Page:Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, A - Karl Marx.djvu/267

Rh to the same class. None of these writers takes a one-sided view of money, but treat it in its various aspects; the treatment, however, is mechanical, without an attempt to establish an organic connection either between these various aspects themselves, or between them and the combined system of economic categories. They fall, therefore, into the error of confusing money as distinguished from medium of circulation with capital or even with commodity, although they are forced elsewhere to differentiate it from both. When gold, e. g., is shipped abroad, it practically means that capital is sent abroad, but the same thing takes place when iron, cotton, grain, or any other commodity is exported. Both are capital and are distinguished not as capital, but as money and commodity. The function of gold as the international medium of exchange springs, therefore,