[Marx wrote the Excerpts during the spring and summer of 1844. In them he writes that money, wage-labour, credit and banking are all forms of human alienation. They transform man from a real, living individual into an abstract caricature of his true self. The system of exchange is social intercourse not between men but between men as things of value, that is, an alienated form of social intercourse. Finally, Marx expounds his positive ideas on labour as the free expression of human nature, based on love and mutual affirmation.
*
Marx’s manuscript begins with eighty-four quotations of varying length from James Mill’s book. Following the procedure of the editors of the Werke from which this translation was made, these quotations have been omitted. It may be helpful to point out, however, that the two quotations immediately preceding the text deal with the determination of the value of money by the value of metal and of the value of metal by the costs of production. As in the Werke, the quotations before the section on exchange on the basis of private property have been retained. Marx’s quotations were partly a summary, partly a translation from the French version of Mill’s book. The original text as found in the edition of 1826 has been restored. The Roman numerals refer to the pagination of the manuscript. It will be observed that pp. XXV and XXXIII occur twice.]
[xxv] Both on the question of the relations of money to the value of metal and in his demonstration that the cost of production is the sole factor in the determination of value Mill succumbs to the error, made by the entire Ricardo school, of defining an abstract law without mentioning the fluctuations or the continual suspension through which it comes into being. If e.g. it is an invariable law that in the last analysis – or rather in the sporadic (accidental)1 coincidence of supply and demand – the cost of production determines price (value),2 then it is no less an invariable law that these relations do not obtain, i.e. that value and the cost of production do not stand in any necessary relation. Indeed, supply and demand only ever coincide momentarily thanks to a previous fluctuation in supply and demand, to the disparity between the cost of production and the exchange value. And in like fashion, the momentary coincidence is succeeded by the same fluctuations and the same disparity. This is the real movement, then, and the above-mentioned law is no more than an abstract, contingent and one-sided moment in it. Yet recent economists dismiss it as accident, as inessential. Why? Because if the economists were to attempt to fix this movement in the sharp and precise terms to which they reduce the whole of economics this would produce the following basic formula: laws in economics are determined by their opposite, lawlessness. The true law of economics is chance, and we learned people arbitrarily seize on a few moments and establish them as laws.
Mill aptly sums up the whole essence of the matter in a single concept when he describes money as the medium of exchange. The nature of money is not, in the first instance, that property is externalized within it, but that the mediating function or movement, human, social activity, by means of which the products of man mutually complement each other, is estranged and becomes the property of a material thing external to man, viz. money. If a man himself alienates this mediating function he remains active only as a lost, dehumanized creature. The relation between things, human dealings with them, become the operations of a being beyond and above man. Through this alien mediator man gazes at his will, his activity, his relation to others as at a power independent of them and of himself – instead of man himself being the mediator for man. His slavery thus reaches a climax. It is obvious that this mediator must become a veritable God since the mediator is the real power over that with which he mediates me. His cult becomes an end in itself. Separated from this mediator, objects lose their worth. Thus they have value only in so far as they represent him, whereas it appeared at first that he had value only to the extent to which he represented them. This reversal of the original relationship is necessary. Hence this mediator is the lost, estranged essence of private property, private property alienated and external to itself; it is the alienated mediation of human production with human production, the alienated species-activity of man. All the qualities proper to the generation of this activity are transferred to the mediator. Thus man separated from this mediator becomes poorer as man in proportion as the mediator becomes richer.
Christ originally represents (1) man before God, (2) God for man and (3) man for man.
In the same way money originally represents (1) private property for private property; (2) society for private property; (3) private property for society.
But Christ is God alienated and man alienated. God continues to have value only in so far as he represents Christ, man continues to have value only in so far as he represents Christ. Likewise with money.
Why must private property finish up in money? Because as a social animal man must finish up in exchange [xxv] and exchange – given the premise of private property – must finish up in value. For the mediating movement of man engaged in exchange is not a social, human movement, it is no human relationship: it is the abstract relation of private property to private property, and this abstract relation is the value which acquires a real existence as value only in the form of money. Since in the process of exchange men do not relate to each other as men, things lose the meaning of personal, human property. The social relationship of private property to private property is already one in which private property is estranged from itself. Hence, money, the existence-for-itself of this relationship, represents the alienation of private property, an abstraction from its specific personal nature.
