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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 I. COMMODITIES.

value—are: divisibility to any desired extent, homogeneity of its parts, and uniformity of all the specimens of the commodity. As an embodiment of universal labor-time it must be homogeneous in its structure and capable of representing only quantitative differences. Another necessary property is durability of its use-value, as it must last through the process of exchange. The precious metals excel in these qualities. Money not being a result of a scheme or agreement, but having been produced instinctively in the process of exchange, a great variety of more or less unsuited commodities had successively performed its functions. At a certain stage of development of the process of exchange, the necessity arises for a polar distribution of the functions of exchange value and use-value among commodities, so that one commodity e. g. should act as a medium of exchange, while another is being alienated as a use-value. This necessity brings it about that one or even several commodities possessing the most generally accepted use-value, begin, incidentally at first, to play the part of money. Even if not direct means of satisfying existing wants, their being the most considerable material constituent part of wealth, insures to them a more general character than to the other use-values.

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