We shall see directly how from the combination
of these two zeros unity springs forth, or the idea which dispels
the antinomy.
Thus, in value, there is nothing useful that cannot be exchanged,
nothing exchangeable if it be not useful: value in use and value
in exchange are inseparable. But while, by industrial progress,
demand varies and multiplies to an infinite extent, and while
manufactures tend in consequence to increase the natural utility
of things, and finally to convert all useful value into
exchangeable value, production, on the other hand, continually
increasing the power of its instruments and always reducing its
expenses, tends to restore the venal value of things to their
primitive utility: so that value in use and value in exchange are
in perpetual struggle.
The effects of this struggle are well-known: the wars of commerce
and of the market; obstructions to business; stagnation;
prohibition; the massacres of competition; monopoly; reductions
of wages; laws fixing maximum prices; the crushing inequality of
fortunes; misery,--all these result from the antinomy of value.
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