Simple commodity production

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Simple commodity production (German: einfache Warenproduktion, also translated as petty commodity production), is a term coined by Friedrich Engels in 1894 when he had compiled and edited the third volume of Marx's Capital.[1] It refers to productive activities under the conditions of what Karl Marx had called the "simple exchange" or "simple circulation" of commodities, where independent producers trade their own products to obtain other products in exchange (the trading circuit C-M-C').[2] The use of the adjective simple is not intended to refer to the nature of the producers or of their production,[3] but rather to the relatively simple and straightforward exchange processes involved, from an economic perspective.

As discussed below, both Karl Marx and Engels claimed explicitly that the law of value applied also to simple exchange, and that this law is modified (or, as Marx sometimes says, "inverted") by the capitalist mode of production when all the inputs and outputs of production (including means of production and labour power) become tradeable commodities.

According to Marx and Engels, simple commodity production and trade existed for millennia before the advent of capitalism.[4] From the beginnings of the bourgeois epoch in 15th century Europe, the reach and scope of commodity production began to grow incrementally, although sometimes this process was interrupted by wars, epidemic diseases and natural disasters. Only with the growth of free wage labour is commodity production generalized (verallgemeinert) to most of the economy, and fully integrated into national and international markets. Obviously, this market growth also required institutions, conventions and rules, so that the competing burghers could resolve their trade disputes fairly and efficiently, without destroying the markets and destroying people's livelihoods; through learning from experience as well as from the invention and widespread adoption of new ideas, a "market culture" gradually evolved to make that possible.[5] Civil society could not be "civil", if the burghers defied all religion and authority, and resolved their trading disputes by robbing, physically attacking and killing each other.

Originally production for market sale existed alongside subsistence production (see also natural economy). That continued for millennia until urbanization, merchant trade and industrialization began to take off. Through the last six centuries, the share of commodity production in total output grew more and more, together with productivity growth and population growth. It grew steeply in the 19th and 20th centuries, until production for the market represented the largest part of total output value in the majority of countries.[6]

To explain this lengthy historical process, Marx and Engels took a nuanced approach. They did not argue crudely that economic categories can only be either "transhistorical categories" or "categories specific to one historical period". Instead, they argued that economic categories can and do evolve from one historical epoch to the next, along with the evolution of the social relations which they express. Continuities co-existed with discontinuities. The challenge was to understand dialectically how the new economic relations could evolve out of the old ones - by retaining some of their content, losing some content, and also gaining some completely new content.

## Different interpretations

[edit]

This historical viewpoint[7] is however not accepted by all Marxists. Some believe that capitalist markets function in a "totally different way" from pre-capitalist markets, or they believe that the law of value applies only to industrial capitalism, and not to market systems which preceded industrial capitalism.[8] According to Helmut Reichelt, for example, the law of value only applies when the whole of society is subsumed under the bourgeois form of the division of labour.[9] Engels aimed to give a consistent explanation of the evolution and development of the market economy, from simple beginnings to the complexities of modern capitalist markets, but his critics argue he disregards the qualitative transformation of the relations of production involved.[10]

Marx and Engels's interpretation of the historical role of simple exchange based on simple commodity production has been the subject of considerable controversy among Marxist scholars. It has been claimed by academics that Marx never had a concept of "simple commodity production" because he did not use those words.[11] If that is true, then it seems that Engels's concept is really alien to Marx's thought. For example, the Italian Marx-scholar Roberto Fineschi alleges that Friedrich Engels (who was a successful businessman, and edited Vol. 2 and 3 of Marx's Capital[12]) failed to understand the difference between circulation and production, so that Engels falsely equated Marx's concept of "simple exchange of commodities" with "simple commodity production".[13] According to Rolf Hecker's interpretation, by contrast, Engels does not equate Marx's concept of simple exchange of commodities with simple commodity production, but instead replaces simple exchange of commodities with simple commodity production.[14] Christopher J. Arthur claims that an economy or society fully based on simple commodity production has never existed in history, contrary to what Engels (allegedly) suggested.[15]

This new anti-Engels interpretation is contrary to the traditional Marxist view, the latter which defines a commodity as a product of labour and not (as academic value-form theorists do[16]) as a product of exchange. According to the traditional Marxist view, the simple exchange of commodities presupposes at least that the commodities are produced. Otherwise there would not exist any commodities that could be exchanged. Historically speaking, the development of the simple exchange of reproducible commodities could never occur without simple commodity production. Engels does not argue that the law of value disappears when commodity trade is regulated by production prices, but rather that the law of value is transformed and modified. It is transformed, because:

* While originally (as already recognized by Adam Smith[17]) the exchange-value of what a producer creates is regulated by his own physically necessary labour-time (with upper and lower bounds), in the end what regulates the exchange-value of his production is a socially average labour-cost, i.e. a value expressed as the normal price-level which is imposed on him as an objective external force (like "a law of nature"), regardless of whether his own labour-time is more or less than the normal social average.[18]
* The simple exchange of labour-equivalents is gradually replaced by the more complex exchange of unequal labour-values, where fluctuating market-prices for products systematically diverge from product-values and their supply-cost contains a surplus value formed in production.
* While originally the commodities sold were a surplus to the requirements of the seller, alongside subsistence production, in the end the market sale of the commodities produced is the precondition and the only practical purpose of producing them.

