Marx on money

[Charles Brown]

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/epm/3rd.htm

Money

If man's feelings, passions, etc., are not merely anthropological
characteristics in the narrower sense, but are truly ontological
affirmations of his essence (nature), and if they only really affirm
themselves insofar as their object exists sensuously for them, then it
is clear:

(1) That their mode of affirmation is by no means one and the same,
but rather that the different modes of affirmation constitute the
particular character of their existence, of their life. The mode in
which the object exists for them is the characteristic mode of their
gratification.

(2) Where the sensuous affirmation is a direct annulment [Aufheben] of
the object in its independent form (eating, drinking, fashioning of
objects, etc.), this is the affirmation of the object.

(3) Insofar as man, and hence also his feelings, etc., are human, the
affirmation of the object by another is also his own gratification.

(4) Only through developed industry – i.e., through mediation of
private property, does the ontological essence of human passion come
into being, both in its totality and in its humanity; the science of
man is, therefore, itself a product of the self-formation of man
through practical activity.

(5) The meaning of private property, freed from its estrangement, is
the existence of essential objects for man, both as objects of
enjoyment and of activity.

Money, inasmuch as it possess the property of being able to buy
everything and appropriate all objects, is the object most worth
possessing. The universality of this property is the basis of money's
omnipotence; hence, it is regarded as an omnipotent being... Money is
the pimp between need and object, between life and man's means of
life. But that which mediates my life also mediates the existence of
other men for me. It is for me the other person.

What, man! confound it, hands and feet
And head and backside, all are yours!
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)
[ Part I, scene 4 ]

Shakespeare, in Timon of Athens:

Gold? Yellow, glittering, precious gold! No, gods,
I am no idle votarist; roots, you clear heavens!
Thus much of this will make black, white; foul, fair;
Wrong, right; base, noble; old, young; coward, valiant.
... Why, this
Will lug your priests and servants from your sides;
Pluck stout men's pillows from below their heads:
This yellow slave
Will knit and break religions; bless th'accurst;
Make the hoar leprosy adored; place thieves,
And give them title, knee, and approbation,
With senators on the bench: this is it
That makes the wappen'd widow wed again;
She whom the spital-house and ulcerous sores
Would cast the gorge at, this embalms and spices
To th'April day again. Come, damned earth,
Thou common whore of mankind, that putt'st odds
Among the rout of nations, I will make thee
Do thy right nature.

And, later on:

O thou sweet king-killer, and dear divorce
'Twixt natural son and sire! Thou bright defiler
Of Hymen's purest bed! Thou valiant Mars!
Thou ever young, fresh, loved and delicate wooer,
Whose blush doth thaw the consecrated snow
That lies on Dian's lap! Thous visible god,
That solder'st close impossibilities,
And mak'st them kiss! That speak'st with every tongue,
To every purpose! O thou touch of hearts!
Think, thy slave man rebels; and by thy virtue
Set them into confounding odds, that beasts
May have in world empire!

Shakespeare paints a brilliant picture of 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., that which money can buy, that am I, the possessor of
money. The stronger the power of my money, the stronger am I. The
properties of money are my, the possessor's, properties and essential
powers. Therefore, what I am and what I can do is by no means
determined by my individuality. I am ugly, but I can buy the most
beautiful woman. Which means to say that I am not ugly, for the effect
of ugliness, its repelling power, is destroyed by money. As an
individual, I am lame, but money procurs me 24 legs. Consequently, I
am not lame. I am a wicked, dishonest, unscrupulous and stupid
individual, but money is respected, and so also is its owner. Money is
the highest good, and consequently its owner is also good. Moreover,
money spares me the trouble of being dishonest, and I am therefore
presumed to be honest. I am mindless, but if money is the true mind of
all things, how can its owner be mindless? What is more, he can buy
clever people for himself, and is not he who has power over clever
people cleverer than them? Through money, I can have anything the
human heart desires. Do I not possess all human abilities? Does not
money therefore transform all my incapacities into their opposite?

If money is the bond which ties me to human life and society to me,
which links me to nature and to man, is money not the bond of all
bonds? Can it not bind and loose all bonds? Is it therefore not the
universal means of separation? It is the true agent of separation and
the true cementing agent, it is the chemical power of society.

Shakespeare brings out two properties of money in particular:

(1) It is the visible divinity, the transformation of all human and
natural qualities into their opposites, the universal confusion and
inversion of things; it brings together impossibilities.

(2) It is the universal whore, the universal pimp of men and peoples.

The inversion and confusion of all human and natural qualities, the
bringing together of impossibilities, the divine power of money lies
in its nature as the estranged and alienating species-essence of man
which alienates itself by selling itself. It is the alienated capacity
of mankind.

What I, as a man, do – i.e., what all my individual powers cannot do –
I can do with the help of money. Money, therefore, transforms each of
these essential powers into something which it is not, into its
opposite.

If I desire a meal, or want to take the mail coach because I am not
strong enough to make the journey on foot, money can provide me both
the meal and the mail coach – i.e., it transfers my wishes from the
realm of imagination, it translates them from their existence as
thought, imagination, and desires, into their sensuous, real
existence, from imagination into life, and from imagined being into
real being. In this mediating role, money is the truly creative power.

Demand also exists for those who have no money, but their demand is
simply a figment of the imagination. For me, or for any other third
party, it has no effect, no existence. For me, it therefore remains
unreal and without an object. The difference between effective demand
based on money and ineffective demand based on my need, my passion, my
desire, etc., is the difference between being and thinking, between a
representation which merely exists within me and one which exists
outside me as a real object.

If I have money for travel, I have no need – i.e., no real and
self-realizing need – to travel. If I have a vocation to study, but no
money for it, I have no vocation to study – i.e., no real, true
vocation. But, if I really do not have any vocation to study, but have
the will and the money, then I have an effective vocation do to so.
Money, which is the external, universal means and power – derived not
from man as man, and not from human society as society – to turn
imagination into reality and reality into more imagination, similarly
turns real human and natural powers into purely abstract
representations, and therefore imperfections and phantoms – truly
impotent powers which exist only in the individual's fantasy – into
real essential powers and abilities. Thus characterized, money is the
universal inversion of individualities, which it turns into their
opposites and to whose qualities it attaches contradictory qualities.

Money, therefore, appears as an inverting power in relation to the
individual and to those social and other bonds which claim to be
essences in themselves. It transforms loyalty into treason, love into
hate, hate into love, virtue into vice, vice into virtue, servant into
master, master into servant, nonsense into reason, and reason into
nonsense.

Since money, as the existing and active concept of value, confounds
and exchanges everything, it is the universal confusion and exchange
of all things, an inverted world, the confusion and exchange of all
natural and human qualities.

He who can buy courage is brave, even if he is a coward. Money is not
exchange for a particular quality, a particular thing, or for any
particular one of the essential powers of man, but for the whole
objective world of man and of nature. Seen from the standpoint of the
person who possesses it, money exchanges every quality for every other
quality and object, even if it is contradictory; it is the power which
brings together impossibilities and forces contradictions to embrace.

If we assume man to be man, and his relation to the world to be a
human one, then love can be exchanged only for love, trust for trust,
and so on. If you wish to enjoy art, you must be an artistically
educated person; if you wish to exercise influence on other men, you
must be the sort of person who has a truly stimulating and encouraging
effect on others. Each one of your relations to man – and to nature –
must be a particular expression, corresponding to the object of your
will, of your real individual life. If you love unrequitedly – i.e.,
if your love as love does not call forth love in return, if, through
the vital expression of yourself as a loving person, you fail to
become a loved person – then your love is impotent, it is a
misfortune.