Understanding Marx's Capital (a series of an ultimate guide to Das Kapital)

### First Book

The Process of Capitalist Production

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First Section

Commodities and Money

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FIRST CHAPTER

The Commodity

1. The Two Factors of the Commodity: Use-Value and Value (Substance of Value, Magnitude of Value)

<49> The wealth of societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails appears as an "immense collection of commodities" (1), with the individual commodity as its elementary form. Therefore, our investigation begins with the analysis of the commodity.

A commodity is initially an external object, a thing that by its properties satisfies human needs of some kind. The nature of these needs, whether they arise, for example, from the stomach or the imagination, makes no difference (2). Nor does it matter how the thing satisfies the human need, whether directly as a means of subsistence, i.e., as an object of consumption, or indirectly as a means of production.

Every useful thing, such as iron, paper, etc., can be considered from a double point of view: according to quality and quantity. Every such thing is a whole of many properties and can therefore be useful in various ways. Discovering these various aspects and hence the manifold <50> uses of things is a historical task (3). Similarly, finding social measures for the quantity of useful things. The diversity of the measures of commodities arises partly from the different nature of the objects to be measured and partly from convention.

The usefulness of a thing makes it a use-value (4). But this usefulness is not suspended in the air. It is conditioned by the properties of the commodity body and exists only through them. The commodity body itself, such as iron, wheat, diamond, etc., is therefore a use-value or good. This character of it does not depend on whether the appropriation of its useful properties costs a lot or little labor to man. In considering use-values, their quantitative determinateness is always assumed, such as a dozen watches, an ell of linen, a ton of iron, etc. The use-values of commodities provide the material of a specific discipline, the science of commodities (5). Use-value is realized only in use or consumption. Use-values form the material content of wealth, whatever its social form may be. In the form of society we are considering, they simultaneously form the material bearers of - exchange-value.

Exchange-value initially appears as the quantitative relation, the proportion, in which use-values of one kind exchange for use-values of another kind (6), a relation that constantly changes with time and place. Therefore, exchange-value seems something accidental and purely relative, an intrinsic exchange-value of a commodity (valeur intrinsèque) thus a contradictio in adjecto (7). Let's consider the matter more closely.

A certain commodity, a quarter of wheat for example, exchanges with x boot polish or with y silk or with z gold, etc., in short, with other commodities in the most diverse proportions. Thus, wheat has many exchange-values instead of a single one. But since x boot polish, y silk, z gold, etc., are the exchange-values of a quarter of wheat, x boot polish, y silk, z gold, etc., must be replaceable or of equal magnitude as exchange-values. It follows, therefore, first: The valid exchange-values of a single commodity express something equal. Secondly: Exchange-value can only be the expression of a third, distinct from itself, which is different from the commodity.

Consider further two commodities, such as wheat and iron. Whatever their exchange relation, it is always representable in an equation, wherein a given quantity of wheat is equated to some quantity of iron, for example, 1 quarter of wheat = a certain quantity of iron. What does this equation mean? It means that something common of the same magnitude exists in two different things, in 1 quarter of wheat and likewise in a certain quantity of iron. Both are therefore equal to a third thing, which is neither the one nor the other. Each of the two, so far as it is exchange-value, must therefore be reducible to this third.

A simple geometric example illustrates this. To determine and compare the areas of all rectilinear figures, we reduce them to triangles. The triangle itself is reduced to an expression entirely different from its visible figure - the product of half its base times its height. Similarly, the exchange-values of commodities must be reduced to a common element, which represents a quantity of something.

This common element cannot be a geometric, physical, chemical, or other natural property of commodities. Their physical properties come into consideration only to the extent that they make them useful, hence as use-values. On the other hand, it is precisely the abstraction from their use-values that characterizes the exchange relation <52> of commodities. Within it, one use-value is as good as another if it is present in the correct proportion. Or, as the old Barbon says:

"One sort of commodity is as good as another, if the exchange value is equal. There is no difference or distinction between things of equal exchange value." (8)

As use-values, commodities are primarily of different qualities, as exchange-values they can only be of different quantities, containing not an atom of use-value.