Instead of postulating a "society of simple commodity producers", Engels was referring to the history of the gradual expansion of commodity-trade alongside subsistence production across thousands of years, to more and more sectors of economic life - until commodity production is generalized and the majority of commodities are produced "by means of commodities" in capitalist enterprises employing wage labour. Marx had briefly indicated this historical process himself in his 1864 manuscript Results of the immediate process of production.[19]

The difficulty that the anti-Engels critics have, is that they cannot credibly explain what regulates commodity-trade in the pre-capitalist economy, in the supposed absence of the law of value, and how the law of value can then "suddenly" appear out of nowhere, once most of production becomes commodity production, via expanding markets. The only narrative the anti-Engels critics have, is that capitalism exists when wage-labour exists, i.e. when peasants and serfs are thrown off the land, and are forced to work for a wage from an employer, to make a living. Somehow, a mass of employers "suddenly" appears out of nowhere to employ a mass of unemployed workers in mechanized factories, in exchange for wages. But how this could have resulted from the situation that preceded it remains unclear. It is only when labour history is studied, that this mystery is cleared up and resolved. Long before the emergence of the industrial capitalist on the stage of history, wage-labourers were already being hired - when officials of the early state paid soldiers for their services, temple officials employed contract labourers, and landowners hired farm workers.[20] The first workers' strike in written history, recorded on a papyrus,[21] was staged more than three thousand years ago by building workers at the royal necropolis at Deir el-Medina in Egypt, during the reign of Ramses III (see also Deir el-Medina strikes).[22]

## Origins

[edit]

Simple exchange of reproducible and portable commodities (such as food, ornaments, beads, pottery, pelts, fabrics, clothing, tools, utensils, and weapons) is as old as the history of trade, insofar as it progressed from incidental barter of use-values[23] according to cultural custom,[24] to exchange using a standard of value.[25] Simple exchange occurred for thousands of years before most production became organized in the capitalist way.[26] It begins when producers in a simple division of labour (e.g. farmers, hunters/gatherers and artisans) trade surpluses to their own requirements, with the aim of obtaining other products with an equal value, for their own use. In Marx's own words,

> "Definite historical conditions are involved in the existence of the product as a commodity. (…) The appearance of products as commodities requires a level of development of the division of labour within society such that the separation of use-value from exchange-value, a separation which first begins with barter, has already been completed. But such a degree of development is common to many economic formations of society [ökonomischer Gesellschaftsformationen], with the most diverse historical characteristics. If we go on to consider money, its existence implies that a definite stage in the development of commodity exchange has been reached."[27]

Through the experience of regular trade and competition, normal exchange values become established for products, which reflect an economy of labour-time and a cost-structure of production. The simple commodity producers could aim just to trade their products or services to obtain other products with an equivalent value, or they could, in favourable circumstances, aim to realise a profit. They could sell their products or services to the final consumer, or to an intermediary such as a merchant. Simple commodity production and simple exchange are compatible with many different relations of production and exchange,[28] ranging from self-employment in which the producer owns his own means of production and family (household) labour, to forms of slavery, peonage, indentured labour, and serfdom.[29] In the cooperative farming system of the Soviet Union, members of the kolkhozy were permitted to cultivate small plots of private farmland, to raise some livestock, and to sell their produce themselves.[30]

The technologies used by a simple commodity producer might be characteristic for a specific mode of production, but simple commodity production as such is not specific to any particular mode of production, and might be found alongside (or articulated with) many different modes of production, with various degrees of sophistication. It does not necessarily imply that all the inputs or outputs of productive activity in the local economy are commodities traded in markets. For example, simple commodity producers could produce some products for their own subsistence and for their own use on their own land, while trading another part of their products.[31] They might buy or trade some tools and equipment, but also make some tools and equipment themselves. Simple commodity production continues to occur in capitalist societies,[32] especially in developing countries.[33]

## Early colonial settlements

[edit]

There has never existed a society which literally consisted only of simple commodity producers, and Friedrich Engels did not claim that either. No serious Marxian scholar has ever claimed that such a society really existed. However, in the dawn of the bourgeois epoch of history, many of the initial colonial settlements in foreign lands involved a large majority of self-employed producers, who farmed their own land or worked as artisans (for example, settler colonies in North America, Argentina, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand). Marx was well aware of this, and he remarked wrily that in the colonies "the capitalist regime constantly comes up against the obstacle presented by the producer, who, as owner of his own conditions of labour, employs that labour to enrich himself instead of the capitalist".[34]). An American historian comments that:

> "By the mid-1600s... [a]bout three-quarters of the colonists [in America] were farmers. (…) Most farmers owned their land. To encourage immigration, colonists often received free or almost free land. Land was readily available at low prices (…) Most immigrants and native-born colonists enjoyed ample opportunity to acquire property. Upon completing terms of indenture, on average four years in duration, servants often received plots of land on which to begin their lives as freemen."[35]

The proportion of early American colonists who worked as artisans is estimated to have been between 10% and 18%.[36] So the vast majority of the workforce at that time (up to about 93%) consisted not of waged employees, but of independent farmers and artisans engaging in simple commodity production.[37] Imported African slaves "worked mainly on the tobacco, rice and indigo plantations of the southern coast, from the Chesapeake Bay colonies of Maryland and Virginia south to Georgia."[38] Before 1660, few Virginia planters owned slaves. By 1675 the use of slaves was common, and by 1700 slaves largely replaced indentured servants. "With plentiful land and slave labor available to grow a lucrative crop, southern planters prospered, and family-based tobacco plantations became the economic and social norm".[39]

From the time of the earliest English colonial settlements of the 1600s until America began to issue its own currency in 1783, three different types of money were used in colonial commodity trade: (1) coins (Spanish dollars, shillings), (2) paper notes (fiat money denominated in British pounds, shillings and pence; land notes; bank notes; tobacco notes) and (3) commodity money (portable goods and services offered in exchange, including tobacco, corn, wampum, buttons, etc.).[40]

## Textual sources of the concept

[edit]

In The Wealth of Nations (1776), Adam Smith introduces the concept of simple commodity production as follows:

> "In that early and rude state of society which precedes both the accumulation of stock and the appropriation of land, the proportion between the quantities of labour necessary for acquiring different objects seems to be the only circumstance which can afford any rule for exchanging them for one another. (…) In this state of things, the whole produce of labour belongs to the labourer; and the quantity of labour commonly employed in acquiring or producing any commodity, is the only circumstance which can regulate the quantity of labour which it ought commonly to purchase, command, or exchange for."[41]

