Posted: February 27th, 2023
Discussion Board
500-700 word reading response.
1). A few sentences summary of the argument(s) being made in each book, article, and stand-alone-chapter.
2). Another few sentences (or so) explaining what makes the argument novel, important, and/or a contribution to anthropology. Please pay attention whether the piece’s novelty comes from the methods used, the question asked, the answers reached, or the analytic framework utilized.
3). And then, taking all of the pieces read for this week and identify the questions, thoughts, ideas, come to mind when you read all of the pieces together. This is the response, while the other pieces are the summary.
70 The Early Marx
philosophy’s spot of infection, the further role of portraying in
itself the negative dissolution of philosophy-i.e., the process of its
decay-this historical nemesis I shall demonstrate on another occa-
sion.
[How far, on the other hand, Feuerbach’s discoveries about the
nature of philosophy required still, for their Proof at least, a critical
settling of accounts with philosophical dialectic will be seen from
my exposition itself.]
Estranged La bour3
\Ve have proceeded from the premises of political economy. \Ve
have accepted its language and its laws. \Ve presupposed private
property, the separation of labour, capital and land, and of wages,
profit of capital and rent of land-likewise division of labour,
competition, the concept of exchange-value, etc. On the basis of
political economy itself, in its own words, we have shown that the
1\ worker sinks to the level of a commodity and becomes indeed the
\’ most wretched of commodities; that the wretchedness of the
worker is in inverse proportion to the power and magnitude of his
production; that the necessary result of competition is the accumu-
lation of capital in a few hands, and thus the restoration of monop-
oly in a more terrible form; that finally the distinction between cap-
italist and land-rentier, like that between the tiller of the soil and
the factory-worker, disappears and that the whole of society must
fall apart into the two classes-the property-owners and the proper-
tyless workers.
\
. Political economy proceeds from the fact of private property, but
it does not explain it to us. It expresses in general, abstract formu-
_. lae the materi.2:L:P,rocess through which private property actually
“passes, an441iese formulae it then takes for laws. It does not com-
prehend these laws-i.e., it does not demonstrate how they arise
from the very nature of private property. Political economy does
not disclose the source of the division between labour and capital,
and between capital and land. \Vhen, for example, it defines the
relationship of wages to profit, it takes the interest of the capitalists
to be the ultimate cause; i.e., it takes for granted what it is sup-
posed to evolve. Similarly, competition comes in everywhere. It is
explained from external circumstances. As to how far these external
and apparently fortuitous circumstances are but the expression of a
necessary course of development, political economy teaches us
nothing. \Ve have seen how, to it, exchange itself appears to be a
3. Die Entjremdete Arbeit. See the xli, above, for a discussion of this
Note on Texts and Terminology, p. term. [R. T.]
Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 71
fact/.Tl:!e-,only wheels which political economy sets in
motIon are and the war amongst the avaricious-.. competttlon. . 0′ –
Precisely because political economy does not grasp the connec-
tions within the movement, it was possible to counterpose, for
instance, the doctrine of competition to the doctrine of monopoly,
the doctrine of craft-liberty to the doctrine of the corporation, the
doctrine of the division of landed property to the doctrine of the
big estate-for competition, craft-liberty and the division of landed
property were explained and comprehended only as fortuitous, pre-
meditated and violent consequences of monopoly, the corporation,
and feudal property, not as their necessary, inevitable and natural
consequences. ,
Now, therefore, we have to grasp the essential connection \ :
between private property, avarice, and the separation of labour, cap- ‘J,
ital and landed property; between exchange and competition, value / ‘
and the devaluation of men, monopoly and competition, etc.; the
connection between this whole estrangement and the
system. r
Do not let us go back to a fictitious primordial condition as the
political economist does, when he tries to explain. Such a primor-
dial condition explains nothing. He merely pushes the question
away into a grey nebulous distance. He assumes in the form of fact,
of an event, what he is supposed to deduce-namely, the necessary
relationship between two things-between, for example, division of
labour and exchange. Theology in the same way explains the origin
of evil by the fall of man: that is, it assumes as a fact, in historical
form, what has to be explained.
\Ve proceed from an actual economic fact.
The worker becomes all the poorer the more wealth he produces,
the more his production increases in power and range. The worker
becomes an ever cheaper commodity the more commodities he cre-
ates. \Vith the increasing value of the world of things proceeds in
direct proportion the devaluation of the world of men. Labour pro-
duces not only commodities; it produces itself and the worker as a
commodity-and does so in the proportion in which it produces
commodities generally.
This fact expresses merely that the object which labour
produces-Iabour’s product-confronts it as something alien, as a
power independent of the producer. The product of labour is
labour which has been congealed in an object, which has become
material: it is the ob;ecti-{ication of labour. Labour’s realization is
its objectification. In the conditions dealt with by political econ-
omy this realization of labour appears as loss of reality for the work-
70 The Early Marx
philosophy’s spot of infection, the further role of portraying in
itself the negative dissolution of philosophy-i.e., the process of its
decay-this historical nemesis I shall demonstrate on another occa-
sion.
[How far, on the other hand, Feuerbach’s discoveries about the
nature of philosophy required still, for their Proof at least, a critical
settling of accounts with philosophical dialectic will be seen from
my exposition itself.]
Estranged La bour3
\Ve have proceeded from the premises of political economy. \Ve
have accepted its language and its laws. \Ve presupposed private
property, the separation of labour, capital and land, and of wages,
profit of capital and rent of land-likewise division of labour,
competition, the concept of exchange-value, etc. On the basis of
political economy itself, in its own words, we have shown that the
1\ worker sinks to the level of a commodity and becomes indeed the
\’ most wretched of commodities; that the wretchedness of the
worker is in inverse proportion to the power and magnitude of his
production; that the necessary result of competition is the accumu-
lation of capital in a few hands, and thus the restoration of monop-
oly in a more terrible form; that finally the distinction between cap-
italist and land-rentier, like that between the tiller of the soil and
the factory-worker, disappears and that the whole of society must
fall apart into the two classes-the property-owners and the proper-
tyless workers.
\
. Political economy proceeds from the fact of private property, but
it does not explain it to us. It expresses in general, abstract formu-
_. lae the materi.2:L:P,rocess through which private property actually
“passes, an441iese formulae it then takes for laws. It does not com-
prehend these laws-i.e., it does not demonstrate how they arise
from the very nature of private property. Political economy does
not disclose the source of the division between labour and capital,
and between capital and land. \Vhen, for example, it defines the
relationship of wages to profit, it takes the interest of the capitalists
to be the ultimate cause; i.e., it takes for granted what it is sup-
posed to evolve. Similarly, competition comes in everywhere. It is
explained from external circumstances. As to how far these external
and apparently fortuitous circumstances are but the expression of a
necessary course of development, political economy teaches us
nothing. \Ve have seen how, to it, exchange itself appears to be a
3. Die Entjremdete Arbeit. See the xli, above, for a discussion of this
Note on Texts and Terminology, p. term. [R. T.]
Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 71
fact/.Tl:!e-,only wheels which political economy sets in
motIon are and the war amongst the avaricious-.. competttlon. . 0′ –
Precisely because political economy does not grasp the connec-
tions within the movement, it was possible to counterpose, for
instance, the doctrine of competition to the doctrine of monopoly,
the doctrine of craft-liberty to the doctrine of the corporation, the
doctrine of the division of landed property to the doctrine of the
big estate-for competition, craft-liberty and the division of landed
property were explained and comprehended only as fortuitous, pre-
meditated and violent consequences of monopoly, the corporation,
and feudal property, not as their necessary, inevitable and natural
consequences. ,
Now, therefore, we have to grasp the essential connection \ :
between private property, avarice, and the separation of labour, cap- ‘J,
ital and landed property; between exchange and competition, value / ‘
and the devaluation of men, monopoly and competition, etc.; the
connection between this whole estrangement and the
system. r
Do not let us go back to a fictitious primordial condition as the
political economist does, when he tries to explain. Such a primor-
dial condition explains nothing. He merely pushes the question
away into a grey nebulous distance. He assumes in the form of fact,
of an event, what he is supposed to deduce-namely, the necessary
relationship between two things-between, for example, division of
labour and exchange. Theology in the same way explains the origin
of evil by the fall of man: that is, it assumes as a fact, in historical
form, what has to be explained.
\Ve proceed from an actual economic fact.
The worker becomes all the poorer the more wealth he produces,
the more his production increases in power and range. The worker
becomes an ever cheaper commodity the more commodities he cre-
ates. \Vith the increasing value of the world of things proceeds in
direct proportion the devaluation of the world of men. Labour pro-
duces not only commodities; it produces itself and the worker as a
commodity-and does so in the proportion in which it produces
commodities generally.
This fact expresses merely that the object which labour
produces-Iabour’s product-confronts it as something alien, as a
power independent of the producer. The product of labour is
labour which has been congealed in an object, which has become
material: it is the ob;ecti-{ication of labour. Labour’s realization is
its objectification. In the conditions dealt with by political econ-
omy this realization of labour appears as loss of reality for the work-
72 The Early Marx
ers; objectification as loss of the object and object-bondage; appro-
priation as estrangement, as alienation.4
So much does labour’s realization appear as loss of reality that
the worker loses reality to the point of starving to death. So much
does objectification appear as loss of the object that the worker is
of the objects most necessary not only for his life but for
hIs work. labour itself becomes an object which he can get
of only WIth the greatest effort and with the most irregular
mterruptlOns. So much does the appropriation of the object appear
as estrangement that the more objects the worker produces the
fewer can he possess and the more he falls under the dominion of
his product, capital.
All these consequences are contained in the definition that the
worker is related to the product of his labour as to an alien object.
F?r on this premise it is clear that the more the worker spends
the more powerful the alien objective world becomes
,:”,hlch he creates over-against himself, the poorer he himself-his
mner world-becomes, the less belongs to him as his own. It is the
same in religion. The more man puts into God, the less he retains
himself. The worker puts his life into the object; but now his
no belongs to him but to the object. Hence, the greater
thIS actIVIty, the greater is the worker’s lack of objects. \Vhatever
the product of his labour is, he is not. Therefore the greater this
product, the less is he himself. The alienation of the worker in his
product not only that his labour becomes an object, an
eXlst.ence, that it exists outside him, independently, as
somethmg alIen to hIm, and that it becomes a power of its own
confronting him; it means that the life which he has conferred on
the object confronts him as something hostile and alien.
us now look more closely at the objectification, at the pro-
ductIon of the worker; and therein at the estrangement the loss of
the object, his product. ‘
The worker can create nothing without nature, without the sen-
suous external world. It is the material on which his labor is mani-
fested, in which it is active, from which imd by means of which it
produces.
But just as nature provides labor with the means of life in the
sense that labour cannot live without objects on which to operate,
on the other hand, it also provides the means of life in the more
restricted sense-i.e., the means for the physical subsistence of the
worker himself.
Thus the more the worker by his labour appropriates the external
sensuous nature, the more he deprives himself of means of
lIfe m the double respect: first, that the sensuous external world
4. “Alienation”-Entiiusserung.
m
F
I
l
II
!
I
l
Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 73
more and more ceases to be an object belonging to his labour-to
be his labour’s means of life; and secondly, that it more and more
ceases to be means of life in the immediate sense, means for the
physical subsistence of the worker. .
Thus in this double respect the worker becomes a slave of hIs
object, first, in that he receives an object of labour, i.e., in that he
receives work; and secondly, in that he receives means of subsist-
ence. Therefore, it enables him to exist, first, as a worker; and,
second, as a physical subject. The extremity of this bondage is that
it is only as a worker that he continues to maintain himself as a
physical subject, and that it is only as a physical subject that he is a
worker.
(The laws of political economy express the estrangement of the
worker in his object thus: the more the worker produces, the less
he has to consume; the more values he creates, the more valueless,
the more unworthy he becomes; the better formed his product, the
more deformed becomes the worker; the more civilized his object,
the more barbarous becomes the worker; the mightier labour
becomes, the more powerless becomes the worker; the more ingen-
ious labour becomes, the duller becomes the worker and the more
he becomes nature’s bondsman.)
Political economy conceals the estrangement inherent in the
nature of labour by not considering the direct relationship between
the worker (labour) and production. It is true that labour produces
for the rich wonderful things-but for the worker it produces priva-
tion. It produces palaces-but for the worker, hovels. It produces
beauty-but for the worker, deformity. It replaces labour by
machines-but some of the workers it throws back to a barbarous
type of labour, and the other workers it turns into machines. It pro-
duces intelligence-but for the worker idiocy, cretinism.
The direct relationship of labour to its produce is the relation-
ship of the worker to the objects of his production. The relation-
ship of the man of means to the objects of production and to pro-
duction itself is only a consequence of this first relationship-and
confirms it. \Ve shall consider this other aspect later.
\Vhen we ask, then, what is the essential relationship of labour
we are asking about the relationship of the worker to production.
Till now we have been considering the estrangement, the aliena-
tion of the worker only in one of its aspects, i.e., the worker’s rela-
tionship to the products of his labour. But the estrangement is
manifested not only in the result but in the act of production-
within the producing activity itself. How would the worker come to
face the product of his activity as a stranger, were it not that in the
very act of production he was estranging himself from himself? The
product is after all but the summary of the activity of production.
72 The Early Marx
ers; objectification as loss of the object and object-bondage; appro-
priation as estrangement, as alienation.4
So much does labour’s realization appear as loss of reality that
the worker loses reality to the point of starving to death. So much
does objectification appear as loss of the object that the worker is
of the objects most necessary not only for his life but for
hIs work. labour itself becomes an object which he can get
of only WIth the greatest effort and with the most irregular
mterruptlOns. So much does the appropriation of the object appear
as estrangement that the more objects the worker produces the
fewer can he possess and the more he falls under the dominion of
his product, capital.
All these consequences are contained in the definition that the
worker is related to the product of his labour as to an alien object.
F?r on this premise it is clear that the more the worker spends
the more powerful the alien objective world becomes
,:”,hlch he creates over-against himself, the poorer he himself-his
mner world-becomes, the less belongs to him as his own. It is the
same in religion. The more man puts into God, the less he retains
himself. The worker puts his life into the object; but now his
no belongs to him but to the object. Hence, the greater
thIS actIVIty, the greater is the worker’s lack of objects. \Vhatever
the product of his labour is, he is not. Therefore the greater this
product, the less is he himself. The alienation of the worker in his
product not only that his labour becomes an object, an
eXlst.ence, that it exists outside him, independently, as
somethmg alIen to hIm, and that it becomes a power of its own
confronting him; it means that the life which he has conferred on
the object confronts him as something hostile and alien.
us now look more closely at the objectification, at the pro-
ductIon of the worker; and therein at the estrangement the loss of
the object, his product. ‘
The worker can create nothing without nature, without the sen-
suous external world. It is the material on which his labor is mani-
fested, in which it is active, from which imd by means of which it
produces.
But just as nature provides labor with the means of life in the
sense that labour cannot live without objects on which to operate,
on the other hand, it also provides the means of life in the more
restricted sense-i.e., the means for the physical subsistence of the
worker himself.
Thus the more the worker by his labour appropriates the external
sensuous nature, the more he deprives himself of means of
lIfe m the double respect: first, that the sensuous external world
4. “Alienation”-Entiiusserung.
m
F
I
l
II
!
I
l
Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 73
more and more ceases to be an object belonging to his labour-to
be his labour’s means of life; and secondly, that it more and more
ceases to be means of life in the immediate sense, means for the
physical subsistence of the worker. .
Thus in this double respect the worker becomes a slave of hIs
object, first, in that he receives an object of labour, i.e., in that he
receives work; and secondly, in that he receives means of subsist-
ence. Therefore, it enables him to exist, first, as a worker; and,
second, as a physical subject. The extremity of this bondage is that
it is only as a worker that he continues to maintain himself as a
physical subject, and that it is only as a physical subject that he is a
worker.
(The laws of political economy express the estrangement of the
worker in his object thus: the more the worker produces, the less
he has to consume; the more values he creates, the more valueless,
the more unworthy he becomes; the better formed his product, the
more deformed becomes the worker; the more civilized his object,
the more barbarous becomes the worker; the mightier labour
becomes, the more powerless becomes the worker; the more ingen-
ious labour becomes, the duller becomes the worker and the more
he becomes nature’s bondsman.)
Political economy conceals the estrangement inherent in the
nature of labour by not considering the direct relationship between
the worker (labour) and production. It is true that labour produces
for the rich wonderful things-but for the worker it produces priva-
tion. It produces palaces-but for the worker, hovels. It produces
beauty-but for the worker, deformity. It replaces labour by
machines-but some of the workers it throws back to a barbarous
type of labour, and the other workers it turns into machines. It pro-
duces intelligence-but for the worker idiocy, cretinism.
The direct relationship of labour to its produce is the relation-
ship of the worker to the objects of his production. The relation-
ship of the man of means to the objects of production and to pro-
duction itself is only a consequence of this first relationship-and
confirms it. \Ve shall consider this other aspect later.
\Vhen we ask, then, what is the essential relationship of labour
we are asking about the relationship of the worker to production.
Till now we have been considering the estrangement, the aliena-
tion of the worker only in one of its aspects, i.e., the worker’s rela-
tionship to the products of his labour. But the estrangement is
manifested not only in the result but in the act of production-
within the producing activity itself. How would the worker come to
face the product of his activity as a stranger, were it not that in the
very act of production he was estranging himself from himself? The
product is after all but the summary of the activity of production.
74 The Early Marx
If then the product of labour is alienation, production itself must
be active alienation, the alienation of activity, the activity of aliena-
tion. In the estrangement of the object of labour is merely summa-
rized the estrangement, the alienation, in the activity of labour
itself.
\Vhat, then, constitutes the alienation of labour?
First, the fact that is e”5:.tlil.wal to the worker, i.e., it does
not belong to his essential being; that in his work, therefore, he
does not affirm himself but denies himself, does not feel content
but unhappy, does not develop freely his physical and mental
energy but mortifies his body and ruins his mind. The worker
therefore only feels himself outside his work, and in his work feels
outside himself. He is at home when he is not working, and when
he is working he is not at home. His labour is therefore not volun-
tary, but coerced; it is forced labour. It is therefore not the satisfac-
tion of a need; it is merely a means to satisfy needs external to it.
Its alien character emerges clearly in the fact that as soon as no
physical or other compulsion exists, labour is shunned like the
plague. External labour, labour in which man alienates himself, is a
labour of self-sacrifice, of mortification. Lastly, the external charac-
ter of labour for the worker appears in the fact that it is not his
own, but someone else’s, that it does not belong to him, that in it
he belongs, not to himself, but to another. Just as in religion the
spontaneous activity of the human imagination, of the human
brain and the human heart, operates independently of the individ-
ual-that is, operates on him as an alien, divine or diabolical activ-
ity-in the same way the worker’s activity is not his spontaneous
activity. It belongs to another; it is the loss of his self.
As a result, therefore, man (the worker) no longer feels himself
to be freely active in any but his animal functions-eating, drink-
ing, procreating, or at most in his dwelling and in dressing-up, etc.;
and in his human functions he no longer feels himself to be any-
thing but an animal. \Vhat is animal becomes human and what is
human becomes animal.
Certainly eating, drinking, procreating, etc., are also genuinely
human functions. But in the abstraction which separates them
from the sphere of all other human activity and turns them into
sole and ultimate ends, they are animal.
\Ve have considered the act of estranging practical human activ-
ity, labour, in two of its aspects. (1) of the worker to
an alien object over hrill.
This relation is at the same time the relation to the sensuous exter-
nal world, to the objects of nature as an alien world antagonistically
opposed to him. (2) The relation of 1:illQ!!L.tQ.J ..
tiatLwi!;hi!l…the.jabo.ur_ . This relation is the relation of the
Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 75
worker to his own activity as an alien activity not belonging to him;
it is activity as suffering, strength as weakness, begetting as emascu·
lating, the worker’s own physical and mental energy, his personal
life or what is life other than activity-as an activity which is
turned against him, neither depends on nor belongs to him. Here
we have.E:lf-estrangement, as we had previously the estrangement
of the thing.
\Ve have yet a third aspect of estranged labour to deduce from
the two already considered.
Man is a species being, not only beCa\lSe in practice and in
theory he adopts the species as his object (his own as well as those
of other things), but-and this is only another way of expressing
it-but also because he treats himself as the actual, living species;
because he treats himself as a universal and therefore a free being.
The life of the species, both in man and in animals, consists
physically in the fact that man (like the animal) lives on inorganic
nature; and the more universal man is compared with an animal,
the more universal is the sphere of inorganic nature on which he
lives. Just as plants, animals, stones, the air, light, etc., constitute a
part of human consciousness in the realm of theory, partly as
objects of natural science, partly as objects of art-his spiritual
inorganic nature, spiritual nourishment which he must first prepare
to make it palatable and digestible-so too in the realm of practice
they constitute a part of human life and human activity. Physically
man lives only on these products of nature, whether they appear in
the form of food, heating, clothes, a dwelling, or whatever it may
be. The universality of man is in practice manifested precisely in
the universality which makes all nature his inorganic body-both
. inasmuch as nature is (1) his direct means of life, and (2) the
material, the object, and the instrument of his life-activity. Nature
is man’s inorganic body-nature, that is, in so far as it is not itself
the human body. Man lives on nature-means that nature is his
body, with which he must remain in continuous intercourse if he is
not to die. That man’s physical and spiritual life is linked to nature
means simply that nature is linked to itself, for man is a part of
nature.
