|| XX VP In the compensation of money and value of metal, as in 
his description of the cost of production as the only factor in 
determining value,** Mill commits the mistake — like the school of 
Ricardo in general—of stating the abstract law without the change 
or continual supersession of this law through which alone it comes 
into being. If it is a constant law that, for example, the cost of 
production in the last instance—or rather when demand and 
supply are in equilibrium which occurs sporadically, fortuitous- 
ly— determines the price (value), it is just as much a constant law 
that they are not in equilibrium, and that therefore value and cost 
of production stand in no necessary relationship. Indeed, there is 
always only a momentary equilibrium of demand and supply 
owing to the previous fluctuation of demand and supply, owing to 
the disproportion between cost of production and exchange-value, 
just as this fluctuation and this disproportion likewise again follow 
the momentary state of equilibrium. This real movement, of which 
that law is only an abstract, fortuitous and one-sided factor, is 
made by recent political economy into something accidental and 
inessential. Why? Because in the acute and precise formulas to 
which they reduce political economy, the basic formula, if they 
wished to express that movement abstractly, would have to be: In 
political economy, law is determined by its opposite, absence of 
law. The true law of political economy is chance, from whose 
movement we, the scientific men, isolate certain factors arbitrarily 
in the form of laws. 

* The Roman figures refer to Marx’s Paris Notebook number four.— Ed. 

Mill very well expresses the essence of the matter in the form of 
a concept by characterising money as the medium of exchange. The 
essence of money is not, in the first place, that property is 
alienated in it, but that the mediating activity or movement, the 
human, social act by which man’s products mutually complement 
one another, is estranged from man and becomes the attribute of 
money, a material thing outside man. Since man alienates this 
mediating activity itself, he is active here only as a man who has 
lost himself and is dehumanised; the relation itself between things, 
man’s operation with them, becomes the operation of an entity 
outside man and above man. Owing to this alien mediator— instead 
of man himself being the mediator for man—man regards his 
will, his activity and his relation to other men as a power 
independent of him and them. His slavery, therefore, reaches its 
peak. It is clear that this mediator now becomes a real God, for the 
mediator is the real power over what it mediates to me. Its cult 
becomes an end in itself. Objects separated from this mediator 
have lost their value. Hence the objects only have value insofar as 
they represent the mediator, whereas originally it seemed that the 
mediator had value only insofar as it represented them. This 
reversal of the original relationship is inevitable. This mediator is 
therefore the lost, estranged essence of private property, private 
property which has become alienated, external to itself, just as it is 
the alienated species-activity of man, the externalised mediation 
between man’s production and man’s production. All the qualities 
which arise in the course of this activity are, therefore, trans- 
ferred to this mediator. Hence man becomes the poorer as man, 
i.e., separated from this mediator, the richer this mediator 
becomes. 

Christ represents originally: 1) men before God; 2) God for men; 
3) men to man. 

Similarly, money represents originally, in accordance with the 
idea of money: 1) private property for private property; 2) society 
for private property; 3) private property for society. 

But Christ is alienated God and alienated man. God has value 
only insofar as he represents Christ, and man has value only 
insofar as he represents Christ. It is the same with money. 

Why must private property develop into the money system? 
Because man as a social being must proceed to exchange {|XXV\* 
and because exchange—private property being presup- - 
posed — must evolve value. The mediating process between men 

* Two consecutive pages are numbered XXV.— Ed. 

Comments on James Mill, Elémens d’économie politique 213 

engaged in exchange is not a social or human process, not human 
relationship; it is the abstract relationship of private property to private 
property, and the expression of this abstract relationship is value, 
whose actual existence as value constitutes money. Since men enga- 
ged in exchange do not relate to each other as men, things lose 
the significance of human, personal property. The social relati- 
onship of private property to private property is already a rela- 
tionship in which private property is estranged from itself. The 
form of existence for itself of this relationship, money, is there- 
fore the alienation of private property, the abstraction from its 
specific, personal nature. 

Hence the opposition of modern political economy to the 
monetary system, the systéme monétaire,° cannot achieve any deci- 
sive victory in spite of all its cleverness. For if the crude economic 
superstition of the people and governments clings to the sensuous, 
tangible, conspicuous money-bag, and therefore believes both in the 
absolute value of the precious metals and possession of them as 
the sole reality of wealth—and if then the enlightened, worldly- 
wise economist comes forward and proves to them that money is a 
commodity like any other, the value of which, like that of any 
other commodity, depends therefore on the relation of the cost of 
production to demand, competition, and supply, to the quantity or 
competition of the other commodities — this economist is given the 
correct reply that nevertheless the real value of things is their 
exchange-value and this in the last instance exists in money, as the 
latter does in the precious metals, and that consequently money 
represents the true value of things and for that reason money is 
the most desirable thing. Indeed, in the last instance the econom- 
ist’s theory itself amounts to this wisdom, the only difference being 
that he possesses the capacity of abstraction, the capacity to 
recognise the existence of money under all forms of commodities 
and therefore not to believe in the exclusive value of its official 
metallic mode of existence. The metallic existence of money is 
only the official palpable expression of the soul of money, which is 
present in all branches of production and in all activities of 
bourgeois society. 

