(c) Money as material representative of wealth (accumulation of money; before that, money as the general material of contracts, etc.)

It is in the nature of circulation that every point appears simultaneously as a starting-point and as a conclusion, and, more precisely, that it appears to be the one in so far as it appears to be the other. The specific form M–C–C–M therefore just as correct as the other, which appears the more original, C–M–M–C. The difficulty is that the other commodity is qualitatively different; not so the other money. It can differ only quantitatively. – Regarded as measure the material substance of money is essential, although its availability and even more its quantity, the amount of the portion of gold or silver which serves as unit, are entirely irrelevant for it in this quality, and it is employed in general only as an imaginary, non-existent unit. In this quality it is needed as a unit and not as an amount. If I say a pound of cotton is worth 8d., then I am saying that 1 pound of cotton = 1/116 oz. of gold (the ounce at £3 17s. 7d.) (931d.). This expresses at the same time its particularity as exchange value as against all other commodities, as equivalent of all other commodities, which contain the ounce of gold this or that many times, since they are all in the same way compared to the ounce of gold. This original relation of the pound of cotton with gold, by means of which the quantity of gold contained in an ounce of cotton is determined, is fixed by the quantity of labour time realized in one and the other, the real common substance of exchange values. This is to be presupposed from the chapter dealing with exchange value as such. The difficulty of finding this equation is not as great as it may appear. For example, labour which directly produces gold directly reveals a certain quantity of gold to be the product of, say, one working day. Competition equates the other working days with that one, modificandis modificatis. Directly or indirectly. In a word, in the direct production of gold, a definite quantity of gold directly appears as product and hence as the value, the equivalent, of a definite amount of labour time. One has therefore only to determine the amount of labour time realized in the various commodities, and to equate them to the labour time which directly produces gold, in order to state how much gold is contained in a given commodity. The determination of all commodities as prices – as measured exchange values – is a process which takes place only gradually, which presupposes frequent exchange and hence frequent comparison of commodities as exchange values; but as soon as the existence of commodities as prices has become a precondition – a precondition which is itself a product of the social process, a result of the process of social production – then the determination of new prices appears simple, since the elements of production cost are themselves already present in the form of prices, and are hence simply to be added. (Frequent alienation, sale, frequent sale, Steuart. [66] Rather, all this must have continuity so that prices achieve a certain regularity.) However, the point we wanted to get at here is this: in so far as gold is to be established as the unit of measurement, the relation of gold to commodities is determined by barter, direct, unmediated exchange; like the relation of all other commodities to one another. With barter, however, the product is exchange value only in itself; it is its first phenomenal form; but the product is not yet posited as exchange value. Firstly, this character does not yet dominate production as a whole, but concerns only its superfluity and is hence itself more or less superfluous (like exchange itself); an accidental enlargement of the sphere of satisfactions, enjoyments (relations to new objects). It therefore takes place at only a few points (originally at the borders of the natural communities, in their contact with strangers), is restricted to a narrow sphere, and forms something which passes production by, is auxiliary to it; dies out just as much by chance as it arises. The form of barter in which the overflow of one’s own production is exchanged by chance for that of others’ is only the first occurrence of the product as exchange value in general, and is determined by accidental needs, whims, etc. But if it should happen to continue, to become a continuing act which contains within itself the means of its renewal, then little by little, from the outside and likewise by chance, regulation of reciprocal exchange arises by means of regulation of reciprocal production, and the costs of production, which ultimately resolve into labour time, would thus become the measure of exchange. This shows how exchange comes about, and the exchange value of the commodity. But the circumstances under which a relation occurs for the first time by no means show us that relation either in its purity or in its totality. A product posited as exchange value is in its essence no longer a simple thing; it is posited in a quality differing from its natural quality; it is posited as a relation, more precisely as a relation in general, not to one commodity but to every commodity, to every possible product. It expresses, therefore, a general relation; the product which relates to itself as the realization of a specific quantity of labour in general, of social labour time, and is therefore the equivalent of every other product in the proportion expressed in its exchange value. Exchange value presupposes social labour as the substance of all products, quite apart from their natural make-up. Nothing can express a relation without relating to one particular thing, and there can be no general relation unless it relates to a general thing. Since labour is motion, time is its natural measure. Barter in its crudest form presupposes labour as substance and labour time as measure of commodities; this then emerges as soon as it becomes regularized, continuous, as soon as it contains within itself the reciprocal requirements for its renewal. – A commodity is exchange value only if it is expressed in another, i.e. as a relation. A bushel of wheat is worth so many bushels of rye; in this case wheat is exchange value in as much as it is expressed in rye, and rye is exchange value in as much as it is expressed in wheat. If each of the two is related only to itself, it is not exchange value. Now, in the relation in which money appears as measure, it itself is not expressed as a relation, not as exchange value, but as a natural quantity of a certain material, a natural weight- fraction of gold or silver. In general, the commodity in which the exchange value of another is expressed, is never expressed as exchange value, never as relation, but rather as a definite quantity of its natural make-up. If 1 bushel of wheat is worth 3 bushels of rye, then only the bushel of wheat is expressed as a value, not the bushel of rye. Of course, the other is also posited in itself; the 1 bushel of rye is then = 1/3 bushel of wheat; but this is not posited, but merely a second relation, which is admittedly directly present in the first. If one commodity is expressed in another, then it is posited as a relation, and the other as simple quantity of a certain material. 