008-Chapter-2-Exchange

Chapter 2: Exchange

It is plain that commodities cannot go to market and make exchanges of their own
account. We must, therefore, have recourse to their guardians, who are also
their owners. Commodities are things, and therefore without power of resistance
against man. If they are wanting in docility he can use force; in other words,
he can take possession of them. In order that these objects may enter into
relation with each other as commodities, their guardians must place themselves
in relation to one another, as persons whose will resides in those objects, and
must behave in such a way that each does not appropriate the commodity of the
other, and part with his own, except by means of an act done by mutual consent.
They must therefore, mutually recognise in each other the rights of private
proprietors. This juridical relation, which thus expresses itself in a contract,
whether such contract be part of a developed legal system or not, is a relation
between two wills, and is but the reflex of the real economic relation between
the two. It is this economic relation that determines the subject-matter
comprised in each such juridical act.

The persons exist for one another merely as representatives of, and, therefore.
as owners of, commodities. In the course of our investigation we shall find, in
general, that the characters who appear on the economic stage are but the
personifications of the economic relations that exist between them.

What chiefly distinguishes a commodity from its owner is the fact, that it looks
upon every other commodity as but the form of appearance of its own value. A
born leveller and a cynic, it is always ready to exchange not only soul, but
body, with any and every other commodity, be the same more repulsive than
Maritornes herself. The owner makes up for this lack in the commodity of a sense
of the concrete, by his own five and more senses. His commodity possesses for
himself no immediate use-value. Otherwise, he would not bring it to the market.
It has use-value for others; but for himself its only direct use-value is that
of being a depository of exchange-value, and, consequently, a means of exchange.
Therefore, he makes up his mind to part with it for commodities whose value in
use is of service to him. All commodities are non-use-values for their owners,
and use-values for their non-owners. Consequently, they must all change hands.
But this change of hands is what constitutes their exchange, and the latter puts
them in relation with each other as values, and realises them as values. Hence
commodities must be realised as values before they can be realised as
use-values.

商品必须通过交换，才能到达消费者手里。在此之前，商品在所有者手里，不是使用价值，而是Value。

On the other hand, they must show that they are use-values before they can be
realised as values. For the labour spent upon them counts effectively, only in
so far as it is spent in a form that is useful for others. Whether that labour
is useful for others, and its product consequently capable of satisfying the
wants of others, can be proved only by the act of exchange.

商品必须有使用价值，创造商品的劳动才算是有用劳动。只有卖出去了，才能证明劳动是有用劳动，才能证明劳动产品能满足他人的需要。

Every owner of a commodity wishes to part with it in exchange only for those
commodities whose use-value satisfies some want of his. Looked at in this way,
exchange is for him simply a private transaction. On the other hand, he desires
to realise the value of his commodity, to convert it into any other suitable
commodity of equal value, irrespective of whether his own commodity has or has
not any use-value for the owner of the other. From this point of view, exchange
is for him a social transaction of a general character. But one and the same set
of transactions cannot be simultaneously for all owners of commodities both
exclusively private and exclusively social and general.

【看不懂】

Let us look at the matter a little closer. To the owner of a commodity, every
other commodity is, in regard to his own, a particular equivalent, and
consequently his own commodity is the universal equivalent for all the others.
But since this applies to every owner, there is, in fact, no commodity acting as
universal equivalent, and the relative value of commodities possesses no general
form under which they can be equated as values and have the magnitude of their
values compared. So far, therefore, they do not confront each other as
commodities, but only as products or use-values. In their difficulties our
commodity owners think like Faust: “Im Anfang war die Tat.” [“In the beginning
was the deed.” – Goethe, Faust.] They therefore acted and transacted before
they thought. Instinctively they conform to the laws imposed by the nature of
commodities. They cannot bring their commodities into relation as values, and
therefore as commodities, except by comparing them with some one other commodity
as the universal equivalent. That we saw from the analysis of a commodity. But a
particular commodity cannot become the universal equivalent except by a social
act. The social action therefore of all other commodities, sets apart the
particular commodity in which they all represent their values. Thereby the
bodily form of this commodity becomes the form of the socially recognised
universal equivalent. To be the universal equivalent, becomes, by this social
process, the specific function of the commodity thus excluded by the rest. Thus
it becomes – money. “Illi unum consilium habent et virtutem et potestatem suam
bestiae tradunt. Et ne quis possit emere aut vendere, nisi qui habet characterem
aut nomen bestiae aut numerum nominis ejus.” [“These have one mind, and shall
give their power and strength unto the beast.” Revelations, 17:13; “And that no
man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or
the number of his name.” Revelations, 13:17.] (Apocalypse.)

