“The capacity of all products, whether natural or industrial, to contribute to man’s 
subsistence is specifically termed use value; their capacity to be given in exchange for 
one another, exchange value.... How does use value become exchange value?... The 
genesis of the idea of” (exchange) “value has not been noted by economists with 
sufficient care. It is necessary, therefore, for us to dwell upon it. Since a very large 
number of the things I need occur in nature only in moderate quantities, or even not 
at all, I am forced to assist in the production of what I lack. And as I cannot set my 
hand to so many things, I shall propose to other men, my collaborators in various 
functions, to cede to me a part of their products in exchange for mine.” (Proudhon, 
tome I, chap. II, [pp. 33-34].) 

M. Proudhon undertakes to explain to us first of all the double 
nature of value, the “distinction in value’ [I 34], the process by which 
use value is transformed into exchange value. It is necessary for 
us to dwell with M. Proudhon upon this act of transubstantiation. 
The following is how this act is accomplished, according to our 
author. 

A very large number of products are not to be found in nature, 
they are products of industry. If man’s needs go beyond nature’s 
spontaneous production, he is forced to have recourse to industrial 
production. What is this industry in M. Proudhon’s view? What is its 
origin? A single individual, feeling the need for a very great number 
of things, “cannot set his hand to so many things”. So many needs to 
satisfy presuppose so many things to produce—there are no 
products without production. So many things to produce presup- 
pose at once more than one man’s hand helping to produce them. 
Now, the moment you postulate more than one hand helping in 
production, you at once presuppose a whole production based on the 
division of labour. Thus need, as M. Proudhon presupposes it, itself 
presupposes the whole division of labour. In presupposing the 

division of labour, you get exchange, and, consequently, exchange 
value. One might as well have presupposed exchange value from the 
very beginning. 

But M. Proudhon prefers to go the roundabout way. Let us follow 
him in all his detours, which always bring us back to his starting 
point. 

In order to emerge from the condition in which everyone 
produces in isolation and to arrive at exchange, “I turn to my 
collaborators in various functions,” says Mr. Proudhon. I myself, 
then, have collaborators, all with different functions. And yet, for all 
that, I and all the others, always according to M. Proudhon’s 
supposition, have got no farther than the solitary and hardly social 
position of the Robinsons. The collaborators and the various 
functions, the division of labour and the exchange it implies, are 
already to hand. 

To sum up: I have certain needs which are founded on the 
division of labour and on exchange. In presupposing these needs, M. 
Proudhon has thus presupposed exchange, exchange value, the very 
thing of which he purposes to “note the genesis with more care 
than other economists”. 

M. Proudhon might just as well have inverted the order of things, 
without in any way affecting the accuracy of his conclusions. To 
explain exchange value, we must have exchange. To explain 
exchange, we must have the division of labour. To explain the 
division of labour, we must have needs which render necessary the 
division of labour. To explain these needs, we must “presuppose” 
them, which is not to deny them—contrary to the first axiom in M. 
Proudhon’s prologue: “To presuppose God is to deny Him.” 
(Prologue, p. I.) 

How does M. Proudhon, who assumes the division of labour as 
the known, manage to explain exchange value, which for him is 
always the unknown? 

“A man” sets out to “propose to other men, his collaborators in 
various functions”, that they establish exchange, and make a 
distinction between use value and exchange value. In accepting this 
proposed distinction, the collaborators have left M. Proudhon no 
other “care” than that of recording the fact, of marking, of 
“noting” in his treatise on political economy “the genesis of the idea 
of value”. But he has still to explain to us the “genesis” of this 
proposal, to tell us at last how this single individual, this Robinson, 
suddenly had the idea of making “to his collaborators” a proposal 
of the type known and how these collaborators accepted it without 
the slightest protest. 

The Poverty of Philosophy 113 

M. Proudhon does not enter into these genealogical details. He 
merely places a sort of historical stamp upon the fact of exchange, by 
presenting it in the form of a motion supposed to have been made by 
a third party, tending to establish exchange. 

That is a sample of the “historical and descriptive method” 
[I 30] of M. Proudhon, who professes a superb disdain for the 
“historical and descriptive methods” of the Adam Smiths and 
Ricardos. 

Exchange has a history of its own. It has passed through different 
phases. 

There was a time, as in the Middle Ages, when only the 
superfluous, the excess of production over consumption, was 
exchanged. | 

There was again a time, when not only the superfluous, but all 
products, all industrial existence, had passed into commerce, when 
the whole of production depended on exchange. How are we to 
explain this second phase of exchange—marketable value at its 
second power? 

M. Proudhon would have a reply ready-made: Assume that a 
man has “proposed to other men, his collaborators in various 
functions”, to raise marketable value to its second power. 

Finally, there came a time when everything that men had 
considered as inalienable became an object of exchange, of traffic 
and could be alienated. This is the time when the very things which 
till then had been communicated, but never exchanged; given, but 
never sold; acquired, but never bought—virtue, love, conviction, 
knowledge, conscience, etc—when everything finally passed into 
commerce. It is the time of general corruption, of universal venality, 
or, to speak in terms of political economy, the time when every- 
thing, moral or physical, having become a marketable value, is 
brought'to the market to be assessed at its truest value. 

How, again, can we explain this new and last phase of ex- 
change—marketable value at its third power? 

M. Proudhon would have a reply ready-made: Assume that a 
person has “proposed to other persons, his collaborators in various 
functions”, to make a marketable value out of virtue, love, etc., to 
raise exchange value to its third and last power. 

We see that M. Proudhon’s “historical and descriptive method” is 
applicable to everything, it answers everything, explains everything. 
If it is a question above all of explaining historically “the genesis of 
an economic idea”, it postulates a man who proposes to other men, 
his collaborators in various functions, that they perform this act of 
genesis and that is the end of it. 

We shall hereafter accept the “genesis” of exchange value as an 
accomplished act; it now remains only to expound the relation 
between exchange value and use value. Let us hear what M. 
Proudhon has to say: 

“Economists have very well brought out the double character of value, but what 
they have not pointed out with the same precision is its contradictory nature; this is 
where our criticism begins.... It is a small thing to have drawn attention to this 
surprising contrast between use value and exchange value, in which economists have 
been wont to see only something very simple: we must show that this alleged simplicity 
conceals a profound mystery into which it is our duty to penetrate.... In technical 
terms, use value and exchange value stand in inverse ratio to each other.” {I 36, 38] 

If we have thoroughly grasped M. Proudhon’s thought the 
following are the four points which he sets out to establish: 

1. Use value and exchange value form a “surprising contrast”, 
they are in opposition to each other. 

2. Use value and exchange value are in inverse ratio, in 
contradiction, to each other. 

3. Economists have neither observed nor recognised either the 
opposition or the contradiction. 

4. M. Proudhon’s criticism begins at the end. 

We, too, shall begin at the end, and, in order to clear the 
economists from M. Proudhon’s accusations, we shall let two 
sufficiently well-known economists speak for themselves. 

Sismondi: “It is the opposition between use value and exchange value to which 
commerce has reduced everything, etc.” (Etudes, t. II, p. 162, Brussels edition.) 

Lauderdale: “In proportion as the riches of individuals are increased by an 
augmentation of the exchange value, the national wealth” (use value) “is generally 
diminished; and in proportion as the mass of individual riches is diminished, by the 
diminution of the exchange value, its opulence is generally increased.” (Recherches sur 

la nature et l’origine de la richesse publique; traduit par Lagentie de Lavaisse, Paris, 1808 
[p. 33; cf. Eng. ed., p. 50].) 

Sismondi founded on the opposition between use value and 
exchange value his principal doctrine, according to which diminu- 
tion in revenue is proportional to the increase in production. 

Lauderdale founded his system on the inverse ratio of the two 
kinds of value, and his doctrine was indeed so popular in Ricardo’s 
time that the latter could speak of it as of something generally 
known. 

“It is through confounding the ideas of exchange value and riches” (use value) “that 
it has been asserted, that by diminishing the quantity of commodities, that is to say, of 

the necessaries, conveniences, and enjoyments of human life, riches may be 
increased.” (Ricardo, Des principes de V’économie politique, traduit par Constancio, 

2 Simonde de Sismondi, Etudes sur l'économie politique. —Ed. 

The Poverty of Philosophy 115 

annoté par J. B. Say, Paris, 1835; tome II, chap. “Sur la valeur et les richesses” 
[p. 65; cf. Eng. ed., p. 323].) 

We have just seen that the economists before M. Proudhon had 
“drawn attention” to the profound mystery of opposition and 
contradiction. Let us now see how M. Proudhon in his turn explains 
this mystery after the economists. 

The exchange value of a product falls as the supply increases, the 
demand remaining the same; in other words, the more abundant a 
product is relatively to the demand, the lower is its exchange value, or 
price. Vice versa: The weaker the supply relatively to the demand, the 
higher rises the exchange value or the price of the product supplied; 
in other words, the greater the scarcity in the products supplied, 
relatively to the demand, the higher the prices. The exchange value 
of a product depends upon its abundance or its scarcity, but always in 
relation to the demand. Take a product that is more than scarce, 
unique of its kind if you will: this unique product will be more than 
abundant, it will be superfluous, if there is no demand for it. On the 
other hand, take a product multiplied into millions, it will always be 
scarce if it does not satisfy the demand, that is, if there is too great a 
demand for it. 

These are what we should almost call truisms, yet we have had to 
repeat them here in order to render M. Proudhon’s mysteries 
comprehensible. 

“So that, following up the principle to its ultimate consequences, one would come 
to the conclusion, the most logical in the world, that the things whose use is 
indispensable and whose quantity is unlimited should be had for nothing, and those 
whose utility is nil and whose scarcity is extreme should be of incalculable price. To 
cap the difficulty, these extremes are impossible in practice: on the one hand, no 
human product could ever be unlimited in magnitude; on the other, even the scarcest 
things must perforce be useful to a certain degree, otherwise they would be quite 
valueless. Use value and exchange value are thus inexorably bound up with each 
other, although by their nature they continually tend to be mutually exclusive.” 
(Tome I, p. 39.) 

