COMMODITIES.
At first sight the wealth of society under the capitalist system
presents itself as an immense accumulation of commodities, its unit
being a single commodity. But every commodity has a twofold aspect,
that of _use value_ and _exchange value_.[2]
A commodity is first of all, in the language of English economists,
“any thing necessary, useful or pleasant in life,” an object of human
wants, a means of existence in the broadest sense of the word. This
property of commodities to serve as use-values coincides with their
natural palpable existence. Wheat e. g. is a distinct use-value
differing from the use-values cotton, glass, paper, etc. Use-value has
a value only in use and is realized only in the process of consumption.
The same use-value may be utilized in various ways. But the extent of
its possible applications is circumscribed by its distinct properties.
Furthermore, it is thus limited not only qualitatively but also
quantitatively. According to their natural properties the various
use-values have different measures, such as a bushel of wheat, a quire
of paper, a yard of linen, etc.
Whatever the social form of wealth may be, use-values always have a
substance of their own, independent of that form. One can not tell by
the taste of wheat whether it has been raised by a Russian serf, a
French peasant, or an English capitalist. Although the object of social
wants and, therefore, mutually connected in society, use-values do
not bear any marks of the relations of social production. Suppose, we
have a commodity whose use-value is that of a diamond. We can not tell
by looking at the diamond that it is a commodity. When it serves as a
use-value, aesthetic or mechanical, on the breast of a harlot, or in
the hand of a glasscutter, it is a diamond and not a commodity. It is
the necessary prerequisite of a commodity to be a use-value, but it is
immaterial to the use-value whether it is a commodity or not. Use-value
in this indifference to the nature of its economic destination, i. e.
use-value as such lies outside the sphere of investigation of political
economy.[3] It falls within the sphere of the latter only in so far
as it forms its own economic destination. It forms the material basis
which directly underlies a definite economic relation called _exchange
value_.
Exchange-value appears at first sight as a _quantitative relation_,
as a proportion in which use-values are exchanged for one another. In
such a relation they constitute equal exchangeable quantities. Thus,
a volume of Propercius and eight ounces of snuff may represent the
same exchange value, in spite of the dissimilar use-values of tobacco
and elegy. As exchange-value, one kind of use-value is worth as much
as another kind, if only taken in right proportion. The exchange
value of a palace can be expressed in a certain number of boxes of
shoe-blacking. On the contrary, London manufacturers of shoe-blacking
have expressed the exchange value of their many boxes of blacking,
in palaces. Thus, entirely apart from their natural forms and
without regard to the specific kind of wants for which they serve as
use-values, commodities in certain quantities equal each other, take
each other’s place in exchange, pass as equivalents, and in spite of
their variegated appearance, represent the same entity.
Use-values are primarily means of existence. These means of existence,
however, are themselves products of social life, the result of expended
human vital power, _materialized labor_. As the embodiment of social
labor, all commodities are the crystallization of the same substance.
Let us now consider the nature of this substance, i. e., of labor,
which is expressed in exchange value.
Let one ounce of gold, one ton of iron, one quarter of wheat and
twenty yards of silk represent equal exchange values. As equivalents,
in which the qualitative difference between their use-values has been
eliminated, they represent equal volumes of the same kind of labor.
The labor which is equally embodied in all of them must be uniform,
homogeneous, simple labor. It matters as little in the case of labor
whether it be embodied in gold, iron, wheat, or silk, as it does in
the case of oxygen, whether it appears in the rust of iron, in the
atmosphere, in the juice of a grape, or in the blood of a human being.
But the digging of gold, the extraction of iron from a mine, the
raising of wheat and the weaving of silk are so many kinds of labor,
differing in quality. As a matter of fact, what in reality appears as a
difference in use-values, is in the process of production, a difference
in the work creating those use-values. Just as labor, which creates
exchange value, is indifferent to the material of use-values, so it
is to the special form of labor itself. Furthermore, the different
use-values are the products of the work of different individuals,
consequently the result of various kinds of labor differing
individually from one another. But as exchange values, they represent
the same homogeneous labor, i. e., labor from which the individuality
of the workers is eliminated. Labor creating exchange value is,
therefore, _abstract general labor_.
If one ounce of gold, one ton of iron, one quarter of wheat, and twenty
yards of silk are exchange values of equal magnitude or equivalents;
then one ounce of gold, half a ton of iron, three bushels of wheat
and five yards of silk are exchange values of different magnitudes,
and this quantitative difference is the only difference of which
they are capable as exchange values. As exchange values of different
magnitudes, they represent greater or smaller quantities of that
simple, homogeneous, abstract, general labor, which forms the substance
of exchange value. The question arises, how are these quantities to be
measured? Or, rather what constitutes the substance of labor, which
makes it capable of quantitative measurement, since the quantitative
differences of commodities in their capacity of exchange values are
but quantitative differences of labor embodied in them. Just as motion
is measured by time, so is labor measured by _labor-time_. Given
the quality of labor, the difference in its duration is the only
property by which it can be distinguished. As labor-time, labor has
the same standard of measurement as the natural time measures, viz.,
hours, days, weeks, etc. Labor-time is the vital substance of labor,
independent of its form, composition, individuality; it is its vital
substance quantitatively, having at the same time its own inherent
measure. Labor-time embodied in the use-values of commodities is the
substance which makes exchange values and, therefore, commodities of
them and at the same time serves to measure definite quantities of
their value. Corresponding quantities of different use-values, in which
the same quantity of labor-time is embodied, are equivalents; or, to
put it in another form, all use-values are equivalents when taken in
proportions containing the same quantity of expended, materialized
labor-time. As exchange values, all commodities are but definite
measures of _congealed labor-time_.
To understand how exchange value is determined by labor-time, the
following main points must be kept in mind: The reduction of labor to
simple labor, devoid of any quality, so to speak; the specific ways
and means by which exchange―value-creating, i. e., commodity producing
labor becomes _social labor_; finally, the difference between labor as
the producer of use-values, and labor as the creator of exchange values.
In order to measure commodities by the labor-time contained in them,
the different kinds of labor must be reduced to uniform, homogeneous,
simple labor, in short, to labor which is qualitatively the same, and,
therefore, differs only in quantity.
This reduction appears to be an abstraction; but it is an abstraction
which takes place daily in the social process of production. The
conversion of all commodities into labor-time is no greater abstraction
nor a less real process than the chemical reduction of all organic
bodies to air. Labor, thus measured by time, does not appear in reality
as the labor of different individuals. but on the contrary, the
various working individuals rather appear as mere organs of labor; or,
in so far as labor is represented by exchange values, it may be defined
as human labor in general. This abstraction of human labor in general
virtually exists in the average labor which the average individual
of a given society can perform―a certain productive expenditure of
human muscles, nerves, brain, etc. It is unskilled labor to which the
average individual can be put and which he has to perform in one way
or another. The character of this average labor varies in different
countries and at different stages of civilization, but appears fixed in
a particular society. Unskilled labor constitutes the bulk of all labor
performed in capitalist society, as may be seen from all statistics.