我们仔细分析一下。对商品所有者来说，每个其他商品都是自己商品的特殊等价物，因而自己商品是其他商品的一般等价物。但每个商品所有者都这样看，所以没有哪个商品充当公认的一般等价物。商品Value的相对形式就得不到一般形式。只有在一般形式下，各种商品才能作为Value相互同质和相互比较数量。因此，到此为止，产品仅作为使用价值相互对立，而不是作为商品相互对立。在困境中，商品所有者们像浮士德（Faust）那样思考：“先干了再说”。因此他们还没有解决困难，就已经行动起来了。他们本能地遵守着商品的自然规律。他们只有将自己和对方的商品与一个充当一般等价物的商品比较，才能相互比较自己与对方的商品。我们在对商品的分析中看到了这一点。但是，只有通过社会活动，一个特定的商品才会成为一般等价物。所有商品的社会活动总和，将一个特定的商品推举出来，用它表示自己的Value。从而，这个特定商品的肉体形式，成为了被社会认可的一般等价物的形式。通过社会活动的总过程，充当一般等价物，成为了这个商品的特殊职能。于是，这个商品成为了货币。“他们同心合意，将力量和权柄赋予此兽。无兽之印，无兽之名，无兽之数者，不得买卖。”（《启示录》）

Money is a crystal formed of necessity in the course of the exchanges, whereby
different products of labour are practically equated to one another and thus by
practice converted into commodities. The historical progress and extension of
exchanges develops the contrast, latent in commodities, between use-value and
value. The necessity for giving an external expression to this contrast for the
purposes of commercial intercourse, urges on the establishment of an independent
form of value, and finds no rest until it is once for all satisfied by the
differentiation of commodities into commodities and money. At the same rate,
then, as the conversion of products into commodities is being accomplished, so
also is the conversion of one special commodity into money.

交换过程必然产生货币，各种劳动产品实现了彼此同质，成为商品。【前方高能】交换的历史在进行，交换的范围在扩大，商品内部使用价值和Value的内部对立就在发展。为了贸易往来的需要，人们需要给这个内部对立找到一个外部表达，人们需要Value有一个独立的形式。人们不停的寻找，直到商品被区分为商品和货币，才满足了这个需要。在产品转化为商品的同时，一种特定商品就在转化为货币。

The direct barter of products attains the elementary form of the relative
expression of value in one respect, but not in another. That form is x Commodity
A = y Commodity B. The form of direct barter is x use-value A = y use-value B.
The articles A and B in this case are not as yet commodities, but become so only
by the act of barter. The first step made by an object of utility towards
acquiring exchange-value is when it forms a non-use-value for its owner, and
that happens when it forms a superfluous portion of some article required for
his immediate wants. Objects in themselves are external to man, and consequently
alienable by him. In order that this alienation may be reciprocal, it is only
necessary for men, by a tacit understanding, to treat each other as private
owners of those alienable objects, and by implication as independent
individuals. But such a state of reciprocal independence has no existence in a
primitive society based on property in common, whether such a society takes the
form of a patriarchal family, an ancient Indian community, or a Peruvian Inca
State. The exchange of commodities, therefore, first begins on the boundaries of
such communities, at their points of contact with other similar communities, or
with members of the latter. So soon, however, as products once become
commodities in the external relations of a community, they also, by reaction,
become so in its internal intercourse. The proportions in which they are
exchangeable are at first quite a matter of chance. What makes them exchangeable
is the mutual desire of their owners to alienate them. Meantime the need for
foreign objects of utility gradually establishes itself. The constant repetition
of exchange makes it a normal social act. In the course of time, therefore, some
portion at least of the products of labour must be produced with a special view
to exchange. From that moment the distinction becomes firmly established between
the utility of an object for the purposes of consumption, and its utility for
the purposes of exchange. Its use-value becomes distinguished from its
exchange-value. On the other hand, the quantitative proportion in which the
articles are exchangeable, becomes dependent on their production itself. Custom
stamps them as values with definite magnitudes.

