Furthermore,in exchange-value the labour-time of a particular individual is directly represented as labour-time in general ,and this general character of individual labour appears as the social character of this labour.The labour-time expressed in exchange-value is the labour-time of an individual,but of an individual in no way differing from the next individual and from all other individuals in so far as they perform equal labour;the labour-time,therefore,which one person requires for the production of a given commodity is the necessary labour-time which any other person would require to produce the same commodity.It is the labour-time of an individual,his labour-time,but only as labour-time common to all;consequently it is quite immaterial whose individual labour-time this is.This universal labour-time finds its expression in a universal product,a universal equivalent ,a definite amount of materialised labour-time,for which the distinct form of the use-value in which it is manifested as the direct product of one person is a matter of complete indifference,and it can be converted at will into any other form of use-value,in which it appears as the product of any other person.Only as such a universal magnitude does it represent a social magnitude.The labour of an individual can produce exchange-value only if it produces universal equivalents,that is to say,if the individual's labour-time represents universal labour-time or if universal labour-time represents individual labour-time.The effect is the same as if the different individuals had amalgamated their labour-time and allocated different portions of the labour-time at their joint disposal to the various use-values.The labour-time of the individual is thus,in fact,the labour-time required by society to produce a particular use-value,that is to satisfy a particular want.
But what matters here is only the specific manner in which the social character of labour is established.A certain amount of a spinner's labour-time is materialised,say,in 100lb.of linen yarn.The same amount of labour-time is assumed to be represented in 100yards of linen,the product of a weaver.Since these two products represent equal amounts of universal labour-time,and are therefore equivalents of any use-value which contains the same amount of labour-time,they are equal to each other.
Only because the labour -time of the spinner and the labour-time of the weaver represent universal labour-time,and their products are thus universal equivalents,is the social aspect of the labour of the two individuals represented for each of them by the labour of the other,that is to say,the labour of the weaver represents it for the spinner,and the labour of the spinner represents it for the weaver.On the other hand,under the rural patriarchal system of production,when spinner and weaver lived under the same roof --the women of the family spinning and the men weaving,say for the requirements of the family --yarn and linen were social products,and spinning and weaving social labour within the framework of the family.But their social character did not appear in the form of yarn becoming a universal equivalent exchanged for linen as a universal equivalent,i.e.,of the two products exchanging for each other as equal and equally valid expressions of the same universal labour-time.On the contrary,the product of labour bore the specific social imprint of the family relationship with its naturally evolved division of labour.Or let us take the services and dues in kind of the Middle Ages.It was the distinct labour of the individual in its original form,the particular features of his labour and not its universal aspect that formed the social ties at that time.Or finally let us take communal labour in its spontaneously evolved form as we find it among all civilised nations at the dawn of their history.[3]In this case the social character of labour is evidently not effected by the labour of the individual assuming the abstract form of universal labour or his product assuming the form of a universal equivalent.
The communal system on which this mode of production is based prevents the labour of an individual from becoming private labour and his product the private product of a separate individual;it causes individual labour to appear rather as the direct function of a member of the social organisation.
Labour which manifests itself in exchange-value appears to be the labour of an isolated individual.It becomes social labour by assuming the form of its direct opposite,of abstract universal labour.
