1.1 Form, prevalence, systemic existence

The standpoint of Chapter 1 of Capital I is ‘the commodity’. The relatively brief Chapter 2, on the process of exchange, introduces social actors of exchange and the action of society to turn a particular commodity into the general equivalent ‘money’ (180) within a society of generalised commodity production (187). Thus Chapter 2 posits the prevalence (Dasein) of money in practice. Whereas Chapter 1 already posits the form of money, money itself (i.e., its systemic existence) is derived in Chapter 3. Notably it is systematically derived from exchange, just as the commodity and value were derived from exchange. Behind it is a notion of dissociate production, but this is implicit.⁵ It is only later that the role of value, that is money’s role in production and the full circuit of capital, will become explicit (that is in all the rest of Capital). But in order to comprehend this role, Chapter 3 is absolutely crucial.

1.2 Extroversion

Throughout Chapter 3 Marx frequently uses the term veräußerlichen for ‘to sell’, which literally means ‘to outer’ or ‘outering’. Nevertheless, the normal German term would be verkaufen (a term that he also uses; the difference is lost in the English translation). He also uses entäußeren for the same, as well as other terms with the same root of außer, especially Außdruck (expression; compare the roots außer, outer, utter). This homology is also lost in the translation.

The term ‘outer’ prepares one, of course, for an ‘inner’ or ‘immanent’. Moreover, against the background of Marx’s familiarity with Hegel’s philosophy, the terms are rather heavy; they point at ‘moments’ that can be distinguished but that inseparably belong together.

At the end of the first section of Chapter 3 of Das Kapital I Marx writes (1867G: 118; italics added): “Die Preisform schließt die Veräußerlichkeit der Waren gegen Geld und die Notwendigkeit dieser Veräußerung ein.” Fowkes translates (198) as: “The price-form therefore [?] implies both the exchangeability of commodities for money and the necessity of exchanges.” Apart from the ‘therefore’ this translation is defendable, but it completely loses the connection pointed out above. A more literal translation would be: “The price-form implies/entails the ‘extroversibility’ of commodities for money as well as the necessity of this ‘extroversion’.” But without explication this would not make sufficient sense in English.⁶

1.3 The introversive and the extroversive constituent of value

In Marx’s view money is one constituent of value (he does not use exactly this formulation). The immanent or introversive constituent of value is undifferentiated ‘abstract labour’ (Chapter 1), its extroversive (außer) constituent is money (Chapter 3); but these two inseparably belong together. Money is the necessary form of expression of value (Außdruck). That is, value has no existence without money.⁷ This is the end-result of Part One.

Another way of saying that value has no existence without money is to say that value is without exception of monetary dimension.⁸ In fact this is already the outcome of Chapter 1. Its Section 3 presents the formation of the form of money; or one could say it posits the form of extroversion (Veräußerlichung) which is the starting point for Chapter 3.⁹

Marx introduces the concept of ‘value-form’ in Chapter 1. After that the term moves to the background in the sense that it is only sporadically used. The reason is that in Chapter 3 the concept is concretised into its monetary expression. Key to this concretisation is money’s role as measure of value as well as the meaning of ‘measure’ (see §3 below).

1.4 From a simple to an enriched notion of value

Section 1 of Chapter 3 sets out the ‘function’ of money as ‘measure of values’. This may give the (false) impression of there ‘being’ value entities independently of the ‘measure’, that is independently of money. If Marx had started here from scratch and considered the measurement of a use-value in terms of money, the problem would not have arisen. In fact he considers commodities.

If my interpretation as set out in §1.3 is accepted we move from a simplified notion of value (Chapter 1) to an enriched one (that of the full Part One), each indicated with one term ‘value’ (§2.2 below). Evidently, we cannot but start Chapter 3 with the simple notion of value inherited from the previous chapters. Therefore, there might at first sight appear to be two lines of reasoning in Chapter 3: labour-time and money. Near to the opening of Chapter 3 Marx writes (188): “Money as a measure of value is the necessary form of appearance of the measure of value which is immanent in commodities, namely labour-time.” The first line of reasoning is an obvious reference back to the Chapter 1, what I call, simple–abstract ‘immanent’ or introversive notion of value with its immanent measure, namely labour-time. The other line posits that money is ‘the necessary form of appearance’ of that immanency. The commodity, and hence value, has no existence without money: “products of labour … taking the form of commodities implies their differentiation into commodities and the money commodity” (188n).