以物易物的交易，在一方面具有Value的基本表现形式，在另一方面则没有。这个形式是x商品A=y商品B。以物易物的交易，形式是x使用价值A=y使用价值B。这里的A和B在交换前还不是商品，交换行为才让它们成为商品。【在以自用为目的生产状态里，发生偶然的交换行为。】有用物走向交换价值的第一步，是在生产者不消费自己的产品的时候。也就是当生产者的产品量在满足了他自己的直接需求后还有剩余的时候。【生产力有所发展，出现剩余产品。】产品乃身外之物，可以让渡他人。若要求让渡对双方都有好处，只需双方视对方为独立的产品私有者。但是，在原始社会里（无论是家长制家庭、古印度公社还是印加国等），财产是共有的，不存在这种私有者之间的对立。因此，最初的商品交换，出现于相邻的公社之间，或相邻公社的成员之间。然而，一旦产品对其他公社成为商品，通过反作用，产品在公社内部也就成为了商品。起初的交换行为，双方交换的产品的数量比例是很偶然的。【谁也不知道给多少拿多少合适，反正是用不完的，能换到别的好东西就成。】产品能够交换，只是因为双方都愿意让渡自己的产品。【从而获得对方的产品。我的上一句感觉很准。】物换星移几度秋，对外来产品的需求逐渐固定下来。不断重复的交换行为，使之成为有规则的社会行为。因此，有一部分劳动产品，人们在生产它们的时候，就是以交换为目的了。从此，以内部消费为目的和以对外交换为目的的产品生产，牢固地区别开了。产品的使用价值和交换价值，牢固地区别开了。另一方面，两种产品按何比例相交换，就由产品的生产过程决定了。【你制作的东西耗费了多少社会必要劳动时间，慢慢地我也就摸索出来了。】人们根据习惯，给各种产品赋予了相应的Value数量。

In the direct barter of products, each commodity is directly a means of exchange
to its owner, and to all other persons an equivalent, but that only in so far as
it has use-value for them. At this stage, therefore, the articles exchanged do
not acquire a value-form independent of their own use-value, or of the
individual needs of the exchangers. The necessity for a value-form grows with
the increasing number and variety of the commodities exchanged. The problem and
the means of solution arise simultaneously. Commodity-owners never equate their
own commodities to those of others, and exchange them on a large scale, without
different kinds of commodities belonging to different owners being exchangeable
for, and equated as values to, one and the same special article. Such
last-mentioned article, by becoming the equivalent of various other commodities,
acquires at once, though within narrow limits, the character of a general social
equivalent. This character comes and goes with the momentary social acts that
called it into life. In turns and transiently it attaches itself first to this
and then to that commodity. But with the development of exchange it fixes itself
firmly and exclusively to particular sorts of commodities, and becomes
crystallised by assuming the money-form. The particular kind of commodity to
which it sticks is at first a matter of accident. Nevertheless there are two
circumstances whose influence is decisive. The money-form attaches itself either
to the most important articles of exchange from outside, and these in fact are
primitive and natural forms in which the exchange-value of home products finds
expression; or else it attaches itself to the object of utility that forms, like
cattle, the chief portion of indigenous alienable wealth. Nomad races are the
first to develop the money-form, because all their worldly goods consist of
moveable objects and are therefore directly alienable; and because their mode of
life, by continually bringing them into contact with foreign communities,
solicits the exchange of products. Man has often made man himself, under the
form of slaves, serve as the primitive material of money, but has never used
land for that purpose. Such an idea could only spring up in a bourgeois society
already well developed. It dates from the last third of the 17th century, and
the first attempt to put it in practice on a national scale was made a century
afterwards, during the French bourgeois revolution.

在以物易物时，生产者的商品A直接是他自己的交换手段，对需要A的其他人来说，A则是他们的等价物。因此，在此阶段，交换物还没有取得独立于使用价值的Value形式，还没有获得独立于交换者个人需要的Value形式。随着交换的产品数量和产品种类增加，人们越来越渴望某种Value形式。答案就在问题之中。只有各个商品所有者的各种商品都能与同一种特殊商品比较和交换，这些商品所有者的各种商品才能相互比较和交换。这种特殊商品，在狭小的范围内，成为了其他各种商品的等价物，具有了一般等价物的性质。交换行为一出现，这个性质就出现；交换行为一结束，这个性质就消失。这个性质有时附在这种商品上，有时附在那种商品上。但随着商品交换的发展，这个性质就死死固定在一种特殊商品上，结晶为货币形式。这个性质最初附在哪种商品上，是偶然的。然而有两种情况起着决定性的作用。货币形式或者附在最重要的外来物上，或者附在本地最重要的可让渡的财富上（例如牲畜）。游牧民族最先发展出了货币形式，因为他们所有的商品都是可移动的，因而是可让渡的；也因为他们的生活方式，使得他们不断地与其他社会接触，催生了产品交换。人类曾经将作为奴隶的人用作原始的货币，但不曾将土地用作货币。直到人类进入发达资产阶级社会时，才出现将土地作为货币的事。这始于17世纪最后30年间，在100年后的法国资产阶级革命时期，才有人尝试将此做法推行到全国。

In proportion as exchange bursts its local bonds, and the value of commodities
more and more expands into an embodiment of human labour in the abstract, in the
same proportion the character of money attaches itself to commodities that are
by Nature fitted to perform the social function of a universal equivalent. Those
commodities are the precious metals.

