27
Chapter 1
Chapter 1: Commodities
Section 1: The Two Factors of a Commodity:
Use-Value and Value
(The Substance of Value and the Magnitude of Value)
The wealth of those societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails, presents itself
as “an immense accumulation of commodities,”
1
its unit being a single commodity. Our
investigation must therefore begin with the analysis of a commodity.
A commodity is, in the first place, an object outside us, a thing that by its properties satisfies
human wants of some sort or another. The nature of such wants, whether, for instance, they spring
from the stomach or from fancy, makes no difference.
2
Neither are we here concerned to know
how the
object satisfies these wants, whether directly as means of subsistence, or indirectly as
means of production.
Every useful thing, as iron, paper, &c., may be looked at from the two points of view of quality
and quantity. It is an assemblage of many properties, and may therefore be of use in various ways.
To discover the various uses of things is the work of history.
3
So also is the establishment of
socially-recognized standards of measure for the quantities of these useful objects. The diversity
of these measures has its origin partly in the diverse nature of the objects to be measured, partly
in convention.
The utility of a thing makes it a use value.
4
But this utility is not a thing of air. Being limited by
the physical properties of the commodity, it has no existence apart from that commodity. A
commodity, such as iron, corn, or a diamond, is therefore, so far as it is a material thing, a use
value, something useful. This property of a commodity is independent of the amount of labour
required to appropriate its useful qualities. When treating of use value, we always assume to be
dealing with definite quantities, such as dozens of watches, yards of linen, or tons of iron. The use
values of commodities furnish the material for a special study, that of the commercial knowledge
of commodities.
5
Use values become a reality only by use or consumption: they also constitute
the substance of all wealth, whatever may be the social form of that wealth. In the form of society
we are about to consider, they are, in addition, the material depositories of exchange value.
Exchange value, at first sight, presents itself as a quantitative relation, as the proportion in which
values in use of one sort are exchanged for those of another sort,
6
a relation constantly changing
with time and place. Hence exchange value appears to be something accidental and purely
relative, and consequently an intrinsic value, i.e., an exchange value that is inseparably connected
with, inherent in commodities, seems a contradiction in terms.
7
Let us consider the matter a little
more closely.
A given commodity, e.g., a quarter of wheat is exchanged for x blacking, y silk, or z gold, &c. –
in short, for other commodities in the most different proportions. Instead of one exchange value,
the wheat has, therefore, a great many. But since x blacking, y silk, or z gold &c., each represents
the exchange value of one quarter of wheat, x blacking, y silk, z gold, &c., must, as exchange
values, be replaceable by each other, or equal to each other. Therefore, first: the valid exchange
values of a given commodity express something equal; secondly, exchange value, generally, is
only the mode of expression, the phenomenal form, of something contained in it, yet
distinguishable from it.
28
Chapter 1
Let us take two commodities, e.g., corn and iron. The proportions in which they are
exchangeable, whatever those proportions may be, can always be represented by an equation in
which a given quantity of corn is equated to some quantity of iron: e.g., 1 quarter corn = x cwt.
iron. What does this equation tell us? It tells us that in two different things – in 1 quarter of corn
and x cwt. of iron, there exists in equal quantities something common to both. The two things
must therefore be equal to a third, which in itself is neither the one nor the other. Each of them, so
far as it is exchange value, must therefore be reducible to this third.
A simple geometrical illustration will make this clear. In order to calculate and compare the areas
of rectilinear figures, we decompose them into triangles. But the area of the triangle itself is
expressed by something totally different from its visible figure, namely, by half the product of the
base multiplied by the altitude. In the same way the exchange values of commodities must be
capable of being expressed in terms of something common to them all, of which thing they
represent a greater or less quantity.
This common “something” cannot be either a geometrical, a chemical, or any other natural
property of commodities. Such properties claim our attention only in so far as they affect the
utility of those commodities, make them use values. But the exchange of commodities is
evidently an act characterised by a total abstraction from use value. Then one use value is just as
good as another, provided only it be present in sufficient quantity. Or, as old Barbon says,
“one sort of wares are as good as another, if the values be equal. There is no
difference or distinction in things of equal value ... An hundred pounds’ worth of
lead or iron, is of as great value as one hundred pounds’ worth of silver or gold.”
8
As use values, commodities are, above all, of different qualities, but as exchange values they are
merely different quantities, and consequently do not contain an atom of use value.
If then we leave out of consideration the use value of commodities, they have only one common
property left, that of being products of labour. But even the product of labour itself has undergone
a change in our hands. If we make abstraction from its use value, we make abstraction at the same
time from the material elements and shapes that make the product a use value; we see in it no
longer a table, a house, yarn, or any other useful thing. Its existence as a material thing is put out
of sight. Neither can it any longer be regarded as the product of the labour of the joiner, the
mason, the spinner, or of any other definite kind of productive labour. Along with the useful
qualities of the products themselves, we put out of sight both the useful character of the various
kinds of labour embodied in them, and the concrete forms of that labour; there is nothing left but
what is common to them all; all are reduced to one and the same sort of labour, human labour in
the abstract.
Let us now consider the residue of each of these products; it consists of the same unsubstantial
reality in each, a mere congelation of homogeneous human labour, of labour power expended
without regard to the mode of its expenditure. All that these things now tell us is, that human
labour power has been expended in their production, that human labour is embodied in them.
When looked at as crystals of this social substance, common to them all, they are – Values.
We have seen that when commodities are exchanged, their exchange value manifests itself as
something totally independent of their use value. But if we abstract from their use value, there
remains their Value as defined above. Therefore, the common substance that manifests itself in
the exchange value of commodities, whenever they are exchanged, is their value. The progress of
our investigation will show that exchange value is the only form in which the value of
commodities can manifest itself or be expressed. For the present, however, we have to consider
the nature of value independently of this, its form.