In estranging from man (1) nature, and (2) himself, his own
active functions, his life-activity, estranged labour estranges the spe-
cies from man. It turns for him the life of the species into a means
of individual life. First it estranges the life of the species and indi-
vidual life, and secondly it makes individual life in its abstract form
the purpose of the life of the species, likewise in its abstract and
estranged form.
For in the first place labour, life-activity, productive life itself,
appears to man merely as a means of satisfying a need-the need
74 The Early Marx
If then the product of labour is alienation, production itself must
be active alienation, the alienation of activity, the activity of aliena-
tion. In the estrangement of the object of labour is merely summa-
rized the estrangement, the alienation, in the activity of labour
itself.
\Vhat, then, constitutes the alienation of labour?
First, the fact that is e”5:.tlil.wal to the worker, i.e., it does
not belong to his essential being; that in his work, therefore, he
does not affirm himself but denies himself, does not feel content
but unhappy, does not develop freely his physical and mental
energy but mortifies his body and ruins his mind. The worker
therefore only feels himself outside his work, and in his work feels
outside himself. He is at home when he is not working, and when
he is working he is not at home. His labour is therefore not volun-
tary, but coerced; it is forced labour. It is therefore not the satisfac-
tion of a need; it is merely a means to satisfy needs external to it.
Its alien character emerges clearly in the fact that as soon as no
physical or other compulsion exists, labour is shunned like the
plague. External labour, labour in which man alienates himself, is a
labour of self-sacrifice, of mortification. Lastly, the external charac-
ter of labour for the worker appears in the fact that it is not his
own, but someone else’s, that it does not belong to him, that in it
he belongs, not to himself, but to another. Just as in religion the
spontaneous activity of the human imagination, of the human
brain and the human heart, operates independently of the individ-
ual-that is, operates on him as an alien, divine or diabolical activ-
ity-in the same way the worker’s activity is not his spontaneous
activity. It belongs to another; it is the loss of his self.
As a result, therefore, man (the worker) no longer feels himself
to be freely active in any but his animal functions-eating, drink-
ing, procreating, or at most in his dwelling and in dressing-up, etc.;
and in his human functions he no longer feels himself to be any-
thing but an animal. \Vhat is animal becomes human and what is
human becomes animal.
Certainly eating, drinking, procreating, etc., are also genuinely
human functions. But in the abstraction which separates them
from the sphere of all other human activity and turns them into
sole and ultimate ends, they are animal.
\Ve have considered the act of estranging practical human activ-
ity, labour, in two of its aspects. (1) of the worker to
an alien object over hrill.
This relation is at the same time the relation to the sensuous exter-
nal world, to the objects of nature as an alien world antagonistically
opposed to him. (2) The relation of 1:illQ!!L.tQ.J ..
tiatLwi!;hi!l…the.jabo.ur_ . This relation is the relation of the
Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 75
worker to his own activity as an alien activity not belonging to him;
it is activity as suffering, strength as weakness, begetting as emascu·
lating, the worker’s own physical and mental energy, his personal
life or what is life other than activity-as an activity which is
turned against him, neither depends on nor belongs to him. Here
we have.E:lf-estrangement, as we had previously the estrangement
of the thing.
\Ve have yet a third aspect of estranged labour to deduce from
the two already considered.
Man is a species being, not only beCa\lSe in practice and in
theory he adopts the species as his object (his own as well as those
of other things), but-and this is only another way of expressing
it-but also because he treats himself as the actual, living species;
because he treats himself as a universal and therefore a free being.
The life of the species, both in man and in animals, consists
physically in the fact that man (like the animal) lives on inorganic
nature; and the more universal man is compared with an animal,
the more universal is the sphere of inorganic nature on which he
lives. Just as plants, animals, stones, the air, light, etc., constitute a
part of human consciousness in the realm of theory, partly as
objects of natural science, partly as objects of art-his spiritual
inorganic nature, spiritual nourishment which he must first prepare
to make it palatable and digestible-so too in the realm of practice
they constitute a part of human life and human activity. Physically
man lives only on these products of nature, whether they appear in
the form of food, heating, clothes, a dwelling, or whatever it may
be. The universality of man is in practice manifested precisely in
the universality which makes all nature his inorganic body-both
. inasmuch as nature is (1) his direct means of life, and (2) the
material, the object, and the instrument of his life-activity. Nature
is man’s inorganic body-nature, that is, in so far as it is not itself
the human body. Man lives on nature-means that nature is his
body, with which he must remain in continuous intercourse if he is
not to die. That man’s physical and spiritual life is linked to nature
means simply that nature is linked to itself, for man is a part of
nature.
In estranging from man (1) nature, and (2) himself, his own
active functions, his life-activity, estranged labour estranges the spe-
cies from man. It turns for him the life of the species into a means
of individual life. First it estranges the life of the species and indi-
vidual life, and secondly it makes individual life in its abstract form
the purpose of the life of the species, likewise in its abstract and
estranged form.
For in the first place labour, life-activity, productive life itself,
appears to man merely as a means of satisfying a need-the need
76 The Early Marx
to maintain the physical existence. Yet the productive life is the
life of the species. It is life-engendering life. The whole character of
a species-its species character-is contained in the character of its
life-activity; and free, conscious activity is man’s species character.
Life itself appears only as a means to life.
The animal is immediately identical with its life-activity. It does
not distinguish itself from it. It is its life-activity. Man makes his
life-activity itself the object of his will and of his consciousness. He
has conscious life-activity. It is not a determination with which he
directly merges. Conscious life-activity directly distinguishes man
from animal life-activity. It is just because of this that he is a spe-
cies being. Or it is only because he is a species being that he is a
Conscious Being, i.e., that his own life is an object for him. Only
because of that is his activity free activity. Estranged labour
reverses this relationship, so that it is just because man is a con-
scious being that he makes his life-activity, his’ essential being, a
mere means to his existence.
In creating an objective world by his practical activity, in work-
ing-up inorganic nature, man proves himself a conscious species
being, i.e., as a being that treats the species as its own essential
being, or that treats itself as a species being. Admittedly animals
also produce. They build themselves nests, dwellings, like the bees,
beavers, ants, etc. But an animal only produces what it immediately
needs for itself or its young. It produces one-sidedly, whilst man
produces universally. It produces. only under the dominion of
immediate physical need, whilst man produces even when he is free
from physical need and only truly produces in freedom therefrom.
An animal produces only itself, whilst man reproduces the whole of
nature. An animal’s product belongs immediately to its physical
body, whilst man freely confronts his product. An animal forms
things in accordance with the standard and the need of the species
to which it belongs, whilst man knows how to produce in accord-
ance with the standard of every species, and knows how to apply
everywhere the inherent standard to the object. Man therefore also
forms things in accordance with the laws of beauty.
It is just in the working-up of the objective world, therefore, that
man first really proves himself to be a species being. This produc-
tion is his active species life. Through and because of this produc-
tion, nature appears as his work and his reality. The object of
la bour is, therefore, the objectification of man’s species life: for he
duplicates himself not only, as in consciousness, intellectually, but
also actively, in reality, and therefore he contemplates himself in a
world that he has created. In tearing away from man the object of
his production, therefore, estranged labour tears from him his spe-
cies life, his real species objectivity, and transforms his advantage
Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 77
over animals into the disadvantage that his inorganic body, nature,
is taken from him.
Similarly, in degrading spontaneous activity, free activity, to a
means, estranged labour makes man’s species life a means to his
physical existence.
The consciousness which man has of his species is thus trans-
formed by estrangement in such a way that the species life becomes
for him a means.
Estranged labour turns thus:
(3) Man’s species being, both nature and his spiritual species
property, into a being alien to him, into a means to his individual
existence. It estranges man’s own body from him, as it does exter-
nal nature and his spiritual essence, his human being.
(4) An immediate consequence of the fact that man is estranged
from the product of his labour, from his life-activity, from his spe-
cies being is the estrangement of man from man. If a man is con-
fronted by himself, he is confronted by the other man. vVhat
applies to a man’s relation to his work, to the product of his labour
and to himself, also holds of a man’s relation to the other man, and
to the other man’s labour and object of labour.
In fact, the proposition that man’s species nature is estranged
from him means that one man is estranged from the other, as each
of them is from man’s essential nature. 5
The estrangement of man, and in fact every relationship in
which man stands to himself, is first realized and expressed in the
relationship in which a man stands to other men.
Hence within the relationship of estranged labour each man
views the other in accordance with the standard and the position in
which he finds himself as a worker.
We took our departure from a fact of political economy-the
estrangement of the worker and his production. vVe have formu-
lated the concept of this fact-estranged, alienated labour. We
have analysed this concept-hence analysing merely a fact of politi-
cal economy.
Let us now see, further, how in real life the concept of
estranged, alienated labour must express and present itself.
If the product of labour is alien to me, if it confronts me as an
alien power, to whom, then, does it belong?
If my own activity does not belong to me, if it is an alien, a
coerced activity, to whom, then, does it belong?
To a being other than me.
Who is this being?
The gods? To be sure, in the earliest times the principal produc-
S. “Species nature” (and, earlier, “spe- essential nature”-menschlichen Wesen.
des being”)-Gattungswesen; “man’s
76 The Early Marx
to maintain the physical existence. Yet the productive life is the
life of the species. It is life-engendering life. The whole character of
a species-its species character-is contained in the character of its
life-activity; and free, conscious activity is man’s species character.
Life itself appears only as a means to life.
The animal is immediately identical with its life-activity. It does
not distinguish itself from it. It is its life-activity. Man makes his
life-activity itself the object of his will and of his consciousness. He
has conscious life-activity. It is not a determination with which he
directly merges. Conscious life-activity directly distinguishes man
from animal life-activity. It is just because of this that he is a spe-
cies being. Or it is only because he is a species being that he is a
Conscious Being, i.e., that his own life is an object for him. Only
because of that is his activity free activity. Estranged labour
reverses this relationship, so that it is just because man is a con-
scious being that he makes his life-activity, his’ essential being, a
mere means to his existence.
In creating an objective world by his practical activity, in work-
ing-up inorganic nature, man proves himself a conscious species
being, i.e., as a being that treats the species as its own essential
being, or that treats itself as a species being. Admittedly animals
also produce. They build themselves nests, dwellings, like the bees,
beavers, ants, etc. But an animal only produces what it immediately
needs for itself or its young. It produces one-sidedly, whilst man
produces universally. It produces. only under the dominion of
immediate physical need, whilst man produces even when he is free
from physical need and only truly produces in freedom therefrom.
An animal produces only itself, whilst man reproduces the whole of
nature. An animal’s product belongs immediately to its physical
body, whilst man freely confronts his product. An animal forms
things in accordance with the standard and the need of the species
to which it belongs, whilst man knows how to produce in accord-
ance with the standard of every species, and knows how to apply
everywhere the inherent standard to the object. Man therefore also
forms things in accordance with the laws of beauty.
It is just in the working-up of the objective world, therefore, that
man first really proves himself to be a species being. This produc-
tion is his active species life. Through and because of this produc-
tion, nature appears as his work and his reality. The object of
la bour is, therefore, the objectification of man’s species life: for he
duplicates himself not only, as in consciousness, intellectually, but
also actively, in reality, and therefore he contemplates himself in a
world that he has created. In tearing away from man the object of
his production, therefore, estranged labour tears from him his spe-
cies life, his real species objectivity, and transforms his advantage
Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 77
over animals into the disadvantage that his inorganic body, nature,
is taken from him.
Similarly, in degrading spontaneous activity, free activity, to a
means, estranged labour makes man’s species life a means to his
physical existence.
The consciousness which man has of his species is thus trans-
formed by estrangement in such a way that the species life becomes
for him a means.
Estranged labour turns thus:
(3) Man’s species being, both nature and his spiritual species
property, into a being alien to him, into a means to his individual
existence. It estranges man’s own body from him, as it does exter-
nal nature and his spiritual essence, his human being.
(4) An immediate consequence of the fact that man is estranged
from the product of his labour, from his life-activity, from his spe-
cies being is the estrangement of man from man. If a man is con-
fronted by himself, he is confronted by the other man. vVhat
applies to a man’s relation to his work, to the product of his labour
and to himself, also holds of a man’s relation to the other man, and
to the other man’s labour and object of labour.
In fact, the proposition that man’s species nature is estranged
from him means that one man is estranged from the other, as each
of them is from man’s essential nature. 5
The estrangement of man, and in fact every relationship in
which man stands to himself, is first realized and expressed in the
relationship in which a man stands to other men.
Hence within the relationship of estranged labour each man
views the other in accordance with the standard and the position in
which he finds himself as a worker.
We took our departure from a fact of political economy-the
estrangement of the worker and his production. vVe have formu-
lated the concept of this fact-estranged, alienated labour. We
have analysed this concept-hence analysing merely a fact of politi-
cal economy.
Let us now see, further, how in real life the concept of
estranged, alienated labour must express and present itself.
If the product of labour is alien to me, if it confronts me as an
alien power, to whom, then, does it belong?
If my own activity does not belong to me, if it is an alien, a
coerced activity, to whom, then, does it belong?
To a being other than me.
Who is this being?
The gods? To be sure, in the earliest times the principal produc-
S. “Species nature” (and, earlier, “spe- essential nature”-menschlichen Wesen.
des being”)-Gattungswesen; “man’s
78 The Early Marx
han (for example, the building of temples, etc., in Egypt, India
and Mexico) appears to be in the service of the gods, and the prod-
uct belongs to the gods. However, the gods on their own were
never the lords of labour. No more was nature. And what a contra-
diction it would be if, the more man subjugated nature by his
labour and the more the miracles of the gods were rendered super-
fluous by the miracles of industry, the more man were to renounce
the joy of production and the enjoyment of the produce in favour
of these powers.
The alien being, to whom labour and the produce of labour
belongs, in whose service labour is done and for whose benefit the
produce of labour is provided, can only be man himself.
If the product of labour does not belong to the worker, if it con-
fronts him as an alien power, this can only be because it belongs to
some other man than the worker. If the worker’s activity is a tor-
ment to him, to another it must be delight and his life’s joy. Not
the gods, not nature, but only man himself can be this alien power
over man.
\Ve must bear in mind the above-stated proposition that man’s
relation himself only becomes objective and real for him through
his relatIon to the other man. Thus, if the product of his labour
?is labour objectified, is for him an alien, hostile, powerful object
llldependent of him, then his position towards it is such that some-
one else is of this object, someone who is alien, hostile, pow-
erful, and llldependent of him. If his own activity is to him an
unfree activity, then he is treating it as activity performed in the
serVice, under the dominion, the coercion and the yoke of another
man.
Every self-estrangement of man from himself and from nature
appears in the relation in which he places himself and nature to
men other than and differentiated from himself. For this reason
religious self-estrangement necessarily appears in the relationship of
the layman to the priest, or again to a mediator, etc., since we are
here dealing with the intellectual world. In the real practical world
can only become manifest through’the real practi-
cal relatIonshIp to other men. The medium through which
estrangement takes place is itself practical. Thus through estranged
labour man not only engenders his relationship to the object and to
the act of production as to powers that are alien and hostile to
him; he also engenders the relationship in which other men stand
to his production and to his product, and the relationship in which
he stands to these other men. Just as he begets his own production’
as the loss of his reality, as his punishment; just as he begets his
own product as a loss, as a product not belonging to him; so he
begets the dominion of the one who does not produce over produc-
Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 79
tion and over the product. Just as he estranges from himself his
own activity, so he confers to the stranger activity which is not his
own.
Till now we have only considered this relationship from the
standpoint of. the worker and later we shall be considering it also
from the standpoint of the non·worker.
Throu?h alienated labour, then, the worker produces
the relatIOnship to thiS labour of a man alien to labour and stand-
ing outside it. The relationship of the worker to labour engenders
the relation to it of the capitalist, or whatever one chooses to call
the master of labour. Private property is thus the product, the’
result, the necessary consequence, of alienated labour, of the exter-
nal relation of the worker to nature and to himself.
Private property thus results by analysis from the concept of
alienated labour-i.e., of alienated man of estranged labour of
estranged life, of estranged man.’ ,
True, it is as a result of the movement of private propertv that
we have obtained the concept of alienated labour (of
life ) from political economy. But on analysis of this concept it
becomes clear that though private property appears to be the
the cause of alienated labour, it is really its consequence,
Just as the gods in the beginning are not the cause but the effect of
man’s intellectual confusion. Later this relationship becomes recip-
rocal. .
Only at the very culmination of the development of private prop-
does thiS, ItS secret, re-emerge, namely, that on the one hand it
IS the product of alienated labour, and that secondly it is the
_rr:eans by which labour alienates itself, the realization of this aliena-
tIOn.
This exposition immediately sheds light on vanous hitherto
unsolved conflicts.
(1) Political economy starts from labour as the real soul of pro-
du.ctlOn; yet to labour it gives nothing, and to private property every-
thlllg. From this contradiction Proudhon has concluded in favour
of labour and against private property. \Ve understand, however,
that this. app.arent contradiction is the contradiction of estranged
labour with Itself, and that political economy has merely formu-
lated the laws of estranged labour.
als,o understand, therefore, that wages and private property
are IdentIcal: where the product, the object of labour pays for
labour itself, the wage is but a necessary consequence of labour’s
estrangement, for after all in the wage of labour, labour does not
appear as an end in itself but as the servant of the wage. \Ve shall
develop this point later, and meanwhile will only deduce some con-
clusions.
78 The Early Marx
han (for example, the building of temples, etc., in Egypt, India
and Mexico) appears to be in the service of the gods, and the prod-
uct belongs to the gods. However, the gods on their own were
never the lords of labour. No more was nature. And what a contra-
diction it would be if, the more man subjugated nature by his
labour and the more the miracles of the gods were rendered super-
fluous by the miracles of industry, the more man were to renounce
the joy of production and the enjoyment of the produce in favour
of these powers.
The alien being, to whom labour and the produce of labour
belongs, in whose service labour is done and for whose benefit the
produce of labour is provided, can only be man himself.
If the product of labour does not belong to the worker, if it con-
fronts him as an alien power, this can only be because it belongs to
some other man than the worker. If the worker’s activity is a tor-
ment to him, to another it must be delight and his life’s joy. Not
the gods, not nature, but only man himself can be this alien power
over man.
\Ve must bear in mind the above-stated proposition that man’s
relation himself only becomes objective and real for him through
his relatIon to the other man. Thus, if the product of his labour
?is labour objectified, is for him an alien, hostile, powerful object
llldependent of him, then his position towards it is such that some-
one else is of this object, someone who is alien, hostile, pow-
erful, and llldependent of him. If his own activity is to him an
unfree activity, then he is treating it as activity performed in the
serVice, under the dominion, the coercion and the yoke of another
man.
Every self-estrangement of man from himself and from nature
appears in the relation in which he places himself and nature to
men other than and differentiated from himself. For this reason
religious self-estrangement necessarily appears in the relationship of
the layman to the priest, or again to a mediator, etc., since we are
here dealing with the intellectual world. In the real practical world
can only become manifest through’the real practi-
cal relatIonshIp to other men. The medium through which
estrangement takes place is itself practical. Thus through estranged
labour man not only engenders his relationship to the object and to
the act of production as to powers that are alien and hostile to
him; he also engenders the relationship in which other men stand
to his production and to his product, and the relationship in which
he stands to these other men. Just as he begets his own production’
as the loss of his reality, as his punishment; just as he begets his
own product as a loss, as a product not belonging to him; so he
begets the dominion of the one who does not produce over produc-
Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 79
tion and over the product. Just as he estranges from himself his
own activity, so he confers to the stranger activity which is not his
own.
Till now we have only considered this relationship from the
standpoint of. the worker and later we shall be considering it also
from the standpoint of the non·worker.
Throu?h alienated labour, then, the worker produces
the relatIOnship to thiS labour of a man alien to labour and stand-
ing outside it. The relationship of the worker to labour engenders
the relation to it of the capitalist, or whatever one chooses to call
the master of labour. Private property is thus the product, the’
result, the necessary consequence, of alienated labour, of the exter-
nal relation of the worker to nature and to himself.
Private property thus results by analysis from the concept of
alienated labour-i.e., of alienated man of estranged labour of
estranged life, of estranged man.’ ,
True, it is as a result of the movement of private propertv that
we have obtained the concept of alienated labour (of
life ) from political economy. But on analysis of this concept it
becomes clear that though private property appears to be the
the cause of alienated labour, it is really its consequence,
Just as the gods in the beginning are not the cause but the effect of
man’s intellectual confusion. Later this relationship becomes recip-
rocal. .
Only at the very culmination of the development of private prop-
does thiS, ItS secret, re-emerge, namely, that on the one hand it
IS the product of alienated labour, and that secondly it is the
_rr:eans by which labour alienates itself, the realization of this aliena-
tIOn.
This exposition immediately sheds light on vanous hitherto
unsolved conflicts.
(1) Political economy starts from labour as the real soul of pro-
du.ctlOn; yet to labour it gives nothing, and to private property every-
thlllg. From this contradiction Proudhon has concluded in favour
of labour and against private property. \Ve understand, however,
that this. app.arent contradiction is the contradiction of estranged
labour with Itself, and that political economy has merely formu-
lated the laws of estranged labour.
als,o understand, therefore, that wages and private property
are IdentIcal: where the product, the object of labour pays for
labour itself, the wage is but a necessary consequence of labour’s
estrangement, for after all in the wage of labour, labour does not
appear as an end in itself but as the servant of the wage. \Ve shall
develop this point later, and meanwhile will only deduce some con-
clusions.
