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K.2
ZWEITES KAPITEL. Der Austauschprozeß
Chapter 1 took the commodity apart on the workbench: use-value and value, the twofold labour behind them, the value-forms up to the money-form, and the fetishism that clings to it all. Chapter 2 puts commodities in motion. They cannot take themselves to market — their owners must act, and out of that acting, money falls out as a necessity, not an invention.
Die Waren können nicht selbst zu Markte gehn und sich nicht selbst austauschen. Wir müssen uns also nach ihren Hütern umsehn, den Warenbesitzern. Die Waren sind Dinge und daher widerstandslos gegen den Menschen. Wenn sie nicht willig, kann er Gewalt brauchen, in andren Worten, sie nehmen.37 Um diese Dinge als Waren aufeinander zu beziehn, müssen die Warenhüter sich zueinander als Personen verhalten, deren Willen in jenen Dingen haust, so daß der eine nur mit dem Willen des andren, also jeder nur vermittelst eines, beiden gemeinsamen Willensakts sich die fremde Ware aneignet, indem er die eigne veräußert. Sie müssen sich daher wechselseitig als Privateigentümer anerkennen. Dies Rechtsverhältnis, dessen Form der Vertrag ist, ob nun legal entwickelt oder nicht, ist ein Willensverhältnis, worin sich das ökonomische Verhältnis widerspiegelt. Der Inhalt dieses Rechts- oder Willensverhältnisses ist durch das ökonomische Verhältnis selbst gegeben.38 Die Personen existieren hier nur füreinander als Repräsentanten von Ware und daher als Warenbesitzer. Wir werden überhaupt im Fortgang der Entwicklung finden, daß die ökonomischen Charaktermasken der Personen nur die Personifikationen der ökonomischen Verhältnisse sind, als deren Träger sie sich gegenübertreten.
Wills mirror economic relations

Commodities cannot go to market or exchange themselves. So we have to look at their guardians, the commodity owners. Commodities are things, and things cannot resist people. If a thing will not come along, a person can use force; in plain words, he can take it.

For these things to relate to one another as commodities, their guardians have to relate to one another as persons. Each owner's will lives in the thing he owns, so one can take the other's commodity only with the other's will — through one act of will common to both — and gives up his own in taking it. So they have to recognize one another as private proprietors.

This legal relation takes the form of a contract, whether or not law has been developed into a full system. It is a relation between wills, and the economic relation is reflected in it. But the content of this legal or will-relation is given by the economic relation itself.

Here the persons exist for one another only as representatives of commodities, and therefore as commodity owners. As the development goes on, we will find this in general: the economic character-masks people wear here are only personifications of economic relations. The people who wear them face one another as the bearers of those relations.

Was den Warenbesitzer namentlich von der Ware unterscheidet, ist der Umstand, daß ihr jeder andre Warenkörper nur als Erscheinungsform ihres eignen Werts gilt. Geborner Leveller und Zyniker, steht sie daher stets auf dem Sprung, mit jeder andren Ware, sei selbe auch ausgestattet mit mehr Unannehmlichkeiten als Maritorne, nicht nur die Seele, sondern den Leib zu wechseln. Diesen der Ware mangelnden Sinn für das Konkrete des Warenkörpers ergänzt der Warenbesitzer durch seine eignen fünf und mehr Sinne. Seine Ware hat für ihn keinen unmittelbaren Gebrauchswert. Sonst führte er sie nicht zu Markt. Sie hat Gebrauchswert für andre. Für ihn hat sie unmittelbar nur den Gebrauchswert, Träger von Tauschwert und so Tauschmittel zu sein.39 Darum will er sie veräußern für Ware, deren Gebrauchswert ihm Genüge tut. Alle Waren sind Nicht-Gebrauchswerte für ihre Besitzer, Gebrauchswerte für ihre Nicht-Besitzer. Sie müssen also allseitig die Hände wechseln. Aber dieser Händewechsel bildet ihren Austausch, und ihr Austausch bezieht sie als Werte aufeinander und realisiert sie als Werte. Die Waren müssen sich daher als Werte realisieren, bevor sie sich als Gebrauchswerte realisieren können.
First demand: values before use

What especially separates a commodity from its owner is this: for the commodity, every other commodity body counts only as a form of appearance of its own value. A born leveller and cynic, it stands ready to swap itself — soul and body — with any other commodity, however unappealing that one may be.

The commodity has no senses for the concrete body of another commodity. Its owner makes up for that lack with his own five senses — and more. His own commodity has no direct use-value for him. Otherwise he would not bring it to market. It has use-value for others. For him, its direct use-value is only that it bears exchange-value and so serves as a means of exchange. That is why he wants to part with it for a commodity whose use-value satisfies him.

All commodities are non-use-values for their owners and use-values for their non-owners. So they must change hands all around. But this change of hands is their exchange, and exchange relates them to one another as values and realizes them as values. Therefore commodities must be realized as values before they can be realized as use-values.

Andrerseits müssen sie sich als Gebrauchswerte bewähren, bevor sie sich als Werte realisieren können. Denn die auf sie verausgabte menschliche Arbeit zählt nur, soweit sie in einer für andre nützlichen Form verausgabt ist. Ob sie andren nützlich, ihr Produkt daher fremde Bedürfnisse befriedigt, kann aber nur ihr Austausch beweisen.
Counter-demand: use proved before value

On the other hand, commodities must prove themselves as use-values before they can be realized as values. The human labour spent on them counts only if it was spent in a form useful to others. But whether it is useful for others, and whether its product satisfies someone else's needs, can be proved only by exchange.

Jeder Warenbesitzer will seine Ware nur veräußern gegen andre Ware, deren Gebrauchswert sein Bedürfnis befriedigt. Sofern ist der Austausch für ihn nur individueller Prozeß. Andrerseits will er seine Ware als Wert realisieren, also in jeder ihm beliebigen andren Ware von demselben Wert, ob seine eigne Ware nun für den Besitzer der andren Ware Gebrauchswert habe oder nicht. Sofern ist der Austausch für ihn allgemein gesellschaftlicher Prozeß. Aber derselbe Prozeß kann nicht gleichzeitig für alle Warenbesitzer nur individuell und zugleich nur allgemein gesellschaftlich sein.
Private need, social value

Every commodity owner wants to give up his commodity only for another commodity whose use-value satisfies his need. In that respect, exchange is only an individual process for him.

On the other hand, he wants to realize his commodity as value. So he wants to turn it into any other commodity he chooses, as long as it has the same value, whether or not his own commodity has use-value for the owner of the other one. In that respect, exchange is a generally social process for him.

But for all commodity owners at once, the same process cannot be only individual and, at the same time, only generally social.

