Within the process of circulation gold seems to be always acquired as the result of a sale C --M.But since C --M,the sale,is simultaneously M --C,a purchase,it is evident that while C the commodity which begins the process undergoes its first metamorphosis,the other commodity which confronts it as M from the opposite extreme undergoes its second metamorphosis and accordingly passes through the second phase of the circuit while the first commodity is still in the first phase of its cycle.
The outcome of the first stage of circulation,of the sale,provides money,the point of departure of the second stage.The first form of the commodity has now been replaced by its golden equivalent.This outcome may to begin with involve a pause,since the commodity has now assumed a specific durable form.The commodity which was not a use-value in the hands of its owner exists now in a form in which it is always useful because it can always be exchanged,and it depends on circumstances when and at which point in the world of commodities it will again be thrown into circulation.
The golden chrysalis state forms an independent phase in the life of the commodity,in which it can remain for a shorter or longer period.The separation and independence of the acts of purchase and sale is a general feature of the labour which creates exchange-value,whereas in barter the exchange of one discrete use-value is directly tied to the exchange of another discrete use-value.
The purchase ,M --C,is the reverse movement to C --M and at the same time the second or final metamorphosis of the commodity.Regarded as gold or as the general equivalent,the commodity can be directly expressed in terms of the use-values of all other commodities,all of which through their prices seek gold as their hereafter,and simultaneously they indicate the key note which must be sounded so that their bodies,the use-values,should change over to the money side,while their soul,the exchange-value,is turned into gold.The general result of the alienation of commodities is the absolutely alienated commodity.The conversion of gold into commodities has no qualitative limit but only a quantitative limit,the fact that the amount of gold,or the value it represents,is limited.Everything can be obtained with ready money.Whereas the commodity realises its own price and the use-value of someone else's money through its alienation as a use-value in the movement C --M,it realises its own use-value and the price of the other commodity through its alienation as an exchange-value in the movement M --C.Just as by the realisation of its price,the commodity simultaneously turns gold into real money,so by its retransformation it converts gold into its (the commodity's)own merely transitory money form.
Because commodity circulation presupposes an advanced division of labour and therefore also a diversity of wants on the part of the individual,a diversity bearing an inverse relation to the narrow scope of his own production,the purchase M --C will at times consist of an equation with one commodity as the equivalent,and at other times of a series of commodity equivalents determined by the buyer's needs and the amount of money at his disposal.Just as a sale must at the same time be a purchase,so the purchase must at the same time be a sale;M --C is simultaneously C --M,but in this case gold or the purchaser takes the initiative.
