As Marx pointed out, what enabled these tokens to do this had nothing to do with their own material value, but was solely determined by the quantity of them in circulation, as representatives of a given amount of money/social labour-time.
“How many reams of paper cut into fragments can circulate as money? In this form the question is absurd. Worthless tokens become tokens of value only when they represent gold within the process of circulation, and they can represent it only to the amount of gold which would circulate as coin, an amount which depends on the value of gold if the exchange-value of the commodities and the velocity of their metamorphoses are given.” (p 118)
But, the gold itself, as money commodity, only evolves as proxy for universal labour/social labour-time, so, if the link to gold disappears, this could be written as,
“Worthless tokens become tokens of value only when they represent universal labour/social labour-time within the process of circulation.”
Berkeley also recognised this fact.
““Whether the denominations being retained, although the bullion were gone ... might not nevertheless ... a circulation of commerce (be) maintained?"” (Note **, p 118)
In fact, the references to gold, silver or other money commodities, in this respect, only arises as an ephemeral, historic proxy for it, during a specific period. Indeed, the fact that the money commodity has taken such disparate forms as cattle, silver and gold illustrates this point that there is nothing specific or magical about any of them, including gold, as the form of money. And, Marx further illustrates this point.
He first sets out that, where gold is the money commodity, and so money tokens first take the form of gold coins, then the quantity of these gold coins, in circulation, is determined by the laws previously set out. If the total of the coins amounts to, say, £14 million, then this is the total value of commodities to be circulated, divided by the velocity of circulation. Each £1 coin represents an aliquot portion of that total value/social labour-time. If we ask how many £1 notes should be put into circulation, then its clear that it is also this 14 million. However, if, instead, £5 notes are put into circulation, then, only 2.8 million are required, and if £10 notes are used, only 1.4 million. In the case of £5 notes, each represents five times as many gold coins/social labour-time as a £1 note, and for a £10 note, ten times as much.
“and if all payments were to be transacted in shilling notes, then twenty times more shilling notes than pound notes would have to circulate.” (p 118)
No comments:
Post a Comment