Marx’s comments on James Mill's book

subsistence.

 Hence the greater and the more developed the social power appears to

be within the private property relationship, the more egoistic, asocial

and estranged from his own nature does man become.

 Just as the mutual exchange of the products of human activity appears

as barter, as trade, so the mutual completion and exchange of the

activity itself appears as division of labour, which turns man as far as

possible into an abstract being, a machine tool, etc., and transforms

him into a spiritual and physical monster.

 It is precisely the unity of human labour that is regarded merely as

division of labour, because social nature only comes into existence as

its opposite, in the form of estrangement. Division of labour increases

with civilisation.

 Within the presupposition of division of labour, the product, the

material of private property, acquires for the individual more and

more the significance of an equivalent, and as he no longer exchanges

only his surplus, and the object of his production can be simply a

matter of indifference to him, so too he no longer exchanges his

product for something directly needed by him. The equivalent comes

into existence as an equivalent in money, which is now the immediate

result of labour to gain a living and the medium of exchange (see

above).

 The complete domination of the estranged thing over man has

become evident in money, which is completely indifferent both to the

nature of the material, i.e., to the specific nature of the private

property, and to the personality of the property owner. What was the

domination of person over person is now the general domination of

the thing over the person, of the product over the producer. Just as the

concept of the equivalent, the value, already implied the alienation of

private property, so money is the sensuous, even objective existence of

this alienation.

 Needless to say that political economy is only able to grasp this

whole development as a fact, as the outcome of fortuitous necessity.

 The separation of work from itself -- separation of the worker from

the capitalist -- separation of labour and capital, the original form of

which is made up of landed property and movable property.... The

original determining feature of private property is monopoly; hence

when it creates a political constitution, it is that of monopoly. The

perfect monopoly is competition.

 To the economist, production, consumption and, as the mediator of

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both, exchange or distribution, are separate [activities]. 

[3]

 The

separation of production and consumption, of action and spirit, in

different individuals and in the same individual, is the separation of

labour from its object and from itself as something spiritual.

Distribution is the power of private property manifesting itself.

 The separation of labour, capital and landed property from one

another, like that of labour from labour, of capital from capital, and

landed property from landed property, and finally the separation of

labour from wages, of capital from profit, and profit from interest,

and, last of all, of landed property from land rent, demonstrate

self-estrangement both in the form of self-estrangement and in that of

mutual estrangement.

 

"We have next to examine the effects which take place by the

attempts of government to control the increase or diminution of

money [....] When it endeavours to keep the quantity of money

less than it would be, if things were left in freedom, it raises the

value of the metal in the coin, and renders it the interest of

every body, [who can,] to convert his bullion into money."

People "have recourse to private coining. This the government

must [...] prevent by punishment. On the other hand, were it the

object of government to keep the quantity of money greater

than it would be, if left in freedom, it would reduce the value of

the metal in money, below its value in bullion, and make it the

interest of every body to melt the coins. This, also, the

government would have only one expedient for preventing,

namely, punishment. But the prospect of punishment will

prevail over the prospect of profit [, only if the profit is small]."

Pp. 101, 102 (pp. 137, 138).

 Section IX. "If there were two individuals one of whom owed

to the other £100, and the other owed to him £100", instead of

paying each other this sum "all they had to do was to exchange

their mutual obligations. The case" is the same between two

nations.... Hence bills of exchange. "The use of them was

recommended by a still stronger necessity [...1, because the

coarse polity of those times prohibited the exportation of the

precious metals, and punished with the greatest severity any

infringement...." Pp. 104-05, 106 (p. 142 et seq.).

 Section X. Saving of unproductive consumption by paper

money. P. 108 et seq. (p. 146 et seq.).

 Section XI. "The inconveniencies" of paper money are ...

"First, -- The failure of the parties, by whom the notes are

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