It is obvious that if A spends six hours in the production of iron
and six hours on linen, and B also produces iron during six hours and
linen during another six hours, it is but a different application
of _the same_ labor time that would be expended, if A produced iron
during twelve hours, while B worked twelve hours on linen. But how
about skilled labor which rises above the level of average labor by its
higher intensity, by its greater specific gravity? This kind of labor
resolves itself into unskilled labor composing it; it is simple labor
of a higher intensity, so that one day of skilled labor, e. g., may
equal three days of unskilled labor. This is not the place to consider
the laws regulating this reduction. It is clear, however, that such
reduction does take place, for, as exchange value, the product of the
most skilled labor is, when taken in a certain proportion, equivalent
to the product of unskilled average labor, or equal to a definite
quantity of that unskilled labor.
The determination of exchange-value by means of labor-time implies,
further, the fact that an equal quantity of labor is embodied in any
given commodity, e. g., a ton of iron, no matter whether it is the work
of A or B, that is to say, various individuals expend an equal amount
of labor-time for the production of the same use-value of a given
quality and quantity. It is thus assumed that the labor-time contained
in a commodity is the labor-time _necessary_ for its production, i. e.,
it is the labor-time which is required for the production of another
specimen of the same commodity under the same general conditions of
production.
The conditions of labor, which creates exchange value, as shown by the
analysis of the latter, are _social conditions_ of labor or conditions
of _social labor_. Social, not in the ordinary, but in a special
sense. It is a specific form of the social process. The homogeneous
simplicity of labor means first of all _equality_ of the labors of
various individuals, a reciprocal relation of equality of their labors
determined by the actual reduction of all kinds of labor to uniform
labor. The labor of every individual, as far as it is expressed in
exchange value possesses this social character of equality and finds
expression in exchange value only in so far as it is a relation of
equality with the labor of all other individuals.
Furthermore, the labor-time of a single individual is directly
expressed in exchange value as _universal labor-time_, and this
_universal character_ of individual labor is the manifestation of its
_social character_. The labor-time represented by exchange value is the
labor-time of an individual, but of an individual undistinguished from
other individuals in so far as they perform the same labor; therefore,
the time required by one individual for the production of a certain
commodity is the _necessary_ labor-time which any other individual
would have to spend on the production of the same commodity. It is the
labor-time of an individual, _his_ labor-time, but only as labor-time
common to all, regardless as to which particular individual’s
labor-time it is. As universal labor-time it is represented in a
universal product, in a _universal equivalent_, in a definite quantity
of materialized labor-time: the latter is indifferent as to the
particular form of use-value in which it appears directly as the
product of an individual, and may be turned at will into any other
form of use-value to represent the product of any other individual.
Only as such a _universal_ quantity, is it a _social_ quantity. In
order to result in exchange value, the labor of an individual must
be turned into a _universal equivalent_, i. e., the labor-time of an
individual must be expressed as universal labor-time, or universal
labor-time as that of an individual. It is the same as though different
individuals had put together their labor-time and contributed the
different quantities of labor-time at their common disposal in the form
of different use-values. The labor-time of the individual is thus,
in fact, the labor time which society requires for the production of
a certain use-value, i. e., for the satisfaction of a certain want.
But the question that interests us here is as to the specific form in
which labor acquires a social character. Let us suppose that a certain
quantity of labor-time of a spinner is realized in 100 lbs. of yarn.
Suppose 100 yards of linen, the product of the weaver, represent the
same quantity of labor-time. Inasmuch as these two products represent
equal quantities of universal labor-time and, hence, are equivalents of
_every_ use-value which contains the same amount of labor-time, they
are also equivalent to each other. Only because the labor-time of the
spinner and that of the weaver take the form of universal labor-time
and their products appear as universal equivalents, is the labor of
the weaver realized for the spinner, and that of the spinner, for the
weaver, the labor of one takes the place of the labor of the other, i.
e., the social character of their labors is realized for both. Quite
different it was under the patriarchal system of production, when
spinner and weaver lived under the same roof, when the female members
of the family did the spinning, and the male members did the weaving to
supply the wants of their own family; then yarn and linen were _social_
products, spinning and weaving were _social_ labor within the limits of
the family. But their social character did not manifest itself in the
fact that yarn, as a universal equivalent, could be exchanged for linen
as a universal equivalent, or that one was exchanged for another, as
identical and equivalent expressions of the same universal labor-time.
It was rather the family organization with its natural division of
labor that impressed its peculiar social stamp on the product of
labor. Or, let us take the services and payments in kind of the Middle
Ages. It was the specific kind of labor performed by each individual in
its natural form, the particular and not the universal aspect of labor,
that constituted then the social tie. Or, let us finally take labor
carried on in common in its primitive natural form, as we find it at
the dawn of history of all civilized races.[4] It is clear that in this
case labor does not acquire its social character from the fact that the
labor of the individual takes on the abstract form of universal labor
or that his product assumes the form of a universal equivalent. The
very nature of production under a communal system makes it impossible
for the labor of the individual to be private labor and his product
to be a private product; on the contrary, it makes individual labor
appear as the direct function of a member of a social organism. On the
contrary, labor, which is expressed in exchange value, at once appears
as the labor of a separate individual. It becomes social labor only
by taking on the form of its direct opposite, the form of abstract
universal labor.
Labor, which creates exchange value, is, finally, characterized by the
fact that even the social relations of men appear in the reversed form
of a social relation of things. Only in so far as two use-values are
in a mutual relation of exchange values does the labor of different
persons possess the common property of being identical universal labor.
Hence, if it be correct to say that exchange value is a relation
between persons,[5] it must be added that it is a relation disguised
under a material cover. Just as a pound of iron and a pound of gold
represent the _same_ weight in spite of their different physical and
chemical properties, so do two use-values, as commodities containing
the same quantity of labor-time, represent the _same exchange value_.
Exchange value thus appears as the natural social destination of
use-values, a property which they possess by virtue of being things and
in consequence of which they are exchanged for one another in definite
proportions, or form equivalents, just as chemical elements combine in
certain proportions, forming chemical equivalents. It is only through
the habit of everyday life that we come to think it perfectly plain and
commonplace, that a social relation of production should take on the
form of a thing, so that the relation of persons in their work appears
in the form of a mutual relation between things, and between things
and persons.
In commodities this mystification is as yet very simple. It is more
or less plain to everybody that a relation of commodities as exchange
values is nothing but a mutual relation between persons in their
productive activity. This semblance of simplicity disappears in higher
productive relations. All the illusions in regard to the monetary
system are due to the fact that money is not regarded as something
representing a social relation of production, but as a product of
nature endowed with certain properties. The modern economists who sneer
at the illusions of the monetary system, betray the same illusion
as soon as they have to deal with higher economic forms, as, e. g.,
capital.[6] It breaks forth in their confession of naive surprise, when
what they have just thought to have defined with great difficulty as a
thing suddenly appears as a social relation and then reappears to tease
them again as a thing, before they have barely managed to define it as
a social relation.
