modities, rank now as so many different forms of the realisation, or manifestation, of undifferentiated human labour.
3. Defects of the Total or Expanded form of value.
In the first place, the relative expression of value is incomplete because the series representing it is interminable. The chain of which each equation of value is a link, is liable at any moment to be lengthened by each new kind of commodity that comes into existence and furnishes the material for a fresh expression of value. In the second place, it is a many-coloured mosaic of disparate and independent expressions of value. And lastly, if, as must be the case, the relative value of each commodity in turn, becomes expressed in this expanded form, we get for each of them a relative value-form, different in every case, and consisting of an interminable series of expressions of value. The defects of the expanded relative-value form are reflected in the corresponding equivalent form. Since the bodily form of each single commodity is one particular equivalent form amongst numberless others, we have, on the whole, nothing but fragmentary equivalent forms, each excluding the others. In the same way, also, the special, concrete, useful kind of labour embodied in each particular equivalent, is presented only as a particular kind of labour, and therefore not as an exhaustive representative of human labour generally. The latter, indeed, gains adequate manifestation in the totality of its manifold, particular, concrete forms. But, in that case, its expression in an infinite series is ever incomplete and deficient in unity.
The expanded relative value form is, however, nothing but the sum of the elementary relative expressions or equations of the first kind, such as
20 yards of linen = 1 coat
20 yards of linen = 10 lbs. of tea, etc.
Each of these implies the corresponding inverted equation,
1 coat = 20 yards of linen
10 lbs. of tea = 20 yards of linen, etc.
In fact, when a person exchanges his linen for many other commodities, and thus expresses its value in a series of other
