第57章 MONEY OR SIMPLE CIRCULATION(38)

As money develops into international money,so the commodity-owner becomes a cosmopolitan.The cosmopolitan relations of men to one another originally comprise only their relations as commodity-owners.Commodities as such are indifferent to all religious,political,national and linguistic barriers.

Their universal language is price and their common bond is money.But together with the development of international money as against national coins,there develops the commodity-owner's cosmopolitanism,a cult of practical reason,in opposition to the traditional religious,national and other prejudices which impede the metabolic process of mankind.The commodity-owner realises that nationality "is but the guinea's stamp",since the same amount of gold that arrives in England in the shape of American eagles is turned into sovereigns,three days later circulates as napoleons in Paris and may be encountered as ducats in Venice a few weeks later.The sublime idea in which for him the whole world merges is that of a market,the world market.[9]

FOOTNOTES

[1.]Of course capital,too,is advanced in the form of money and it is possible that the money advanced is capital advanced,but this aspect does not lie within the scope of simple circulation.

[2.]Luther emphasises the distinction which exists between means of purchase and means of payment.[Note in author's copy.]

[3.]Despite Mr.Macleod's doctrinaire priggishness about definitions,he misinterprets the most elementary economic relations to such an extent that he asserts that money in general arises from its most advanced form,that is means of payment.He says inter alia that since people do not always require each other's services at the same time and to the same value,"there would remain a certain difference or amount of service due from the first to the second,and this would constitute a debt".The owner of this debt may need the services of a third person who does not immediately require his services,and "what could be more natural than for the second to transfer to the third the debt due to him from the first".The "evidence of a debt,would pass from hand to hand;...what is called a currency....when a person receives an obligation expressed by a metallic currency,he is able to command the services not only of the original debtor,but also those of the whole of the industrious community."H.D.Macleod,The Theory and Practice of Banking ,Vol.I,London,1855,Ch.I [pp.24,29].

[4.]"Money is the general commodity of contract,or that in which the majority of bargains about property,to be completed at a future time,are made."Bailey,op.cit.,p.3

[5.]Senior (op.cit.,p.221)says:"Since the value of everything changes within a certain period of time,people select as a means of payment an article whose value changes least and which retains longest a given average ability to buy things.Thus,money becomes the expression or representative of values."On the contrary,gold,silver,etc.,become general means of payment,because they have become money,that is the independent embodiment of exchange-value.It is precisely when the stability of the value of money,mentioned by Mr.Senior,is taken into account,i.e.,in periods when force of circumstances establishes money as the universal means of payment,that people become aware of variations in the value of money.Such a period was the Elizabethan age in England,when,because of the manifest depreciation of the precious metals,an Act was shepherded through Parliament by Lord Burleigh and Sir Thomas Smith to compel the universities of Oxford and Cambridge to provide for the payment of one-third of the rent of their lands in wheat and malt.

[6.]Boisguillebert ,who wishes to prevent bourgeois relations of production from being pitted against the bourgeoisie themselves,prefers to consider those forms of money in which money appears as a purely nominal or transitory phenomenon.Previously he regarded means of circulation from tbis point of view and now means of payment.He fails to notice,however,the sudden transformation of the nominal form of money into external reality,and the fact that even the purely conceptual measure of value latently contains hard cash.Boisguillebert says,wholesale trade --in which,after "the appraisal of the commodities",cxchange is accomplished without the intervention of moncy --shows that money is simply an aspect of the commodities themselves.Le detail de la France ,p.210[7.]Locke,Some Considerations on the Lowering of Interest ,pp.17,18[8.]"The accumulated money is added to the sum which,to be really in circulation and satisfy tbe possibilities of trade,departs and leaves the sphere of circulation itself."(G.R.Carli,Note on Verri,Meditazioni sulla Economia Politica ,p.192,t.XV,Custodi,I.c.)[9.]"Intercourse between nations spans the whole globe to such an extent that one may almost say all the world is but a single city in which a permanent fair comprising all commodities is held,so that by means of money all the things produced by the land,the animals and human industry can be acquired and enjoyed by any person in his own home.A wonderful invention."Montanari,Della Moneta (1683),p.40

The Precious Metals Karl Marx's A CONTRIBUTION TO THE CRITIQUE OF POLITICAL ECONOMY4.THE PRECIOUS METALS At first the process of bourgeois production takes possession of metallic currency as an existing and ready-made instrument,which,although it has been gradually reorganised,in its basic structure has nevertheless been retained.The question why gold and silver,and not other commodities,are used as the material of money lies outside the confines of the bourgeois system.We shall therefore do no more than summarise the most important aspects.