Page:Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, A - Karl Marx.djvu/225

Rh we have seen, into a token of value. But since classical political economy had to deal with metallic circulation as the prevailing form of circulation, it defined metallic money as coin, and metallic coin as a mere token of value. In acordanceaccordance [sic] with the law governing the circulation of tokens of value, the proposition was advanced that the prices of commodities depend on the quantity of money in circulation instead of the opposite principle that the quantity of money in circulation depends on the prices of commodities. We find this view more or less clearly expressed by the Italian economists of the seventeenth century; LOCKE now asserts, now denies that principle; it is clearly elaborated in the "Spectator" (of October 19, 1711) by MONTESQUIEU AND HUME. Since Hume was by far the most important representative of this theory in the eighteenth century, we shall commence our review with him.

Under certain assumptions, an increase or decrease in the quantity either of the metallic money in circulation, or of the tokens of value in circulation seems to affect uniformly the prices of commodities. With each fall or rise of the value of gold or silver in which the exchange values of commodities are estimated as prices, there is a rise or fall of prices, because of the change in their measure of value; as a result of the rise or fall of prices, a greater or smaller quantity of gold and silver is circulating as coin. But the apparent phenomenon is the fall in prices—the exchange value of commodities remaining the same—accompanied by an increased or diminished quantity of the medium of circulation. On the other hand, if the quantity of tokens of value rises