How money constitutes value: from ‘abstract labour’ to money

This paper provides a novel interpretation of Part One of the first volume of Marx’s Capital, that is, its first three chapters. It is argued that Chapter 1, on the commodity, is merely one moment of the entry point to the work. The second moment of the entry point is Chapter 3 on money. These two moments subsist at the same level of abstraction and thus inseparably belong together. Next to nature, labour is the co-source of materiality (use-values) For Marx, that materiality is ideally transubstantiated into the social form of value. This social form of value cannot be concretely measured without money. [The core of this paper is based on ‘Money as constituent of value’ (2005)]