3 bushels of rye are in themselves no value; rather, rye filling up a certain volume, measured by a standard of volume. The same is true of money as measure, as the unit in which the exchange values of other commodities are measured. It is a specific weight of the natural substance by which it is represented, gold, silver, etc. If 1 bushel of wheat has the price of 77s. 7d., then it is expressed as something else, to which it is equal, as 1 ounce of gold; as relation, as exchange value. But 1 ounce of gold is in itself no exchange value; it is not expressed as exchange value; but as a specific quantity of itself, of its natural substance, gold. If 1 bushel of wheat has the price of 77s. 7d. or of 1 ounce of gold, then this can be a greater or lesser value, since 1 ounce of gold will rise or fall in relation to the quantity of labour required for its production. But for the determination of its price as such, this is irrelevant; for its price of 77s. 7d. exactly expresses the relation in which it is equivalent to all other commodities, in which it can buy them. The specificity of price determination, whether the bushel is 77 or 1,780s., is a different matter altogether from the determination of price as such, i.e. the positing of wheat as price. It has a price, regardless of whether it costs 100 or 1s. The price expresses its exchange value only in a unit common to all commodities; presupposes therefore that this exchange value is already regulated by other relations. To be sure, the fact that 1 bushel of wheat has the price of 1 ounce of gold – since gold and wheat as natural objects have no relation with one another, are as such not a measure for one another, are irrelevant to one another – this fact is found out by bringing the ounce of gold itself into relation with the amount of labour time necessary for its production, and thus bringing both wheat and gold in relation to a third entity, labour, and equating them through this relation; by comparing them both, therefore, as exchange values. But this shows us only how the price of wheat is found, the quantity of gold to which it is equal. In this relation itself, where gold appears as the price of wheat, it is itself not in turn posited as a relation, as exchange value, but as a certain quantity of a natural material. In exchange value, commodities (products) are posited as relations to their social substance, to labour; but as prices, they are expressed as quantities of other products of various natural make-ups. Now, it can admittedly be said that the price of money is also posited as 1 bushel of wheat, 3 bushels of rye and all the other quantities of different commodities, whose price is 1 ounce of gold. But then, in order to express the price of money, the whole sphere of commodities would have to be listed, each in the quantity which equals 1 ounce of gold. Money would then have as many prices as there are commodities whose price it itself expresses. The chief quality of price, unity, would disappear. No commodity expresses the price of money, because none expresses its relation to all other commodities, its general exchange value. But it is the specific characteristic of price that exchange value must be expressed in its generality and at the same time in a specific commodity. But even this is irrelevant. In so far as money appears as a material in which the price of all commodities is expressed and measured, to that extent is money itself posited as a particular amount of gold, silver, etc., in short, of its natural matter; a simple amount of a certain material, not itself as exchange value, as relation. In the same way, every commodity which expresses the price of another is itself not posited as exchange value, but as a simple amount of itself. In its quality as unit of exchange value, as their measure, their common point of comparison, money is essentially a natural material, gold, silver; since, as the price of the commodity, it is not an exchange value, not a relation, but a certain weight of gold, silver; e.g. a pound with its subdivisions, and thus money appears originally as pound, aes grave. This is precisely what distinguishes price from exchange value, and we have seen that exchange value necessarily drives towards price formation. Hence the nonsensicality of those who want to make labour time as such into money, i.e. who want to posit and then not posit the distinction between price and exchange value. Money as measure, as element of price determination, as measuring unit of exchange values thus presents the following phenomena: (1) it is required only as an imagined unit once the exchange value of an ounce of gold compared to any one commodity has been determined; its actual presence is superfluous, along with, even more so, its available quantity: as an indicator (an indicator of value) the amount in which it exists in a country is irrelevant; required only as accounting unit; (2) while it thus only needs to be posited ideally, and, indeed, in the form of the price of a commodity is only ideally posited in it; at the same time, as a simple amount of the natural substance in which it is represented, as a given weight of gold, silver, etc. which is accepted as unit, it also yields the point of comparison, the unit, the measure. Exchange values (commodities) are transformed by the mind into certain weights of gold or silver, and are ideally posited as being = to this imagined quantity of gold etc.; as expressing it.