For all its ingenuity, then, the hostility of modern economics to the money system, système monétaire, cannot lead to a decisive victory. For the primitive economic superstitions of people and governments cling to tangible, palpable and visible bags of money and hold that the sole reality of wealth lies in the absolute value of the precious metals and in the possession of them. Of course, the enlightened, worldly-wise economist comes along and proves to them that money is a commodity like any other and its value, like that of any other commodity, depends on the relations between the costs of production and supply and demand (competition),3 between the costs and the quantity of competition of other commodities. However, such an economist will be confounded by the observation that the real value of things is their exchange value and that in the last analysis this resides in money, which resides in its turn in the precious metals and that consequently money is the true value of things and the most desirable thing of all. The economist’s theories in fact amount to the same thing except that his powers of abstraction enable him to perceive the existence of money behind all the commodity forms and destroy his faith in the exclusive value of its official metal existence. The existence of money in metal is only the official, visible expression of the money-soul which has percolated all the productions and movements of civil society.
The opposition of the modern economists to the money system does not go beyond the fact that they view money in its abstract and general form. They have seen through the sensuous superstition which believes that this essence exists exclusively in precious metals. They replace this crude superstition with a sophisticated one. But since both have their roots in the same idea the enlightened form of the superstition cannot finally do away with its crude sensuous counterpart, because it does not attack its essence but only a specific form of that essence. – The more abstract money is, the less natural its relationship to other commodities, the more it appears to be the product and yet also not the product of man, the less organic its mode of existence and the more it appears as the artifact of man, or, in economic terms, the greater the inverse ratio of its value as money to the exchange value or money value of the material in which it exists, the closer to the essence of money is the personal existence of money as money – and not only as the inner, implicit, concealed conversational relationships or relationship of rank between commodities. For this reason, paper money and the numerous paper representatives of money (such as bills of exchange, authorizations, I.O.U.s, etc.) are the more perfect forms of money as money and a necessary stage in the progress of the money system. In the credit system, of which banking is the most complete expression, the illusion is created that the might of the alien, material power has been broken, the state of self-estrangement abolished and man reinstated in his human relationship to man. Led astray by this illusion, the Saint Simonians regarded the development of money, bills of exchange, paper money, paper representatives of money, credit, banking, as a progressive abolition of the separation of man from things, of capital from labour, of private property from money and money from man, of the separation of man from man. Their ideal was, therefore, the organized banking system. But this abolition of estrangement [XXVI], this return of man to himself and thus to other men, is only an illusion. It is a self-estrangement, dehumanization, all the more infamous and extreme because its element is no longer a commodity, metal or paper, but the moral existence, the social existence, the very heart of man, and because under the appearance of mutual trust between men it is really the greatest distrust and a total estrangement. What constitutes the essence of credit? We disregard here the content of credit which is once again money. We disregard then the content of this trust according to which a man accords recognition to another man by advancing money to him and – at best, i.e. when he does not call in the securities, that is to say, if he is no usurer – expresses his confidence that his fellow human being is a ‘good’ man and not a scoundrel. By a ‘good’ man the creditor, like Shylock, means a ‘sufficient’ man. – Credit is conceivable in two situations and on two conditions. The two situations are: (1) a rich man extends credit to a poor man whom he regards as industrious and orderly. This kind of credit belongs to the romantic, sentimental side of economics, to its aberrations, excesses, exceptions, not to the rule. But even assuming that it is exceptional, even granting this romantic possibility it remains true that the poor man’s life, his talent and his labours serve the rich man as a guarantee that the money he has lent will be returned. This means, then, that the totality of the poor man’s social virtues, the content of his life’s activity, his very existence, represent for the rich man the repayment of his capital together with the usual interest. For the creditor the death of the poor man is the very worst thing that can happen. It means the death of his capital together with the interest. We should reflect on the immorality implicit in the evaluation of a man in terms of money, such as we find in the credit system. It is self-evident that over and above these moral guarantees the creditor also has the guarantee provided by the force of law and varying degrees of other real guarantees at his disposal. If (2) the borrower is himself not without means, then credit merely facilitates exchange, i.e. it is money raised to a completely ideal form. Credit is the economic judgement on the morality of a man. In the credit system man replaces metal or paper as the mediator of exchange. However, he does this not as a man but as the incarnation of capital and interest. Thus although it is true that the medium of exchange