of capitalistic production is expressed as yet so superficially and as mere matter of form, that this opposition belongs also to precapitalistic forms of society, since it merely requires that the mutual relations of individuals should be those of owners of commodities.
Now, if we consider the result of C—M—C, it comes down to mere interchange of matter, C—C. A commodity has been exchanged for a commodity, a use-value for a use-value, and the transformation of the commodity into money, or the commodity in its form of money, serves merely as a means of effecting this interchange of matter. Money thus appears merely as a medium of exchange of commodities; not as a medium of exchange in general, but as a means of exchange in the sphere of circulation, i. e., a medium of circulation.[1]
- ↑ "L'argent n'est que le moyen et l'acheminement, au lieu que les denrées utiles à la vie sont la fin et le but." ("Money is but the ways and means, while the things useful in life are the end and object.") Boisguillebert: "Le Détail de la France," 1697, in Eugene Daires' "Economistes financiers du XVIII ieme siecle, vol. I., Paris, 1843. p. 210.
industries. From the necessity of exchange arises the necessity of determining the relative value of things. The ideas of value and exchange are thus intimately connected and both express in their actual form individualism and antagonism. . . . The determination of values of products takes place only because there are sales and purchases, or, to put it differently, because there is an antagonism between different members of society. One has to occupy himself with price and value only where there is sale and purchase, that is to say, where every individual is obliged to struggle to procure for himself the objects necessary for the maintenance of his existence.")
