measure of value. The coat, mentioned above, exchanges for four pairs of trousers because the coat contains four times the quantity of social-labor that one pair of the trousers contains.
The necessary social labor contained in a commodity (shoes, coats, gold, bread, your labor power or whatever it may be) determines what it will exchange for. The natural tendency is for commodities of equal value to exchange for each other, or for other commodities of equal value.
For example: the amount of wheat produced by ten hours of necessary social labor time will exchange for the amount of cloth, shoes, chairs, gold or some other commodity that will be produced by ten hours of necessary social labor.
The value or values for which commodities will exchange change constantly as the social labor necessary to their production changes. Last month we read of a new molding machine that enables one boy to produce as many castings in one day as four men had been accustomed to produce. These castings have now greatly decreased in value (in the individual plant where the new process is used) but the total value of castings in general has been only slightly reduced. The average labor necessary to produce castings is only a little less than formerly. When the new process becomes general and the average necessary labor greatly reduced; castings will greatly decrease in value.
"If we consider commodities as values, we consider them exclusively under the single aspect of realized, fixed, or, if you like, crystalized human labor. In this respect they can differ only by representing greater or smaller quantities of labor, as for example, a greater amount of labor may be worked up in a silken handkerchief than in a brick.
"A commodity has value, because it is a crystalization of social labor.....The relative values of commodities are, therefore, determined by the respective quantities or amounts of labor worked up (or contained) in them." (Pages 56 and 57, Value, Price and Profit).
"In calculating the exchangeable value of a commodity we must add to the quantity of labor last employed, the quantity of labor previously worked up in the raw material of a commodity, and the labor bestowed in the implements, tools, machinery, and buildings, with which labor is assisted." (Value, Price and Profit, page 60).
The value of barrels, for example, is determined by the social (factory) labor spent in producing staves and hoops and the labor time used in producing the portion of machinery worn out in making them, as well as the necessary social labor spent in cutting and hauling (producing) raw logs for use in the mill.
Every time more social labor is needed in making commodities–shoes, hats, gloves, stoves or cigars–whatever these commodities may be–their value is increased. Every time the quantity of socially necessary labor is lessened in the production of commodities, their value is decreased.
Nearly all kinds of furniture have greatly decreased in value the past few years owing to the improved machines used in their production and the relatively small quantity of labor contained in furniture.
Gold has steadily been decreasing in value in the past ten years owing to the improved methods of producing gold and the decreasing quantity of labor contained in it.
Rubber is steadily growing more valuable because the available world supply has been nearly exhausted and it requires more time hunting or planting, and caring for rubber trees–more labor is contained in a pound of rubber than a few years ago.
Gradually we see huge machines replacing the smaller ones in all the great producing industries and, with the constant introduction of more improved machinery, the quantity of human labor contained in commodities produced by modern methods–grows less and less. Such commodities decrease in value with every decrease in the labor embodied in them.
Price is the money name for which commodities exchange. We are accustomed to figure in gold prices. All our bank-notes read "payable in–so much–gold." But gold is a commodity just like bread, or overcoats, or dresses or auto