Since the exchange value of commodities is, in fact, nothing but a
mutual relation of the labors of individuals―labors which are similar
and universal―nothing but a material expression of a specific social
form of labor, it is a tautology to say that labor is the _only_
source of exchange value and consequently of wealth, in so far as the
latter consists of exchange values. Similarly, it is a tautology to
say that matter in its natural state has no exchange value, because
it does not contain any labor, and that exchange value as such does
not contain matter. But when William Petty calls “labor the father and
earth the mother of wealth,” or when Bishop Berkeley asks “whether
the four elements and man’s labour therein, be not the true source of
wealth,”[7] or when the American, Thomas Cooper puts it popularly:
“Take away from a piece of bread the labour bestowed by the baker on
the flour, by the miller on the grain brought to him, by the farmer
in ploughing, sowing, tending, gathering, threshing, cleaning and
transporting the seed, and what will remain? A few grains of grass,
growing wild in the woods, and unfit for any human purpose”[8]―then all
these views do not refer to abstract labor as the source of exchange
value, but to concrete labor as the source of material wealth; in
short, to labor in so far as it produces use-values. In assuming
that a commodity has use-value we assume the special usefulness
and distinct fitness of the labor absorbed by it, but that is all
there is to the view of labor as useful labor from the standpoint of
commodity. Considering bread as a use-value, we are interested in its
properties as an article of food and not at all in the different kinds
of labor of the farmer, miller, baker, etc. If by some invention
nineteen-twentieths of this labor could be saved, the loaf of bread
would still render the same service as before. If it fell ready-made
from the sky it would not lose a single atom of its use-value. While
labor which creates exchange value is realized in the equality of
commodities as universal equivalents, labor as a productive activity
with a useful purpose is realized in the endless variety of use-values
created by it. While labor which creates exchange values is _abstract_,
_universal_ and _homogeneous_, labor which produces use-values is
concrete and special and is made up of an endless variety of kinds of
labor according to the way in which and the material to which it is
applied.
It is wrong to speak of labor in so far as it is applied to the
production of use-values as of _the only_ source of wealth, namely,
the material wealth produced by it. Being an activity intended to
adapt materials to this or that purpose, it requires matter as a
prerequisite. In different use-values the proportion between labor
and raw material varies greatly, but use-value always has a natural
substratum. Labor, as an activity, directed to the adaptation of raw
material in one form or another, is a natural condition of human
existence, a condition of exchange of matter between man and nature,
independent of all social forms. On the contrary, labor producing
exchange value is a specifically social form of labor. Tailoring, e.
g., in its material manifestation as a distinct productive activity,
produces a coat, but not the exchange value of the coat. The latter
is produced not by the labor of the tailor as such, but by abstract
universal labor, and that belongs to a certain organization of society
which has not been brought about by the tailor. Thus, the women under
the ancient system of house industry made coats without producing the
exchange value of the coats. Labor as a source of material wealth was
known to Moses, the legislator, as well as to Adam Smith, the customs
official.[9]
Let us consider now some propositions which follow from the
determination of exchange value by labor-time.
As a use-value, every commodity owes its usefulness to itself. Wheat,
e. g., serves as an article of food. A machine saves labor to a certain
extent. This function of a commodity by virtue of which it serves only
as use-value, as an article of consumption, may be called its service,
the service which it renders as use-value. But as an exchange value,
a commodity is always regarded as a result; the question in this case
is not as to the service which it renders, but as to the service[10]
which it has been rendered in its production. Thus, the exchange value
of a machine is determined not by the quantity of labor-time which it
saves, but by the quantity of labor-time which has been expended on
its own production and which is, therefore, required to produce a new
machine of the same kind.
If, therefore, the quantity of labor-time required for the production
of commodities remained constant, their exchange value would remain
the same. But the ease and the difficulty of production are constantly
changing. If the productivity of labor increases, the same use-value
will be produced in less time. If the productivity of labor declines,
more time will be required for the production of the same use-value.
Thus, the labor-time contained in a commodity or its exchange-value is
a variable quantity, increasing or diminishing in an inverse ratio to
the rise and fall of the productivity of labor. The productive power of
labor which is applied in the manufacturing industry on a predetermined
scale depends in the agricultural and extractive industries also on
natural conditions which are beyond human control. _The same labor_
will yield a greater or less output of various metals, according to
their more or less close occurrence in the earth’s crust. _The same
labor_ may be embodied in two bushels of wheat in a favorable season,
and only in one in an unfavorable season. In this case, scarcity or
abundance, as natural conditions, seem to determine the exchange value
of commodities, because they determine the productivity of certain
kinds of labor which depend upon natural conditions.
Unequal volumes of different use-value contain the same quantity of
labor-time or the same exchange value. The smaller the volume of a
use-value containing a certain quantity of labor-time as compared with
other use-values, the greater its _specific exchange-value_. If we find
that certain use-values, such as, e. g., gold, silver, copper and iron,
or wheat, rye, barley and oats, form a series of specific exchange
values which, though not retaining exactly the same numerical ratio,
still retain through widely remote epochs of civilization the same
rough proportion of relatively larger and smaller quantities, we may
draw the conclusion that the progressive development of the productive
powers of society has equally, or approximately so, affected the
labor-time necessary for the production of the various commodities.
The exchange value of a commodity is not revealed in its own use-value.
But, as the embodiment universal social labor-time, the use-value
of one commodity bears a certain ratio to the use-values of other
commodities. Thus, the exchange value of one commodity is manifested
in the use-values of other commodities. An equivalent is, in fact, the
exchange value of one commodity expressed in the use-value of another
commodity. If I say, e. g., that one yard of linen is worth two pounds
of coffee, then the exchange value of linen is expressed in terms of
the use-value of coffee, viz., in a certain quantity of that use-value.
This ratio being given, I can express the value of any quantity of
linen in coffee. It is clear that the exchange value of one commodity,
say linen, is not confined to the ratio of any one commodity, e. g.
coffee, as its equivalent. The quantity of universal labor-time which
is represented in one yard of linen is at the same time embodied in
an endless variety of volumes of use-values of all other commodities.
The use-value of any other commodity forms the equivalent of one yard
of linen, in the proportion in which it represents the same quantity of
labor-time as that yard of linen. The exchange value of _this single
commodity_ is, therefore, fully expressed in the endless number of
equations in which the use-values of all other commodities form its
equivalents. Not until the exchange value of a commodity is expressed
in the sum total of these equations or of the different proportions in
which one commodity is exchanged for every other commodity, does it
find an exhaustive expression as a _universal equivalent_; e. g., the
series of equations:
1 yard of linen = 1/2 lb. of tea,
1 yard of linen = 2 lbs. of coffee,
1 yard of linen = 8 lbs. of bread,
1 yard of linen = 6 yards of calico,
may be represented as follows:
1 yard of linen = 1/8 lb. of tea + 1/2 lb. of coffee + 2 lbs. of bread
+ 1-1/2 yards of calico.