has migrated from its material form and returned to man it has done so only because man has been exiled from himself and transformed into material form. Money has not been transcended in man within the credit system, but man is himself transformed into money, or, in other words, money is incarnate in him. Human individuality, human morality, have become both articles of commerce and the material which money inhabits. The substance, the body clothing the spirit of money is not money, paper, but instead it is my personal existence, my flesh and blood, my social worth and status. Credit no longer actualizes money-values in actual money but in human flesh and human hearts. Thus all the advances and illogicalities within a false system turn out to be the greatest imaginable regression and at the same time they can be seen as perfidy taken to its logical conclusion. – Within the credit system credit, estranged from men, functions with all the appearance of the greatest possible recognition of man’s worth by economics. It works in the following ways: (1) The opposition between capitalist and worker, large and small capitalist, becomes even greater since credit is given only to him that hath and only the rich man can take advantage of it as a new opportunity for. accumulation. Moreover, since the entire existence of the poor man depends on the chance whim and opinion of the rich his life hangs entirely on this chance. (2) Mutual dissimulation, hypocrisy and cant reach a climax since the man in need of credit is not only defined simply by his poverty but also has to put up with the demoralizing judgement that he does not inspire confidence, that he is unworthy of recognition, that he is, in short, a social pariah and a bad man. So that in addition to his actual deprivation he has to endure this ignominy and the humiliation of having to ask the rich man for credit, [XXVII] (3) This wholly ideal existence of money means then that the counterfeiting of man must be carried out on man himself rather than on any other material, i.e. he must make counterfeit coin of himself, obtain credit by lies and underhand means, etc. Thus the credit relationship – both from the point of view of the man who needs credit and of him who gives it – becomes an object of commerce, an object of mutual deception and exploitation. This brilliantly illustrates the fact that the basis of trust in economics is mistrust: the mistrustful reflection about whether to extend credit or not; the spying-out of the secrets in the private life of the borrower; the revelation of temporary difficulties so as to embarrass a competitor by undermining his credit, etc. The whole system of bankruptcy, fictitious enterprises, etc…. In state credit systems the state is in the same position as the individual as described above… The games played with state loans show to what extent it has become a toy in the hands of businessmen, etc.
(4) The credit system achieves its consummation in banking. The creation of the bankers, the state-dominance of the bank, the concentration of wealth in these hands, this economic Areopagus of the nation, is the worthy climax of the money system. When, in the credit system, the granting of moral recognition to a man, like the placing of confidence in the state, takes the form of credit, then the mystery implicit in the lie of moral recognition, the sheer depravity of this morality, no less than the hypocrisy and egoism contained in that confidence in the state, emerges clearly and shows its true colours.
The process of exchange both of human activities in the course of production and of human products is equal to the species-activity and the species-spirit whose real, conscious and authentic existence consists in social activity and social enjoyment. Since the essence of man is the true community of man, men, by activating their own essence, produce, create this human community, this social being which is no abstract, universal power standing over against the solitary individual, but is the essence of every individual, his own activity, his own life, his own spirit, his own wealth. Therefore, this true community does not come into being as the product of reflection but it arises out of the need and the egoism of individuals, i.e. it arises directly from their own activity. The existence or non-existence of this community does not depend on man; but as long as man does not recognize himself as man, and hence give the world a human organization, this community appears in the guise of estrangement. For its subject, man, is a being estranged from himself. Men, not as abstractions, but as real, living, particular individuals are this community. As they are, so it is too. To say therefore that man is estranged from himself is identical with the statement that the society of this estranged man is the caricature of a true community, of his true species-existence, that therefore his activity is a torment to him, his own creation confronts him as an alien power, his wealth appears as poverty, the essential bond joining him to other men appears inessential, in fact separation from other men appears to be his true existence, his life appears as the sacrifice of his life, the realization of his essence appears as the de-realization of his life, his production is the production of nothing, his power over objects appears as the power of objects over him; in short, he, the lord of his creation, appears as the servant of that creation.
Now economics conceives of the community of man, or the self-activating essence of man, man’s attainment of a species-life, a truly human existence through the mutuality of men, in terms of exchange and trade. Society, according to Destutt de Tracy, is a series of reciprocal exchanges.4 It is just this process of reciprocal integration. Society, according to Adam Smith, is a commercial society. Each of its members is a merchant.5
We see then how economics establishes the estranged form of social commerce as the essential and fundamental form appropriate to the vocation of man.
