silver,"[1] is shown by the fitness of the physical properties of these metals for the functions of money.[2] Up to this point, however, we are acquainted only with one function of money, namely, to serve as the form of manifestation of the value of commodities, or as the material in which the magnitudes of their values are socially expressed. An adequate form of manifestation of value, a fit embodiment of abstract, undifferentiated, and therefore equal human labour, that material alone can be whose every sample exhibits the same uniform qualities. On the other hand, since the difference between the magnitudes of value is purely quantitative, the money commodity must be susceptible of merely quantitative differences, must therefore be divisible at will, and equally capable of being re-united. Gold and silver possess these properties by nature.
The use-value of the money commodity becomes twofold. In addition to its special use-value as a commodity (gold, for instance, serving to stop teeth, to form the raw material of articles of luxury, &c.), it acquires a formal use-value, originating in its specific social function.
Since all commodities are merely particular equivalents of money, the latter being their universal equivalent, they, with regard to the latter as the universal commodity, play the parts of particular commodities.[3]
We have seen that the money-form is but the reflex, thrown upon one single commodity, of the value relations between all the rest. That money is a commodity[4] is therefore a new dis-
- ↑ Karl Marx, l. c. p. 212. "I metalli … naturalmente moneta," (Galiani, "Della moneta" in Custodi's Collection: Parte Moderna t. iii.).
- ↑ For further details on this subject see in my work cited above, the chapter on "The precious metals."
- ↑ "Il danaro é la merce universale (Verri, l. c., p. 16).
- ↑ "Silver and gold themselves (which we may call by the general name of bullion), are … commodities … rising and falling in … value.… Bullion, then, may be reckoned to be of higher value where the smaller weight will purchase the greatest quantity of the product or manufacture of the countrey," &c. ("A Discourse of the General Notions of Money, Trade, and Exchange, as they stand in relations to each other," By a Merchant. Lond., 1695, p. 7.) "Silver and gold, coined or uncoined, though they are used for a measure of all other things, are no less a commodity than wine, oyl, tobacco, cloth, or stuffs." ("A Discourse concerning Trade, and that in particular of the East Indies," &c. London, 1689, p. 2.) "The stock and riches of the kingdom cannot properly be confined to money, nor ought gold and silver to be excluded from being merchandize." ("A
