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In the form of gold and silver, wealth is indestructible, both because exchange value is preserved in the shape of indestructible metal, and, especially, because gold and silver are prevented from becoming, as mediums of circulation, mere vanishing money forms of the commodity. The destructible substance is thus sacrificed for the indestructible form. "If money be taken (by means of taxation) from him, who spendeth the same ... upon eating and drinking, or any other perishing Commodity; and the same transferred to one that bestoweth it on Cloaths; I say that even in this case the Commonwealth hath some little advantage; because Cloaths do not altogether perish so soon as Meats and Drinks. But if the same be spent in Furniture of Houses, the advantage is yet a little more; if in Building of Houses, yet more; if in improving of Lands, working of Mines, Fishing, etc., yet more; but most of all, in bringing Gold and Silver into the Country; because those things are not only not perishable, but are esteemed for Pg 173Wealth at all times and everywhere; whereas other Commodities which are perishable, or whose value depends upon the Fashion; or which are contingently scarce and plentiful, are Wealth, but pro hic et nunc."93 The withdrawal of money from the stream of circulation and the saving of it from the social interchange of matter reaches its extreme form in the burying of money, so that social wealth is brought as an underground indestructible treasure into a perfectly secret private relation with the owner of commodities. Dr. Bernier, who stayed for some time at the court of Aurenzeb at Delhi, tells us how the merchants, especially the Mohammedan heathens, who control nearly all the trade and all money, secretly bury their money deep in the ground, "being imbued with the faith that the gold and silver which they put away during their lives will serve them after death in the next world."94 However, in so far as the asceticism of the hoarder is combined with active industry, he is rather a Protestant by religion and still more a Puritan. "It can not be denied that buying and selling are necessary, that one can not get along without them, and that one can buy like a Christian especially things that serve in need and in honor; for the patriarchs had also bought and sold cattle, wool, grain, butter, milk and other goods. They are gifts of God which He gives out of the earth and divides among men. But Pg 174foreign trade which brings over from Calcutta, India and other such places commodities consisting of costly silks, and gold ware, and spices which only serve for luxury and are of no use, draining the land and the people of their money, should not be tolerated if we but had a government of princes. Yet I do not wish to write of that now, for I believe it will have to stop of itself, when we have no money any longer; and so will luxury and gluttony; for no writing or teaching will help until want and poverty will force us."95

In times of disturbance in the process of the social interchange of matter, the burying of money takes place even in bourgeois societies which are at a high stage of development. The social bond in its compact form is Pg 175being saved from the social movement (with the owner of commodities this bond is the commodity and the adequate form of the commodity is money). The social nervus rerum is buried next to the body whose nerve it is.

The hoard would now become mere useless metal, its money soul would depart from it and it would remain as the burnt ashes of circulation, as its caput mortuum, if it did not constantly tend to get back into circulation. Money, or crystallized exchange value, is, according to its nature, the form of abstract wealth; but, on the other hand, any given sum of money is a quantitatively limited magnitude of value. The quantitative limitation of exchange value is in contradiction with its qualitative universality and the hoarder conPg 176ceives in it a barrier which turns, in fact, into a qualitative barrier as well and makes of the hoard merely a limited representative of material wealth. Money, in its capacity of a universal equivalent, appears, as we have seen, as a member of an equation, the other member of which consists of an endless series of commodities. It depends on the magnitude of the exchange value to what extent money will be realized in such an endless series, i. e., to what degree it corresponds to the conception of it as an exchange value. The automatic movement of exchange value as exchange value can only tend to its passing beyond its quantitative limits. But by exceeding the quantitative limits of the hoard a new limit is created which must be removed in its turn. There is no definite limit which appears as a barrier to further hoarding, every limit plays that part. Hoard accumulation has, therefore, no inherent limits, no inherent measure; it is an endless process which finds in each successive result an impulse for a new beginning. While the hoard is increased only by being preserved, it is preserved only by being increased.

Money is not only an object of the passion for riches; it is the object of that passion. The latter is essentially auri sacra fames. The passion for riches, contrary to that for special kinds of natural wealth or use-values, such as clothing, ornaments, herds, etc., is possible only when universal wealth has been individualized as such in a particular object and can, therefore, be retained in the form of a single commodity. Money appears then no less as an object than as a source of the passion forPg 177 riches.96 The underlying fact of the matter is that exchange value as such and with it its increase become the final aim. Greed holds the hoard fast by not allowing the money to become a medium of circulation, but the thirst for gold saves the money soul of the hoard by keeping up the lasting affinity of gold for circulation.

To sum up, the activity by which hoards are built up resolves itself into withdrawal of money from circulation by continually repeated sales, and simple hoarding or accumulation. In fact, it is only in the sphere of simple circulation and, especially, in the form of hoarding, that accumulation of wealth as such takes place, while, as we shall see later, in the case of other so-called forms of accumulation it is only a misnomer to call them by that name in mere recollection of the simple accumulation of money. All other commodities are hoarded either as use-values, in which case the manner of storing them up is determined by the peculiarities of their use-value: the storing of grain, e. g., requires special equipment; the accumulation of sheep makes one a shepherd; the accumulation of slaves and land creates relations of master and servant, etc.; the accumulation of particular kinds of wealth requires special processes different from the simple act of hoarding, and develops special individual traits. Or, wealth in the form of comPg 178modities is hoarded as exchange-value and in that case hoarding appears as a commercial or a specific economic operation. The one who carries on such operations becomes a dealer in corn, in cattle, etc. Gold and silver are money not through some activity of the individual who accumulates it, but as crystals of the process of circulation which goes on without any aid on his part. He has nothing to do but to put them aside, adding new weights of metal to his hoard, a perfectly senseless operation which, if applied to all other commodities, would deprive them of all value.97