The opposition of modern economists to the monetary system is 
merely that they have conceived the essence of money in its abstract 
universality and are therefore enlightened about the sensuous 
superstition which believes in the exclusive existence of this 
essence in precious metal. They substitute refined superstition for 
crude superstition. Since, however, in essence both have the same 
root, the enlightened form of the superstition cannot succeed in 

supplanting completely the crude sensuous form, because the 
former does not attack the essence of the latter but only the 
particular form of this essence. 

The personal mode of existence of money as money—and not 
only as the inner, implicit, hidden social relationship or class 
relationship between commodities—this mode of existence corres- 
ponds the more to the essence of money, the more abstract it is, 
the less it has a natural relationship to the other commodities, the 
more it appears as the product and yet as the non-product of 
man, the less primitive its sphere of existence, the more it is 
created by man or, in economic terms, the greater the inverse 
relationship of its value as money to the exchange-value or money 
value of the material in which it exists. Hence paper money and the 
whole number of paper representatives of money (such as bills of 
exchange, mandates, promissory notes, etc.) are the more perfect 
mode of existence of money as money and a necessary factor in the 
progressive development of the money system. In the credit system, 
of which banking is the perfect expression, it appears as if the 
power of the alien, material force were broken, the relationship of 
self-estrangement abolished and man had once more human 
relations to man. The Saint-Simonists, deceived by this appearance, 
regarded the development of money, bills of exchange, paper 
money, paper representatives of money, credit, banking, as a 
gradual abolition of the separation of man from things, of capital 
from labour, of private property from money and of money from 
man, and of the separation of man from man. An organised 
banking system is therefore their ideal. But this abolition of || XXVI| 
estrangement, this return of man to himself and therefore to other 
men is only an appearance; the self-estrangement, the dehumanisa- 
tion, is all the more infamous and extreme because its element is no 
longer commodity, metal, paper, but man’s moral existence, man’s 
social existence, the inmost depths of his heart, and because under 
the appearance of man’s trust in man it is the height of distrust and 
complete estrangement. What constitutes the essence of credit? We 
leave entirely out of account here the content of credit, which is 
again money. We leave out of account, therefore, the content of 
this trust in accordance with which a man recognises another man 
by advancing him a certain quantity of value and—at best, 
namely, when he does not demand payment for the credit, i.e., he 
is not a usurer —showing his trust in his fellow man not being a 
swindler, but a “good” man. By a “good” man, the one who 
bestows his trust understands, like Shylock, a man who is “able to 

” 

pay”: 

Comments on James Mill, Elémens d’économie politique 215 

Credit is conceivable in two relationships and under two differ- 
ent conditions. The two relationships are: first, a rich man gives 
credit to a poor man whom he considers industrious and decent. 
This kind of credit belongs to the romantic, sentimental part of 
political economy, to its aberrations, excesses, exceptions, not to the 
rule. But even assuming this exception and granting this romantic 
possibility, the life of the poor man and his talents and activity 
serve the rich man as a guarantee of the repayment of the money 
lent. That means, therefore, that all the social virtues of the poor 
man, the content of his vital activity, his existence itself, represent 
for the rich man the reimbursement of his capital with the custom- 
ary interest. Hence the death of the poor man is the worst 
eventuality for the creditor. It is the death of his capital together 
with the interest. One ought to consider how vile it is to estimate 
the value of a man in money, as happens in the credit relationship. 
As a matter of course, the creditor possesses, besides moral guaran- 
tees, also the guarantee of legal compulsion and still other more or 
less real guarantees for his man. If the man to whom credit is 
given is himself a man of means, credit becomes merely a medium 
facilitating exchange, that is to say, money itself is raised to a 
completely ideal form. Credit is the economic judgment on the 
morality of a man. In credit, the man himself, instead of metal or 
paper, has become the mediator of exchange, not however as a 
man, but as the mode of existence of capital and interest. The 
medium of exchange, therefore, has certainly returned out of its 
material form and been put back in man, but only because the 
man himself has been put outside himself and has himself 
assumed a material form. Within the credit relationship, it is not 
the case that money is transcended in man, but that man himself is 
turned into money, or money is incorporated in him. Human 
individuality, human morality itself, has become both an object of 
commerce and the material in which money exists. Instead of 
money, or paper, it is my own personal existence, my flesh and 
blood, my social virtue and importance, which constitutes the 
material, corporeal form of the spirit of money. Credit no longer 
resolves the value of money into money but into human flesh and 
the human heart. Such is the extent to which all progress and all 
inconsistencies within a false system are extreme retrogression and 
the extreme consequence of vileness. 

Within the credit system, its nature, estranged from man, under 
the appearance of an extreme economic appreciation of man, 
operates in a double way: 

1) The antithesis between capitalist and worker, between big and 

small capitalists, becomes still greater since credit is given only to 
him who already has, and is a new opportunity of accumulation 
for the rich man, or since the poor man finds that the arbitrary 
discretion of the rich man and the latter’s judgment over him 
confirm or deny his entire existence and that his existence is wholly 
dependent on this contingency. 