随着商品交换日益突破地域限制，随着商品Value日益体现人类抽象劳动，货币性质日益附在那些天然适合充当一般等价物的商品上。那就是贵金属。

The truth of the proposition that, “although gold and silver are not by Nature
money, money is by Nature gold and silver,” is shown by the fitness of the
physical properties of these metals for the functions of money. Up to this
point, however, we are acquainted only with one function of money, namely, to
serve as the form of manifestation of the value of commodities, or as the
material in which the magnitudes of their values are socially expressed. An
adequate form of manifestation of value, a fit embodiment of abstract,
undifferentiated, and therefore equal human labour, that material alone can be
whose every sample exhibits the same uniform qualities. On the other hand, since
the difference between the magnitudes of value is purely quantitative, the money
commodity must be susceptible of merely quantitative differences, must therefore
be divisible at will, and equally capable of being reunited. Gold and silver
possess these properties by Nature.

贵金属的物理性质适于执行货币职能，这证明了“金银天然不是货币，货币天然是金银。”
至此，我们只熟悉了货币的一种职能，即充当商品Value的表现形式，或充当度量Value的材料。金银可以分割为质地均匀的小份额，因此适于表达同质的抽象人类劳动。另一方面，不同商品的Value只有数量的差别，因此货币商品也只能有数量的差别，它必须能任意分割和融合。金银天然具有这些属性。

The use-value of the money-commodity becomes two-fold. In addition to its
special use-value as a commodity (gold, for instance, serving to stop teeth, to
form the raw material of articles of luxury, &c.), it acquires a formal
use-value, originating in its specific social function.

货币商品的使用价值成为二重的。它除它作为商品的使用价值（例如金可以镶牙、做珠宝等）,还获得源于社会职能的形式上的使用价值。

Since all commodities are merely particular equivalents of money, the latter
being their universal equivalent, they, with regard to the latter as the
universal commodity, play the parts of particular commodities.

因为其他商品都是货币的特殊等价物，货币是其他商品的一般等价物，所以，其他商品对于货币是特殊商品，货币对于其他商品是一般商品。

We have seen that the money-form is but the reflex, thrown upon one single
commodity, of the value relations between all the rest. That money is a
commodity is therefore a new discovery only for those who, when they analyse it,
start from its fully developed shape. The act of exchange gives to the commodity
converted into money, not its value, but its specific value-form. By confounding
these two distinct things some writers have been led to hold that the value of
gold and silver is imaginary. The fact that money can, in certain functions, be
replaced by mere symbols of itself, gave rise to that other mistaken notion,
that it is itself a mere symbol. Nevertheless under this error lurked a
presentiment that the money-form of an object is not an inseparable part of that
object, but is simply the form under which certain social relations manifest
themselves. In this sense every commodity is a symbol, since, in so far as it is
value, it is only the material envelope of the human labour spent upon it. But
if it be declared that the social characters assumed by objects, or the material
forms assumed by the social qualities of labour under the régime of a definite
mode of production, are mere symbols, it is in the same breath also declared
that these characteristics are arbitrary fictions sanctioned by the so-called
universal consent of mankind. This suited the mode of explanation in favour
during the 18th century. Unable to account for the origin of the puzzling forms
assumed by social relations between man and man, people sought to denude them of
their strange appearance by ascribing to them a conventional origin.

我们看到，货币形式反映的是，其他商品用一种特殊商品表现它们之间的Value关系。只有从货币的完全形态开始分析它的人，才会将“货币是一种商品”当作一个新发现。交换过程赋予货币的，不是它的Value，而是它的Value形式。【交换过程中，货币用于表现Value。交换过程没有赋予货币Value，货币的Value是在生产货币这种商品的时候凝结在其中的。】有人混淆了Value和Value形式，从而误以为金银的Value是想象出来的【即金银根本没有Value】。货币的某些职能可以用符号代替。这个现象导致了另一种误解，即货币只是一种符号。不过，这个误解里隐含着一个预感，即物的货币形式是可以与物分离的，货币形式只是某种社会关系的表现形式。【即金钱关系是人与人的关系，不是物与物的关系。】从这个意义上说，所有商品都是符号，因为，从Value的角度看，商品的肉体只是包裹着人类劳动的封皮。但是，如果人们宣称，物的社会性质（即在一定生产方式下的劳动的社会性质的物质形式），仅仅是符号，那么他们就等于也宣称了，这些性质是人们胡思乱想出来的【即根本不存在这些性质】。这是18世纪流行的启蒙方式。当人们无法解释人与人的关系的令人迷惑的表象的起源时，人们就将其归结为一个符合常规的起源，从而化解这个尴尬。

