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Exchange-value appears at first sight as a quantitative relation, as a proportion in which use-values are exchanged for one another. In such a relation they constitute equal exchangeable quantities. Thus, a volume of Propercius and eight ounces of snuff may represent the same exchange value, in spite of the dissimilar use-values of tobacco and elegy. As exchange-value, one kind of use-value is worth as much as another kind, if only taken in right proportion. The exchange value of a palace can be expressed in a certain number of boxes of shoe-blacking. On the contrary, London manufacturers of shoe-blacking have expressed the exchange value of their many boxes of blacking, in palaces. Thus, entirely apart from their natural forms and without regard to the specific kind of wants for which they serve as use-values, commodities in certain quantities equal each other, take each other's place in exchange, pass as equivalents, and in spite of their variegated appearance, represent the same entity.
Use-values are primarily means of existence. These means of existence, however, are themselves products of social life, the result of expended human vital power, materialized labor. As the embodiment of social labor, all commodities are the crystallization of the same substance. Let us now consider the nature of this substance, i. e., of labor, which is expressed in exchange value.
Let one ounce of gold, one ton of iron, one quarter of wheat and twenty yards of silk represent equal exchange values. As equivalents, in which the qualitative difference between their use-values has been eliminated, they represent equal volumes of the same kind of labor. The labor which is equally embodied in all of them must be uniform, homogeneous, simple labor. It matters as little in the case of labor whether it be embodied in gold, iron, wheat, or silk, as it does in the case of oxygen, whether it appears in the rust of iron, in the atmosphere, in the juice of a grape, or in the blood of a human being. But the digging of gold, the extraction of iron from a mine, the raising of wheat and the weaving of silk are so many kinds of labor, differing in quality. As a matter of fact, what in reality appears as a difference in use-values, is in the process of production, a difference in the work creating those use-values. Just as labor, which creates exchange value, is indifferent to the material of use-values, so it is to the special form of labor itself. Furthermore, the different use-values are the products of the work of different individuals, consequently the result of various kinds of labor differing individuallyPg 23 from one another. But as exchange values, they represent the same homogeneous labor, i. e., labor from which the individuality of the workers is eliminated. Labor creating exchange value is, therefore, abstract general labor.
If one ounce of gold, one ton of iron, one quarter of wheat, and twenty yards of silk are exchange values of equal magnitude or equivalents; then one ounce of gold, half a ton of iron, three bushels of wheat and five yards of silk are exchange values of different magnitudes, and this quantitative difference is the only difference of which they are capable as exchange values. As exchange values of different magnitudes, they represent greater or smaller quantities of that simple, homogeneous, abstract, general labor, which forms the substance of exchange value. The question arises, how are these quantities to be measured? Or, rather what constitutes the substance of labor, which makes it capable of quantitative measurement, since the quantitative differences of commodities in their capacity of exchange values are but quantitative differences of labor embodied in them. Just as motion is measured by time, so is labor measured by labor-time. Given the quality of labor, the difference in its duration is the only property by which it can be distinguished. As labor-time, labor has the same standard of measurement as the natural time measures, viz., hours, days, weeks, etc. Labor-time is the vital substance of labor, independent of its form, composition, individuality; it is its vital substance quantitatively, having at the same time its own inherent measure. Labor-time embodied in thePg 24 use-values of commodities is the substance which makes exchange values and, therefore, commodities of them and at the same time serves to measure definite quantities of their value. Corresponding quantities of different use-values, in which the same quantity of labor-time is embodied, are equivalents; or, to put it in another form, all use-values are equivalents when taken in proportions containing the same quantity of expended, materialized labor-time. As exchange values, all commodities are but definite measures of congealed labor-time.
To understand how exchange value is determined by labor-time, the following main points must be kept in mind: The reduction of labor to simple labor, devoid of any quality, so to speak; the specific ways and means by which exchange—value-creating, i. e., commodity producing labor becomes social labor; finally, the difference between labor as the producer of use-values, and labor as the creator of exchange values.
In order to measure commodities by the labor-time contained in them, the different kinds of labor must be reduced to uniform, homogeneous, simple labor, in short, to labor which is qualitatively the same, and, therefore, differs only in quantity.
This reduction appears to be an abstraction; but it is an abstraction which takes place daily in the social process of production. The conversion of all commodities into labor-time is no greater abstraction nor a less real process than the chemical reduction of all organic bodies to air. Labor, thus measured by time, does not appear in reality as the labor of different individuals.Pg 25 but on the contrary, the various working individuals rather appear as mere organs of labor; or, in so far as labor is represented by exchange values, it may be defined as human labor in general. This abstraction of human labor in general virtually exists in the average labor which the average individual of a given society can perform—a certain productive expenditure of human muscles, nerves, brain, etc. It is unskilled labor to which the average individual can be put and which he has to perform in one way or another. The character of this average labor varies in different countries and at different stages of civilization, but appears fixed in a particular society. Unskilled labor constitutes the bulk of all labor performed in capitalist society, as may be seen from all statistics.
It is obvious that if A spends six hours in the production of iron and six hours on linen, and B also produces iron during six hours and linen during another six hours, it is but a different application of the same labor time that would be expended, if A produced iron during twelve hours, while B worked twelve hours on linen. But how about skilled labor which rises above the level of average labor by its higher intensity, by its greater specific gravity? This kind of labor resolves itself into unskilled labor composing it; it is simple labor of a higher intensity, so that one day of skilled labor, e. g., may equal three days of unskilled labor. This is not the place to consider the laws regulating this reduction. It is clear, however, that such reduction does take place, for, as exchange value, the product of the most skilled labor is, when taken in a certain proPg 26portion, equivalent to the product of unskilled average labor, or equal to a definite quantity of that unskilled labor.