80 The Early Marx
A forcing-up of wages (disregarding all other difficulties, includ-
ing the fact that it would only be by force, too, that the higher
wages, being an anomaly, could be maintained) would therefore be
nothing but better payment for the slave, and would not conquer
either for the worker or for labour their human status and dignity_
Indeed, even the equality of wages demanded by PIoudhon only
transforms the relationship of the present-day worker to his labour
into the relationship of all men to labour. Society is then conceived
as an abstract capitalist.
\Vages are a direct consequence of estranged labour, and
estranged labour is the direct cause of private property_ The down-
fall of the one aspect must therefore mean the downfall of the
other.
(2) From the relationship of estranged labour to private prop-
erty it further follows that the emancipation of society from private
property, etc., from servitude, is expressed in the political form of
the emancipation of the workers; not that their emancipation alone
was at stake but because the emancipation of the workers contains
universal human emancipation-and it contains this, because the
whole of human servitude is involved in the relation of the worker
to production, and every relation of servitude is but a modification
and consequence of this relation_
Just as we have found the concept of private property from the
concept of estranged, alienated labour by analysis, in the same way
every category of political economy can be evolved with the help of
these two factors; and we shall find again in each category, e_g_,
trade, competition, capital, money, only a definite and developed
expression of the first foundations_
Before considering this configuration, however, let us try to solve
two problems_
(1) To define the general nature of private property, as it has
arisen as a result of estranged labour, in its relation to truly human,
social property.
(2) \Ve have accepted the estrangement of labour, its alienation,
as a fact, and we have analysed this fact How, we now ask, does
man come to alienate, to estrange, his labour? How is this estrange-
ment rooted in the nature of human development? \Ve have
already gone a long way to the solution of this problem by trans-
forming the question as to the origin of private property into the
question as to the relation of alienated labour to the course of
humanity’s development For when one speaks of private property,
one thinks of being concerned with something external to man.
\Vhen one speaks of labour, one is directly concerned with man
himself. This new formulation of the question already contains its
solution.
Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 81
As to (1): The general nature of private property and its rela-
tion to truly human property.
Alienated labour has resolved itself for us into two elements
which mutually condition one another, or which are but different
expressions of one and the same relationship. Appropriation appears
as estrangement, as alienation; and alienation appears as appropria-
tion, estrangement as true enfranchisement.
\Ve have considered the one side-alienated labour in relation to
the worker himself, i.e., the relation of alienated labour to itself-
The property-relation of the non-worker to the worker and to
labour we have found as the product, the necessary outcome of this
relation of alienated labour. Private property, as the material, sum-
mary expression of alienated labour, embraces both relations-the
relation of the worker to work, to the product of his labour and to
the non-worker, and the relation of the non-worker to the worker
and to the product of his labour.
Having seen that in relation to the worker who
nature by means of his labour, this appropriation appears as
estrangement, his own spontaneous activity as activity for another
and as activity of another, vitality as a sacrifice of life, production
of the object as loss of the object to an alien power, to an alien per-
son-we shall now consider the relation to the worker, to labour
and its object of this person who is alien to labour and the worker.
First it has to be noticed, that everything which appears in the
worker as an activity of alienation, of estrangement, appears in the
non-worker as a state of alienation, of estrangement.
Secondly, that the worker’s real, practical attitude in production
and to the product (as a state of mind) appears in the non-worker
confronting him as a theoretical attitude_
Thirdly, the non-worker does everything against the worker which
the worker does against himself; but he does not do against himself
what he does against the worker.
Let us look more closely at these three relations_6
Pi-ivate Property and Communism
Re_ p_ XXXIX. The antithesis of propertyless ness and property
so long as it is not comprehended as the antithesis of labour and
capital, still remains an antithesis of indifference, not grasped in
its active connection, its internal relation-an antithesis not yet
grasped as a contradiction. It can find expression in this first form
even without the advanced development of private property (as in
ancient Rome, Turkey, etc.) _ It does not yet appear as having been
established by private property itself_ But labour, the subjective
6. At this point the first manuscript breaks off unfinished.
80 The Early Marx
A forcing-up of wages (disregarding all other difficulties, includ-
ing the fact that it would only be by force, too, that the higher
wages, being an anomaly, could be maintained) would therefore be
nothing but better payment for the slave, and would not conquer
either for the worker or for labour their human status and dignity_
Indeed, even the equality of wages demanded by PIoudhon only
transforms the relationship of the present-day worker to his labour
into the relationship of all men to labour. Society is then conceived
as an abstract capitalist.
\Vages are a direct consequence of estranged labour, and
estranged labour is the direct cause of private property_ The down-
fall of the one aspect must therefore mean the downfall of the
other.
(2) From the relationship of estranged labour to private prop-
erty it further follows that the emancipation of society from private
property, etc., from servitude, is expressed in the political form of
the emancipation of the workers; not that their emancipation alone
was at stake but because the emancipation of the workers contains
universal human emancipation-and it contains this, because the
whole of human servitude is involved in the relation of the worker
to production, and every relation of servitude is but a modification
and consequence of this relation_
Just as we have found the concept of private property from the
concept of estranged, alienated labour by analysis, in the same way
every category of political economy can be evolved with the help of
these two factors; and we shall find again in each category, e_g_,
trade, competition, capital, money, only a definite and developed
expression of the first foundations_
Before considering this configuration, however, let us try to solve
two problems_
(1) To define the general nature of private property, as it has
arisen as a result of estranged labour, in its relation to truly human,
social property.
(2) \Ve have accepted the estrangement of labour, its alienation,
as a fact, and we have analysed this fact How, we now ask, does
man come to alienate, to estrange, his labour? How is this estrange-
ment rooted in the nature of human development? \Ve have
already gone a long way to the solution of this problem by trans-
forming the question as to the origin of private property into the
question as to the relation of alienated labour to the course of
humanity’s development For when one speaks of private property,
one thinks of being concerned with something external to man.
\Vhen one speaks of labour, one is directly concerned with man
himself. This new formulation of the question already contains its
solution.
Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 81
As to (1): The general nature of private property and its rela-
tion to truly human property.
Alienated labour has resolved itself for us into two elements
which mutually condition one another, or which are but different
expressions of one and the same relationship. Appropriation appears
as estrangement, as alienation; and alienation appears as appropria-
tion, estrangement as true enfranchisement.
\Ve have considered the one side-alienated labour in relation to
the worker himself, i.e., the relation of alienated labour to itself-
The property-relation of the non-worker to the worker and to
labour we have found as the product, the necessary outcome of this
relation of alienated labour. Private property, as the material, sum-
mary expression of alienated labour, embraces both relations-the
relation of the worker to work, to the product of his labour and to
the non-worker, and the relation of the non-worker to the worker
and to the product of his labour.
Having seen that in relation to the worker who
nature by means of his labour, this appropriation appears as
estrangement, his own spontaneous activity as activity for another
and as activity of another, vitality as a sacrifice of life, production
of the object as loss of the object to an alien power, to an alien per-
son-we shall now consider the relation to the worker, to labour
and its object of this person who is alien to labour and the worker.
First it has to be noticed, that everything which appears in the
worker as an activity of alienation, of estrangement, appears in the
non-worker as a state of alienation, of estrangement.
Secondly, that the worker’s real, practical attitude in production
and to the product (as a state of mind) appears in the non-worker
confronting him as a theoretical attitude_
Thirdly, the non-worker does everything against the worker which
the worker does against himself; but he does not do against himself
what he does against the worker.
Let us look more closely at these three relations_6
Pi-ivate Property and Communism
Re_ p_ XXXIX. The antithesis of propertyless ness and property
so long as it is not comprehended as the antithesis of labour and
capital, still remains an antithesis of indifference, not grasped in
its active connection, its internal relation-an antithesis not yet
grasped as a contradiction. It can find expression in this first form
even without the advanced development of private property (as in
ancient Rome, Turkey, etc.) _ It does not yet appear as having been
established by private property itself_ But labour, the subjective
6. At this point the first manuscript breaks off unfinished.
302 The Critique of Capitalism
in cultured Germany, to treat Hegel in the same way as the brave
Moses Mendelssohn in Lessing’s time treated Spinoza, i.e., as a
“d.ead dog:” I therefore openly avowed myself the pupil of that
mighty thmker, and even here and there, in the chapter on the
theory of value, coquetted with the modes of expression peculiar to
him. The mystification which dialectic suffers in Hegel’s hands, by
no means prevents him from being the first to present its general
form of working in a comprehensive and conscious manner. \Vith
hin: it. is standing on its head. It must be turned right side up
agam, If you would discover the rational kernel within the mystical
shell.
In its .mystified form, dialectic became the fashion in Germany,
because It seemed to transfigure and to glorify the existing state of
things. In its rational form it is a scandal and abomination to bour-
geoisdom and its doctrinaire professors, because it includes in its
an affirmative recognition of the existing state of
thmgs, at the same time also, the recognition of the negation of
tha.t state, of its inevitable breaking up; because it regards every his- .
toncally developed social form as in fluid movement, and therefore
into account i.ts transient nature not less than its momentary
eXistence; because It lets nothing impose upon it, and is in its
essence critical and revolutionary.
. The contradictions inherent in the movement of capitalist society
Impress themselves upon the practical bourgeois most strikingly in
the changes of the periodic cycle, through which modern industry
runs, and whose crowning point is the universal crisis. That crisis is
once again approaching, although as yet but in its preliminary
stage; and by the universality of its theatre and the intensity of its
action it will drum dialectics even into the heads of the mush-
room-upstarts of the new, holy Prusso-German empire.
London, January 24, 1873 Karl Marx
Part I. Commodities and f’..loney
CHAPTER I. COMMODITIES
Section 1. The Two Factors of a Commodity: Use-Value and
Value (The Substance of Value and the Magnitude of Value)
The wealth of those societies)n which the capitalist mode of
production prevails, presents itself as “an immense accumulation of
Capital, Volume One 303
commodities,”! its unit being a single commodity. Our investiga-
tion must therefore begin with the analysis of a commodity.
A commodity is, in the first place, an object outside us, a thing
that by its properties satisfies human wants of some sort or another.
The nature of such wants, whether, for instance, they spring from
the stomach or from fancy, makes no difference.2 Neither are we
here concerned to know how the object satisfies these wants
whether directly as means of subsistence or indirectlv as means of
production. ”
Every useful thing, as iron, paper, &c., may be looked at from the
two points of view of quality and quantity. It is an assemblage of
many properties, and may therefore be of use in various ways. To
discover various uses of things is the work of history.3 So also is
the est a bhshment of socially-recognised standards of measure for
the quantities of these useful objects. The diversity of these meas-
ures has its origin partly in the diverse nature of the objects to be
measured, partly in convention.
The utility of a thing makes it a use-value. 4 But this utility is
not a thing of air. Being limited by the physical properties of the
commodity, it has no existence apart from that commodity. A com-
modity, such as iron, corn, or a diamond, is therefore, so far as it is
a material a use-value, something useful. This property of a
commodity IS mdependent of the amount of labour required to
appropriate its useful qualities. \Vhen treating of use-value, we
always assume to be dealing with definite quantities, such as dozens
of watches, yards of linen, or tons .of iron. The use-values of com-
modities furnish the material for a special study, that of the com-
mercial knowledge of commodities.5 Use-values become a reality
only by use or consumption: they also constitute the substance of
all wealth, whatever may be the social form of that wealth. In the
1. Karl Marx, “Zur Kritik der Politi-
schen Oekonomie.” Berlin, 1859, p. 3.
[Marx]
2. “Desire implies want; it is the appe-
tite of the mind, and as natural as
hunger to the body …. The greatest
number (of things) have their value
from supplying the wants of the
mind.” Nicholas Barbon: “A Discourse
Concerning Coining the New Money
Lighter. In Answer to Mr. Locke’s
Considerations,” &c., London, 1696,
pp. 2, 3. [Marx]
3. “Things have an intrinsick vertue”
(this is Barbon’s special term for value
in use) “which in all places have the
same vertue; as the loadstone to at-
tract iron” (L c, p. 6). The property
which the magnet possesses of attract-
ing iron, became of use only after by
means of that property the polarity of
the magnet had been discovered.
[Marx]
4. “The natural worth of anything con-
sists in its fitness to supply the necessi-
ties, or serve the conveniences of
human life.” (John Locke “Some Con-
siderations on the of the
Lowering of Interest, 1691,” in W.orks
Edit. Lond., 1777, VoL II., p. 28.) In
English writers of the 17th century we
frequently find “worth” in the sense of
value in use, and “value” in the sense
of exchange-value. This is quite in ac-
cordance ‘with the spirit of a language
that likes to use a Teutonic word for
the actual thing, and a Romance word
for its reflexion. [Marx]
5. In bourgeois societies the economic
fictio’ juris prevails, that everyone, as
a huyer, possesses an encyclopaedic
knowledge of commodities. [Marx]
302 The Critique of Capitalism
in cultured Germany, to treat Hegel in the same way as the brave
Moses Mendelssohn in Lessing’s time treated Spinoza, i.e., as a
“d.ead dog:” I therefore openly avowed myself the pupil of that
mighty thmker, and even here and there, in the chapter on the
theory of value, coquetted with the modes of expression peculiar to
him. The mystification which dialectic suffers in Hegel’s hands, by
no means prevents him from being the first to present its general
form of working in a comprehensive and conscious manner. \Vith
hin: it. is standing on its head. It must be turned right side up
agam, If you would discover the rational kernel within the mystical
shell.
In its .mystified form, dialectic became the fashion in Germany,
because It seemed to transfigure and to glorify the existing state of
things. In its rational form it is a scandal and abomination to bour-
geoisdom and its doctrinaire professors, because it includes in its
an affirmative recognition of the existing state of
thmgs, at the same time also, the recognition of the negation of
tha.t state, of its inevitable breaking up; because it regards every his- .
toncally developed social form as in fluid movement, and therefore
into account i.ts transient nature not less than its momentary
eXistence; because It lets nothing impose upon it, and is in its
essence critical and revolutionary.
. The contradictions inherent in the movement of capitalist society
Impress themselves upon the practical bourgeois most strikingly in
the changes of the periodic cycle, through which modern industry
runs, and whose crowning point is the universal crisis. That crisis is
once again approaching, although as yet but in its preliminary
stage; and by the universality of its theatre and the intensity of its
action it will drum dialectics even into the heads of the mush-
room-upstarts of the new, holy Prusso-German empire.
London, January 24, 1873 Karl Marx
Part I. Commodities and f’..loney
CHAPTER I. COMMODITIES
Section 1. The Two Factors of a Commodity: Use-Value and
Value (The Substance of Value and the Magnitude of Value)
The wealth of those societies)n which the capitalist mode of
production prevails, presents itself as “an immense accumulation of
Capital, Volume One 303
commodities,”! its unit being a single commodity. Our investiga-
tion must therefore begin with the analysis of a commodity.
A commodity is, in the first place, an object outside us, a thing
that by its properties satisfies human wants of some sort or another.
The nature of such wants, whether, for instance, they spring from
the stomach or from fancy, makes no difference.2 Neither are we
here concerned to know how the object satisfies these wants
whether directly as means of subsistence or indirectlv as means of
production. ”
Every useful thing, as iron, paper, &c., may be looked at from the
two points of view of quality and quantity. It is an assemblage of
many properties, and may therefore be of use in various ways. To
discover various uses of things is the work of history.3 So also is
the est a bhshment of socially-recognised standards of measure for
the quantities of these useful objects. The diversity of these meas-
ures has its origin partly in the diverse nature of the objects to be
measured, partly in convention.
The utility of a thing makes it a use-value. 4 But this utility is
not a thing of air. Being limited by the physical properties of the
commodity, it has no existence apart from that commodity. A com-
modity, such as iron, corn, or a diamond, is therefore, so far as it is
a material a use-value, something useful. This property of a
commodity IS mdependent of the amount of labour required to
appropriate its useful qualities. \Vhen treating of use-value, we
always assume to be dealing with definite quantities, such as dozens
of watches, yards of linen, or tons .of iron. The use-values of com-
modities furnish the material for a special study, that of the com-
mercial knowledge of commodities.5 Use-values become a reality
only by use or consumption: they also constitute the substance of
all wealth, whatever may be the social form of that wealth. In the
1. Karl Marx, “Zur Kritik der Politi-
schen Oekonomie.” Berlin, 1859, p. 3.
[Marx]
2. “Desire implies want; it is the appe-
tite of the mind, and as natural as
hunger to the body …. The greatest
number (of things) have their value
from supplying the wants of the
mind.” Nicholas Barbon: “A Discourse
Concerning Coining the New Money
Lighter. In Answer to Mr. Locke’s
Considerations,” &c., London, 1696,
pp. 2, 3. [Marx]
3. “Things have an intrinsick vertue”
(this is Barbon’s special term for value
in use) “which in all places have the
same vertue; as the loadstone to at-
tract iron” (L c, p. 6). The property
which the magnet possesses of attract-
ing iron, became of use only after by
means of that property the polarity of
the magnet had been discovered.
[Marx]
4. “The natural worth of anything con-
sists in its fitness to supply the necessi-
ties, or serve the conveniences of
human life.” (John Locke “Some Con-
siderations on the of the
Lowering of Interest, 1691,” in W.orks
Edit. Lond., 1777, VoL II., p. 28.) In
English writers of the 17th century we
frequently find “worth” in the sense of
value in use, and “value” in the sense
of exchange-value. This is quite in ac-
cordance ‘with the spirit of a language
that likes to use a Teutonic word for
the actual thing, and a Romance word
for its reflexion. [Marx]
5. In bourgeois societies the economic
fictio’ juris prevails, that everyone, as
a huyer, possesses an encyclopaedic
knowledge of commodities. [Marx]
304 The Critique of Capitalism
form of society we are about to consider, they are, in addition, the
material depositories of exchange-value.
Exchange-value, at first sight, presents itself as a quantitative
relation, as the proportion in which values in use of one sort are
exchanged for those of another sort, 6 a relation constantly chang-
ing with time and place. Hence exchange-value appears to be
something accidental and purely relative, and consequently an
intrinsic value, i.e., an exchange-value that is inseparably connected
with, inherent in commodities, seems a contradiction in terms. 7 Let
us consider the matter a little more closely.
A given commodity, e.g., a quarter of wheat is exchanged for x
blacking, y silk, or z gold, &c.-in short, for other commodities in
the most different proportions. Instead of one exchange-value, the
wheat has, therefore, a great many. But since x blacking, y silk, or z
gold, &c., each represent the exchange-value of one quarter of
wheat, x blacking, y silk, z gold, &c., must, as exchange-values, be
replaceable by each other, or equal to each other. Therefore, first:
the valid exchange-values of a given commodity express something
equal; secondly, exchange-value, generally, is only the mode of
expression, the phenomenal form, of something contained in it, yet
distinguishable from it.
Let us take two commodities, e.g., corn and iron. The propor-
tions in which they are exchangeable, whatever those proportions
may be, can always be represented by an equation in which a given
quantity of corn is equated to some quantity of iron: e.g., 1 quarter
corn = x cwt. iron. What does this equation tell us? It tells us that
in two different things-in 1 quarter of corn and x cwt. of iron,
there exists in equal quantities something common to both. The
two things must therefore be equal to a third, which in itself is nei-
ther the one nor the other. Each of them, so far as it is exchange-
value, must therefore be reducible to this third.
A simple geometrical illustration will make this clear. In order to
calculate and compare the areas of rectilinear figures, we decompose
them into triangles. But the area of the triangle itself is expressed
by something totally different from its visible figure, namely, by
half the product of the base into the altitude. In the same way the
exchange-values of commodities must be capable of being expressed
in terms of something common to them all, of which thing they
represent a greater or less quantity.
This common “something” cannot be either a geometrical, a
chemical, or any other natural property of commodities. Such prop-
6. “La valeur consiste dans Ie rapport
d’echange qui se trouve entre telle
chose et telle autre, entre telle mesure
d’une production, et telle mesure d’une
autre.” (Le Trosne: “De I’Interet So-
cial.” Physiocrates, Ed. Daire. Paris,
1846. P. 889.) [Marx]
7. “Nothing can have an intrinsick
value.” (N. Barbon, 1. c., p. 6); or as
Butler says-
“The valu e of a thing
is just as much as it will bring.”
[Marx]
Capital, Volume One 305
erties claim our attention only in so far as they affect the utility of
those commodities, make them use-values. But the exchange of
commodities is evidently an act characterised by a total abstraction
from use-value. Then one use-value is just as good as another, pro-
vided only it be present in sufficient quantity. Or, as old Barbon
says, “one sort of wares are as good as another, if the values be
equal. There is no difference or distinction in things of equal value.
… An hundred pounds’ worth of lead or iron, is of as great value
as one hundred pounds’ worth of silver or gold.” As use-values,
commodities are, above all, of different qualities, but as exchange-
\’alues thev are merely different quantities, and consequently do not
contain an atom of use-value.
If then we leave out of consideration the use-value of commodi-
ties, they have only one common property left, that of being prod-
ucts of labour. But even the product of labour itself has undergone
a change in our hands. If we make abstraction from its use-value,
we make abstraction at the same time from the material elements
and shapes that make the product a use-value; we see in it no
longer a table, a house, yarn, or any other useful thing. Its existence
as a material thing is put out of sight. Neither can it any longer be
, regarded as the product of the labour of the joiner, the mason, the
spinner, or of any other definite kind of productive labour, Along
with the useful qualities of the products themselves, we put out of
sight both the useful character of the various kinds of labour
embodied in them, and the concrete forms of that labour; there is
nothing left but what is common to them all; all are reduced to
one and the same sort of labour, human labour in the abstract.
