Written: 1867 Source: First english edition of 1887 (4th German edition changes included as indicated). Publisher: Progress Publishers, Moscow, USSR First Published: 1887 Translated: Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling — edited by Fredrick Engels Online Version: mea 1995, marxists.org 1999 Transcribed: Zodiac, Hinrich Kuhls, Allan Thurrott, Bill McDorman, Bert Schultz and Martha Gimenez (1995-1996) HTML Markup: Stephen Baird and Brian Basgen (1999) Download: MIA janitorial staff Marx's greatest work. Prefaces and Afterwords Part I: Commodities and Money Ch. 1: Commodities Ch. 2: Exchange Ch. 3: Money, or the Circulation of Commodities Part II: The Transformation of Money in Capital Ch. 4: The General Formula for Capital Ch. 5: Contradictions in the General Formula of Capital Ch. 6: The Buying and Selling of Labour-Power Part III: The Production of Absolute Surplus-Value Ch. 7: The Labour-Process and the Process of Producing Surplus-Value Ch. 8: Constant Capital and Variable Capital Ch. 9: The Rate of Surplus-Value Ch. 10: The Working-Day Ch. 11: Rate and Mass of Surplus-Value Part IV: Production of Relative Surplus Value Ch. 12: The Concept of Relative Surplus-Value Ch. 13: Co-operation Ch. 14: Division of Labour and Manufacture Ch. 15: Machinery and Modern Industry Part V: The Production of Absolute and of Relative Surplus-Value Ch. 16: Absolute and Relative Surplus-Value Ch. 17: Changes of Magnitude in the Price of Labour-Power and in Surplus-Value Ch. 18: Various Formula for the Rate of Surplus-Value Part VI: Wages Ch. 19: The Transformation of the Value (and Respective Price) of Labour-Power into Wages Ch. 20: Time-Wages Ch. 21: Piece-Wages Ch. 22: National Differences of Wages Part VII: The Accumulation of Capital Ch. 23: Simple Reproduction Ch. 24: Conversion of Surplus-Value into Capital Ch. 25: The General Law of Capitalist Accumulation Part VIII: Primitive Accumulation Ch. 26: The Secret of Primitive Accumulation Ch. 27: Expropriation of the Agricultural Population from the Land Ch. 28: Bloody Legislation against the Expropriated, from the End of the 15th Century. Forcing down of Wages by Acts of Parliament Ch. 29: Genesis of the Capitalist Farmer Ch. 30: Reaction of the Agricultural Revolution on Industry. Creation of the Home-Market for Industrial Capital Ch. 31: Genesis of the Industrial Capitalist Ch. 32: Historical Tendency of Capitalist Accumulation Ch. 33: The Modern Theory of Colonisation (full table of contents listing) Marx/Engels Internet Archive | Marxists Internet Archive Karl Marx Capital Volume One Prefaces and Afterwords l 1 867: Dedication to Wilhelm Wolff l 1 867: Preface to the First German Edition (Marx) l 1 872: Preface to the French Edition (Marx) l 1 873: Afterword to the Second German Edition (Marx) l 1 875: Afterword to the French Edition (Marx) l 1 883: Preface to the Third German Edition (Engels) l 1 886: Preface to the English Edition (Engels) l 1 890: Preface to the Fourth German Edition (Engels) l 1 867: Marx's thank you letter to Engels Capital Volume One- Index Karl Marx Capital Volume One D E D I C A T E D TO MY UNFORGETTABLE FRIEND W i l h e l m W o l f f INTREPID, FAITHFUL, NOBLE PROTAGONIST OF THE PROLETARIAT Born in Tarnau on June 21, 1809 Died in exile in Manchester on May 9, 1864 Html Markup by Stephen Baird (1999) Prefaces and Afterwords Capital Volume One- Index Karl Marx Capital Volume One Part I: Commodities and Money CHAPTER ONE: COMMODITIES Contents Section 1 - The Two Factors of a Commodity: Use-Value and Value Section 2 - The Two-fold Character of the Labour Embodied in Commodities Section 3 - The Form of Value or Exchange-Value A. Elementary or Accidental Form of Value 1. The Two Poles of the Expression of Value: Relative Form and Equivalent Form 2. The Relative Form of Value a. The Nature and Import of this Form b. Quantitative Determination of Relative Value 3. The Equivalent Form of Value 4. The Elementary Form of Value Considered as a Whole B. Total or Expanded Form of Value 1. The Expanded Relative Form of Value 2. The Particular Equivalent Form 3. Defects of the Total or Expanded Form of Value C. The General Form of Value 1. The Altered Character of the Form of Value 2. The Interdependent Development of the Relative Form of Value, and of the Equivalent Form 3. Transition from the General Form of Value to the Money-Form D. The Money-Form Section 4 - The Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret thereof SECTION 1 THE TWO FACTORS OF A COMMODITY: USE-VALUE AND VALUE (THE SUBSTANCE OF VALUE AND THE MAGNITUDE OF VALUE) The wealth of those societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails, presents itself