Sehn wir näher zu, so gilt jedem Warenbesitzer jede fremde Ware als besondres Äquivalent seiner Ware, seine Ware daher als allgemeines Äquivalent aller andren Waren. Da aber alle Warenbesitzer dasselbe tun, ist keine Ware allgemeines Äquivalent und besitzen die Waren daher auch keine allgemeine relative Wertform, worin sie sich als Werte gleichsetzen und als Wertgrößen vergleichen. Sie stehn sich daher überhaupt nicht gegenüber als Waren, sondern nur als Produkte oder Gebrauchswerte.
No universal equivalent

Let's look more closely. For every commodity owner, every other commodity counts as a particular equivalent of his own. So his own commodity counts as the universal equivalent of all the others.

But because all commodity owners do the same thing, no commodity is the universal equivalent. So the commodities also share no general value-form — no common form in which they could equate themselves as values and compare how much value each holds. So they do not face one another as commodities at all, but only as products or use-values.

In ihrer Verlegenheit denken unsre Warenbesitzer wie Faust. Im Anfang war die Tat. Sie haben daher schon gehandelt, bevor sie gedacht haben. Die Gesetze der Warennatur betätigten sich im Naturinstinkt der Warenbesitzer. Sie können ihre Waren nur als Werte und darum nur als Waren aufeinander beziehn, indem sie dieselben gegensätzlich auf irgendeine andre Ware als allgemeines Äquivalent beziehn. Das ergab die Analyse der Ware. Aber nur die gesellschaftliche Tat kann eine bestimmte Ware zum allgemeinen Äquivalent machen. Die gesellschaftliche Aktion aller andren Waren schließt daher eine bestimmte Ware aus, worin sie allseitig ihre Werte darstellen. Dadurch wird die Naturalform Ware gesellschaftlich gültige Äquivalentform. Allgemeines Äquivalent zu sein wird durch den gesellschaftlichen Prozeß zur spezifisch gesellschaftlichen Funktion der ausgeschlossenen Ware. So wird sie - Geld.
The deed makes money

Stuck in this bind, our commodity owners think like Faust. Goethe's Faust says: "In the beginning was the deed." So they have already acted before they have thought. The laws of commodity nature worked themselves out through the owners' natural instinct.

They can relate their commodities to one another as values, and therefore as commodities, only by setting them all against some other commodity as universal equivalent. The analysis of the commodity already showed this. But only a social deed can make a definite commodity the universal equivalent.

The social action of all the other commodities therefore excludes one definite commodity, in which they all present their values. By this, the bodily form of that commodity becomes the socially valid equivalent form. Through the social process, being the universal equivalent becomes the specific social function of the excluded commodity. Thus it becomes money.

"Illi unum consilium habent et virtutem et potestatem suam bestiae tradunt. Et ne quis possit emere aut vendere, nisi qui habet characterem aut nomen bestiae, aut numerum nominis ejus." <"Die haben eine Meinung und werden ihre Kraft und Macht geben dem Tier, daß niemand kaufen oder verkaufen kann, er habe denn das Malzeichen, nämlich den Namen des Tiers oder die Zahl seines Namens."> (Apokalypse)
Apocalypse names the mark

"They have one mind, and they give their strength and power to the beast. And no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark: the beast's name, or the number of its name." (Revelation/Apocalypse)

Der Geldkristall ist ein notwendiges Produkt des Austauschprozesses, worin verschiedenartige Arbeitsprodukte einander tatsächlich gleichgesetzt und daher tatsächlich in Waren verwandelt werden. Die historische Ausweitung und Vertiefung des Austausches entwickelt den in der Warennatur schlummernden Gegensatz von Gebrauchswert und Wert. Das Bedürfnis, diesen Gegensatz für den Verkehr äußerlich darzustellen, treibt zu einer selbständigen Form des Warenwerts und ruht und rastet nicht, bis sie endgültig erzielt ist durch die Verdopplung der Ware in Ware und Geld. In demselben Maße daher, worin sich die Verwandlung der Arbeitsprodukte in Waren, vollzieht sich die Verwandlung von Ware in Geld.40
Money as necessary product

Money is a necessary product of the exchange process — a crystal that forms inside it. In that process, different products of labour are actually equated with one another and therefore actually turned into commodities.

As exchange widens historically and reaches deeper, it develops the opposition sleeping inside the commodity: use-value and value. Trade needs this opposition to be shown outwardly. That need drives toward an independent form of commodity-value, and it does not rest until the commodity has doubled: ordinary commodity on one side, money on the other.

So, in the same measure as products of labour become commodities, a commodity becomes money.

Der unmittelbare Produktenaustausch hat einerseits die Form des einfachen Wertausdrucks und hat sie andrerseits noch nicht. Jene Form war x Ware A = y Ware B. Die Form des unmittelbaren Produktenaustausches ist: x Gebrauchsgegenstand A = y Gebrauchsgegenstand B.41 Die Dinge A und B sind hier nicht Waren vor dem Austausch, sondern werden es erst durch denselben. Die erste Weise, worin ein Gebrauchsgegenstand der Möglichkeit nach Tauschwert ist, ist sein Dasein als Nicht-Gebrauchswert, als die unmittelbaren Bedürfnisse seines Besitzers überschießendes Quantum von Gebrauchswert. Dinge sind an und für sich dem Menschen äußerlich und daher veräußerlich. Damit diese Veräußerung wechselseitig, brauchen Menschen nur stillschweigend sich als Privateigentümer jener veräußerlichen Dinge und eben dadurch als voneinander unabhängige Personen gegenüberzutreten. Solch ein Verhältnis wechselseitiger Fremdheit existiert jedoch nicht für die Glieder eines naturwüchsigen Gemeinwesens, habe es nun die Form einer patriarchalischen Familie, einer altindischen Gemeinde, eines Inkastaates usw. Der Warenaustausch beginnt, wo die Gemeinwesen enden, an den Punkten ihres Kontakts mit fremden Gemeinwesen oder Gliedern fremder Gemeinwesen. Sobald Dinge aber einmal im auswärtigen, werden sie auch rückschlagend im innern Gemeinleben zu Waren. Ihr quantitatives Austauschverhältnis ist zunächst ganz zufällig. Austauschbar sind sie durch den Willensakt ihrer Besitzer, sie wechselseitig zu veräußern. Indes setzt sich das Bedürfnis für fremde Gebrauchsgegenstände allmählich fest. Die beständige Wiederholung des Austausches macht ihn zu einem regelmäßigen gesellschaftlichen Prozeß. Im Laufe der Zeit muß daher wenigstens ein Teil der Arbeitsprodukte absichtlich zum Behuf des Austausches produziert werden. Von diesem Augenblick befestigt sich einerseits die Scheidung zwischen der Nützlichkeit der Dinge für den unmittelbaren Bedarf und ihrer Nützlichkeit zum Austausch. Ihr Gebrauchswert scheidet sich von ihrem Tauschwerte. Andrerseits wird das quantitative Verhältnis, worin sie sich austauschen, von ihrer Produktion selbst abhängig. Die Gewohnheit fixiert sie als Wertgrößen.
Barter begins at boundaries

Direct barter of products has the form of the simple expression of value in one respect — and does not yet have it in another. That form was: x commodity A = y commodity B. The form of direct barter is: x use-value A = y use-value B. Here A and B are not commodities before the exchange. They become commodities only through it.