Let us now consider the residue of each of these products; it con-
sists of the same unsubstantial reality in each, a mere congelation
of homogeneous human labour, of labour-power expended without
regard to the mode of its expenditure. All that these things now
tell us is, that human labour-power has been expended in their
production, that human labour is embodied in them. When looked
at as crystals of this social substance, common to them all, they are
-Values,
Vie have seen that when commodities are exchanged, their
exchange-value manifests itself as something totally independent of
their use-value. But if we abstract from their use-value, there
remains their Value as defined above. Therefore, the common subc
stance that manifests itself in the exchange-value of commodities,
whenever they are exchanged, is their value. The progress of our
investigation will show that exchange-value is the only form in
which the value of commodities can manifest itself or be expressed.
For the present, however, we have to consider the nature of value
independently of this, its form.
A use-value, or useful article, therefore, has value only because
304 The Critique of Capitalism
form of society we are about to consider, they are, in addition, the
material depositories of exchange-value.
Exchange-value, at first sight, presents itself as a quantitative
relation, as the proportion in which values in use of one sort are
exchanged for those of another sort, 6 a relation constantly chang-
ing with time and place. Hence exchange-value appears to be
something accidental and purely relative, and consequently an
intrinsic value, i.e., an exchange-value that is inseparably connected
with, inherent in commodities, seems a contradiction in terms. 7 Let
us consider the matter a little more closely.
A given commodity, e.g., a quarter of wheat is exchanged for x
blacking, y silk, or z gold, &c.-in short, for other commodities in
the most different proportions. Instead of one exchange-value, the
wheat has, therefore, a great many. But since x blacking, y silk, or z
gold, &c., each represent the exchange-value of one quarter of
wheat, x blacking, y silk, z gold, &c., must, as exchange-values, be
replaceable by each other, or equal to each other. Therefore, first:
the valid exchange-values of a given commodity express something
equal; secondly, exchange-value, generally, is only the mode of
expression, the phenomenal form, of something contained in it, yet
distinguishable from it.
Let us take two commodities, e.g., corn and iron. The propor-
tions in which they are exchangeable, whatever those proportions
may be, can always be represented by an equation in which a given
quantity of corn is equated to some quantity of iron: e.g., 1 quarter
corn = x cwt. iron. What does this equation tell us? It tells us that
in two different things-in 1 quarter of corn and x cwt. of iron,
there exists in equal quantities something common to both. The
two things must therefore be equal to a third, which in itself is nei-
ther the one nor the other. Each of them, so far as it is exchange-
value, must therefore be reducible to this third.
A simple geometrical illustration will make this clear. In order to
calculate and compare the areas of rectilinear figures, we decompose
them into triangles. But the area of the triangle itself is expressed
by something totally different from its visible figure, namely, by
half the product of the base into the altitude. In the same way the
exchange-values of commodities must be capable of being expressed
in terms of something common to them all, of which thing they
represent a greater or less quantity.
This common “something” cannot be either a geometrical, a
chemical, or any other natural property of commodities. Such prop-
6. “La valeur consiste dans Ie rapport
d’echange qui se trouve entre telle
chose et telle autre, entre telle mesure
d’une production, et telle mesure d’une
autre.” (Le Trosne: “De I’Interet So-
cial.” Physiocrates, Ed. Daire. Paris,
1846. P. 889.) [Marx]
7. “Nothing can have an intrinsick
value.” (N. Barbon, 1. c., p. 6); or as
Butler says-
“The valu e of a thing
is just as much as it will bring.”
[Marx]
Capital, Volume One 305
erties claim our attention only in so far as they affect the utility of
those commodities, make them use-values. But the exchange of
commodities is evidently an act characterised by a total abstraction
from use-value. Then one use-value is just as good as another, pro-
vided only it be present in sufficient quantity. Or, as old Barbon
says, “one sort of wares are as good as another, if the values be
equal. There is no difference or distinction in things of equal value.
… An hundred pounds’ worth of lead or iron, is of as great value
as one hundred pounds’ worth of silver or gold.” As use-values,
commodities are, above all, of different qualities, but as exchange-
\’alues thev are merely different quantities, and consequently do not
contain an atom of use-value.
If then we leave out of consideration the use-value of commodi-
ties, they have only one common property left, that of being prod-
ucts of labour. But even the product of labour itself has undergone
a change in our hands. If we make abstraction from its use-value,
we make abstraction at the same time from the material elements
and shapes that make the product a use-value; we see in it no
longer a table, a house, yarn, or any other useful thing. Its existence
as a material thing is put out of sight. Neither can it any longer be
, regarded as the product of the labour of the joiner, the mason, the
spinner, or of any other definite kind of productive labour, Along
with the useful qualities of the products themselves, we put out of
sight both the useful character of the various kinds of labour
embodied in them, and the concrete forms of that labour; there is
nothing left but what is common to them all; all are reduced to
one and the same sort of labour, human labour in the abstract.
Let us now consider the residue of each of these products; it con-
sists of the same unsubstantial reality in each, a mere congelation
of homogeneous human labour, of labour-power expended without
regard to the mode of its expenditure. All that these things now
tell us is, that human labour-power has been expended in their
production, that human labour is embodied in them. When looked
at as crystals of this social substance, common to them all, they are
-Values,
Vie have seen that when commodities are exchanged, their
exchange-value manifests itself as something totally independent of
their use-value. But if we abstract from their use-value, there
remains their Value as defined above. Therefore, the common subc
stance that manifests itself in the exchange-value of commodities,
whenever they are exchanged, is their value. The progress of our
investigation will show that exchange-value is the only form in
which the value of commodities can manifest itself or be expressed.
For the present, however, we have to consider the nature of value
independently of this, its form.
A use-value, or useful article, therefore, has value only because
306 The Critique of Capitalism
human labour in the abstract has been embodied or materialised in
it. How, then, is the magnitude of this value to be measured?
Plainly, by the quantity oJ the value-creating substance, the labour,
contained in the article. The quantity of labour, however, is meas-
ured by its duration, and labour-time in its turn finds its standard
in weeks, days, and hours.
Some people might think that if the value of a commodity is
determined by the quantity of labour spent on it, the more idle and
unskillful the labourer, the more valuable would his commodity be,
because more time would be required in its production. The labour,
however, that forms the substance of value, is homogeneous human
labour, expenditure of one uniform labour-power. The total
labour-power of society, which is embodied in the sum total of the
values of all commodities produced by that society, counts here as
one homogeneous mass of human labour-power, composed though
it be of innumerable individual units. Each of these units is the
same as any other, so far as it has the character of the average
labour-power of society, and takes effect as such; that is, so far as it
requires for producing a commodity, no more time than is needed
on an average, no more than is socially necessary. The labour-time
socially necessary is that required to produce an article under the
normal conditions of production, and with the average degree of
skill and intensity prevalent at the time. The introduction of power-
looms into England probably reduced by one-half the labour
required to weave a given quantity of yarn into cloth. The hand-
loom weavers, as a matter of fact, continued to require the same
time as before; but for all that, the product of one hour of their
labour represented after the change only half an hour’s social
labour, and consequently fell to one-half its former value.
We see then that that which determines the magnitude of the
value of any article is the amount of labour socially necessary, or
the labour-time socially necessary for its production.s Each individ-
ual commo.dity, in this connexion, is to be considered as an average
of Its class. 9 Commodities, therefore, in which equal quan-
tIties of labour are embodied, or which can be produced in the
same time, have the same value. The value of one commodity is to
the value of any other, as the labour-time necessary for the produc-
tion of the one is to that necessary for the production of the other.
8. “The value of them (the necessaries
of life), when they are exchanged the
one for another, is regulated by the
quantity of labour necessarily required
and commonly taken in producing
them.” (“Some Thoughts on the Inter-
est of Money in General, and Particu-
larly in the Publick Funds, &c.” Lond.,
p. 36.) This remarkable anonymous
work, written in the last century, bears
no date. It is clear, however, from in-
ternal evidence, that it appeared in the
reign of George II. about 1739 or 1740.
[Marx]
9. “Toutes les productions d’un me me
genre ne forment proprement qu’une
masse, dont Ie prix se determine en
general et sans egard aux circonstances
particulieres.” (Le Trosne, I. c., p.
893.) [Marx]
Capital, Volume One 307
“As values, all commodities are only definite masses of congealed
labour-time.”
The value of a commoditv would therefore remain constant, if
the labour-time required for ‘its production also remained constant.
But the latter changes with every variation in the productiveness of
labour. This productiveness is determined by various cicumstances,
amongst others, by the average amount of skill of the workmen, the
state of science, and the degree of its practical application, the
social organisation of production, the extent and capabilities of the
means of production, and by physical conditions. For example, the
same amount of labour in favourable seasons is embodied in 8
bushels of corn, and in unfavourable, only in four. The same labour
extracts from rich mines more metal than from poor mines. Dia-
monds are of verv rare occurrence on the earth’s surface, and hence
their discoverv on an average, a great deal of labour-time.
Consequently’ much labour is represented in a small compass. Jacob
doubts whether gold has ever been paid for at its full value. This
applies still more to diamonds. According to Eschwege, the total
produce of the Brazilian diamond mines for the eighty years,
ending in 1823, had not realised the price of one-and-a-half years’
average produce of the sugar and coffee plantations of the same
country, although the diamonds cost much more labour, and there-
fore represented more value. With richer mines, the same quantity
of labour would embody itself in more diamonds, and their value
would fall. If we could succeed at a small expenditure of labour,
in converting carbon into diamonds, their value might fall below
that of bricks. In general, the greater the productiveness of labour,
the less is the labour-time required for the production of an article,
the less is the amount of labour crystallised in that article, and the
less is its value; and vice versa, the less the productiveness of
labour, the greater is the labour-time required for the production of
an article, and the greater is its value. The value of a commodity,
therefore, varies directly as the quantity, and inversely as the pro-
ductiveness, of the labour incorporated in it.
A thing can be a use-value, without having value. This is the case
whenever its utili tv to man is not due to labour. Such are air, virgin
soil, natural mead’ows, &c. A thing can be useful, and the product
of human labour, without being a commodity. vVhoever directly
satisfies his wants with the produce of his own labour, creates,
indeed, use-values, but no commodities. In order to produce the
latter, he must not only produce use-values, but use-values for
others, social use-values. (And not only for others, without more.
The medireval peasant produced quit-rent-com for his feudal lord
and tithe-corn for his parson. But neither the quit-rent-corn nor the
tithe-corn became commodities by reason of the fact that they had
306 The Critique of Capitalism
human labour in the abstract has been embodied or materialised in
it. How, then, is the magnitude of this value to be measured?
Plainly, by the quantity oJ the value-creating substance, the labour,
contained in the article. The quantity of labour, however, is meas-
ured by its duration, and labour-time in its turn finds its standard
in weeks, days, and hours.
Some people might think that if the value of a commodity is
determined by the quantity of labour spent on it, the more idle and
unskillful the labourer, the more valuable would his commodity be,
because more time would be required in its production. The labour,
however, that forms the substance of value, is homogeneous human
labour, expenditure of one uniform labour-power. The total
labour-power of society, which is embodied in the sum total of the
values of all commodities produced by that society, counts here as
one homogeneous mass of human labour-power, composed though
it be of innumerable individual units. Each of these units is the
same as any other, so far as it has the character of the average
labour-power of society, and takes effect as such; that is, so far as it
requires for producing a commodity, no more time than is needed
on an average, no more than is socially necessary. The labour-time
socially necessary is that required to produce an article under the
normal conditions of production, and with the average degree of
skill and intensity prevalent at the time. The introduction of power-
looms into England probably reduced by one-half the labour
required to weave a given quantity of yarn into cloth. The hand-
loom weavers, as a matter of fact, continued to require the same
time as before; but for all that, the product of one hour of their
labour represented after the change only half an hour’s social
labour, and consequently fell to one-half its former value.
We see then that that which determines the magnitude of the
value of any article is the amount of labour socially necessary, or
the labour-time socially necessary for its production.s Each individ-
ual commo.dity, in this connexion, is to be considered as an average
of Its class. 9 Commodities, therefore, in which equal quan-
tIties of labour are embodied, or which can be produced in the
same time, have the same value. The value of one commodity is to
the value of any other, as the labour-time necessary for the produc-
tion of the one is to that necessary for the production of the other.
8. “The value of them (the necessaries
of life), when they are exchanged the
one for another, is regulated by the
quantity of labour necessarily required
and commonly taken in producing
them.” (“Some Thoughts on the Inter-
est of Money in General, and Particu-
larly in the Publick Funds, &c.” Lond.,
p. 36.) This remarkable anonymous
work, written in the last century, bears
no date. It is clear, however, from in-
ternal evidence, that it appeared in the
reign of George II. about 1739 or 1740.
[Marx]
9. “Toutes les productions d’un me me
genre ne forment proprement qu’une
masse, dont Ie prix se determine en
general et sans egard aux circonstances
particulieres.” (Le Trosne, I. c., p.
893.) [Marx]
Capital, Volume One 307
“As values, all commodities are only definite masses of congealed
labour-time.”
The value of a commoditv would therefore remain constant, if
the labour-time required for ‘its production also remained constant.
But the latter changes with every variation in the productiveness of
labour. This productiveness is determined by various cicumstances,
amongst others, by the average amount of skill of the workmen, the
state of science, and the degree of its practical application, the
social organisation of production, the extent and capabilities of the
means of production, and by physical conditions. For example, the
same amount of labour in favourable seasons is embodied in 8
bushels of corn, and in unfavourable, only in four. The same labour
extracts from rich mines more metal than from poor mines. Dia-
monds are of verv rare occurrence on the earth’s surface, and hence
their discoverv on an average, a great deal of labour-time.
Consequently’ much labour is represented in a small compass. Jacob
doubts whether gold has ever been paid for at its full value. This
applies still more to diamonds. According to Eschwege, the total
produce of the Brazilian diamond mines for the eighty years,
ending in 1823, had not realised the price of one-and-a-half years’
average produce of the sugar and coffee plantations of the same
country, although the diamonds cost much more labour, and there-
fore represented more value. With richer mines, the same quantity
of labour would embody itself in more diamonds, and their value
would fall. If we could succeed at a small expenditure of labour,
in converting carbon into diamonds, their value might fall below
that of bricks. In general, the greater the productiveness of labour,
the less is the labour-time required for the production of an article,
the less is the amount of labour crystallised in that article, and the
less is its value; and vice versa, the less the productiveness of
labour, the greater is the labour-time required for the production of
an article, and the greater is its value. The value of a commodity,
therefore, varies directly as the quantity, and inversely as the pro-
ductiveness, of the labour incorporated in it.
A thing can be a use-value, without having value. This is the case
whenever its utili tv to man is not due to labour. Such are air, virgin
soil, natural mead’ows, &c. A thing can be useful, and the product
of human labour, without being a commodity. vVhoever directly
satisfies his wants with the produce of his own labour, creates,
indeed, use-values, but no commodities. In order to produce the
latter, he must not only produce use-values, but use-values for
others, social use-values. (And not only for others, without more.
The medireval peasant produced quit-rent-com for his feudal lord
and tithe-corn for his parson. But neither the quit-rent-corn nor the
tithe-corn became commodities by reason of the fact that they had
308 The Critique of Capitalism
been produced for others. To become a commodity a product must
be transferred to another, whom it will serve as a use-value, by
means of an exchange.) 1 Lastly nothing can have value, without
being an object of utility. If the thing is useless, so is the labour
contained in it; the labour does not count as labour, and therefore
creates no value.
Section 2. The Two-fold Character of the Labour Embodied in
Commodities
At first sight a commodity presented itself to us as a complex of
two things-use-value and exchange-value. Later on, we saw also
that labour, too, possesses the same two-fold nature; for, so far as it
finds expression in value, it does not possess the same characteris-
tics that belong to it as a creator of use-values. I was the first to
point out and to examine critically this two-fold nature of the
labour contained in commodities. As this point is the pivot on
which a clear comprehension of Political Economy turns, we must
go more into detail.
Let us take two commodities such as a coat and 10 yards of
linen, and let the former be double the value of the latter, so that,
if 10 yards of linen = Vi, the coat = 2W.
The coat is a use-value that satisfies a particular want. Its exist-
ence is the result of a special sort of productive activity, the nature
of which is determined by its aim, mode of operation, subject,
means, and result. The labour, whose utility is thus represented by
the value in use of its product, or which manifests itself by making
its product a use-value, we call useful labour. In this connexion we
consider only its useful effect.
As the coat and the linen are two qualitatively different use-
values, so also are the two forms of labour that produce them, tai-
loring and weaving. Were these two objects not qualitatively differ-
rent, not produced respectively by labour of different quality, they
could not stand to each other in the relation of commodities. Coats
are not exchanged for coats, one use-value is not exchanged for
another of the same kind.
To all the different varieties of values in use there correspond as
many different kinds of useful labour, classified according to the
order, genus, species, and variety to which they belong in the social
division of labour. This division of labour is a necessary condition
for the production of commodities, but it does not follow, con-
versely, that the production of commodities is a necessary condition
for the division of labour. In the primitive Indian community there
1. I am inserting the parenthesis be-
cause its omission has often given rise
to the misunderstanding that every
product that is consumed by some one
other than its producer is considered in
Marx a commodity. [Engels, 4th Ger-
man edition]
Capital, Volume One 309
is social division of labour, without production of commodities. Or,
to take an example nearer home, in every factory the labour is
divided according to a system, but this division is not brought
about by the operatives mutually exchanging their individual prod-
ucts. Only such products can become commodities with regard to
each other, as result from different kinds of labour, each kind being
carried on independently and for the account of private individuals.
To resume, then: In the use-value of each commodity there is
contained useful labour, i.e., productive activity of a definite kind
and exercised with a definite aim. Use-values cannot confront each
other as commodities, unless the useful labour embodied in them is
qualitatively different in each of them. In a community, the pro-
duce of which in general takes the form of commodities, i.e., in a
community of commodity producers, this qualitative difference
between the useful forms of labour that are carried on independ-
ently by individual producers, each on their own account, develops
into a complex system, a social division of labour.
Anyhow, whether the coat be worn by the tailor or by his cus-
tomer, in either case it operates as a use-value. Nor is the relation
between the coat and the labour that produced it altered by the cir-
cumstance that tailoring may have become a special trade, an inde-
pendent branch of the social division of labour. \Vherever the want
of clothing forced them to it, the human race made clothes for
thousands of years, without a single man becoming a tailor. But
coats and linen, like every other element of material wealth that is
not the spontaneous produce of Nature, must invariably owe their
existence to a special productive activity, exercised with a definite
aim, an activity that appropriates particular nature-given materials
to particular human wants. So far therefore as labour is a creator of
use-value, is useful labour, it is a necessary condition, independent
of all forms of society, for the existence of the human race; it is an
eternal nature-imposed necessity, without which there can be no
material exchanges between man and Nature, and therefore no life.
The use-values, coat, linen, &c., i.e., the bodies of commodities,
are combinations of two elements-matter and labour. If we take
away the useful labour expended upon them, a material substratum
is always left, which is furnished by Nature without the help of
man. The latter can work only as Nature does, that is by changing
the form of matter. Nay more, in this work of changing the form
he is constantly helped by natural forces. We see, then, that labour
is not the only source of material wealth, of use-values produced by
labour. As William Petty puts it, labour is its father and the earth
its mother.
Let us now pass from the commodity considered as a use-value to
the value of commodities.
By our assumption, the coat is worth twice as much as the linen.
308 The Critique of Capitalism
been produced for others. To become a commodity a product must
be transferred to another, whom it will serve as a use-value, by
means of an exchange.) 1 Lastly nothing can have value, without
being an object of utility. If the thing is useless, so is the labour
contained in it; the labour does not count as labour, and therefore
creates no value.
Section 2. The Two-fold Character of the Labour Embodied in
Commodities
At first sight a commodity presented itself to us as a complex of
two things-use-value and exchange-value. Later on, we saw also
that labour, too, possesses the same two-fold nature; for, so far as it
finds expression in value, it does not possess the same characteris-
tics that belong to it as a creator of use-values. I was the first to
point out and to examine critically this two-fold nature of the
labour contained in commodities. As this point is the pivot on
which a clear comprehension of Political Economy turns, we must
go more into detail.
Let us take two commodities such as a coat and 10 yards of
linen, and let the former be double the value of the latter, so that,
if 10 yards of linen = Vi, the coat = 2W.
The coat is a use-value that satisfies a particular want. Its exist-
ence is the result of a special sort of productive activity, the nature
of which is determined by its aim, mode of operation, subject,
means, and result. The labour, whose utility is thus represented by
the value in use of its product, or which manifests itself by making
its product a use-value, we call useful labour. In this connexion we
consider only its useful effect.
As the coat and the linen are two qualitatively different use-
values, so also are the two forms of labour that produce them, tai-
loring and weaving. Were these two objects not qualitatively differ-
rent, not produced respectively by labour of different quality, they
could not stand to each other in the relation of commodities. Coats
are not exchanged for coats, one use-value is not exchanged for
another of the same kind.
To all the different varieties of values in use there correspond as
many different kinds of useful labour, classified according to the
order, genus, species, and variety to which they belong in the social
division of labour. This division of labour is a necessary condition
for the production of commodities, but it does not follow, con-
versely, that the production of commodities is a necessary condition
for the division of labour. In the primitive Indian community there
1. I am inserting the parenthesis be-
cause its omission has often given rise
to the misunderstanding that every
product that is consumed by some one
other than its producer is considered in
Marx a commodity. [Engels, 4th Ger-
man edition]
Capital, Volume One 309
is social division of labour, without production of commodities. Or,
to take an example nearer home, in every factory the labour is
divided according to a system, but this division is not brought
about by the operatives mutually exchanging their individual prod-
ucts. Only such products can become commodities with regard to
each other, as result from different kinds of labour, each kind being
carried on independently and for the account of private individuals.