Smith then contrasts simple commodity production with capitalist production involving wage labour:

> "As soon as stock has accumulated in the hands of particular persons, some of them will naturally employ it in setting to work industrious people, whom they will supply with materials and subsistence, in order to make a profit by the sale of their work, or by what their labour adds to the value of the materials. (…) [The employer] could have no interest to employ [workers], unless he expected from the sale of their work something more than what was sufficient to replace his stock to him; and he could have no interest to employ a great stock rather than a small one, unless his profits were to bear some proportion to the extent of his stock."[42]

In a conspectus and critique of Adam Smith's theory of value, Marx similarly gives a brief description of simple commodity production (although admittedly he did not use that terminology):

> "Let us assume that all workers are producers of commodities, and not only produce their commodities but also sell them. The value of these commodities is determined by the necessary labour-time contained in them. If therefore the commodities are sold at their value, the labourer buys with one commodity, which is the product of twelve hours’ labour-time, another twelve hours’ labour-time in the form of another commodity, that is to say, twelve hours’ labour-time which is embodied in another use-value. The value of his labour is therefore equal to the value of his commodity; that is, it is equal to the product of twelve hours’ labour-time. The selling and buying again, in a word, the whole process of exchange, the metamorphosis of the commodity, alters nothing in this. It alters only the form of the use-value in which this twelve hours’ labour-time appears. The value of labour is therefore equal to the value of the product of labour."[43]

In his 1894 preface to Capital, Volume 3, Friedrich Engels argued that:

> "...at the beginning of Volume 1... Marx takes simple commodity production as his historical presupposition, only later, proceeding from this basis, to come on to capital... he proceeds... from the simple commodity and not from a conceptually and historically secondary form, the commodity as already modified by capitalism".[44]

This interpretation by Engels closely followed what Marx himself stated in his 1864 manuscript titled Results of the immediate process of production:

> "The commodity that emerges from capitalist production is different from the commodity we began with as the element, the precondition of capitalist production. We began with the individual commodity viewed as an autonomous article in which a specific amount of labour-time is objectified and which therefore has an exchange-value of a definite amount. (...) The individual commodity viewed as the product, the actual elementary component of capital that has been generated and reproduced, differs then from the individual commodity with which we began, and which we regarded as an autonomous article, as the presupposition [Voraussetzung] of capital formation."[45]

However, the interpretation by Engels arguably did not completely match what Marx said about his own approach. In his critical notes on Adolph Wagner's Textbook on political economy (1879), Marx said about his analysis of the commodity form in Capital, Volume 1 that:

> "What I proceed from is the simplest social form in which the product of labour presents itself in contemporary society, and this is the "commodity." This I analyse, initially in the form in which it appears."[46]

Here Marx states clearly, that in the first chapter of Capital Vol. 1 he was talking about the commodity as the simplest traded object "in contemporary society", and not about a simple commodity in pre-capitalist society. Point is, when Marx first analyzes a commodity as such (as a very simple category of trade), he disregards how exactly the commodity is produced and how specifically it is traded. He just examines the commodity (in his own words) "as an autonomous article", as a separate thing just as it observably appears in an everyday trading relation - without introducing all sorts of assumptions about how and where it originated, or what it will be used for. Put another way, Marx is talking about simple commodity circulation, not simple commodity production, although the former could assume the latter (the simple exchange of a commodity could be preceded by different forms of producing it).[47]

In his 1895 afterword Supplement and addendum to Volume 3 of Capital, Friedrich Engels elaborates the concept of simple commodity production as follows:

> ”... Marx's law of value applies universally, as much as any economic laws do apply, for the entire period of simple commodity production, i.e. up to the time at which this undergoes a modification by the onset of the capitalist form of production. Up till then, prices gravitate to the values determined by Marx's law and oscillate around these values, so that the more completely simple commodity production develops, the more do average prices coincide with values for longer periods when not interrupted by external violent disturbances, and with the insignificant variations we mentioned earlier. Thus the Marxian law of value has a universal economic validity for an era lasting from the beginning of the exchange that transforms products into commodities down to the fifteenth century of our epoch. But commodity exchange dates from a time before any written history, going back to at least 3500 B.C. in Egypt, and 4000 B.C. or maybe even 6000 B.C. in Babylon; thus the law of value prevailed for a period of some five to seven millennia.”[48]

Again, Engels based himself on (and references) what Marx himself had said – in chapter 10 of Capital, Volume 3 (on the equalization of rates of profit by competition):

> ”The exchange of commodities at their values, or at approximately these values… [Marx writes] corresponds to a much lower stage of development than the exchange at prices of production, for which a definite degree of capitalist development is needed. Whatever may be the ways in which the prices of different commodities are first established or fixed in relation to one another, the law of value governs their movement. When the labour-time required for their production falls, prices fall; and where it rises, prices rise, as long as other circumstances remain equal. Apart from the way in which the law of value governs prices and their movement, it is also quite apposite to view the values of commodities not only as theoretically prior to the prices of production, but also as historically prior to them. This applies to those conditions in which the means of production belong to the worker, and this condition is to be found, in both the ancient and the modern world among peasant proprietors and handicraftsmen who work for themselves. This agrees, moreover, with the opinion we expressed previously, viz. that the development of products into commodities arises from exchange between different communities, and not between the members of one and the same community. This is true not only for the original condition, but also for later social conditions based on slavery and serfdom, and for the guild organization of handicraft production, as long as the means of production involved in each branch of production can be transferred from one sphere to another only with difficulty, and the different spheres of production therefore relate to one another, within certain limits, like foreign countries or communistic communities.”[49]

## From simple commodity production to capitalist production

[edit]

The large-scale global transformation of simple commodity production into capitalist production based on the wage labour of employees[50] occurred only in the last two centuries of human history. It is preceded by the strong growth of merchant trade, supported by credit from financiers who earn rents, profit and interest from the process.The merchants not only act as intermediary between producers and consumers, but also integrate more and more of production into a market economy. That is, more and more is produced for the purpose of market trade, rather than for own use. The initial result is known as "merchant capitalism", which flourished in Western European cities especially in the 17th and 18th centuries but already existed on a smaller scale in the 15th century and even earlier.[51]

However, the transformation of more and more simple commodity production into capitalist production which accompanies industrialisation requires profound changes in property relations, because it must be possible to trade freely in means of production and labour power (the factors of production). Only when that trade becomes possible, can the whole of production be reorganised to conform to commercial principles.

