Money is universal social labour, and is the equivalent form of the value of all the commodities on the other side of the equation. If the total value of commodities produced and to be circulated is 1 million hours of labour, then money, the other side of the equation must also equal 1 million hours. If the money commodity is gold, and 1 gram of gold is equal to 100 hours of labour, then 10,000 grams of gold is the universal equivalent form of value of these commodities.
But, again, its obvious that, no matter how long the list of commodities that represent this side of the equation, representing the exchange-value of the money commodity, or how that list is comprised, it cannot change the value of 1 metre of linen, or 1 gram of gold etc. The metre of linen still has a value of 10 hours of labour. Again, this is vital in understanding the nature of the money commodity, money tokens, prices and inflation. Because prices are measured in quantities of the money commodity, a change in the value of that commodity will, all else being equal, cause a change in the prices of all other commodities.
“But any commodity considered as exchange-value is both the exclusive commodity which serves as the common measure of the exchange-values of all other commodities and on the other hand it is merely one commodity of the many commodities in the series in which the exchange-value of any other commodity is directly expressed.
The existing number of different types of commodities does not affect the value of a commodity.” (p 39-40)
The key to this is to reverse the equation. With The Relative Form of Value, each commodity has its value expressed indirectly as an infinite number of exchange-values, with every other commodity, or else as a single exchange-value against a quantity of all other commodities combined. But, if this equation is reversed, which is what exists with The Equivalent Form of Value, then the value of every single commodity can be expressed indirectly by its relation to just one, or a few commodities, eventually against just one money commodity, which represents The Universal Equivalent Form of Value.
In other words, taking Marx's example, we can now express the value of coffee, tea, bread and calico, individually, as a quantity of linen, which becomes the equivalent form of the value of each of these commodities, and, by the same token, of the value of all of them combined. It acts as an indirect and contingent measure of their value. Indirect, because it does not measure their value directly in terms of the labour-time required for their production, but in terms of a quantity of linen, a quantity that can only be determined by first knowing the value of the commodity and the value of linen, so that a proportional relation can be established; contingent because this proportional relation depends not only on the value of the commodity, but also the value of linen, and so changes as a result of changes in either or both.
For the same reasons, however, the exchange-value of the one commodity, the money commodity, can only be expressed as an infinite number of exchange-values against all other commodities, or else as a single exchange-value against an infinite list of all other commodities combined.
“The exchange-value of a commodity as the objective expression of universal social labour-time finds its appropriate expression of equivalence in the infinite variety of use-values.” (p 40)
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