To resume, then: In the use-value of each commodity there is
contained useful labour, i.e., productive activity of a definite kind
and exercised with a definite aim. Use-values cannot confront each
other as commodities, unless the useful labour embodied in them is
qualitatively different in each of them. In a community, the pro-
duce of which in general takes the form of commodities, i.e., in a
community of commodity producers, this qualitative difference
between the useful forms of labour that are carried on independ-
ently by individual producers, each on their own account, develops
into a complex system, a social division of labour.
Anyhow, whether the coat be worn by the tailor or by his cus-
tomer, in either case it operates as a use-value. Nor is the relation
between the coat and the labour that produced it altered by the cir-
cumstance that tailoring may have become a special trade, an inde-
pendent branch of the social division of labour. \Vherever the want
of clothing forced them to it, the human race made clothes for
thousands of years, without a single man becoming a tailor. But
coats and linen, like every other element of material wealth that is
not the spontaneous produce of Nature, must invariably owe their
existence to a special productive activity, exercised with a definite
aim, an activity that appropriates particular nature-given materials
to particular human wants. So far therefore as labour is a creator of
use-value, is useful labour, it is a necessary condition, independent
of all forms of society, for the existence of the human race; it is an
eternal nature-imposed necessity, without which there can be no
material exchanges between man and Nature, and therefore no life.
The use-values, coat, linen, &c., i.e., the bodies of commodities,
are combinations of two elements-matter and labour. If we take
away the useful labour expended upon them, a material substratum
is always left, which is furnished by Nature without the help of
man. The latter can work only as Nature does, that is by changing
the form of matter. Nay more, in this work of changing the form
he is constantly helped by natural forces. We see, then, that labour
is not the only source of material wealth, of use-values produced by
labour. As William Petty puts it, labour is its father and the earth
its mother.
Let us now pass from the commodity considered as a use-value to
the value of commodities.
By our assumption, the coat is worth twice as much as the linen.
310 The Critique of Capitalism
But this is a mere quantitative difference, which for the present
does not concern us. We bear in mind, however, that if the value
of the coat is double that of 10 yds. of linen, 20 yds. of linen must
have the same value as one coat. So far as they are values, the coat
and the linen are things of a like substance, objective expressions of
essentially identical labour. But tailoring and weaving are, qualita-
tively, different kinds of labour. There are, however, states of
society in which one and the same man does tailoring and weaving
alternately, in which case these two forms of labour are mere modi-
fications of the labour of the same individual, and no special and
fixed functions of different persons; just as the coat which our tailor
makes one day, and the trousers which he makes another day,
imply only a variation in the labour of one and the same individ-
ual. :Moreover, we see at a glance that, in our capitalist society, a
given portion of human labour is, in accordance with the varying
demand, at one time supplied in the form of tailoring, at another in
the form of weaving. This change may possibly not take place with-
out friction, but take place it must.
Productive activity, if we leave out of sight its special form, viz.,
the useful character of the labour, is nothing but the expenditure
of human labour-power. Tailoring and weaving, though qualita-
tively different productive activities, are each a productive expendi-
ture of human brains, nerves, and muscles, and in this sense are
human labour. They are but two different modes of expending
human labour-power. Of course, this labour-power, which remains
the same under all its modifications, must have attained a certain
pitch of development before it can be expended in a multiplicity of
modes. But the value of a commodity represents human labour in
the abstract, the expenditure of human labour in general. And just
as in society, a general or a banker plays a great part, but mere
man, on the other hand, a very shabby part,Z so here with human
labour. It is the expenditure of simple labour-power, i.e., of the
labour-power which, on an average, apart from any special develop-
ment, exists in the organism of every ordinary individual. Simple
average labour, it is true, varies in character in different countries
and at different times, but in a particular society it is given. Skilled
labour counts only as simple labour intensified, or rather, as multi-
plied simple labour, a given quantity of skilled being considered
equal to a greater quantity of simple labour. Experience shows that
this reduction is constantly being made. A commodity may be the
product of the most skilled labour, but its value, by equating it to
the product of simple unskilled labour, represents a definite quan-
tity of the latter labour alone. 3 The different proportions in which
2. Camp. Hegel, “Philosophie des Rechts.” Berlin, 1840. P. 250, § 190. [Marx]
Capital, Volume One 311
different sorts of labour are reduced to unskilled labour as their
standard, are established by a social process that goes on behind the
backs of the producers, and, consequently, appear to be fixed by
custom. For simplicity’s sake we shall henceforth account every
kind of labour to be unskilled, simple labour; by this we do no more
than save ourselves the trouble of making the reduction.
Just as, therefore, in viewing the coat and linen as values, we
abstract from their different use-values, so it is with the labour
represented by those values; we disregard the difference between its
useful forms, weaving and tailoring. As the use-values, coat and
linen, are combinations of special productive activities with cloth
and varn, while the values, coat and linen, are, on the other hand,
mere’ homogeneous congelations of undifferentiated labour, so the
labour embodied in these latter values does not count by virtue of
its productive relation to cloth and yarn, but only as being expendi-
ture of human labour-power. Tailoring and weaving are necessary
factors in the creation of the use-values, coat and linen, precisely
because these two kinds of labour are of different qualities; but only
in so far as abstraction is made from their special qualities, only in
so far as both possess the same quality of being human labour, do
tailoring and weaving form the substance of the values of the same
article.
Coats and linen, however, are not merely values, but values of
definite magnitude, and according to our assumption, the coat is
worth twice as much as the ten yards of linen. Whence this differ-
ence in their values? It is owing to the fact that the linen contains
only half as much labour as the coat, and consequently, that in the
production of the latter, labour-power must have been expended
during twice the time necessary for the production of the former.
While, therefore, with reference to use-value, the labour con-
tained in a commodity counts only qualitatively, with reference to
value it counts only quantitatively, and must first be reduced to
human labour pure and simple. In the former case, it is a question
of How and What, in the latter of How much? How long a time?
Since the magnitude of the value of a commodity represents only
the quantity of labour embodied in it, it follows that all commodi-
ties, when taken in certain proportions, must be equal in value.
If the productive power of all the different sorts of useful labour
required for the production of a coat remains unchanged, the sum
of the values of the coats produced increases with their number. If
one coat represents x days’ labour, two coats represent 2X days’
3. The reader must note that we are
not speaking here of the wages or
value that the labourer gets for a given
labour-time, but of the value of the
commodity in which that labour-time is
materialised. Wages is a category that,
as yet, has no existence at the present
stage of our investigation. [Marx]
310 The Critique of Capitalism
But this is a mere quantitative difference, which for the present
does not concern us. We bear in mind, however, that if the value
of the coat is double that of 10 yds. of linen, 20 yds. of linen must
have the same value as one coat. So far as they are values, the coat
and the linen are things of a like substance, objective expressions of
essentially identical labour. But tailoring and weaving are, qualita-
tively, different kinds of labour. There are, however, states of
society in which one and the same man does tailoring and weaving
alternately, in which case these two forms of labour are mere modi-
fications of the labour of the same individual, and no special and
fixed functions of different persons; just as the coat which our tailor
makes one day, and the trousers which he makes another day,
imply only a variation in the labour of one and the same individ-
ual. :Moreover, we see at a glance that, in our capitalist society, a
given portion of human labour is, in accordance with the varying
demand, at one time supplied in the form of tailoring, at another in
the form of weaving. This change may possibly not take place with-
out friction, but take place it must.
Productive activity, if we leave out of sight its special form, viz.,
the useful character of the labour, is nothing but the expenditure
of human labour-power. Tailoring and weaving, though qualita-
tively different productive activities, are each a productive expendi-
ture of human brains, nerves, and muscles, and in this sense are
human labour. They are but two different modes of expending
human labour-power. Of course, this labour-power, which remains
the same under all its modifications, must have attained a certain
pitch of development before it can be expended in a multiplicity of
modes. But the value of a commodity represents human labour in
the abstract, the expenditure of human labour in general. And just
as in society, a general or a banker plays a great part, but mere
man, on the other hand, a very shabby part,Z so here with human
labour. It is the expenditure of simple labour-power, i.e., of the
labour-power which, on an average, apart from any special develop-
ment, exists in the organism of every ordinary individual. Simple
average labour, it is true, varies in character in different countries
and at different times, but in a particular society it is given. Skilled
labour counts only as simple labour intensified, or rather, as multi-
plied simple labour, a given quantity of skilled being considered
equal to a greater quantity of simple labour. Experience shows that
this reduction is constantly being made. A commodity may be the
product of the most skilled labour, but its value, by equating it to
the product of simple unskilled labour, represents a definite quan-
tity of the latter labour alone. 3 The different proportions in which
2. Camp. Hegel, “Philosophie des Rechts.” Berlin, 1840. P. 250, § 190. [Marx]
Capital, Volume One 311
different sorts of labour are reduced to unskilled labour as their
standard, are established by a social process that goes on behind the
backs of the producers, and, consequently, appear to be fixed by
custom. For simplicity’s sake we shall henceforth account every
kind of labour to be unskilled, simple labour; by this we do no more
than save ourselves the trouble of making the reduction.
Just as, therefore, in viewing the coat and linen as values, we
abstract from their different use-values, so it is with the labour
represented by those values; we disregard the difference between its
useful forms, weaving and tailoring. As the use-values, coat and
linen, are combinations of special productive activities with cloth
and varn, while the values, coat and linen, are, on the other hand,
mere’ homogeneous congelations of undifferentiated labour, so the
labour embodied in these latter values does not count by virtue of
its productive relation to cloth and yarn, but only as being expendi-
ture of human labour-power. Tailoring and weaving are necessary
factors in the creation of the use-values, coat and linen, precisely
because these two kinds of labour are of different qualities; but only
in so far as abstraction is made from their special qualities, only in
so far as both possess the same quality of being human labour, do
tailoring and weaving form the substance of the values of the same
article.
Coats and linen, however, are not merely values, but values of
definite magnitude, and according to our assumption, the coat is
worth twice as much as the ten yards of linen. Whence this differ-
ence in their values? It is owing to the fact that the linen contains
only half as much labour as the coat, and consequently, that in the
production of the latter, labour-power must have been expended
during twice the time necessary for the production of the former.
While, therefore, with reference to use-value, the labour con-
tained in a commodity counts only qualitatively, with reference to
value it counts only quantitatively, and must first be reduced to
human labour pure and simple. In the former case, it is a question
of How and What, in the latter of How much? How long a time?
Since the magnitude of the value of a commodity represents only
the quantity of labour embodied in it, it follows that all commodi-
ties, when taken in certain proportions, must be equal in value.
If the productive power of all the different sorts of useful labour
required for the production of a coat remains unchanged, the sum
of the values of the coats produced increases with their number. If
one coat represents x days’ labour, two coats represent 2X days’
3. The reader must note that we are
not speaking here of the wages or
value that the labourer gets for a given
labour-time, but of the value of the
commodity in which that labour-time is
materialised. Wages is a category that,
as yet, has no existence at the present
stage of our investigation. [Marx]
312 The Critique of Capitalism
labour, and so on. But assume that the duration of the labour
necessary for the production of a coat becomes doubled or halved.
In the first case, one coat is worth as much as two coats were
before; in the second case, two coats are only worth as much as one
was before, although in both cases one coat renders the same serv-
ice as before, and the useful labour embodied in it remains of the
same quality. But the quantity of labour spent on its production
has altered.
An increase in the quantity of use-values is an increase of mate-
rial wealth. With two coats two men can be clothed, with one coat
only one man. Nevertheless, an increased quantity of material
wealth may correspond to a simultaneous fall in the magnitude of
its value. This antagonistic movement has its origin in the two-fold
character of labour. Productive power has reference, of course, only
to labour of some useful concrete form, the efficacy of any special
productive activity during a given time being dependent on its
productiveness. Useful labour becomes, therefore, a more or less
abundant source of products, in proportion to the rise or fall of its
productiveness. On the other hand, no change in this productive-
ness affects the labour represented by value. Since productive power
is an attribute of the concrete useful forms of labour, of course it
can no longer have any bearing on that labour, so soon as we make
abstraction from those concrete useful forms. However then pro-
ductive power may vary, the same labour, exercised during equal
periods of time, always yields equal amounts of value. But it’ will
yield, during equal periods of time, different quantities of values in
use; more, if the productive power rise, fewer, if it fall. The same
change in productive power, which increases the fruitfulness of
labour, and, in consequence, the quantity of use-values produced by
that labour, will diminish the total value of this increased quality
of use-values, provided such change shorten the total labour-time
necessary for their production; and vice versa. .
On the one hand all labour is, speaking physiologically, an
expenditure of human labour-power, and in its character of identi-
cal abstract human labour, it creates and forms the value of com-
modities. On the other hand, all labour is the expenditure of
human labour-power in a special form and with a definite aim, and
in this, its character of concrete useful labour, it produces use-
values.
r Section 3· The Form of Value or Exchange-Value
Commodities come into the world in the shape of use-values,
articles, or goods, such as iron, linen, corn, &c. This is their plain,
homely, bodily form. They are, however, commodities, only because
Capital, Volume One 313
they are something two-fold, both objects of utility, and, at the
same time, depositories of value. They manifest themselves there-
fore as commodities, or have the form of commodities, only in so
far as they have two forms, a physical or natural form and a value-
form.
The reality of the value of commodities differs in this respect
from Dame Quickly, that we don’t know “where to have it.” The
value of commodities is the very opposite of the coarse materiality
of their substance, not an atom of matter enters into its composi-
tion. Turn and examine a single commodity, by itself, as we will,
vet in so far as it remains an object of value, it seems impossible to
grasp it. If, however, we bear in mind that the of commo?i-
ties has a purely social reality, and that they acqUIre thiS reality
only in so far as they are expressions or embodiments of one identi-
cal social substance, viz., human labour, it follows as a matter of
course, that value can only manifest itself in the social relation of
commodity to commodity. In fact we started from exchange-value,
or the exchange relation of commodities, in order to get at the
value that lies hidden behind it. We must now return to this form
under which value first appeared to us.
Everyone knows, if he knows nothing else, that commodities
have a value-form common to them all, and presenting a marked
contrast with the varied bodily forms of their use-values. I mean
their money-form. Here, however, a task is set us, the performance
of which has never yet even been attempted by bourgeois economy,
the task of tracing the genesis of this money-form, of developing
the expression of value implied in the value-relation of commodi-
ties, from its simplest, almost imperceptible outline, to the dazzling
money-form. By doing this we shall, at the same time, solve the
riddle presented by money.
The simplest value-relation is evidently that of one commodity
to some one other commodity of a different kind. Hence the rela-
tion between the values of two commodities supplies us with the
simplest expression of the value of a single commodity.
A. ELEMENT AR Y OR ACCIDENTAL FORM OF VALUE
x commodity A = Y commodity B, or
x commodity A is worth y commodity B.
20 yards of linen = 1 coat, or
20 yards of linen are worth 1 coat.
1. The Two Poles of the Expression of Value: Relative Form and
Equivalent Form
The whole mystery of the form of value lies hidden in this ele-
mentary form. Its analysis, therefore, is our real difficulty.
312 The Critique of Capitalism
labour, and so on. But assume that the duration of the labour
necessary for the production of a coat becomes doubled or halved.
In the first case, one coat is worth as much as two coats were
before; in the second case, two coats are only worth as much as one
was before, although in both cases one coat renders the same serv-
ice as before, and the useful labour embodied in it remains of the
same quality. But the quantity of labour spent on its production
has altered.
An increase in the quantity of use-values is an increase of mate-
rial wealth. With two coats two men can be clothed, with one coat
only one man. Nevertheless, an increased quantity of material
wealth may correspond to a simultaneous fall in the magnitude of
its value. This antagonistic movement has its origin in the two-fold
character of labour. Productive power has reference, of course, only
to labour of some useful concrete form, the efficacy of any special
productive activity during a given time being dependent on its
productiveness. Useful labour becomes, therefore, a more or less
abundant source of products, in proportion to the rise or fall of its
productiveness. On the other hand, no change in this productive-
ness affects the labour represented by value. Since productive power
is an attribute of the concrete useful forms of labour, of course it
can no longer have any bearing on that labour, so soon as we make
abstraction from those concrete useful forms. However then pro-
ductive power may vary, the same labour, exercised during equal
periods of time, always yields equal amounts of value. But it’ will
yield, during equal periods of time, different quantities of values in
use; more, if the productive power rise, fewer, if it fall. The same
change in productive power, which increases the fruitfulness of
labour, and, in consequence, the quantity of use-values produced by
that labour, will diminish the total value of this increased quality
of use-values, provided such change shorten the total labour-time
necessary for their production; and vice versa. .
On the one hand all labour is, speaking physiologically, an
expenditure of human labour-power, and in its character of identi-
cal abstract human labour, it creates and forms the value of com-
modities. On the other hand, all labour is the expenditure of
human labour-power in a special form and with a definite aim, and
in this, its character of concrete useful labour, it produces use-
values.
r Section 3· The Form of Value or Exchange-Value
Commodities come into the world in the shape of use-values,
articles, or goods, such as iron, linen, corn, &c. This is their plain,
homely, bodily form. They are, however, commodities, only because
Capital, Volume One 313
they are something two-fold, both objects of utility, and, at the
same time, depositories of value. They manifest themselves there-
fore as commodities, or have the form of commodities, only in so
far as they have two forms, a physical or natural form and a value-
form.
The reality of the value of commodities differs in this respect
from Dame Quickly, that we don’t know “where to have it.” The
value of commodities is the very opposite of the coarse materiality
of their substance, not an atom of matter enters into its composi-
tion. Turn and examine a single commodity, by itself, as we will,
vet in so far as it remains an object of value, it seems impossible to
grasp it. If, however, we bear in mind that the of commo?i-
ties has a purely social reality, and that they acqUIre thiS reality
only in so far as they are expressions or embodiments of one identi-
cal social substance, viz., human labour, it follows as a matter of
course, that value can only manifest itself in the social relation of
commodity to commodity. In fact we started from exchange-value,
or the exchange relation of commodities, in order to get at the
value that lies hidden behind it. We must now return to this form
under which value first appeared to us.
Everyone knows, if he knows nothing else, that commodities
have a value-form common to them all, and presenting a marked
contrast with the varied bodily forms of their use-values. I mean
their money-form. Here, however, a task is set us, the performance
of which has never yet even been attempted by bourgeois economy,
the task of tracing the genesis of this money-form, of developing
the expression of value implied in the value-relation of commodi-
ties, from its simplest, almost imperceptible outline, to the dazzling
money-form. By doing this we shall, at the same time, solve the
riddle presented by money.
The simplest value-relation is evidently that of one commodity
to some one other commodity of a different kind. Hence the rela-
tion between the values of two commodities supplies us with the
simplest expression of the value of a single commodity.
A. ELEMENT AR Y OR ACCIDENTAL FORM OF VALUE
x commodity A = Y commodity B, or
x commodity A is worth y commodity B.
20 yards of linen = 1 coat, or
20 yards of linen are worth 1 coat.
1. The Two Poles of the Expression of Value: Relative Form and
Equivalent Form
The whole mystery of the form of value lies hidden in this ele-
mentary form. Its analysis, therefore, is our real difficulty.
314 The Critique of Capitalism
Here two different kinds of commodities (in our example the
linen and the coat), evidently play two different parts. The linen
expresses its value in the coat; the coat serves as the material in
which that value is expressed. The former plays an active, the latter
a passive, prt. The value of the linen is represented as relative
value, or appears in relative form. The coat officiates as equivalent,
or appears in equivalent form.
The relative form and the equivalent form are two intimately
connected, mutually dependent and inseparable elements of. the
expression of value; but, at the same time, are mutually exclusive,
antagonistic extremes-i.e., poles of the same expression. They are
allotted respectively to the two different commodities brought into
relation by that expression. It is not possible to express the value of
linen in linen. 20 yards of linen = 20 yards of linen is no expres-
sion of value. On the contrary, such an equation merely says that
20 yards of linen are nothing else than 20 yards of linen, a definite
quantity of the use-value linen. The value of the linen can there-
fore be expressed only relatively-i.e., in some other commodity.
The relative form of the value of the linen pre-supposes, therefore,
the presence of some other commodity-here the coat-under the
form of an equivalent. On the other hand, the commodity that
figures as the equivalent cannot at the same time assume the rela-
tive form. That second commodity is not the one whose value is
expressed. Its function is merely to serve as the material in which
the value of the first commodity is expressed.
No doubt, the expression 20 yards of linen = 1 coat, or 20 yards
of linen are worth 1 coat, implies the opposite relation: 1 coat =
20 yards of linen, or 1 coat is worth 20 yards of linen. But, in that
case, I must reverse the equation, in order to express the value of
the coat relatively; and, so soon as I do that, the linen becomes the
equivalent instead of the coat. A single commodity cannot, there-
fore, simultaneously assume, in the same expression of value, both
forms. The very polarity of these forms makes them mutually exclu-
sive.
Whether, then, a commodity assumes the relative form, or the
opposite equivalent form, depends entirely upon its accidental posi-
tion in the expression of value-that is, upon whether it is the
commodity whose value is being expressed or the commodity in
which value is being expressed.
2. The Relative Form of Value
a. The Nature and Import of This Form
In order to discover how the elementary expression of the value
of a commodity lies hidden in the value-relation of two commodi-
ties, we must, in the first place, consider the latter entirely apart
Capital, Volume One 315
from its quantitati\’e aspect. The usual mode of procedure is gener-
ally the reverse, and in the value-relation nothing is seen but the
proportion between definite quantities of two different sorts of
commodities that are considered equal to each other. It is apt to be
forgotten that the magnitudes of different things can be compared
quantitatively, onlv when those magnitudes are expressed in terms
of the same unit. It is only as expressions of such a unit that they
are of the same denomination, and therefore commensurable.