It has already been remarked above that the equivalent form of a commodity does
not imply the determination of the magnitude of its value. Therefore, although
we may be aware that gold is money, and consequently directly exchangeable for
all other commodities, yet that fact by no means tells how much 10 lbs., for
instance, of gold is worth. Money, like every other commodity, cannot express
the magnitude of its value except relatively in other commodities. This value is
determined by the labour-time required for its production, and is expressed by
the quantity of any other commodity that costs the same amount of labour-time.
Such quantitative determination of its relative value takes place at the source
of its production by means of barter. When it steps into circulation as money,
its value is already given. In the last decades of the 17th century it had
already been shown that money is a commodity, but this step marks only the
infancy of the analysis. The difficulty lies, not in comprehending that money is
a commodity, but in discovering how, why, and by what means a commodity becomes
money.

前文指出，商品的等价形式不能说明商品Value的数量。因此，虽然我们知道金是货币，金可以与其他商品交换，我们却不知道例如10磅金的Value是多少。货币，像其他任何商品一样，只有相对地通过其他商品表达自己的Value。货币的Value由生产它的劳动时间决定，由耗费同样多劳动时间的其他商品表达。金的Value，在金的产地，通过以物易物的方式，用其他商品相对地表达出来了。当金作为货币进入流通中时，它的Value早已确定。17世纪最后几十年里，人们已经发现了货币是一种商品。但这只是分析的开始。要理解“货币是一种商品”并不算难。难的是发现一种商品是如何、为何成为货币的。【我要描绘人类起源至今的历史，从而解决这个难点，使百万人懂得政治经济学。】

We have already seen, from the most elementary expression of value, x commodity
A = y commodity B, that the object in which the magnitude of the value of
another object is represented, appears to have the equivalent form independently
of this relation, as a social property given to it by Nature. We followed up
this false appearance to its final establishment, which is complete so soon as
the universal equivalent form becomes identified with the bodily form of a
particular commodity, and thus crystallised into the money-form. What appears to
happen is, not that gold becomes money, in consequence of all other commodities
expressing their values in it, but, on the contrary, that all other commodities
universally express their values in gold, because it is money. The intermediate
steps of the process vanish in the result and leave no trace behind. Commodities
find their own value already completely represented, without any initiative on
their part, in another commodity existing in company with them. These objects,
gold and silver, just as they come out of the bowels of the earth, are forthwith
the direct incarnation of all human labour. Hence the magic of money. In the
form of society now under consideration, the behaviour of men in the social
process of production is purely atomic. Hence their relations to each other in
production assume a material character independent of their control and
conscious individual action. These facts manifest themselves at first by
products as a general rule taking the form of commodities. We have seen how the
progressive development of a society of commodity-producers stamps one
privileged commodity with the character of money. Hence the riddle presented by
money is but the riddle presented by commodities; only it now strikes us in its
most glaring form.

我们看到，Value的基本形式（x商品A=y商品B），在这个关系中表达商品A的Value的商品B，似乎不需要出现在这个关系中，就具有天然的等价物属性。【似乎看起来，商品B不参与交换，就能表达商品A的Value。】我们追踪这个假象，到它的最终形态，即一种特殊商品的肉体成为一般等价物的表现形式，结晶为货币形式。原本是：其他商品用金表达自己的Value，使得金成为货币。但假象带来的感觉是：因为金是货币，所以其他商品都用金表达自己的Value。Value形式发展的中间过程在最后消失了，没有留下任何痕迹。其他所有商品发现，它们的Value已经毫无选择权地被金表达着。金银，一从地下挖出来，就是人类劳动的直接化身。货币的魔法就是这么回事。在现在我们考虑的社会形态中，一个人在社会生产过程中的行为十分原子化。【我的理解是，个人是庞大社会机器的螺丝钉，很容易被替换的那种。】因此，人与人的生产关系表现为某些不受他们控制和不以他们有意活动为转移的物的形式。这些形式中最初的一种，就是产品采取了商品的形式。我们看到，商品社会的发展过程，是如何将货币这个性质，赋予一种特殊商品的。因此货币的迷就是商品的迷，只不过货币的迷是商品的迷的最耀眼的形式。