A Contribution to the Critique of Political EconomyMarx, Karl
Philosophy
A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy
Marx, Karl
Economics; Marxian economics
We have seen that the process of circulation of commodities comes to
a completion in C―C, appearing as mere barter carried on by means of
money; further, that C―M―C represents in general not only two isolated
processes, but their dynamic union as well; but to draw from that the
conclusion that purchase and sale form an indivisible unit, is a mode
of thinking the criticism of which belongs to the domain of logic,
and not to that of economics. The separation of purchase and sale in
the process of exchange destroys all local, primitive, patriarchal
and naively genial barriers to interchange of matter in society. It
is, moreover, the general form of the separation of the points of
coincidence and opposition in this interchange, carrying within it the
possibility of commercial crises, because the antagonism of commodity
and money is the abstract and general form of all antagonisms with
which the capitalistic system of labor is pregnant. Hence, circulation
of money is possible without crises, but crises can not occur without
money circulation. In other words, where labor based on the system of
private exchange has not reached the stage marked by the existence
of money, it is less capable of producing those phenomena which
presuppose the full development of the capitalistic mode of production.
Bearing this in mind we can appreciate the depth of the criticism
which proposes to do away with the “shortcomings” of capitalistic
production by abolishing the “privilege” enjoyed by the precious metals
and introducing a so-called “rational monetary system.” As a sample
of economic defence of an opposite character may serve the following
piece of reasoning which has been proclaimed exceedingly keen. JAMES
MILL, the father of the well-known English economist, John Stuart Mill,
says: “Whatever ... be the amount of the annual produce, it never can
exceed the amount of the annual demand.... Of two men who perform an
exchange, the one does not come with only a supply, the other with only
a demand; each of them comes with both a demand and a supply.... The
supply which he brings is the instrument of his demand; and his demand
and supply are of course exactly equal to one another. It is therefore,
impossible that there should ever be in any country a commodity or
commodities in quantity greater than the demand, without there being,
to an equal amount, some other commodity or commodities in quantity
less than the demand.”[70]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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