The monistic focus on the introversive notion of value in much of the Marxian economics after Marx is certainly also due to Marx’s presentation of the matter, especially his particular way of moving from simplified determinations to complex ones.¹⁰ However, because of the inseparability of the introversive and the extroversive constituents of value, monistic phrases such as ‘labour-values’, or conversely, ‘value-prices’ do not fit Marx’s theory and hence are never used in Capital.

2.1 False analogies – abstract labour and abstract timber – and the disappearance of the simplified notion of abstract labour

The (false) impression of there being value entities independently of the ‘money measure’ is reinforced by (false) analogies with other types of measurement. When we measure the length of a table with a metre stick, the table’s length exists independently of the stick.¹¹ The analogy is false because the table is fully constituted as material/substance (introversive) and form (extroversive). There is no obvious unique way to measure the length of the material of the table (i.e., the length of the timber and nails, say). Surely we can in principle measure the length of two odd pieces of freshly cut timber – in this sense we have measurables – but we cannot add those up in a unique sensible way because of their unequal shapes.

To redress the analogy: there is no obvious unique way to measure the ‘introversive substance’ of value. You cannot add up nails and timber to measure the length of a table, or at least these would be awkwardly related. The same goes for concrete labour in connection to value.

In Chapter 1, therefore, Marx takes recourse to the notion of ‘abstract labour’ as a simplified constituent of value (it would be misleading to call this even an abstract substitute measure).¹² It is most telling that after this chapter the term ‘abstract labour’ disappears, with four exceptions. In face of the Marxian discourse of the last 20 years this cannot be stressed enough.¹³

When in Chapter 1 Marx presents the commodity, he posits their being and prevalence (Dasein). In fact their existence is only grounded when he gets to their production in Parts Three to Five (though even this grounding is still a simplified one). In a different jargon: their production is presupposed (the presupposition being grounded later). Similarly, when presenting the commodity in Chapter 1 Marx presupposes the money measure that is only grounded (still simple) in Chapter 3. Abstract labour foreshadows the money measure.

Column 2 of Table 1 (p. 143) provides a schematic outline of the determinations of value. Column 1 sets out a hypothetical analogy with another realm. Several entries in the Table will be expanded upon later.

2.2 Immanent substance and immanent measure: abstract labour and method

We saw that money is the necessary expression of value: only with money do we arrive at the extroversive form of immanent substance: that is, the determinate ‘being’ of commodities. There cannot be a privileging of the one over the other (analogously: when we consider a specific table there is no point in privileging the ‘introversive’ timber and nails over the ‘extroversive’ creative act of formation of that table or vice versa; the one without the other is not-table – see Table 1 on p. 143). In other words, ‘value’ and the ‘commodity’ are not fully constituted in Chapter 1: they are merely as an initiating simplification.

Marx’s method is one of conceptual progression from simple to complex determinations. In the case at hand Chapter 1 establishes introversive notions of the commodity; at that level of the presentation the commodity has no determinate existence, but rather ‘prevalence’ (Dasein). The commodity of simple circulation is fully posited only with its extroversive notions in Chapter 3 (completing Part One).

Marx’s immanent measure of value in Chapter 1 – time of ‘abstract labour’ – is very abstract. It does not provide a measure of value in the sense that we (nowadays) usually use the term measure. Many commentators have brushed away this problem by identifying value and ‘abstract labour time’!¹⁴ ‘Abstract labour’ cannot be measured (in terms of time) with more sense than a table’s timber as abstracted from, for example, anything but its length. But for the latter this does not provide the full constitution of a table (merely substance); for the former this does not constitute value (merely substance).

I use the term ‘very abstract labour’ because in the literature on Marx, or developments from his work, the term ‘abstract labour’ has become somewhat worn out: it seems often identified with a quantitative part of concrete(!) labour: (1) producing at average conditions of production (hence, it is said, ‘necessary’); (2) for the product of which there is demand (hence, it is said, ‘necessary’); (3) that contributes to production in a particular sense, or ‘productive’ labour (hence, it is said, ‘necessary’). These issues can be announced; however, there is no way of knowing them or measuring them prior to the market. Thus abstract labour has no determinate existence. Abstract labour has a dimension of time but, paradoxically, it cannot be measured unless we assume that abstract labour equals concrete labour (thus abstract from abstract labour).

Rather, value is fully constituted only when we have money; money in the market measures ‘abstract labour’ and so determines ‘abstract labour’ so to speak; however (!), at this point the term ‘abstract labour’ is superfluous: we have value. (Of course, it may be added, ‘value’ itself is an abstraction in practice.)

