Page:Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, A - Karl Marx.djvu/263

as we know from Ricardo, by a redundant currency, i. e., by a rise of the volume of currency over the level determined by its own intrinsic value and the intrinsic value of the commodities. In the same manner, the general decline of prices of commodities is explained by the rise of the value of money above its intrinsic value in consequence of an inadequate currency. Thus, prices rise and fall periodically, because there is periodically too much or too little money in circulation. Should a rise of prices happen to coincide with a contracted currency, and a fall of prices with an expanded one, it may be asserted in spite of those facts that in consequence of a contraction or expansion of the volume of commodities in the market, which can not be proven statistically, the quantity of money in circulation has, although not absolutely, yet relatively increased or declined. We have seen that according to Ricardo these universal fluctuations must take place even with a purely metallic currency, but that they balance each other through their alternations; thus, e. g., an inadequate currency causes a fall of prices, the fall of prices leads to the export of commodities abroad, this export causes again an import of gold from abroad, which, in its turn, brings about a rise of prices; the opposite movement taking place in case of a redundant currency, when commodities are imported and money is exported. But, since in spite of these universal fluctuations of prices which are in perfect accord with Ricardo's theory of metallic currency, their acute and violent form, their crisis-form, belongs to the period of advanced credit, it is perfectly clear that the issue of bank-notes is not exactly regulated by