\Vhether 20 yards of linen = 1 coat or = 20 coats or = x
coats-that is, whether a given quantity of linen is worth few or
lnany coats, every such statement implies that the linen and coats,
as magnitudes of value, are expressions of the same unit, things
of the same kind. Linen = coat is the basis of the equation.
But the two commodities whose identity of quality is thus
assumed, do not play the same part. It is only the value of the
linen that is expressed. And how? By its reference to the coat as
its equivalent, as something that can be exchanged for it. In this
relation the coat is the mode of existence of value, is value embod-
ied, for only as such is it the same as the linen. On the other hand,
the linen’s own value comes to the front, receives independent
expression, for it is only as being value that it is comparable with
the coat as a thing of equal value, or exchangeable with the coat.
To borrow an illustration from chemistry, butyric acid is a different
substance from propyl formate. Yet both are made up of the same
chemical substances, car bon (C), hydrogen (H), and oxygen (0),
and that, too, in like proportions-namely C 4Hs0 2 . If now we
equate butyric acid to propyl formate, then, in the first place,
propyl formate would be, in this relation, merely a form of exist-
ence of C 4Hs0 2; and in the second place, we should be stating that
butyric acid also consists of C 4H s0 2 . Therefore, by thus equating
the two substances, expression would be given to their chemical
composition., while their different physical forms would be
lected.
If we say that, as values, commodities are mere congelations of
human labour, we reduce them by our analysis, it is true, to the
abstraction, value; but we ascribe to this value no form apart from
their bodily form. It is otherwise in the value-relation of one com-
modity to another. Here, the one stands forth in its character of
value by reason of its relation to the other.
By making the coat the equivalent of the linen, we equate the
12bour embodied in the former to that in the latter. Now, it is true
that the tailoring, which makes the coat, is concrete labour of a dif-
ferent sort from the weaving which makes the linen. But the act of
equating it to the weaving, reduces the tailoring to that which is
really equal in the two kinds of labour, to their common character
of human labour. In this roundabout way, then, the fact is
314 The Critique of Capitalism
Here two different kinds of commodities (in our example the
linen and the coat), evidently play two different parts. The linen
expresses its value in the coat; the coat serves as the material in
which that value is expressed. The former plays an active, the latter
a passive, prt. The value of the linen is represented as relative
value, or appears in relative form. The coat officiates as equivalent,
or appears in equivalent form.
The relative form and the equivalent form are two intimately
connected, mutually dependent and inseparable elements of. the
expression of value; but, at the same time, are mutually exclusive,
antagonistic extremes-i.e., poles of the same expression. They are
allotted respectively to the two different commodities brought into
relation by that expression. It is not possible to express the value of
linen in linen. 20 yards of linen = 20 yards of linen is no expres-
sion of value. On the contrary, such an equation merely says that
20 yards of linen are nothing else than 20 yards of linen, a definite
quantity of the use-value linen. The value of the linen can there-
fore be expressed only relatively-i.e., in some other commodity.
The relative form of the value of the linen pre-supposes, therefore,
the presence of some other commodity-here the coat-under the
form of an equivalent. On the other hand, the commodity that
figures as the equivalent cannot at the same time assume the rela-
tive form. That second commodity is not the one whose value is
expressed. Its function is merely to serve as the material in which
the value of the first commodity is expressed.
No doubt, the expression 20 yards of linen = 1 coat, or 20 yards
of linen are worth 1 coat, implies the opposite relation: 1 coat =
20 yards of linen, or 1 coat is worth 20 yards of linen. But, in that
case, I must reverse the equation, in order to express the value of
the coat relatively; and, so soon as I do that, the linen becomes the
equivalent instead of the coat. A single commodity cannot, there-
fore, simultaneously assume, in the same expression of value, both
forms. The very polarity of these forms makes them mutually exclu-
sive.
Whether, then, a commodity assumes the relative form, or the
opposite equivalent form, depends entirely upon its accidental posi-
tion in the expression of value-that is, upon whether it is the
commodity whose value is being expressed or the commodity in
which value is being expressed.
2. The Relative Form of Value
a. The Nature and Import of This Form
In order to discover how the elementary expression of the value
of a commodity lies hidden in the value-relation of two commodi-
ties, we must, in the first place, consider the latter entirely apart
Capital, Volume One 315
from its quantitati\’e aspect. The usual mode of procedure is gener-
ally the reverse, and in the value-relation nothing is seen but the
proportion between definite quantities of two different sorts of
commodities that are considered equal to each other. It is apt to be
forgotten that the magnitudes of different things can be compared
quantitatively, onlv when those magnitudes are expressed in terms
of the same unit. It is only as expressions of such a unit that they
are of the same denomination, and therefore commensurable.
\Vhether 20 yards of linen = 1 coat or = 20 coats or = x
coats-that is, whether a given quantity of linen is worth few or
lnany coats, every such statement implies that the linen and coats,
as magnitudes of value, are expressions of the same unit, things
of the same kind. Linen = coat is the basis of the equation.
But the two commodities whose identity of quality is thus
assumed, do not play the same part. It is only the value of the
linen that is expressed. And how? By its reference to the coat as
its equivalent, as something that can be exchanged for it. In this
relation the coat is the mode of existence of value, is value embod-
ied, for only as such is it the same as the linen. On the other hand,
the linen’s own value comes to the front, receives independent
expression, for it is only as being value that it is comparable with
the coat as a thing of equal value, or exchangeable with the coat.
To borrow an illustration from chemistry, butyric acid is a different
substance from propyl formate. Yet both are made up of the same
chemical substances, car bon (C), hydrogen (H), and oxygen (0),
and that, too, in like proportions-namely C 4Hs0 2 . If now we
equate butyric acid to propyl formate, then, in the first place,
propyl formate would be, in this relation, merely a form of exist-
ence of C 4Hs0 2; and in the second place, we should be stating that
butyric acid also consists of C 4H s0 2 . Therefore, by thus equating
the two substances, expression would be given to their chemical
composition., while their different physical forms would be
lected.
If we say that, as values, commodities are mere congelations of
human labour, we reduce them by our analysis, it is true, to the
abstraction, value; but we ascribe to this value no form apart from
their bodily form. It is otherwise in the value-relation of one com-
modity to another. Here, the one stands forth in its character of
value by reason of its relation to the other.
By making the coat the equivalent of the linen, we equate the
12bour embodied in the former to that in the latter. Now, it is true
that the tailoring, which makes the coat, is concrete labour of a dif-
ferent sort from the weaving which makes the linen. But the act of
equating it to the weaving, reduces the tailoring to that which is
really equal in the two kinds of labour, to their common character
of human labour. In this roundabout way, then, the fact is
316 The Critique 0 f Capitalism
expressed, that weaving also, in so far as it weaves value, has noth-
ing to distinguish it from tailoring, and, consequently, is ‘a bstract
human labour. It is the expression of equivalence between different
sorts of commodities that alone brings into relief the specific char_
acter of value-creating labour, and this it does by actually reducing
the different varieties of labour embodied in the different kinds of
commodities to their common quality of human labour in the
abstract.4
There is, however, something else required beyond the expression
of the specific character of the labour of which the value of the
linen consists. Human labour-power in motion, or human labour,
creates value, but is not itself value. It becomes value only in its
congealed state, when embodied in the form of some object. In
order to express the value of the linen as a congelation of human
labour, that value must be expressed as having objective existence,
as being a something materially different from the linen itself, and
yet a something common to the linen and all other commodities.
The problem is already solved.
\Vhen occupying the position of equivalent in the equation of
value, the coat ranks qualitatively as the equal of the linen, as
something of the same kind, because it is value. In this position it
is a thing in which we see nothing but value, or whose palpable
bodily form represents value. Yet the coat itself, the body of the
commodity, coat, is a mere use-value. A coat as such no more tells
us it is value, than does the first piece of linen we take hold of.
This shows that when placed in value-relation to the linen, the coat
signifies more than when out of that relation, just as many a man
strutting about in a gorgeous uniform counts for more than when
in mufti.
In the production of the coat, human labour-power, in the shape
of tailoring, must have been actually expended. Human labour is
therefore accumulated in it. In this aspect the coat is a depository
of value, but though worn to a thread, it does not let this fact show
through. And as equivalent of the linen in the value equation, it
exists under this aspect alone, counts therefore as embodied value,
as a body that is value. A, for instance, cannot be “your majesty”
to B, unless at the same time majesty in B’s eyes assumes the
4. The celebrated Franklin, one of the
first economists, after Wm. Petty, who
sa w through the nature of value, says:
“Trade in general being nothing else
but the exchange of labour for labour,
the value of all things is . . . most
justly measured by labour.” (“The
works of B. Franklin, &c.,” edited by
Sparks. Boston, 1836, Vol. II., p.
267.) Franklin is unconscious that by
estimating the value of everything in
labour, he makes abstraction from any
difference in the sorts of labour ex-
changed, and thus reduce,. them all to
equal human labour. But although ig-
norant of this, yet he says it. He
speaks first of “the one labour,” then
of “the other labour,” and finally of
“labour,” without further qualification.
as the substance of the value of every-
thing. [Marx]
Capital, Volume One 317
bodily form of A, and, what is more, with every new father of the
people, changes its features, hair, and many other things besides.
Bence, in the value equation, in which the coat is the equivalent
of the linen, the coat officiates as the form of value. The value of
the commodity linen is expressed by the bodily form of the com-
modity coat, the value of one by the use-value of the other. As a
use-value, the linen is something palpably different from the coat;
as value, it is the same as the coat, and now has the appearance of
a coat. Thus the linen acquires a value-form different from its phys-
ical form. The fact that it is value, is made manifest by its equality
with the coat, just as the sheep’s nature of a Christian is shown in
his resemblance to the Lamb of God.
\Ve see, then, all that our analysis of the value of commodities
has already told us, is told us by the linen itself, so soon as it comes
into communication with another commodity, the coat. Only it
betrays its thoughts in that language with which alone it is familiar,
the language of commodities. In order to tell us that its own value
is created by labour in its abstract character of human labour, it
says that the coat, in so far as it is worth as much as the linen, and
therefore is value, consists of the same labour as the linen. In order
to inform us that its sublime reality as value is not the same as its
buckram body, it says that value has the appearance of a coat, and
consequently that so far as the linen is value, it and the coat are as
like as two peas. \Ve may here remark, that the language of com-
modities has, besides Hebrew, many other more or less correct
dialects. The German “Wertsein,” to be worth, for instance,
expresses in a less striking manner than the Romance verbs
“valere,” “valer,” “valoir,” that the equating of commodity B to
commodity A, is commodity A’s own mode of expressing its value.
Paris vaut bien une messe.
By means, therefore, of the value-relation expressed in our equa-
tion, the bodily form of commodity B becomes the value-form of
commodity A, or the body of commodity B acts as a mirror to the
value of commodity A.5 By putting itself in relation with commod-
ity B, as value in propria persona, as the matter of which human
labour is made up, the commodity A converts the value in use, B,
into the substance in which to express its, A’s, own value. The value
of A, thus expressed in the use-value of B, has taken the form of
relative value.
5. In a sort of way, it is with man as
with commodities. Since he comes into
the world neither with a looking glass
in his hand, nor as a Fichtian philoso-
pher, to whom “I am I” is sufficient,
man first sees and recognises himself in
other men. Peter only establishes his
own identity as a man by first compar-
ing himself with Paul as being of like
kind. And thereby Paul, just as he
stands in his Pauline personality, be-
comes to Peter the type of the genus
homo. [Marx]
316 The Critique 0 f Capitalism
expressed, that weaving also, in so far as it weaves value, has noth-
ing to distinguish it from tailoring, and, consequently, is ‘a bstract
human labour. It is the expression of equivalence between different
sorts of commodities that alone brings into relief the specific char_
acter of value-creating labour, and this it does by actually reducing
the different varieties of labour embodied in the different kinds of
commodities to their common quality of human labour in the
abstract.4
There is, however, something else required beyond the expression
of the specific character of the labour of which the value of the
linen consists. Human labour-power in motion, or human labour,
creates value, but is not itself value. It becomes value only in its
congealed state, when embodied in the form of some object. In
order to express the value of the linen as a congelation of human
labour, that value must be expressed as having objective existence,
as being a something materially different from the linen itself, and
yet a something common to the linen and all other commodities.
The problem is already solved.
\Vhen occupying the position of equivalent in the equation of
value, the coat ranks qualitatively as the equal of the linen, as
something of the same kind, because it is value. In this position it
is a thing in which we see nothing but value, or whose palpable
bodily form represents value. Yet the coat itself, the body of the
commodity, coat, is a mere use-value. A coat as such no more tells
us it is value, than does the first piece of linen we take hold of.
This shows that when placed in value-relation to the linen, the coat
signifies more than when out of that relation, just as many a man
strutting about in a gorgeous uniform counts for more than when
in mufti.
In the production of the coat, human labour-power, in the shape
of tailoring, must have been actually expended. Human labour is
therefore accumulated in it. In this aspect the coat is a depository
of value, but though worn to a thread, it does not let this fact show
through. And as equivalent of the linen in the value equation, it
exists under this aspect alone, counts therefore as embodied value,
as a body that is value. A, for instance, cannot be “your majesty”
to B, unless at the same time majesty in B’s eyes assumes the
4. The celebrated Franklin, one of the
first economists, after Wm. Petty, who
sa w through the nature of value, says:
“Trade in general being nothing else
but the exchange of labour for labour,
the value of all things is . . . most
justly measured by labour.” (“The
works of B. Franklin, &c.,” edited by
Sparks. Boston, 1836, Vol. II., p.
267.) Franklin is unconscious that by
estimating the value of everything in
labour, he makes abstraction from any
difference in the sorts of labour ex-
changed, and thus reduce,. them all to
equal human labour. But although ig-
norant of this, yet he says it. He
speaks first of “the one labour,” then
of “the other labour,” and finally of
“labour,” without further qualification.
as the substance of the value of every-
thing. [Marx]
Capital, Volume One 317
bodily form of A, and, what is more, with every new father of the
people, changes its features, hair, and many other things besides.
Bence, in the value equation, in which the coat is the equivalent
of the linen, the coat officiates as the form of value. The value of
the commodity linen is expressed by the bodily form of the com-
modity coat, the value of one by the use-value of the other. As a
use-value, the linen is something palpably different from the coat;
as value, it is the same as the coat, and now has the appearance of
a coat. Thus the linen acquires a value-form different from its phys-
ical form. The fact that it is value, is made manifest by its equality
with the coat, just as the sheep’s nature of a Christian is shown in
his resemblance to the Lamb of God.
\Ve see, then, all that our analysis of the value of commodities
has already told us, is told us by the linen itself, so soon as it comes
into communication with another commodity, the coat. Only it
betrays its thoughts in that language with which alone it is familiar,
the language of commodities. In order to tell us that its own value
is created by labour in its abstract character of human labour, it
says that the coat, in so far as it is worth as much as the linen, and
therefore is value, consists of the same labour as the linen. In order
to inform us that its sublime reality as value is not the same as its
buckram body, it says that value has the appearance of a coat, and
consequently that so far as the linen is value, it and the coat are as
like as two peas. \Ve may here remark, that the language of com-
modities has, besides Hebrew, many other more or less correct
dialects. The German “Wertsein,” to be worth, for instance,
expresses in a less striking manner than the Romance verbs
“valere,” “valer,” “valoir,” that the equating of commodity B to
commodity A, is commodity A’s own mode of expressing its value.
Paris vaut bien une messe.
By means, therefore, of the value-relation expressed in our equa-
tion, the bodily form of commodity B becomes the value-form of
commodity A, or the body of commodity B acts as a mirror to the
value of commodity A.5 By putting itself in relation with commod-
ity B, as value in propria persona, as the matter of which human
labour is made up, the commodity A converts the value in use, B,
into the substance in which to express its, A’s, own value. The value
of A, thus expressed in the use-value of B, has taken the form of
relative value.
5. In a sort of way, it is with man as
with commodities. Since he comes into
the world neither with a looking glass
in his hand, nor as a Fichtian philoso-
pher, to whom “I am I” is sufficient,
man first sees and recognises himself in
other men. Peter only establishes his
own identity as a man by first compar-
ing himself with Paul as being of like
kind. And thereby Paul, just as he
stands in his Pauline personality, be-
comes to Peter the type of the genus
homo. [Marx]
318 The Critique of Capitalism
b. Quantitative Determination of Relative Value
Every commodity, whose value it is intended to express, is a
useful object of given quantity, as 15 bushels of corn, or 100 Ibs. of
coffee. And a given quantity of any commodity contains a definite
quantity of human labour. The value-form must therefore not only
express value generally, but also value in definite quantity. There-
fore, in the value-relation of commodity A to commodity B, of the
linen to the coat, not only is the latter, as value in general, made
the equal in quality of the linen, but a definite quantity of coat (1
coat) is made the equivalent of a definite quantity (20 yards) of
linen.
The equation, 20 yards of linen=1 coat, or 20 yards of linen are
worth one coat, implies that the same quantity of value-substance
(congealed labour) is em bodied in both; that the two commodities
have each cost the same amount of labour of the same quantity of
labour-time. But the labour-time necessary for the production of 20
yards of linen or 1 coat varies with every change in the productive-
ness of weaving or tailoring. We have now to consider the influ-
ence of such changes on the quantitative aspect of the relative
expression of value.
I. Let the value of the linen vary,6 that of the coat remammg
constant. If, say in consequence of the exhaustion of flax-growing
soil, the labour-time necessary for the production of the linen be
doubled, the value of the linen will also be doubled. Instead of the
equation, 20 yards of linen= 1 coat, we should have 20 yards of
linen=2 coats, since 1 coat would now contain only half the
labour-time embodied in 20 yards of linen. If, on the other hand, in
consequence, say, of improved looms, this labour-time be reduced
by one-half, the value of the linen would fall by one-half. Conse-
quently, we should have 20 yards of linen=Y2 coat. The relative
value of commodity A, i.e., its value expressed in commodity B,
rises and falls directly as the value of A, the value of B being sup-
posed constant.
II. Let the value of the linen remain constant, while the value
of the coat varies. If, under these circumstances, in consequence,
for instance, of a poor crop of wool, the labour-time necessary for
the production of a coat becomes doubled, we have instead of
20 yards of linen= 1 coat, 20 yards of linen= Y2 coat. If, on the
other hand, the value of the coat sinks by one-half, then 20 yards
of linen=2 coats. Hence, if the value of commodity A remain
constant, its relative value expressed in commodity B rises and falls
inversely as the value of B.
6. Value is here, as occasionally in the determined as to quantity, or of magni-
preceding pages, used in sense of value tude of value. [Marx]
Capital, Volume One 319
If we compare the different cases in I. and II., we see that the
same change of magnitude in relative value may arise from totally
opposite causes. Thus, the equation, 20 yards of linen=l coat,
becomes 20 yards of linen=2 coats, either, because the value of the
linen has do’ubled, or because the value of the coat has fallen by
one-half; and it becomes 20 yards of linen=Y2 coat, either, because
the value of the linen has fallen by one-half, or because the vall1e
of the coat has doubled.
III. Let the quantities of labour-time respectively necessary for
the production of the linen and the coat vary simultaneously in the
same direction and in the same proportion. In this case 20 yards of
linen continue equal to 1 coat, however much their values may
have altered. Their change of value is seen as soon as they are com-
pared with a third commodity, whose value has remained constant.
If the values of all commodities rose or fell simultaneously, and in
the same proportion, their relative values would remain unaltered.
Their real change of value would appear from the diminished or
increased quantity of commodities produced in a given time.
IV. The labour-time respectively necessary for the production of
the linen and the coat, and therefore the value of these commodi-
ties may simultaneously vary in the same direction, but at unequal
rates, or in opposite directions, or in other ways. The effect of all
these possible different variations, on the relative value of a com-
modity, may be deduced from the results of I., II., and III.
Thus real changes in the magnitude of value are neither unequi-
vocally nor exhaustively reflected in their relative expression, that is,
in the equation expressing the magnitude of relative value. The rel-
ative value of a commodity may vary, although its value remains
constant. Its relative value may remain constant, although its value
varies; and finally, simultaneous variations in the magnitude of
value and in that of its relative expression by no means necessarily
correspond in amount. * * *
Section 4. The Fetishism of Commodities and
the Secret Thereof
A commodity appears, at first sight, a very trivial thing, and
easily understood. Its analysis shows that it is, in reality, a very
queer thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological
niceties. So far as it is a value in use, there is nothing mysterious
about it, whether we consider it from the point of view that by its
properties it is capable of satisfying human wants, or from the point
that those properties are the product of human labour. It is as clear
as noon-day, that man, by his industry, changes the forms of the
materials furnished by Nature, in such a way as to make them
318 The Critique of Capitalism
b. Quantitative Determination of Relative Value
Every commodity, whose value it is intended to express, is a
useful object of given quantity, as 15 bushels of corn, or 100 Ibs. of
coffee. And a given quantity of any commodity contains a definite
quantity of human labour. The value-form must therefore not only
express value generally, but also value in definite quantity. There-
fore, in the value-relation of commodity A to commodity B, of the
linen to the coat, not only is the latter, as value in general, made
the equal in quality of the linen, but a definite quantity of coat (1
coat) is made the equivalent of a definite quantity (20 yards) of
linen.