What caps M. Proudhon’s difficulty? That he has simply forgotten 
about demand, and that a thing can be scarce or abundant only 
insofar as it is in demand. The moment he leaves out demand, he 
identifies exchange value with scarcity and use value with abundance. 
In reality, in saying that things “whose utility is nil and scarcity extreme 
are of incalculable price”, he is simply declaring that exchange value is 
merely scarcity. “Scarcity extreme and utility nil” means pure 
scarcity. “Incalculable price” is the maximum of exchange value, it is 
pure exchange value. He equates these two terms. Therefore 
exchange value and scarcity are equivalent terms. In arriving at these 

alleged “extreme consequences”, M. Proudhon has in fact carried to 
the extreme, not the things, but the terms which express them, and, 
in so doing, he shows proficiency in rhetoric rather than in logic. He 
merely rediscovers his first hypotheses in all their nakedness when 
he thinks he has discovered new consequences. Thanks to the same 
procedure he succeeds in identifying use value with pure abundance. 

After having equated exchange value and scarcity, use value and 
abundance, M. Proudhon is quite astonished not to find use value in 
scarcity and exchange value, nor exchange value in abundance and 
use value; and seeing that these extremes are impossible in practice, 
he can do nothing but believe in mystery. Incalculable price exists for 
him, because buyers do not exist, and he will never find any buyers, 
so long as he leaves out demand. 

On the other hand, M. Proudhon’s abundance seems to be 
something spontaneous. He completely forgets that there are people 
who produce it, and that it is to their interest never to lose sight of 
demand. Otherwise, how could M. Proudhon have said that things 
which are very useful must have a very low price, or even cost 
nothing? On the contrary, he should have concluded that abun- 
dance, the production of very useful things, should be restricted if 
their price, their exchange value, is to be raised. 

The old vine-growers of France in petitioning for a law to forbid 
the planting of new vines; the Dutch in burning Asiatic spices, in 
uprooting clove trees in the Moluccas, were simply trying to reduce 
abundance in order to raise exchange value. During the whole of the 
Middle Ages this same principle was acted upon, in limiting by laws 
the number of journeymen a single master could employ and the 
number of implements he could use. (See Anderson, History of 
Commerce.*) 

After having represented abundance as use value and scarcity as 
exchange value—nothing indeed is easier than to prove that 
abundance and scarcity are in inverse ratio—M. Proudhon identifies 
use value with supply and exchange value with demand. To make the 
antithesis even more clear-cut, he substitutes a new term, putting 
“estimation value” for exchange value. [1 32] The battle has now shifted _ 
its ground, and we have on one side utility (use value, supply), on the 
other, estimation (exchange value, demand). 

Who is to reconcile these two contradictory forces? What is to be 
done to bring them into harmony with each other? Is it possible to 
find in them even a single point of comparison? 

* A. Anderson, An Historical and Chronological Deduction of the Origin of Commerce 
from the Earliest Accounts to the Present Time (Marx gives the title in French).— Ed. 

The Poverty of Philosophy 117 

Certainly, cries M. Proudhon, there is one—free will. The price 
resulting from this battle between supply and demand, between 
utility and estimation will not be the expression of eternal justice. 

M. Proudhon goes on to develop this antithesis. 

“In my capacity as a free buyer, I am judge of my needs, judge of the suitability of an 
object, judge of the price I am willingto pay for it. On the other hand, in your capacity 

as a free producer, you are master of the means of execution, and in consequence, you 
have the power to reduce your expenses.” (Tome I, p. 41.) 

And as demand, or exchange value, is identical with estimation, M. 
Proudhon is led to say: 

“It is proved that it is man’s free will that gives rise to the opposition between use 
value and exchange value. How can this opposition be removed, so long as free will 
exists? And how can the latter be sacrificed without sacrificing man?” (Tome I, p. 41.) 

Thus there is no possible way out. There is a struggle between two 
as it were incommensurable powers, between utility and estimation, 
between the free buyer and the free producer. 

Let us look at things a little more closely. 

Supply does not represent exclusively utility, demand does not 
represent exclusively estimation. Does not the demander also supply 
a certain product or the token representing all products, viz., money; 
and as supplier, does he not represent, according to M. Proudhon, 
utility or use value? 

Again, does not the supplier also demand a certain product or the 
token representing all products, viz., money? And does he not thus 
become the representative of estimation, of estimation value or of 
exchange value? 

Demand is at the same time a supply, supply is at the same time a 
demand. Thus M. Proudhon’s antithesis, in simply identifying 
supply and demand, the one with utility, the other with estimation, is 
based only on a futile abstraction. 

What M. Proudhon calls use value is called estimation value by 
other economists, and with just as much right. We shall quote only 
Storch (Cours d’économie politique, Paris, 1823 [tome I], pp. 48 and 
49). 

According to him, needs are the things for which we feel the need; 
values are things to which we attribute value. Most things have value 
only because they satisfy needs engendered by estimation. The 
estimation of our needs may change; therefore the utility of things, 
which expresses only a relation of these things to our needs, may also 
change. Natural needs themselves are continually changing. Indeed, 
what could be more varied than the objects which form the staple 
food of different peoples! 

The conflict does not take place between utility and estimation; it 
takes place between the marketable value demanded by the supplier 
and the marketable value supplied by the demander. The exchange 
value of the product is each time the resultant of these contradictory 
appreciations. 

In final analysis, supply and demand bring together production 
and consumption, but production and consumption based on 
individual exchanges. 

The product supplied is not useful in itself. It is the consumer who 
determines its utility. And even when its quality of being useful is 
admitted, it does not exclusively represent utility. In the course of 
production, it has been exchanged for all the costs of production, 
such as raw materials, wages of workers, etc., all of which are 
marketable values. The product, therefore, represents, in the eyes 
of the producer, a sum total of marketable values. What he sup- 
plies is not only a useful object, but also and above all a marketable 
value. 

As to demand, it will only be effective on condition that it has 
means of exchange at its disposal. These means are themselves 
products, marketable values. 

In supply and demand, then, we find, on the one hand, a product 
which has cost marketable values, and the need to sell; on the other, 
means which have cost marketable values, and the desire to buy. 

M. Proudhon opposes the free buyer to the free producer. To the one 
and to the other he attributes purely metaphysical qualities. It is this 
that makes him say: “It is proved that it is man’s free will that gives 
rise to the opposition between use value and exchange value.” [I 41] 

The producer, the moment he produces in a society founded on 
the division of labour and on exchange (and that is Mr. Proudhon’s 
hypothesis), is forced to sell. M. Proudhon makes the producer 
master of the means of production; but he will agree with us that his 
means of production do not depend on free will. Moreover, many 
of these means of production are products which he gets from 
the outside, and in modern production he is not even free to 
produce the amount he wants. The actual degree of development 
of the productive forces compels him to produce on such or such 
a scale. 

The consumer is no freer than the producer. His estimation 
depends on his means and his needs. Both of these are determined 
by his social position, which itself depends on the whole social 
organisation. True, the worker who buys potatoes and the kept 
woman who buys lace both follow their respective estimations. But - 
the difference in their estimations is explained by the difference in 

The Poverty of Philosophy 119 

the positions which they occupy in society, and which themselves 
are the product of social organisation. 

Is the entire system of needs founded on estimation or on the 
whole organisation of production? Most often, needs arise directly 
from production or from a state of affairs based on production. 
World trade turns almost entirely round the needs, not of individual 
consumption, but of production. Thus, to choose another example, 
does not the need for lawyers suppose a given civil law which is but 
the expression of a certain development of property, that is to say, of 
production? 

It is not enough for M. Proudhon to have eliminated the elements 
just mentioned from the relation of supply and demand. He carries 
abstraction to the extreme limits when he fuses all producers into one 
single producer, all consumers into one single consumer, and sets up a 
struggle between these two chimerical personages. But in the real 
world, things happen otherwise. The competition among the 
suppliers and the competition among the demanders form a 
necessary part of the struggle between buyers and sellers, of which 
marketable value is the result. 

After having eliminated the cost of production and competition, 
M. Proudhon can as he likes reduce the formula of supply and 
demand to an absurdity. 

“Supply and demand,” he says, ‘‘are merely two ceremonial forms that serve to bring 
use value and exchange value face to face, and to lead to their reconciliation. They are 
the two electric poles which, when connected, must produce the phenomenon of 
affinity called exchange.” (Tome I, pp. 49 and 50.) 

One might as well say that exchange is merely a “ceremonial 
form” for introducing the consumer to the object of consumption. 
One might as well say that all economic relations are “ceremonial 
forms” serving immediate consumption as go-betweens. Supply and 
demand are neither more nor less relations of a given production 
than are individual exchanges. 

What, then, does all M. Proudhon’s dialectic consist in? In the 
substitution for use value and exchange value, for supply and 
demand, of abstract and contradictory notions like scarcity and 
abundance, utility and estimation, one producer and one consumer, 
both of them knights of free will. 

And what was he aiming at? 

At arranging for himself a means of introducing later on one of 
the elements he had set aside, the cost of production, as the synthesis of 
use value and exchange value. And it is thus that in his eyes the cost 
of production constitutes synthetic value or constituted value. 

§ 2. CONSTITUTED VALUE OR SYNTHETIC VALUE 

“Value” (marketable value) ‘is the corner-stone of the economic 
structure.” [I 32] “‘Constituted” value is the corner-stone of the system 
of economic contradictions. 

What then is this “constituted value” which is all M. Proudhon has 
discovered in political economy? 

Once utility is admitted, labour is the source of value. The measure 
of labour is time. The relative value of products is determined by the 
labour time required for their production. Price is the monetary 
expression of the relative value of a product. Finally, the constituted 
value of a product is purely and simply the value which is constituted 
by the labour time incorporated in it. 

