Page:The International Socialist Review (1900-1918), Vol. 1, Issue 1.pdf/30

 ing any discussion at all on the money question at the present time. If socialism is to remain a science and not degenerate into a dogma; if socialists are to maintain their proud and justified claim that they march in the front rank of scientific inquiry, they will some day have to re-examine their position and admit that Marx made a mistake about money—a mistake which is easily accounted for, and in no way lessens the general value of his economic and social teachings.

The true policy of socialists is not to attack the money reformers on their own ground and get beaten by them, but to acknowledge what is correct in their demands and point out to them the fact that the government control of money would not have the effect aimed at unless it also included government control of credit, which is now in the hands of banks; in other words, that money reform is worthless unless it includes government banking and a repeal of the laws which enable private lenders to collect interest; that such a fundamental change as they demand can never be brought about by the middle class; that nothing short of a proletarian upheaval can overthrow the money power; and that the only way to get what they seek is to join the socialist party.

Marx's views on money are found in Chapter III of Capital and in Chapter II of his Critique of Political Economy, published in 1859, which is frequently referred to in the foot notes of Capital. Our space does not permit us to quote from these works as copiously as we should wish. It is not easy to formulate clearly Marx's views. His statements frequently appear to be contradictory. If the principles we here attribute to him and criticise do not truly represent his views we are willing to stand corrected. Let us begin with Capital, page 61.

"The law that the quantity of the circulating medium is determined by the sum of the prices of the commodities circulating and the average velocity of currency may also be stated as follows: Given the sum of the values of commodities and the average rapidity of their metamorphoses, the quantity of precious metal current as money depends on the value of that precious metal. The erroneous opinion that it is, on the contrary, prices that are determined by the quantity of the circulating medium and that the latter depends on the quantity of the precious metals in a country; this opinion was based by those who first held it on the absurd hypothesis that commodities are without a price and money without a value when they first enter into circulation and that once in the circulation an aliquot part of the medley of commodities is exchanged for an aliquot part of the heap of precious metals."

We also quote foot note accompaning above statement: "Adam Smith takes the right view where he says that the quantity of coin