Abstract

An understanding of the commodity and money is necessary for an analysis of capital, so this chapter begins with the analysis of the commodity. The value of a commodity is determined by the amount of labour needed to produce it. Value takes the form of exchange-value, which is the commodity’s exchange ratio determined by its value. The most developed value-form is money, which is a thing with the power to change into any other commodity. When gold becomes money, it comes to dominate human beings. This distorted situation comes about because the labour that sustains society is carried out as private labour. In such a society, the relations between human beings take the form of relations between things, and human beings relate to each other with the mask of the bearer of those things. Along with these analyses this chapter clarifies the functions of money and discusses issues related to the quantity of money in circulation.