I examine the system of bourgeois economy in the following order:capital,landed property,wage-labour;the State,foreign trade,world market.The economic conditions of existence of the three great classes into which modern bourgeois society is divided are analysed under the first three headings;the interconnection of the other three headings is self-evident.

The first part of the first book,dealing with Capital,comprises the following chapters:1.The commodity,2.Money or simple circulation;3.Capital in general.The present part consists of the first two chapters.The entire material lies before me in the form of monographs,which were written not for publication but for self-clarification at widely separated periods;their remoulding into an integrated whole according to the plan I have indicated will depend upon circumstances.

A general introduction,which I had drafted,is omitted,since on further consideration it seems to me confusing to anticipate results which still have to be substantiated,and the reader who really wishes to follow me will have to decide to advance from the particular to the general.A few brief remarks regarding the course of my study of political appropriate here.

Although I studied jurisprudence,I pursued it as a subject subordinated to philosophy and history.In the year 1842-43,as editor of the Rheinische Zeitung,I first found myself in the embarrassing position of having to discuss what is known as material interests.The deliberations of the Rhenish Landtag on forest thefts and the division of landed property;the officials polemic started by Herr von Schaper,then Oberprasident of the Rhine Province,against the Rheinische Zeitung about the condition of the Moselle peasantry,and finally the debates on free trade and protective tariffs caused me in the first instance to turn my attention to economic questions.On the other hand,at that time when good intentions "to push forward"often took the place of factual knowledge,an echo of French socialism and communism,slightly tinged by philosophy,was noticeable in the Rheinische Zeitung.I objected to this dilettantism,but at the same time frankly admitted in a controversy with the Allgemeine Augsburger Zeitung that my previous studies did not allow me to express any opinion on the content of the French theories.When the publishers of the Rheinische Zeitung conceived the illusion that by a more compliant policy on the part of the paper it might be possible to secure the abrogation of the death sentence passed upon it,I eagerly grasped the opportunity to withdraw from the public stage to my study.

The first work which I undertook to dispel the doubts assailing me was a critical re-examination of the Hegelian philosophy of law;the introduction to this work being published in the Deutsch-Franzosische Jahrbucher issued in Paris in 1844.My inquiry led me to the conclusion that neither legal relations nor political forms could be comprehended whether by themselves or on the basis of a so-called general development of the human mind,but that on the contrary they originate in the material conditions of life,the totality of which Hegel,following the example of English and French thinkers of the eighteenth century,embraces within the term "civil society";that the anatomy of this civil society,however,has to be sought in political economy.The study of this,which I began in Paris,I continued in Brussels,where I moved owing to an expulsion order issued by M.Guizot.The general conclusion at which I arrived and which,once reached,became the guiding principle of my studies can be summarised as follows.In the social production of their existence,men inevitably enter Into definite relations,which are independent of their will,namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production.

The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society,the real foundation,on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness.The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social,political and intellectual life.It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence,but their social existence that determines their consciousness.At a certain stage of development,the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or --this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms --with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto.From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters.Then begins an era of social revolution.

The changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense superstructure.In studying such transformations it is always necessary to distinguish between the material transformation of the economic conditions of production,which can be determined with the precision of natural science,and the legal,political,religious,artistic or philosophic --in short,ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out.Just as one does not judge an individual by what he thinks about himself,so one cannot judge such a period of transformation by its consciousness,but,on the contrary,this consciousness must be explained from the contradictions of material life,from the conflict existing between the social forces of production and the relations of production.No social order is ever destroyed before all the productive forces for which it is sufficient have been developed,and new superior relations of production never replace older ones before the material conditions for their existence have matured within the framework of the old society.Mankind thus inevitably sets itself only such tasks as it is able to solve,since closer examination will always show that the problem itself arises only when the material conditions for its solution are already present or at least in the course of formation.In broad outline,the Asiatic,ancient,feudal and modern bourgeois modes of production may be designated as epochs marking progress in the economic development of society.The bourgeois mode of production is the last antagonistic form of the social process of production --antagonistic not in the sense of individual antagonism but of an antagonism that emanates from the individuals'social conditions of existence --but the productive forces developing within bourgeois society create also the material conditions for a solution of this antagonism.The prehistory of human society accordingly closes with this social formation.

Frederick Engels,with whom I maintained a constant exchange of ideas by correspondence since the publication of his brilliant essay on the critique of economic categories (printed in the Deutsch-Franzosische Jahrbucher,arrived by another road (compare his Lage der arbeitenden Klasse in England )at the same result as I,and when in the spring of 1845he too came to live in Brussels,we decided to set forth together our conception as opposed to the ideological one of German philosophy,in fact to settle accounts with our former philosophical conscience.The intention was carried out in the form of a critique of post-Hegelian philosophy.The manuscript [The German Ideology],two large octavo volumes,had long ago reached the publishers in Westphalia when we were informed that owing to changed circumstances it could not be printed.We abandoned the manuscript to the gnawing criticism of the mice all the more willingly since we had achieved our main purpose --self-clarification.Of the scattered works in which at that time we presented one or another aspect of our views to the public,I shall mention only the Manifesto of the Communist Party,jointly written by Engels and myself,and a Discours sur le libre echange,which I myself published.The salient points of our conception were first outlined in an academic,although polemical,form in my Misere de la philosophie ...,this book which was aimed at Proudhon appeared in 1847.The publication of an essay on Wage-Labour [Wage-Labor and Capital]written in German in which I combined the lectures I had held on this subject at the German Workers'Association in Brussels,was interrupted by the February Revolution and my forcible removal from Belgium in consequence.