But when we now go over to the second quality of money, money as medium of exchange and realizer of prices, then we have found that in this case it must be present in a certain quantity; that the given weight of gold and silver which has been posited as a unit is required in a given quantity in order to be adequate to this function. If the sum of prices to be realized, which depends on the price of a particular commodity multiplied by its quantity, is given on one side, and the velocity of monetary circulation on the other, then a certain quantity of the circulating medium is required. When we now examine the original form more closely, the direct form in which circulation presents itself, C–M–M–C, then we see that money appears here as a pure medium of exchange. The commodity is exchanged for a commodity, and money appears merely as the medium of this exchange. The price of the first commodity is realized with money, in order to realize the price of the second commodity with the money, and thus to obtain it in exchange for the first. After the price of the first commodity is realized, the aim of the person who now has its price in money is not to obtain the price of the second commodity, but rather to pay its price in order to obtain the commodity. At bottom, therefore, money served him to exchange the first commodity for the second. As mere medium of exchange, money has no other purpose. The man who has sold his commodity and got money wants to buy another commodity, and the man from whom he buys it needs the money in order to buy another commodity etc. Now, in this function, as pure medium of circulation, the specific role of money consists only of this circulation, which it brings about owing to the fact that its quantity, its amount, was fixed beforehand. The number of times in which it is itself contained in the commodities as a unit is determined beforehand by their prices, and as medium of circulation it appears merely as a multiple of this predetermined unit. In so far as it realizes the price of commodities, the commodity is exchanged for its real equivalent in gold and silver; its exchange value is really exchanged for another commodity, money; but in so far as this process takes place only in order to transform this money back into a commodity, i.e. in order to exchange the first commodity for the second, then money appears only fleetingly, or, its substance consists only in this constant appearance as disappearance, as this vehicle of mediation. Money as medium of circulation is only medium of circulation. The only attribute which is essential to it in order to serve in this capacity is the attribute of quantity, of amount, in which it circulates. (Since the amount is co-determined by the velocity, the latter does not require special mention here.) In so far as it realizes the price, its material existence as gold and silver is essential; but in so far as this realization is only fleeting and destined to suspend itself, this is irrelevant. It is only a semblance, as if the point were to exchange the commodity for gold or silver as particular commodities: a semblance which disappears as soon as the process is ended, as soon as gold and silver have again been exchanged for a commodity, and the commodity, hence, exchanged for another. The character of gold and silver as mere media of circulation, or the character of the medium of circulation as gold and silver is therefore irrelevant to their make-up as particular natural commodities. Suppose the total price of circulating commodities = 1,200 thalers. Their measure is then 1 thaler = x weight of silver. Now let 100 thalers be necessary to circulate these commodities in 6 hours; i.e. every thaler pays the price of 100 thalers in 6 hours. Now, what is essential is that 100 thalers be present, the amount of 100 of the metallic unit which measures the sum total of commodity prices; 100 of these units. That these units consist of silver is irrelevant to the process itself. This is already visible in the fact that a single thaler represents in the cycle of circulation a mass of silver 100 times greater than is contained in it in reality, even though in each particular transaction it only represents the silver weight of 1 thaler. In circulation as a whole, the 1 thaler thus represents 100 thalers, a weight of silver a hundred times greater than it really contains. It is in truth only a symbol for the weight of silver contained in 100 thalers. It realizes a price which is 100 times greater than it realizes in reality as a quantity of silver. Let the pound sterling be = 1/3 ounce of gold (it is not as much as that). In so far as the price of a commodity at £1 is paid, i.e. its price of £1 is realized, it is exchanged for £1, to that extent it is of decisive importance that the £1 really contain 1/3 ounce of gold. If it were a counterfeit £, alloyed with non-precious metals, a £ only in appearance, then indeed the price of the commodity would not be realized; in order to realize it, it would have to be paid for in as great a quantity of the non-precious metal as equals 1/3 of an ounce of gold. Looking at this moment of circulation in isolation, it is thus essential that the unit of money should really represent a given quantity of gold or silver. But when we take circulation as a totality, as a self-enclosed process, C–M–M–C, then the matter stands differently. In the first case the realization of price would be only apparent: in reality only a part of its price would be realized. The price posited in it ideally would not be posited in reality. The