2) Mutual dissimulation, hypocrisy and sanctimoniousness are 
carried to extreme lengths, so that on the man without credit is 
pronounced not only the simple judgment that he is poor, but in 
addition a pejorative moral judgment that he possesses no trust, 
no recognition, and therefore is a social pariah, a bad man, and in 
addition to his privation, the poor man undergoes this humiliation 
and the humiliating necessity of having to ask the rich man for 
credit. 

II XXVIII} 3) Since, owing to this completely nominal existence of 
money, counterfeiting cannot be undertaken by man in any other 
material than his own person, he has to make himself into 
counterfeit coin, obtain credit by stealth, by lying, etc., and this 
credit relationship—both on the part of the man who trusts and 
of the man who needs trust — becomes an object of commerce, an 
object of mutual deception and misuse. Here it is also glaringly 
evident that distrust is the basis of economic trust; distrustful 
calculation whether credit ought to be given or not; spying into 
the secrets of the private life, etc., of the one seeking credit; the 
disclosure of temporary straits in order to overthrow a rival by a 
sudden shattering of his credit, etc. The whole system of bank- 
Tuptcy, spurious enterprises, etc... As regards government loans, 
the state occupies exactly the same e place as the man does in the 
earlier example.... In the game with government securities it is 
seen how the state has become the plaything of businessmen, etc. 

4) The credit system finally has its completion in the banking 
system. The creation of bankers, the political domination of the 
bank, the concentration of wealth in these hands, this economic 
Areopagus of the nation, is the worthy completion of the money 
system. 

Owing to the fact that in the credit system the moral recognition 
of a man, as also trust in the state, etc., take the form of credit, the 
secret contained in the lie of moral recognition, the immoral 
vileness of this morality, as also the sanctimoniousness and egoism 
of that trust in the state, become evident and show themselves for 
what they really are. 

Exchange, both of human activity within production itself and of 
human products against one another, is equivalent to species-activity 

Comments on James Mill, Elémens d’économie politique Q17 

and species-spirit, the real, conscious and true mode of existence 
of which is social activity and social enjoyment. Since human nature 
is the true community of men, by manifesting their nature men 
create, produce, the human community, the social entity, which is no 
abstract universal power opposed to the single individual, but is 
the essential nature of each individual, his own activity, his own 
life, his own spirit, his own wealth. Hence this true community does 
not come into being through reflection, it appears owing to the 
need and egoism of individuals, i.e., it is produced directly by their 
life activity itself. It does not depend on man whether this 
community exists or not; but as long as man does not recognise 
himself as man, and therefore has not organised the world in a 
human way, this community appears in the form of estrangement, 
because its subject, man, is a being estranged from himself. Men, 
not as an abstraction, but as real, living, particular individuals, are 
this entity. Hence, as they are, so is this entity itself. To say that 
man is estranged from himself, therefore, is the same thing as 
saying that the society of this estranged man is a caricature of his 
real community, of his true species-life, that his activity therefore 
appears to him as a torment, his own creation as an alien power, 
his wealth as poverty, the essential bond linking him with other men 
as an unessential bond, and separation from his fellow men, on 
the other hand, as his true mode of existence, his life as a sacrifice 
of his life, the realisation of his nature as making his life unreal, 
his production as the production of his nullity, his power over an 
object as the power of the object over him, and he himself, the 
lord of his creation, as the servant of this creation. 

The community of men, or the manifestation of the nature of men, 
their mutual complementing the result of which is species-life, 
truly human life—-this community is conceived by political 
economy in the form of exchange and trade. Society, says Destutt de 
Tracy, is a series of mutual exchanges.* It is precisely this process of 
mutual integration. Society, says Adam Smith, is a commercial society. 
Each of its members is a merchant.” 

It is seen that political economy defines the estranged form of 
social intercourse as the essential and original form corresponding 
to man’s nature. 

NXXVITIt Political economy—like the real process—starts out 
from the relation of man to man as that of property owner to property 
owner. If man is presupposed as property owner, i.e., therefore as 

* See Destutt de Tracy, Elémens d’idéologie, I1V° et V° parties. Traité de la 

volonté et de ses effets, p.68.— Ed. 
b See Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, Book I, Ch. IV.—Ed. 

an exclusive owner, who proves his personality and both distin- 
guishes himself from, and enters into relations with, other men 
through this exclusive ownership — private property is his person- 
al, distinctive, and therefore essential mode of existence — then the 
loss or surrender of private property is an alienation of man, as it is 
of private property itself. Here we shall only be concerned with the 
latter definition. If I give up my private property to someone else, 
it ceases to be mine; it becomes something independent of mnie, 
lying outside my sphere, a thing external to me. Hence I alienate my 
private property. With regard to me, therefore, I turn it into 
alienated private property. But I only turn it into an alienated thing 
in general, I abolish only my personal relation to it, I give it back to 
the elementary powers of nature if I alienate it only with regard to 
myself. It becomes alienated private property only if, while ceasing 
to be my private property, it on that account does not cease to be 
private property as such, that is to say, if it enters into the same 
relation to another man, apart from me, as that which it had to 
myself; in short, if it becomes the private property of another man. 
The case of violence excepted—what causes me to alienate my 
private property to another man? Political economy replies cor- 
rectly: necessity, need. The other man is also a property owner, but 
he is the owner of another thing, which I lack and cannot and will 
not do without, which seems to me a necessity for the completion of 
my existence and the realisation of my nature. 