A useful object first becomes a possible exchange-value by being a non-use-value for its owner — more of something than he immediately needs. Things stand outside human beings, and so people can alienate them, or part with them. For this alienation to be mutual, people need only tacitly face one another as private owners of those alienable things, and therefore as independent persons.

But this relation of mutual strangeness does not exist among the members of a naturally grown community, whether it is a patriarchal family, an old Indian community, an Inca state, and so on. Commodity exchange begins where communities end: at their points of contact with foreign communities or with members of foreign communities. Once things have become commodities in a community's external dealings, they also become commodities, by reaction, inside its common life.

At first, the quantitative exchange-relation is quite accidental. The things are exchangeable because their owners will to alienate them to one another. Meanwhile, the need for foreign useful objects gradually settles in. The steady repetition of exchange makes it a regular social process. In time, therefore, at least part of the products of labour must be produced intentionally for exchange.

From that moment, on one side, the split becomes fixed between a thing's usefulness for direct need and its usefulness for exchange. Its use-value separates from its exchange-value. On the other side, the quantitative relation in which things exchange becomes dependent on their production itself. Custom fixes them as magnitudes of value.

Im unmittelbaren Produktenaustausch ist jede Ware unmittelbar Tauschmittel für ihren Besitzer, Äquivalent für ihren Nichtbesitzer, jedoch nur soweit sie Gebrauchswert für ihn. Der Tauschartikel erhält also noch keine von seinem eignen Gebrauchswert oder dem individuellen Bedürfnis der Austauscher unabhängige Wertform. Die Notwendigkeit dieser Form entwickelt sich mit der wachsenden Anzahl und Mannigfaltigkeit der in den Austauschprozeß eintretenden Waren. Die Aufgabe entspringt gleichzeitig mit den Mitteln ihrer Lösung. Ein Verkehr, worin Warenbesitzer ihre eignen Artikel mit verschiednen andren Artikeln austauschen und vergleichen, findet niemals statt, ohne daß verschiedne Waren von verschiednen Warenbesitzern innerhalb ihres Verkehrs mit einer und derselben dritten Warenart ausgetauscht und als Werte verglichen werden. Solche dritte Ware, indem sie Äquivalent für verschiedne andre Waren wird, erhält unmittelbar, wenn auch in engen Grenzen, allgemeine oder gesellschaftliche Äquivalentform. Diese allgemeine Äquivalentform entsteht und vergeht mit dem augenblicklichen gesellschaftlichen Kontakt, der sie ins Leben rief. Abwechselnd und flüchtig kommt sie dieser oder jener Ware zu. Mit der Entwicklung des Warenaustausches heftet sie sich aber ausschließlich fest an besondere Warenarten oder kristallisiert zur Geldform. An welcher Warenart sie kleben bleibt, ist zunächst zufällig. Jedoch entscheiden im großen und ganzen zwei Umstände. Geldform heftet sich entweder an die wichtigsten Eintauschartikel aus der Fremde, welche in der Tat naturwüchsige Erscheinungsformen des Tauschwerts der einheimischen Produkte sind, oder an den Gebrauchsgegenstand, welcher das Hauptelement des einheimischen veräußerlichen Besitztums bildet, wie z.B. Vieh. Nomadenvölker entwickeln zuerst die Geldform, weil all ihr Hab und Gut sich in beweglicher, daher unmittelbar veräußerlicher Form befindet, und weil ihre Lebensweise sie beständig mit fremden Gemeinwesen in Kontakt bringt, daher zum Produktenaustausch sollizitiert. Die Menschen haben oft den Menschen selbst in der Gestalt des Sklaven zum ursprünglichen Geldmaterial gemacht, aber niemals den Grund und Boden. Solche Idee konnte nur in bereits ausgebildeter bürgerlicher Gesellschaft aufkommen. Sie datiert vom letzten Dritteil des 17. Jahrhunderts, und ihre Ausführung, auf nationalem Maßstab, wurde erst ein Jahrhundert später in der bürgerlichen Revolution der Franzosen versucht.
The third commodity

In direct barter, each commodity is directly a means of exchange for its owner, and an equivalent for someone who does not own it, but only if it has use-value for that other person. So the article being exchanged still has no value-form independent of its own use-value or of the individual needs of the exchangers.

The need for such a form grows as more and more kinds of commodities enter exchange. The task arises together with the means to solve it. Owners can compare their own articles with many others only if different owners all exchange their different commodities against one and the same third kind of commodity, and compare them as values in it. By serving as equivalent for several other commodities, this third commodity at once receives a general or social equivalent form — though, at first, only within narrow limits.

This general equivalent form arises and disappears with the momentary social contact that called it into life. It passes briefly, now to this commodity, now to that one. But as commodity exchange develops, the form fixes itself exclusively on particular kinds of commodities, or crystallizes into the money-form.

At first, which kind of commodity it sticks to is accidental. In broad outline, though, two circumstances decide. The money-form attaches either to the chief articles brought in from outside — these are, in fact, the natural forms in which the exchange-value of home products first appears — or to the useful thing that makes up the main part of a people's own transferable wealth, such as cattle.

Nomad peoples develop the money-form first. All their goods are movable, and therefore directly alienable, and their way of life constantly brings them into contact with foreign communities, pressing them toward the exchange of products. People have often made the human being himself, in the form of the slave, into the first money material. They have never made the land so. That idea could arise only in an already developed bourgeois society. It dates from the last third of the 17th century, and its first attempted execution on a national scale came only a century later, in the French bourgeois revolution.

In demselben Verhältnis, worin der Warenaustausch seine nur lokalen Bande sprengt, der Warenwert sich daher zur Materiatur menschlicher Arbeit überhaupt ausweitet, geht die Geldform auf Waren über, die von Natur zur gesellschaftlichen Funktion eines allgemeinen Äquivalents taugen, auf die edlen Metalle.
Exchange outgrows locality

As commodity exchange breaks its merely local bonds, commodity value widens into an embodiment of human labour in general. In the same measure, the money-form passes to commodities whose natural properties fit them for the social function of universal equivalent: the precious metals.

