The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Editor's Note to the First American Edition By Ernest Untermann
• Author's Prefaces to the First and Second Editions, By Karl Marx
• I.—To the First Edition.
• Ii.—To the Second Edition.
• Editor's Prefaces, to the First English Translation and Fourth German Edition By Frederick Engels
• Editor's Preface to the First English Translation.
• Editor's Preface to the Fourth German Edition.
• Volume I. The Process of Capitalist Production.
• Book I. Capitalist Production.
• Part I. Commodities and Money.
• Part I, Chapter I Commodities.
• Section 1.—The Two Factors of a Commodity: Use-value and Value (the Substance of Value and the Magnitude of Value).
• Section 2.—The Twofold Character of the Labour Embodied In Commodities.
• Section 3.—The Form of Value Or Exchange Value.
• A. Elementary Or Accidental Form of Value.
• 1. the Two Poles of the Expression of Value: Relative Form and Equivalent Form.
• 2. the Relative Form of Value.
• (a.) the Nature and Import of This Form.
• (b.) Quantitative Determination of Relative Value.
• 3. the Equivalent Form of Value.
• 4. the Elementary Form of Value Considered As a Whole.
• B. Total Or Expanded Form of Value.
• 1. the Expanded Relative Form of Value.
• 2. the Particular Equivalent Form.
• 3. Defects of the Total Or Expanded Form of Value.
• C. the General Form of Value.
• 1. the Altered Character of the Form of Value.
• 2. the Interdependent Development of the Relative Form of Value, and of the Equivalent Form.
• 3. Transition From the General Form of Value to the Money Form.
• D. the Money Form.
• Section 4.—The Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret Thereof.
• Part I, Chapter Ii Exchange.
• Part I, Chapter Iii Money, Or the Circulation of Commodities.
• Section 1. The Measure of Values.
• Section 2.—The Medium of Circulation.
• A. the Metamorphosis of Commodities.
• B. the Currency 82 of Money.
• C. Coin and Symbols of Value.
• Section 3.—Money.
• A. Hoarding.
• B. Means of Payment.
• C. Universal Money.
• Part II. the Transformation of Money Into Capital.
• Part Ii, Chapter Iv the General Formula For Capital.
• Part Ii, Chapter V Contradictions In the General Formula of Capital.
• Part Ii, Chapter Vi the Buying and Selling of Labour-power.
• Part III. the Production of Absolute Surplus-value.
• Part Iii, Chapter Vii the Labour-process and the Process of Producing Surplus-value.
• Section 1.—The Labour-process Or the Production of Use-values.
• Section 2.—The Production of Surplus-value.
• Part Iii, Chapter Viii Constant Capital and Variable Capital
• Part Iii, Chapter Ix the Rate of Surplus-value.
• Section 1.—The Degree of Exploitation of Labour-power.
• Section 2.—The Representation of the Components of the Value of the Product By Corresponding Proportional Parts of the Product Itself.
• Section 3.—Senior's \"last Hour.\"
• Section 4.—Surplus Produce
• Part Iii, Chapter X the Working Day
• Section 1—The Limits of the Working Day
• Section 2.—The Greed For Surplus Labor, Manufacturer and Boyard
• Section 3.—Branches of English Industry Without Legal Limits to Exploitation
• Section 4.—Day and Night Work. the Relay System
• Section 5.—The Struggle For a Normal Working Day. Compulsory Laws For the Extension of the Working Day From the Middle of the 14th to the End of the 17th Century
• Section 6.—The Struggle For the Normal Working Day. Compulsory Limitation By Law of the Working Time. the English Factory Acts, 1833 to 1864.
• Section 7.—The Struggle For the Normal Working-day. Re-action of the English Acts On Other Countries.
• Part Iii, Chapter Xi Rate and Mass of Surplus-value.
• Part IV. Production of Relative Surplus-value.
• Part Iv, Chapter Xii the Concept of Relative Surplus-value.
• Part Iv, Chapter Xiii Co-operation.
• Part Iv, Chapter Xiv Division of Labour and Manufacture.
• Section 1.—Twofold Origin of Manufacture.
• Section 2.—The Detail Labourer and His Implements.
• Section 3.—The Two Fundamental Forms of Manufacture: Heterogeneous Manufacture, Serial Manufacture.
• Section 4.—Division of Labour In Manufacture, and Division of Labour In Society.
• Section 5.—The Capitalistic Character of Manufacture.
• Part Iv, Chapter Xv Machinery and Modern Industry.
• Section 1.—The Development of Machinery.
• Section 2.—The Value Transferred By Machinery to the Product
• Section 3.—The Approximate Effects of Machinery On the Workman.
• A. Appropriation of Supplementary Labour-power By Capital. the Employment of Women and Children.
• B. Prolongation of the Working-day.
• C. Intensification of Labour
• Section Iv.—The Factory
• Section 5.—The Strife Between Workman and Machine