The bond which connects the two property owners with each 
other is the specific kind of object that constitutes the substance of 
their private property. The desire for these two objects, i.e., the 
need for them, shows each of the property owners, and makes 
him conscious of it, that he has yet another essential relation to 
objects besides that of private ownership, that he is not the 
particular being that he considers himself to be, but a total being 
whose needs stand in the relationship of inner ownership to all 
products, including those of another’s labour. For the need of a 
thing is the most evident, irrefutable proof that the thing belongs 
to my essence, that its being is for me, that its property is the 
property, the peculiarity, of my essence. Thus both property 
owners are impelled to give up their private property, but to do so 
in such a way that at the same time they confirm private 
ownership, or to give up the private property within the relation- 
ship of private ownership. Each therefore alienates a part of his 
private property to the other. 

The social connection or social relationship between the two prop- 
erty owners is therefore that of reciprocity in alienation, positing 

Comments on James Mill, Elémens d’économie politique 219 

the relationship of alienation on both sides, or alienation as the 
relationship of both property owners, whereas in simple private 
property, alienation occurs only in relation to oneself, one-sidedly. 

Exchange or barter is therefore the social act, the species-act, the 
community, the social intercourse and integration of men within 
private ownership, and therefore the external, alienated species-act. 
It is just for this reason that it appears as barter. For this reason, 
likewise, it is the opposite of the social relationship. 

Through the reciprocal alienation or estrangement of private 
property, private property itself falls into the category of alienated 
private property.’ For, in the first place, it has ceased to be the 
product of the labour of its owner, his exclusive, distinctive 
personality. For he has alienated it, it has moved away from the 
owner whose product it was and has acquired a personal signifi- 
cance for someone whose product it is not. It has lost its personal 
significance for the owner. Secondly, it has been brought into 
relation with another private property, and placed on a par with 
the latter. Its place has been taken by a private property of a 
different kind, just as it itself takes the place of a private property 
of a different kind. On both sides, therefore, private property 
appears as the representative of a different kind of private 
property, as the equivalent of a different natural product, and both 
sides are related to each other in such a way that each represents 
the mode of existence of the other, and both relate to each other as 
substitutes for themselves and the other. Hence the mode of 
existence of private property as such has become that of a 
substitute, of an equivalent. Instead of its immediate unity with itself, 
it exists now only as a relation to something else. Its mode of 
existence as an equivalent is no longer its specific mode of 
existence. It has thus become a value, and immediately an 
exchange-value. Its mode of existence as value is an alienated designa- 
tion IIXXIXI| of itself, different from its immediate existence, 
external to its specific nature, a merely relative mode of existence 
of this. 

How this value is more precisely determined must be described 
elsewhere, as also how it becomes price. 

The relationship of exchange being presupposed, labour becomes 
directly labour to earn a living. This relationship of alienated labour 
reaches its highest point only when 1) on one side labour to earn a 
living and the product of the worker have no direct relation to his 
need or his function as worker, but both aspects are determined by 
social combinations alien to the worker; 2) he who buys the 
product is not himself a producer, but gives in exchange what 

someone else has produced. In the crude form of alienated private 
property, barter, each of the property owners has produced what 
his immediate need, his talents and the available raw material have 
impelled him to make. Each, therefore, exchanges with the other 
only the surplus of his production. It is true that labour was his 
immediate source of subsistence, but it was at the same time also 
the manifestation of his individual existence. Through exchange his 
labour has become partly a source of income. Its purpose differs now 
from its mode of existence. The product is produced as value, as 
exchange-value, as an equivalent, and no longer because of its direct, 
personal relation to the producer. The more diverse production 
becomes, and therefore the more diverse the needs become, on 
the one hand, and the more one-sided the activities of the 
producer become, on the other hand, the more does his labour 
fall into the category of labour to earn a living, until finally it has 
only this significance and it becomes quite accidental and inessential 
whether the relation of the producer to his product is that of 
immediate enjoyment and personal need, and also whether his 
activity, the act of labour itself, is for him the enjoyment of his 
personality and the realisation of his natural abilities and spiritual 
aims. 

Labour to earn a living involves: 1) estrangement and fortuitous 
connection between labour and the subject who labours; 2) 
estrangement and fortuitous connection between labour and the 
object of labour; 3) that the worker’s role is determined by social 
needs which, however, are alien to him and a compulsion to which 
he submits out of egoistic need and necessity, and which have for 
him only the significance of a means of satisfying his dire need, 
just as for them he exists only as a slave of their needs; 4) that to 
the worker the maintenance of his individual existence appears to 
be the purpose of his activity and what he actually does is regarded 
by him only as a means; that he carries on his life’s activity in 
order to earn means of subsistence. 

