The Poverty of Philosophy

XVI

subtleties that are intended to realize this purpose. At the very least, they attempt to solve the economic question through economic means, by the action of the exchanging Waarenbesitzer commodity owners themselves. Rodbertus has it much easier. As a good Prussian, he appeals to the state: a decree of state authority shall command the reform.

With that, the value is happily "constituted," but the priority of this constitution, which Rodbertus claims, is by no means secured. On the contrary, Gray as well as Bray—alongside many others—have repeated this thought, the pious wish for precautions by means of which products might always and only be exchanged according to their Arbeitswerth labor value under all circumstances, long and often before Rodbertus, even to the point of weariness.

After the state has thus constituted the value—of at least a portion of the products, for Rodbertus is also modest—it issues its Arbeitspapiergeld labor paper money, makes advances of it to industrial capitalists, with which they pay the workers, whereupon the workers buy the products with the received labor paper money, and thus facilitate the return flow of the paper money to its starting point. We must hear from Rodbertus himself how beautifully this unfolds.

"Regarding the second condition, the necessary precaution to ensure that the value certified in the note is actually present in circulation is taken by providing that only the person who actually surrenders a product receives a note in which the exact quantity of labor original: "Arbeitsquantität" by which the product was produced is noted. Whoever surrenders a product of 2 days of labor receives a note on which '2 days' is written. Through the exact observance of this rule in