Marx describes capitalist society as "a society where the commodity-form is the universal form of the product of labour, hence the dominant social relation is the relation between people as possessors of commodities". He argues that "The capitalist epoch is... characterized by the fact that labour-power, in the eyes of the worker himself, takes on the form of a commodity which is his property; his labour consequently takes on the form of wage-labour... it is only from this moment that the commodity-form of the products of labour becomes universal." Thus, "...from the moment there is a free sale, by the worker himself, of labour power as a commodity... from then onwards... commodity production is generalized and becomes the typical form of production."[52]

In an 1864 manuscript, Marx emphasized specifically that:

> "Capital cannot come into being except on the foundation of the circulation of commodities (including money), i.e. where trade has already grown to a certain given degree. For their part, however, the production and circulation of commodities do not at all imply the existence of the capitalist mode of production. On the contrary… they may be found even in 'pre-bourgeois modes of production'. They constitute the historical premiss of the capitalist mode of production. On the other hand, however, once the commodity has become the general form of the product, then everything that is produced must assume that form; sale and purchase embrace not just excess produce, but its very substance, and the various conditions of production themselves appear as commodities which leave circulation and enter production only on the foundations of capitalist production. Hence if the commodity appears on the one hand as the premiss of the formation of capital, it is also essentially the result, the product of capitalist production once it has become the universal elementary form of the product. At earlier stages of production a part of what was produced took the form of commodities. Capital, however, necessarily produces its product as a commodity. This is why as capitalist production, i.e. capital, develops, the general laws governing the commodity evolve in proportion; for example, the laws affecting value develop in the distinct form of the circulation of money."[53]

To reach the stage of a universal market, many legal, political, religious and technical restrictions imposed on commercial trade must be overcome. The unification of a "home market" among people in a country who can speak the same language typically stimulated nationalist ideologies. But depending on the existing social systems, the transformation might occur in many different ways.[54] Typically, though, it has involved wars, violence and revolutions, since people were unwilling to just give away assets, rights and income that they previously had.[55] Communally owned property, hereditary land ownership, the property of religious orders and state property all had to be privatised and amalgamated, in order to become tradeable assets in the process of capital accumulation. The ideology of the rising bourgeoisie typically emphasized the benefits of privately owned property for the purpose of wealth creation and industriousness.

Marx refers to this process as the primitive accumulation of capital, a process which continues particularly in developing countries to this day. Marx shows that primitive accumulation involves to a large extent the expropriation of independent producers, who lose their means of production, and therefore are forced to work for an employer to earn a living. Typically, previously independent producers on the land (but also serfs and indentured labourers etc.) are proletarianised and migrate to the urban centres, in search of work from an employer.

Simple commodity production nevertheless continues to occur on a large scale in the world economy, particularly in peasant production. It also persists within industrialised capitalist economies in the form of self-employment by free producers. Capitalist firms sometimes contract out specialised services to self-employed producers, who can produce them at a lower cost, or provide a superior product. Many digital products are produced by self-employed specialists who own their own computer (but who also depend on internet providers, and on access to rented software and websites).

## Modelling simple commodity production

[edit]

In some schools of Marxian economics, simple commodity production refers to a model of a hypothetical economy (or an "imaginary society") used by economists to interpret some of Karl Marx's insights about the economic laws governing the development of commodity trade.[56] The model is only a thought experiment to identify some quantitative implications of commercial production and trade. In this society, a market economy is supposed in which all producers are independent individuals who own and operate their own means of production, and who trade their own products. According to Michio Morishima,

> "In such a society, there are no capitalists and hence no exploitation of workers by them; prices or exchange ratios between commodities must in the state of equilibrium be equal to the relative [labour-]values, provided the primary factors of production other than labour are all free. It is true that the actual exchange ratios in the market may differ from the relative [labour-]values (...) [but] the market price will ultimately be settled at the equilibrium exchange ratio, which is equal to the relative [labour-]value."[57]

## Theoretical discussion

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The theoretical debates about simple commodity production have attracted contributions from numerous economists, philosophers and historians across the last century. This seemingly obscure topic has important implications for quite a few different areas of research: (i) the interpretation of Marx’s method of analysis and his theory of value; (ii) the interpretation of the historical transition from pre-capitalist society to capitalism (and more generally, the social history of trade and marketization and the evolution of the forms of economic value); (iii) the so-called transformation problem; (iv) understanding settler colonialism and the post-colonial economy; (v) development economics; and (vi) the economics of the transition from capitalism to socialism and communism (the gradual replacement of market allocation by direct allocation).[58]

Contributors to the theoretical discussion have included Michael von Tugan-Baranowsky,[59] Nikolai Bukharin,[60] Karl Kautsky,[61] Oskar Lange,[62] Paul Sweezy,[63] Piero Sraffa,[64] Ronald L. Meek,[65] Helmut Reichelt,[66] Joan Robinson,[67] Isaak Illich Rubin, [68] Roman Rosdolsky,[69] Maurice Dobb,[70] Ernest Mandel,[71] Robert Brenner,[72] Gerd Hardach & Jürgen Schilling,[73] Rodney Hilton,[74] Michio Morishima & George Catephores,[75] Jairus Banaji,[76] Richard Britnell,[77] Dimitris Milonakis,[78] John Roemer,[79] Rolf Hecker,[80] John Weeks,[81] Hans-Georg Backhaus,[82] Ben Fine,[83] Wladimir Schkredow,[84] Nadja Rakowitz,[85] Christopher J. Arthur,[86] Arthur Diquattro,[87] Kolja Lindner, [88] Howard Nicholas,[89] Octavio Colombo,[90] Prabhat Patnaik,[91] Anwar M. Shaikh,[92] Ellen Meiksins Wood,[93] Paresh Chattopadhyay,[94] Andrew B. Trigg,[95] Ian P. Wright,[96] Michael Heinrich,[97] and Bill Jefferies.[98]

Modern digital technology enables digitally skilled individuals to set up their own business, producing digital products and services, with a relatively low capital outlay. Therefore, "simple commodity production" could turn out to be not just an outdated economic category of the past, but also a common sort of work in the future.

