CHAPTER II.

The theory of labor-time as the direct measure of money was first systematically developed by JOHN GRAY.⁵⁶ He makes a National Central Bank ascertain through its branches the labor-time consumed in the production of various commodities. The producer receives an official certificate of value in exchange for his commodity. i. e., he gets a receipt for as much labor-time as his commodity contains,⁵⁷ and these bank notes of one week’s labor, one day’s labor, one hour’s labor, etc., serve at the same time as a check for an equivalent in all other commodities stored in the bank warehouses.⁵⁸ This is the fundamental principle carefully worked out in detail and based throughout on existing English institutions. Under this system, says Gray, “to sell for money may be rendered, at all times, precisely as easy as it now is to buy with money; ... production would become the uniform and never-failing cause of demand.”⁵⁹ The precious metals would lose their “privilege” as against other commodities and “take their proper place in the market beside butter and eggs, and cloth and calico, and then the value of the precious metals will concern us just as little ... as the value of the diamond.”⁶⁰ “Shall we retain our fictitious standard of value, gold, and thus keep the productive resources of the country in bondage? or, shall we resort to the natural standard of value, labour, and thereby set our productive resources free?”⁶¹