The equation, 20 yards of linen=1 coat, or 20 yards of linen are
worth one coat, implies that the same quantity of value-substance
(congealed labour) is em bodied in both; that the two commodities
have each cost the same amount of labour of the same quantity of
labour-time. But the labour-time necessary for the production of 20
yards of linen or 1 coat varies with every change in the productive-
ness of weaving or tailoring. We have now to consider the influ-
ence of such changes on the quantitative aspect of the relative
expression of value.
I. Let the value of the linen vary,6 that of the coat remammg
constant. If, say in consequence of the exhaustion of flax-growing
soil, the labour-time necessary for the production of the linen be
doubled, the value of the linen will also be doubled. Instead of the
equation, 20 yards of linen= 1 coat, we should have 20 yards of
linen=2 coats, since 1 coat would now contain only half the
labour-time embodied in 20 yards of linen. If, on the other hand, in
consequence, say, of improved looms, this labour-time be reduced
by one-half, the value of the linen would fall by one-half. Conse-
quently, we should have 20 yards of linen=Y2 coat. The relative
value of commodity A, i.e., its value expressed in commodity B,
rises and falls directly as the value of A, the value of B being sup-
posed constant.
II. Let the value of the linen remain constant, while the value
of the coat varies. If, under these circumstances, in consequence,
for instance, of a poor crop of wool, the labour-time necessary for
the production of a coat becomes doubled, we have instead of
20 yards of linen= 1 coat, 20 yards of linen= Y2 coat. If, on the
other hand, the value of the coat sinks by one-half, then 20 yards
of linen=2 coats. Hence, if the value of commodity A remain
constant, its relative value expressed in commodity B rises and falls
inversely as the value of B.
6. Value is here, as occasionally in the determined as to quantity, or of magni-
preceding pages, used in sense of value tude of value. [Marx]
Capital, Volume One 319
If we compare the different cases in I. and II., we see that the
same change of magnitude in relative value may arise from totally
opposite causes. Thus, the equation, 20 yards of linen=l coat,
becomes 20 yards of linen=2 coats, either, because the value of the
linen has do’ubled, or because the value of the coat has fallen by
one-half; and it becomes 20 yards of linen=Y2 coat, either, because
the value of the linen has fallen by one-half, or because the vall1e
of the coat has doubled.
III. Let the quantities of labour-time respectively necessary for
the production of the linen and the coat vary simultaneously in the
same direction and in the same proportion. In this case 20 yards of
linen continue equal to 1 coat, however much their values may
have altered. Their change of value is seen as soon as they are com-
pared with a third commodity, whose value has remained constant.
If the values of all commodities rose or fell simultaneously, and in
the same proportion, their relative values would remain unaltered.
Their real change of value would appear from the diminished or
increased quantity of commodities produced in a given time.
IV. The labour-time respectively necessary for the production of
the linen and the coat, and therefore the value of these commodi-
ties may simultaneously vary in the same direction, but at unequal
rates, or in opposite directions, or in other ways. The effect of all
these possible different variations, on the relative value of a com-
modity, may be deduced from the results of I., II., and III.
Thus real changes in the magnitude of value are neither unequi-
vocally nor exhaustively reflected in their relative expression, that is,
in the equation expressing the magnitude of relative value. The rel-
ative value of a commodity may vary, although its value remains
constant. Its relative value may remain constant, although its value
varies; and finally, simultaneous variations in the magnitude of
value and in that of its relative expression by no means necessarily
correspond in amount. * * *
Section 4. The Fetishism of Commodities and
the Secret Thereof
A commodity appears, at first sight, a very trivial thing, and
easily understood. Its analysis shows that it is, in reality, a very
queer thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological
niceties. So far as it is a value in use, there is nothing mysterious
about it, whether we consider it from the point of view that by its
properties it is capable of satisfying human wants, or from the point
that those properties are the product of human labour. It is as clear
as noon-day, that man, by his industry, changes the forms of the
materials furnished by Nature, in such a way as to make them
320 The Critique of Capitalism
useful to him. The form of wood, for instance, is altered, by
making a table out of it. Yet, for all that, the table continues to be
that common, every-day thing, wood. But, so soon as it steps forth
as a commodity, it is changed into something transcendent. It not
only stands with its feet on the ground, but, in relation to all other
commodities, it stands on its head, and evolves out of its wooden
b!ain grotesque ideas, far more wonderful than “table-turning” ever
was.
The mystical character of commodities does not originate, there-
fore, in their use-value. Just as little does it proceed from the nature
of the determining factors of value. For, in the first place, however
varied the useful kinds of labour, or productive activities, may be, it
is a physiological fact, that they are functions of the human organ-
ism, and that each such function, whatever may be its nature or
form, is essentially the expenditure of human brain, nerves, mus-
cles, &c. Secondly, with regard to that which forms the ground-
work for the quantitative determination of value, namely, the dura-
tion of that expenditure, or the quantity of labour, it is quite clear
that there is a palpable difference between its quantity and quality.
In all states of society, the labour-time that it costs to produce the
means of subsistence, must necessarily be an object of interest to
mankind, though not of equal interest in different stages of
development.7 And lastly, from the moment that men in any way
work for one another, their labour assumes a social form.
Whence, then, arises the enigmatical character of the product of
labour, so soon as it assumes the form of commodities? Clearly
from this form itself. The equality of all sorts of human labour is
expressed objectively by their products all being equally values;
the measure of the expenditure of labour-power by the duration of
that expenditure, takes the form of the quantity of value of the
products of labour; and finally, the mutual relations of the produc-
ers, within which the social character of their labour affirms itself,
take the form of a social relation between the products.
A commodity is therefore a mysterious thing, simply because in
it the social character of men’s labour appears to them as an objec-
tive character stamped upon the product of that labour; because
the relation of the producers to the sum total of their own labour is
presented to them as a social relation, existing not between them-
selves, but between the products of their labour. This is the reason
why the products of labour become commodities, social things
whose qualities are at the same time perceptible and imperceptible
7. Among the ancient Germans the unit
for measuring land was what could be
harvested in a day, and was called
Tagwerk, Tagwanne (jurnale, or terra
jurnalis, or diornalis), Mannsmaad, &c.
(See G. L. von Maurer. “Einleitung
zur Geschichte der Mark-, &c. Ver-
fassung,” Miinchen, 1854, p. 129 sq.)
[Marx]
Capital, Volume One 321
by the senses. In the same way the light from an object is perceived
by us not as the subjective excitation of our optic nerve, but as the
objective form of something outside the eye itself. But, in the act
of seeing, there is at all events, an actual passage of light from one
thing to another, from the external object to the eye. There is a
physical relation between physical things. But it is different with
commodities. There, the existence of the things qua commodities,
and the value-relation between the products of labour which
stamps them as commodities, have absolutely no connexion
with their physical properties and with the material relations arising
therefrom. There it is a definite social relation between men, that
assumes, in their eyes, the fantastic form of a relation between
things. In order, therefore, to find an analogy, we must have
recourse to the mist-enveloped regions of the religious world. In
-that world the productions of the human brain appear as independ-
ent beings endowed with life, and entering into relation both with
one another and the human race. So it is in the world of commodi-
ties with the products of men’s hands. This I call the Fetishism
which attaches itself to the products of labour, so soon as they are
produced as commodities, and which is therefore inseparable from
the production of commodities.
This Fetishism of commodities has its origin, as the foregoing
analysis has already shown, in the peculiar social character of the
labour that produces them.
As a general rule, articles of utility become commodities, only
because they are products of the labour of private individuals or
groups of individuals who carryon their work independently of
each other. The sum total of the labour of all these private individ-
uals forms the aggregate labour of society. Since the producers do
not come into social contact with each other until they exchange
their products, the specific social character of each producer’s
labour does not show itself except in the act of exchange. In other
words, the labour of the individual asserts itself as a part of the
labour of society, only by means of the relations which the act of
exchange establishes directly between the products, and indirectly,
through them, between the producers. To the latter, therefore, the
relations connecting the labour of one individual with that of the
rest appear, not as direct social relations between individuals at
work, but as what they really are, material relations between per-
sons and social relations between things. It is only by being
exchanged that the products of labour acquire, as values, one uni-
form social status, distinct from their varied forms of existence as
objects of utility. This division of a product into a useful thing and
a value becomes practically important, only when exchange has
acquired such an extension that useful articles are produced for the
320 The Critique of Capitalism
useful to him. The form of wood, for instance, is altered, by
making a table out of it. Yet, for all that, the table continues to be
that common, every-day thing, wood. But, so soon as it steps forth
as a commodity, it is changed into something transcendent. It not
only stands with its feet on the ground, but, in relation to all other
commodities, it stands on its head, and evolves out of its wooden
b!ain grotesque ideas, far more wonderful than “table-turning” ever
was.
The mystical character of commodities does not originate, there-
fore, in their use-value. Just as little does it proceed from the nature
of the determining factors of value. For, in the first place, however
varied the useful kinds of labour, or productive activities, may be, it
is a physiological fact, that they are functions of the human organ-
ism, and that each such function, whatever may be its nature or
form, is essentially the expenditure of human brain, nerves, mus-
cles, &c. Secondly, with regard to that which forms the ground-
work for the quantitative determination of value, namely, the dura-
tion of that expenditure, or the quantity of labour, it is quite clear
that there is a palpable difference between its quantity and quality.
In all states of society, the labour-time that it costs to produce the
means of subsistence, must necessarily be an object of interest to
mankind, though not of equal interest in different stages of
development.7 And lastly, from the moment that men in any way
work for one another, their labour assumes a social form.
Whence, then, arises the enigmatical character of the product of
labour, so soon as it assumes the form of commodities? Clearly
from this form itself. The equality of all sorts of human labour is
expressed objectively by their products all being equally values;
the measure of the expenditure of labour-power by the duration of
that expenditure, takes the form of the quantity of value of the
products of labour; and finally, the mutual relations of the produc-
ers, within which the social character of their labour affirms itself,
take the form of a social relation between the products.
A commodity is therefore a mysterious thing, simply because in
it the social character of men’s labour appears to them as an objec-
tive character stamped upon the product of that labour; because
the relation of the producers to the sum total of their own labour is
presented to them as a social relation, existing not between them-
selves, but between the products of their labour. This is the reason
why the products of labour become commodities, social things
whose qualities are at the same time perceptible and imperceptible
7. Among the ancient Germans the unit
for measuring land was what could be
harvested in a day, and was called
Tagwerk, Tagwanne (jurnale, or terra
jurnalis, or diornalis), Mannsmaad, &c.
(See G. L. von Maurer. “Einleitung
zur Geschichte der Mark-, &c. Ver-
fassung,” Miinchen, 1854, p. 129 sq.)
[Marx]
Capital, Volume One 321
by the senses. In the same way the light from an object is perceived
by us not as the subjective excitation of our optic nerve, but as the
objective form of something outside the eye itself. But, in the act
of seeing, there is at all events, an actual passage of light from one
thing to another, from the external object to the eye. There is a
physical relation between physical things. But it is different with
commodities. There, the existence of the things qua commodities,
and the value-relation between the products of labour which
stamps them as commodities, have absolutely no connexion
with their physical properties and with the material relations arising
therefrom. There it is a definite social relation between men, that
assumes, in their eyes, the fantastic form of a relation between
things. In order, therefore, to find an analogy, we must have
recourse to the mist-enveloped regions of the religious world. In
-that world the productions of the human brain appear as independ-
ent beings endowed with life, and entering into relation both with
one another and the human race. So it is in the world of commodi-
ties with the products of men’s hands. This I call the Fetishism
which attaches itself to the products of labour, so soon as they are
produced as commodities, and which is therefore inseparable from
the production of commodities.
This Fetishism of commodities has its origin, as the foregoing
analysis has already shown, in the peculiar social character of the
labour that produces them.
As a general rule, articles of utility become commodities, only
because they are products of the labour of private individuals or
groups of individuals who carryon their work independently of
each other. The sum total of the labour of all these private individ-
uals forms the aggregate labour of society. Since the producers do
not come into social contact with each other until they exchange
their products, the specific social character of each producer’s
labour does not show itself except in the act of exchange. In other
words, the labour of the individual asserts itself as a part of the
labour of society, only by means of the relations which the act of
exchange establishes directly between the products, and indirectly,
through them, between the producers. To the latter, therefore, the
relations connecting the labour of one individual with that of the
rest appear, not as direct social relations between individuals at
work, but as what they really are, material relations between per-
sons and social relations between things. It is only by being
exchanged that the products of labour acquire, as values, one uni-
form social status, distinct from their varied forms of existence as
objects of utility. This division of a product into a useful thing and
a value becomes practically important, only when exchange has
acquired such an extension that useful articles are produced for the
322 The Critique of Capitalism
purpose of being exchanged, and their character as values has there-
fore to be taken into account, beforehand, during production.
From this moment the labour of the individual producer acquires
socially a two-fold character. On the one hand, it must, as a
definite useful kind of labour, satisfy a definite social want, and
thus hold its place as part and parcel of the collective labour of all,
as a branch of a social division of labour that has sprung up sponta-
neously. On the other hand, it can satisfy the manifold wants of
the individual producer himself, only in so far as the mutual
exchangeability of all kinds of useful private labour is an
established social fact, and therefore the private useful labour of
each producer ranks on an equality with that of all others. The
equalisation of the most different kinds of labour can be the result
only of an abstraction from their inequalities, or of reducing them
to their common denominator, viz., expenditure of human
labour-power or human labour in the abstract. The two-fold social
character of the labour of the individual appears to him, when
reflected in his brain, only under those forms which are impressed
upon that labour in every-day practice by the exchange of products.
In this way, the character that his own labour possesses of being
socially useful takes the form of the condition, that the product
must be not only useful, but useful for others, and the social char-
acter that his particular labour has of being the equal of all other
particular kinds of labour, takes the form that all the physically dif-
ferent articles that are the products of labour, have one common
quality, viz., that of having value.
Hence, when we bring the products of our labour into relation
with each other as values, it is not because we see in these articles
the material receptacles of homogeneous human labour. Quite the
contrary: whenever, by an exchange, we equate as values our differ-
ent products, by that very act, we also equate, as human labour,
the different kinds of labour expended upon them. Weare not
aware of this, nevertheless we do it. Value, therefore, does not stalk
about with a label describing what it is. It is value, rather, that con-
verts every product into a social hieroglyphic. Later on, we try to
decipher the hieroglyphic, to get behind the secret of our own
social products; for to stamp an object of utility as a value, is just as
much a social product as language. The recent scientific discovery,
that the products of labour, so far as they are values, are but mate-
rial expressions of the human labour spent in their production,
marks, indeed, an epoch in the history of the development of the
human race, but, by no means, dissipates the mist through which
the social character of labour appears to us to be an objective char-
acter of the products themselves. The fact, that in the particular
form of production with which we are dealing, viz., the production
Capital, Volume One 323
of commodities, the specific social character of private labour car-
ried on independently, consists in the equality of every kind of that
labour, by virtue of its being human labour, which character, there-
fore, assumes in the product the form of value-this fact appears to
the producers, notwithstanding the discovery above referred to, to
be just as real and final, as the fact, that, after the discovery by sci-
ence of the component gases of air, the atmosphere itself remainerl
unaltered. .
\Vhat, first of all, practically concerns producers when they make
an exchange, is the question, how much of some other product
they get for their own? in what proportions the products are
exchangeable? When these proportions have, by custom, attained a
certain stability, they appear to result from the nature of the prod-
ucts, so that, for instance, one ton of iron and two ounces of gold
appear as naturally to be of equal value as a pound of gold and a
pound of iron in spite of their different physical and chemical qual-
ities appear to be of equal weight. The character of having value,
when once impressed upon products, obtains fixity only by reason
of their acting and re-acting upon each other as quantities of value.
These quantities vary continually, independently of the will, fore-
sight and action of the producers. To them, their own social action
takes the form of the action of objects, which rule the producers
instead of being ruled by them. It requires a fully developed pro-
duction of commodities before, from accumulated experience alone,
the scientific conviction springs up, that all the different kinds of
private labour, which are carried on independently of each other,
and yet as spontaneously developed branches of the social division
of labour, are continually being reduced to the quantitative propor-
tions in which society requires them. And why? Because, in the
midst of all the accidental and ever fluctuating exchange-relations
between the products, the labour-time socially necessary for their
production forcibly asserts itself like an over-riding law of Nature.
The law of gravity thus asserts itself when a house falls about our
ears.8 The determination of the magnitude of value by labour-time
is therefore a secret, hidden under the apparent fluctuations in the
relative values of commodities. Its discovery, while removing all
appearance of mere accidentality from the determination of the
magnitude of the values of products, yet in no way alters the mode
in which that determination takes place.
Man’s reflections on the forms of social life, and consequently,
also, his scientific analysis of those forms, take a course directly
8. “What are we to think of a law that
asserts itself only by periodical revolu-
tions? It is just nothing but a law of
Nature, founded on the want of knowl-
edge of those whose action is the sub-
ject of it.” (Friedrich Engels: “Urn-
risse zu einer Kritik de N ationaliikon-
ornie,” in the “Deutsch-Franziisische
Jahrbiicher,” edited by Arnold Ruge
and Karl Marx. Paris, 1844.) [Marx]
322 The Critique of Capitalism
purpose of being exchanged, and their character as values has there-
fore to be taken into account, beforehand, during production.
From this moment the labour of the individual producer acquires
socially a two-fold character. On the one hand, it must, as a
definite useful kind of labour, satisfy a definite social want, and
thus hold its place as part and parcel of the collective labour of all,
as a branch of a social division of labour that has sprung up sponta-
neously. On the other hand, it can satisfy the manifold wants of
the individual producer himself, only in so far as the mutual
exchangeability of all kinds of useful private labour is an
established social fact, and therefore the private useful labour of
each producer ranks on an equality with that of all others. The
equalisation of the most different kinds of labour can be the result
only of an abstraction from their inequalities, or of reducing them
to their common denominator, viz., expenditure of human
labour-power or human labour in the abstract. The two-fold social
character of the labour of the individual appears to him, when
reflected in his brain, only under those forms which are impressed
upon that labour in every-day practice by the exchange of products.
In this way, the character that his own labour possesses of being
socially useful takes the form of the condition, that the product
must be not only useful, but useful for others, and the social char-
acter that his particular labour has of being the equal of all other
particular kinds of labour, takes the form that all the physically dif-
ferent articles that are the products of labour, have one common
quality, viz., that of having value.
Hence, when we bring the products of our labour into relation
with each other as values, it is not because we see in these articles
the material receptacles of homogeneous human labour. Quite the
contrary: whenever, by an exchange, we equate as values our differ-
ent products, by that very act, we also equate, as human labour,
the different kinds of labour expended upon them. Weare not
aware of this, nevertheless we do it. Value, therefore, does not stalk
about with a label describing what it is. It is value, rather, that con-
verts every product into a social hieroglyphic. Later on, we try to
decipher the hieroglyphic, to get behind the secret of our own
social products; for to stamp an object of utility as a value, is just as
much a social product as language. The recent scientific discovery,
that the products of labour, so far as they are values, are but mate-
rial expressions of the human labour spent in their production,
marks, indeed, an epoch in the history of the development of the
human race, but, by no means, dissipates the mist through which
the social character of labour appears to us to be an objective char-
acter of the products themselves. The fact, that in the particular
form of production with which we are dealing, viz., the production
Capital, Volume One 323
of commodities, the specific social character of private labour car-
ried on independently, consists in the equality of every kind of that
labour, by virtue of its being human labour, which character, there-
fore, assumes in the product the form of value-this fact appears to
the producers, notwithstanding the discovery above referred to, to
be just as real and final, as the fact, that, after the discovery by sci-
ence of the component gases of air, the atmosphere itself remainerl
unaltered. .
\Vhat, first of all, practically concerns producers when they make
an exchange, is the question, how much of some other product
they get for their own? in what proportions the products are
exchangeable? When these proportions have, by custom, attained a
certain stability, they appear to result from the nature of the prod-
ucts, so that, for instance, one ton of iron and two ounces of gold
appear as naturally to be of equal value as a pound of gold and a
pound of iron in spite of their different physical and chemical qual-
ities appear to be of equal weight. The character of having value,
when once impressed upon products, obtains fixity only by reason
of their acting and re-acting upon each other as quantities of value.
These quantities vary continually, independently of the will, fore-
sight and action of the producers. To them, their own social action
takes the form of the action of objects, which rule the producers
instead of being ruled by them. It requires a fully developed pro-
duction of commodities before, from accumulated experience alone,
the scientific conviction springs up, that all the different kinds of
private labour, which are carried on independently of each other,
and yet as spontaneously developed branches of the social division
of labour, are continually being reduced to the quantitative propor-
tions in which society requires them. And why? Because, in the
midst of all the accidental and ever fluctuating exchange-relations
between the products, the labour-time socially necessary for their
production forcibly asserts itself like an over-riding law of Nature.
The law of gravity thus asserts itself when a house falls about our
ears.8 The determination of the magnitude of value by labour-time
is therefore a secret, hidden under the apparent fluctuations in the
relative values of commodities. Its discovery, while removing all
appearance of mere accidentality from the determination of the
magnitude of the values of products, yet in no way alters the mode
in which that determination takes place.
