Page:Karl Marx - The Poverty of Philosophy - (tr. Harry Quelch) - 1913.djvu/27

 position which exacts that the value attested should be really in circulation by giving only to him who actually delivers a product, a note on which should be marked exactly the quantity of labor necessary for the manufacture of the product. He who delivers a product of two days' labor would receive a note marked 'two days.' The second condition would be necessarily fulfilled by the strict observance of this regulation in the issue of the notes. According to our hypothesis, the true value of goods coincides with the quantity of labor expended in their manufacture, and this quantity of labor is measured by the division of time expressed. He who delivers a product to which two days' labor have been devoted, if he receives a certificate of two days' labor, has then secured that there should be assigned or certified to him neither more nor less value than he has in fact delivered—and further, as he only who has really put a product in circulation, alone secures such an attestation, it is equally certain that the value inscribed on the note is capable of paying society. Enlarge as much as we will the sphere of the division of labor, if the regulation is properly followed the sum of value disposable must be exactly equal to the sum of value certified, and, as the sum of value certified is exactly the sum assigned, this must necessarily coincide with the value disposable. All the exigencies are satisfied and the liquidation is perfect." (Pages 166, 167.)

If Rodbertus has up to the present had the misfortune of arriving too late with his discoveries, this time, at least, he has obtained a kind of originality; none of his rivals had dared to give to the foolish utopia of the labor-note this form so naïvely infantile, I might even say so truly Pomeranian. Because that for each note an object of corresponding value is delivered, as no object