Page:Karl Marx - The Poverty of Philosophy - (tr. Harry Quelch) - 1913.djvu/51

 course of production it has been exchanged against all the expenses of production, such as raw material, work-people's wages, &c., all things which are saleable values. Thus the product represents, in the eyes of the producer, a sum of saleable values. What he offers is not merely an object of utility, but, above all, a saleable value.

As to demand, it can only be effective on condition that it has at its disposal some means of exchange. These means themselves are products, saleable values.

In supply and demand then, we find, on one side a product which has cost some saleable values, and the desire to sell; on the other, some means which have cost some saleable values and the desire to purchase.

M. Proudhon opposes the free purchaser to the free producer. He has given to the one and to the other some purely metaphysical qualities. This it is which makes him say: "It is proved that it is the free will of man which gives rise to the opposition between use-value and exchange-value."

The producer, from the moment that he has produced in a society based on the division of labor and the exchange of commodities—and that is the hypothesis of M. Proudhon—is forced to sell. M. Proudhon makes the producer master of the means of production; but he will agree with us that it is not upon his free will that his means of production depend. Further, these means of production consist largely of products which come to him from without, and in modern production he is not even free to produce whatever quantity he likes. The actual degree of development of productive forces obliges him to produce on such and such a scale.

The consumer is not more free than the producer. His choice depends upon his means and his wants. The one and the other are determined by his social position,