Hence the greater and the more developed the social power 
appears to be within the private property relationship, the more 
egoistic, asocial and estranged from his own nature does man 
become. 

Just as the mutual exchange of the products of human activity 
appears as barter, as trade, so the mutual completion and exchange 
of the activity itself appears as division of labour, which turns man 
as far as possible into an ‘abstract being, a machine tool, etc., and 
transforms him into a spiritual and physical monster. 

It is precisely the unity of human labour that is regarded merely 

Comments on James Mill, Elémens d’économie politique 221 

as division of labour, because social nature only comes into 
existence as its opposite, in the form of estrangement. Division of 
labour increases with civilisation. 

Within the presupposition of division of labour, the product, the 
material of private property, acquires for the individual more and 
more the significance of an equivalent, and as he no longer 
exchanges only his surplus, and the object of his production can be 
simply a matter of indifference to him, so too he no longer 
exchanges his product for something directly needed by him. The 
equivalent comes into existence as an equivalent in money, which is 
now the immediate result of labour to gain a living and the 
medium of exchange (see above’). 

The complete domination of the estranged thing over man has 
become evident in money, which is completely indifferent both to 
the nature of the material, i.e., to the specific nature of the private 
property, and to the personality of the property owner. What was 
the domination of person over person is now the general domina- 
tion of the thing over the person, of the product over the producer. 
Just as the concept of the equivalent, the value, already implied the 
alienation of private property, so money is the sensuous, even 
objective existence of this alienation. 

\|XXX| Needless to say that political economy is only able to 
grasp this whole development as a fact, as the outcome of 
fortuitous necessity. 

The separation of work from itself—separation of the worker 
from the capitalist—separation of labour and capital, the original 
form of which is made up of landed property and movable” property... 
The original determining feature of private property is mono- 
poly; hence when it creates a political constitution, it is that of 
monopoly. The perfect monopoly is competition. 

To the economist, production, consumption and, as the mediator 
of both, exchange or distribution, are separate [activities].°’ The sepa- 
ration of production and consumption, of action and spirit, in 
different individuals and in the same individual, is the separation of 
labour from its object and from itself as something spiritual. 
Distribution is the power of private property manifesting itself. 

The separation of labour, capital and landed property from one 
another, like that of labour from labour, of capital from capital, 
and landed property from landed property, and finally the 
separation of labour from wages, of capital from profit, and profit 
from interest, and, last of all, of landed property from land rent, 

? See this volume, pp. 212-14.—Ed. 
> “Movable” is not underlined in the manuscript.— Ed. 

demonstrate self-estrangement both in the form of self- 
estrangement and in that of mutual estrangement. 

“We have next to examine the effects which take place by the attempts of 
government to control the increase or diminution of money [....) When it 
endeavours to keep the quantity of money less than it would be, if things were left 
in freedom, it raises the value of the metal in the coin, and renders it the interest 
of every body, [who can,] to convert his bullion into money.” People “have 
recourse to private coining. This the government must [...) prevent by punishment. 
On the other hand, were it the object of government to keep the quantity of 
money greater than it would be, if left in freedom, it would reduce the value of the 
metal in money, below its value in bullion, and make it the interest of every body to 
melt the coins. This, also, the government would have only one expedient for 
preventing, namely, punishment. But the prospect of punishment will prevail over 
the prospect of profit [,only if the profit is small].”* Pp. 101, 102 (pp. 137, 138). 

Section IX. “If there were two individuals one of whom owed to the other 
£100, and the other owed to him £100”, instead of paying each other this sum “all 
they had to do was to exchange their mutual obligations. The case” is the same 
between two nations.... Hence bills of exchange. “The use of them was recom- 
mended by a still stronger necessity [...], because the coarse policy of those times 
prohibited the exportation of the precious metals, and punished with the greatest 
severity any infringement...” Pp. 104-05, 106 (p. 142 et seq.). 

Section X. Saving of unproductive consumption by paper money. P. 108 et seq. 
(p. 146 et seq.). 

Section XI. “The inconveniencies” of paper money are ... “First,— The failure 
of the parties, by whom the notes are issued, to fulfil their engagements. 
Second,— Forgery. Third,— The alteration of the value of the currency”. P. 110 (p. 
149). 

Section XII. “... the precious metals, are [...] that commodity [which is the most 
generally bought and sold...]. Those commodities alone can be exported, which are 
cheaper in the country from which they go, than in the country to which they are 
sent; and that those commodities alone can be imported, which are dearer in the 
country to which they come, than in the country from which they are sent”. 
Accordingly it depends on the value of the precious metals in a country whether 
they are imported or exported. Pp. 128, 129 [p. 175 et seq.]. 

Section XIII. “When we speak of the value of the precious metal, we mean the 
quantity of other things for which it will exchange.” This relation is different in 
different countries and even in different parts of the country. “We say that living 
is more cheap; in other words, commodities may be purchased with a smaller 
quantity of money.” P. 131 [p. 177]. 

