178:1 Commodities cannot themselves go to market and perform exchanges in their own right. We must, therefore, have recourse to their guardians, who are the possessors of commodities.

The result of the fetish subchapter was that while people collectively bring about the social relations of commodity production and exchange, they are not aware of this, they do not do this consciously. Rather, their social relations appear to them as relations of things and they relate to these objective forms. Hence, Marx picks up on the commodity owners and their intends only now to determine them as character masks of their commodities.

178:1 In order that these objects may enter into relation with each other as commodities, their guardians must place themselves in relation to one another as persons whose will resides in those objects, and must behave in such a way that each does not appropriate the commodity of the other, and alienate his own, except through an act to which both parties consent. The guardians must therefore recognize each other as owners of private property.

Commodities were determined as means of exchange in chapter 1. These means of exchange do not exist in a society where production is first of all for self-sufficiency and where only the surplus product is exchanged. Instead, the capitalist mode of production prevails and material wealth generally takes the commodity form.

The character of commodities as means of exchange is not determined by the particular commodity with which they are exchanged. Commodities have the purpose to be in principle exchangeable for any other commodity on the market.

This presupposes, in a first step, a separation of need and use-values, i.e. the means to satisfy this need. Presupposed is private property as a social principle. Everybody may dispose over his/her property at will, i.e. everybody else is excluded from that property. The value of a commodity is a way to get access to those things which I am reliant on but which are private property of somebody else.

Private property in the hand of others is a barrier which needs be overcome. On the other hand, my own private property is the lever by which I can get access to somebody else’s private property. Before one can demand property from someone, that someone must be excluded from the means of satisfaction of his/her needs — through private property. My commodity’s body is the leverage by which I can attract the interest of other members of society, such that I can demand something in return from them. For that, every use-value is equally good as long as there is some demand for it in society. Attracting those goods which I am actually interested in is accomplished by exploiting the neediness of others, a neediness which is established by private property.¹

So when we talk about “means of exchange”, “exchangeability as property of the commodity” we should say more precisely: commodities have the purpose of being access resources to social wealth; means of access to that material wealth from which one is excluded by private property. Use-value is subordinated under this determination. In a society based on commodity production and exchange somebody being hungry is no reason to feed that somebody. This principle explains in an abstract way already why in this society immense collections of use-values coexist with poverty.

For this commodity owners have to relate to each other in a particular way. First of all, they must respect each other as respective owners of their commodities. Being an owner means to have exclusive right of disposal over one’s own property. By relating to each other as commodity owners, they relate to each other as persons: they abstractly acknowledge the other’s will. That is, they acknowledge that the other party’s will applies to their property and cannot be broken. However, since their respective motives imply that they relate to each other with opposed interests, a contract becomes necessary. In the contract the initial will is relativised and transformed into a common will to which both parties hold each other. Hence, the concrete will of the other party is not as such respected. Put differently, the acknowledgement of the abstract will is the condition for pursuing interests which deny the concrete will of the other.

179:1 What chiefly distinguishes a commodity from its owner is the fact that every other commodity counts for it only as the form of appearance of its own value. (…) The owner makes up for this lack in the commodity of a sense of the concrete, physical body of the other commodity, by his own five and more senses. For the owner, his commodity possesses no direct use-value. Otherwise, he would not bring it to market. It has use-value for others; but for himself its only direct use-value is as a bearer of exchange-value, and consequently, a means of exchange. He therefore makes up his mind to sell it in return for commodities whose use-value is of service to him. All commodities are non-use-values for their owners, and use-values for their non-owners.

On the one hand, a commodity owner Alice wants to use her own commodity to get her hands on the things she desires. Hence, her particular need/desire is decisive for the relation to her opposite commodity owner Bob. On the other hand, she does not want to become impoverished through the transaction, she wants to realise the value of her commodity. The practical standpoint of each commodity owner is to relate to her own commodity as universal equivalent. This way, there is no universal equivalent and the commodities only confront each other as products.

The commodity owners can only realise their interests as commodity owners if they are externally presented with a commodity which immediately is value. Only this way they can relate their commodities as commodities. Money hence is also derived from the demands of commodity owners. On the other hand, the same as in the value-form analysis applies. A commodity can only be money because all commodity owners relate to it as such. It remains the collective deed of commodity owners to make money money. But they do not do this self-consciously.