commodity which is ideally equated to a given weight of gold would in actual exchange not bring in as much gold as that. But if a fake £ were to circulate in the place of a real one, it would render absolutely the same service in circulation as a whole as if it were genuine. If a commodity, A, with the price of £1, is exchanged for 1 fake £, and if this fake pound is again exchanged for commodity B, price £1, then the fake pound has done absolutely the same service as if it had been genuine. The genuine pound is, therefore, in this process, nothing more than a symbol, in so far as the moment in which it realizes prices is left out, and we look only at the totality of the process, in which it serves only as medium of exchange and in which the realization of prices is only a semblance, a fleeting mediation. Here the gold pound serves only to allow commodity A to be exchanged for commodity B, both having the same price. The real realization of the price of commodity A is, here, the commodity B, and the real realization of the price of B is the commodity A or C or D, which amounts to the same as far as the form of the relation is concerned, for which the particular content of the commodity is entirely irrelevant. Commodities with identical prices are exchanged. Instead of exchanging commodity A directly for commodity B, the price of commodity A is exchanged for the price of commodity B and the price of commodity B for commodity A. Money thus represents to the commodity only the latter’s price. Commodities are exchanged for one another at their prices. The price of the commodity expresses about it, ideally, that it is an amount of a certain natural unit (weight units) of gold or silver, of the material in which money is embodied. In the form of money, or its realized price, the commodity now confronts a real amount of this unit. But in so far as the realization of the price is not the final act, and the point is not to possess the price of commodities as price, but as the price of another commodity, to that extent the material of money is irrelevant, e.g. gold and silver. Money becomes a subject as instrument of circulation, as medium of exchange, and the natural material in which it presents itself appears as an accident whose significance disappears in the act of exchange itself; because it is not in this material that the commodity exchanged for money is supposed to be realized, but rather in the material of another commodity. For now, apart from the moments that, in circulation, (1) money realizes prices, (2) money circulates titles of ownership; we have (3), additionally, that by means of it something takes place which could not happen otherwise, namely that the exchange value of the commodity is expressed in every other commodity. If 1 yard of linen costs 2s. and 1 lb. of sugar 1s., then the yard of linen is realized, by means of the 2s., in 2 lb. of sugar, while the sugar is converted into the material of its exchange value, into the material in which its exchange value is realized. As a mere medium of circulation, in its role in the constant flow of the circulatory process, money is neither the measure of prices, because it is already posited as such in the prices themselves; nor is it the means for the realization of prices, for it exists as such in one single moment of circulation, but disappears as such in the totality of its moments; but is, rather, the mere representative of the price in relation to all other commodities, and serves only as a means to the end that all commodities are to be exchanged at equivalent prices. It is exchanged for one commodity because it is the general representative of its exchange value; and, as such, as the representative of every other commodity of equal exchange value, it is the general representative; and that is, as such, what it is in circulation itself. It represents the price of the one commodity as against all other commodities, or the price of all commodities as against the one commodity. In this relation it is not only the representative of commodity prices, but the symbol of itself; i.e. in the act of circulation itself, its material, gold and silver, is irrelevant. It is the price; it is a given quantity of gold or silver; but in so far as this reality of the price is here only fleeting, a reality destined constantly to disappear, to be suspended, not to count as a definitive realization, but always only as an intermediate, mediating realization; in so far as the point here is not the realization of the price at all, but rather the realization of the exchange value of one particular commodity in the material of another commodity, to that extent its own material is irrelevant; it is ephemeral as a realization of the price, since this itself disappears; it exists, therefore, in so far as it remains in this constant movement, only as a representative of exchange value, which becomes real only if the real exchange value constantly steps into the place of its representative, constantly changes places with it, constantly exchanges itself for it. Hence, in this process, its reality is not that it is the price, but that it represents it, is its representative – the materially present representative of the price, thus of itself, and, as such, of the exchange value of commodities. As medium of exchange, it realizes the prices of commodities only in order to posit the exchange value of the one commodity in the other, as its unit; i.e. in order to realize its exchange value in the other commodity; i.e. to posit the other commodity as the material of its exchange value.