• Section 6.—The Theory of Compensation As Regards the Workpeople Displaced By Machinery.
• Section 7.—Repulsion and Attraction of Workpeople By the Factory System. Crisis In the Cotton Trade.
• Section 8.—Revolution Effected In Manufacture, Handicrafts. and Domestic Industry By Modern Industry.
• A. Overthrow of Co-operation Based On Handicraft and On the Division of Labour.
• B. Re-action of the Factory System On Manufacture and Domestic Industries.
• C. Modern Manufacture.
• D. Modern Domestic Industry.
• E. Passage of Modern Manufacture, and Domestic Industry Into Modern Mechanical Industry. the Hastening of This Revolution By the Application of the Factory Acts to Those Industries.
• Section 9.—The Factory Acts. Sanitary and Education Clauses of the Same. Their General Extension In England.
• Section 10.—Modern Industry and Agriculture.
• Part V. the Production of Absolute and of Relative Surplus-value.
• Part V, Chapter Xvi Absolute and Relative Surplus-value.
• Part V, Chapter Xvii Changes of Magnitude In the Price of Labour-power and In Surplus-value.
• 1. Length of the Working Day and Intensity of Labour Constant. Productiveness of Labour Variable.
• II. Working-day Constant. Productiveness of Labour Constant. Intensity of Labour Variable.
• III. Productiveness and Intensity of Labour Constant. Length of the Working-day Variable.
• Iv.— Simultaneous Variations In the Duration, Productiveness, and Intensity of Labour.
• (1). Diminishing Productiveness of Labour With a Simultaneous Lengthening of the Working-day.
• (2) Increasing Intensity and Productiveness of Labour With Simultaneous Shortening of the Working-day.
• Part V, Chapter Xviii Various Formulæ For the Rate of Surplus-value.
• Part VI. Wages.
• Part Vi, Chapter Xix the Transformation of the Value (and Respectively the Price) of Labour-power Into Wages.
• Part Vi, Chapter Xx Time-wages.
• Part Vi, Chapter Xxi Piece-wages.
• Part Vi, Chapter Xxii National Differences of Wages.
• Part VII. the Accumulation of Capital.
• Part Vii, Chapter Xxiii Simple Reproduction.
• Part Vii, Chapter Xxiv Conversion of Surplus-value Into Capital.
• Section I.—Capitalist Production On a Progressively Increasing Scale. Transition of the Laws of Property That Characterise Production of Commodities Into Laws of Capitalist Appropriation.
• Section 2.—Erroneous Conception By Political Economy of Reproduction On a Progressively Increasing Scale.
• Section 3.—Separation of Surplus-value Into Capital and Revenue. the Abstinence Theory.
• Section 4.—Circumstances That, Independently of the Division of Surplus-value Into Capital and Revenue, Determine the Amount of Accumulation. Degree of Exploitation of Labour-power. Productivity of Labour. Growing Difference In Amount Between Capital Empl
• Section 5.—The So-called Labour Fund.
• Part Vii, Chapter Xxv the General Law of Capitalist Accumulation.
• Section 1.—The Increased Demand For Labour-power That Accompanies Accumulation, the Composition of Capital Remaining the Same.
• Section 2.—Relative Diminution of the Variable Part of Capital Simultaneously With the Progress of Accumulation and of the Concentration That Accompanies It.
• Section 3.—Progressive Production of a Relative Surplus-population Or Industrial Reserve Army.
• Section 4.—Different Forms of the Relative Surplus-population. the General Law of Capitalistic Accumulation.
• Section 5.—Illustrations of the General Law of Capitalist Accumulation.
• ( A. ) England From 1846-1866.
• (b). the Badly Paid Strata of the British Industrial Class.
• C. the Nomad Population.
• (d). Effect of Crises On the Best Paid Part of the Working Class.
• (e.) the British Agricultural Proletariat.
• (1.) Bedfordshire.
• (2.) Berkshire.
• (3.) Buckinghamshire.
• (4.) Cambridgeshire.
• (5.) Essex.
• (6.) Herefordshire.
• (7.) Huntingdon.
• (8.) Lincolnshire.
• (9.) Kent.
• (10.) Northamptonshire.
• (11.) Wiltshire.
• (12.) Worcestershire.
• (f.) Ireland.
• Part VIII. the So-called Primitive Accumulation.
• Part Viii, Chapter Xxvi the Secret of Primitive Accumulation.
• Part Viii, Chapter Xxvii Expropriation of the Agricultural Population From the Land.
• Part Viii, Chapter Xxviii Bloody Legislation Against the Expropriated, From the End of the 15th Century. Forcing Down of Wages By Acts of Parliament.
• Part Viii, Chapter Xxix Genesis of the Capitalist Farmer.
• Part Viii, Chapter Xxx Reaction of the Agricultural Revolution On Industry. Creation of the Home Market For Industrial Capital.
• Part Viii, Chapter Xxxi Genesis of the Industrial Capitalist.
• Part Viii, Chapter Xxxii Historical Tendency of Capitalist Accumulation.
• Part Viii, Chapter Xxxiii the Modern Theory of Colonisation. 70
• Works and Authors Quoted In \"capital\"