Therefore, if we had before us the sum total of the equations, in
which the value of a yard of linen is exhaustively expressed, we could
represent its exchange value in the form of a series. As a matter of
fact, the series is an endless one, since the circle of commodities,
constantly expanding, can never be closed up. But while the exchange
value of one commodity is thus measured by the use-values of all other
commodities, the exchange values of all the other commodities are, in
their turn, measured by the use-value of this one commodity.[11]
If the exchange value of one yard of linen is expressed in 1/2 lb. of
tea, or 2 lbs. of coffee, or 6 yards of calico, or 8 lbs. of bread,
etc., it follows that coffee, tea, calico, bread, etc., are equal to
each other if taken in the same proportion in which they are equal to
the third article, linen; consequently, linen serves as the common
measure of their exchange values. Every commodity, as the embodiment
of universal labor-time, i. e., as a certain quantity of universal
labor-time, expresses in turn its exchange value in definite quantities
of the use-values of all other commodities, and the exchange values
of all the other commodities are, on the other hand, measured by the
use-value of this one exclusive commodity. But as an exchange value,
every commodity is at the same time the one exclusive commodity
that serves as a common measure of the exchange values of all other
commodities; and, on the other hand, it is but one of the many
commodities in the entire series of which every commodity expresses
directly its exchange value.
The value of a commodity is not affected by the number of commodities
of other kinds. But the length of the series of equations in which
its exchange value is realized does depend upon the greater or less
variety of other commodities. The series of equations in which the
value of coffee, e. g., is represented, indicates the extent to which
it is exchangeable, the limits within which it performs the function of
an exchange value. The exchange value of a commodity as an embodiment
of universal social labor-time is expressed in its equivalence to an
endless variety of use-values.
We have seen that the exchange value of a commodity varies with the
quantity of labor-time directly contained in it. Its realized exchange
value, i. e., its exchange value expressed in the use-values of other
commodities, must also depend on the proportion in which the labor-time
spent on the production of all other commodities is changing. If, e.
g., the labor-time required for the production of a bushel of wheat
remained constant, while that required for the production of all other
commodities doubled, the exchange value of a bushel of wheat expressed
in its equivalents would become half as large as before. The result
would be practically the same as if the amount of time necessary for
the production of one bushel of wheat had been reduced by one-half,
and that required for all other commodities had remained unchanged.
The value of commodities is determined by the proportion in which they
can be produced in the same labor-time. In order to see what possible
changes this proportion may undergo, let us take two commodities, A and
B.
_First case._ Let the labor-time required for the production of
commodity B remain unchanged. In that case the exchange value of A,
expressed in terms of B, rises and falls with the rise and fall of the
labor-time required for the production of A.
_Second case._ Let the labor-time required for the production of
commodity A remain constant. Then the exchange value of A, expressed in
terms of B, falls and rises in an inverse ratio with the rise and fall
of the labor-time required for the production of B.
_Third case._ Let the labor-time required for the production of
commodities A and B rise and fall in equal proportion. Then the
expression of equivalence of A and B remains unchanged. If through some
cause the productivity of all kinds of labor were to decline uniformly,
so that the production of all commodities would require an equally
increased quantity of labor-time, then the value of all commodities
would rise, though the expression of their exchange values would remain
unchanged, and the actual wealth of society would decrease, because
it would have to expend more labor-time on the production of the same
stock of use-values.
_Fourth case._ Let the labor-time required for the production of A and
B rise and fall, but not uniformly; that is to say, the labor-time
required for the production of A may rise, while that required for B
may fall, or vice versa. All of which can be reduced to the simple
case where the labor-time required for the production of one commodity
remains unchanged, while that required for the other rises or falls.
The exchange value of any commodity is expressed in the use-value of
any other commodity, be it in integral units or in fractions thereof.
As exchange value, every commodity is capable of subdivision, like
the labor-time embodied in it. The equivalence of commodities is
independent of their physical divisibility as use-values, just as the
sum of the exchange values of commodities is indifferent to the change
of form which use-values have to undergo when converted into a _single_
new commodity.
So far we have considered commodities from a twofold point of view,
as use-values and exchange values alternately. But a commodity as such
is a direct combination of use-value and exchange value; and it is a
commodity only in relation to other commodities. The _actual_ relation
between commodities constitutes the _process of their exchange_. It is
a social process participated in by individuals independent of each
other but the part they take in it is that of owners of commodities
only. Their mutual relations are those of their commodities, and thus
they really appear as conscious factors of the process of exchange.
A commodity _is_ a use-value, wheat, linen, a diamond, a machine,
etc., but as a commodity it is, at the same time, _not_ a use-value.
If it were a use-value for its owner, i. e., a direct means for the
satisfaction of his own wants, then it would not be a commodity. To him
it is rather _a non-use-value_; it is merely the material depository of
exchange-value, or simply a _means of exchange_; as an active bearer of
exchange value, use-value becomes a means of exchange. To the owner it
is a use-value only in so far as it constitutes exchange value.[12]
It has yet _to become_ a use-value, viz., to others. Not being a
use-value to its owner, it is a use-value to the owners of other
commodities. If it is not, then the labor expended on it was useless
labor, and the result of that labor is not a commodity. On the other
hand, the commodity must become a use-value _to the owner himself_,
because his means of existence lie outside of it in the use-values of
commodities not belonging to him. In order to become a use-value, the
commodity must meet the particular want of which it is the means of
satisfaction. Use-values of commodities are thus _realized_ use-values
through a universal change of hands by passing from the hands in which
they were held as means of exchange into those where they become use
values. Only through this universal transfer of commodities does the
labor contained in them become useful labor. In this process of their
mutual interchange as use-values, commodities do not acquire any new
economic forms. On the contrary, even the form which marked them as
commodities disappears. Bread, e. g., by changing hands from the baker
to the consumer does not change its identity as bread. On the contrary,
it is only the consumer that begins to regard it as a use-value, as a
certain article of food, while in the hands of the baker it was only
the bearer of an economic relation, a palpable yet transcendental
object. Thus, the only change of form that commodities undergo while
becoming use-values, consists in the fact that they cease to be, as
a matter of form, non-use-values to their owners, and use-values to
those who do not own them. To become use-values commodities must be
universally alienated; they must enter the sphere of exchange; but
they are subject to exchange in their capacity of exchange values.
Hence, in order to be realized as use-values, they must be realized as
exchange values.
While the single commodity appeared from the standpoint of use-value as
something independent, as exchange value it was regarded first of all
in its relation to all other commodities. This relation was, however,
merely theoretical, imaginary. It becomes real only in the process of
exchange. On the other hand, a commodity _is_ an exchange value in so
far as a certain quantity of labor-time has been expended on it, and
it consequently represents _materialized labor-time_. But of itself it
is only materialized individual labor-time of a particular kind, and
not _universal_ labor-time. Therefore, it _is not_ directly an exchange
value, but must first _become_ such. First of all, it is an embodiment
of universal labor-time only in so far as it represents labor-time
applied to a definite useful purpose, i. e., when it represents a
use-value. This was the material condition under which alone labor-time
contained in commodities was regarded as universal social labor.
Thus, while a commodity can become a use-value only after it has been
realized as an exchange value, it can, on the other hand, be realized
as an exchange value only if it proves to be a use-value in the process
of alienation.