Daß nun, "obgleich Gold und Silber nicht von Natur Geld, Geld von Natur Gold und Silber ist"42, zeigt die Kongruenz ihrer Natureigenschaften mit seinen Funktionen.43 Bisher kennen wir aber nur die eine Funktion des Geldes, als Erscheinungsform des Warenwerts zu dienen oder als das Material, worin die Wertgrößen der Waren sich gesellschaftlich ausdrücken. Adäquate Erscheinungsform von Wert oder Materiatur abstrakter und daher gleicher menschlicher Arbeit kann nur eine Materie sein, deren sämtliche Exemplare dieselbe gleichförmige Qualität besitzen. Andrerseits, da der Unterschied der Wertgrößen rein quantitativ ist, muß die Geldware rein quantitativer Unterschiede fähig, also nach Willkür teilbar und aus ihren Teilen wieder zusammensetzbar sein. Gold und Silber besitzen aber diese Eigenschaften von Natur.
Metals fit the function

The saying that gold and silver are not money by nature, but money is by nature gold and silver, points to a fit between the metals' natural properties and money's functions.

So far, though, we know only one function of money: to serve as the form of appearance of commodity-value, or as the material in which commodities socially express the magnitudes of their values. Value needs a proper form of appearance — a material body for abstract, and therefore equal, human labour. Only a material whose every sample has the same uniform quality can serve.

And because differences in magnitudes of value are purely quantitative, the money commodity must be able to take purely quantitative differences too. It must be divisible at will and able to be put back together from its parts. Gold and silver have these properties by nature.

Der Gebrauchswert der Geldware verdoppelt sich. Neben ihrem besondren Gebrauchswert als Ware, wie Gold z.B. zum Ausstopfen hohler Zähne, Rohmaterial von Luxusartikeln usw. dient, erhält sie einen formalen Gebrauchswert, der aus ihren spezifischen gesellschaftlichen Funktionen entspringt.
Use-value doubles

The use-value of the money commodity doubles. Alongside its particular use-value as a commodity - gold can fill hollow teeth or supply raw material for luxury articles - it gets a formal use-value that springs from its specific social functions.

Da alle andren Waren nur besondre Äquivalente des Geldes, das Geld ihr allgemeines Äquivalent, verhalten sie sich als besondre Waren zum Geld als der allgemeinen Ware.44
Money as universal commodity

All other commodities are only particular equivalents of money, while money is their universal equivalent. So they relate to money, the universal commodity, as particular commodities.

Man hat gesehn, daß die Geldform nur der an einer Ware festhaftende Reflex der Beziehungen aller andren Waren. Daß Geld Ware ist45, ist also nur eine Entdeckung für den, der von seiner fertigen Gestalt ausgeht, um sie hinterher zu analysieren. Der Austauschprozeß gibt der Ware, die er in Geld verwandelt, nicht ihren Wert, sondern ihre spezifische Wertform. Die Verwechslung beider Bestimmungen verleitete dazu, den Wert von Gold und Silber für imaginär zu halten.46 Weil Geld in bestimmten Funktionen durch bloße Zeichen seiner selbst ersetzt werden kann, entsprang der andre Irrtum, es sei ein bloßes Zeichen. Andrerseits lag darin die Ahnung, daß die Geldform des Dings ihm selbst äußerlich und bloß Erscheinungsform dahinter versteckter menschlicher Verhältnisse. In diesem Sinn wäre jede Ware ein Zeichen, weil als Wert nur sachliche Hülle der auf sie verausgabten menschlichen Arbeit.47 Indem man aber die gesellschaftlichen Charaktere, welche Sachen, oder die sachlichen Charaktere, welche gesellschaftliche Bestimmungen der Arbeit auf Grundlage einer bestimmten Produktionsweise erhalten, für bloße Zeichen, erklärt man sie zugleich für willkürliches Reflexionsprodukt der Menschen. Es war dies beliebte Aufklärungsmanier des 18. Jahrhunderts, um den rätselhaften Gestalten menschlicher Verhältnisse, deren Entstehungsprozeß man noch nicht entziffern konnte, wenigstens vorläufig den Schein der Fremdheit abzustreifen.
Errors about money

We have seen that the money-form is only the reflection, fixed on one commodity, of the relations among all the other commodities. So it is news that money is a commodity only to someone who starts from money's finished shape and works backward.

The exchange process gives the commodity it turns into money not its value, but its specific value-form. Confusing those two determinations led people to treat the value of gold and silver as imaginary. Because money, in certain functions, can be replaced by mere symbols of itself, another error arose: that money itself is only a symbol.

Yet that error held an inkling of something true. The money-form of the thing is external to the thing itself; it is only the form of appearance of human relations hidden behind it. In this sense, every commodity would be a symbol, because as value it is only the thing-like shell of the human labour spent on it.

Under a definite mode of production, things take on social characters, and the social sides of labour take on thing-like characters. Declare both mere symbols, and you have declared them, in the same breath, arbitrary products of human reflection. That was a favorite Enlightenment style of the 18th century: when it could not decipher how puzzling forms of human relations came into being, it stripped away their strange look, at least for the time being, by treating them as conventions.

Es ward vorhin bemerkt, daß die Äquivalentform einer Ware die quantitative Bestimmung ihrer Wertgröße nicht einschließt. Weiß man, daß Gold Geld, daher mit allen andren Waren unmittelbar austauschbar ist, so weiß man deswegen nicht, wieviel z.B. 10 Pfund Gold wert sind. Wie jede Ware kann das Geld seine eigne Wertgröße nur relativ in andren Waren ausdrücken. Sein eigner Wert ist bestimmt durch die zu seiner Produktion erheischte Arbeitszeit und drückt sich in dem Quantum jeder andren Ware aus, worin gleichviel Arbeitszeit geronnen ist.48 Diese Festsetzung seiner relativen Wertgröße findet statt an seiner Produktionsquelle in unmittelbarem Tauschhandel. Sobald es als Geld in die Zirkulation eintritt, ist sein Wert bereits gegeben. Wenn es schon in den letzten Dezennien des 17. Jahrhunderts weit überschrittner Anfang der Geldanalyse, zu wissen, daß Geld Ware ist, so aber auch nur der Anfang. Die Schwierigkeit liegt nicht darin zu begreifen, daß Geld Ware, sondern wie, warum, wodurch Ware Geld ist.49
Money's own value

We noted earlier that a commodity's equivalent form does not tell us how much value the commodity has. If we know that gold is money, and therefore directly exchangeable with all other commodities, we still do not know how much, for example, 10 pounds of gold is worth.

Like every commodity, money can express its own magnitude of value only relatively, in other commodities. Its own value is determined by the labour-time needed to produce it. It is expressed in the quantity of any other commodity in which the same amount of labour-time has congealed.