[XXVIII] Economics – like the process of reality itself – begins with the relations between men as relations between private property owners. If we proceed from the premise that man is a private property owner, i.e. an exclusive owner whose exclusive ownership permits him both to preserve his personality and to distinguish himself from other men, as well as relate to them, if we assume that private property is man’s personal, distinguishing and hence essential existence – then it follows that the loss or sacrifice of that private property signifies the alienation of the man as much as of the property itself. We are concerned here only with the latter determination. If I cede my private property to another it ceases to be mine; it becomes independent of me, something outside my domain, something external [äusserlich] to me. I thus externalize, alienate [entäussern] my private property. I define it as alienated private property so far as I myself am concerned. But I only define it as something alienated in general; I renounce only my personal connection with it, I return it to the elemental powers of nature when I alienate it only from myself. It becomes estranged private property only when it ceases to be my private property, without at the same time ceasing to be private property, i.e. when it enters into the same relationship with another which it formerly had with me, in a word, when it becomes someone else’s private property. Setting aside cases where force is used, how do I ever come to alienate my private property to another? Economics provides the correct answer: from necessity, from need. The other man is also the owner of private property, but of another thing which I lack but which I neither can nor will dispense with, which I need to complete my own existence and to realize my own essence.
The bond which unites the two owners is the specific nature of the object which constitutes their private property. The longing for these two objects, i.e. the need for them, shows each owner, makes him conscious of the fact, that he stands in another essential relation to the objects than that of private property, that he is not the particular being as he imagines, but a total being and as a total being his needs stand in an inner relation to the products of the labour of others – for the felt need for a thing is the most obvious, irrefutable proof that that thing is part of my essence, that its being is for me and that its property is the property, the particular quality peculiar to my essence. Thus both owners are impelled to give up their private property. But in so doing they yet confirm private property: they give up private property within the context of private property. Thus each alienates a portion of his private property for the benefit of the other.
Hence the social nexus or social relationship between the two owners is that of mutual alienation, the relationship of alienation transposed to both sides, or alienation is the relationship of the two owners, whereas in simple private property alienation only takes place in relation to oneself, unilaterally.
Thus exchange or barter is the social species-activity, the community, social commerce and integration of man within private property, and for that reason it is the external, alienated species-activity. It appears as barter just because of this. By the same token it is the very antithesis of a social relationship.
Through the mutual alienation or estrangement of private property, private property itself comes into the category of alienated private property. For (1) it has ceased to be the produce of the labour and the exclusive, distinguishing personality of its owner, for the latter has alienated it, it has parted from its owner whose product it was and has acquired a personal significance for the new owner who has not produced it. It has lost its personal significance for its [former] owner. (2) It has been related to and equated with other private property. Its place has been taken by private property of a different nature, just as it has replaced private property of a different nature. On both sides, then, private property appears as the representative of a different kind of private property, as the equivalent of a different kind of product. Thus from both sides the relationship is such that each embodies the existence of the other, each exists as his own surrogate and as the surrogate of the other. Thus private property as such is a surrogate, an equivalent. Its immediate identity with itself has given way to a relation to another. As an equivalent its existence is no longer peculiar to it. It thus becomes a value, in fact an immediate exchange value. Its existence as value is a determination of itself diverging from its immediate nature, external to it, alienated from it, a merely relative existence, [XXIX]
The problem of defining this value more precisely, as well as showing how it becomes price, must be dealt with elsewhere.
In a situation based on exchange, labour immediately becomes wage-labour. Two factors are crucial in bringing about the supremacy of estranged labour. (1) Wage-labour and the product of the worker does not stand in any direct relation to his wants and to his vocation, but in both respects is determined by social configurations alien to the worker. (2) The man who purchases the product does not himself produce but only exchanges the produce of others. In barter, the primitive form of alienated private property, each of the owners has produced whatever his immediate needs, his bent and the available resources dictated. Hence each offers for barter only his surplus produce. Labour was indeed the immediate source of subsistence but at the same time it meant the activation of his individual existence. With the advent of barter his labour became in part a source of income. Its purpose and existence have become different. As value, exchange value, equivalent, the product is no longer produced on account of its direct personal connection with the producer. The more production is diversified, i.e. the more needs become diversified and the more the activity of the producer becomes one-sided, the more completely work falls into the category of wage-labour until, finally, no other meaning is left to it. It thus becomes wholly accidental and unimportant whether the relationship between producer and product is governed by immediate enjoyment and personal needs and whether the activity, the act of working, involves the fulfilment of his personality, the realization of his natural talents and spiritual goals.
