As soon as there is war and one man has taken away something from another, then money cannot always represent labour; the money received by the soldier for the booty he has sold, as well as the money got by his superior, is by no means the produce of their work and has quite a different meaning from the money received for the labour resulting in boots. When there are slave-owners and slaves, as have been always in the world, then one cannot assert that money represents labour. The women have woven a quantity of linen, have sold it and received money; the serfs have woven some linen for their master, and the master has sold it and received money. The one and the other money are the same; but one is the product of labour and the other is the product of violence. Likewise, if somebody,--say my father,--made me a present of money and he, when giving it to me, knew, and I knew and everybody knew, that no one can take this money away from me, that if anybody tried to take it, or even merely failed to return it at the date promised, then the authorities would defend me and by force compel the man to return me this money,--then again it is evident that by no means can this money be called a representative of labour, like the money which Semion got for cutting wood. Thus in a community, where by some kind of violence somebody's money is taken possession of, or the ownership of somebody's money defended against others--there money cannot always represent labour. It represents in such a community sometimes labour, sometimes violence. So it would be if only one fact of violence of one man over another appeared in the midst of perfectly free relations; but now, when the accumulated money has passed through centuries of most various forms of violence, when these acts of violence continue under other forms; when money itself by its accumulation creates violence,--which is recognized by everybody,--when the direct products of labour constitute only a small part of money made up of all sorts of violence,--to assert now that money represents the work of its owner is an obvious error, or an open lie. One may say it ought to be so, one may say it is desirable that it should be so, but by no means can any one say that it is so. Money represents labour. Yes; money represents labour, but whose labour? In our society it is only in the rarest cases that money represents the work of its owner. Almost always it represents the labour of other men,--the past or future labours of men. It is the representative of a claim on the labour of other men by force of violence.