Section XVI. The relation between nations is like that between merchants.... 
“The merchants [...] will always buy in the cheapest market, and sell in the 
dearest.” P. 159 (p. 215). 

IV. Consumption. 

“Production, Distribution, Exchange [...] are means. No man produces for the sake 
of producing [....] distribution and exchange are only the intermediate operations 
[for bringing the things which have been produced into the hands of those who 
are] to consume them.” P. 177 (p. 237). 

* The extracts quoted by Marx from Parisot’s French translation of 1823 are 
reproduced here from the original English text of James Mill’s book. The page 
references are to the English edition of 1821, Marx’s page references to the French 
translation being given in brackets. In this and the following extracts Marx has 
summarised or paraphrased some passages.— Ed. 

Comments on James Mill, Elémens d’économie politique 223 

Section I. “Of Consumption, there are two species.” 1) Productive. It includes 
everything “expended for the sake of something to be produced” and comprises 
“the necessaries of the labourer...” The second class then [...] “machinery; 
including tools [...], the buildings necessary for the productive operations, and even 
the cattle. The third is, the material of which the commodity to be produced must 
be formed, or from which it must be derived”. Pp. 178, 179 (pp. 238, 239). “(Of 
these three classes of things,] it is only the second, the consumption of which is not 
completed in the course of the productive operations.” P. 179 (loc. cit.). 

2) Unproductive consumption. “The wages” given to a “footman” and “all 
consumption, which does not take place to the end that something, which may be 
an equivalent for it, may be produced by means of it, is unproductive consump- 
tion”. Pp. 179, 180 (p. 240). “Productive consumption is itself a means; it is a means 
to production, Unproductive consumption [...] is not a means.” It “is the end. This, 
or the enjoyment which is involved in it, is the good which constituted the motive to 
all the operations by which it was preceded”. P. 180 (p. 241). “By productive 
consumption, nothing is lost [....}] Whatever is unproductively consumed, is lost.” P. 
180 (loc. cit.). “That which is productively consumed is always capital. This is a 
property of productive consumption which deserves to be particularly remarked 
[....] Whatever is consumed productively” is capital and “becomes capital.” P. 181 (p. 
[241,]242). “The whole of what the productive powers of the country have brought 
into existence in the course of a year, is called the gross annual produce. Of this 
the greater part is required to replace the capital which has been consumed {....] 
What remains of the gross produce, after replacing the capital which has been 
consumed, is called the net produce; and is always distributed either as profits of 
stock, or as rent.” Pp. 181, 182 (pp. 242, 243). “This net produce is the fund from 
which all addition to the national capital is commonly made.” (loc. cit.) “... the two 
species of consumption” are matched by “the two species of labour, productive and 
unproductive...” P. 182 (p. 244). 

Section II. “... the whole of what is annually produced, is annually consumed; 
or [...] what is produced in one year, is consumed in the next.” Either productively 
or unproductively. P. 184 (p. 246). 

Section III. “Consumption is co-extensive with production.” “A man produces, 
only because he wishes to have. If the commodity which he produces is the 
commodity which he wishes to have, he stops when he has produced as much as he 
wishes to have[....] When a man produces a greater quantity [...] than he desires for 
himself, it can only be on one account; namely, that he desires some other 
commodity, which he can obtain in exchange for the surplus of what he himself 
has produced.... If a man desires one thing, and produces another, it can only be 
because the thing which he desires can be obtained by means of the thing which he 
produces, and better obtained than if he had endeavoured to produce it himself. 
After labour has been divided [...] each producer confines himself to some one 
commodity or part of a commodity, a small portion only of what he produces is 
used for his own consumption. The remainder he destines for the purpose of 
supplying him with all the other commodities which he desires; and when each 
man confines himself to one commodity, and exchanges what he produces for what 
is produced by other people, it is found that each obtains more of the several 
things which he desires, than he would have obtained had he endeavoured to 
produce them all for himself.” ||XXXI| “In the case of the man who produces for 
himself, there is no exchange. He neither offers to buy any thing, nor to sell any 
thing. He has the property; he has produced it; and does not mean to part with it. 
If we apply, by a sort of metaphor, the terms demand and supply to this case, it is 
implied [...] that the demand and supply are exactly proportioned to one another. 

As far then as regards the demand and supply of the market, we may leave that 
portion of the annual produce, which each of the owners consumes in the shape in 
which he produces or receives it, altogether out of the question.” Pp. 186, 187 
(p. 251). 