This fixing of money's relative magnitude of value takes place at its source of production, in direct barter. Once money enters circulation as money, its value is already given.

By the last decades of the 17th century, knowing that money is a commodity was already more than a fresh discovery in the analysis of money. But it was still only the beginning. The difficulty is not to grasp that money is a commodity. The difficulty is to grasp how, why, and through what a commodity is money.

Wir sahen, wie schon in dem einfachsten Wertausdruck, x Ware A = y Ware B, das Ding, worin die Wertgröße eines andren Dings dargestellt wird, seine Äquivalentform unabhängig von dieser Beziehung als gesellschaftliche Natureigenschaft zu besitzen scheint. Wir verfolgten die Befestigung dieses falschen Scheins. Er ist vollendet, sobald die allgemeine Äquivalentform mit der Naturalform einer besondren Warenart verwachsen oder zur Geldform kristallisiert ist. Eine Ware scheint nicht erst Geld zu werden, weil die andren Waren allseitig ihre Werte in ihr darstellen, sondern sie scheinen umgekehrt allgemein ihre Werte in ihr darzustellen, weil sie Geld ist. Die vermittelnde Bewegung verschwindet in ihrem eignen Resultat und läßt keine Spur zurück. Ohne ihr Zutun finden die Waren ihre eigne Wertgestalt fertig vor als einen außer und neben ihnen existierenden Warenkörper. Diese Dinge, Gold und Silber, wie sie aus den Eingeweiden der Erde herauskommen, sind zugleich die unmittelbare Inkarnation aller menschlichen Arbeit. Daher die Magie des Geldes. Das bloß atomistische Verhalten der Menschen in ihrem gesellschaftlichen Produktionsprozeß und daher die von ihrer Kontrolle und ihrem bewußten individuellen Tun unabhängige, sachliche Gestalt ihrer eignen Produktionsverhältnisse erscheinen zunächst darin, daß ihre Arbeitsprodukte allgemein die Warenform annehmen. Das Rätsel des Geldfetischs ist daher nur das sichtbar gewordne, die Augen blendende Rätsel des Warenfetischs.
The completed false appearance

We saw this already in the simplest expression of value: x commodity A = y commodity B. The thing whose body displays another thing's value seems to possess that equivalent form on its own, apart from the relation — as a social property given by nature. We followed the fixing of this false appearance. It is complete as soon as the general equivalent form has grown together with the natural form of one particular kind of commodity, or has crystallized into the money-form.

Then a commodity does not seem first to become money because all the other commodities present their values in it. It seems the reverse: the others seem to present their values in it because it is money. The mediating movement disappears in its own result and leaves no trace.

Without any action of their own, commodities find their form of value lying there already finished, in another commodity's body outside them. These things, gold and silver, just as they come out of the bowels of the earth, are at the same time the direct incarnation of all human labour. Hence the magic of money.

People behave as separate atoms in their social process of production. Because of that, their own production relations take on a thing-like shape — one they do not control and never consciously chose. This first appears in the general fact that the products of labour take the commodity-form. The riddle of the money fetish is therefore only the riddle of the commodity fetish made visible, dazzling the eyes.

K.2
Chapter Two: Exchange
Chapter 1 took the commodity apart on the workbench: use-value and value, the twofold labour behind them, the value-forms up to the money-form, and the fetishism that clings to it all. Chapter 2 puts commodities in motion. They cannot take themselves to market — their owners must act, and out of that acting, money falls out as a necessity, not an invention.
It is plain that commodities cannot go to market and make exchanges of their own account. We must, therefore, have recourse to their guardians, who are also their owners. Commodities are things, and therefore without power of resistance against man. If they are wanting in docility he can use force; in other words, he can take possession of them. 1 In order that these objects may enter into relation with each other as commodities, their guardians must place themselves in relation to one another, as persons whose will resides in those objects, and must behave in such a way that each does not appropriate the commodity of the other, and part with his own, except by means of an act done by mutual consent. They must therefore, mutually recognise in each other the rights of private proprietors. This juridical relation, which thus expresses itself in a contract, whether such contract be part of a developed legal system or not, is a relation between two wills, and is but the reflex of the real economic relation between the two. It is this economic relation that determines the subject-matter comprised in each such juridical act.22
The persons exist for one another merely as representatives of, and, therefore. as owners of, commodities. In the course of our investigation we shall find, in general, that the characters who appear on the economic stage are but the personifications of the economic relations that exist between them.
Wills mirror economic relations

Commodities cannot go to market or exchange themselves. So we have to look at their guardians, the commodity owners. Commodities are things, and things cannot resist people. If a thing will not come along, a person can use force; in plain words, he can take it.

For these things to relate to one another as commodities, their guardians have to relate to one another as persons. Each owner's will lives in the thing he owns, so one can take the other's commodity only with the other's will — through one act of will common to both — and gives up his own in taking it. So they have to recognize one another as private proprietors.

This legal relation takes the form of a contract, whether or not law has been developed into a full system. It is a relation between wills, and the economic relation is reflected in it. But the content of this legal or will-relation is given by the economic relation itself.

Here the persons exist for one another only as representatives of commodities, and therefore as commodity owners. As the development goes on, we will find this in general: the economic character-masks people wear here are only personifications of economic relations. The people who wear them face one another as the bearers of those relations.

What chiefly distinguishes a commodity from its owner is the fact, that it looks upon every other commodity as but the form of appearance of its own value. A born leveller and a cynic, it is always ready to exchange not only soul, but body, with any and every other commodity, be the same more repulsive than Maritornes herself. The owner makes up for this lack in the commodity of a sense of the concrete, by his own five and more senses. His commodity possesses for himself no immediate use-value. Otherwise, he would not bring it to the market. It has use-value for others; but for himself its only direct use-value is that of being a depository of exchange-value, and, consequently, a means of exchange.3 Therefore, he makes up his mind to part with it for commodities whose value in use is of service to him. All commodities are non-use-values for their owners, and use-values for their non-owners. Consequently, they must all change hands. But this change of hands is what constitutes their exchange, and the latter puts them in relation with each other as values, and realises them as values. Hence commodities must be realised as values before they can be realised as use-values.
First demand: values before use

What especially separates a commodity from its owner is this: for the commodity, every other commodity body counts only as a form of appearance of its own value. A born leveller and cynic, it stands ready to swap itself — soul and body — with any other commodity, however unappealing that one may be.

The commodity has no senses for the concrete body of another commodity. Its owner makes up for that lack with his own five senses — and more. His own commodity has no direct use-value for him. Otherwise he would not bring it to market. It has use-value for others. For him, its direct use-value is only that it bears exchange-value and so serves as a means of exchange. That is why he wants to part with it for a commodity whose use-value satisfies him.