Just as Adam Smith discovered the division of labour, so he, M. 
Proudhon, claims to have discovered “constituted value’. This is not 
exactly “something unheard of”, but then it must be admitted that 
there is nothing unheard of in any discovery of economic science. M. 
Proudhon, who appreciates to the full the importance of his own 
invention, seeks nevertheless to tone down the merit thereof ‘in 
order to reassure the reader as to his claims to originality, and to win 
over minds whose timidity renders them little favourable to new 
ideas”. {I 52] But in assessing the contribution made by each of 
his predecessors to the understanding of value, he is forced to 
confess openly that the largest portion, the lion’s share, falls to 
himself. 

“The synthetic idea of value had been vaguely perceived by Adam Smith.... But 
with Adam Smith this idea of value was entirely intuitive. Now, society does not 
change its habits merely on the strength of intuitions: its decisions are made only on 

the authority of facts. The antinomy had to be stated more palpably and more clearly: 
J. B. Say was its chief interpreter.” [I 66] 

Here, in a nutshell, is the history of the discovery of synthetic 
value: Adam Smith—vague intuition; J. B. Say—antinomy; M. 
Proudhon—constituting and “constituted” truth. And let there be 
no mistake about it: all the other economists, from Say to Proudhon, 
have merely been trudging along in the rut of antinomy. 

“It is incredible that for the last forty years so many men of sense should have 
fumed and fretted at such a simple idea. But no, values are compared without there being 
any point of comparison between them and with no unit of measurement; this, rather than 
embrace the revolutionary theory of equality, is what the economists of the nineteenth 
century are resolved to uphold against all comers. What will posterity say about it?” (Tome 
I, p. 68.) 

Posterity, so abruptly invoked, will begin by getting muddled over 
the chronology. It is bound to ask itself: are not Ricardo and his 

The Poverty of Philosophy 121 

school economists of the nineteenth century? Ricardo’s system, 
posing as a principle that “the relative value of commodities depends 
exclusively on the amount of labour required for their production”, 
dates from 1817.* Ricardo is the head of a whole school dominant in 
England since the Restoration.?2 The Ricardian doctrine sums up 
severely, remorselessly, the whole of the English bourgeoisie, which 
is itself the type of the modern bourgeoisie. “What will posterity say 
about it?” It will not say that M. Proudhon did not know Ricardo, for 
he talks about him, he talks at length about him, he keeps coming 
back to him, and concludes by calling his system “trash”. If ever 
posterity does interfere, it will say perhaps that M. Proudhon, afraid 
of offending his readers’ Anglophobia, preferred to make himself 
the responsible editor of Ricardo’s ideas. In any case, it will think it 
very naive that M. Proudhon should give as a “revolutionary theory 
of the future” what Ricardo expounded scientifically as the theory of 
present-day society, of bourgeois society, and that he should thus 
take for the solution of the antinomy between utility and exchange 
value what Ricardo and his school presented long before him as the 
scientific formula of one single side of this antinomy, that of exchange 
value. But let us leave posterity aside once and for all, and confront 
M. Proudhon with his predecessor Ricardo. Here are some extracts 
from this author which summarise his doctrine on value: 

“Utility then is not the measure of exchangeable value, although it is absolutely 
essential to it.” (Tome I, p. 3 of Principes de l'économie politique, etc., traduit de 
anglais par F. S. Constancio, Paris, 1835 [Eng. ed., p. 2].) 

“Possessing utility, commodities derive their exchangeable value from two sources: 
from their scarcity, and from the quantity of labour» required to obtain them. There 
are some commodities, the value of which is determined by their scarcity alone. No 
labour can increase the quantity of such goods, and therefore their value cannot be 
lowered by an increased supply. Some rare statues and pictures, etc. are all of this 
description. Their value ... varies with the varying wealth and inclinations of those who 
are desirous to possess them.” (Tome I, pp. 4 and 5, L. c. [Eng. ed., p. 2].) “These 
commodities, however, form a very small part of the mass of commodities daily 
exchanged in the market. By far the greatest part of those goods which are the objects 
of desire, are procured by labour; and they may be multiplied, not in one country 
alone, but in many, almost without any assignable limit, if we are disposed to bestow 
the labour necessary to obtain them.” (Tome, p. 5, l. c. [Eng. ed., p. 3].) “In speaking 
then of commodities, of their exchangeable value, and of the laws which regulate their 
relative prices, we mean always such commodities only as can be increased in quantity 
by the exertion of human industry, and on the production of which competition 
operates without restraint.” (Tome I, p. 5 [Eng. ed., p. 3].) 

*D. Ricardo, On the Principles of Political Economy, and Taxation, London, 
1817.— Ed. 

b The 1847 edition did not have the words “of labour”, which were added in the 
copy with corrections in Marx’s hand.—Ed. 

Ricardo quotes Adam Smith, who, according to him, “so accurately 
defined the original source of exchangeable value” (Adam Smith, 
Book I, Chap. 5*), and he adds: 

“That this” (i. e., labour time) “is really the foundation of the exchangeable value 
of all things, excepting those which cannot be increased by human industry, is a 
doctrine of the utmost importance in political economy; for from no source do so 
many errors, and so much difference of opinion in that science proceed, as from the 
vague ideas which are attached to the word value.” (Tome I, p. 8 [Eng. ed., p. 4].) “If 
the quantity of labour realised in commodities regulate their exchangeable value, 
every increase of the quantity of labour must augment the value of that commodity on 
which it is exercised, as every diminution must lower it.” (Tome I, p. 8 [Eng. ed., p. 4].) 

Ricardo goes on to reproach Smith: 

1. “With having himself erected another standart measure of value than labour, 
sometimes the value of corn, at other times the quantity of labour an object can 
command in the market,” etc. (Tome I, pp. 9 and 10 [cf. Eng. ed., p. 5].) 

2. “With having admitted the principle without qualification and at the same time 
restricted its application to that early and rude state of society, which precedes both 
the accumulation of stock and the appropriation of land.” (Tome I, p. 21 i») 

Ricardo endeavours to prove that the ownership of land, that is, 
rent, cannot change the relative value of commodities and that the 
accumulation of capital has only a passing and fluctuating effect on 
the relative values determined by the comparative quantity of labour 
expended on their production. In support of this thesis, he gives his 
famous theory of rent, analyses capital, and ultimately finds nothing 
in it but accumulated labour. Then he develops a whole theory of 
wages and profits, and proves that wages and profits rise and fall in 
inverse ratio to each other, without affecting the relative value of the 
product. He does not neglect the influence that the accumulation of 
capital and its different aspects (fixed capital and circulating capital), 
as also the rate of wages, can have on the proportional value of 
products. In fact, these are the chief problems with which Ricardo is 
concerned. 

“Economy in the use of labour never fails to reduce the relative value* of a 
commodity, whether the saving be in the labour necessary to the manufacture of the 

* Ricardo, as is well known, determines the value of a commodity by “the quantity 
of labour necessary for its production”. Owing, however, to the prevailing form of ex- 
change in every mode of production based on production of commodities, includ- 
ing therefore the capitalist mode of production, this value is not expressed directly 
in quantities of labour but in quantities of some other commodity. The value of a 
commodity expressed in a quantity of some other commodity (whether money or not) is 
termed by Ricardo its relative value. F. E.[ Note to the German edition, 1885. The copy with 
corrections in Marx’s hand has here a marginal note: nota (‘la valeur relative”)] 

* A. Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.— Ed. 
> In the third edition of Ricardo’s book (London, 1821) this part of the text is 
omitted.—Ed. 

The Poverty of Philosophy 123 

commodity itself, or in that necessary to the formation of the capital, by the aid of 
which it is produced.” (Tome I, p. 28 [Eng. ed., pp. 19-20]). “Consequently as long as 
a day’s work continues to give one the same quantity of fish and the other the same 
quantity of game, the natural rate of the respective exchange prices will always be the 
same despite variations of wages and profit and despite all the effects of accumulation 
of capital.” (Tome I, p. 32 [cf. Eng. ed., pp. 21-22].) “In making labour the foundation 
of the value of commodities and the comparative quantity of labour which is necessary 
to their production, the rule which determines the respective quantities of goods 
which shall be given in exchange for each other, we must not be supposed to deny the 
accidental and temporary deviations of the actual or market price of commodities 
from this, their primary and natural price.” (Tome 1, p. 105, l. c. [Eng. ed., p. 80].) “It 
is the cost of production which must ultimately regulate the price of commodities, and 
not, as has been often said, the proportion between supply and demand.” (Tome II, p. 
253 [Eng. ed., p. 460].) 

Lord Lauderdale had developed the variations of exchange value 
according to the law of supply and demand, or of scarcity and 
abundance relatively to demand. In his opinion the value of a thing 
can increase when its quantity decreases or when the demand for it 
increases; it can decrease owing to an increase of its quantity or 
owing to the decrease in demand. Thus the value of a thing can 
change through eight different causes, namely, four causes that 
apply to the thing itself, and four causes that apply to money or to 
any other commodity which serves as a measure of its value. Here is 
Ricardo’s refutation: 

“Commodities which are monopolised, either by an individual, or by a company, vary 
according to the law which Lord Lauderdale has laid down: they fall in proportion as 
the sellers augment their quantity, and rise in proportion to the eagerness of the 
buyers to purchase them; their price has no necessary connexion with their natural 
value: but the prices of commodities, which are subject to competition, and whose 
quantity may be increased in any moderate degree, will ultimately depend, not on the 
state of demand and supply, but on the increased or diminished cost of their 
production.” (Tome II, p. 259 [Eng. ed., p. 465].) 

We shall leave it to the reader to make the comparison between 
this simple, clear, precise language of Ricardo’s and M. Proudhon’s 
rhetorical attempts to arrive at the determination of relative value by 
labour time. 

