The Poverty of Philosophy

of the emission, this second condition must necessarily also be fulfilled. For since, according to our premise, the actual value of goods always coincides with that quantity of labor which their production has cost, and since this quantity of labor has its standard in the ordinary division of time, then someone who yields a product upon which 2 days of labor have been expended, if he receives a certificate for 2 days, has received neither more nor less value certified or assigned than he has in fact delivered; — and since, furthermore, only he who has actually delivered a product into circulation receives such a certificate, it is also certain that the value noted on the slip is present for the satisfaction of society. If one imagines the circle of the division of labor to be as wide as one likes, then, if this rule is strictly followed, the sum of the value present must be exactly equal to the sum of the value certified. But since the sum of the certified value is also exactly the sum of the assigned value, then this must also necessarily coincide with the existing value, all claims will be satisfied, and the liquidation properly mediated." (pp. 166, 167.)

If Rodbertus has hitherto always had the misfortune of coming too late with his new discoveries, he at least has the merit of a kind of originality this time: in this childishly naive, transparent, I would like to say truly Pomeranian form, none of his competitors has dared to express the folly of the labor-money utopia. Since a corresponding object of value has been delivered for every paper certificate, and