Page:Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, A - Karl Marx.djvu/40

Rh to a certain organization of society which has not been brought about by the tailor. Thus, the women under the ancient system of house industry made coats without producing the exchange value of the coats. Labor as a source of material wealth was known to Moses, the legislator, as well as to Adam Smith, the customs official.

Let us consider now some propositions which follow from the determination of exchange value by labor-time.

As a use-value, every commodity owes its usefulness to itself. Wheat, e.g., serves as an article of food. A machine saves labor to a certain extent. This function of a commodity by virtue of which it serves only as use-value, as an article of consumption, may be called its service, the service which it renders as use-value. But as an exchange value, a commodity is always regarded as a result; the question in this case is not as to the service which it renders, but as to the service which it has been rendered in its production. Thus, the exchange value of a machine is determined not by