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nydus/A Contribution to the Critique of Political EconomyPublic

This work presents Karl Marx’s initial installment of a projected treatise on political economy, later incorporated into the broader scope of Capital. It provides a detailed analysis of money and the history of value theories, while also featuring the foundational formulation of the author’s materialistic interpretation of history.

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Table of Contents

CHAPTER II.

or increased according as to whether it was necessary to contract or expand the currency and thereby to lower or raise prices, so are the same effects produced now by export and import from one country to another. In the country in which prices would rise or the value of gold would fall below the bullion value in consequence of a redundant currency, gold would be depreciated, and the prices of commodities would rise as compared with other countries. Gold would, therefore, be exported, while commodities would be imported, and vice versa. Just as in the former case the output of gold, so now the import or export of gold and, with it, the rise or fall of prices of commodities would continue until, as we would have said before, the right value relation would be restored between the metal and commodities, or as we shall say now, the international balance of currencies would be restored. Just as in the former case the production of gold increased or decreased because gold stood above or below its value, so now the international migration of gold would take place for the same reason. Just as in the former case, every change in the production of the circulating metal affected its quantity and, thereby, prices, so would the same effect be produced now by international import and export. As soon as the relative values of gold and commodities or the normal quantity of currency would be restored, no further production would take place in the former case, and no further export or import in the latter, except in so far as would be necessary to replace outworn coin and to meet the demand of manufacturers of articles of luxury. It follows “that the temptation to export money in exchange for goods, or what is termed an unfavorable balance of trade, never arises but from a redundant currency.”142 “The exportation of the coin is caused by its cheapness, and is not the effect, but the cause of an unfavourable balance.”143 Since the increase or decrease in the production of gold in the former case and the importation or exportation of gold in the latter, take place only whenever its volume rises above or sinks below its normal level, i. e. whenever gold appreciates or

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