98. GOT MONEY? Karl Marx on Money and the Product of Workers

Karl Marx on
MONEY

Excerpts
from
"Karl Marx:
Early Writings",

translated
and
edited
by
T. B. Bottomore,

foreward
by
Erich Fromm,

McGraw-Hill

Book Company,
New York,
1964

Money,
since it has
the property
of purchasing
everything,
of
appropriating objects
to itself,
is, therefore,
the object par excellence.
 
The universal character
of this
property
corresponds to
the omnipotence
of money,
which is regarded
as
an omnipotent being ...
money
is the pander
between
need and object,
between
human life
and
the means
of subsistence.
 
But
that which
mediates
my life
mediates also
the existence
of other men
for me.
 
It is
for me
the
other person.
 
[from pages 189 - 190]
 
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"And what we take while life is sweet,
Is that to be declared not ours?
Six stallions, say, I can afford,
Is not their strength my property?
I tear along, a sporting lord,
As if their legs belonged to me."
 
(Goethe, Faust -- Mephistopheles)
 
[from
page 191.
 
Goethe, Faust.
Part I, Scene 4.
This passage
is taken from
the translation
by Philip Wayne;
Penguin Books, 1949.]
 
+
 
"...Thou
common whore
of mankind ..."
 
(Shakespeare
in
Timon of Athens.)
 
[from
page 191.
 
Shakespeare,
Timon of Athens.
Act IV, Scene 3.
Marx quotes
from
the Schlegel-Tieck
translation.]
 
+
 
Shakespeare
portrays admirably
the nature
of money.
 
To understand him,
let us begin
by expounding
the passage from Goethe.
 
That which exists
for me
through the medium
of money,
that
which I can pay for
(i.e. which
money can buy),
that
I am,
the possessor
of
the money.
 
My own
power
is
as great as
the power
of money.
 
The properties of money
are my own
(the possessor's)
properties
and faculties.
 
What I am
and
can do
is, therefore,
not at all
determined
by
my individuality.
 
I am ugly,
but
I can buy
the most beautiful woman
for myself.
 
Consequently,
I am
not ugly,
for
the effect
of ugliness,
its power to repel,
is annulled
by money.
 
As an individual
I am lame,
but
money provides me
with
twenty-four legs.
 
Therefore,
I
am not
lame.
 
I am
a detestable,
dishonorable,
unscrupulous
and
stupid man,
but
money is honored
and
so is
its possessor.
 
Money
is
the highest good,
and
so its possessor
is good.
 
Besides,
money
saves me the trouble
of being dishonest;
therefore,
I am
presumed honest.
 
I am stupid,
but
since money
is
the real mind
of all things,
how should its possessor
be stupid?
 
Moreover,
he can buy
talented people
for himself,
and
is not he
who has power
over
the talented
more talented
than they?
 
I who can have,
through
the power of money,
everything
for which
the human heart longs,
do I not
possess
all human abilities?
 
Does not
my money,
therefore,
transform
all my incapacities
into
their opposites?
 
[from page 191]
 
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The worker
becomes
poorer
the more wealth
he produces
and
the more
his production
increases
in
power and extent.
 
The worker
becomes
an
ever cheaper
commodity
the
more goods
he creates.
 
The devaluation
of
the human world
increases
in
direct relation
with
the increase in value
of
the world
of things.
 
Labor
does not only
create
goods;
it also
produces itself
and
the worker
as
a commodity,
and
indeed
in
the same proportion
as
it
produces goods.
 
This fact
simply implies
that
the object
produced
by labor,
its product,
now
stands opposed to it
as
an alien being,
as
a power independent
of
the producer.
 
The product
of labor
is labor
which has
been embodied
in
an object
and
turned into
a physical thing;
this product
is
an objectification
of labor.
 
The performance
of work
is
at the same time
its
objectification.
 
[from pages 121 - 122]
 
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