on money

[Costas Lapavitsas <cl5@xxxxxxxxxx>]

A brief comment on Rakesh, Hans and other contributions on this strand.

It seems to me that the dialectic of value (abstract labour) - use value
(or even of social labour - private labour) can show that money is
necessary in developed commodity exchange. But it cannot provide an
analytical process through which money emerges. It is one thing to show
that value needs to detach itself from use value and find an independent
(and social) form in a money commodity, but quite another to show how this
happens analytically. Nor can I find in Marx such an analytical process.
Moreover, the need to assume the prior existence of capital (if abstract
labour is to be a real social substance rather than merely an ideal
abstraction) runs against the historical existence of money under
non-capitalist conditions.

I suggest that the dialectic of relative - equivalent in the simple form of
value, which is not the same as the dialectic of value - use value, is a
better place to look for the process of money's emergence in commodity
exchange. Money can then be shown to emerge as absolute buying ability, or
as the universal equivalent confronting particular relatives. This does not
preclude money resolving the contradictions between value (abstract labour)
and use value under capitalist conditions.

Cheers

Costas