All commodities are non-use-values for their owners and use-values for their non-owners. So they must change hands all around. But this change of hands is their exchange, and exchange relates them to one another as values and realizes them as values. Therefore commodities must be realized as values before they can be realized as use-values.

On the other hand, they must show that they are use-values before they can be realised as values. For the labour spent upon them counts effectively, only in so far as it is spent in a form that is useful for others. Whether that labour is useful for others, and its product consequently capable of satisfying the wants of others, can be proved only by the act of exchange.
Counter-demand: use proved before value

On the other hand, commodities must prove themselves as use-values before they can be realized as values. The human labour spent on them counts only if it was spent in a form useful to others. But whether it is useful for others, and whether its product satisfies someone else's needs, can be proved only by exchange.

Every owner of a commodity wishes to part with it in exchange only for those commodities whose use-value satisfies some want of his. Looked at in this way, exchange is for him simply a private transaction. On the other hand, he desires to realise the value of his commodity, to convert it into any other suitable commodity of equal value, irrespective of whether his own commodity has or has not any use-value for the owner of the other. From this point of view, exchange is for him a social transaction of a general character. But one and the same set of transactions cannot be simultaneously for all owners of commodities both exclusively private and exclusively social and general.
Private need, social value

Every commodity owner wants to give up his commodity only for another commodity whose use-value satisfies his need. In that respect, exchange is only an individual process for him.

On the other hand, he wants to realize his commodity as value. So he wants to turn it into any other commodity he chooses, as long as it has the same value, whether or not his own commodity has use-value for the owner of the other one. In that respect, exchange is a generally social process for him.

But for all commodity owners at once, the same process cannot be only individual and, at the same time, only generally social.

Let us look at the matter a little closer. To the owner of a commodity, every other commodity is, in regard to his own, a particular equivalent, and consequently his own commodity is the universal equivalent for all the others. But since this applies to every owner, there is, in fact, no commodity acting as universal equivalent, and the relative value of commodities possesses no general form under which they can be equated as values and have the magnitude of their values compared. So far, therefore, they do not confront each other as commodities, but only as products or use-values.
No universal equivalent

Let's look more closely. For every commodity owner, every other commodity counts as a particular equivalent of his own. So his own commodity counts as the universal equivalent of all the others.

But because all commodity owners do the same thing, no commodity is the universal equivalent. So the commodities also share no general value-form — no common form in which they could equate themselves as values and compare how much value each holds. So they do not face one another as commodities at all, but only as products or use-values.

In their difficulties our commodity owners think like Faust: “Im Anfang war die Tat.” [“In the beginning was the deed.” – Goethe, Faust.] They therefore acted and transacted before they thought. Instinctively they conform to the laws imposed by the nature of commodities. They cannot bring their commodities into relation as values, and therefore as commodities, except by comparing them with some one other commodity as the universal equivalent. That we saw from the analysis of a commodity. But a particular commodity cannot become the universal equivalent except by a social act. The social action therefore of all other commodities, sets apart the particular commodity in which they all represent their values. Thereby the bodily form of this commodity becomes the form of the socially recognised universal equivalent. To be the universal equivalent, becomes, by this social process, the specific function of the commodity thus excluded by the rest. Thus it becomes – money.
The deed makes money

Stuck in this bind, our commodity owners think like Faust. Goethe's Faust says: "In the beginning was the deed." So they have already acted before they have thought. The laws of commodity nature worked themselves out through the owners' natural instinct.

They can relate their commodities to one another as values, and therefore as commodities, only by setting them all against some other commodity as universal equivalent. The analysis of the commodity already showed this. But only a social deed can make a definite commodity the universal equivalent.

The social action of all the other commodities therefore excludes one definite commodity, in which they all present their values. By this, the bodily form of that commodity becomes the socially valid equivalent form. Through the social process, being the universal equivalent becomes the specific social function of the excluded commodity. Thus it becomes money.

“Illi unum consilium habent et virtutem et potestatem suam bestiae tradunt. Et ne quis possit emere aut vendere, nisi qui habet characterem aut nomen bestiae aut numerum nominis ejus.” [“These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast.” Revelations, 17:13; “And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.” Revelations, 13:17.] (Apocalypse.)
Apocalypse names the mark

"They have one mind, and they give their strength and power to the beast. And no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark: the beast's name, or the number of its name." (Revelation/Apocalypse)

Money is a crystal formed of necessity in the course of the exchanges, whereby different products of labour are practically equated to one another and thus by practice converted into commodities. The historical progress and extension of exchanges develops the contrast, latent in commodities, between use-value and value. The necessity for giving an external expression to this contrast for the purposes of commercial intercourse, urges on the establishment of an independent form of value, and finds no rest until it is once for all satisfied by the differentiation of commodities into commodities and money. At the same rate, then, as the conversion of products into commodities is being accomplished, so also is the conversion of one special commodity into money.4
Money as necessary product

Money is a necessary product of the exchange process — a crystal that forms inside it. In that process, different products of labour are actually equated with one another and therefore actually turned into commodities.

As exchange widens historically and reaches deeper, it develops the opposition sleeping inside the commodity: use-value and value. Trade needs this opposition to be shown outwardly. That need drives toward an independent form of commodity-value, and it does not rest until the commodity has doubled: ordinary commodity on one side, money on the other.

So, in the same measure as products of labour become commodities, a commodity becomes money.

The direct barter of products attains the elementary form of the relative expression of value in one respect, but not in another. That form is x Commodity A = y Commodity B. The form of direct barter is x use-value A = y use-value B.5 The articles A and B in this case are not as yet commodities, but become so only by the act of barter. The first step made by an object of utility towards acquiring exchange-value is when it forms a non-use-value for its owner, and that happens when it forms a superfluous portion of some article required for his immediate wants. Objects in themselves are external to man, and consequently alienable by him. In order that this alienation may be reciprocal, it is only necessary for men, by a tacit understanding, to treat each other as private owners of those alienable objects, and by implication as independent individuals. But such a state of reciprocal independence has no existence in a primitive society based on property in common, whether such a society takes the form of a patriarchal family, an ancient Indian community, or a Peruvian Inca State. The exchange of commodities, therefore, first begins on the boundaries of such communities, at their points of contact with other similar communities, or with members of the latter. So soon, however, as products once become commodities in the external relations of a community, they also, by reaction, become so in its internal intercourse. The proportions in which they are exchangeable are at first quite a matter of chance. What makes them exchangeable is the mutual desire of their owners to alienate them. Meantime the need for foreign objects of utility gradually establishes itself. The constant repetition of exchange makes it a normal social act. In the course of time, therefore, some portion at least of the products of labour must be produced with a special view to exchange. From that moment the distinction becomes firmly established between the utility of an object for the purposes of consumption, and its utility for the purposes of exchange. Its use-value becomes distinguished from its exchange-value. On the other hand, the quantitative proportion in which the articles are exchangeable, becomes dependent on their production itself. Custom stamps them as values with definite magnitudes.
Barter begins at boundaries

Direct barter of products has the form of the simple expression of value in one respect — and does not yet have it in another. That form was: x commodity A = y commodity B. The form of direct barter is: x use-value A = y use-value B. Here A and B are not commodities before the exchange. They become commodities only through it.