Ricardo shows us the real movement of bourgeois - production, 
which constitutes value. M. Proudhon, leaving this real movement 
out of account, “fumes and frets” in order to invent new processes 
and to achieve the reorganisation of the world on a would-be new 
formula, which formula is no more than the theoretical expression of 
the real movement which exists and which is so well described by 
Ricardo. Ricardo takes present-day society as his starting point to 
demonstrate to us how it constitutes value—M. Proudhon takes 
constituted value as his starting point to constitute a new social world 

with the aid of this value. For him, M. Proudhon, constituted value 
must complete a circle and become once more the constituting factor 
in a world already entirely constituted according to this mode of 
evaluation. The determination of value by labour time is, for 
Ricardo, the law of exchange value; for M. Proudhon, it is the 
synthesis of use value and exchange value. Ricardo’s theory of values 
is the scientific interpretation of actual economic life; M. Proudhon’s 
theory of values is the utopian interpretation of Ricardo’s theory. 
Ricardo establishes the truth of his formula by deriving it from all 
economic relations, and by explaining in this way all phenomena, 
even those like rent, accumulation of capital and the relation of 
wages to profits, which at first sight seem to contradict it; it is 
precisely that which makes his doctrine a scientific system: M. 
Proudhon, who has rediscovered this formula of Ricardo’s by means 
of quite arbitrary hypotheses, is forced thereafter to seek out isolated 
economic facts which he twists and falsifies to pass them off as 
examples, already existing applications, beginnings of realisation of 
his regenerating idea. (See our § 3. Application of Constituted Value.*) 

Now let us pass on to the conclusions M. Proudhon draws from 
value constituted (by labour time). 

— A certain quantity of labour is equivalent to the product 
created by this same quantity of labour. | 

— Each day’s labour is worth as much as another day’s labour; 
that is to say, if the quantities are equal, one man’s labour is worth as 
much as another man’s labour: there is no qualitative difference. 
With the same quantity of labour, one man’s product can be given in 
exchange for another man’s product. All men are wage workers 
getting equal pay for an equal labour time. Perfect equality rules the 
exchanges. 

Are these conclusions the strict, natural consequences of value 
“constituted” or determined by labour time? 

If the relative value of a commodity is determined by the quantity 
of labour required to produce it, it follows naturally that the relative 
value of labour, or wages, is likewise determined by the quantity of 
labour needed to produce the wages. Wages, that is, the relative 
value or the price of labour, are thus determined by the labour time 
needed to produce all that is necessary for the maintenance of the 
worker. 

“Dimanish the cost of production of hats, and their price will ultimately fall to their 

new natural price, although the demand should be doubled, trebled, or quadrupled. 
Diminish the cost of subsistence of men, by diminishing the natural price of the food and 

2 See this volume, pp. 144-60.— Ed. 

The Poverty of Philosophy . 125 

clothing by which life is sustained, and wages will ultimately fall, notwithstanding 
that the demand for labourers may very greatly increase.” (Ricardo, tome II, p. 253 
[Eng. ed., p. 460].) 

Doubtless, Ricardo’s language is as cynical as can be. To put the cost 
of manufacture of hats and the cost of maintenance of men on the 
same plane is to turn men into hats. But do not make an outcry at the 
cynicism of it. The cynicism is in the facts and not in the words which 
express. the facts. French writers like MM. Droz, Blanqui, Rossi and 
others take an innocent satisfaction in proving their superiority over 
the English economists, by seeking to observe the etiquette of a 
“humanitarian” phraseology; if they reproach Ricardo and his 
school for their cynical language, it is because it annoys them to see 
economic relations exposed in all their crudity, to see the mysteries 
of the bourgeoisie unmasked. 

To sum up: Labour, being itself a commodity, is measured as such 
by the labour time needed to produce the labour-commodity. And 
what is needed to produce this labour-commodity? Just enough 
labour time to produce the objects indispensable to the constant 
maintenance of labour, that is, to keep the worker alive and in a 
condition to propagate his race. The natural price of labour is no 
other than the minimum wage.* If the current rate of wages rises 
above the natural price, it is precisely because the law of value posed 
as a principle by M. Proudhon happens to be counterbalanced by the 
consequences of the varying relations of supply and demand. But the 
minimum wage is nonetheless the centre towards which the current 
rates of wages gravitate. 

Thus relative value, measured by labour time, is inevitably the 
formula of the present enslavement of the worker, instead of being, 
as M. Proudhon would have it, the “revolutionary theory” of the 
emancipation of the proletariat. 

Let us see now to what extent the application of labour time as a 

* The thesis that the “natural”, i.e., normal, price of labour power coincides with 
the minimum wage, i.e., with the equivalent in value of the means of subsistence 
absolutely indispensable for the life and procreation of the worker, was first put 
forward by me in Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy (Deutsch- Franzosische 
Jahrbiicher, Paris, 1844) and in The Condition of the Working Class in England.’ 3 As seen 
here, Marx at that time accepted the thesis. Lassalle took it over from both of us. 
Although, however, in reality wages have a constant tendency to approach the 
minimum, the above thesis is nevertheless incorrect. The fact that labour power is 
regularly and on the average paid below its value cannot alter its value. In Capital, 
Marx has put the above thesis right (Section on the Buying and Selling of Labour 
Power) and also (Chapter 25: The General Law of Capitalist Accumulation) analysed the 
circumstances which permit capitalist production to depress the price of labour power 
more and more below its value. F. E. [Note to the German edition, 1885.] 

measure of value is incompatible with the existing class antagonism 
and the unequal distribution of the product between the immediate 
worker and the owner of accumulated labour. 

Let us take a particular product, for example, linen. This product, 
as such, contains a definite quantity of labour. This quantity of 
labour will always be the same, whatever the reciprocal position of 
those who have collaborated to create this product. 

Let us take another product: broadcloth, which has required the 
same quantity of labour as the linen. 

If there is an exchange of these two products, there is an exchange 
of equal quantities of labour. In exchanging these equal quantities of 
labour time, one does not change the reciprocal position of the 
producers, any more than one changes anything in the situation of 
the workers and manufacturers among themselves. To say that this 
exchange of products measured by labour time results in an equality 
of payment for all the producers is to suppose that equality of 
participation in the product existed before the exchange. When the 
exchange of broadcloth for linen has been accomplished, the 
producers of broadcloth will share in the linen in a proportion equal to 
that in which they previously shared in the broadcloth. 

M. Proudhon’s illusion is brought about by his taking for a 
consequence what could be at most but a gratuitous supposition. 

Let us go further. 

Does labour time, as the measure of value, suppose at least that the 
days are equivalent, and that one man’s day is worth as much as 
another’s? No. 

Let us suppose for a moment that a jeweller’s day is equivalent to 
three days of a weaver; the fact remains that any change in the value 
of jewels relative to that of woven materials, unless it be the 
transitory result of the fluctuations of demand and supply, must 
have as its cause a reduction or an increase in the labour time 
expended in the production of one or the other. If three working 
days of different workers be related to one another in the ratio of 
1:2:3, then every change in the relative value of their products will be 
a change in this same proportion of 1:2:3. Thus values can be 
measured by labour time, in spite of the inequality of value of 
different working days; but to apply such a measure we must have a 
comparative scale of the different working days: it is competition 
that sets up this scale. 

Is your hour’s labour worth mine? That is a question which is 
decided by competition. 

Competition, according to an American economist, determines 
how many days of simple labour are contained in one day’s 

The Poverty of Philosophy 127 

compound labour. Does not this reduction of days of compound 
labour to days of simple labour suppose that simple labour is itself 
taken as a measure of value? If the mere quantity of labour functions 
as a measure of value regardless of quality, it presupposes that 
simple labour has become the pivot of industry. It presupposes that 
labour has been equalised by the subordination of man to the 
machine or by the extreme division of labour; that men are effaced 
by their labour; that the pendulum of the clock has become as 
accurate a measure of the relative activity of two workers as it is of 
the speed of two locomotives. Therefore, we should not say that one 
man’s hour is worth another man’s hour, but rather that one man 
during an hour is worth just as much as another man during an 
hour. Time is everything, man is nothing; he is, at the most, time’s 
carcase. Quality no longer matters. Quantity alone decides every- 
thing; hour for hour, day for day; but this equalising of labour is not 
by any means the work of M. Proudhon’s eternal justice; it is purely 
and simply a fact of modern industry. 

In the automatic workshop, one worker’s labour is scarcely 
distinguishable in any way from another worker’s labour: workers 
can only be distinguished one from another by the length of time 
they take for their work. Nevertheless, this quantitative difference 
becomes, from a certain point of view, qualitative, in that the time 
they take for their work depends partly on purely material causes, 
such as physical constitution, age and sex; partly on purely negative 
moral causes, such as patience, imperturbability, diligence. In short, 
if there is a difference of quality in the labour of different workers, it 
is at most a quality of the last kind, which is far from being a 
distinctive peculiarity. This is what the state of affairs in modern 
industry amounts to in the last analysis. It is upon this equality, 
already realised in automatic labour, that M. Proudhon wields his 
smoothing-plane of “equalisation”, which he means to establish 
universally in “time to come”! 

All the “equalitarian” consequences which M. Proudhon deduces 
from Ricardo’s doctrine are based on a fundamental error. He 
confounds the value of commodities measured by the quantity of 
labour embodied in them with the value of commodities measured 
by “‘the value of labour’. If these two ways of measuring the value of 
commodities merged into one, it could be said indifferently that the 
relative value of any commodity is measured by the quantity of 
labour embodied in it; or that it is measured by the quantity of labour 
it can buy; or again that it is measured by the quantity of labour which 
can acquire it. But this is far from being so. The value of labour “ can 
no more serve as a measure of value than the value of any other 

commodity. A few examples will suffice to explain still better what we 
have just stated. 

If a muid? of corn cost two days’ labour instead of one, it would 
have twice its original value: but it would not set in operation double 
the quantity of labour, because it would contain no more nutritive 
matter than before. Thus the value of the corn, measured by the 
quantity of labour used to produce it, would have doubled; but 
measured either by the quantity of labour it can buy or by the 
quantity of labour with which it can be bought, it would be far from 
having doubled. On the other hand, if the same labour produced 
twice as many clothes as before, their relative value would fall by 
half; but, nevertheless, this double quantity of clothing would not 
thereby be reduced to disposing over only half the quantity of 
labour, nor could the same labour command double the quantity of 
clothing; for half the clothes would still go on rendering the worker 
the same service as before. 