Only within circulation, then, is it such a material symbol; taken out of circulation, it again becomes a realized price; but within the process, as we have seen, the quantity, the amount of these material symbols of the monetary unit is the essential attribute. Hence, while the material substance of money, its material substratum of a given quantity of gold or silver, is irrelevant within circulation, where money appears as something existing in opposition to commodities, and where, by contrast, its amount is the essential aspect, since it is there only a symbol for a given amount of this unit; in its role as measure, however, where it was introduced only ideally, its material substratum was essential, but its quantity and even its existence as such were irrelevant. From this it follows that money as gold and silver, in so far as only its role as means of exchange and circulation is concerned, can be replaced by any other symbol which expresses a given quantity of its unit, and that in this way symbolic money can replace the real, because material money as mere medium of exchange is itself symbolic.

It is these contradictory functions of money, as measure, as realization of prices and as mere medium of exchange, which explain the otherwise inexplicable phenomenon that the debasement of metallic money, of gold, silver, through admixture of inferior metals, causes a depreciation of money and a rise in prices; because in this case the measure of prices [is] no longer the cost of production of the ounce of gold, say, but rather of an ounce consisting of 2/3 copper etc. (The debasement of the coinage, in so far as it consists merely of falsifying or changing the names of the fractional weight units of the precious metal, e.g. if the eighth part of an ounce were to be called a sovereign, makes absolutely no difference in the measure and changes only its name. If, earlier, 1/4 of the ounce was called 1 sovereign, and now it is 1/8, then the price of 1 sovereign now expresses merely 1/8 of an ounce of gold; thus (about) 2 sovereigns are necessary to express the same price which was earlier expressed by 1 sovereign); or in the case of a mere falsification of the name of the fractional parts of the precious metal, the measure remains the same, but the fractional part [is] expressed in twice as many francs etc. as before; on the other hand, if the substratum of money, gold, silver, is entirely suspended and replaced by paper bearing the symbol of given quantities of real money, in the quantity required by circulation, then the paper circulates at the full gold and silver value. In the first case, because the medium of circulation is at the same time the material of money as measure, and the material in which prices are definitively realized; in the second case, because money only in its role as medium of circulation.

Example of the clumsy confusion between the contradictory functions of money: ‘Price is exactly determined by the quantity of money there is to buy it with. All the commodities in the world can fetch no more than all the money in the world.’ First, the determination of prices has nothing to do with actual sale; money, in sale, serves only as measure. Secondly, all commodities (in circulation) can fetch a thousand times more money as is in the world, if every piece of money were to circulate a thousand times. (The passage is quoted from the London Weekly Dispatch, 8 November 1857.)

Since the total sum of prices to be realized in circulation changes with the prices of the commodities and with the quantity of them thrown into circulation; and since, on the other side, the velocity of the medium of circulation is determined by circumstances independent of itself, it follows from this that the quantity of media of circulation must be capable of changing, or expanding and contracting – contraction and expansion of circulation.