A commodity can be alienated as a use-value only to one whom it
serves as a use-value, i. e., as a means of satisfying a certain
want. On the other hand, it is exchanged for another commodity, or,
if we put ourselves on the side of the owner of the other commodity,
it, too, can be alienated, i. e., be realized, only if brought in
contact with that particular want of which it is the object. In the
universal exchange of commodities as _use-values_ the basis for
their mutual relations is in their material difference as distinct
objects which satisfy different wants by their specific properties.
But as mere use-values, they are indifferent to each other, and
are incommensurable. As use-values they can be exchanged only with
reference to certain wants. They are exchangeable only as equivalents,
and they are equivalents only as equal quantities of materialized
labor-time, so that all regard to their natural properties as
use-values and therefore to the relation of the commodities to
particular wants is eliminated. On the contrary, a commodity is
realized as an exchange value by replacing as an equivalent any
definite quantity of any other commodity, regardless of whether it
is a use-value for the owner of the other commodity or not. But to
the owner of the other commodity it is a commodity only in so far
as it is a use-value to him, and it becomes an exchange value to
its owner only in so far as it is a commodity to that other person.
Thus, the same relation appears as a proportion between commodities
as magnitudes of the same denomination, but differing qualitatively;
or, as an expression of their equivalence as embodiments of universal
labor-time, and, at the same time, as a relation of qualitatively
different objects, of use-values intended for the satisfaction of
particular wants, in short, a relation in which they are distinguished
as actual use-values. But this equivalence and non-equivalence mutually
exclude each other. Thus we have before us not only a vicious circle
of problems in which the solution of one implies that of the other, but
a combination of contradicting claims, since the fulfillment of one is
directly connected with that of its opposite.
The process of exchange of commodities must result both in the
unfolding and in the solution of these contradictions, neither of
which, however, can appear in that process in this simple way. We
have only observed how commodities are mutually related to each other
as use-values, i. e., how they appear as use-values _within_ the
process of exchange. The exchange-value, on the contrary, as we have
considered it so far, appeared as an abstraction formed in our own
minds, or―if we may so put it―in the mind of the individual owner
of commodities, which lie stored in his warehouse as use-values,
and weigh upon his conscience as exchange values. In the process of
exchange, however, commodities must be not only use-values, but also
exchange values to one another, and that should appear as their own
mutual relation. The difficulty which we first encountered was that a
commodity must be first alienated and delivered to its purchasers as
a use-value, in order to appear as an exchange value, as materialized
labor, while on the other hand its alienation as use-value implies
its being an exchange value. But let us assume that this difficulty
has been overcome. Suppose the commodity has divested itself of its
use-value, and has thereby fulfilled the material condition of being
socially useful labor, instead of a particular labor of an individual.
In that case, the commodity must become an exchange value, a universal
equivalent, an embodiment of universal labor-time for all other
commodities in the process of exchange, and thus, leaving behind its
limited role of a particular use-value, acquire the ability to be
directly represented in all use-values as its equivalents. But every
commodity is _just such_ a commodity, appearing as a direct incarnation
of universal labor-time by divesting itself of its particular
use-value. On the other hand, however, commodities confront each other
in the process of exchange as particular commodities, as the labor
of private individuals embodied in particular use-values. Universal
labor-time is itself an abstraction, which, as such, does not exist for
commodities.
Let us examine the series of equations in which the exchange value of a
commodity finds its concrete expression, e. g.:
1 yard of linen = 2 lbs. of coffee.
1 yard of linen = 1/2 lb. of tea.
1 yard of linen = 8 lbs. of bread, etc.
These equations simply signify that equal quantities of universal
social labor-time are embodied in one yard of linen, two pounds
of coffee, half a pound of tea, etc. But as a matter of fact the
individual labors which are represented in these particular use-values,
become universal, and, in that form, also social labor, only when they
are actually exchanged for one another in proportion to the labor-time
contained in them. Social labor-time exists in these commodities in
a latent state, so to say, and is first revealed in the process of
exchange. We do not proceed from the labor of individuals as social
labor, but, on the contrary, from special labor of private individuals
which appears as universal social labor only by divesting itself of
its original character in the process of exchange. Universal social
labor is, therefore, no ready-made assumption, but a growing result.
And thus we are confronted with a new difficulty, that on the one
hand commodities must enter the process of exchange as embodiments of
universal labor-time, while, on the other hand, this embodiment of the
labor-time of individuals as social labor-time is itself a result of
the process of exchange.
Every commodity becomes an exchange value by divesting itself of its
use-value, or of its original nature. The commodity must therefore
assume a double capacity in the process of exchange. But that second
capacity of exchange value can appear only in the shape of another
commodity, because only commodities confront each other in the process
of exchange. How is a particular commodity to represent directly
_materialized universal_ labor-time, or―to put it differently―how is
individual labor-time, which is embodied in a particular commodity to
be made directly universal in character? The concrete expression of the
exchange value of a commodity, i. e., of every commodity as a universal
equivalent, is represented in an endless series of equations, such as:
1 yard of linen = 2 lbs. of coffee.
1 yard of linen = 1/2 lb. of tea.
1 yard of linen = 8 lbs. of bread.
1 yard of linen = 6 yards of calico.
1 yard of linen = etc.
The above form is theoretical in so far as commodities are only
_thought of_ as definite quantities of materialized universal
labor-time. But the capacity of a particular commodity to serve as a
universal equivalent from a mere abstraction becomes a _social_ result
of the process of exchange by a simple inversion of the above series of
equations, viz.:
2 lbs. of coffee = 1 yard of linen.
1/2 lb. of tea = 1 yard of linen.
8 lbs. of bread = 1 yard of linen.
6 yards of calico = 1 yard of linen.
While coffee, tea, bread, calico, in short, all commodities express
in linen the labor-time contained in them, the exchange value of
linen, on the other hand, unfolds itself in all other commodities as
its equivalents, and the labor-time embodied in it becomes direct
universal labor-time, which is equally expressed in different volumes
of all other commodities. Linen thus becomes the _universal equivalent_
through the _universal action_ of all other commodities upon it.