Thus it is going against economic facts to determine the relative 
value of commodities by the value of labour. It is moving in a vicious 
circle, it is to determine relative value by a relative value which itself 
needs to be determined. 

It is beyond doubt that M. Proudhon confuses the two measures, 
measure by the labour time needed for the production of a 
commodity and measure by the value of the labour. 

“Any man’s labour,” he says, “can buy the value it represents.” [I 81] 

Thus, according to him, a certain quantity of labour embodied in a 
product is equivalent to the worker’s payment, that is, to the value of 
labour. It is the same reasoning that makes him confuse cost of 
production with wages. 

“What are wages? They are the cost price of corn, etc., the integral price of all 
things. Let us go still further. Wages are the proportionality of the elements which 
compose wealth.” [I 1101 

What are wages? They are the value of labour. 

Adam Smith takes as the measure of value, now the labour time 
needed for the production of a commodity, now the value of labour. 
Ricardo exposes this error by showing clearly the disparity of these 
two ways of measuring. M. Proudhon outdoes Adam Smith in error 
by identifying the two things which the latter had merely put in 
juxtaposition. 

It is in order to find the proper proportion in which workers 
should share in the products, or, in other words, to determine the 

@ An old French measure equivalent to 18 hectolitres.— Ed. 

The Poverty of Philosophy 129 

relative value of labour, that M. Proudhon seeks a measure for the 
relative value of commodities. To find out the. measure for the 
relative value of commodities he can think of nothing better than to 
give as the equivalent of a certain quantity of labour the sum total of 
the products it has created, which is as good as supposing that the 
whole of society consists merely of immediate workers who receive 
their own produce as wages. In the second place, he takes for 
granted the equivalence of the working days of different workers. In 
short, he seeks the measure of the relative value of commodities in 
order to arrive at equal payment for the workers, and he takes the 
equality of wages as an already established fact, in order to go off on 
the search for the relative value of commodities. What admirable 
dialectic! 

“Say and the economists after him have observed that labour being itself subject to 
valuation, being a commodity like any other commodity, it is moving in a vicious circle 
to treat it as the principle and the determining cause of value.... In so doing, these 
economists, if they will allow me to say so, show a prodigious carelessness. Labour is 
said to have value not as a commodity itself, but in view of the values which it is 
supposed to contain potentially. The value of labour is a figurative expression, an 
anticipation of the cause for the effect. It is a fiction of the same stamp as the 
productivity of capital. Labour produces, capital has value.... By a sort of ellipsis one 
speaks of the value of labour.... Labour like liberty ... is a thing vague and 
indeterminate by nature, but defined qualitatively by its object, that is to say, it 
becomes a reality by the product.” [I 61] 

“But is there any need to dwell on this? The moment the economist” (read M. 
Proudhon) “changes the name of things, vera rerum vocabula, he is implicitly 
confessing his impotence and proclaiming himself not privy to the cause.” (Proudhon, 
tome I, p. 188.) 

We have seen that M. Proudhon makes the value of labour the 
“determining cause” of the value of products to such an extent that 
for him wages, the official name for the “value of labour”, form the 
integral price of all things. That is why Say’s objection troubles him. 
In labour-commodity, which is a grim reality, he sees nothing but a 
grammatical ellipsis. Thus the whole of existing society, founded on 
labour-commodity, is henceforth founded on a poetic licence, a 
figurative expression. If society wants to “eliminate all the draw- 
backs” that assail it, well, let it eliminate all the ill-sounding terms, 
change the language; and to this end it has only to apply to the 
Academy for a new edition of its dictionary. After all that we have 
just seen, it is easy for us to understand why M. Proudhon, ina work 
on political economy, has to enter upon long dissertations on 
etymology and other parts of grammar. Thus he is still learnedly 
discussing the antiquated derivation of servus' from servare’. These 

2 A slave, servant.— Ed. 
> To preserve.— Ed. 

philological dissertations have a deep meaning, an esoteric mean- 
ing—they form an essential part of M. Proudhon’s argument. 

Labour,’ inasmuch as it is bought and sold, is a commodity like any 
other commodity, and has, in consequence, an exchange value. 
But the value of labour, or labour as a commodity, produces as 
little as the value of wheat, or wheat as a commodity, serves as 
food. 

Labour has more or less “value,” according to whether food 
commodities are more or less dear, whether the supply and demand 
of hands exist to such or such a degree, etc., etc. 

Labour is not a “vague thing”; it is always some definite labour, it 
is never labour in general that is sold and bought. It is not only 
labour which is qualitatively defined by the object; but also the object 
which is determined by the specific quality of labour. 

Labour, insofar as it is sold and bought, is itself a commodity. Why 
is it bought? “In view of the values it is supposed to contain 
potentially.” But if a certain thing is said to be a commodity, there is 
no longer any question as to the reason why it is bought, that is, as to 
the utility to be derived from it, the application to be made of it. It is 
a commodity as an object of traffic. All M. Proudhon’s arguments are 
limited to this: labour is not bought as an immediate object of 
consumption. No, it is bought as an instrument of production, as a 
machine would be bought. As a commodity, labour has value and 
does not produce. M. Proudhon might just as well have said that 
there is no such thing as a commodity, since every commodity is 
acquired merely for some utilitarian purpose, and never as a 
commodity in itself. 

In measuring the value of commodities by labour, M. Proudhon 
vaguely glimpses the impossibility of excluding labour from this 
same measure, insofar as labour has a value, labour-commodity. He 
has a misgiving that it is turning the minimum wage into the natural 
and normal price of immediate labour, that it is accepting the 
existing state of society. So, to get away from this fatal consequence, 
he faces about and asserts that labour is not a commodity, that it 
cannot have value. He forgets that he himself has taken the value of 
labour as a measure, he forgets that his whole system rests on 
labour-commodity, on labour which is bartered, sold, bought, 
exchanged for produce, etc., on labour, in fact, which is an 
immediate source of income for the worker. He forgets everything. 

2 In the copy with corrections in Marx’s hand and the one presented in 1876 to N. 
Utina after the word “travail” (‘labour’) is added “la force du travail’ (“labour 
power”). The same addition is made in the 1896 French edition.— Ed. 

The Poverty of Philosophy 131 

To save his system, he consents to sacrifice its basis. 

Et propter vitam vivendi perdere causas? 
We now come to a new definition of “constituted value’’. 

“Value ts the proportional relation of the products which constitute wealth.” [I 62] 

Let us note in the first place that the simple phrase “relative or 
exchange value” implies the idea of some relation in which products 
are exchanged reciprocally. By giving the name “proportional 
relation” to this relation, no change is made in the relative value, 
except in the expression. Neither the depreciation nor the enhance- 
ment of the value of a product destroys its quality of being in some 
“proportional relation” with the other products which constitute 
wealth. 

Why then this new term, which introduces no new idea? 

“Proportional relation” suggests many other economic relations, 
such as proportionality in production, the correct proportion 
between supply and demand, etc., and M. Proudhon is thinking of all 
that when he formulates this didactic paraphrase of marketable 
value. 

In the first place, the relative value of products being determined 
by the comparative amount of labour used in the production of each 
of them, proportional relations, applied to this special case, stand for 
the respective quota of products which can be manufactured in a 
given time, and which in consequence are given in exchange for one 
another. 

Let us see what advantage M. Proudhon draws from this 
proportional] relation. 

Everyone knows that when supply and demand are evenly 
balanced, the relative value of any product is accurately determined 
by the quantity of labour embodied in it, that is to say, that this 
relative value expresses the proportional relation precisely in the 
sense we have just attached to it. M. Proudhon inverts the order of 
things. Begin, he says, by measuring the relative value of a product 
by the quantity of labour embodied in it, and supply and demand will 
infallibly balance one another. Production will correspond to 
consumption, the product will always be exchangeable. Its current 
price will express exactly its true value. Instead of saying like 
everyone else: when the weather is fine, a lot of people are to be seen 
going out for a walk, M. Proudhon makes his people go out for a 
‘ walk in order to be able to ensure them fine weather. 

? And for the sake of life to lose the reasons for living (Juvenal, Sateres, VIII).— Ed. 

fh NOE 

What M. Proudhon gives as the consequence of marketable value 
determined a priori by labour time could be justified only by a law 
couched more or less in the following terms: 

Products will in future be exchanged in the exact ratio of the 
labour time they have cost. Whatever may be the proportion of 
supply to demand, the exchange of commodities will always be made 
as if they had been produced proportionately to the demand. Let M. 
Proudhon take it upon himself to formulate and lay down such a law, 
and we shall relieve him of the necessity of giving proofs. If, on the 
other hand, he insists on justifying his theory, not as a legislator, but 
as an economist, he will have to prove that the time needed to create a 
commodity indicates exactly the degree of its utility and marks its 
proportional relation to the demand, and in consequence, to the total 
amount of wealth. In this case, if a product is sold at a price equal to 
its cost of production, supply and demand will always be evenly 
balanced; for the cost of production is supposed to express the true 
relation between supply and demand. 

Actually, M. Proudhon sets out to prove that the labour time 
needed to create a product indicates its correct proportional relation 
to needs, so that the things whose production costs the least time are 
the most immediately useful, and so on, step by step. The mere 
production of a luxury object proves at once, according to this 
doctrine, that society has spare time which allows it to satisfy a need 
for luxury. 

M. Proudhon finds the very proof of his thesis in the observation 
that the most useful things cost the least time to produce, that society 
always begins with the easiest industries and successively “starts on 
the production of objects which cost more labour time and which 
correspond to a higher order of needs”. [I 57] 

M. Proudhon borrows from M. Dunoyer the example of extractive 
industry—fruit-gathering, pasturage, hunting, fishing, etc. —which 
is the simplest, the least costly of industries, and the one by which 
man began “the first day of his second creation”. [I 78] The first day 
of his first creation is recorded in Genesis, which shows us God as the 
world’s first manufacturer. 

