and, consequently, with the development of the capitalist system of production in general, the function of money as a means of payment will extend at the expense of its function as a means of purchase and, still more, as an element of hoarding. In England, e. g., money as coin has been almost completely banished into the sphere of retail and petty trade between producers and consumers, while it dominates the sphere of large commercial transactions as a means of
As the universal means of payment money becomes the universal commodity of all contracts, at first only in the sphere of circulation of commodities.106 But with the development of this function of money, all other forms of payment are gradually converted into money payments. The extent to which money is developed as the exclusive means of payment indicates the degree to which exchange value has taken hold of production in its depth and breadth.107
The volume of money in circulation, as a means of payment, is determined in the first place, by the amount of payments, i. e. by the sum total of the prices of the commodities alienated, but