## Notes

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1. ^ Friedrich Engels, "Preface" to Karl Marx, Capital, Volume 3, London: Penguin classics, 1991, p. 103.
2. ^ A commodity is sold for money which is used to buy another commodity.
3. ^ Jacques M. Chevalier, "There is nothing simple about simple commodity production". The Journal of Peasant Studies, Vol. 10, No. 4, 1983, pp. 153-186.
4. ^ Karl Marx, Capital, Volume I, Penguin ed., 1976, pp. 89–90; Eric J. Hobsbawm (ed.), Karl Marx: Pre-capitalist economic formations. New York: International Publishers, 2007; Friedrich Engels, Supplement and addendum to Volume 3 of Capital, p. 1037 in Karl Marx, Capital, Volume 3. London: Penguin ed., 1991; Ernest Mandel, Marxist Economic Theory. London: Merlin Press, 1968, chapter 2.
5. ^ Maarten Prak & Jan Luiten van Zanden, Pioneers of capitalism: the Netherlands 1000-1800. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2023.
6. ^ Angus Maddison, The world economy: a milennnial perspective. Paris: OECD, 2006, p. 30; Our world in data website, "Global average GDP per capita over the long run". World Bank: Maddison database, 2023;[1] Eric D. Beinhocker, The origin of wealth. Evolution, complexity, and the radical remaking of economics. London: Random House, 2007, p. 10. Standard national accounting systems such as UNSNA provide data for the market and non-market sectors of the national economy, as well as for corporate and non-corporate enterprises.
7. ^ Ernest Mandel, Marxist Economic Theory. London: Merlin Press, 1968, Vol. 1, pp. 63-68.
8. ^ John Weeks, Capital and exploitation. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981, p. 47.
9. ^ Helmut Reichelt, "Zum Verhältnis von logischer und historischer Methode". In: Helmut Reichelt, Zur logischen Struktur des Kapitalbegriffs bei Karl Marx. Frankfurt: EVA, 1970, chapter 3 section 1, pp. 126-136, at p. 130.[2]
10. ^ The validity of this criticism is disputed, given that Marx and Engels both argue that the operation of the law of value is altered by the emergence of capitalist industry, precisely because of changing relations of production (see below). Something similar appears in foreign trade, among other things because the market value of the same product can vary in different countries (see the Big Mac index [3].
11. ^ Michael Quante & David P. Schweikard (eds.), Marx-Handbuch. Leben - Werk - Wirkung. Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler Verlag, 2016, pp. 98–99.
12. ^ Tristam Hunt, Marx's general: the revolutionary life of Friedrich Engels. New York: Henry Holt & Company, 2010
13. ^ Roberto Fineschi, "Nochmals zum Verhältnis Wertform – Geldform – Austauschprozess". In: Neue Aspekte von Marx’ Kapitalismus-Kritik - Beiträge zur Marx-Engels-Forschung, Neue Folge. Berlin: Argument, 2006, pp. 115-133.
14. ^ Rolf Hecker, "Einfache Warenproduktion" [1997]. Rote Ruhr Uni, 2024.[4]
15. ^ Christopher J. Arthur, The new dialectic and Marx's Capital. Leiden: Brill, 2004, chapter 2. Christopher J. Arthur, "The Myth of ‘Simple Commodity Production’", Marx Myths & Legends, 2005.[5]
16. ^ In the de-industrialized regions where value-form theorists live, very little commodity production occurs, there are few factories left, and therefore, in everyday life, it really seems like commodities spontaneously appear from markets, warehouses and shops - the actual production of the commodities occurs far away in other countries, and is invisible, while the commodity-form of the product seems to originate from where the consumer buys the product. The fact that products have to be produced - somewhere - becomes irrelevant and is forgotten, because they are supplied everywhere, and can be bought everywhere. The producers become an abstraction. Labour historian Marcel van der Linden comments: "Take the jeans that I am wearing. The cotton for the denim is grown by small farmers in Benin, West Africa. The soft cotton for the pockets is grown in Pakistan. The synthetic indigo is made in a chemical factory in Frankfurt, Germany. The rivets and buttons contain zinc dug up by Australian miners. The thread is polyester, manufactured from petroleum products by chemical workers in Japan. All parts are assembled in Tunisia. The final product is sold in Amsterdam." - Marcel van der Linden, "Rumors of the Death of the Working Class Are Highly Exaggerated". Jacobin, November 5, 2022.[6]
17. ^ Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, ed. Edwin Cannan. London: Methuen & Co., 1904, Book 1, Chapter 6, p. 49.
18. ^ “It is Adam Smith’s great merit that it is just in the chapters of Book I [of The Wealth of Nations] (chapters VI, VII, VIII) where he passes from simple commodity exchange and its law of value to exchange between materialised and living labour, to exchange between capital and wage-labour, to the consideration of profit and rent in general—in short, to the origin of surplus-value — that he feels some flaw has emerged. He senses that somehow—whatever the cause may be, and he does not grasp what it is—in the actual result the law is suspended: more labour is exchanged for less labour (from the labourer’s standpoint), less labour is exchanged for more labour (from the capitalist’s standpoint). His merit is that he emphasises — and it obviously perplexes him — that with the accumulation of capital and the appearance of property in land — that is, when the conditions of labour assume an independent existence over against labour itself — something new occurs, apparently (and actually, in the result) the law of value changes into its opposite.” – Karl Marx, Theories of surplus-value, Part 1. Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1969, p. 87.