In its role as mere medium of circulation, it can be said about money that it ceases to be a commodity (particular commodity), when its material is irrelevant and it meets only the needs of circulation itself, and no other direct need: gold and silver cease to be commodities as soon as they circulate as money. It can be said about it, on the other hand, that it is now merely a commodity (general commodity), the commodity in its pure form, indifferent to its natural particularity and hence indifferent to all direct needs, without natural relation to a particular need as such. The followers of the Monetary System, even partly of the protectionist system (see e.g. Ferrier, p. 2), [67] have clung only to the first aspect, while the modern economists cling to the second; e.g. Say, who says that money should be treated like a ‘particular’ commodity, a commodity like any other. [68] As medium of exchange, money appears in the role of necessary mediator between production and consumption. In the developed money system, one produces only in order to exchange, or, one produces only by exchanging. Strike out money, and one would thereby either be thrown back to a lower stage of production (corresponding to that of auxiliary barter), or one would proceed to a higher stage, in which exchange value would no longer be the principal aspect of the commodity, because social labour, whose representative it is, would no longer appear merely as socially mediated private labour.

The question whether money as medium of exchange is productive or not productive is solved just as easily. According to Adam Smith, money not productive. [69] Of course, Ferrier says e.g.: ‘It creates values, because they would not exist without it.’ One has to look not only at ‘its value as metal, but equally its property as money’. A. Smith is correct, in so far as it is not the instrument of any particular branch of production; Ferrier is right too because it is an essential aspect of the mode of production resting on exchange value that product and agency of production should be posited in the character of money, and because this characteristic presupposes a money distinct from products; and because the money relation is itself a relation of production if production is looked at in its totality.

When C–M–M–C is dissected into its two moments, although the prices of the commodities are presupposed (and this makes the major difference), circulation splits into two acts of direct barter.

C–M: the exchange value of the commodity is expressed in another particular commodity, in the material of money, like that of money in the commodity; similarly with M–C. To this extent, A. Smith is right when he says that money as medium of exchange is only a more complicated kind of barter. But when we look at the whole of the process, and not at both as equivalent acts, realization of the commodity in money and of money in the commodity, then A. Smith’s opponents are correct when they say that he misunderstood the nature of money and that monetary circulation suppresses barter; that money serves only to balance the accounts of the ‘arithmetical division’ arising from the division of labour. These ‘arithmetical figures’ no more need to be of gold and silver than do the measures of length. (See Solly, p. 20.) [70]

Commodities change from being marchandises to being denrées, they enter consumption; money as medium of circulation does not; at no point does it cease to be commodity, as long as it remains within the role of medium of circulation.

We now pass on to the third function of money; which initially results from the second form of circulation:

M–C–C–M; in which money appears not only as medium, nor as measure, but as end-in-itself, and hence steps outside circulation just like a particular commodity which ceases to circulate for the time being and changes from marchandise to denrée.

But first it must be noted that, once the quality of money as an intrinsic relation of production generally founded on exchange value is presupposed, it is possible to demonstrate that in some particular cases it does service as an instrument of production. ‘The utility of gold and silver rests on this, that they replace labour.’ (Lauderdale, p. 11.) [71] Without money, a mass of swaps would be necessary before one obtained the desired article in exchange. Furthermore, in each particular exchange one would have to undertake an investigation into the relative value of commodities. Money spares us the first task in its role as instrument of exchange (instrument of commerce); the second task, as measure of value and representative of all commodities (idem, loc. cit.). The opposite assertion, that money is not productive, amounts only to saying that, apart from the functions in which it is productive, as measure, instrument of circulation and representative of value, it is unproductive; that its quantity is productive only in so far as it is necessary to fulfil these preconditions. That it becomes not only unproductive, but faux frais de production, the moment when more of it is employed than necessary for its productive aspect – this is a truth which holds for every other instrument of production or exchange; for the machine as well as the means of transportation. But if by this it is meant that money exchanges only real wealth which already exists, then this is false, since labour, as well, is exchanged for it and bought with it, i.e. productive activity itself, potential wealth.

The third attribute of money, in its complete development, presupposes the first two and constitutes their unity. Money, then, has an independent existence outside circulation; it has stepped outside it. As a particular commodity it can be transformed out of its form of money into that of luxury articles, gold and silver jewellery (as long as craftsmanship is still very simple, as e.g. in the old English period, a constant transformation of silver money into plate and vice versa. See Taylor) [72] ; or, as money, it can be accumulated to form a treasure. When money in its independent existence is derived from circulation, it appears in itself as a result of circulation; by way of circulation, it closes the circle with itself. This aspect already latently contains its quality as capital. It is negated only as medium of exchange. Still, since it can be historically posited as measure before it appears as medium of exchange, and can appear as medium of exchange before it is posited as measure – in the latter case it would exist merely as preferred commodity – it can therefore also appear historically in the third function before it is posited in the two prior ones. But gold and silver can be accumulated as money only if they are already present in one of the other two roles, and it can appear in a developed form of the third role only if the two earlier ones are already developed. Otherwise, accumulating it is nothing more than the accumulation of gold and silver, not of money.