Wage-labour consists of the following elements: (1) the estrangement of labour from its subject, the labourer, and its arbitrariness from his point of view; (2) the estrangement of labour from its object, its arbitrariness vis-à-vis the object; (3) the determination of the labourer by social needs alien to him and which act upon him with compulsive force. He must submit to this force from egoistic need, from necessity; for him the needs of society mean only the satisfaction of his personal wants while for society he is only the slave that satisfies its needs; (4) the labourer regards the maintenance of his individual existence as the aim of his activity; his actual labours serve only as a means to this end. He thus activates his life to acquire the means of life.
Thus the more developed and important is the power of society within private property, the more man is egoistic, un-social and estranged from his own essence.
Just as the reciprocal exchange of the produce of human activity appears as barter, horse-trading, so the reciprocal complementing and exchange of human activity itself appears in the form of: the division of labour. This makes man, as far as is possible, an abstract being, a lathe, etc., and transforms him into a spiritual and physical abortion.
The very unity of human labour is regarded only in terms of division because man’s social nature is realized only as its antithesis, as estrangement. With civilization the division of labour is intensified.
Within the context of the division of labour, the product, the material of private property, increasingly acquires the meaning of an equivalent. The individual no longer exchanges his surplus, so the object of his production becomes a matter of complete indifference to him. Hence he no longer exchanges his own product for something he needs. His equivalent now acquires its own existence as money, which now becomes both the immediate result of labour and the mediator of exchange. (See above.)
Money represents a total indifference both to the nature of the material, to the specific nature of private property and the personality of the owner of private property. In money the unfettered dominion of the estranged thing over man becomes manifest. The rule of the person over the person now becomes the universal rule of the thing over the person, the product over the producer. Just as the equivalent, value, contained the determination of the alienation of private property, so now we see that money is the sensuous, corporeal existence of that alienation.
[XXX] It goes without saying that economics understands this whole development only as a fact, as the deformed product of accidental needs.
The separation of labour from itself = the separation of the labourer from the capitalist = the separation, of labour and capital, which in its original form is divided into landed property and movable property… The original determination of private property is monopoly. Hence as soon as a political constitution is formed it becomes the constitution of monopoly. The perfected form of monopoly is competition. The economist sees production and consumption as separate and sees exchange or distribution as mediating between them. The separation of production and consumption, of activity and mind among different individuals and within the same individual is the separation of labour from its object and from itself as one mind. Distribution is the self-activating power of private property. The mutual separation of labour, capital and landed property, i.e. of labour from labour, capital from capital and landed property from landed property, and finally the separation of labour from wages, of capital from profits, of profits from interest, and finally of landed property from ground rent, ensures that self-estrangement becomes manifest both as self-estrangement and mutual estrangement.
‘We have next to examine the effects which take place by the attempts of government to control the increase or diminution of money, and to fix the quantity as it pleases. When it endeavours to keep the quantity of money less than it would be, if things were left in freedom, it raises the value of the metal in the coin, and renders it the interest of everybody, who can, to convert his bullion into money… He must, therefore, have recourse to private coining. This the government must, if it perseveres, prevent by punishment. On the other hand, were it the object of government to keep the quantity of money greater than it would be, if left in freedom, it would reduce the value of the metal in money, below its value in bullion, and make it the interest of everybody to melt the coins. This, also, the government would have only one expedient for preventing, namely, punishment. But the prospect of punishment will prevail over the prospect of profit, only if the profit is small.’ (pp. 138–9)
§9. ‘… if there were two individuals, one of whom owed to the other £100, and the other to him £100, instead of the first man’s taking the trouble to count down £100 to the second, and the second man’s taking the same trouble to count down £100 to the first, all they had to do was to exchange their mutual obligations. The case was the same between England and Holland… Hence the invention of bills of exchange… The use of them was recommended by a still stronger necessity, at the period of invention, because the coarse policy of those times prohibited the exportation of the precious metals, and punished with the greatest severity any infringement of that barbarous law.’ (pp. 146–8)
§10. ‘The advantage of paper money in saving on unproductive consumption.’ (pp. 150–51)
§11. ‘The inconveniences of paper money are: (1) The failure (sin)6 of the parties, by whom the notes are issued, to fulfil their engagements. (2) Forgery. (3) The alteration of the value of the currency.’ (p. 152)