As exchange value, every commodity served as a measure of value of
all other commodities. Now, on the contrary, since all commodities
measure their exchange values by means of a particular commodity,
this excluded commodity becomes the special expression of exchange
value, as a universal equivalent. At the same time, the endless
series of equations in which the exchange value of every commodity
was expressed, is reduced to one single equation consisting of two
members. The equation 2 lbs. of coffee = 1 yard of linen now fully
expresses the exchange value of coffee, for in this expression a yard
of linen appears as the direct equivalent of a definite quantity
of every other commodity. Thus, within the sphere of exchange all
commodities are or appear to each other as exchange values in the
form of linen. The proposition that commodities, as exchange values,
are to each other as different quantities of materialized universal
labor-time, may now be worded to the effect that commodities, as
exchange values, represent nothing but different quantities of _the
same_ article, linen. Universal labor-time thus assumes the aspect of
a distinct thing, as a commodity existing along with and outside of
all other commodities. At the same time the equation 2 lbs. of coffee
= 1 yard of linen, in which one commodity appears as the exchange
value of another, is yet to be realized. Only by being alienated as
use-value―which depends upon whether it proves to be in the process
of exchange the object of a certain want―does the commodity actually
transform its existence as coffee into the existence as linen and
thus takes on the form of a universal equivalent and becomes, indeed,
an exchange value for all other commodities. Conversely, since all
commodities are turned into linen by being alienated as use-values,
linen becomes the converted form of all other commodities, and only as
a result of this transformation of all other commodities into it, it
becomes the direct _embodiment of universal labor-time_, i. e., the
product of universal exchange and of the elimination of individual
labor. If commodities thus assume a twofold character in order to
appear as exchange values to each other, the commodity which has been
singled out as the universal equivalent becomes, on the other hand, a
use-value in two ways. Besides its special use-value as a particular
commodity, it assumes a universal use-value. This latter kind of
use-value constitutes its special feature, emanating as it does,
from the specific part which the commodity plays as a result of the
universal relation which all other commodities bear toward it in the
process of exchange. The use-value of every commodity as an object of
a particular want, has a different value in different hands, e. g., it
has a different value in the hands of the one who disposes of it, than
in those of the one who acquires it. But the commodity singled out as
the universal equivalent, is now an object of a universal want arising
from the very process of exchange, and it has the same use-value to
everybody, viz., that of serving as the depository of exchange value,
of being a universal means of exchange. Thus we find in one commodity
the solution of the contradiction which is inherent in commodity as
such, namely, of being at one and the same time a particular use-value
and a universal equivalent, and, therefore, a use-value for everybody
or universal use-value. Thus, while all other commodities express their
exchange value in the form of an ideal equation with the excluded
commodity―an equation yet to be realized―the use-value of the special
commodity, although real, appears in the process itself as a mere
form which is yet to be realized through transformation into actual
use-values. Originally the commodity appeared simply as commodity, as
universal labor-time embodied in a particular use-value. In the process
of exchange, all commodities are related to the one excluded commodity
as to a simple commodity, one which appears as the embodiment of
universal labor-time in a particular use-value. Thus, _particular_
commodities become related to one particular commodity as a universal
commodity.[13] In that manner the mutual relations of possessors of
commodities based on the fact that they regard their labor as universal
social labor, takes on the aspect of their relations to commodities as
exchange values; and the mutual relation of commodities as exchange
values appears in the process of exchange as the relation of all of
them to one particular commodity as to a specially adopted means of
expression of their exchange value; again, from the point of view of
that particular commodity the above relation appears as its specific
relation to all other commodities, and, therefore, as its own definite,
spontaneous, social character. The particular commodity which thus
appears as the specially adopted expression of the exchange value
of all other commodities, or the exchange value of commodities as a
particular exclusive commodity, is _money_. Money is a crystallization
of the exchange value of commodities which they themselves form in
the process of exchange. Thus, while commodities become _use-values_
to each other in the process of exchange by casting off all definite
forms and entering into mutual relations in their direct material
shape, they must assume a new form, viz., proceed to the formation of
money in order to appear as _exchange values_ to each other. Money
is not a symbol, no more than the commodity aspect of a use-value
is a symbol. That a social relation of production takes the form of
an object existing outside of individuals, and that the definite
relations into which individuals enter in the process of production
carried on in society, assume the form of specific properties of a
thing, is a perversion and by no means imaginary, but prosaically real,
mystification marking all social forms of labor which creates exchange
value. In money this mystification appears only more strikingly than in
commodities.
The necessary physical properties of the particular commodity in which
the money form of all other commodities is to be crystallized―as far
as they are directly determined by the nature of exchange value―are:
divisibility to any desired extent, homogeneity of its parts, and
uniformity of all the specimens of the commodity. As an embodiment
of universal labor-time it must be homogeneous in its structure
and capable of representing only quantitative differences. Another
necessary property is durability of its use-value, as it must last
through the process of exchange. The precious metals excel in these
qualities. Money not being a result of a scheme or agreement, but
having been produced instinctively in the process of exchange, a great
variety of more or less unsuited commodities had successively performed
its functions. At a certain stage of development of the process
of exchange, the necessity arises for a polar distribution of the
functions of exchange value and use-value among commodities, so that
one commodity e. g. should act as a medium of exchange, while another
is being alienated as a use-value. This necessity brings it about that
one or even several commodities possessing the most generally accepted
use-value, begin, incidentally at first, to play the part of money.
Even if not direct means of satisfying existing wants, their being the
most considerable material constituent part of wealth, insures to them
a more general character than to the other use-values.
Direct barter, the original natural form of exchange, represents rather
the beginning of the transformation of use-values into commodities,
than that of commodities into money. Exchange value has as yet no
form of its own, but is still directly bound up with use-value. This
is manifested in two ways. Production, in its entire organization,
aims at the creation of use-values and not of exchange values, and
it is only when their supply exceeds the measure of consumption that
use-values cease to be use-values, and become means of exchange,
i. e., commodities. At the same time, they become commodities only
within the limits of being direct use-values distributed at opposite
poles, so that the commodities to be exchanged by their possessors
must be use-values to both,―each commodity to its non-possessor. As a
matter of fact, the exchange of commodities originates not within the
primitive communities,[14] but where they end, on their borders at the
few points, where they come in contact with other communities. That is
where barter begins, and from here it strikes back into the interior
of the community, decomposing it. The various use-values which first
become commodities in the barter between different communities, such
as slaves, cattle, metals, constitute therefore in most cases the
first money within those communities themselves. We have seen how
the exchange value of a commodity is manifested the more perfectly
as exchange value, the longer the series of its equivalents or the
_greater_ the sphere of exchange of that commodity. With the gradual
expansion of barter, the increase in the number of exchanges, and
the growing diversification of the commodities drawn into exchange,
commodities develop into exchange values, which leads to the formation
of money and has a destructive effect on direct barter. The economists
are in the habit of ascribing the origin of money to the difficulties
which are encountered in the way of extensive barter, but they forget
that these difficulties arise from the development of exchange value
and from the fact that social labor becomes universal labor. E. g.,
commodities as use-values can not be subdivided at will, a property
which they should possess as exchange values. Or, a commodity belonging
to A may be a use-value to B, while the commodity belonging to B may
not have any use-value to A. Or the owners of the commodities may
need each other’s indivisible goods in unequal proportions. In other
words, under the pretence of analyzing simple barter, economists
bring out certain aspects of the contradiction which is inherent in
commodities as entities simultaneously embodying both use-value and
exchange value. On the other hand, they consistently cling to the
idea that barter is the natural form of exchange, which suffers only
from certain technical difficulties, for which money is a cunningly
devised expedient. Arguing from this perfectly superficial view, an
ingenious English economist has rightly maintained that money is
merely a material instrument like a ship or a steam-engine, but not
an expression of a social relation in the field of production and
consequently not an economic category; and that it is, therefore, wrong
to treat the subject in political economy, which really has nothing in
common with technology.[15]
The world of commodities implies the existence of a highly developed
division of labor; this division is manifested directly in the great
variety of use-values, which confront each other as particular
commodities and which embody as many different kinds of labor. The
division of labor embracing all the particular kinds of productive
occupations, is the complete expression of social labor in its material
aspect viewed as labor creating use-values. But from the standpoint of
commodities and within the process of exchange, it exists only in its
results, in the variety of the commodities themselves.
