The liveliest streets of London are crowded with stores whose show windows are filled with the riches of the world, Indian shawls, American revolvers, Chinese porcelain, Parisian corsets, Russian furs and tropical spices, but all of these things of joy bear fatal white labels marked with Arabian figures with the laconic characters £, s., d. Such is the picture of the commodity appearing in circulation.
a. THE METAMORPHOSIS OF COMMODITIES.
On close examination the process of circulation is seen to consist of two distinct cycles. If we denote commodity by the letter C and money by the letter M we can express these two forms as follows:
C—M—C
M—C—M.
In this chapter we are interested exclusively in the first form, i. e., in the form which serves as the direct expression of the circulation of commodities.