§12. ‘Precious metals… are commodities. Those commodities alone can be exported, which are cheaper in the country from which, than in the country to which, they are sent;… those commodities alone can be imported, that are dearer in the country to which, than in the country from which, they are sent… Whether the precious metals should be exported or imported, depends, therefore, on their value in a particular country.’ (p. 171)
§13. ‘When we speak of the value of the precious metal, we mean the quantity of other things for which it will exchange. But it is well known that money… goes further in the purchase of commodities, not only in one country than another, but in one part than another of the same country… In common language, we say, that living is more cheap; in other words, commodities may be purchased with a smaller quantity of money.’ (p. 174)
§14. ‘The relationship between countries is like that between merchants… if left to themselves, they will always buy in the cheapest market, and sell in the dearest.’ (p. 200)
CHAPTER IV. CONSUMPTION
‘Production, distribution [and] exchange… are means. They are intermediary operations. The end is consumption.’ (p. 219)
§1. ‘Consumption is 1. productive. That production should take place, a certain expenditure is required. This includes the necessaries of the labourer… machinery, including tools of all sorts, the buildings necessary for the productive operations, and even the cattle. Lastly, the materials of which the commodity to be produced must be formed, or from which it must be derived… Of these three classes of things, it is only the second [the machinery, etc.] the consumption of which is not completed in the course of the productive operations.’ (pp. 220–21)
§2. Unproductive consumption. ‘The wages given to a groom,… all consumption which does not take place to the end that an income or revenue may be derived from it, is unproductive consumption.’ (pp. 221–2) ‘Productive consumption is itself a means; it is a means to production. Unproductive consumption, on the other hand, is not a means. This species of consumption is the end. This, or the enjoyment that is involved in it, is the good which constituted the motive to all the operations by which it was preceded.’ (p. 222) ‘By productive consumption nothing is lost… [whereas] whatever is unproductively consumed, is lost… That which is productively consumed is always capital This is a property of productive consumption, which deserves to be particularly remarked… It thus appears, that the whole of every capital undergoes the productive consumption. It is equally obvious that whatever is consumed productively becomes capital… The whole of what the productive powers of the country have brought into existence, in the course of a year, is called the gross annual produce. Of this the greater part is required to replace the capital which has been consumed… What remains of the gross produce, after replacing the capital which has been consumed, is called the net produce; and is always distributed, either as profits of stock, or as rent… This net produce is the fund, from which all addition to the national capital is commonly made… The two species of labour, productive and unproductive, may be said to correspond to the two species of consumption, productive and unproductive.’ (pp. 222–4)
§2. ‘That which is annually produced is annually consumed’, productively or unproductively. (p. 226)
§3. ‘Consumption is co-extensive with production… A man produces only because he wishes to possess. If the commodity, which he produces, is the commodity which he desires to possess, he stops when he has produced as much as he desires… When a man produces a greater quantity of any commodity than he desires for himself, it can only be on one account: namely, that he desires some other commodity which he can obtain in exchange for the surplus of what he himself has produced… If he desires one thing and produces another, it is only because the thing which he desires can be obtained by means of the thing which he produces, and better obtained, than if he had endeavoured to produce it himself. After labour has been divided and distributed… each producer confines himself to some one commodity or part of a commodity, a small portion only of what he produces is used for his own consumption. The remainder he destines for the purpose of supplying him with all the other commodities which he desires; and when each man confines himself to one commodity and exchanges what he produces for what is produced by other people, it is found that each obtains more of the several things, which he desires, than he would have obtained, had he endeavoured to produce them all for himself, [XXXI]… In the case of the man who produces for himself, there is no exchange. He neither offers to buy any thing, nor to sell any thing. He has the property; he has produced it; and does not mean to part with it. If we apply, by a sort of metaphor, the terms “demand” and “supply” to this case, it is implied… that the demand and supply are exactly proportioned to one another. As far then as regards the demand and supply of the market, we may leave that portion of the annual produce, which each of the owners consumes in the shape in which he produces or receives it, altogether out of the question.’ (pp. 228–30)
‘In speaking here of demand and supply, it is evident that we speak of aggregates. When we say of any particular nation, at any particular time, that its supply is equal to its demand, we do not mean in any one commodity, or any two commodities. We mean, that the amount of its demand, in all commodities taken together, is equal to the amount of its supply in all commodities taken together. It may very well happen, notwithstanding this equality in the general sum of demands and supplies, that some one commodity or commodities may have been produced in a quantity either above or below the demand for those particular commodities.
