature les institutions de la féodalité sont des institutions artificielles celles de la bourgeoisie sont des institutions naturelles ils ressemblent en ceci aux théologiens qui eux aussi établissent deux sortes de religion toute religion qui n'est pas la leur est une invention des hommes tandis que leur propre religion est une émanation de dieu ainsi il y a eux de l'histoire mais il n'y en a plus Karl Marx misère de la philosophie réponse à la philosophie de la misère par monsieur Proudhon truly comical is monsieur Bastia who imagines that the ancient Greeks and Romans lived by plunder alone and when people plunder for centuries there must always be something at hand for them to seize the objects of plunder must be continually reproduced it would thus appear that even Greeks and Romans had some process of production consequently an economy which just as much constituted the material basis of their world as bourgeois economy constitutes that of our modern world or perhaps Bastia means that a mode of production based on slavery is based on a system of plunder in that case he treads on dangerous ground if a giant thinker like Aristotle aired in his appreciation of slave labor why should a dwarf economist like Bastia be right in his appreciation of wage labor i seize this opportunity of shortly answering an objection taken by a german paper in america to my work zoo critique 1859 in the estimation of that paper my view that each specific mode of production and the social relations corresponding to it in short that the economic structure of society is the real basis on which the juridical and political superstructure is raised and to which definite social forms of thought correspond that the mode of production determines the character of the social political and intellectual life generally all this is very true for our own times in which material interests preponderate but not for the middle ages in which Catholicism not for Athens and Rome where politics reign supreme in the first place it strikes one as an odd thing for anyone to suppose that these well-worn phrases about the middle ages and the ancient world are unknown to anyone else this much however is clear that the middle ages could not live on Catholicism nor the ancient world on politics on the contrary it is the mode in which they gained a livelihood that explains why here politics and their Catholicism played the chief part for the rest it requires but a slight acquaintance with the history of the roman republic for example to be aware that its secret history is the history of landed property on the other hand Don Chioti long ago paid the penalty for wrongly imagining that knight errantry was compatible with all economic forms of society end footnote to what extent some economists are misled by the fetishism inherent in commodities or by the objective appearance of the social characteristics of labor is shown amongst other ways by the dull and tedious quarrel over the part played by nature in the formation of exchange value since exchange value is a definite social manner of expressing the amount of labor bestowed upon an object nature has no more to do with it than it has in fixing the course of exchange the mode of production in which the product takes the form of a commodity or is produced directly for exchange is the most general and most embryonic form of bourgeois production it therefore makes its appearance at an early date in history though not in the same predominating and characteristic manner as nowadays hence its fetish character is comparatively easy to be seen through but when we come to more concrete forms even this appearance of simplicity vanishes whence arose the illusions of the monetary system to it gold and silver when serving as money did not represent a social relation between producers but were natural objects with strange social properties and modern economy which looks down with such disdain on the monetary system does not its superstition come out as clear as noon day whenever it treats of capital how long is it since economy discarded the physiocratic illusion that rents grow out of the soil and not out of society but not to anticipate we will content ourselves with yet another example relating to the commodity form could commodities themselves speak they would say our use value may be a thing that interests men it is no part of us as objects what however does belong to us as objects is our value our natural intercourse as commodities proves it in the eyes of each other we are nothing but exchange values now listen how those commodities speak through the mouth of the economist value i.e exchange value is a property of things riches i.e use value of man value in this sense necessarily implies exchanges riches do not footnote observations on certain verbal disputes in political economy particularly relating to value and to demand and supply london 1821 end footnote riches use values are the attribute of men value is the attribute of commodities a man or a community is rich a pearl or a diamond is valuable as a pearl or a diamond footnote s bailey end footnote so far no chemist has ever discovered exchange value either in a pearl or a diamond the economic discoveries of this chemical element who by the by lay special claim to critical acumen find however that the use value of objects belongs to them independently of their material properties while their value on the other hand forms a part of them as objects what confirms them in this view is the peculiar circumstance that the use value of objects is realized without exchange by means of a direct relation between the objects and man while on the other hand their value is realized only by exchange that is by means of social process who fails here to call to mind our good friend dogbury who informs neighbor c Cole that quote to be a well-favoured man is the gift of fortune but reading and writing comes by nature footnote the author of observations and s bailey accuse ricardo of converting exchange value from something relative into something absolute the opposite is the fact he has explained the apparent relation between objects such as diamonds and pearls in which relation that they appear as exchange values and disclose the true relation hidden behind the appearances namely their relation to each other as mere expressions of human labor if the followers of ricardo and s bailey somewhat rudely and by no means convincingly the reason is to be sought in this that they were unable to find in ricardo's own works any key to the hidden relations existing between value in its form exchange value end footnote end of chapter one section four