The exchange of commodities constitutes the social metabolic process,
i. e. the process in which the exchange of the special products of
private individuals is the result of certain social relations of
production into which the individuals enter in this interchange of
matter. As they develop, the mutual relations of commodities crystalize
into various aspects of the universal equivalent and thus the process
of exchange becomes at the same time the process of the formation of
money. The whole of this process which takes the form of a succession
of processes, constitutes circulation.
NOTES ON THE HISTORY OF THE THEORY OF COMMODITIES.
The analysis of commodities according to their twofold aspect of
use-value and exchange value by which the former is reduced to work
or deliberate productive activity; and the latter, to labor time or
homogeneous social labor, is the result of a century and a half of
critical study by the classical school of political economy which dates
from William Petty in England and Boisguillebert in France[16] and
closes with Ricardo in the former country and Sismondi in the latter.
Petty reduces use-value to labor, without deceiving himself as to the
natural limitation of its creative power. As regards concrete labor,
he sizes it up in the magnitude of its social aspect, as _the division
of labor_.[17] This view of the source of material wealth does not
remain more or less fruitless as in the case of his contemporary,
Hobbes, but leads up to his _Political Arithmetic_, the first form in
which Political Economy is differentiated as an independent science.
He defines exchange value, however, just as it _appears_ in the process
of exchange of commodities, viz. as money; and money he defines as
an existing commodity, gold and silver. Laboring under the ideas of
the monetary system, he declares the special branch of labor which
is devoted to the production of gold and silver as the labor which
determines exchange value. What he really means is that the labor of
members of society must produce not direct use-values, but commodities
or use-values which by means of exchange are capable of assuming the
form of gold and silver, i. e. of money, i. e. of exchange value, i.
e. of embodiments of universal labor. His example, however, shows
strikingly that the recognition of labor as the source of material
wealth by no means excludes the misconception of the particular social
form in which labor constitutes the source of exchange value.
In his turn, Boisguillebert, if not consciously, at any rate actually
reduces the exchange value of a commodity to labor-time, since he
determines “true value” (la juste valeur) by the right proportion in
which the labor-time of individuals is distributed among the several
branches of industry, and defines free competition as the social
process which determines these correct proportions. At the same time,
however, and in contrast with Petty he wages a fanatical war against
money which, by its interference, disturbs the natural equilibrium or
harmony of exchange of commodities and, like a wanton Moloch, demands
all natural wealth as sacrifice. It is true that this assault on money
was called forth by certain historic conditions. Since Boisguillebert
attacked[18] the blind destructive lust after gold which possessed
the court of Louis XIV, his tax collectors, and his nobility; on the
other hand, Petty extolled in the greed of gold the mighty impulse
which spurred on the nation in her industrial development and in her
conquest of the world-market; still, there asserts itself here a
deeper antagonism of principles which constantly recurs between true
English and true French[19] Political Economy. Boisguillebert sees,
in fact, only the material substance of wealth, its use-value, the
enjoyment[20] of it, and considers the capitalistic form of labor, i.
e. the production of use-values as commodities and the exchange of
those commodities, as the natural social form in which individual labor
attains its end. When he is, therefore, confronted with the specific
character of capitalistic wealth as in the case of money, he sees in it
the usurping interference of extraneous elements and gets into a rage
about the capitalist system of labor in one form while utopian-like
he praises it in another.[21] Boisguillebert furnishes us with proof
that one may treat labor-time as the measure of value of commodities,
and at the same time confound labor embodied in the exchange value of
commodities and measured by time, with the direct natural activity of
individuals.
The first sensible analysis of exchange value as labor-time, made so
clear as to seem almost commonplace, is to be found in the work of
a man of the New World where the bourgeois relations of production
imported together with their representatives sprouted rapidly in a
soil which made up its lack of historical traditions with a surplus of
humus. That man was Benjamin Franklin, who formulated the fundamental
law of modern political economy[22] in his first work which he wrote
when a mere youth and published in 1721.
He declares it necessary to look for another measure of value than
precious metals. That measure is labor. “By labor may the value of
silver be measured as well as other things. As, suppose one man
employed to raise corn, while another is digging and refining silver;
at the year’s end, or at any other period of time, the complete produce
of corn, and that of silver, are the natural price of each other; and
if one be twenty bushels, and the other twenty ounces, then an ounce
of that silver is worth the labor of raising a bushel of that corn.
Now if by the discovery of some nearer, more easy or plentiful mines,
a man may get forty ounces of silver as easily as formerly he did
twenty, and the same labor is still required to raise twenty bushels
of corn, then two ounces of silver will be worth no more than the same
labor of raising one bushel of corn, and that bushel of corn will be
as cheap at two ounces, as it was before at one, _ceteris paribus_.
Thus the riches of a country are to be valued by the quantity of labor
its inhabitants are able to purchase.”[23] Thus Franklin regards
labor-time from the one-sided economic point of view, as the measure
of value. The transformation of actual products into exchange values
is self-evident with him and the only question is as to finding a
quantitative measure of value. “Trade,” says he, “in general being
nothing else but the exchange of labour for labour, the value of all
things is, as I have said before, most justly measured by labour.”[24]
Substitute the word “work” for “labor” in the above statement, and
the confusion of labor in one form and labor in another form becomes
at once apparent. Since trade consists e. g. in the exchange of the
respective labors of the shoemaker, miner, spinner, painter, etc., does
it follow that the value of shoes is most justly measured by the work
of a painter? On the contrary, Franklin meant that the value of shoes,
mining products, yarn, paintings, etc., is determined by abstract labor
which possesses no particular qualities and can, therefore, be measured
only quantitatively.[25] But since he does not develop the idea
that labor contained in exchange value is abstract universal labor
which assumes the form of social labor as a result of the universal
alienation of the products of individual labor, he necessarily fails to
recognize in money the direct embodiment of this alienated labor. For
that reason he sees no inner connection between money and labor which
creates exchange value, and considers money merely as an instrument
introduced from outside into the sphere of exchange for purposes of
technical convenience.[26] Franklin’s analysis of exchange value did
not exert any direct influence on the general trend of science, because
he discussed only special questions of political economy whenever there
was a definite practical occasion for it.
The contrast between useful work and labor which creates exchange
value agitated all Europe during the eighteenth century in the form of
this question: what particular kind of labor constitutes the source
of bourgeois wealth? It was thus assumed that not every kind of labor
which is realized in use-values or yields certain products does
thereby directly create wealth. With the physiocrats, however, as well
as with their opponents, the burning question was not, what kind of
labor creates _value_, but which is it that creates _surplus value_.