‘Two things are necessary to constitute a demand. These are (1) a wish for the commodity; (2) an equivalent to give for it. A demand means the will to purchase, and the means of purchasing. If either is wanting, the purchase does not take place. An equivalent is the necessary foundation of all demand. It is in vain that a man wishes for commodities, if he has nothing to give for them. The equivalent which a man brings is the instrument of demand. The extent of his demand is measured by the extent of his equivalent. The demand and the equivalent are convertible terms, and the one may be substituted for the other.
‘We have already seen that every man who produces has a wish for other commodities, than those which he has produced, to the extent of all that he brings to market. And it is evident, that whatever a man has produced, and does not wish to keep for his own consumption, is a stock which he may give in exchange for other commodities. His will, therefore, to purchase, and his means of purchasing, in other words, his demand, is exactly equal to the amount of what he has produced and does not mean to consume.’ (pp. 230–31)
With his wonted cynical sharpness and insight Mill here analyses exchange based on private property.
Man – this is the fundamental premise of private property – produces only in order to have. Having is the aim of production. Furthermore, production not only has such a useful aim; it has a selfish aim. Man produces only to have something for himself. The object of his production is the objectification of his own immediate selfish needs. Man, for himself – in a state of savage barbarism – confines his production to the limits of his immediate needs, the content of which is the immediate object he produces.
Thus in that state man produces no more than his immediate needs. The limit of his needs is the limit of his production. Hence supply and demand coincide exactly. His production is measured by his need. In this situation no exchange takes place or else, exchange reduces itself to the exchange of his labour for the produce of his labour. Such exchange is the latent form (the embryo)7 of real exchange.
As soon as exchange takes place there is a surplus production beyond the bounds of immediate possessions. This surplus production does not mean, however, any advance beyond selfish needs. It is rather a form of mediation by means of which it becomes possible to satisfy a need which does not find its objectification directly in one’s own production, but in the production of another. Production thus becomes a source of acquisition, it becomes wage-labour. Whereas in the first stage need had been the measure of production, in the second stage production, or rather the possession of produce, became the measure of the extent to which one might satisfy one’s needs.
I have produced for myself and not for you, just as you have produced for yourself and not for me. In itself the result of my production has just as little direct relation to you as the result of your production has to me. That is to say, our production is not man’s production for man as man, i.e. it is not social production. As men none of us has a claim to enjoy the product of another. As men we do not exist as far as our mutual productions are concerned. Hence our exchange cannot be the mediating movement which confirms that my product is for you [XXXII] because it is an objectification of your own nature, of your need. For our products are not united for each other by the bond of human nature. Exchange can only set in motion, it can do no more than confirm the character each of us bears in relation to his own product and hence to the product of the other. Each of us sees in his product only his own objectified self-interest, hence in the product of others the objectification of a different, alien self-interest, independent of oneself.
Naturally, as a human being you have a human relation to my product: you have need of my product. It exists for you, therefore, as an object of your desire and your will. But your need, your desire and your will are impotent as far as my product is concerned. That is to say, although your human nature necessarily implies an intimate relationship with my human production, it gives you no power, no rights of possession, over that production, since in my production the specific character and the power of human nature are not recognized. The latter are rather the bond which makes you dependent upon me because they place you in a position of dependence on my product. Far from their being the means giving you power over my production, they are rather the means whereby I acquire power over you.
When I produce more of a thing than I can use myself, then my surplus production is calculated and adapted to your need. I produce a surplus of the object only in appearance. In reality I produce a different object, the object of your production which I intend to exchange for your surplus, an exchange which I have already accomplished in my mind. Thus the social relation I bear to you, the labour I perform to satisfy your need, is likewise merely an appearance and our mutual supplementing of each other is equally but an appearance, based on our mutual plundering of each other. The intention to plunder, to deceive, inevitably lurks in the background, for, since our exchange is self-interested on your side as well as on mine, and since every self-interested person seeks to outdo the other, we must necessarily strive to deceive each other. Of course, in order for the power which I confer upon my own possession at the expense of yours to become a real power, it must be acknowledged by you. But our mutual recognition of the mutual power of our possessions is a struggle and the victory in the struggle goes to the man who has the greater energy, strength, insight or agility. If my physical strength is great enough, I will plunder you directly. If the realm of physical force has been neutralized then we each attempt to delude the other and the shrewdest will get the better of the bargain. Which of the two gets the better bargain is a matter of indifference as far as the total relationship is concerned. On both sides we see the ideal, intended superiority, i.e. in his own judgement each has got the better of the other.