“In speaking here of demand and supply, it is evident that we speak of 
aggregates. When we say of any particular nation, at any particular time, that its 
supply is equal to its demand, we do not mean in any one commodity, or any two 
commodities. We mean, that the amount of its demand in all commodities taken 
together, is equal to the amount of its supply in all commodities taken together. It 
may very well happen, notwithstanding this equality in the general sum of demands 
and supplies, that some one commodity or commodities may have been produced 
in a quantity either above or below the demand for those particular commodities.” 
P. 188 (pp. 251, 252). “Two things are necessary to constitute a demand. These 
are—A Wish for the commodity, and An Equivalent to give for it. A demand 
means, the will to purchase, and the means of purchasing. If either is wanting, the 
purchase does not take place. An equivalent is the necessary foundation of all 
demand. It is in vain that a man wishes for commodities, if he has nothing to give 
for them. The equivalent which a man brings is the instrument of demand. The 
extent of his demand is measured by the extent of his equivalent. The demand and 
the equivalent are convertible terms, and the one may be substituted for the other. 
{...] We have already seen, that every man, who produces, has a wish for other 
commodities, than those which he has produced, to the extent of all that he has 
produced beyond what he wishes to keep for his own consumption. And it is 
evident, that whatever a man has produced and does not wish to keep for his own 
consumption, is a stock which he may give in exchange for other commodities. His 
will, therefore, to purchase, and his means of purchasing—in other words, his 
demand, is exactly equal to the amount of what he has produced and does not 
mean to consume.” Pp. 188-89 (pp. 252, 253). 

With his customary cynical acumen and clarity, Mill here 
analyses exchange on the basis of private property. 

Man produces only in order to have— this is the basic presupposi- 
tion of private property. The aim of production is having. And not 
only does production have this kind of useful aim; it has also a selfish 
aim; man produces only in order to possess for himself; the object he 
produces is the objectification of his immediate, selfish need. For 
man himself—in a savage, barbaric condition—therefore, the 
amount of his production is determined by the extent of his 
immediate need, the content of which is directly the object 
produced. 

Under these conditions, therefore, man produces no more than 
he immediately requires. The limit of his need forms the limit of his 
production. Thus demand and supply exactly coincide. The extent 
of his production is measured by his need. In this case no exchange 
takes place, or exchange is reduced to the exchange of his labour 
for the product of his labour, and this exchange is the latent form, 
the germ, of real exchange. 

Comments on James Mill, Elémens d’économie politique 225 

As soon as exchange takes place, a surplus is produced beyond 
the immediate limit of possession. But this surplus production 
does not mean rising above selfish need. On the contrary, it is only 
an indirect way of satisfying a need which finds its objectification 
not in this production but in the production of someone else. 
Production has become a means of gaining a living, labour to gain a 
living. Whereas under the first state of affairs, therefore, need is 
the measure of production, under the second state of affairs 
production, or rather ownership of the product, is the measure of 
how far needs can be satisfied. 

I have produced for myself and not for you, just as you have 
produced for yourself and not for me. In itself, the result of my 
production has as little connection with you as the result of your 
production has directly with me. That is to say, our production is 
not man’s production for man as a man, i.e., it is not social 
production. Neither of us, therefore, as a man stands in a relation 
of enjoyment to the other’s product. As men, we do not exist as 
far as our respective products are concerned. Hence our ex- 
change, too, cannot be the mediating process by which it is 
confirmed that my product [XXXII is [for] you, because it is an 
objectification of your own nature, your need. For it is not man’s 
nature that forms the link between the products we make for one 
another. Exchange can only set in motion, only confirm, the 
character of the relation which each of us has in regard to his own 
product, and therefore to the product of the other. Each of us 
sees in his product only the objectification of his own selfish need, 
and therefore in the product of the other the objectification of a 
different selfish need, independent of him and alien to him. 

As a man you have, of course, a human relation to my product: 
you have need of my product. Hence it exists for you as an object 
of your desire and your will. But your need, your desire, your will, 
are powerless as regards my product. That means, therefore, that 
your human nature, which accordingly is bound to stand in 
intimate relation to my human production, is not your power over 
this production, your possession of it, for it is not the specific 
character, not the power, of man’s nature that is recognised in my 
production. They [your need, your desire, etc.] constitute rather 
the tie which makes you dependent on me, because they put you 
in a position of dependence on my product. Far from being the 
means which would give you power over my production, they are 
instead the means for giving me power Over you. 

When I produce more of an object than I myself can directly 
use, my surplus production is cunningly calculated for your need. It 

is only in appearance that I produce a surplus of this object. In 
reality 1 produce a different object, the object of your production, 
which I intend to exchange against this surplus, an exchange 
which in my mind I have already completed. The social relation in 
which I stand to you, my labour for your need, is therefore also a 
mere semblance, and our complementing each other is likewise a 
mere semblance, the basis of which is mutual plundering. The 
intention of plundering, of deception, is necessarily present in the 
background, for since our exchange is a selfish one, on your side 
as on mine, and since the selfishness of each seeks to get the better 
of that of the other, we necessarily seek to deceive each other. It is 
true though, that the power which I attribute to my object over 
yours requires your recognition in order to become a real power. 
Our mutual recognition of the respective powers of our objects, 
however, is a struggle, and in a struggle the victor is the one who 
has more energy, force, insight, or adroitness. If 1 have sufficient 
physical force, I plunder you directly. If physical force cannot be 
used, we try to impose on each other by bluff, and the more 
adroit overreaches the other. For the totality of the relationship, it 
is a matter of chance who overreaches whom. The ideal, intended 
overreaching takes place on both sides, ie., each in his own 
judgment has overreached the other. 