A useful object first becomes a possible exchange-value by being a non-use-value for its owner — more of something than he immediately needs. Things stand outside human beings, and so people can alienate them, or part with them. For this alienation to be mutual, people need only tacitly face one another as private owners of those alienable things, and therefore as independent persons.

But this relation of mutual strangeness does not exist among the members of a naturally grown community, whether it is a patriarchal family, an old Indian community, an Inca state, and so on. Commodity exchange begins where communities end: at their points of contact with foreign communities or with members of foreign communities. Once things have become commodities in a community's external dealings, they also become commodities, by reaction, inside its common life.

At first, the quantitative exchange-relation is quite accidental. The things are exchangeable because their owners will to alienate them to one another. Meanwhile, the need for foreign useful objects gradually settles in. The steady repetition of exchange makes it a regular social process. In time, therefore, at least part of the products of labour must be produced intentionally for exchange.

From that moment, on one side, the split becomes fixed between a thing's usefulness for direct need and its usefulness for exchange. Its use-value separates from its exchange-value. On the other side, the quantitative relation in which things exchange becomes dependent on their production itself. Custom fixes them as magnitudes of value.

In the direct barter of products, each commodity is directly a means of exchange to its owner, and to all other persons an equivalent, but that only in so far as it has use-value for them. At this stage, therefore, the articles exchanged do not acquire a value-form independent of their own use-value, or of the individual needs of the exchangers. The necessity for a value-form grows with the increasing number and variety of the commodities exchanged. The problem and the means of solution arise simultaneously. Commodity-owners never equate their own commodities to those of others, and exchange them on a large scale, without different kinds of commodities belonging to different owners being exchangeable for, and equated as values to, one and the same special article. Such last-mentioned article, by becoming the equivalent of various other commodities, acquires at once, though within narrow limits, the character of a general social equivalent. This character comes and goes with the momentary social acts that called it into life. In turns and transiently it attaches itself first to this and then to that commodity. But with the development of exchange it fixes itself firmly and exclusively to particular sorts of commodities, and becomes crystallised by assuming the money-form. The particular kind of commodity to which it sticks is at first a matter of accident. Nevertheless there are two circumstances whose influence is decisive. The money-form attaches itself either to the most important articles of exchange from outside, and these in fact are primitive and natural forms in which the exchange-value of home products finds expression; or else it attaches itself to the object of utility that forms, like cattle, the chief portion of indigenous alienable wealth. Nomad races are the first to develop the money-form, because all their worldly goods consist of moveable objects and are therefore directly alienable; and because their mode of life, by continually bringing them into contact with foreign communities, solicits the exchange of products. Man has often made man himself, under the form of slaves, serve as the primitive material of money, but has never used land for that purpose. Such an idea could only spring up in a bourgeois society already well developed. It dates from the last third of the 17th century, and the first attempt to put it in practice on a national scale was made a century afterwards, during the French bourgeois revolution.
The third commodity

In direct barter, each commodity is directly a means of exchange for its owner, and an equivalent for someone who does not own it, but only if it has use-value for that other person. So the article being exchanged still has no value-form independent of its own use-value or of the individual needs of the exchangers.

The need for such a form grows as more and more kinds of commodities enter exchange. The task arises together with the means to solve it. Owners can compare their own articles with many others only if different owners all exchange their different commodities against one and the same third kind of commodity, and compare them as values in it. By serving as equivalent for several other commodities, this third commodity at once receives a general or social equivalent form — though, at first, only within narrow limits.

This general equivalent form arises and disappears with the momentary social contact that called it into life. It passes briefly, now to this commodity, now to that one. But as commodity exchange develops, the form fixes itself exclusively on particular kinds of commodities, or crystallizes into the money-form.

At first, which kind of commodity it sticks to is accidental. In broad outline, though, two circumstances decide. The money-form attaches either to the chief articles brought in from outside — these are, in fact, the natural forms in which the exchange-value of home products first appears — or to the useful thing that makes up the main part of a people's own transferable wealth, such as cattle.

Nomad peoples develop the money-form first. All their goods are movable, and therefore directly alienable, and their way of life constantly brings them into contact with foreign communities, pressing them toward the exchange of products. People have often made the human being himself, in the form of the slave, into the first money material. They have never made the land so. That idea could arise only in an already developed bourgeois society. It dates from the last third of the 17th century, and its first attempted execution on a national scale came only a century later, in the French bourgeois revolution.

In proportion as exchange bursts its local bonds, and the value of commodities more and more expands into an embodiment of human labour in the abstract, in the same proportion the character of money attaches itself to commodities that are by Nature fitted to perform the social function of a universal equivalent. Those commodities are the precious metals.
Exchange outgrows locality

As commodity exchange breaks its merely local bonds, commodity value widens into an embodiment of human labour in general. In the same measure, the money-form passes to commodities whose natural properties fit them for the social function of universal equivalent: the precious metals.

The truth of the proposition that, “although gold and silver are not by Nature money, money is by Nature gold and silver,”6 is shown by the fitness of the physical properties of these metals for the functions of money.7 Up to this point, however, we are acquainted only with one function of money, namely, to serve as the form of manifestation of the value of commodities, or as the material in which the magnitudes of their values are socially expressed. An adequate form of manifestation of value, a fit embodiment of abstract, undifferentiated, and therefore equal human labour, that material alone can be whose every sample exhibits the same uniform qualities. On the other hand, since the difference between the magnitudes of value is purely quantitative, the money commodity must be susceptible of merely quantitative differences, must therefore be divisible at will, and equally capable of being reunited. Gold and silver possess these properties by Nature.
Metals fit the function

The saying that gold and silver are not money by nature, but money is by nature gold and silver, points to a fit between the metals' natural properties and money's functions.

So far, though, we know only one function of money: to serve as the form of appearance of commodity-value, or as the material in which commodities socially express the magnitudes of their values. Value needs a proper form of appearance — a material body for abstract, and therefore equal, human labour. Only a material whose every sample has the same uniform quality can serve.

And because differences in magnitudes of value are purely quantitative, the money commodity must be able to take purely quantitative differences too. It must be divisible at will and able to be put back together from its parts. Gold and silver have these properties by nature.

