So long as the money acts as currency, it does not act as money. It forms simply a moment in the circuit C – M – C, passing into and immediately out of my hands. Its only when its movement is halted, when I hold on to it, that it becomes money rather than currency. Now, it acts as a store of wealth, as the equivalent form of all these other use values I may obtain in exchange for it. And, as equivalent of all these other use values, it also becomes the physical embodiment of exchange-value itself. The desire to sell, in order to obtain money, and to then hoard this money, as such a store of wealth, and as the physical manifestation of that wealth, the ability to convert it, at will, into an infinite number of use values, becomes compelling.
But, such accumulations of money then mean that the money can form the start point of the circuit M – C – M, which raises the question why would anyone use money to buy commodities only to sell them, and so obtain the same amount of money they began with? If M is 1 gram of gold, it exchanges for, say, linen whose value is equal to 1 gram of gold. When the linen is sold, 1 gram of gold is similarly obtained for it. In the circuit C – M – C, the value of C – M, and M – C are identical, but the use value, for me, of the final C is greater than that of the first C, which I sell to obtain it, and that is, exactly, what makes this exchange possible. However, in M – C – M, not only do M, C and M have the same value, but the use value of the first M – 1 gram of gold – is identical to the final M.
“But if one translates M—C—M into the formula – to buy in order to sell, which means simply to exchange gold for gold with the aid of an intermediate movement, one will immediately recognise the predominant form of bourgeois production. Nevertheless, in real life people do not buy in order to sell, but they buy at a low price in order to sell at a high price.” (p 123)
This is the fundamental basis of commercial capital, which rests upon unequal exchange, as against industrial capital, which rests upon equal exchange and the creation of surplus value in production. It is also the basis of interest-bearing capital, and of landed property. It is the reason that all of these forms of property could stand on one side, as against industrial capital, in the 19th century, as described by Engels in The Condition of the Working Class.
Commercial capital, and interest-bearing capital come into existence soon after the development of money, but, as Marx describes, wherever they dominate, they are inimical to the development of industrial capital. In the case of commercial capital, the owner of money buys commodities at a price below their value, and then sells them at, or above, their value, obtaining a commercial profit from doing so. A money lending capitalist simply lends money-capital on condition of being paid back a greater sum of money at some future date.
The result is, then, that, in terms of use-value, the M at the start of this circuit is qualitatively identical to the M at the end of the circuit, but they are, however, quantitatively different, i.e. we have M – C – M`, or even just M – M`, in the case of interest bearing capital. In the process, therefore, M, which originates simply as money, out of the process of commodity exchange, is transformed into capital, and money itself becomes the object of these exchanges, precisely because it now has the potential to become capital, to become self-expanding value. Its owner no longer has to engage in labour to obtain value, but can simply appropriate value from this ownership of capital, in the form of commercial profit or interest, just as the owner of landed property appropriates value in the form of rent.
“Money and commodity in the circuit M—C—M therefore imply more advanced relations of production, and within simple circulation the circuit is merely a reflection of movement of a more complex character. Hence money as distinct from the medium of circulation must be derived from C—M—C, the immediate form of commodity circulation.” (p 123)
Gold, as measure of value/unit of account, does not have to be present to fulfil this function of money. It is only nominal gold, or nominal money. Gold, as coin, is present, but may or may not be present in the amount of money nominally represented by the coin, as a result of the coin being debased. It is only symbolic gold, or symbolic money. It is only as actual gold that it “is money, or money is real gold.” (p 124)
Gold, in this corporeal form, therefore, becomes the natural symbol of wealth, and the form in which hoards are amassed.
“It is the "epitome of all things" (Boisguillebert), the compendium of social wealth. As regards its form, it is the direct incarnation of universal labour, and as regards its content the quintessence of all concrete labour. It is universal wealth in an individual form. Functioning as a medium of circulation, gold suffered all manner of injuries, it was clipped and even reduced to a purely symbolical scrap of paper. Its golden splendour is restored when it serves as money The servant becomes the master. The mere underling becomes the god of commodities.” (p 125)
No comments:
Post a Comment