Things happen in quite a different way from what M. Proudhon 
imagines. The very moment civilisation begins, production begins to 
be founded on the antagonism of orders, estates, classes, and finally 
on the antagonism of accumulated labour and immediate labour. No 
antagonism, no progress. This is the law that civilisation has followed 
up to our days. Till now the productive forces have been developed 
by virtue of this system of class antagonisms. To say now that, 
because all the needs of all the workers were satisfied, men could 

The Poverty of Philosophy 133 

devote themselves to the creation of products of a higher order—to 
more complicated industries—would be to leave class antagonism out 
of account and turn all historical development upside down. It is like 
saying that because, under the Roman emperors, muraena were 
fattened in artificial fishponds, therefore there was enough to feed 
abundantly the whole Roman population. Actually, on the contrary, 
the Roman people had not enough to buy bread with, while the 
Roman aristocrats had slaves enough to throw as fodder to the 
muraena. 

The price of food has almost continuously risen, while the price of 
manufactured and luxury goods has almost continuously fallen. 
Take the agricultural industry itself: the most indispensable objects, 
like corn, meat, etc., rise in price, while cotton, sugar, coffee, etc., 
continually fall in a surprising proportion. And even among 
comestibles proper, the luxury articles, like artichokes, asparagus, 
etc., are today relatively cheaper than foodstuffs of prime necessity. 
In our age, the superfluous 1s easier to produce than the necessary. 
Finally, at different historical epochs, the reciprocal price relations 
are not only different, but opposed to one another. In the whole of 
the Middle Ages, agricultural products were relatively cheaper than 
manufactured products; in modern times they are in inverse ratio. 
Does this mean that the utility of agricultural products has 
diminished since the Middle Ages? 

The use of products is determined by the social conditions in 
which the consumers find themselves placed, and these conditions 
themselves are based on class antagonism. 

Cotton, potatoes and spirits are objects of the most common use. 
Potatoes have engendered scrofula; cotton has to a great extent 
driven out flax and wool, although wool and flax are, in many cases, 
of greater utility, if only from the point of view of hygiene; finally, 
spirits have got the upper hand of beer and wine, although spirits 
used as an alimentary substance are everywhere recognised to be 
poison. For a whole century, governments struggled in vain against 
the European opium; economics prevailed, and dictated its orders to 
consumption. 

Why are cotton, potatoes and spirits the pivots of bourgeois 
society? Because the least amount of labour is needed to produce 
them, and, consequently, they have the lowest price. Why does the 
minimum price determine the maximum consumption? Is it by any 
chance because of the absolute utility of these objects, their intrinsic 
utility, their utility insomuch as they correspond, in the most useful 
manner, to the needs of the worker as a man, and not of the man asa 
worker? No, it is because in a society founded on poverty the poorest 

products have the fatal prerogative of being used by the greatest 
number. 

To say now that because the least costly things are in greater use, 
they must be of greater utility, is saying that the wide use of spirits, 
because of their low cost of production, is the most conclusive proof 
of their utility; it is telling the proletarian that potatoes are more 
wholesome for him than meat; it is accepting the present state of 
affairs; it is, in short, making an apology, with M. Proudhon, for a 
society without understanding it. 

In a future society, in which class antagonism will have ceased, in 
which there will no longer be any classes, use will no longer be 
determined by the minimum time of production; but the time of 
production devoted to an article? will be determined by the degree 
of its social‘ utility. 

To return to M. Proudhon’s thesis; since the labour time necessary 
for the production of an article is not the expression of its degree of 
utility, the exchange value of this same article, determined 
beforehand by the labour time embodied in it, can never regulate the 
correct relation of supply to demand, that is, the proportional 
relation in the sense M. Proudhon attributes to it at the moment. 

It is not the sale of a given product at the price of its cost of 
production that constitutes the “proportional relation” of supply to 
demand, or the proportional quota of this product relatively to the 
sum total of production; it is the variations in demand and supply that 
show the producer what amount of a given commodity he must 
produce in order to receive at least the cost of production in 
exchange. And as these variations are continually occurring, there is 
also a continual movement of withdrawal and application of capital 
in the different branches of industry. 

“It is only in consequence of such variations that capital is apportioned precisely, in 
the requisite abundance and no more, to the production of the different commodities 
which happen to be in demand. With the rise or fall of price, profits are elevated 
above, or depressed below their general level, and capital is either encouraged to enter 
into, or is warned to depart from, the particular employment in which the variation 

has taken place.”—‘‘When we look to the markets of a large town, and observe how 
regularly they are supplied both with home and foreign commodities, in the quantity 

* The 1896 French edition has “production sociale” .— Ed. 

> In the copy with corrections in Marx’s hand and the one presented to N. Utina 
the words “a un objet” are replaced by “aux différents objets”. This change was also 
made in the 1896 French edition.— Ed. 

© The word “sociale”, which is not in the 1847 edition, was added in the copy with 

corrections in Marx’s hand and the one which he presented to N. Utina and also in the 
1896 French edition.— Ed. 

The Poverty of Philosophy 135 

in which they are required, under all the circumstances of varying demand, arising 
from the caprice of taste, or a change in the amount of population, without often 
producing either the effects of a glut from a too abundant supply, or an enormously 
high price from the supply being unequal to the demand, we must confess that the 
principle which apportions capital to each trade in the precise amount that is required, is 
more active than is generally supposed.” (Ricardo, tome I, pp. 105{-106] and 108 
[Eng. ed., pp. 80 and 82].) 

If M. Proudhon admits that the value of products is determined by 
labour time, he should equally admit that it is the fluctuating 
movement alone that? makes labour time the measure of value. 
There is no ready constituted “proportional relation”, but only a 
constituting movement. 

We have just seen in what sense it is correct to speak of 
“proportion” as of a consequence of value determined by labour 
time. We shall see now how this measure by time, called by M. 
Proudhon the “law of proportion”, becomes transformed into a law 
of disproportion. 

Every new invention that enables the production in one hour of 
that which has hitherto been produced in two hours depreciates all 
similar products on the market. Competition forces the producer to 
sell the product of two hours as cheaply as the product of one hour. 
Competition implements the law according to which the relative 
value of a product is determined by the labour time needed to 
produce it. Labour time serving as the measure of marketable value 
becomes in this way the law of the continual depreciation of labour. 
We will say more. There will be depreciation not only of the 
commodities brought into the market, but also of the instruments of 
production and of whole plants. This fact was already pointed out by 
Ricardo when he said: 

“By constantly increasing the facility of production. we constantly diminish the 
value of some of the commodities before produced.” (Tome II, p. 59 [Eng. ed., 
p. 321}.3 

Sismondi goes further. He sees in this “value constituted” by labour 
time the source of all the contradictions of modern industry and com- 

merce. 

“Mercantile value,” he says, “is always determined in the long run by the quantity 
of labour needed to obtain the thing evaluated: it is not what it has actually cost, but 
what it would cost in future with, perhaps, perfected means; and this quantity, al- 
though difficult to evaluate, is always faithfully established by competition... It is on 

* In the copy with corrections in Marx’s hand the words “in societies founded on 
individual exchanges” are added here and then struck out; in the copy presented to 
N. Utina this addition was made except for the word “individual” .— Fd. 

this basis that the demand of the seller as well as the supply of the buyer is reckoned. 
The former will perhaps declare that the thing has cost him ten days’ labour; but if the 
latter realises that it can henceforth be produced with eight days’ labour, in the event 
of competition proving this to the two contracting parties, the value will be reduced, 
and the market price fixed at eight days only. Of course, each of the parties believes 
that the thing is useful, that it is desired, that without desire there would be no sale; 
but the fixing of the price has nothing to do with utility.” (Etudes, etc., t. I], p. 267, 
Brussels edition.) 

It is important to emphasise the point that what determines value 
is not the time taken to produce a thing, but the minimum time it 
could possibly be produced in, and this minimum is ascertained by 
competition. Suppose for a moment that there is no more 
competition and consequently no longer any means to ascertain the 
minimum of labour necessary for the production of a commodity; 
what will happen? It will suffice to spend six hours’ work on the 
production of an object, in order to have the right, according to M. 
Proudhon, to demand in exchange six times as much as he who has 
taken only one hour to produce the same object. 

Instead of a “proportional relation”, we have a disproportional 
relation, at any rate if we insist on sticking to relations, good or bad. 

The continual depreciation of labour is only one side, one 
consequence of the evaluation of commodities by labour time. The 
excessive raising of prices, overproduction and many other features 
of industrial anarchy have their explanation in this mode of 
evaluation. 

But does labour time used as a measure of value give rise at least to 
the proportional variety of products that so fascinates M. Proudhon? 

On the contrary, monopoly in all its monotony follows in its wake 
and invades the world of products, just as to everybody’s knowledge 
monopoly invades the world of the instruments of production. It is 
only in a few branches of industry, like the cotton industry, that very 
rapid progress can be made. The natural consequence of this 
progress is that the products of cotton manufacture, for instance, 
fall rapidly in price: but as the price of cotton goes down, the price 
of flax must go up in comparison. What will be the outcome? Flax 
will be replaced by cotton. In this way, flax has been driven out 
of almost the whole of North America. And we have obtained, 
instead of the proportional variety of products, the dominance of 
cotton. 

What is left of this “proportional relation”? Nothing but the pious 
wish of an honest man who would like commodities to be produced 
in proportions which would permit of their being sold at an honest 
price. In all ages good-natured bourgeois and philanthropic 
economists have taken pleasure in expressing this innocent wish. 

The Poverty of Philosophy 137 

Let us hear what old Boisguillebert says: 

“The price of commodities,” he says, “must always be proportionate; for it is such 
mutual understanding alone that can enable them to exist together so as to give 
themselves to one another at any moment” (here is M. Proudhon’s continual exchangeabili- 
ty) “and reciprocally give birth to one another.... As wealth, then, is nothing but this 
continual intercourse between man and man, craft and craft, etc., it is a frightful 
blindness to go looking for the cause of misery elsewhere than in the cessation of such 
traffic brought about by a disturbance of proportion in prices.” (Dissertation sur la 
nature des richesses, Daire ed. [pp. 405, 408].) 