The use-value of the money-commodity becomes two-fold. In addition to its special use-value as a commodity (gold, for instance, serving to stop teeth, to form the raw material of articles of luxury, &c.), it acquires a formal use-value, originating in its specific social function.
Use-value doubles

The use-value of the money commodity doubles. Alongside its particular use-value as a commodity - gold can fill hollow teeth or supply raw material for luxury articles - it gets a formal use-value that springs from its specific social functions.

Since all commodities are merely particular equivalents of money, the latter being their universal equivalent, they, with regard to the latter as the universal commodity, play the parts of particular commodities. 8
Money as universal commodity

All other commodities are only particular equivalents of money, while money is their universal equivalent. So they relate to money, the universal commodity, as particular commodities.

We have seen that the money-form is but the reflex, thrown upon one single commodity, of the value relations between all the rest. That money is a commodity 9 is therefore a new discovery only for those who, when they analyse it, start from its fully developed shape. The act of exchange gives to the commodity converted into money, not its value, but its specific value-form. By confounding these two distinct things some writers have been led to hold that the value of gold and silver is imaginary. 10 The fact that money can, in certain functions, be replaced by mere symbols of itself, gave rise to that other mistaken notion, that it is itself a mere symbol. Nevertheless under this error lurked a presentiment that the money-form of an object is not an inseparable part of that object, but is simply the form under which certain social relations manifest themselves. In this sense every commodity is a symbol, since, in so far as it is value, it is only the material envelope of the human labour spent upon it.11 But if it be declared that the social characters assumed by objects, or the material forms assumed by the social qualities of labour under the régime of a definite mode of production, are mere symbols, it is in the same breath also declared that these characteristics are arbitrary fictions sanctioned by the so-called universal consent of mankind. This suited the mode of explanation in favour during the 18th century. Unable to account for the origin of the puzzling forms assumed by social relations between man and man, people sought to denude them of their strange appearance by ascribing to them a conventional origin.
Errors about money

We have seen that the money-form is only the reflection, fixed on one commodity, of the relations among all the other commodities. So it is news that money is a commodity only to someone who starts from money's finished shape and works backward.

The exchange process gives the commodity it turns into money not its value, but its specific value-form. Confusing those two determinations led people to treat the value of gold and silver as imaginary. Because money, in certain functions, can be replaced by mere symbols of itself, another error arose: that money itself is only a symbol.

Yet that error held an inkling of something true. The money-form of the thing is external to the thing itself; it is only the form of appearance of human relations hidden behind it. In this sense, every commodity would be a symbol, because as value it is only the thing-like shell of the human labour spent on it.

Under a definite mode of production, things take on social characters, and the social sides of labour take on thing-like characters. Declare both mere symbols, and you have declared them, in the same breath, arbitrary products of human reflection. That was a favorite Enlightenment style of the 18th century: when it could not decipher how puzzling forms of human relations came into being, it stripped away their strange look, at least for the time being, by treating them as conventions.

It has already been remarked above that the equivalent form of a commodity does not imply the determination of the magnitude of its value. Therefore, although we may be aware that gold is money, and consequently directly exchangeable for all other commodities, yet that fact by no means tells how much 10 lbs., for instance, of gold is worth. Money, like every other commodity, cannot express the magnitude of its value except relatively in other commodities. This value is determined by the labour-time required for its production, and is expressed by the quantity of any other commodity that costs the same amount of labour-time. 12 Such quantitative determination of its relative value takes place at the source of its production by means of barter. When it steps into circulation as money, its value is already given. In the last decades of the 17th century it had already been shown that money is a commodity, but this step marks only the infancy of the analysis. The difficulty lies, not in comprehending that money is a commodity, but in discovering how, why, and by what means a commodity becomes money. 13
Money's own value

We noted earlier that a commodity's equivalent form does not tell us how much value the commodity has. If we know that gold is money, and therefore directly exchangeable with all other commodities, we still do not know how much, for example, 10 pounds of gold is worth.

Like every commodity, money can express its own magnitude of value only relatively, in other commodities. Its own value is determined by the labour-time needed to produce it. It is expressed in the quantity of any other commodity in which the same amount of labour-time has congealed.

This fixing of money's relative magnitude of value takes place at its source of production, in direct barter. Once money enters circulation as money, its value is already given.

By the last decades of the 17th century, knowing that money is a commodity was already more than a fresh discovery in the analysis of money. But it was still only the beginning. The difficulty is not to grasp that money is a commodity. The difficulty is to grasp how, why, and through what a commodity is money.

We have already seen, from the most elementary expression of value, x commodity A = y commodity B, that the object in which the magnitude of the value of another object is represented, appears to have the equivalent form independently of this relation, as a social property given to it by Nature. We followed up this false appearance to its final establishment, which is complete so soon as the universal equivalent form becomes identified with the bodily form of a particular commodity, and thus crystallised into the money-form. What appears to happen is, not that gold becomes money, in consequence of all other commodities expressing their values in it, but, on the contrary, that all other commodities universally express their values in gold, because it is money. The intermediate steps of the process vanish in the result and leave no trace behind. Commodities find their own value already completely represented, without any initiative on their part, in another commodity existing in company with them. These objects, gold and silver, just as they come out of the bowels of the earth, are forthwith the direct incarnation of all human labour. Hence the magic of money. In the form of society now under consideration, the behaviour of men in the social process of production is purely atomic. Hence their relations to each other in production assume a material character independent of their control and conscious individual action. These facts manifest themselves at first by products as a general rule taking the form of commodities. We have seen how the progressive development of a society of commodity-producers stamps one privileged commodity with the character of money. Hence the riddle presented by money is but the riddle presented by commodities; only it now strikes us in its most glaring form.
The completed false appearance

We saw this already in the simplest expression of value: x commodity A = y commodity B. The thing whose body displays another thing's value seems to possess that equivalent form on its own, apart from the relation — as a social property given by nature. We followed the fixing of this false appearance. It is complete as soon as the general equivalent form has grown together with the natural form of one particular kind of commodity, or has crystallized into the money-form.

Then a commodity does not seem first to become money because all the other commodities present their values in it. It seems the reverse: the others seem to present their values in it because it is money. The mediating movement disappears in its own result and leaves no trace.

Without any action of their own, commodities find their form of value lying there already finished, in another commodity's body outside them. These things, gold and silver, just as they come out of the bowels of the earth, are at the same time the direct incarnation of all human labour. Hence the magic of money.

People behave as separate atoms in their social process of production. Because of that, their own production relations take on a thing-like shape — one they do not control and never consciously chose. This first appears in the general fact that the products of labour take the commodity-form. The riddle of the money fetish is therefore only the riddle of the commodity fetish made visible, dazzling the eyes.