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Chapter 1
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.”
35
“Riches” (use value) “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...”
A pearl or a diamond is valuable as a pearl or a diamond.
36
So far no chemist has ever discovered exchange value either in a pearl or a diamond. The
economic discoverers of this chemical element, who by-the-bye 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 realised
without exchange, by means of a direct relation between the objects and man, while, on the other
hand, their value is realised only by exchange, that is, by means of a social process. Who fails
here to call to mind our good friend, Dogberry, who informs neighbour Seacoal, that, “To be a
well-favoured man is the gift of fortune; but reading and writing comes by Nature.”
37
1
Karl Marx, “Zur Kritik der Politischen Oekonomie.” Berlin, 1859, p. 3.
2
“Desire implies want, it is the appetite of the mind, and as natural as hunger to the body... The
greatest number (of things) have their value from supplying the wants of the mind.” Nicholas Barbon:
“A Discourse Concerning Coining the New Money Lighter. In Answer to Mr. Locke’s Considerations,
&c.”, London, 1696, pp. 2, 3.
3
“Things have an intrinsick vertue” (this is Barbon’s special term for value in use) “which in all
places have the same vertue; as the loadstone to attract iron” (l.c., p. 6). The property which the
magnet possesses of attracting iron, became of use only after by means of that property the polarity of
the magnet had been discovered.
4
“The natural worth of anything consists in its fitness to supply the necessities, or serve the
conveniencies of human life.” (John Locke, “Some Considerations on the Consequences of the
Lowering of Interest, 1691,” in Works Edit. Lond., 1777, Vol. II., p. 28.) In English writers of the 17th
century we frequently find “worth” in the sense of value in use, and “value” in the sense of exchange
value. This is quite in accordance with the spirit of a language that likes to use a Teutonic word for the
actual thing, and a Romance word for its reflexion.
5
In bourgeois societies the economic fictio juris prevails, that every one, as a buyer, possesses an
encyclopedic knowledge of commodities.
6
“La valeur consiste dans le rapport d’échange qui se trouve entre telle chose et telle autre entre telle
mesure d’une production et telle mesure d’une autre.” [“Value consists in the exchange relation
between one thing and another, between a given amount of one product and a given amount of
another”] (Le Trosne: “De l’Intérêt Social.” Physiocrates, Ed. Daire. Paris, 1846. p. 889.)
7
“Nothing can have an intrinsick value.” (N. Barbon, l.c., p. 6); or as Butler says – “The value of a
thing is just as much as it will bring.”
8
N. Barbon, l.c., p. 53 and 7.
9
“The value of them (the necessaries of life), when they are exchanged the one for another, is
regulated by the quantity of labour necessarily required, and commonly taken in producing them.”
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Chapter 1
(“Some Thoughts on the Interest of Money in General, and Particularly in the Publick Funds, &c.”
Lond., p. 36) This remarkable anonymous work written in the last century, bears no date. It is clear,
however, from internal evidence that it appeared in the reign of George II, about 1739 or 1740.
10
“Toutes les productions d’un même genre ne forment proprement qu’une masse, dont le prix se
détermine en général et sans égard aux circonstances particulières.” [“Properly speaking, all products
of the same kind form a single mass, and their price is determined in general and without regard to
particular circumstances”] (Le Trosne, l.c., p. 893.)
11
K. Marx. l.c., p.6
12
I am inserting the parenthesis because its omission has often given rise to the misunderstanding that
every product that is consumed by some one other than its producer is considered in Marx a
commodity. [Engels, 4th German Edition]
13
Tutti i fenomeni dell’universo, sieno essi prodotti della mano dell’uomo, ovvero delle universali
leggi della fisica, non ci danno idea di attuale creazione, ma unicamente di una modificazione della
materia. Accostare e separare sono gli unici elementi che l’ingegno umano ritrova analizzando l’idea
della riproduzione: e tanto e riproduzione di valore (value in use, although Verri in this passage of his
controversy with the Physiocrats is not himself quite certain of the kind of value he is speaking of) e di
ricchezze se la terra, l’aria e l’acqua ne’ campi si trasmutino in grano, come se colla mano dell’uomo
il glutine di un insetto si trasmuti in velluto ovvero alcuni pezzetti di metalio si organizzino a formare
una ripetizione.” [“All the phenomena of the universe, whether produced by the hand of man or
through the universal laws of physics, are not actual new creations, but merely a modification of
matter. Joining together and separating are the only elements which the human mind always finds on
analysing the concept of reproduction and it is just the same with the reproduction of value” (value in
use, although Verri in this passage of his controversy with the Physiocrats is not himself quite certain
of the kind of value he is speaking of) “and of wealth, when earth, air and water in the fields are
transformed into corn, or when the hand of man transforms the secretions of an insect into silk, or
some pieces of metal are arranged to make the mechanism of a watch.”] – Pietro Verri, “Meditazioni
sulla Economia Politica” [first printed in 1773] in Custodi’s edition of the Italian Economists, Parte
Moderna, t. XV., p. 22.
14
Comp. Hegel, “Philosophie des Rechts.” Berlin, 1840. p. 250.
15
The reader must note that we are not speaking here of the wages or value that the labourer gets for a
given labour time, but of the value of the commodity in which that labour time is materialised. Wages
is a category that, as yet, has no existence at the present stage of our investigation.
16
In order to prove that labour alone is that all-sufficient and real measure, by which at all times the
value of all commodities can be estimated and compared, Adam Smith says, “Equal quantities of
labour must at all times and in all places have the same value for the labourer. In his normal state of
health, strength, and activity, and with the average degree of skill that he may possess, he must always
give up the same portion of his rest, his freedom, and his happiness.” (“Wealth of Nations,” b. I. ch.
V.) On the one hand Adam Smith here (but not everywhere) confuses the determination of value by
means of the quantity of labour expended in the production of commodities, with the determination of
the values of commodities by means of the value of labour, and seeks in consequence to prove that
equal quantities of labour have always the same value. On the other hand he has a presentiment, that
labour, so far as it manifests itself in the value of commodities, counts only as expenditure of labour
power, but he treats this expenditure as the mere sacrifice of rest, freedom, and happiness, not as at the
same time the normal activity of living beings. But then, he has the modern wage-labourer in his eye.
Much more aptly, the anonymous predecessor of Adam Smith, quoted above in note 9, this chapter,
says “one man has employed himself a week in providing this necessary of life ... and he that gives
him some other in exchange cannot make a better estimate of what is a proper equivalent, than by