1. The two poles of the expression of value: Relative form and Equivalent form.

The whole mystery of the form of value lies hidden in this elementary form. Its analysis, therefore, is our real difficulty.

Here two different kinds of commodities (in our example the linen and the coat), evidently play two different parts. The linen expresses its value in the coat; the coat serves as the material in which that value is expressed. The former plays an active, the latter a passive, part. The value of the linen is represented as relative value, or appears in relative form. The coat officiates as equivalent, or appears in equivalent form.

The relative form and the equivalent form are two intimately connected, mutually dependent and inseparable elements of the expression of value; but, at the same time, are mutually exclusive, antagonistic extremes—i.e., poles of the same expression. They are allotted respectively to the two different commodities brought into relation by that expression. It is not possible to express the value of linen in linen. 20 yards of linen=20 yards of linen is no expression of value. On the contrary, such an equation merely says that 20 yards of linen are nothing else than 20 yards of linen, a definite quantity of the use-value linen. The value of the linen can therefore be expressed only relatively—i.e., in some other commodity. The relative form of the value of the linen pre-supposes, therefore, the presence of some other commodity—here the coat—under the form of an equivalent. On the other hand, the commodity that figures as the equivalent cannot at the same time assume the relative form. That second commodity is not the one whose value is expressed. Its function is merely to serve as the material in which the value of the first commodity is expressed.

No doubt, the expression 20 yards of linen=1 coat, or 20 yards of linen are worth 1 coat, implies the opposite relation: 1 coat=20 yards of linen, or 1 coat is worth 20 yards of linen. But, in that case, I must reverse the equation, in order to express the value of the coat relatively; and, so soon as I do that the linen becomes the equivalent instead of the coat. A single commodity cannot, therefore, simultaneously assume, in the same expression of value, both forms. The very polarity of these forms makes them mutually exclusive.

Whether, then, a commodity assumes the relative form, or the opposite equivalent form, depends entirely upon its accidental position in the expression of value—that is, upon whether it is the commodity whose value is being expressed.