Page:Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, A - Karl Marx.djvu/169

 actual interchange of matter. In the form M—C—M the two extremes are gold and at the same tune gold of equal value. To exchange gold for a commodity in order to exchange the commodity for gold, or if we consider the final result M—M, to exchange gold for gold, geems absurd. But if we translate the formula M—C—M into the expression: to buy in order to sell, which means nothing but to exchange gold for gold through an intervening movement, we recognize at once the prevailing form of capitalist production. In actual practice, however, people do not buy in order to sell, but they buy cheap in order to sell dear. Money is exchanged for a commodity in order to exchange the same commodity for a larger amount of money, so that the extremes M, M are, if not qualitatively, then quantitatively different. Such a quantitative difference presupposes the exchange of non-equivalents, yet commodity and money as such are only opposite forms of the same commodity, i. e. they are different forms of the same magnitude of value. The circuit M—C—M thus conceals under the forms of money and commodity more highly developed relations of production, and is but a reflection within the sphere of simple circulation of a movement of a more advanced character. Money, as distinguished from the medium of circulation, must therefore be developed from the direct form of circulation of commodities, C—M—C.

Gold, i. e., the specific commodity which serves as a measure of value and a medium of circulation, becomes money without any further assistance on the part of society. In England, where silver is neither the measure of value nor the prevailing medium of circulation, it