The notion of very abstract labour implies that Chapter 1 does not present a ‘labour theory of value’ (a term not used by Marx) in any quantifiable sense. From this again derives the conclusion that abstract labour, a fortiori, cannot be quantitatively implanted into lower levels of abstraction (and – to repeat – Marx does not do this).

The warning regarding the Chapter 1 notions of value and labour also applies to ‘money’ within Chapter 3. It seems that for Marx a thing’s ‘being’ the measure of value (Section 1) and its being the means of circulation (Section 2), constitutes it as being money. The heading of Section 3 is: ‘Money’. It means that only in that section money becomes constituted (though simple). This gives rise to a considerable language problem (as always in systematic dialectics) of how to talk about the entity prior to it (i.e., without running into artificial language). In the first two sections of Chapter 3 Marx often uses the term ‘gold’, but frequently also ‘money’ even if money has not yet been fully constituted – merely a simplified constituent.

Of course, this problem applies to ‘capital’ in all of Capital. Each time (section, chapter, part, volume) we are further introduced into it. It is misleading to think of any early presentation as ‘truth’; it is also misleading to cite it in that way. Until the completion it is always partial (“the whole is the truth”, wrote Hegel).

3.1 Idealities

In this section I expand on the core of Chapter 3: ‘money’s measuring’. I begin with a fairly long quotation from early on in the chapter, which I take to be programmatic. It shows, first, that the value of an entity is a purely ideal form of its existence (this denies ontologically real ‘embodiment’); second, the measurement in terms of money (gold) is an ideal act: it is performed through an imaginary equalisation with money (gold); third, as a result the second performance can be established by imaginary money. I amplify on the first two issues in §3.2 and on the third in §3.3.

The price or money-form of commodities is, like their form of value generally [wie ihre Wertform überhaupt] quite distinct from their palpable and real bodily form; it is therefore a purely ideal or notional form [nur ideelle oder vorgestellte Form – ‘vorgestellte’, i.e., ‘imagined’]. Although invisible, the value of iron, linen and corn exists in these very articles [Dingen]: it is signified [vorgestellt, i.e., ‘imagined’] through their equality with gold, even though this relation with gold exists only in their heads, so to speak [ihre Gleichheit mit Gold, eine Beziehung zum Gold, die sozusagen nur in ihren Köpfen spukt, i.e., their equality with gold, a relation to gold, even though this only haunts their heads, so to speak]. The guardian of the commodities must therefore lend them his tongue, or hang a ticket on them, in order to communicate their prices to the outside world. Since the expression of the value of commodities in gold is a purely ideal act [ideelles], we may use purely imaginary [nur vorgestelltes] or ideal gold to perform this operation … In its function as measure of value, money therefore serves only in an imaginary or ideal capacity [als nur vorgestelltes oder ideelles Geld, i.e., as merely imaginary or ideal money]. (1867F: 189–90; 1867G: 110–11; emphasis added)¹⁵

3.2 Marx’s notion of ‘measurement’: ‘verwandlen’ and standardised measurement

When Marx refers to money’s measurement, he refers to an abstract genus. This is a problem for us. In everyday language and practice money is so much an (‘imagined’) concrete entity, that we tend to immediately give it the content of our particular money – the North Americans think of their dollars, many Europeans of euros, and so on. ‘Money’, however, is the abstract general of these. This is a main difficulty of Chapter 3. If this is not grasped then Marx’s distinction between measure of value and standard of price becomes a superficial one.¹⁶ Marx points this out, but not clearly enough. It is important to stress this because it underlines the conceptual progress made in Chapter 3.

Usually when we think of a measure we think of a standard. However, when Marx says ‘money measures value’ he means that it establishes the commensuration (i.e., homogenisation).¹⁷ That is to say, the value-form determination is concretised as money measure. On the other hand, the ‘taking measure’ (and ticketing) of the value of a commodity is established in terms of a standard of price. The distinction between this ‘measurement in general’ and the specific ‘taking measure’ by way of a particular standard is most important. (Marx’s terminology might seem idiosyncratic in current language. However, in Hegel’s Logic (both its versions) we have a similar usage of the term ‘measure’. In hindsight this also sheds light on Marx’s usage of ‘immanent measure’ for the Chapter 1 moment of value.)

