From: Carrol Cox Carl Remick wrote: > > When he opens a > sample can and finds the sardines spoiled, he's informed, "Those aren't > eating sardines. They're trading sardines." >
In Europe immediately after the war, u.s. cigarettes circulated as "cash," and quite often they would still be circulating when they had become unsmokable. Carrol > Carl ^^^^ CB: I think gold was a famous money-commodity. As a commodity it had , by definition, use-value. Would that be as jewelry ? As coins and bullion bars, it couldn't function in its use-value capacity as jewelry. D. The Money-Form 20 yards of linen 1 coat 10 Ibs. of tea 40 lbs. of coffee 1 quarter of corn = 2 ounces of gold 1/2 a ton of iron x commodity A., etc. In passing from form A to form B, and from the latter to form C, the changes are fundamental. On the other hand, there is no difference between forms C and D, except that, in the latter, gold has assumed the equivalent form in the place of linen. Gold is in form D, what linen was in form C � the universal equivalent. The progress consists in this alone, that the character of direct and universal exchangeability � in other words, that the universal equivalent form � has now, by social custom, become finally identified with the substance, gold. Gold is now money with reference to all other commodities only because it was previously, with reference to them, a simple commodity. Like all other commodities, it was also capable of serving as an equivalent, either as simple equivalent in isolated exchanges, or as particular equivalent by the side of others. Gradually it began to serve, within varying limits, as universal equivalent. So soon as it monopolises this position in the expression of value for the world of commodities, it becomes the money commodity, and then, and not till then, does form D become distinct from form C, and the general form of value become changed into the money-form. The elementary expression of the relative value of a single commodity, such as linen, in terms of the commodity, such as gold, that plays the part of money, is the price-form of that commodity. The price-form of the linen is therefore 20 yards of linen = 2 ounces of gold, or, if 2 ounces of gold when coined are �2, 20 yards of linen = �2. The difficulty in forming a concept of the money-form, consists in clearly comprehending the universal equivalent form, and as a necessary corollary, the general form of value, form C. The latter is deducible from form B, the expanded form of value, the essential component element of which, we saw, is form A, 20 yards of linen = 1 coat or x commodity A = y commodity B. The simple commodity-form is therefore the germ of the money-form. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm#S3d
