How does material production become socially
recognised in Capitalism? This is a fundamental
question for Economics, since material production
takes place privately and independently in a
worldwide system. The theory of the commodity
outlined in this book shows that the process of
social recognition of material production and the
process giving rise to money are one and the same. In
fact, they are only the material manifestation of the
realisation of work carried out privately and
independently as part of the social labour. The book
completes the characterisation of commodities as a
historical form of the social product and recovers
Marx's fundamental concept of the mercantile form of
value. As a result, it becomes evident that the
mercantile form of value is the indirect way in
commodity production to allocate the productive
powers of society, Smith's invisible hand. The book
also breaks the false immediate links between the
means of production and capital, and between money
and capital. The fallacy that the labour theory of
value disregards the inputs to production other than
labour is thus laid bare, as is the misconception
that directly identifies supply with production.