Page:Karl Marx - The Poverty of Philosophy - (tr. Harry Quelch) - 1913.djvu/93

 mining them by the comparative quantity of labor they embody, all that he had to do was to prove that variations which have taken place in the value of gold and silver were always to be explained by the variations in the time of labor necessary to produce them. M. Proudhon does not dream of that. He does not speak of gold and silver as commodities, he speaks of them as money.

All his logic, if logic there be, consists in juggling with the quality which gold and silver possess, of serving as money, for the benefit of all the commodities which have the quality of being valued by labor time. Decidedly there is more of simplicity than malice in this shuffling.

A useful product, being valued by the labor time necessary to produce it, is always acceptable in exchange. Witness, cries M. Proudhon, gold and silver which find themselves in my desired conditions of "exchangeability." Then gold and silver are value arrived at the state of constitution—they are the incorporation of the idea of M. Proudhon. He is most happy in his choice of an example. Gold and silver, in addition to the quality which they possess of being commodities, valued like all other commodities by labor time, have further that of being the universal agent of exchange, of being money. In taking now gold and silver as an application of "value constituted" by labor time, nothing is more easy than to prove that every commodity the value of which may be constituted by labor time will be always exchangeable, will be money.

A very simple question presents itself to the mind of M. Proudhon. Why have gold and silver the privilege of being the type of "constituted value"?

"The particular function which usage has devolved upon the precious metals of serving as the agent of com-