Let us listen also to a modern economist: 

“The great law as necessary to be affixed to production, that is, the law of 
proportion,” which alone can preserve the continuity of value.... The equivalent must be 
guaranteed.... All nations have attempted, at various periods of their history, by 
instituting numerous commercial regulations and restrictions, to effect, in some 
degree, the object here explained.... But the natural] and inherent selfishness of man 
.. has urged him to break down all such regulations.... Proportionate production “is the 
realisation of the entire truth of the Science of Social Economy.” (W. Atkinson, 
Principles of Political Economy, London, 1840, pp. 170-95.) 

Fuit Troja.” This correct proportion between supply and demand, 
which is beginning once more to be the object of so many wishes, 
ceased long ago to exist. It has passed into the stage of senility. It was 
possible only at a time when the means of production were limited, 
when exchange took place within very restricted bounds. With the 
birth of large-scale industry this correct proportion had to come to 
an end, and production is inevitably compelled to pass in continuous 
succession through vicissitudes of prosperity, depression, crisis, 
stagnation, renewed prosperity, and so on. 

Those who, like Sismondi, wish to return to the correct proportion 
of production, while preserving the present basis of society, are 
reactionary, since, to be consistent, they must also wish to bring back 
all the other conditions of industry of former times. 

What kept production in correct, or more or less correct, 
proportions? It was demand that dominated supply, that preceded it. 
Production followed close on the heels of consumption. Large-scale 
industry, forced by the very instruments at its disposal to produce on 
an ever-increasing scale, can no longer wait for demand. Production 
precedes consumption, supply compels demand. 

In existing society, in industry based on individual exchange, 
anarchy of production, which is the source of so much misery, is at 
the same time the source of all progress. 

Thus, one or the other: 

@ In the original the English term is given in parentheses after the French.— Ed. 
b Troy is no more (Virgil, Aeneid, 2, 325).— Ed. 

Either you want the correct proportions of past centuries with 
present-day means of production, in which case you are both 
reactionary and utopian. 

Or you want progress without anarchy: in which case, in order to 
preserve the productive forces, you must abandon individual 
exchange. 

Individual exchange is consistent only with the small-scale industry 
of past centuries and its corollary of “correct proportion”, or else 
with large-scale industry and all its train of misery and anarchy. 

After all,? the determination of value by labour time—the formula 
M. Proudhon gives us as the regenerating formula of the future—is 
therefore> merely the scientific expression of the economic relations 
of present-day society, as was clearly and precisely demonstrated by 
Ricardo long before M. Proudhon. 

But does the “equalitarian” application of this formula at least 
belong to M. Proudhon? Was he the first to think of reforming 
society by transforming all men into immediate workers exchanging 
equal amounts of labour? Is it for him to reproach the Commu- 
nists—these people devoid of all knowledge of political economy, 
these “obstinately foolish men”, these “paradise dreamers”—with 
not having found, before him, this “solution of the problem of the 
proletariat” ? 

Anyone who is in any way familiar with the trend of political 
economy in England cannot fail to know that almost all the socialists 
in that country have, at different periods, proposed the equalitarian 
application of the Ricardian theory. We could quote for M. 
Proudhon: Hodgskin, Political Economy, 18277°; William Thompson, 
An Inquiry into the Principles of the Distribution of Wealth Most 
Conducive to Human Happiness, 1824; T. R. Edmonds, Practical Moral 
and Political Economy, 1828, etc., etc., and four pages more of etc. We 
shall content ourselves with listening to an English Communist, Mr. 
Bray. We shall give the decisive passages in his remarkable work, 
Labour’s Wrongs and Labour’s Remedy, Leeds, 1839, and we shall dwell 
some time upon it, firstly, because Mr. Bray is still litthe known in 
France, and, secondly, because we think that we have discovered in 
him the key to the past, present and future works of M. Proudhon. 

“In the 1847 edition this sentence begins with the words: “D’aprés tout ce que 
nous venons de dire.” In the copy with corrections in Marx’s hand and the one 
presented to N. Utina “D’apreés” is changed to “Aprés” and the rest of the phrase is 
crossed out; this correction was reproduced in the 1896 French edition.— Ed. 

> The word “therefore” (“donc”) is not in the 1847 edition; it was added in the 
copy with corrections in Marx’s hand and the one presented to N. Utina; this addition 
is reproduced in the 1896 French edition.— Ed. 

The Poverty of Philosophy 139 

“The only way to arrive at truth is to go at once to First Principles.... Let us ... go at 
once to the source from whence governments themselves have arisen.... By thus going 
to the origin of the thing, we shall find that every form of government, and every 
social and governmental wrong, owes its rise to the existing social system—to the 
institution of property as it at present exists'—and that, therefore, if we would end our 
wrongs and our miseries at once and for ever, the present arrangements of society must be 
totally subverted.... By thus fighting them upon their own ground, and with their own 
weapons, we shall avoid that senseless chatter respecting ‘visionaries’ and ‘theorists’, with 
which they are so ready to assail.... Before the conclusions arrived at by such a course 
of proceeding can be overthrown, the economists must unsav or disprove those 
established truths and principles on which their own arguments are founded.” (Brav, 
pp. 17 and 41.) “It is labour alone which bestows value”... Every man has an undoubted 
right to all that his honest labour can procure him. When he thus appropriates the 
fruits of his labour, he commits no injustice upon anv other human being; for he 
interferes with no other man’s right of doing the same with the produce of his labour... 
All these ideas of superior and inferior—of master and man—may be traced va the 
neglect of First Principles, and to the consequent rise of inequality of possessions ‘, and 
such ideas will never be eradicated, nor the institutions founded upon them be 
subverted, so long as this inequality is maintained. Men have hitherto blindly hoped to 
remedy the present unnatural state of things ... by destroying existing inequality, and 
leaving untouched the cause of the inequality; but it will shortly be seen ... that 
government ¢ is not a cause, but a consequence—that it is not the creator, but the 
created—that it is the offspring of inequality of possessions ©; and that the inequality of 
possessions is inseparably connected with our present social system.” (Bray, pp. 33, 36 
and 37.) 

“Not only are the greatest advantages, but strict justice also, on the side of a system 
of equality.... Every man is a link, and an indispensable link, in the chain of 
effects—the beginning of which is but an idea, and the end, perhaps, the production 
of a piece of cloth. Thus, although we may entertain different feelings towards the 
several parties, it does not follow that one should be better paid for his labour than 
another. The inventor will ever receive, in addition to his just pecuniary reward, that 
which genius only can obtain from us—the tribute of our admiration... 

“From the very nature of labour and exchange, strict justice requires that all 
exchangers should be not only mutually, but that thev should likewise be equally, 
henefited.'! Men have only two things which thev can exchange with each other, 
namely, labour, and the produce of labour.... If a just svstem of exchanges were acted 
upon, the value of all articles would be determined by the entire cost of production, and 
equal values should always exchange for equal values. If, tor instance, it takes a hatter one 

° In the original the end of the phrase beginning with the words ‘the institution of 

property ...”" is given in English in parentheses after the French.— Ed. 

> In the original this phrase is given in English in parentheses after the 
French.— Ed. 

“In the original the words ‘and to the consequent rise of inequality of 
possessions” are given in English in parentheses after the French.— Ed. 

4 Bray has here: “misgovernment” — Ed. 

* In the original the words “the offspring of inequality of possessions” are given in 
Enghsh in parentheses after the French.— Ed. 

In the original the words ‘‘all exchangers should be” to the end of the sentence 

are given in English in parentheses after the French.— Ed. 

8 In the original this sentence is given in English in parentheses after the 
French.— Ed. 

day to make a hat, and a shoemaker the same time to make a pair of shoes—supposing 
the material used by each to be of the same value—and they exchange these articles 
with each other, they are not only mutually but equally benefited: the advantage 
derived by either party cannot be a disadvantage to the other, as each has given the 
same amount of labour, and the materials made use of by each were of equal value. 
But if the hatter should obtain two pair of shoes for one hat—time and value of 
material being as before—the exchange would clearly be an unjust one. The hatter 
would defraud the shoemaker of one day’s labour; and were the former to act thus in 
all his exchanges, he would receive, for the labour of half a year, the product of some 
other person’s whole year.... We have heretofore acted upon no other than this most 
unjust systenf of exchanges—the workmen have given the capitalist the labour ot a 
whole year, in exchange for the value of only half a year*—and from this, and not 
from the assumed inequality of bodily and mental powers in individuals, has arisen 
the inequality of wealth and power.... It is an inevitable condition of inequality of 
exchanges—of buying at one price and selling at another—that capitalists shall 
continue to be capitalists, and working men to be working men—the one a class of 
tyrants and the other a class of slaves—to eternity.... The whole transaction, therefore, 
plainly shews that the capitalists and proprietors do no more than give the working 
man, for his labour of one week, a part of the wealth which they obtained from him 
the week before!—which just amounts to giving him nothing for something”... The 
whole transaction ... between the producer and the capitalist is ... a mere farce: it 
is, in fact, in thousands of instances, no other than a barefaced though legalised 
robbery.” (Bray, pp. 45, 48, 49 and 50.) 

“... the gain of the employer will never cease to be the loss of the employed—until 
the exchanges between the parties are equal; and exchanges never can be equal while 
society is divided into capitalists and producers—the last living upon their labour and 
the first bloating upon the profit of that labour.... 

“It is plain,” continues Mr. Bray, “that, establish whatever form of government we 
will ... we may talk of morality and brotherly love ... no reciprocity can exist where 
there are unequal exchanges.... Inequality of exchanges, as being the cause of 
inequality of possessions, is the secret enemy that devours us.” d (Bray, pp. 51 and 52.) 

