Page:Karl Marx - The Poverty of Philosophy - (tr. Harry Quelch) - 1913.djvu/63

 matter what may be the reciprocal positions of those whose labor has combined to create this product.

Let us take another product (cloth) which has exacted the same quantity of labor as the linen.

If there is an exchange of these products there is an exchange of equal quantities of labor. In exchanging these equal quantities of labor, we do not change the reciprocal position of the producers any more than we change something in the situation of the workers and manufacturers among them. To say that this exchange of products measured by time has, for its consequence, the equal remuneration of all the producers, is to suppose that equality of participation has existed anterior to the exchange. When the exchange of the cloth for the linen has been accomplished, the producers of the cloth will share in the linen in precisely the same proportions as they before shared in the cloth.

The illusion of M. Proudhon proceeds from his taking as a necessary consequence what at the most can be nothing but a gratuitous assumption.

Let us go further.

Does labor time, as the measure of value, suppose at least that the days are equivalent, and that the day of one is worth the day of another? No.

Assuming, for a moment, that the day of a jeweler is worth three days of a weaver, all changes in the value of jewels relatively to the value of woven stuffs must always, apart from the passing effects of the oscillation of supply and demand, have for cause a reduction or an increase on one side or the other of the time employed in production. Let three days of labor of different workers be in the proportion of 1, 2, 3 and all change in the relative value of their products will be a change in this proportion of 1, 2, 3. Thus