93
Chapter 3
proclamation, it were strange that such proclamations have not long since been made by our
Governors.” (l.c., p. 36.)
14
“Ou bien, il faut consentir à dire qu’une valeur d’un million en argent vaut plus qu’une valeur égale
en marchandises.” [“Or indeed it must be admitted that a million in money is worth more than an
equal value in commodities”] (Le Trosne, l.c., p. 919), which amounts to saying “qu’une valeur vaut
plus qu’une valeur égale.” [“that one value is worth more than another value which is equal to it.”]
15
Jerome had to wrestle hard, not only in his youth with the bodily flesh, as is shown by his fight in
the desert with the handsome women of his imagination, but also in his old age with the spiritual flesh.
“I thought,” he says, “I was in the spirit before the Judge of the Universe.” “Who art thou?” asked a
voice. “I am a Christian.” “Thou liest,” thundered back the great Judge, “thou art nought but a
Ciceronian.”
16
“
εχ σε του ... πυροσ τ’ανταµεειβεσθαι παντα, ϕησιν δ’Ηραχλειτοσ, χαι πυρ απαντων, ωο
περ χρυσου χρηµατα χαι χρηµατων χρυσοσ.” [“As Heraclitus says, all things
are exchanged
for fire and fire for all things, as wares are exchanged for gold and gold for wares.”] (F. Lassalle:
“Die Philosophie Herakleitos des Dunkeln.” Berlin, 1858, Vol. I, p. 222.) Lassalle in his note on
this passage, p. 224, n. 3., erroneously makes gold a mere symbol of value.
1\7
Note by the Institute of Marxism-Leninism in the Russian edition. — In his letter of November 28,
1878, to N. F. Danielson (Nikolai-on) Marx proposed that this sentence be corrected to read as
follows: “And, as a matter of fact, the value of each single yard is but the materialised form of a part
of the social labour expended on the whole number of yards.” An analogous correction was made in a
copy of the second German edition of the first volume of “Capital” belonging to Marx; however, not
in his handwriting.
18
“Toute vente est achat.” [“Every sale is a purchase.”] (Dr. Quesnay: “Dialogues sur le Commerce et
les Travaux des Artisans.” Physiocrates ed. Daire I. Partie, Paris, 1846, p. 170), or as Quesnay in his
“Maximes générales” puts it, “Vendre est acheter.” [“To sell is to buy.”]
19
“Le prix d’une marchandise ne pouvant être payé que par le prix d’une autre marchandise”
(Mercier de la Rivière: “L’Ordre naturel et essentiel des sociétés politiques.” [“The price of one
commodity can only be paid by the price of another commodity”] Physiocrates, ed. Daire II.
Partie, p. 554.)
20
“Pour avoir cet argent, il faut avoir vendu,” [“In order to have this money, one must have made a
sale,”] l.c., p. 543.
21
As before remarked, the actual producer of gold or silver forms an exception. He exchanges his
product directly for another commodity, without having first sold it.
22
“Si l’argent représente, dans nos mains, les choses que nous pouvons désirer d’acheter, il y
représente aussi les choses que nous avons vendues pour cet argent.” [“If money represents, in our
hands, the things we can wish to buy, it also represents the things we have sold to obtain that money”]
(Mercier de la Rivière, l.c., p. 586.)
23
“Il y a donc ... quatre termes et trois contractants, dont l’un intervient deux fois” [“There are
therefore ... four terms and three contracting parties, one of whom intervenes twice”] (Le Trosne, l.c.,
p. 909.)
24
Self-evident as this may be, it is nevertheless for the most part unobserved by political economists,
and especially by the “Free-trader Vulgaris.”
25
See my observations on James Mill in “Zur Kritik, &c.,” pp. 74-76. With regard to this subject, we
may notice two methods characteristic of apologetic economy. The first is the identification of the
94
Chapter 3
circulation of commodities with the direct barter of products, by simple abstraction from their points
of difference; the second is, the attempt to explain away the contradictions of capitalist production, by
reducing the relations between the persons engaged in that mode of production, to the simple relations
arising out of the circulation of commodities. The production and circulation of commodities are
however, phenomena that occur to a greater or less extent in modes of production the most diverse. If
we are acquainted with nothing but the abstract categories of circulation, which are common to all
these modes of production, we cannot possibly know anything of the specific points of difference of
those modes, nor pronounce any judgment upon them. In no science is such a big fuss made with
commonplace truisms as in Political Economy. For instance, J. B. Say sets himself up as a judge of
crises, because, forsooth, he knows that a commodity is a product.
2
6
Translator’s note. — This word is here used in its original signification of the course or track
pursued by money as it changes from hand to hand, a course which essentially differs from
circulation.
27
Even when the commodity is sold over and over again, a phenomenon that at present has no
existence for us, it falls, when definitely sold for the last time, out of the sphere of circulation into that
of consumption, where it serves either as means of subsistence or means of production.
28
“Il (l’argent) n’a d’autre mouvement que celui qui lui est imprimé par les productions.” [“It”
(money) “has no other motion than that imparted to it by the products”] (Le Trosne, l.c., p. 885.)
29
“Ce sont les productions qui le (l’argent) mettent en mouvement et le font circuler ... La célérité de
son mouvement (c. de l’argent) supplée à sa quantité. Lorsqu’il en est besoin il ne fait que glisser
d’une main dans l’autre sans s’arrêter un instant.” [“It is products which set it” (money) “in motion
and make it circulate ... The velocity of its” (money’s) “motion supplements its quantity. When
necessary, it does nothing but slide from hand to hand, without stopping for a moment”] (Le Trosne,
l.c.. pp. 915, 916.)
30
“Money being ... the common measure of buying and selling, everybody who hath anything to sell,
and cannot procure chapmen for it, is presently apt to think, that want of money in the kingdom, or
country, is the cause why his goods do not go off; and so, want of money is the common cry; which is
a great mistake... What do these people want, who cry out for money? ... The farmer complains ... he
thinks that were more money in the country; he should have a price for his goods. Then it seems
money is not his want, but a price for his corn and cattel, which he would sell, but cannot... Why
cannot he get a price? ... (1) Either there is too much corn and cattel in the country, so that most who
come to market have need of selling, as he hath, and few of buying; or (2) There wants the usual vent
abroad by transportation..., or (3) The consumption fails, as when men, by reason of poverty, do not
spend so much in their houses as formerly they did; wherefore it is not the increase of specific money,
which would at all advance the farmer’s goods, but the removal of any of these three causes, which do
truly keep down the market... The merchant and shopkeeper want money in the same manner, that is,
they want a vent for the goods they deal in, by reason that the markets fail” ... [A nation] “never
thrives better, than when riches are tost from hand to hand.” (Sir Dudley North: “Discourses upon
Trade,” Lond. 1691, pp. 11-15, passim.) Herrenschwand’s fanciful notions amount merely to this, that
the antagonism, which has its origin in the nature of commodities, and is reproduced in their
circulation, can be removed by increasing the circulating medium. But if, on the one hand, it is a
popular delusion to ascribe stagnation in production and circulation to insufficiency of the circulating
medium, it by no means follows, on the other hand, that an actual paucity of the medium in
consequence, e.g., of bungling legislative interference with the regulation of currency, may not give
rise to such stagnation.
31
“There is a certain measure and proportion of money requisite to drive the trade of a nation, more or
less than which would prejudice the same. Just as there is a certain proportion of farthings necessary