as "an immense accumulation of commodities," [1] its unit being a single commodity. Our investigation must therefore begin with the analysis of a commodity. A commodity is, in the first place, an object outside us, a thing that by its properties satisfies human wants of some sort or another. The nature of such wants, whether, for instance, they spring from the stomach or from fancy, makes no difference. [2] Neither are we here concerned to know how the object satisfies these wants, whether directly as means of subsistence, or indirectly as means of production. Every useful thing, as iron, paper, &c., may be looked at from the two points of view of quality and quantity. It is an assemblage of many properties, and may therefore be of use in various ways. To discover the various uses of things is the work of history. [3] So also is the establishment of socially-recognized standards of measure for the quantities of these useful objects. The diversity of these measures has its origin partly in the diverse nature of the objects to be measured, partly in convention. The utility of a thing makes it a use-value. [4] But this utility is not a thing of air. Being limited by the physical properties of the commodity, it has no existence apart from that commodity. A commodity, such as iron, corn, or a diamond, is therefore, so far as it is a material thing, a use-value, something useful. This property of a commodity is independent of the amount of labour required to appropriate its useful qualities. When treating of use-value, we always assume to be dealing with definite quantities, such as dozens of watches, yards of linen, or tons of iron. The use-values of commodities furnish the material for a special study, that of the commercial knowledge of commodities. [5] Use-values become a reality only by use or consumption: they also constitute the substance of all wealth, whatever may be the social form of that wealth. In the form of society we are about to consider, they are, in addition, the material depositories of exchange-value. Exchange-value, at first sight, presents itself as a quantitative relation, as the proportion in which values in use of one sort are exchanged for those of another sort, [6] a relation constantly changing with time and place. Hence exchange-value appears to be something accidental and purely relative, and consequently an intrinsic value, i.e., an exchange-value that is inseparably connected with, inherent in commodities, seems a contradiction in terms. [7] Let us consider the matter a little more closely. A given commodity, e.g., a quarter of wheat is exchanged for x blacking, y silk, or z gold, &c. — in short, for other commodities in the most different proportions. Instead of one exchange-value, the wheat has, therefore, a great many. But since x blacking, y silk, or z gold &c., each represents the exchange-value of one quarter of wheat, x blacking, y silk, z gold, &c., must, as exchange-values, be replaceable by each other, or equal to each other. Therefore, first: the valid exchange-values of a given commodity express something equal; secondly, exchange-value, generally, is only the mode of expression, the phenomenal form, of something contained in it, yet distinguishable from it. Let us take two commodities, e.g., corn and iron. The proportions in which they are exchangeable, whatever those proportions may be, can always be represented by an equation in which a given quantity of corn is equated to some quantity of iron: e.g., 1 quarter corn = x cwt. iron. What does this equation tell us? It tells us that in two different things — in 1 quarter of corn and x cwt. of iron, there exists in equal quantities something common to both. The two things must therefore be equal to a third, which in itself is neither the one nor the other. Each of them, so far as it is exchange-value, must therefore be reducible to this third. A simple geometrical illustration will make this clear. In order to calculate and compare the areas of rectilinear figures, we decompose them into triangles. But the area of the triangle itself is expressed by something totally different from its visible figure, namely, by half the product of the base multiplied by the altitude. In the same way the exchange-values of commodities must be capable of being expressed in terms of something common to them all, of which thing they represent a greater or less quantity. This common "something" cannot be either a geometrical, a chemical, or any other natural property of commodities. Such properties claim our attention only in so far as they affect the utility of those commodities, make them use-values. But the exchange of commodities is