There is both a qualitative and a quantitative aspect to this. Money, the universal, equivalent form of value, is universal labour-time, which must appear in embodied form, in some commodity – the money commodity – such as gold. The qualitative aspect is this fact that its basis is universal labour. But, as represented by a given commodity, it also necessarily entails a quantitative aspect. Different money commodities have different values, represent different quantities of universal labour.
“The exchange-value of the commodity exists as the embodiment of equal uniform labour-time, the value of the commodity is thus fully expressed, for to the extent that commodities are equated with gold they are equated with one another. Their golden equivalent reflects the universal character of the labour-time contained in them on the one hand, and its quantity on the other hand. The exchange-value of commodities thus expressed in the form of universal equivalence and simultaneously as the degree of this equivalence in terms of a specific commodity, that is a single equation in which commodities are compared with a specific commodity, constitutes price. Price is the converted form in which the exchange-value of commodities appears within the circulation process.” (p 66)
And, this is fundamental to understanding Marx's explanation of inflation as a monetary phenomenon. If the money commodity is silver, rather than gold, then prices will be much higher, because the value of silver is much lower than the value of gold, a much larger quantity of silver is required to represent any given quantity of universal labour than is gold. If gold is replaced by silver, then the general level of prices will rise, even though the proportional relation of the prices of commodities themselves remains unchanged. Similarly, if the money commodity is itself replaced by money tokens, then the general level of prices becomes a function of the value of these tokens. If the value of each token falls, so that it represents a smaller quantity of social labour-time, then prices will rise – inflation.
“Thus as a result of the same process through which the values of commodities are expressed in gold prices, gold is transformed into the measure of value and thence into money. If the values of all commodities were measured in silver or wheat or copper, and accordingly expressed in terms of silver, wheat or copper prices, then silver, wheat or copper would become the measure of value and consequently universal equivalents.” (p 66)
But, this process also illustrates why value must predate exchange-value, just as the product must predate the commodity, the one being transformed into the other. For there to be trade, i.e. exchange of commodities, there must exist a basis upon which commodities can be equated, and that basis is their respective values, measured in labour-time. That labour-time inevitably takes the form, initially, of specific concrete labour, the labour required to produce different use values, and value, therefore, takes the form of the individual value of the product. It is only as these products become regularly traded, and, as a result of competition, the different concrete labours become reduced to universal labour, that, also, the multitude of different individual values of products, become aggregated into an average social value, or market value, which is the basis of exchange-value.
Only then can their exchange-value, the proportional relation of one to another, and one to all, be determined. That is the precondition for exchange of commodities, for circulation, including the circulation of money, which takes the form of one single commodity, which assumes the function of indirect measure of value of all others.
“Commodities as exchange-values must be antecedent to circulation in order to appear as prices in circulation. Gold becomes the measure of value only because the exchange-value of all commodities is estimated in terms of gold. The universality of this dynamic relation, from which alone springs the capacity of gold to act as a measure, presupposes however that every single commodity is measured in terms of gold in accordance with the labour-time contained in both, so that the real measure of commodity and gold is labour itself, that is commodity and gold are as exchange-values equated by direct exchange.” (p 66)
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