On both sides, then, the exchange is mediated necessarily by the objects of mutual production and mutual possession. It is true of course that the ideal relation to the mutual objects of our production should be given by our mutual needs. But in practice the actual real and true relation is the mutually exclusive possession of our mutual production. The thing that gives your need for my possessions a value, a worth and an effect in my eyes is simply and solely your possession, the equivalent of my possession. Our mutual product, therefore, is the means, the mediator, the instrument, the acknowledged power, of our mutual needs over each other. Your demand and your equivalent possessions are synonymous, convertible terms for me, and your demand has an effective meaning only if it has a meaning and an effect upon me. In the absence of this, you are merely a human being and your demand is no more than an ungratified desire on your part, a nonexistent idea as far as I am concerned. As a human being, then, you have no relation to my product because I myself have no human relation to it. But the means is the true power over an object and hence we each regard our own products as the power each has over the other and over himself, i.e. our own product has stood up on its hind legs against us: it had seemed to be our property, but in reality we are its property. We find ourselves excluded from true property because our property excludes other human beings.
The only comprehensible language we have is the language our possessions use together. We would not understand a human language and it would remain ineffectual. From the one side, such a language would be felt to be begging, imploring and hence humiliating, [XXXIII] It could be used only with feelings of shame or debasement. From the other side, it would be received as impertinence or insanity and so rejected. We are so estranged from our human essence that the direct language of man strikes us as an offence against the dignity of man, whereas the estranged language of objective values appears as the justified, self-confident and self-acknowledged dignity of man incarnate.
Of course, in your eyes your product is an instrument, a means whereby to obtain possession of my product and hence to gratify your needs. But in my eyes it is the end of our exchange. It is you who serve as the means, the instrument, in the production of this object which is my goal, just as in this relation to my object you are the reverse of my goal. But (1) each of us really does act out the role in which the other casts him. You really have turned yourself into the means, the instrument, the producer of your own object so as to gain possession of mine. (2) Your own object is merely the sensuous husk, the hidden form of my object. For its production signifies expressly: the acquisition of my object. Thus you have really become a means, an instrument of your object even for yourself; your desire is its slave and you have performed menial tasks so that the object need never again become the fulfilment of your desire. If our mutual servitude to the object really appears at the beginning of the development as the relation of dominance and slavery this is no more than the brutal and frank expression of our essential relationship.
Our mutual value, then, is the value of our mutual objects. For us, therefore, man himself is worthless.
Let us suppose that we had produced as human beings. In that event each of us would have doubly affirmed himself and his neighbour in his production. (1) In my production I would have objectified the specific character of my individuality and for that reason I would both have enjoyed the expression of my own individual life during my activity and also, in contemplating the object, I would experience an individual pleasure, I would experience my personality as an objective sensuously perceptible power beyond all shadow of doubt. (2) In your use or enjoyment of my product I would have the immediate satisfaction and knowledge that in my labour I had gratified a human need, i.e. that I had objectified human nature and hence had procured an object corresponding to the needs of another human being. (3) I would have acted for you as the mediator between you and the species, thus I would be acknowledged by you as the complement of your own being, as an essential part of yourself. I would thus know myself to be confirmed both in your thoughts and your love. (4) In the individual expression of my own life I would have brought about the immediate expression of your life, and so in my individual activity I would have directly confirmed and realized my authentic nature, my human, communal nature.
Our productions would be as many mirrors from which our natures would shine forth.
This relation would be mutual: what applies to me would also apply to you:
My labour would be the free expression and hence the enjoyment of life. In the framework of private property it is the alienation of life since I work in order to live, in order to procure for myself the means of life. My labour is not life.
Moreover, in my labour the specific character of my individuality would be affirmed because it would be my individual life. Labour would be authentic, active, property. In the framework of private property my individuality has been alienated to the point where I loathe this activity, it is torture for me. It is in fact no more than the appearance of activity and for that reason it is only a forced labour imposed on me not through an inner necessity but through an external arbitrary need.
In the object I produce my labour can only become manifest as what it is. It cannot appear to be what it is not. It therefore becomes manifest only as the objective, sensuous, perceived and hence quite indubitable expression of my self-loss and my impotence, [XXXIII]