19. ^ Karl Marx, "Results of the immediate process of production", appendix in: Karl Marx, Capital, Volume I, Penguin 1976; also available in Marx Engels Collected Works (MECW), Vol. 34, 1994.[7]
20. ^ Jan Lucassen, "Wage Labour", in: Karin Hofmeester & Marcel van der Linden (eds.), Handbook global history of work. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2018, pp. 395-408.
21. ^ The papyrus is stored at the Museo Egizio in Turin, Italy.
22. ^ Ernest Mandel, "Why I am a Marxist" [1978]. In: The legacy of Ernest Mandel. London: Verso, 1999, pp. 232-259, note 24, at pp. 258-259; William F. Edgerton, "The Strikes in Ramses III's Twenty-Ninth Year", Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Vol. 10, No. 3, July 1951, pp. 137-145; Manfred Gutgesell, Arbeiter und Pharaonen: Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte im Alten Ägypten. Hildesheim: Gerstenberg Verlag, 1989, pp. 83-97.
23. ^ Thomas T. Sekine, "The necessity of the law of value". Science & Society, Vol. 44, No. 3, Fall 1980, pp. 289–304.
24. ^ Philip D. Curtin, Cross-Cultural Trade in World History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984.
25. ^ Ernest Mandel, Marxist Economic Theory. London: Merlin Press, 1968, chapter 2.
26. ^ R.J. van der Spek et al., A history of market performance: from ancient Babylonia to the modern world. London: Routledge, 2015.
27. ^ Marx, Capital Volume 1, Penguin edition 1976, p. 273.
28. ^ Jairus Banaji, Theory as history. Leiden: Brill, 2010.
29. ^ Tom Brass and Marcel van der Linden (eds.), Free and Unfree Labour: The Debate Continues (International and Comparative Social History, 5). New York: Peter Lang AG, 1997.
30. ^ Roy D. Laird, Collective Farming in Russia: A Political Study of the Soviet Kolkhozy, University of Kansas Publications, Lawrence, Kansas (1958), p. 120; R. W. Davies, The Industrialization of Soviet Russia: The Soviet Collective Farm, 1929-1930. Harvard University Press, 1980.
31. ^ "The production and circulation of commodities can still take place even though the great mass of the objects produced are intended for the immediate requirements of their producers, and are not turned into commodities, so that the process of social production is as yet by no means dominated in its length and breadth by exchange-value." - Marx, Capital Volume 1, Penguin edition 1976, p. 273.
32. ^ Srishti Yadav , "Reviewing Petty Commodity Production: Toward a Unified Marxist Conception". Review of Radical Political Economics, Volume 54, Issue 4, September 2022, pp. 411–419.[8]; Johannes Anttila et al., Self-employment in a changing world, UNI Europa/Demos Helsinki, May 2020.[9]
33. ^ Barbara Harriss-White, "Petty commodity production". The Journal of Peasant Studies, Volume 50, Issue 1, 2023, pp. 295-314. World Bank Group, Percentage self-employed in total employment [based on ILOStat data], 2025.[10]
34. ^ Karl Marx, Capital Vol. 1, Penguin edition 1976, p. 931. See: Arthur Diquattro, "The labour theory of value and simple commodity production". Science & Society, Vol. 71, No. 4, October 2007, pp 455-483.
35. ^ Alvin Rabushka, web article "The colonial roots of American taxation, 1607-1700". Stanford: Hoover Institution, 1 August 2002.[11]
36. ^ "Colonial America's Pre-Industrial Age of Wood and Water". Bellefonte: Penn State University, n.d.[12]
37. ^ Presumably there were also a few shopkeepers, barkeepers, physicians, barbers etc.
38. ^ "Slavery in America" module, history.com, 25 April 2024.[13]
39. ^ The Jefferson Monticello webpage on "African Slavery in Colonial British North America" [14]
40. ^ See: Joshua J. Mark, "Colonial American Currency", World History Encyclopedia, 20 April 2021.[15]
41. ^ Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, ed. Edwin Cannan. London: Methuen & Co., 1904, Book 1, Chapter 6, pp. 49-50.
42. ^ Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, ed. Edwin Cannan. London: Methuen & Co., 1904, Book 1, Chapter 6, p. 50.
43. ^ Karl Marx, Theories of Surplus Value [1862-63], Part 1. Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1978, chapter 3, p. 71-72 or Marx/Engels Collected Works (MECW), Vol. 30, p. 378.
44. ^ Friedrich Engels, Preface to Karl Marx, Capital, Volume 3, London: Penguin classics, 1991, p. 103.
45. ^ Karl Marx, "Results of the immediate process of production", in: Karl Marx, Capital, Volume I, Penguin 1976, p. 953 and p. 966 (translation corrected); another, later translation by Ben Fowkes is available in Marx Engels Collected Works (MECW), Vol. 34, 1994, pp. 355-466, at pp. 355-356, and pp. 376-377.
46. ^ Karl Marx, Notes on Adolph Wagner's "Lehrbuch der politischen Ökonomie", 1879.[16]
47. ^ "In his Capital, Marx first analyses the simplest, most ordinary and fundamental, most common and everyday relation of bourgeois (commodity) society, a relation encountered billions of times, viz., the exchange of commodities." Vladimir I. Lenin, "On the Question of Dialectics". Lenin Collected Works, Vol. 38 (4th Edition). Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1976, pp. 357-361.[17]
48. ^ Friedrich Engels, ’Supplement and addendum to Volume 3 of Capital’’, p. 1037 in Karl Marx, Capital, Volume 3. London: Penguin Classics reprint, 1991.
49. ^ Karl Marx, Capital, Volume 3. London: Penguin Classics reprint, 1991, p. 277-278 and pp. 1033-1034
