Only then does it become necessary to everyone that he may ransom himself from violence, and only then does it obtain a constant exchange value. And what then acquires value is not what is most convenient as a medium of exchange but what the government demands. If gold is demanded, gold will have value; if knucklebones were demanded, knuckle-bones would have value. If this were not so, why has the emission of this medium of exchange always formed, and why does it form, a prerogative of government? People-let us say the Fijians-have established a medium of exchange; well then let them exchange as they please, and you who have power-that is who have means to inflict violence-should not interfere with that exchange.
But as it is, you coin money, forbidding anyone else to coin it, or else (as among us in Russia) you merely print bits of paper with the Tsar’s head on them and sign them with a particular signature, exacting penalties for any imitation of this money, and you distribute it to your assistants, and in payment of state and land taxes demand just these coins or these bits of paper with just that signature, and so much of it that a workman has to give his whole labour to obtain these same bits of paper, or coins, and you assure us that we need this money-as a ‘medium of exchange’.
Men are all free and they do not oppress one another, do not, hold one another in slavery, only there is this money in use and an iron law according to which rent rises and wages dwindle to a minimum! The fact that half (and more than half) the Russian peasants are enslaved as labourers to landowners and to mill-owners, on account of direct and indirect taxes and land dues, does not at all mean, what is obvious, that the compulsory exaction of direct indirect, and land taxes paid in money to the government and to its assistants-the land-owners-compels workmen to go into slavery to those who take the money, but it means that money exists-a medium of exchange-and that there is an iron law!
Before the serfs were emancipated I could compel Vanka to do any kind of work, and if he refused I sent him to the rural police and they whipped his bottom till Vanka submitted. At the same time if I made Vanka overwork himself or did not give him land or food, the matter went before the authorities and I had to answer for it. Now men are free but I can make Vanka, Sidorka, or Petrushka do any kind of work, and if he refuses I do not give him money for his taxes and they will whip his bottom till he submits; besides which I can make a German, a Frenchman, a Chinaman or a Hindu who lacks land and bread, work for me by not giving him money to hire land or buy bread unless he submits to me.
And if I make him work without food beyond his strength, and if I kill him with work, no one will say a word to me, and if in addition I have read books on political economy I may be firmly convinced that all men are free and that money does. not occasion slavery. The peasants have long known that ‘a ruble hits harder than an oak cudgel’. But the economists do not wish to see this. To say that money does not cause slavery, is just like saying half a century ago that the serf law did not produce slavery. Economists say that despite the fact that the possession of money enables one man to enslave another, money is a harmless medium of exchange.
Why should one not have said half a century ago, that despite the fact that the serf-law could enslave a man, the law was not a means of enslavement but a harmless medium of mutual service? Some people gave rough labour, others attended to the physical and mental welfare of the slaves and organized their work. I even think that that used to be said.
CHAPTER XIX
IF this pseudo-science, political economy, were not occupied, like all the juridical sciences, with devising excuses for violence, it could not avoid taking note of the strange fact that the distribution of wealth-the circumstance that some people are deprived of land and capital and that some men enslave others-is all dependent on money, and only by means of money does one set of men now exploit the labour of others, that is, enslave others.
I repeat: a man who has money can buy up all the corn and starve another and make a complete slave of him through his need of bread. And this is done before our eyes on an enormous scale. It would seem necessary to seek the connexion between the phenomena of slavery and money; but science asserts with full confidence that money has nothing to do with the enslavement of men.
Science says: money is a commodity like any other the value of which is fixed by its cost of production, the only difference being that this commodity has been chosen as most convenient to serve as a standard of values, for savings, as a means of exchange, and to effect payments: one man makes boots and another grows grain, while a third raises sheep; and more conveniently to exchange their produce they introduce money which represents a proportionate amount of work, and by its means they can exchange leather soles for sheep’s ribs and ten pounds of flour.
The exponents of this pseudo-science are very fond of imagining such a state of affairs to themselves, but it never existed in the world.
Such a conception of society is like the conception of a primitive uncorrupted perfect human society that philosophers used to be fond of devising. But there never was such a state. In all human societies where money has existed as such, violence has always been exerted by the strong and well armed against the weak and unarmed; and where there was violence the standard of values, money-whatever it may have been: cattle, hides, furs, or metals-inevitably lost that significance and became merely a means of ransom from violence.
Money certainly has the innocuous qualities science enumerates, but they would be its essential qualities only in a society where there was no violence of man to man-in an ideal society; and in such a society money as money-a common measure of values-would not exist at all, just as it has not existed and could not exist in any society not subjected to general governmental violence. But in all societies known to us where money exists it has obtained importance as a medium of exchange only because it has served as an instrument of violence.
And Its chief significance is not as a medium of exchange but as an instrument of violence. Where there is violence money cannot be a regular medium of exchange because it cannot be a standard of values.
It cannot be a standard of values because as soon as one man in a society can deprive another of the products of his labour, this standard is at once infringed. If horses and cows are brought to market some of which have been reared by their owners while others have been forcibly taken from those who reared them, it is plain that the price of horses and cows in that market will not correspond to the cost of rearing the stock, and that the prices of all articles will be altered as a consequence of this alteration, and money will not have fixed the price of those articles. Moreover if one can acquire a cow, a horse, or a house, by force, it is also possible to take money itself by force and with that money to obtain all kinds of produce. But if money itself is obtained by violence and used to purchase commodities, it quite loses every semblance of a medium of exchange. The oppressor, when he seizes the money and gives it for things produced by labour, does not exchange, but by means of money takes whatever he wants.
But even if such an imaginary and impossible society had existed in which, without any general governmental violence exercised over men, money-silver or gold-had the significance of a standard of values and a medium of exchange, even then as soon as violence was introduced money would at once lose that significance. An oppressor makes his appearance in such a society as a conqueror.
This man, let us suppose, seizes cows, horses, clothing, and the houses of the inhabitants, but finds it inconvenient to deal with all these, and so it naturally occurs to him to take from these people whatever among them represents all kinds of values and can be exchanged for all kinds of articles, namely, money. Money at once ceases to have significance as a standard of values in that society, because the value of all articles will depend on the caprice of the oppressor.
The article the oppressor needs most and for which he will give most money, will become the most valuable, and vice versa. So that in a society subjected to violence money at once acquires the predominant significance of a means whereby the oppressor exercises his violence, and it will retain significance as a medium of exchange among the oppressed only in so far and to such an extent as is convenient to the oppressor.
Let us imagine matters in such a society.
