The value of products cannot be a consequence of products becoming commodities, and thereby of the exchange relation between these commodities being manifest, as exchange-value. It is only possible to determine the exchange-value, the proportional relation between one commodity and another on the basis of the amount of value that each commodity/product has. Exchange-value is a derivative of value not vice versa.
Marx also criticises the way Bailey uses different phrases to describe the same theory, but by which means Bailey introduces false conceptions.
“If “power” is to be regarded as something different from “relation”, then one ought not to say that “power of exchanging” is “merely the relation”, etc. If it is meant to be the same thing, then it is confusing to describe the same thing with two different expressions which have nothing in common with each other. The relation of a thing to another is a relation of the two things and cannot be said to belong to either. Power of a thing, on the contrary, is something intrinsic to the thing, although this, its intrinsic quality, may only manifest itself in its relation to other things. For instance, power of attraction is a power of the thing itself although that power is “latent” so long as there are no things to attract. Here an attempt is made to represent the value of the “object” as something intrinsic to it, and yet as something merely existing as a “relation”. That is why Bailey uses first the word “power” and then the word “relation”.” (p 141)
Again, it's clear from Marx's further comments, here, that what he is referring to is exchange-value rather than value. The value of a product is intrinsic to it, and, as Marx said earlier, it is “the quantity of labour embodied in a commodity (that) constitutes the immanent measure of the magnitude of its value, of the differences in the amount of its value, only because labour is the factor the different commodities have in common, which constitutes their uniformity, their substance, the intrinsic foundation of their value.” (p 138) It is not "intrinsic" in the way that the neoclassical economists believe, on the basis of commodity fetishism, as some quality of the product, derived from its use value, but is intrinsic to it, as a product of labour. It is intrinsic in the sense that, as individual value, it is independent of any external relations, and not contingent on them. The value of a product is indeed “latent”, and only becomes manifest when the product becomes a commodity. The value of the commodity does act as a power, which acts thereby to attract commodities of equal value, in exchange. This is clear from Marx’s further comment.
“Accurately expressed it would read as follows:
“If the value of an object is the relation in which it exchanges with other objects, value denotes, consequently” (viz., in consequence of the “if”), “nothing but the relation in which two objects stand to each other as exchangeable objects.”” (p 141)
Here, Marx uses the term “value”, whilst clearly describing exchange-value, and the consequence of such an equation of the two terms, Marx then demonstrates, is to reduce the term “value” to nothing, because it means that value then can only be expressed in this relative sense, as an amount of some other commodity.
“For example, 1 lb. of coffee=4 lbs. of cotton. What then is the value of 1 lb. of coffee? 4 lbs. of cotton. And of 4 lbs. of cotton? 1 lb. of coffee, Since the value of 1 lb. of coffee is 4 lbs. of cotton, and, on the other hand, the value of 4 lbs. of cotton is 1 lb. of coffee, then it is clear that the value of 1 lb. of coffee is 1 lb. of coffee (since 4 lbs. of cotton=1 lb. of coffee), a=b, b=a, hence a=a. What arises from this explanation is, therefore, that the value of a use-value is equal to a [certain] quantity of the same use-value.” (p 141)
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