They approached the problem in its complicated form before they had
solved it in its elementary form; such is the historical course of
all sciences leading them by a labyrinth of intersecting paths to the
real starting points. Unlike other builders, science not only erects
castles in the air, but constructs separate stories of the building,
before it has laid the foundation. Without dwelling any longer on the
physiocrats and omitting quite a number of Italian economists who in
some more or less ingenious ideas came close to a correct analysis
of the nature of commodity,[27] we pass at once to the first Briton
who elaborated the general system of bourgeois economics, Sir James
Steuart.[28] His idea of exchange value as well as all the abstract
categories of political economy still seem to be with him in the
process of differentiation from the material elements they represent
and therefore appear quite vague and unsettled. In one place he
determines _real value by labor-time_ (“what a workman can perform in
a day”), but immediately creates confusion by introducing the elements
of wages and raw material.[29] In another place his struggle with the
material substance of the subject he treats of is revealed even more
strikingly. He calls the material of nature contained in a commodity,
such as the silver in a silver plate, its “intrinsic worth,” while the
labor-time contained in it he calls “useful value.” The former, he says
“is ... something real in itself,” while “the value of the second must
be estimated according to the labour it has cost to produce it.... The
labour employed in the modification [of the substance] represents a
portion of a man’s time.”[30]
What distinguishes Steuart from his predecessors and followers is
his keen differentiation between specifically social labor which is
represented in exchange value, and concrete labor which produces
use-values. Labor, he says, which through its alienation creates
a universal equivalent, I call _industry_. Labor as industry he
distinguishes not only from concrete labor, but from all other social
forms of labor.[31] It is to him the capitalistic form of labor
in contrast to its antique and mediaeval forms. He is especially
interested in the difference between capitalistic and feudal labor, of
which he had observed the latter in its decaying forms both in Scotland
and on his extensive travels over the continent. Steuart knew, of
course, very well that products took on the form of commodities and
commodities, the form of money in precapitalistic epochs as well; but
he proves conclusively that it is only in the capitalistic period of
production that the commodity becomes the elementary and fundamental
form of wealth, and alienation [of commodities], the ruling form of
acquisition and that consequently labor creating exchange value is
specifically capitalistic in its character.[32]
After different forms of concrete labor, such as agriculture,
manufacture, navigation, trade, etc., had each in turn been declared
the true source of wealth, Adam Smith proclaimed labor in general,
and namely in its general social form of _division of labor_, to be
the only source of material wealth or use-values. While ignoring in
connection with the latter the part played by nature, he is troubled
by it when he comes to deal with purely social wealth i. e. exchange
value. To be sure, Adam determines the value of a commodity by the
labor-time contained in it, but relegates the actual application of
the principle to pre-Adamic times. In other words, what seems to him
true from the standpoint of simple commodity, ceases to be clear as
soon as the higher and more complex forms of capital, wage-labor,
rent, etc. take its place. This he expresses by saying, that the value
of commodities used to be measured by labor-time in the paradise
lost of bourgeois society, in which men dealt with each other not
as capitalists, wage-workers, landlords, tenants, usurers, etc., but
merely as plain producers of commodities which they exchanged. He
constantly confuses the determination of the value of commodities by
the labor-time contained in them with the determination of their value
by the value of labor. He becomes confused in working out the details
and fails to see the objective equalization of different kinds of labor
which the social process forcibly carries out, mistaking it for the
subjective equality of the labors of individuals.[33] The transition
from concrete labor to labor creating exchange value, i. e. to labor in
its fundamental capitalistic form he tries to derive from the _division
of labor_. Yet, while it is true that private exchange implies the
division of labor, it is false to maintain that division of labor
implies private exchange. Among the Peruvians, e. g., labor was divided
to an extraordinary extent, although there was no private exchange, no
exchange of products, as commodities.
Contrary to Adam Smith, David Ricardo elaborated with great clearness
the determination of the value of a commodity by labor-time and showed
that this law governs also such relations of capitalistic production
which seem to contradict it most. Ricardo confines his investigations
exclusively to the _quantitative determination of value_ and as regards
the latter he is at least conscious of the fact that the realization
of the law depends upon certain historical conditions. He says,
namely, that the determination of value by labor-time holds good for
commodities “only as can be increased in quantity by the exertion of
human industry, and on the production of which competition operates
without restraint.”[34] What he really means is that the law of value
presupposes for its full development an industrial society in which
production is carried on a large scale and free competition prevails,
i. e. the modern capitalist society. In all other respects, Ricardo
considers the capitalist form of labor as the eternal natural form of
social labor. He makes the primitive fisherman and the primitive hunter
straightway exchange their fish and game as owners of commodities, in
proportion to the labor-time embodied in these exchange values. On this
occasion he commits the anachronism of making the primitive fisherman
and primitive hunter consult the annuity tables in current use on the
London Exchange in the year 1817 in the calculation relating to their
instruments. The “parallelograms of Mr. Owen” seem to be the only form
of society outside of the bourgeois form with which he was acquainted.
Although confined within this bourgeois horizon, Ricardo analyzes the
bourgeois economy―which looks quite different to deeper insight than
it does on the surface―with such keen power of theoretical penetration
that Lord Brougham could say of him: “Mr. Ricardo seemed as if he had
dropped from another planet.”
In a direct controversy with Ricardo, Sismondi lays stress upon
the specifically social character of labor which creates exchange
value,[35] and says it is “characteristic of our economic progress” to
reduce the magnitude of value to the _necessary_ labor-time, to the
relation between the demand of society as a whole and the quantity of
labor which is sufficient to satisfy this demand.[36] Sismondi is no
more laboring under Boisguillebert’s idea, that labor which creates
exchange value is adulterated by money; but just as Boisguillebert
denounced money, so does Sismondi denounce large industrial capital.
In Ricardo political economy reached its climax, after recklessly
drawing its ultimate conclusions, while Sismondi supplemented it by
impersonating its doubts.
Since Ricardo gave to classical political economy its final shape,
having formulated and elaborated with the greatest clearness the law of
the determination of exchange value by labor-time, it is natural that
all the polemics among economists should center about him. Stripped
of its puerile[37] form this controversy comes down to the following
points:
_First_: Labor itself has exchange value, and different kinds of labor
have different exchange values. We get into a vicious circle by making
exchange value the measure of exchange value, because the measuring
exchange value needs a measure itself. This objection may be reduced
to the following problem: Given labor-time as the intrinsic measure
of exchange value, develop from that the determination of wages. The
theory of wages gives the answer to that.
_Second_: If the exchange value of a product is equal to the labor-time
contained in it, then the exchange value of one day of labor is equal
to the product of that labor. In other words, wages must be equal to
the product of labor.[38] But the very opposite is actually the case.
Ergo. this objection comes down to the following problem: How does
production, based on the determination of exchange value by labor-time
only, lead to the result that the exchange value of labor is less than
the exchange value of its product? This problem is solved by us in the
discussion of capital.
_Third_: The market price of commodities either falls below or rises
above its exchange value with the changing relations of supply and
demand. _Therefore_, the exchange value of commodities is determined by
the relation of supply and demand and not by the labor-time contained
in them. As a matter of fact, this queer conclusion merely amounts to
the question, how a market price based on exchange value can deviate
from that exchange value; or, better still, how does the law of
exchange value assert itself only in its antithesis? This problem is
solved in the theory of competition.
_Fourth_: The last and apparently the most striking objection, if
not raised in the usual form of queer examples: If exchange value
is nothing but mere labor-time contained in commodities, how can
commodities which contain no labor possess exchange-value, or in other
words, whence the exchange value of mere forces of nature? This problem
is solved in the theory of rent.