As the measure of value it [money] serves to convert [verwandeln, transform] the values of all the manifold commodities into prices, into imaginary quantities of gold {that is, money in general}; as the standard of price it [money] … measures, on the contrary, quantities of gold by a unit quantity of gold [Goldquantum]. (1867F: 192; 1867G: 113; emphasis added)¹⁸

The second phrase, about the standard, specifies a unit (quantum) for the measurement of the quantity in the first phrase. For the second phrase we can use the analogy of (say) length measurement: as a standard of length a particular rod (named metre or yard) measures ‘entities of length’ by a unit of length (one metre or one yard). As the standard of price, some particular money (named dollar or euro) measures quantities of money (a pile of notes or coins) by a unit of price (one dollar or one euro).

For the first phrase, as already indicated (§2.1), the analogy would be false. Prior to the measurement we have ‘entities of length’ (such as tables). For the commodities, prior to the measurement, we merely have the ‘introversive substance’, which is a purely ideal or imagined introversive substance (cf. the quote in §3.1).¹⁹

The act of measurement by money (i.e., prior to the actual exchange) ideally ‘transubstantiates’ commodities into form-determined entities and hence commensurate or homogeneous (cf. the quotation from 1867F: 192 given above). This is like a miracle. But just as most Catholics that go to church every week or perhaps every day may not be very attentive any more to the miraculousness of the (ideal) transformation of bread and wine into the body of Christ, we are, when we mundanely buy our daily bread, usually not very attentive to the miraculous ideal transubstantiation as performed by the lady in the baker’s shop.

This transubstantiation in reference to the Catholic celebration is one connotation of the German term Verwandlung (and its verb verwandeln). Transformation and to transform is perhaps the preferable translation (unfortunately, it is not consistently adopted). Thus money’s measurement per-forms the value-homogeneity of commodities. Or we could also say: money turns the hopelessly abstract immanent notion of ‘abstract labour’ into extroversive form, and therewith into a potential concretum (concretum, that is when the salto mortale is completed into the metamorphosis C–M). Without this ‘measurement überhaupt’, standards of price (or standards of value) make no sense.

Thus value is, in both its constituents (introversive and extroversive), imaginary or ideality. Although it is beyond the subject of this chapter, I should add that ideality can have real effect. In this case this is – as far as I am concerned – the point. (See Murray 2000b and 2004 on subsumption.)

3.3 Imaginary measurement by imaginary money

I now turn to the third aspect of the ‘programmatic’ quotation (§3.1). If we restrict the discussion (as I have done so far) to money as measure of value, Marx goes as far as one could go in the commodity-money based monetary regime of his day (though see §4) that is, within the restriction – much emphasised by Campbell 1997 – of simple commodity circulation, namely, prior to the introduction of capital into the presentation, and hence prior to the introduction of money as finance. In hindsight it is easy (but a-historical) to criticise almost all of monetary theory prior to, say, 1973 for allotting a major role to metal in the top of the money pyramid.

If we compare the current ‘pure credit-money’ regime with a ‘pure commodity money’ regime the crucial step is not the demise of the Bretton Woods regime (the controlled international gold–dollar standard); the latter is the tail. Crucial is the (national) irredeemability of banknotes and the prevalence of ‘money of account’ at all: imaginary money (cf. Marx’s treatment of money of account in Section 3 of Chapter 3).²⁰ Thus the ideal or imaginary Verwandlung is accomplished by ideal or imaginary money (or – from a perspective of pure credit-money – by nominal money).

3.4 Extroversive hypostasisation

One culmination of Marx’s treatment of money as measure is the ‘imaginary measurement by imaginary money’ mentioned above. A second one is the hypostasisation of money as extroversive measure, whence entities (as including insensuous ones) can take the price-form without having value (196).

The possibility … of a quantitative incongruity between price and magnitude of value … is inherent in the price-form itself. This is not a defect, but, on the contrary, it makes this form the adequate one for a mode of production whose laws can only assert themselves as blindly operating averages between constant irregularities. (196)

However, the possibility of incongruity may go further than these irregularities. Marieken, Faust or a modern business manager can sell their souls. With the money they can buy indulgences or ‘goodwill’:

Things which in and for themselves are not commodities, things such as conscience, honour, etc., can formally speaking, have a price without having a value. (197)

Whereas in their simplicity the introversive determinations of Chapter 1 are necessary – as Marx frequently repeats – the extroversive determinations are equally necessary. However, because it is inherent to the latter that these do not stick to the former, the extroversive measure hypostases.

The upshot is a shift in the connection between the Chapter 1 ‘simple value’ and the Chapter 3 price constituting ‘value’. Whilst money necessarily measures value, it can also measure nullities.