While the single commodity appeared from the standpoint of use-value as something independent, as exchange value it was regarded first of all in its relation to all other commodities. This relation was, however, merely theoretical, imaginary. It becomes real only in the process of exchange. On the other hand, a commodity is an exchange value in so far as a certain quantity of labor-time has been expended on it, and it consequently represents materialized labor-time. But of itself it is only materialized individual labor-time of a particular kind, and not universal labor-time. Therefore, it is not directly an exchange value, but must first become such. First of all, it is an embodiment of universal labor-time only in so far as it represents labor-time applied to a definite useful purpose, i.e., when it represents a use-value. This was the material condition under which alone labor-time contained in commodities was regarded as universal social labor. Thus, while a commodity can become a use-value only after it has been realized as an exchange value, it can, on the other hand, be realized as an exchange value only if it proves to be a use-value in the process of alienation.
A commodity can be alienated as a use-value only to one whom it serves as a use-value, i.e., as a means of satisfying a certain want. On the other hand, it is exchanged for another commodity, or, if we put ourselves on the side of the owner of the other commodity, it, too, can be alienated, i.e., be realized, only if brought in contact with that particular want of which it is the object. In the universal exchange of commodities as use-values the basis for their mutual relations is in their material difference as distinct objects which satisfy different wants by their specific properties. But as mere use-values, they are indifferent to each other, and are incommensurable. As use-values they can be exchanged only with reference to certain wants. They are exchangeable only as equivalents, and they are equivalents only as equal quantities of materialized labor-time, so that all regard to their natural properties as use-values and therefore to the relation of the commodities to particular wants is eliminated. On the contrary, a commodity is realized as an exchange value by replacing as an equivalent any definite quantity of any other commodity, regardless of whether it is a use-value for the owner of the other commodity or not. But to the owner of the other commodity it is a commodity only in so far as it is a use-value to him, and it becomes an exchange value to its owner only in so far as it is a commodity to that other person. Thus, the same relation appears as a proportion between commodities as magnitudes of the same denomination, but differing qualitatively; or, as an expression of their equivalence as embodiments of universal labor-time, and, at the same time, as a relation of qualitatively different objects, of use-values intended for the satisfaction of particular wants, in short, a relation in which they are distinguished as actual use-values. But this equivalence and non-equivalence mutually exclude each other. Thus we have before us not only a vicious circle of problems in which the solution of one implies that of the other, but a combination of contradicting claims, since the fulfillment of one is directly connected with that of its opposite.
The process of exchange of commodities must result both in the unfolding and in the solution of these contradictions, neither of which, however, can appear in that process in this simple way. We have only observed how commodities are mutually related to each other as use-values, i.e., how they appear as use-values within the process of exchange. The exchange-value, on the contrary, as we have considered it so far, appeared as an abstraction formed in our own minds, or—if we may so put it—in the mind of the individual owner of commodities, which lie stored in his warehouse as use-values, and weigh upon his conscience as exchange values. In the process of exchange, however, commodities must be not only use-values, but also exchange values to one another, and that should appear as their own mutual relation. The difficulty which we first encountered was that a commodity must be first alienated and delivered to its purchasers as a use-value, in order to appear as an exchange value, as materialized labor, while on the other hand its alienation as use-value implies its being an exchange value. But let us assume that this difficulty has been overcome. Suppose the commodity has divested itself of its use-value, and has thereby fulfilled the material condition of being socially useful labor, instead of a particular labor of an individual. In that case, the commodity must become an exchange value, a universal equivalent, an embodiment of universal labor-time for all other commodities in the process of exchange, and thus, leaving behind its limited role of a particular use-value, acquire the ability to be directly represented in all use-values as its equivalents. But every commodity is just such a commodity, appearing as a direct incarnation of universal labor-time by divesting itself of its particular use-value. On the other hand, however, commodities confront each other in the process of exchange as particular commodities, as the labor of private individuals embodied in particular use-values. Universal labor-time is itself an abstraction, which, as such, does not exist for commodities.
Let us examine the series of equations in which the exchange value of a commodity finds its concrete expression, e.g.:
| 1 yard of linen | = | 2 lbs. of coffee. |
| 1 yard of linen | = | ½ lb. of tea. |
| 1 yard of linen | = | 8 lbs. of bread, etc. |
These equations simply signify that equal quantities of universal social labor-time are embodied in one yard of linen, two pounds of coffee, half a pound of tea, etc. But as a matter of fact the individual labors which are represented in these particular use-values, become universal, and, in that form, also social labor, only when they are actually exchanged for one another in proportion to the labor-time contained in them. Social labor-time exists in these commodities in a latent state, so to say, and is first revealed in the process of exchange. We do not proceed from the labor of individuals as social labor, but, on the contrary, from special labor of private individuals which appears as universal social labor only by divesting itself of its original character in the process of exchange. Universal social labor is, therefore, no ready-made assumption, but a growing result. And thus we are confronted with a new difficulty, that on the one hand commodities must enter the process of exchange as embodiments of universal labor-time, while, on the other hand, this embodiment of the labor-time of individuals as social labor-time is itself a result of the process of exchange.
Every commodity becomes an exchange value by divesting itself of its use-value, or of its original nature. The commodity must therefore assume a double capacity in the process of exchange. But that second capacity of exchange value can appear only in the shape of another commodity, because only commodities confront each other in the process of exchange. How is a particular commodity to represent directly materialized universal labor-time, or—to put it differently—how is individual labor-time, which is embodied in a particular commodity to be made directly universal in character? The concrete expression of the exchange value of a commodity, i.e., of every commodity as a universal equivalent, is represented in an endless series of equations, such as:
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1 yard of
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