Page:Landmarks of Scientific Socialism-Anti-Duehring-Engels-Lewis-1907.djvu/257

 very easily without any interference on the part of the much discussed "value."

The value idea is the most universal and the most comprehensive expression of the economic conditions of the production of commodities. In the idea of value there is not only the germ of gold but also of those more highly developed forms of commodity production and exchange. Since value is the expression of the social labor incorporated in individual products, there lies the possibility of a difference between this and the individual labor embodied in the same product. This difference becomes very apparent to a private producer who abides by an old fashioned method of production while the social method of production has taken a step for ward. It then appears that the sum of all the private manufacturers of a given commodity produce an amount in excess of the social needs. Then, since the value of a commodity is expressed only in terms of other commodities and can only be realised in exchange with them, the possibility arises that either exchange will cease or that the commodity will not realise its full value. Finally, the specific commodity labor-force finds its value like that of other wares in the social labor time necessary for its production. In the value form of the product there is already in embryo the entire capitalistic form of production, the antagonism between the capitalists and the wage-workers, the industrial reserve army, the crisis. The capitalistic system will be abolished by the restoration of true value (just as Catholicism will be abolished by the restoration of the true Pope), or by the restoration of a society in which the producer finally dominates his product, by the doing away of an economic category which is the most