If we disregard the use-value of commodity bodies, they retain only one property, that of being products of labor. However, even the labor product is transformed in our hands. If we disregard its use-value, we disregard also the material constituents and forms that make it a use-value. It is no longer a table, a house, or a yarn, or any other useful thing. All its sensory properties are extinguished. It is also no longer the product of carpentry, masonry, spinning, or any other specific productive labor. With the useful character of the labor products, the useful character of the labors embodied in them disappears as well, and consequently, the different concrete forms of these labors. They no longer differ but are all reduced to human labor in general, abstract human labor.

Consider now the residue of labor products. Nothing remains of them but the same ghostly objectivity, a mere congealed quantity of undifferentiated human labor, i.e., the expenditure of human labor power without regard to the form of its expenditure. These things now only express that human labor power has been expended in their production, human labor accumulated. As crystals of this common social substance, they are values - commodity values.

<53> In the exchange relation of commodities, their exchange-value appeared to us as something entirely independent of their use-values. If we now really abstract from the use-value of labor products, we obtain their value as just determined. The common element that presents itself in the exchange relation or exchange-value of the commodity is thus its value. The further course of the investigation will return us to exchange-value as the necessary mode of expression, or form of appearance, of value, which, however, is first to be considered independently of this form.

A use-value or good has a value only because abstract human labor is objectified or materialized in it. But how is the magnitude of its value to be measured? By the quantity of the "value-creating substance," the labor, contained in it. The quantity of labor itself is measured by its duration, and labor-time again has its standard in specific time-parts, such as hour, day, etc.

It might seem that if the value of a commodity is determined by the quantity of labor expended in its production, the lazier or less skilled a man, the more valuable his commodity, because he needs more time to make it. However, the labor that forms the substance of values is equal human labor, the expenditure of identical human labor power. The total labor power of society, which is embodied in the values of the world of commodities, counts here as one and the same human labor power, although it consists of innumerable individual labor powers. Each of these individual labor powers is the same human labor power as another, to the extent that it has the character of a socially average labor power and acts as such a socially average labor power, i.e., requires only the socially necessary labor time on average for the production of a commodity. Socially necessary labor time is the labor time required to produce any use-value under the given normal conditions of production of society and with the average degree of skill and intensity of labor prevalent at the time. After the introduction of the power-loom in England, for example, perhaps half as much labor was required to convert a given amount of yarn into fabric as before. Indeed, the hand-loom weaver needed just as much labor-time as before to effect this conversion, but the product of his individual hour of labor now represented only half a social hour of labor and therefore fell to half its former value.

<54> Thus, it is only the quantity of socially necessary labor or the labor time required for the production of a use-value that determines its value magnitude (9). The individual commodity is here generally regarded as an average sample of its kind (10). Commodities that contain equal quantities of labor or can be produced in the same labor time have the same value magnitude. The value of a commodity is related to the value of any other commodity as the labor time necessary for the production of the one is to that necessary for the production of the other. "As values, all commodities are only definite masses of congealed labor time." (11)

The magnitude of the value of a commodity would therefore remain constant if the labor time required for its production remained constant. This latter varies, however, with every variation in the productivity of labor. The productivity of labor is determined by various circumstances, among others, the average degree of skill of the workers, the level of development of science and its technological applicability, the social organization of the production process, the extent and effectiveness of the means of production and natural conditions. The same quantity of labor represents itself, e.g., in a favorable season in 8 bushels of wheat, in an unfavorable one in only

 4. The same quantity of labor yields more metal in rich mines than in poor ones, etc. Diamonds occur rarely in the earth's crust, and their discovery costs, on average, a lot of labor time. Thus, they represent in small volume much labor. Jacob doubts whether gold has ever paid its full value <55>. This is even more true of the diamond. According to Eschwege, the total output of the Brazilian diamond mines for eighty years had not reached the price of the average 1.5-year output of Brazilian sugar or coffee plantations in 1823, although it represented much more labor, i.e., more value. With richer mines, the same quantity of labor would be represented in more diamonds, and their value would fall. If it becomes possible to transform coal into diamonds with little labor, their value could fall below that of bricks. Generally: The greater the productivity of labor, the less the labor time necessary to produce an article, the less the labor crystallized in it, the less its value. Conversely, the smaller the productivity of labor, the greater the labor time necessary to produce an article, the greater its value. Therefore, the magnitude of the value of a commodity varies directly as the quantity and inversely as the productivity of the labor embodied in it. <1st edition follows: We now know the substance of value. It is labor. We know the measure of its magnitude. It is labor-time. Its form, which stamps value as exchange-value, remains to be analyzed. However, before doing so, the already established determinations are to be developed somewhat further.>