(As an especially interesting example, go into the accumulation of copper money in the earlier periods of the Roman republic.)

Since money as universal material representative of wealth emerges from circulation, and is as such itself a product of circulation, both of exchange at a higher potentiality, and a particular form of exchange, it stands therefore in the third function, as well, in connection with circulation; it stands independent of circulation, but this independence is only its own process. It derives from it just as it returns to it again. Cut off from all relation to it, it would not be money, but merely a simple natural object, gold or silver. In this character it is just as much its precondition as its result. Its independence is not the end of all relatedness to circulation, but rather a negative relation to it. This comes from its independence as a result of M–C–C–M. In the case of money as capital, money itself is posited (1) as precondition of circulation as well as its result; (2) as having independence only in the form of a negative relation, but always a relation to circulation; (3) as itself an instrument of production, since circulation no longer appears in its primitive simplicity, as quantitative exchange, but as a process of production, as a real metabolism. And thus money is itself stamped as a particular moment of this process of production. Production is not only concerned with simple determination of prices, i.e. with translation of the exchange values of commodities into a common unit, but with the creation of exchange values, hence also with the creation of the particularity of prices. Not merely with positing the form, but also the content. Therefore, while in simple circulation, money appears generally as productive, since circulation in general is itself a moment of the system of production, nevertheless this quality still only exists for us, and is not yet posited in money. (4) As capital, money thus also appears posited as a relation to itself mediated by circulation – in the relation of interest and capital. But here we are not as yet concerned with these aspects; rather, we have to look simply at money in the third role, in the form in which it emerged as something independent from circulation, more properly, from both its earlier aspects.

(‘An increase of money only an increase in the means of counting.’ Sismondi. [73] This correct only in so far as defined as mere medium of exchange. In the other property it is also an increase in the means of paying.)

‘Commerce separated the shadow from the body, and introduced the possibility of owning them separately.’ (Sismondi.) [74] Thus, money is now exchange value become independent (it never puts in more than a fleeting appearance as such, as medium of exchange) in its general form. It possesses, it is true, a particular body or substance, gold and silver, and precisely this gives it its independence; for what only exists as an aspect or relation of something else is not independent. On the other side, with this bodily independence, as gold and silver, it represents not only the exchange value of one commodity as against another, but rather exchange value as against all commodities; and although it possesses a substance of its own, it appears at the same time, in its particular existence as gold and silver, as the general exchange value of all commodities. On one side, it is possessed as their exchange value; they stand on the other side as only so many particular substances of exchange value, so that it can either transform itself into every one of these substances through exchange, or it can remain indifferent to them, aloof from their particularity and peculiarity. They are therefore merely accidental existences. It is the ‘précis de toutes les choses’, [75] in which their particular character is erased; it is general wealth in the form of a concise compendium, as opposed to its diffusion and fragmentation in the world of commodities. While wealth in the form of the particular commodity appears as one of the moments of the same, or the commodity as one of the moments of wealth; in the form of gold and silver general wealth itself appears as concentrated in a particular substance. Every particular commodity, in so far as it is exchange value, has a price, expresses a certain quantity of money in a merely imperfect form, since it has to be thrown into circulation in order to be realized, and since it remains a matter of chance, due to its particularity, whether or not it is realized. However, in so far as it is realized not as price, but in its natural property, it is a moment of wealth by way of its relation to a particular need which it satisfies; and, in this relation, [it] expresses (1) only the wealth of uses [Gebrauchsreichtum], (2) only a quite particular facet of this wealth. Money, by contrast, apart from its particular usefulness as a valuable commodity, is (1) the realized price; (2) satisfies every need, in so far as it can be exchanged for the desired object of every need, regardless of any particularity. The commodity possesses this property only through the mediation of money. Money possesses it directly in relation to all commodities, hence in relation to the whole world of wealth, to wealth as such. With money, general wealth is not only a form, but at the same time the content itself. The concept of wealth, so to speak, is realized, individualized in a particular object.