On both sides, therefore, exchange is necessarily mediated by 
the object which each side produces and possesses. The ideal 
relationship to the respective objects of our production is, of 
course, our mutual need. But the real, true relationship, which 
actually occurs and takes effect, is only the mutually exclusive 
possession of our respective products. What gives your need of my 
article its value, worth and effect for me is solely your object, the 
equivalent of my object. Our respective products, therefore, are the 
means, the mediator, the instrument, the acknowledged power of our 
mutual needs. Your demand and the equivalent of your possession, 
therefore, are for me terms that are equal in significance and 
validity, and your demand only acquires a meaning, owing to 
having an effect, when it has meaning and effect in relation to me. 
As a mere human being without this instrument your demand is 
an unsatisfied aspiration on your part and an idea that does not 
exist for me. As a human being, therefore, you stand in no 
. relationship to my object, because I myself have no human 
relationship to it. But the means is the true power over an object 
and therefore we mutually regard our products as the power of 
each of us over the other and over himself. That is to say, our 
own product has risen up against us; it seemed to be our property, 

Comments on James Mill., Elémens d’économie politique 227 

but in fact we are its property. We ourselves are excluded from 
true property because our property excludes other men. 

The only intelligible language in which we converse with one 
another consists of our objects in their relation to each other. We 
would not understand a human language and it would remain 
without effect. By one side it would be recognised and felt as 
being a request, an entreaty, I[XXXIIII and therefore a humiliation, 
and consequently uttered with a feeling of shame, of degradation. 
By the other side it would be regarded as impudence or lunacy and 
rejected as such. We are to such an extent estranged from man’s 
essential nature that the direct language of this essential nature 
seems to us a violation of human dignity, whereas the estranged 
language of material values seems to be the well-justified assertion 
of human dignity that is self-confident and conscious of itself. 

Although in your eyes your product is an instrument, a means, 
for taking possession of my product and thus for satisfying your 
need; yet in my eyes it is the purpose of our exchange. For me, you 
are rather the means and instrument for producing this object 
that is my aim, just as conversely you stand in the same 
relationship to my object. But 1) each of us actually behaves in the 
way he is regarded by the other. You have actually made yourself 
the means, the instrument, the producer of your own object in 
order to gain possession of mine; 2) your own object is for you 
only the sensuously perceptible covering, the hidden shape, of my 
object; for its production signifies and seeks to express the acquisi- 
tion of my object. In fact, therefore, you have become for yourself 
a means, an instrument of your object, of which your desire is the 
servant, and you have performed menial! services in order that the 
object shall never again do a favour to your desire. If then our 
mutual thraldom to the object at the beginning of the process is 
now seen to be in reality the relationship between master and slave, 
that is merely the crude and frank expression of our essential 
relationship. 

Our mutual value is for us the value of our mutual objects. 
Hence for us man himself is mutually of no value. 

Let us suppose that we had carried out production as human 
beings. Each of us would have in two ways affirmed himself and the 
other person. 1) In my production I would have objectified my indi- 
viduality, its specific character, and therefore enjoyed not only an in- 
dividual manifestation of my life during the activity, but also when look- 
ing at the object I would have the individual pleasure of knowing 
my personality to be objective, visible to the senses and hence a power 
beyond all doubt. 2) In your enjoyment or use of my product I 

would have the direct enjoyment both of being conscious of having 
satisfied a human need by my work, that is, of having objectified 
man’s essential nature, and of having thus created an object 
corresponding to the need of another man’s essential nature. 3) I 
would have been for you the mediator between you and the species, 
and therefore would become recognised and felt by you yourself 
as a completion of your own essential nature and as a necessary 
part of yourself, and consequently would know myself to be 
confirmed both in your thought and your love. 4) In the 
individual expression of my life I would have directly created your 
expression of your life, and therefore in my individual activity I 
would have directly confirmed and realised my true nature, my 
human nature, my communal nature. 

Our products would be so many mirrors in which we saw 
reflected our essential nature. 

This relationship would moreover be reciprocal; what occurs on 
my side has also to occur on yours. 

Let us review the various factors as seen in our supposition: 

My work would be a free manifestation of life, hence an enjoyment of 
life. Presupposing private property, my work is an alienation of life, 
for I work in order to live, in order to obtain for myself the means 
of life. My work is not my life. 

Secondly, the specific nature of my individuality, therefore, would 
be affirmed in my labour, since the latter would be an affirmation 
of my individual life. Labour therefore would be true, active 
property. Presupposing private property, my individuality is alie- 
nated to such a degree that this activity is instead hateful to me, a 
torment, and rather the semblance of an activity. Hence, too, it is 
only a forced activity and one imposed on me only through an 
external fortuitous need, not through an inner, essential one. 

My labour can appear in my object only as what it is. It cannot 
appear as something which by its nature it is not. Hence it appears 
only as the expression of my loss of self and of my powerlessness that 
is objective, sensuously perceptible, obvious and therefore put 
beyond all doubt. |XX XIII||