A thing can be a use-value, without being a value. This is the case when its utility to man is not mediated by labor. Such is the case with air, virgin soil, natural meadows, wild-growing timber, etc. A thing can be useful and a product of human labor, without being a commodity. Whoever satisfies his own need with his product creates use-value, but not a commodity. To produce a commodity, he must not only produce use-value but use-value for others, social use-value. {And not only for others directly. The medieval peasant produced tithe grain for the feudal lord, tithe grain for the priest. But neither tithe grain nor tithe became a commodity by being produced for others. To become a commodity, the product must be transferred to another, whom it serves as a use-value, through the exchange.} (11a) Finally, nothing can be a value without being a use-value. If it is useless, so is the labor contained in it, does not count as labor, and therefore creates no value.

1. Karl Marx, "Critique of Political Economy", Berlin 1859, page 3. <See Volume 13, page 15>.

2. "Desire includes need; it is the appetite of the mind, and as natural as hunger is for the body ... Most things have their value because they satisfy the needs of the mind." (Nicholas Barbon, "A Discourse on coining the new money lighter. In answer to Mr. Locke's Considerations etc.", London 1696, p. 2, 3.)

3. "Things have an intrinsic virtue" (here Barbon specifically refers to use-value), "which is everywhere the same, just like that of the magnet attracting iron" (ibid, p. 6). The property of the magnet attracting iron became useful only once magnetic polarity was discovered through it.

4. "The natural worth of each thing consists in its ability to satisfy necessary needs or serve the conveniences of human life." (John Locke, "Some Considerations on the Consequences of the Lowering of Interest", 1691, in "Works", edit. London 1777, vol. II, p. 28.) In the 17th century, we still frequently find in English writings "Worth" for use-value and "Value" for exchange-value, entirely in the spirit of a language that likes to express the immediate thing in Germanic and the reflected thing in Romance terms.

5. In bourgeois society, there prevails the legal fiction that every individual as a buyer of commodities possesses encyclopedic knowledge of commodities.

6. "Value consists in the exchange relation that exists between one thing and another, between the quantity of one product and that of another." (Le Trosne, "De l'Intérêt Social", [in] "Physiocrates", edit. Daire, Paris 1846, p. 889.)

7. "Nothing can have an intrinsic exchange-value" (N. Barbon, ibid, p. 6), or as Butler says:

"The value of a thing

is just as much as it will bring."

8. "One sort of wares are as good as another, if the value be equal. There is no difference or distinction in things of equal value ... One hundred pounds worth of lead or iron, is of as great a value as one hundred pounds worth of silver and gold." <" ... Lead or iron worth one hundred pounds Sterling have the same exchange value as silver and gold worth one hundred pounds Sterling."> (N. Barbon, ibid, p. 53 and 7.)

9. Note to the 2nd edition: "The value of them (the necessaries of life) when they are exchanged one for another, is regulated by the quantity of labour necessarily required, and commonly taken in producing them." "The value of commodities, once exchanged against each other, is determined by the amount of labor required for their production, and commonly employed." ("Some Thoughts on the Interest of Money in general, and particularly in the Public funds etc.", London, p. 36, 37.) This remarkable anonymous writing of the previous century bears no date. However, it appears from its content that it appeared under George II, around 1739 or 1740.

10. "All products of the same kind actually form only one mass, the price of which is generally determined without regard to particular circumstances."

11. K. Marx, ibid, p. 6. <See Volume 13, page 18>.

11a. Note to the 4th edition - I insert the bracketed text because its omission has often caused misunderstanding that every product consumed by someone other than the producer is considered a commodity by Marx. - F.E.

12. Ibid, p. 12, 13 and throughout. <See Volume 13, pages 22, 23 and throughout>.