50. ^ Deon Filmer, Estimating the world at work. Background paper to the 1995 World Development Report: Workers in an Integrating World, May 1995.[18]
51. ^ Richard H. Britnell, The Commercialisation of English Society, 1000-1500. Manchester University Press, 1997; Jairus Banaji, Commercial capitalism. London: Verso, 2020.
52. ^ Karl Marx, Capital, Volume I, Penguin edition 1976, resp. p. 152, p. 274, p. 733.
53. ^ Marx, "Results of the immediate process of production", appendix in Capital, Volume 1. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1976, p. 1005.[19]
54. ^ James Minahan, Encyclopedia of the stateless nations: ethnic and national groups around the world (4 vols.). Westport (Conn.): Greenwood Press, 2002.
55. ^ "In fact the veiled slavery of the wage-labourers in Europe needed the unqualified slavery of the New World as its pedestal. (…) If money, according to [a critique in 1842 of public finance by monsieur Marie] Augier, 'comes into the world with a congenital blood-stain on one cheek,' capital comes dripping from head to toe, from every pore, with blood and dirt." - Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. 1. Penguin edition 1976, pp. 925-926 (Augier's critique of public finance is downloadable from the Internet Archive).
56. ^ Michio Morishima, Marx's economics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973, p. 28ff.;Ian Wright, "The Emergence of the Law of Value in a Dynamic Simple Commodity Economy". Review of Political Economy, Volume 20, Issue 3, 2008, pp. 367-391; Andrew B. Trigg, Pasinetti, "Marx and Simple Commodity Production", unpublished paper, Dept of Economics, The Open University, Milton Keynes, April 2008.[20]
57. ^ Michio Morishima, Marx's economics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973, p. 28.
58. ^ At this stage a brief description of these topics remains to be written and included in the article.
59. ^ Michael von Tugan-Baranowsky, "The fundamental causes of crises in the capitalist economy", in Paul Zarembka (ed.), Value, Capitalist Dynamics and Money (Research in Political Economy), Vol. 18). Leeds: Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 2000, pp. 53-80; François Allisson, Value and Prices in Russian Economic Thought. Milton Park: Routledge, 2015.
60. ^ Nikolai Bukharin, "Marx's Teaching and its Historical Importance", chapter 3, in Nikolai Bukharin et al., Marxism and Modern Thought. London: George Routledge & Sons Ltd., 1935.[21]
61. ^ Karl Kautsky, The Economic Doctrines of Karl Marx [1887]. London: N.C.L.C. Publishing Society Ltd, rev. edn. 1903, chapter 1 section 2; Karl Kautsky, The Agrarian Question (Vol. 1). [1899] London: Zwan Publications, 1988, pp. 63-71.
62. ^ Oskar Lange, “Marxian Economics and Modern Economic Theory”, in: Review of Economic Studies, vol. 2, no. 3, 1935. pp. 189-201; Oskar Lange, Political Economy, Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1963 (Vol. 1) and 1971 (Vol. 2).
63. ^ Paul Sweezy, The theory of capitalist development. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1942; Paul Sweezy, "Comment on Brenner". New Left Review, series I, Issue 108, March-April 1978.
64. ^ Piero Sraffa, Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities: Prelude to a Critique of Economic Theory. Cambridge University Press, 1960.
65. ^ Ronald L. Meek, Studies in the Labour Theory of Value, 2nd ed. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1973. Ronald L. Meek, "Is There an "Historical Transformation Problem"? A Comment." In: The Economic Journal, Vol. 86, No. 342, June 1976, pp. 342-347. Ronald L. Meek, "The ‘Historical’ Transformation Problem", in: Ronald L. Meek, Smith, Marx and after - Ten Essays in the Development of Economic Thought. Springer, 1977, pp 134–145.
66. ^ Helmut Reichelt, Zur logischen Struktur des Kapitalbegriffs bei Karl Marx. Frankfurt: Europäische Verlagsanstalt, rev. ed. 1973.
67. ^ Joan Robinson, "The Basic Theory of Normal Prices". The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 76, No. 1, February 1962, pp. 1-19; Joan Robinson, "Value before capitalism". Kyklos, Vol. 28, No. 1, January 1975, pp. 143-148.
68. ^ Isaak Illich Rubin, Essays on Marx's theory of value. Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1973, chapter 18, pp. 223-224.
69. ^ Roman Rosdolsky, The making of Marx's Capital. London: Pluto Press, 1977, chapters 9 and 10.
70. ^ Maurice Dobb, An introduction to economics. London: Victor Gollancz Ltd, 1932, chapter 6;[22] Maurice Dobb, Studies in the development of capitalism. Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1946; Maurice Dobb,Theories of value and distribution: ideology and economic theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973, chapter 2, 3, and 6.
71. ^ Ernest Mandel, Marxist Economic Theory. London: Merlin Press, 1968 (chapters 1-6); Ernest Mandel, An introduction to Marxist economic theory. New York: Pathfinder Press, 1973, pp. 13-20 and pp. 29-30.
72. ^ Robert Brenner, "The origins of capitalist development: a critique of Neo-Smithian Marxism". New Left Review, series I, Issue 104, July-August 1977, pp. 25-92, at p. 52, note 43; Robert Brenner, "Reply to Sweezy". New Left Review, series I, Issue 108, March-April 1978.
73. ^ Gerd Hardach & Jürgen Schilling,Das Buch vom Markt: ein Wirtschafts- und Kulturgeschichte. Luzern/Frankfurt:Verlag C.J. Bucher, 1980.
74. ^ Rodney Hilton, "Medieval market towns and simple commodity production". Past & Present, Vol. 109, Issue 1, November 1985, pp. 3-23; R. H. Hilton, The transition from feudalism to Capitalism. London: Verso, 1978.