evidently an act characterised by a total abstraction from use-value. Then one use-value is just as good as another, provided only it be present in sufficient quantity. Or, as old Barbon says, "one sort of wares are as good as another, if the values be equal. There is no difference or distinction in things of equal value.... An hundred pounds' worth of lead or iron, is of as great value as one hundred pounds' worth of silver or gold." [8] As use-values, commodities are, above all, of different qualities, but as exchange-values they are merely different quantities, and consequently do not contain an atom of use-value. If then we leave out of consideration the use-value of commodities, they have only one common property left, that of being products of labour. But even the product of labour itself has undergone a change in our hands. If we make abstraction from its use-value, we make abstraction at the same time from the material elements and shapes that make the product a use-value; we see in it no longer a table, a house, yarn, or any other useful thing. Its existence as a material thing is put out of sight. Neither can it any longer be regarded as the product of the labour of the joiner, the mason, the spinner, or of any other definite kind of productive labour. Along with the useful qualities of the products themselves, we put out of sight both the useful character of the various kinds of labour embodied in them, and the concrete forms of that labour; there is nothing left but what is common to them all; all are reduced to one and the same sort of labour, human labour in the abstract. Let us now consider the residue of each of these products; it consists of the same unsubstantial reality in each, a mere congelation of homogeneous human labour, of labour-power expended without regard to the mode of its expenditure. All that these things now tell us is, that human labour-power has been expended in their production, that human labour is embodied in them. When looked at as crystals of this social substance, common to them all, they are — Values. We have seen that when commodities are exchanged, their exchange-value manifests itself as something totally independent of their use-value. But if we abstract from their use-value, there remains their Value as defined above. Therefore, the common substance that manifests itself in the exchange-value of commodities, whenever they are exchanged, is their value. The progress of our investigation will show that exchange-value is the only form in which the value of commodities can manifest itself or be expressed. For the present, however, we have to consider the nature of value independently of this, its form. A use-value, or useful article, therefore, has value only because human labour in the abstract has been embodied or materialised in it. How, then, is the magnitude of this value to be measured? Plainly, by the quantity of the value-creating substance, the labour, contained in the article. The quantity of labour, however, is measured by its duration, and labour-time in its turn finds its standard in weeks, days, and hours. Some people might think that if the value of a commodity is determined by the quantity of labour spent on it, the more idle and unskilful the labourer, the more valuable would his commodity be, because more time would be required in its production. The labour, however, that forms the substance of value, is homogeneous human labour, expenditure of one uniform labour-power. The total labour-power of society, which is embodied in the sum total of the values of all commodities produced by that society, counts here as one homogeneous mass of human labour-power, composed though it be of innumerable individual units. Each of these units is the same as any other, so far as it has the character of the average labour-power of society, and takes effect as such; that is, so far as it requires for producing a commodity, no more time than is needed on an average, no more than is socially necessary. The labour-time socially necessary is that required to produce an article under the normal conditions of production, and with the average degree of skill and intensity prevalent at the time. The introduction of power-looms into England probably reduced by one-half the labour required to weave a given quantity of yarn into cloth. The hand-loom weavers, as a matter of fact, continued to require the same time as before; but for all that, the product of one hour of their labour represented after the change only half an hour's social labour, and consequently fell to one-half its former value. We see then that that which determines the magnitude of the value of any article is the