The publication of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung in 1848and 1849and subsequent events cut short my economic studies,which I could only resume in London in 1850.The enormous amount of material relating to the history of political economy assembled in the British Museum,the fact that London is a convenient vantage point for the observation of bourgeois society,and finally the new stage of development which this society seemed to have entered with the discovery of gold in California and Australia,induced me to start again from the very beginning and to work carefully through the new material.These studies led partly of their own accord to apparently quite remote subjects on which I had to spend a certain amount of time.But it was in particular the imperative necessity of earning my living which reduced the time at my disposal.My collaboration,continued now for eight years,with the New York Tribune,the leading Anglo-American newspaper,necessitated an excessive fragmentation of my studies,for Iwrote only exceptionally newspaper correspondence in the strict sense.

Since a considerable part of my contributions consisted of articles dealing with important economic events in Britain and on the continent,I was compelled to become conversant with practical detail which,strictly speaking,lie outside the sphere of political economy.

This sketch of the course of my studies in the domain of political economy is intended merely to show that my views --no matter how they may be judged and how little they conform to the interested prejudices of the ruling classes --are the outcome of conscientious research carried on over many years.At the entrance to science,as at the entrance to hell,the demand must be made:Qui si convien lasciare ogni sospetto Ogni vilta convien che qui sia morta.[From Dante,Divina Commedia:Here must all distrust be left;All cowardice must here be dead.]

Karl Marx London,January 1859

The wealth of bourgeois society,at first sight,presents itself as an immense accumulation of commodities,its unit being a single commodity.

Every commodity,however,has a twofold aspect --use-value and exchange-value.[1]

To begin with,a commodity,in the language of the English economists,is "any thing necessary,useful or pleasant in life",an object of human wants,a means of existence in the widest sense of the term.Use-value as an aspect of the commodity coincides with the physical palpable existence of the commodity.Wheat,for example,is a distinct use-value differing from the use-values of cotton,glass,paper,etc.A use-value has value only in use,and is realized only in the process of consumption.One and the same use-value can be used in various ways.But the extent of its possible application is limited by its existence as an object with distinct properties.

It is,moreover,determined not only qualitatively but also quantitatively.

Different use-values have different measures appropriate to their physical characteristics;for example,a bushel of what,a quire of paper,a yard of linen.

Whatever its social form may be,wealth always consists of use-values,which in the first instance are not affected by this form.From the taste of wheat it is not possible to tell who produced it,a Russian serf,a French peasant or an English capitalist.Although use-values serve social needs and therefore exist within the social framework,they do not express the social relations of production.For instance,let us take as a use-value a commodity such as a diamond.We cannot tell by looking at it that the diamond is a commodity.Where it serves as an aesthetic or mechanical use-value,on the neck of a courtesan or in the hand of a glass-cutter,it is a diamond and not a commodity.To be a use-value is evidently a necessary prerequisite of the commodity,but it is immaterial to the use-value whether it is a commodity.Use-value as such,since it is independent of the determinate economic form,lies outside the sphere of investigation of political economy.[2]It belongs in this sphere only when it is itself a determinate form.Use-value is the immediate physical entity in which a definite economic relationship --exchange-value --is expressed.

Exchange-value seems at first to be a quantitatve relation,the proportion in which use-values are exchanged for one another.In this relation they constitute equal exchangeable magnitudes.Thus one volume of Propertius and eight ounces of snuff may have the same exchange-value,despite the dissimilar use-values of snuff and elegies.Considered as exchange-value,one use-value is worth just as much as another,provided the two are available in the appropriate proportion.The exchange-value of a palace can be expressed in a definite number of tins of boot polish.London manufacturers of boot polish,on the other hand,have expressed the exchange-value of their numerous tins of polish in terms of palaces.Quite irrespective,therefore,of their natural form of existence,and without regard to the specific character of the needs they satisfy as use-values,commodities in definite quantities are congruent,they take one another's place in the exchange process,are regarded as equivalents,and despite their motley appearance have a common denominator.

Use-values serve directly as means of existence.But,on the other hand,these means of existence are themselves the products of social activity,the result of expended human energy,materialized labour.As objectification of social labour,all commodities are crystallisations of the same substance.The specific character of this substance,i.e.,of labour which is embodied in exchange-value,has now to be examined.

Let us suppose that one ounce of gold,one ton of iron,one quarter of wheat and twenty yards of silk are exchange-values of equal magnitude.

As exchange-values in which the qualitative difference between their use-values is eliminated,they represent equal amounts of the same kind of labour.

The labour which is uniformly materialised in them must be uniform,homogeneous,simple labour;it matters as little whether this is embodied in gold,iron,wheat or silk,as it matters to oxygen whether it is found in rusty iron,in the atmosphere,in the juice of grapes or in human blood.But digging gold,mining iron,cultivating wheat and weaving silk are qualitatively different kinds of labour.In fact,what appears obJectively as diversity of the use-values,appears,when looked at dynamically,as diversity of the activities which produce those use-values.Since the particular material of which the use-values consist is irrelevant to the labour that creates exchange-value,the particular form of this labour is equally irrelevant.

Different use-values are,moreover,products of the activity of different individuals and therefore the result of individually different kinds of labour.But as exchange-values they represent the same homogeneous labour,i.e.,labour in which the individual characteristics of the workers are obliterated.Labour which creates exchange-value is thus abstract general labour.

If one ounce of gold,one ton of iron,one quarter of wheat and twenty yards of silk are exchange-values of equal magnitude or equivalents,then one ounce of gold,half a ton of iron,three bushels of wheat and five yards of silk are exchange-values which have very different magnitudes,and this quantitative difference is the only difference of which as exchange-values they are at all capable.As exchange-values of different magnitudes they represent larger or smaller portions,larger or smaller amounts of simple,homogeneous,abstract general labour,which is the substance of exchange-value.