Commodities

Contents

Section 1 - The Two Factors of a Commodity: Use-Value and Value
Section 2 - The Two-fold Character of the Labour Embodied in Commodities
Section 3 - The Form of Value or Exchange-Value

A. Elementary or Accidental Form of Value

1. The Two Poles of the Expression of Value: Relative Form and Equivalent Form
2. The Relative Form of Value 

a. The Nature and Import of this Form
b. Quantitative Determination of Relative Value

3. The Equivalent Form of Value
4. The Elementary Form of Value Considered as a Whole

B. Total or Expanded Form of Value 

1. The Expanded Relative Form of Value
2. The Particular Equivalent Form
3. Defects of the Total or Expanded Form of Value

C. The General Form of Value

1. The Altered Character of the Form of Value
2. The Interdependent Development of the Relative Form of Value, and of the Equivalent Form
3. Transition from the General Form of Value to the Money- Form

D. The Money-Form

Section 4 - The Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret thereof

SECTION 1

THE TWO FACTORS OF A COMMODITY:
USE-VALUE AND VALUE
(THE SUBSTANCE OF VALUE AND THE MAGNITUDE OF VALUE)

The wealth of those societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails, presents itself as "an immense accumulation of commodities,"¹ its unit being a single commodity. Our investigation must therefore begin with the analysis of a commodity.

A commodity is, in the first place, an object outside us, a thing that by its properties satisfies human wants of some sort or another. The nature of such wants, whether, for instance, they spring from the stomach or from fancy, makes no difference.² Neither are we here concerned to know how the object satisfies these wants, whether directly as means of subsistence, or indirectly as means of production.

Every useful thing, as iron, paper, &c., may be looked at from the two points of view of quality and quantity. It is an assemblage of many properties, and may therefore be of use in various ways. To discover the various uses of things is the work of history.³ So also is the establishment of socially-recognized standards of measure for the quantities of these useful objects. The diversity of these measures has its origin partly in the diverse nature of the objects to be measured, partly in convention.

The utility of a thing makes it a use-value.⁴ But this utility is not a thing of air. Being limited by the physical properties of the commodity, it has no existence apart from that commodity. A commodity, such as iron, corn, or a diamond, is therefore, so far as it is a material thing, a use-value, something useful. This property of a commodity is independent of the amount of labour required to appropriate its useful qualities. When treating of use-value, we always assume to be dealing with definite quantities, such as dozens of watches, yards of linen, or tons of iron. The use-values of commodities furnish the material for a special study, that of the commercial knowledge of commodities.⁵ Use-values become a reality only by use or