75. ^ Michio Morishima, Marx's economics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973; Michio Morishima & George Catephores, "Is There an 'Historical Transformation Problem'?", in: The Economic Journal, Volume 85, Issue 338, June 1975, pp. 309–328; Michio Morishima and George Catephores, "The Historical Transformation Problem: A Reply". The Economic Journal, volume 86, issue 342, 1976. pp. 348-352; George Catephores, "The historical transformation problem — a reply", in: Economy and Society, Volume 9, Issue 3, 1980, pp. 332-336.
76. ^ Jairus Banaji, "From the Commodity to Capital: Hegel’s Dialectic in Marx’s Capital". In: Diane Elson, Value: The Representation of Labour in Capitalism. London: Conference of Socialist Economists, 1979, pp. 14-45; Jairus Banaji, Theory as history. Leiden: Brill, 2010, pp. 93-101 etc.
77. ^ Richard Britnell, "Commerce and Capitalism in Late Medieval England: Problems of Description and Theory". Journal of Historical Sociology, Vol. 6, No. 4, December 1993, pp. 359–376.
78. ^ Dimitris Milonakis, "Commodity production and price formation before capitalism: A value theoretic approach". The Journal of Peasant Studies, Vol.22, No. 2, 1995, pp. 327-355.
79. ^ John Roemer, A General Theory of Exploitation and Class. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982, chapter 1.
80. ^ Rolf Hecker, "Einfache Warenproduktion" [1997]. Rote Ruhr Uni, 2024.[23] ((written for, but published in altered form in the (German) Historical-Critical Dictionary of Marxism, Volume 3, 1997).
81. ^ John Weeks, Capital and exploitation. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981, chapters 1 & 2.
82. ^ Hans-Georg Backhaus,"Materialien zur Rekonstruktion der Marxschen Werttheorie 2", in: Gesellschaft. Beiträge zur Marxschen Theorie 3. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1975, pp. 122-159; Hans-Georg Backhaus, Dialektik der Wertform. Freiburg: ça ira, 1997.
83. ^ Ben Fine "On the historical transformation problem", in: Economy and Society, Volume 9, Issue 3, 1980, pp. 337-339; Ben Fine, "A dissenting note on the transformation problem". Economy and Society, Volume 12, Issue 4, 1983, pp. 520-525.
84. ^ Wladimir Schkredow, "Die Untersuchungsmethode der Entstehungs- und Entwicklungsgeschichte der kapitalistischen Produktionsweise im 'Kapital'". Marxistische Studien Jahrbuch des Institut für Marxistische Studien und Forschungen, Vol. 12, issue 1, 1987, pp. 232–37. Wladimir Schkredow, "Die Untersuchung der Dialektik der Warenform des Arbeitsprodukts in der 1. und 2. Auflage des ersten Bandes des "Kapitals" von Karl Marx." In: Beiträge zur Marx-Engels-Forschung, Heft 27, 1989, pp. 187-191.[24]
85. ^ Nadja Rakowitz, Einfache Warenproduktion. Ideal und Ideologie (2nd edition). Freiburg im Breisgau, ça ira Verlag, 2004.
86. ^ Christopher J. Arthur, The new dialectic and Marx's Capital. Leiden: Brill, 2004, chapter 2; Christopher J. Arthur, "The Myth of ‘Simple Commodity Production’", Marx Myths & Legends, 2005.[25]
87. ^ Arthur Diquattro, "The labour theory of value and simple commodity production". Science & Society, Vol. 71, No. 4, October 2007, pp 455-483.
88. ^ Kolja Lindner, "The German Debate on the Monetary Theory of Value: Considerations on Jan Hoff’s Kritik der Klassischen Politischen Ökonomie". Science & Society, Volume 72, Issue 4, 2008, pp. 402-414.
89. ^ Howard Nicholas, "Marx’s Theory of Price in the Simple Circulation of Commodities", chapter 2 in: Marx’s Theory of Price and its Modern Rivals. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011, pp. 7-28.
90. ^ Octavio Colombo, "Simple Commodity Production and Value Theory in Late Feudalism". In: Laura da Graca and Andrea Zingarelli (eds.), Studies on Pre-Capitalist Modes of Production, Leiden: Brill, 2015, chapter 7.
91. ^ Prabhat Patnaik, "Defining the concept of commodity production". Studies in People’s History, Volume 2, Issue 1, June 2015, pp. 117–125.
92. ^ Anwar M. Shaikh, Capitalism: competition, conflict, crises. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016, pp. 381-385, p. 387, pp. 424-425.
93. ^ Ellen Meiksins Wood, "From opportunity to imperative: the history of the market." Monthly Review, vol. 46, no. 3, July-August 1994, pp. 14-40; Ellen Meiksins Wood, "Capitalism, Merchants and Bourgeois Revolution: Reflections on the Brenner Debate and its Sequel". International Review of Social History, Vol. 41, No. 2., August 1996, pp. 209-232; Ellen Meiksins Wood, The Origin of Capitalism: A Longer View. London: Verso, 2017.
94. ^ Paresh Chattopadhyay, Socialism and Commodity production; essays in Marx revival. Boston: Brill, 2018, chapter 3.
95. ^ Andrew B. Trigg, Pasinetti, "Marx and Simple Commodity Production", unpublished paper, Dept of Economics, The Open University, Milton Keynes, April 2008.[26]
96. ^ Ian P. Wright, "The Emergence of the Law of Value in a Dynamic Simple Commodity Economy". Review of Political Economy, Volume 20, Issue 3, 2008, pp. 367-391;
97. ^ Michael Heinrich, How to Read Marx's Capital: Commentary and Explanations on the Beginning Chapters. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2021, pp. 158-159, 251-253.
98. ^ Bill Jefferies, "The Labour Theory of Value, Simple Commodity Production and the Transformation Problem". Critique. Journal of Socialist Theory, Volume 49, Issue 1-2, 2022, 47-62; William Jefferies, "Piero Sraffa and the Production of Commodities by Means of Magic". Critical sociology, Volume 43, Issue 3, May 2017.

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