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computing what cost him just as much labour and time; which in effect is no more than exchanging
one man’s labour in one thing for a time certain, for another man’s labour in another thing for the
same time.” (l.c., p. 39.) [The English language has the advantage of possessing different words for
the two aspects of labour here considered. The labour which creates use value, and counts
qualitatively, is Work, as distinguished from Labour, that which creates Value and counts
quantitatively, is Labour as distinguished from Work - Engels]
17
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 coarse influence of the practical bourgeois,
they exclusively give their attention to the quantitative aspect of the question. “The command of
quantity ... constitutes value.” (“Money and its Vicissitudes.” London, 1837, p. 11. By S. Bailey.)
18
The celebrated Franklin, one of the first economists, after Wm. Petty, who saw through the nature of
value, says: “Trade in general being nothing else but the exchange of labour for labour, the value of all
things is ... most justly measured by labour.” (“The works of B. Franklin, &c.,” edited by Sparks.
Boston, 1836, Vol. II., p. 267.) Franklin is unconscious that by estimating the value of everything in
labour, he makes abstraction from any difference in the sorts of labour exchanged, and thus reduces
them all to equal human labour. But although ignorant of this, yet he says it. He speaks first of “the
one labour,” then of “the other labour,” and finally of “labour,” without further qualification, as the
substance of the value of everything.
19
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 Fichtian philosopher, to whom “I am I” is sufficient, man first sees
and recognises 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.
20
Value is here, as occasionally in the preceding pages, used in sense of value determined as to
quantity, or of magnitude of value.
21
This incongruity between the magnitude of value and its relative expression has, with customary
ingenuity, been exploited by vulgar economists. For example – “Once admit that A falls, because B,
with which it is exchanged, rises, while no less labour 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 cut away the ground on which he rested his grand
proposition, that the value of a commodity is ever determined by the labour 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 labour
to produce B, then not only the doctrine falls to the ground which asserts that the quantity of labour
bestowed on an article regulates its value, but also that which affirms the cost of an article to regulate
its value’ (J. Broadhurst: “Political Economy,” London, 1842, pp. 11 and 14.) Mr. Broadhurst might
just as well say: consider the fractions 10/20, 10/50, 10/100, &c., the number 10 remains unchanged,
and yet its proportional magnitude, its magnitude relatively to the numbers 20, 50, 100 &c.,
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. [The author
explains in section 4 of this chapter, pp. 80-81, note 2 (note 33 of this document), what he understands
by “Vulgar Economy.” – Engels]
22
Such expressions of relations in general, called by Hegel 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, imagine that they are subjects because he is king.
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Chapter 1
23
F. L. A. Ferrier, sous-inspecteur des douanes, “Du gouvernement considéré dans ses rapports avec
le commerce,” Paris, 1805; and Charles Ganilh, “Des Systèmes d’Economie Politique, – 2nd ed.,
Paris, 1821.
24
In Homer, for instance, the value of an article is expressed in a series of different things II. VII. 472-
475.
25
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 values, coat, corn, &c., is the value of the linen. “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.” (“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, &c., of Opinions.” London,
1825, p. 39.) 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
Westminster Review for example.
26
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 nec plus ultra of human
freedom and individual independence, that the inconveniences resulting from this character of
commodities not being directly exchangeable, should be removed. Proudhon’s 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 Proudhon, for “wo Begriffe fehlen, Da stellt zur rechten Zeit ein Wort sich ein.” [“Where thoughts
are absent, Words are brought in as convenient replacements,” Goethe’s, Faust, See Proudhon’s
Philosophy of Poverty]
26a
In the German edition, there is the following footnote here: “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 [to encourage the others].” 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 1850-64, China was swept by an anti-feudal liberation
movement in the form of a large-scale peasant war, the Taiping Revolt. – Note by editors of MECW.
27
Among the ancient Germans the unit for measuring land was what could be harvested in a day, and
was called Tagwerk, Tagwanne (jurnale, or terra jurnalis, or diornalis), Mannsmaad, &c. (See G. L.
von Maurer, “Einleitung zur Geschichte der Mark, &c. Verfassung,” Munchen, 1854, p. 129 sq.)
28
When, therefore, Galiani says: Value is a relation between persons – “La Ricchezza e una ragione
tra due persone,” – he ought to have added: a relation between persons expressed as a relation between
things. (Galiani: Della Moneta, p. 221, V. III. of Custodi’s collection of “Scrittori Classici Italiani di
Economia Politica.” Parte Moderna, Milano 1803.)