“It has been deduced, also, from a consideration of the intention and end of 
society, not only that all men should labour, and thereby become exchangers, but that 
equal values should always exchange for equal values —and that, as the gain of one 
man ought never to be the loss of another, value should ever be determined by cost of 
production. But we have seen, that, under the present arrangements of society ... the 
gain of the capitalist and the rich man is always the loss of the workman — that this 
result will invariably take place, and the poor man be left entirely at the mercy of the 
rich man, under any and every form of government, so long as there is inequality of 
exchanges—and that equality of exchanges can be ensured only under social 
arrangements in which labour is universal.... If exchanges were equal, would the 
wealth of the present capitalists gradually go from them to the working classes.” (Bray, 
pp. 53-55.) 

* In the original the words from “the workmen” to “half a year” are given in 
English in parentheses after the French.— Ed. 

> In the original the words “nothing for something” are given in English in 
parentheses after the French.— Ed. 

“In the original this phrase is given in parentheses in English after the 
French.— Ed. 

4 In the original the words from “no reciprocity” to “devours us” are given in 
English in parentheses after the French.— Ed. 

The Poverty of Philosophy 141 

“So long as this system of unequal exchanges is tolerated, the producers will be 
almost as poor and as ignorant and as hardworked as they are at present, even if every 
governmental burthen be swept away and all taxes be abolished ... nothing but a total change 
of system —an equality of labour and exchanges —can alter this state of things and 
guarantee true equality of rights.... The producers have but to make an effort — and 
by them must every effort for their own redemption be made —and their chains will 
be snapped asunder for ever.... As an end, the political equality is there a failure ... as a 
means, also, it is there a failure. * 

“Where equal exchanges are maintained, the gain of one man cannot be the loss of 
another; for every exchange is then simply a transfer, and not a sacrifice, of labour and 
wealth. Thus, although under a social system based on equal exchanges, a parsimonious 
man may become rich, his wealth will be no more than the accumulated produce of his 
own labour. He may exchange his wealth, or he may give it to others ... but a rich man 
cannot continue wealthy for any length of time after he has ceased to labour. Under 
equality of exchanges, wealth cannot have, as it now has, a procreative and apparently 
self-generating power, such as replenishes all waste from consumption; for, unless it 
be renewed by labour, wealth, when once consumed, is given up for ever. That which 
is now called profit and interest cannot exist as such in connection with equality of 
exchanges; for producer and distributor would be alike remunerated, and the sum 
total of their labour would determine the value of the article created and brought to 
the hands of the consumer. 

“The principle of equal exchanges, therefore, must from its very nature ensure 
universal labour.” (Bray, pp. 67, 88, 89, 94, 109-10.) 

After having refuted the objections of the economists to commu- 
nism, Mr. Bray goes on to say: 

“If, then, a changed character be essential to the success of the social system of 
community in its most perfect form —and if, likewise, the present system affords no 
circumstances and no facilities for effecting the requisite change of character and 
preparing man for the higher and better state desired — it is evident that these things 
must necessarily remain. as they are, ... or else some preparatory step must be 
discovered and made use of —some movement partaking partly of the present and 
partly of the desired system” (the system of community), “some intermediate 
resting-place, to which society may go with all its faults and its follies, and from which 
it may move forward, imbued with those qualities and attributes without which the 
system of community and equality cannot as such have existence.” (Bray, p. 134.) 

“The whole movement would require only co-operation in its simplest form.... 
Cost of production would in every instance determine value; and equal values would 
always exchange for equal values. If one person worked a whole week, and another 
worked only half a week, the first would receive double the remuneration of the last; 
but this extra pay of the one would not be at the expense of the other, nor would the 
loss incurred by the last man fall in any way upon the first. Each person would 
exchange the wages he individually received for commodities of the same value as his 
respective wages; and in no case could the gain of one man or one trade be a loss to 
another man or another trade. The labour of every individual would alone determine his 
gains or his losses.... 

“..By means of general and local boards of trade ... the quantities of the various 

2 In the original this sentence is given in English in parentheses after the 
French.— Ed. 

> In the original the last three words are given in English in parentheses after the 
French.— Ed. 

142 Karl Marx : 

commodities required for consumption — the relative value of each in regard to each 
other—the number of hands required in various trades and descriptions of 
labour — and all other matters connected with production and distribution, could ina 
short time be as easily determined for a nation as for an individual company under the 
present arrangements.... Individuals would compose families, and families towns, as 
under the existing system.... The present distribution of people in towns and villages, 
bad as it is, would not be directly interfered with.... Under this joint-stock system, the 
same as under that now existing, every individual would be at liberty to accumulate as 
much as he pleased, and to enjoy such accumulations when and where he might think 
proper.... The great productive section of the community ... is divided into an 
indefinite number of smaller sections, all working, producing and exchanging their 
products on a footing of the most perfect equality... And the joint-stock modification 
(which is nothing but a concession to present-day society in order to obtain 
communism), by being so constituted as to admit of individual property in productions 
in connection with a common property in productive powers — making every individual 
dependent on his own exertions, and at the same time allowing him an equal 
participation in every advantage afforded by nature and art —is fitted to take society 
as it is, and to prepare the way for other and better changes.” (Bray, pp. 158, 160, 162, 
{163], 168, [170 and] 194.) 

We only need to reply in a few words to Mr. Bray who without us 
and in spite of us has managed to supplant M. Proudhon, except that 
Mr. Bray, far from claiming the last word on behalf of humanity, 
proposes merely measures which he thinks good for a period of 
transition between existing society and a community regime. 

One hour of Peter’s labour exchanges for one hour of Paul’s 
labour. That is Mr. Bray’s fundamental axiom. 

Let us suppose Peter has twelve hours’ labour before him, and 
Paul only six. Peter will be able to make with Paul an exchange of 
only six for six. Peter will consequently have six hours’ labour left 
over. What will he do with these six hours’ labour? 

Either he will do nothing —in which case he will have worked six 
hours for nothing; or else he will remain idle for another six hours to 
get even; or else, as a last resource, he will give these six hours’ 
labour, which he has no use for, to Paul into the bargain. 

What in the end will Peter have earned more than Paul? Some 
hours of labour? No! He will have gained only hours of leisure; he 
will be forced to play the loafer for six hours. And in order that this 
new right to loaf might be not only relished but sought after in the 
new society, this society would have to find in idleness its highest 
bliss, and to look upon labour as a heavy shackle from which it must 
break free at all costs. And again, to return to our example, if only 
these hours of leisure that Peter has gained in excess of Paul were 
really a gain! Not in the least. Paul, beginning by working only six 
hours, attains by steady and regular work a result that Peter secures 
only by beginning with an excess of work. Everyone will want to be 

The Poverty of Philosophy 143 

Paul, there will be a competition to occupy Paul’s position, a 
competition in idleness. 

Well, then! What has the exchange of equal quantities of labour 
brought us? Overproduction, depreciation, excess of labour followed 
by unemployment; in short, economic relations such as we see in 
present-day society, minus the competition of labour. 

No! We are wrong! There is still an expedient which may save this 
new society, the society of Peters and Pauls. Peter will consume by 
himself the product of the six hours’ labour which he has left. But 
since he has no longer to exchange in order to have produced, he has 
no need to produce in order to exchange; and the whole hypothesis 
of a society founded on the exchange and division of labour will fall 
to the ground. Equality of exchange will have been saved by the 
simple fact that exchange will have ceased to be: Paul and Peter will 
arrive at the position of Robinson. 

Thus, if all the members of society are supposed to be immediate 
workers, the exchange of equal quantities of hours of labour is 
possible only on condition that the number of hours to be spent on 
material production is agreed on beforehand. But such an agree- 
ment negates individual exchange. 

We still come to the same result, if we take as our starting point not 
the distribution of the products created but the act of production. In 
large-scale industry, Peter is not free to fix for himself the time of his 
labour, for Peter’s labour is nothing without the co-operation of all 
the Peters and all the Pauls who make up the workshop. This 
explains very well the dogged resistance which the English factory 
owners put up to the Ten Hours Bill. They knew only too well 
that a two hours’ reduction of labour granted to women and 
children’ would carry with it an equal reduction of working hours 
for adult men. It is in the nature of large-scale industry that working 
hours should be equal for all. What is today the result of capital and 
the competition of workers among themselves will be tomorrow, 
if you sever the relation between labour and capital, an actual 
agreement based upon the relation between the sum of productive 
forces and the sum of existing needs. 

But such an agreement is a condemnation of individual exchange, 
and we are back again at our first conclusion! 

In principle, there is no exchange of products—but there 
is the exchange of the labour which co-operates in_ produc- 
tion. The mode of exchange of products depends upon the mode 
of exchange of the productive forces. In general, the form of ex- 
change of products corresponds to the form of production. Change 
the latter, and the former will change in consequence. Thus 

in the history of society we see that the mode of exchanging products 
is regulated by the mode of producing them. Individual exchange 
corresponds also to a definite mode of production which itself 
corresponds to class antagonism. There is thus no individual 
exchange without the antagonism of classes. 

But the honest conscience refuses to see this obvious fact. So long 
as one is a bourgeois, one cannot but see in this relation of 
antagonism a relation of harmony and eternal justice, which allows 
no one to gain at the expense of another. For the bourgeois, 
individual exchange can exist without any antagonism of classes. For 
him, these are two quite unconnected things. Individual exchange, as 
the bourgeois conceives it, is far from resembling individual 
exchange as it is practised. : 

Mr. Bray turns the illusion of the respectable bourgeois into an 
ideal he would like to attain. In a purified individual exchange, freed 
from all the elements of antagonism he finds in it, he sees an 
“equalitarian” relation which he would like society to adopt. 

Mr. Bray does not see that this equalitarian relation, this corrective 
ideal that he would like to apply to the world, is itself nothing but the 
reflection of the actual world; and that therefore it is totally 
impossible to reconstitute society on the basis of what is merely an 
embellished shadow of it. In proportion as this shadow takes on 
substance again, we perceive that this substance, far from being the 
transfiguration dreamt of, is the actual body of existing society.* 

§ 3. APPLICATION OF THE LAW