Nonetheless the section on the value-form is both singularly peculiar and generally overlooked. That this is so can be seen from a recent book on the empirical workings of the UK banking system. In a chapter on the history of monetary theory we read Marx listed alongside the classical economists Ricardo and Mill, who viewed money as merely a veil over commodity exchange.
In A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, Marx explicitly warns us against seeing money as a mere technical instrument, cunningly devised to work around certain inconveniences which arise in the process of direct barter. Money is, of course, on Marx's account, a commodity. And it would seem to make sense to say that it does arise from more basic forms of the exchange relationship. It is not money as such, after all, that makes commodities exchangeable with one another, but their quality of being the products of human labour in the abstract.
But to express this quality of being the products of universal labour, their must be a 'form' appropriate to the 'content' of value. This form is the value-form.
The value-form is, in essence, the relationship between one commodity and another. The first chapter of Capital begins with the relationships between commodities, which are related to one another as equivalents. It finds lying behind this character of equivalence, their circumstance of being the products of abstract labour. But the form in which this initially presented itself now requires analysis.
The general development of the value-form is tripartite. We begin with the simple relationship of commodity to commodity. Then this expands, revealing an endless world of commodity relationships. Finally all commodities relate to one commodity in particular as the general equivalent. When a precious metal, in particular gold, is established as the general equivalent, we have the money form, which is in essence no different from the general form. The latter develops from the expanded form, which in it's essence is merely the multiplication of the simple form.
The analysis of the simple form of value is therefore the most important and difficult part.
We begin with a simple equation, x linen = y coats.
The first thing that is done is to separate the expression into two 'poles', the relative and equivalent forms. These poles have the character of being both inseparable and mutually exclusive. They mutually condition one another, linen can only take the relative form because coats, on the other hand, take the equivalent form and vice versa. But precisely because linen takes the relative position, it cannot function as equivalent.
We should be familiar with the general conception of a relationship of two sides, in which both are inseparable and mutually condition one another, yet also exclude each other. It is the general character of the relationship between wage-labour and capital. Capital can only function as such because it finds labour-power on the market as a commodity, and the labourer is only a wage-labourer because they have been separated from the objective conditions of realising their activity, and are confronted by the latter in the form of capital.
The mutually excluding aspect of the relationship may seem somewhat arbitrary in the simple value-form. We can just as easily flip the equation and express the value of coats in the value of linen. This constitutes a general defect of this form of value.
The commodity, as a use-value, is the physical existence of the commodity, it's body. The commodity can only express itself as a value in the body of another commodity. A commodity is the contradictory unity of use-value and value. We see that this is further developed in the form of value, in the separation into relative and equivalent poles. The relative form is the body of the commodity, which expresses it's value in terms of an equivalent. The equivalent is the other, in which value must be expressed.
Marx develops four pecularities of the equivalent form. These are (1) that a concrete use-value becomes the form of appearance of value (2) that concrete labour becomes the form of appearance of abstract labour (3) that private labour becomes the form of appearance of directly social labour (4) that the fetishism of commodities reaches a new height in the equivalent form.
Here we will briefly note the similarities between this part of the analysis, and the philosophy of Hegel. In Hegel's philosophy, particulars have no existence, no reality as such, except as incarnations of the absolute. What is rational is real, and what is real is rational. Similarly, in positing a particular thing as equivalent to another in exchange, this particular thing becomes the form of appearance of value. The result of a concrete labour process becomes the form in which the commodity reveals itself as the product of human labour in the abstract.
This suggests in a preliminary way the unique power of the dialectic in understanding the laws of motion of bourgeois society.
Previously we noted that in the simple form of value, the exclusiveness of the two sides can seem somewhat arbitrary, since it is just as easy to subjectively consider things the other way around. This expression of value is also limited in that it only embraces two particular commodities. These difficulties force us to move from the simple to the expanded form.
The expanded form is essentially what it says, an expansion of the simple form. Whereas before we merely had two commodities, now we have an endless wealth of commodity relationships, each expressing their value in terms of all the others. This prompts a comparison with the Hegelian notion of a 'bad infinity', a merely endless repetition of a finite series. In contrast to this, real infinity "consists in being at home with itself in its other, or, if enunciated as a process, in coming to itself in its other." (Encyclopaedia Logic, Being)
In contrast to the bad infinity of the expanded form, the general form of value is the real infinity of the world of commodities. The whole world of commodities finds the adequate expression of their values in an other, a commodity excluded from the rest and standing apart from them. The precise nature of this commodity makes no odds, at a certain point in history it appears that cattle performed this function for example. The precious metals however, with their qualities of uniformity and infinite divisibility, in general prove the most adequate substance, hence the money-form.
Since the money-form is only established at first in the fact that all commodities measure their value in terms of money, the first determination to be examined is money as a measure of value. But this ideal determination also implies the possibility of actual exchange, and the function of money as a means of circulation. Finally as the unity of these two moments, we have the fully developed concept of money as universal wealth.
The section on money introduces for the first time, the possibility, though no more than the possibility, of crises. We have seen that money is merely a development from the nature of the commodity itself, as the contradictory unity of use-value and value. Hence, the possibility of crises actually derives itself from the commodity as such, the cell-form of bourgeois society.
"This inversion (Verkehrung) by which the sensibly-concrete counts only as the form of appearance of the abstractly general and not, on the contrary, the abstractly general as property of the concrete, characterises the expression of value. At the same time, it makes understanding it difficult. If I say: Roman Law and German Law are both laws, that is obvious. But if I say: Law (Das Recht), this abstraction (Abstraktum) realises itself in Roman Law and in German Law, in these concrete laws, the interconnection becoming mystical." (The Value-Form)
This suggests in a preliminary way the unique power of the dialectic in understanding the laws of motion of bourgeois society.
Previously we noted that in the simple form of value, the exclusiveness of the two sides can seem somewhat arbitrary, since it is just as easy to subjectively consider things the other way around. This expression of value is also limited in that it only embraces two particular commodities. These difficulties force us to move from the simple to the expanded form.
The expanded form is essentially what it says, an expansion of the simple form. Whereas before we merely had two commodities, now we have an endless wealth of commodity relationships, each expressing their value in terms of all the others. This prompts a comparison with the Hegelian notion of a 'bad infinity', a merely endless repetition of a finite series. In contrast to this, real infinity "consists in being at home with itself in its other, or, if enunciated as a process, in coming to itself in its other." (Encyclopaedia Logic, Being)
In contrast to the bad infinity of the expanded form, the general form of value is the real infinity of the world of commodities. The whole world of commodities finds the adequate expression of their values in an other, a commodity excluded from the rest and standing apart from them. The precise nature of this commodity makes no odds, at a certain point in history it appears that cattle performed this function for example. The precious metals however, with their qualities of uniformity and infinite divisibility, in general prove the most adequate substance, hence the money-form.
Since the money-form is only established at first in the fact that all commodities measure their value in terms of money, the first determination to be examined is money as a measure of value. But this ideal determination also implies the possibility of actual exchange, and the function of money as a means of circulation. Finally as the unity of these two moments, we have the fully developed concept of money as universal wealth.
The section on money introduces for the first time, the possibility, though no more than the possibility, of crises. We have seen that money is merely a development from the nature of the commodity itself, as the contradictory unity of use-value and value. Hence, the possibility of crises actually derives itself from the commodity as such, the cell-form of bourgeois society.
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