Man’s reflections on the forms of social life, and consequently,
also, his scientific analysis of those forms, take a course directly
8. “What are we to think of a law that
asserts itself only by periodical revolu-
tions? It is just nothing but a law of
Nature, founded on the want of knowl-
edge of those whose action is the sub-
ject of it.” (Friedrich Engels: “Urn-
risse zu einer Kritik de N ationaliikon-
ornie,” in the “Deutsch-Franziisische
Jahrbiicher,” edited by Arnold Ruge
and Karl Marx. Paris, 1844.) [Marx]
324 The Critique of Capitalism
opposite to that of their actual historical development. He begins,
post festum, with the results of the process of development ready
to hand before him. The characters that stamp products as com-
modities, and whose establishment is a necessary preliminary to the
circulation of commodities, have already acquired the stability of
natural, self-understood forms of social life, before man seeks to
decipher, not their historical character, for in his eyes they are
immutable, but their meaning. Consequently it was the analysis of
the prices of commodities that alone led to the determination of
the magnitude of value, and it was the common expression of all
commodities in money that alone led to the establishment of their
characters as values. It is, however, just this ultimate money-form
of the world of commodities that actually conceals, instead of dis-
closing, the social character of private labour, and the social rela-
tions between the individual producers. When I state that coats or
boots stand in a relation to linen, because it is the universal incar-
nation of abstract human labour, the absurdity of the statement is
self-evident. Nevertheless, when the producers of coats and boots
compare those articles with linen, or, what is the same thing, with
gold or silver, as the universal equivalent, they express the relation
between their own private labour and the collective labour of
society in the same absurd form.
The categories of bourgeois economy consist of such like forms.
They are forms of thought expressing with social validity the condi-
tions and relations of a definite, historically determined mode of
production, viz., the production of commodities. The whole mys-
tery of commodities, all the magic and necromancy that surrounds
the products of labour as long as they take the form of commodi-
ties, vanishes therefore, so soon as we come to other forms of
production.
Since Robinson Crusoe’s experiences are a favourite theme with
political economists, let us take a look at him on his island. l\loder-
ate though he be, yet some few wants he has to satisfy, and must
therefore do a little useful work of various sorts, such as making
tools and furniture, taming goats, fishing and hunting. Of his pray-
ers and the like we take no account, since they are a source of
pleasure to him, and he looks upon them as so much recreation. In
spite of the variety of his work, he knows that his labour, whatever
its form, is but the activity of one and the same Robinson, and
consequently, that it consists of nothing but different modes of
human labour. Necessity itself compels him to apportion his time
accurately between his different kinds of work. \Vhether one kind
occupies a greater space in his general activity than another,
depends on the difficulties, greater or less as the case may be, to
be overcome in attaining the useful effect aimed at. This our friend
Capital, Volume One 325
Robinson soon learns by experience, and having rescued a watch,
ledger, and pen and ink from the wreck, commences, like a true-
born Briton, to keep a set of books. His stock-book contains a list
of the objects of utility that belong to him, of the operations neces-
sary for their production; and lastly, of the labour-time that definite
quantities of those objects have, on an average, cost him. All the
relations between Robinson and the objects that form this wealth
of his own creation, are here so simple and clear as to be intelligi-
ble without exertion, even to Mr. Sedley Taylor. And yet those rela-
tions contain all that is essential to the determination of value.
Let us now transport ourselves from Robinson’s island bathed in
light to the European middle ages shrouded in darkness. Here,
instead of the independent man, we find everyone dependent, serfs
and lords, vassals and suzerains, laymen and clergy. Personal
dependence here characterises the social relations of production just
as much as it does the other spheres of life organised on the basis
of that production. But for the very reason that personal dependence
forms the ground-work of society, there is no necessity for labour
and its products to assume a fantastic form different from their
reality. They take the shape, in the transactions of society, of serv-
ices in kind and payments in kind. Here the particular and natural
form of labour, and not, as in a society based on production of
commodities, its general abstract form is the immediate social form
of labour. Compulsory labour is just as properly measured by time,
as commodity-producing labour, but every serf knows that what he
expends in the service of his lord, is a definite quantity of his own
personal labour-power. The tithe to be rendered to the priest is
more matter of fact than his blessing. No matter, then, what we
may think of the parts played by the different classes of people
themselves in this society, the social relations between individuals
in the performance of their labour, appear at all events as their own
mutual personal relations, and are not disguised under the shape of
social relations between the products of labour.
For an example of labour in common or directly associated
labour, we have no occasion to go back to that spontaneously devel-
oped form which we find on the threshold of the history of all
lised races. \Ve have one close at hand in the patriarchal industries
of a peasant family, that produces corn, cattle, yarn, linen, and
clothing for home use. These different articles are, as regards the
family, so many products of its labour, but as between themselves,
they are not commodities. The different kinds of labour, such as til-
lage, cattle tending, spinning, weaving and making clothes, which
result in the various products, are in themselves, and such as they
are, direct social functions, because functions of the family, which,
just as much as a society based on the production of commodities,
324 The Critique of Capitalism
opposite to that of their actual historical development. He begins,
post festum, with the results of the process of development ready
to hand before him. The characters that stamp products as com-
modities, and whose establishment is a necessary preliminary to the
circulation of commodities, have already acquired the stability of
natural, self-understood forms of social life, before man seeks to
decipher, not their historical character, for in his eyes they are
immutable, but their meaning. Consequently it was the analysis of
the prices of commodities that alone led to the determination of
the magnitude of value, and it was the common expression of all
commodities in money that alone led to the establishment of their
characters as values. It is, however, just this ultimate money-form
of the world of commodities that actually conceals, instead of dis-
closing, the social character of private labour, and the social rela-
tions between the individual producers. When I state that coats or
boots stand in a relation to linen, because it is the universal incar-
nation of abstract human labour, the absurdity of the statement is
self-evident. Nevertheless, when the producers of coats and boots
compare those articles with linen, or, what is the same thing, with
gold or silver, as the universal equivalent, they express the relation
between their own private labour and the collective labour of
society in the same absurd form.
The categories of bourgeois economy consist of such like forms.
They are forms of thought expressing with social validity the condi-
tions and relations of a definite, historically determined mode of
production, viz., the production of commodities. The whole mys-
tery of commodities, all the magic and necromancy that surrounds
the products of labour as long as they take the form of commodi-
ties, vanishes therefore, so soon as we come to other forms of
production.
Since Robinson Crusoe’s experiences are a favourite theme with
political economists, let us take a look at him on his island. l\loder-
ate though he be, yet some few wants he has to satisfy, and must
therefore do a little useful work of various sorts, such as making
tools and furniture, taming goats, fishing and hunting. Of his pray-
ers and the like we take no account, since they are a source of
pleasure to him, and he looks upon them as so much recreation. In
spite of the variety of his work, he knows that his labour, whatever
its form, is but the activity of one and the same Robinson, and
consequently, that it consists of nothing but different modes of
human labour. Necessity itself compels him to apportion his time
accurately between his different kinds of work. \Vhether one kind
occupies a greater space in his general activity than another,
depends on the difficulties, greater or less as the case may be, to
be overcome in attaining the useful effect aimed at. This our friend
Capital, Volume One 325
Robinson soon learns by experience, and having rescued a watch,
ledger, and pen and ink from the wreck, commences, like a true-
born Briton, to keep a set of books. His stock-book contains a list
of the objects of utility that belong to him, of the operations neces-
sary for their production; and lastly, of the labour-time that definite
quantities of those objects have, on an average, cost him. All the
relations between Robinson and the objects that form this wealth
of his own creation, are here so simple and clear as to be intelligi-
ble without exertion, even to Mr. Sedley Taylor. And yet those rela-
tions contain all that is essential to the determination of value.
Let us now transport ourselves from Robinson’s island bathed in
light to the European middle ages shrouded in darkness. Here,
instead of the independent man, we find everyone dependent, serfs
and lords, vassals and suzerains, laymen and clergy. Personal
dependence here characterises the social relations of production just
as much as it does the other spheres of life organised on the basis
of that production. But for the very reason that personal dependence
forms the ground-work of society, there is no necessity for labour
and its products to assume a fantastic form different from their
reality. They take the shape, in the transactions of society, of serv-
ices in kind and payments in kind. Here the particular and natural
form of labour, and not, as in a society based on production of
commodities, its general abstract form is the immediate social form
of labour. Compulsory labour is just as properly measured by time,
as commodity-producing labour, but every serf knows that what he
expends in the service of his lord, is a definite quantity of his own
personal labour-power. The tithe to be rendered to the priest is
more matter of fact than his blessing. No matter, then, what we
may think of the parts played by the different classes of people
themselves in this society, the social relations between individuals
in the performance of their labour, appear at all events as their own
mutual personal relations, and are not disguised under the shape of
social relations between the products of labour.
For an example of labour in common or directly associated
labour, we have no occasion to go back to that spontaneously devel-
oped form which we find on the threshold of the history of all
lised races. \Ve have one close at hand in the patriarchal industries
of a peasant family, that produces corn, cattle, yarn, linen, and
clothing for home use. These different articles are, as regards the
family, so many products of its labour, but as between themselves,
they are not commodities. The different kinds of labour, such as til-
lage, cattle tending, spinning, weaving and making clothes, which
result in the various products, are in themselves, and such as they
are, direct social functions, because functions of the family, which,
just as much as a society based on the production of commodities,
326 The Critique of Capitalism
possesses a spontaneously developed system of division of labour.
The distribution of the work within the family, and the regulation
the labour-time of the several members, depend as well upon
differences of age and sex as upon natural conditions varying with
the seasons. The labour-power of each individual, by its very
nature, operates in this case merely as a definite portion of the
whole labour-power of the family, and therefore, the measure of the
of individual labour-power by its duration, appears here
by Its very nature as a social character of their labour.
Let picture to .ourselves, by way of change, a community
of free mdlvlduals, carrymg on their work with the means of pro-
duction in common, in which the labour-power of all the different
individuals is consciously applied as the combined labour-power of
the community. All the characteristics of Robinson’s labour are
here repeated, but with this difference, that they are social, instead
of individual. Everything produced by him was exclusively the
result of his own personal labour, and therefore simply an object of
use for himself. The total product of our community is a social
product. One portion serves as fresh means of production and
remains social. But another portion is consumed by the members
as of subsistence. A distribution of this portion amongst
them IS consequently necessary. The mode of this distribution will
vary with the productive organisation of the community, and the
of historical development attained by the producers. We
will assume, but merely for the sake of a parallel with the produc-
tion of commodities, that the share of each individual producer in
the means of subsistence is determined by his labour-time.
Labour-tinle would, in that case, playa double part. Its apportion-
ment accordance with a definite social plan maintains the proper
proportion between the different kinds of work to be done and the
various wants of the community. On the other hand, it also serves
of the portion of the common labour borne by each
mdlVldual, and of his share in the part of the total product des-
tined for individual consumption. The social relations of the indi-
vidual producers, with regard both to their labour and to its prod-
ucts, are in this case perfectly simple and intelligible, and that with
regard not only to production but also to distribution.
The religious world is but the reflex of the real world. And for a
society based upon the production of commodities, in which the
prod?cers in. general enter into social relations with one another by
treatmg theIr products as commodities and values, whereby they
reduce their individual private labour to the standard of homoge-
neous human labour-for such a society, Christianity with its
cultus of abstract man, more especially in its bourgeois develop-
ments, Protestantism, Deism, &c., is the most fitting form of reli-
Capital, Volume One 327
gion. In the ancient Asiatic and other ancient modes of production,
we find that the conversion of products into commodities, and
therefore the conversion of men into producers of commodities,
holds a subordinate place, which, however, increases in importance
as the primitive communities approach nearer and nearer to their
dissolution. Trading nations, properly so called, exist in the ancient
world only in its interstices, like the gods of Epicurus in the Inter-
mundia, or like Jews in the pores of Polish society. Those ancient
social organisms of production are, as compared with bourgeois
society, extremely simple and transparent. But they are founded
either on the immature development of man individually, who has
not yet severed the umbilical cord that unites him with his fellow-
men in a primitive tribal community, or upon direct relations of
subjection. They can arise and exist only when the development of
the productive power of labour has not risen beyond a low stage,
and when, therefore, the social relations within the sphere of mate-
rial life, between man and man, and between man and Nature, are
correspondingly narrow. This narrowness is reflected in the ancient
worship of Nature, and in the other elements of the popular reli-
gions. The religious reflex of the real world can, in any case, only
then finally vanish, when the practical relations of every-day life
offer to man none but perfectly intelligible and reasonable relations
with regard to his fellowmen and to Nature.
The life-process of society, which is based on the process of
material production, does not strip off its mystical veil until it is
treated as production by freely associated men, and is consciously
regulated by them in accordance with a settled plan. This, however,
demands for society a certain material ground-work or set of condi-
tions of existence which in their turn are the spontaneous product
of a long and painful process of development.
Political Economy has indeed analysed, however incompletely,
value and its magnitude, and has discovered what .lies beneath
these forms. But it has never once asked the question why labour is
represented by the value of its product and labour-time by the mag-
nitude of that value. These formulre, which bear it stamped upon
them in unmistakeable letters that they belong to a state of society,
in which the process of production has the mastery over man,
instead of being controlled by him, such formulre appear to the
bourgeois intellect to be as much a self-evident necessity imposed
by Nature as productive labour itself. Hence forms of social produc-
tion that preceded the bourgeois form, are treated by the bourgeoi-
sie in much the same way as the Fathers of the Church treated
pre-Christian religions.
To what extent some economists are misled by the Fetishism
inherent in commodities, or by the objective appearance of the
326 The Critique of Capitalism
possesses a spontaneously developed system of division of labour.
The distribution of the work within the family, and the regulation
the labour-time of the several members, depend as well upon
differences of age and sex as upon natural conditions varying with
the seasons. The labour-power of each individual, by its very
nature, operates in this case merely as a definite portion of the
whole labour-power of the family, and therefore, the measure of the
of individual labour-power by its duration, appears here
by Its very nature as a social character of their labour.
Let picture to .ourselves, by way of change, a community
of free mdlvlduals, carrymg on their work with the means of pro-
duction in common, in which the labour-power of all the different
individuals is consciously applied as the combined labour-power of
the community. All the characteristics of Robinson’s labour are
here repeated, but with this difference, that they are social, instead
of individual. Everything produced by him was exclusively the
result of his own personal labour, and therefore simply an object of
use for himself. The total product of our community is a social
product. One portion serves as fresh means of production and
remains social. But another portion is consumed by the members
as of subsistence. A distribution of this portion amongst
them IS consequently necessary. The mode of this distribution will
vary with the productive organisation of the community, and the
of historical development attained by the producers. We
will assume, but merely for the sake of a parallel with the produc-
tion of commodities, that the share of each individual producer in
the means of subsistence is determined by his labour-time.
Labour-tinle would, in that case, playa double part. Its apportion-
ment accordance with a definite social plan maintains the proper
proportion between the different kinds of work to be done and the
various wants of the community. On the other hand, it also serves
of the portion of the common labour borne by each
mdlVldual, and of his share in the part of the total product des-
tined for individual consumption. The social relations of the indi-
vidual producers, with regard both to their labour and to its prod-
ucts, are in this case perfectly simple and intelligible, and that with
regard not only to production but also to distribution.
The religious world is but the reflex of the real world. And for a
society based upon the production of commodities, in which the
prod?cers in. general enter into social relations with one another by
treatmg theIr products as commodities and values, whereby they
reduce their individual private labour to the standard of homoge-
neous human labour-for such a society, Christianity with its
cultus of abstract man, more especially in its bourgeois develop-
ments, Protestantism, Deism, &c., is the most fitting form of reli-
Capital, Volume One 327
gion. In the ancient Asiatic and other ancient modes of production,
we find that the conversion of products into commodities, and
therefore the conversion of men into producers of commodities,
holds a subordinate place, which, however, increases in importance
as the primitive communities approach nearer and nearer to their
dissolution. Trading nations, properly so called, exist in the ancient
world only in its interstices, like the gods of Epicurus in the Inter-
mundia, or like Jews in the pores of Polish society. Those ancient
social organisms of production are, as compared with bourgeois
society, extremely simple and transparent. But they are founded
either on the immature development of man individually, who has
not yet severed the umbilical cord that unites him with his fellow-
men in a primitive tribal community, or upon direct relations of
subjection. They can arise and exist only when the development of
the productive power of labour has not risen beyond a low stage,
and when, therefore, the social relations within the sphere of mate-
rial life, between man and man, and between man and Nature, are
correspondingly narrow. This narrowness is reflected in the ancient
worship of Nature, and in the other elements of the popular reli-
gions. The religious reflex of the real world can, in any case, only
then finally vanish, when the practical relations of every-day life
offer to man none but perfectly intelligible and reasonable relations
with regard to his fellowmen and to Nature.
The life-process of society, which is based on the process of
material production, does not strip off its mystical veil until it is
treated as production by freely associated men, and is consciously
regulated by them in accordance with a settled plan. This, however,
demands for society a certain material ground-work or set of condi-
tions of existence which in their turn are the spontaneous product
of a long and painful process of development.
Political Economy has indeed analysed, however incompletely,
value and its magnitude, and has discovered what .lies beneath
these forms. But it has never once asked the question why labour is
represented by the value of its product and labour-time by the mag-
nitude of that value. These formulre, which bear it stamped upon
them in unmistakeable letters that they belong to a state of society,
in which the process of production has the mastery over man,
instead of being controlled by him, such formulre appear to the
bourgeois intellect to be as much a self-evident necessity imposed
by Nature as productive labour itself. Hence forms of social produc-
tion that preceded the bourgeois form, are treated by the bourgeoi-
sie in much the same way as the Fathers of the Church treated
pre-Christian religions.
To what extent some economists are misled by the Fetishism
inherent in commodities, or by the objective appearance of the
328 The Critique of Capitalism
social characteristics of labol.lr, is shown, amongst other ways, by
the dull and tedious quarrel over the part played by Nature in the
formation of exchange-value. Since exchange-value is a definite
social manner of expressing the amount of labour bestowed upon
object, Nature has no more to do with it, than it has in fixing the
course of exchange.
The mode of production in which the product takes the form of
a commodity, or is produced directly for exchange, is the most gen-
eral and most embryonic form of bourgeois production. It therefore
makes its appearance at an early date in history, though not in the
same predominating and characteristic manner as now-a-days. Hence
its Fetish character is comparatively easy to be seen through. But
when we come to more concrete forms, even this appearance of sim-
plicity vanishes. \Vhence arose the illusions of the monetary
system? To it gold and silver, when serving as money, did not rep-
resent a social relation between producers but were natural objects
with strange social properties. And modern economy, which looks
down with such disdain on the monetary system, does not its
superstition come out as clear as noon-day, whenever it treats of
capital? How long is it since economy discarded the physiocratic
illusion, that rents grow out of the soil and not out of society?
But not to anticipate, we will content ourselves with yet another
example relating to the commodity-form. Could commodities them-
selves speak, they would say: Our use-value may be a thing that
interests men. It is no part of us as objects. \Vhat, however, does
belong to us as objects, is our value. Our natural intercourse as
commodities proves it. In the eyes of each other we are nothing but
exchange-values. Now listen how those commodities speak through
the mouth of the economist. “Value”-(i.e., exchange-value) “is a
property of things, riches”-(i.e., use-value) “of man. Value, in
this sense, necessarily implies exchanges, riches do not.” “Riches”
(use-value) “are the attribute of men, value is the attribute of com-
modities. A man or a community is rich, a pearl or a diamond is
valuable …. A pearl or a diamond is valuable” as a pearl or dia-
mond. So far no chemist has ever discovered exchange-value either
in a pearl or a diamond. The economic discoverers of this chemical
element, who by-the-by lay special claim to critical acumen, find
however that the use-value of objects belongs to them independ-
ently of their material properties, while their value, on the other
hand, forms a part of them as objects. vVhat confirms them in this
view, is the peculiar circumstance that the use-value of objects is
realised without exchange, by means of a direct relation between
the objects and man, while, on the other hand, their value is real-
ised only by exchange, that is, by means of a social process. Who
fails here to call to mind our good friend, Dogberry, who informs
Capital, Volume One 329
neighbour Seacoal, that, “To be a well-favoured man is the gift of
fortune; but reading and writing comes by Nature.”
Part II. The Transformation of l\loney into Capital
CHAPTER IV. THE GENERAL FORMULA FOR CAPITAL
The circulation of commodities is the starting-point of capital.
The production of commodities, their circulation, and that more
developed form of their circulation called commerce, these form
the historical ground-work from which it rises. The modern history
of capital dates from the creation in the 16th century of a world-
embracing commerce and a world-embracing market.
If we abstract from the material substance of the circulation of
commodities, that is, from the exchange of the various use-values,
and consider only the economic forms produced by this process of
circulation, we find its final result to be money: this final product
of the circulation of commodities is the first form in which capital
appears.
As a matter of history, capital, as opposed to landed property,
invariably takes the form at first of money; it appears as moneyed
wealth, as the capital of the merchant and of the usurer. But we
have no need to refer to the origin of capital in order to discover
that the first form of appearance of capital is money. We can see it
daily under our very eyes. All new capital, to commence with,
comes on the stage, that is, on the market, whether of commodi-
ties, labour, or money, even in our days, in the shape of money that
by a definite process has to be transformed into capital.
The first distinction we notice between money that is money
only, and money that is capital, is nothing more than a difference
in their form of circulation.
The simplest form of the circulation of commodities is
C-M-C, the transformation of commodities into money, and the
change of the money back again into commodities; or selling in
order to buy. But alongside of this form we find another specifically
different form: M-C-M, the transformation of money into com-
modities, and the change of commodities back again into money;
or buying in order to sell. Money that circulates in the latter
manner is thereby transformed into, becomes capital, and is already
potentially capital.
Now let us examine the circuit M-C-M a little closer. It con-
sists, like the other, of two antithetical phases. In the first phase,
M-C, or the purchase, the money is changed into a commodity.
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