Money in the Grundrisse

The chapter on Money in the Grundrisse shows clearly that the presentation of the nature, properties and functions of money is opposed to the monetary theory of Utopian socialism. Marx emphasizes easily that the exchange value spontaneously objectifies itself in a money distinct from the commodity, but he needs to establish that the distribution of labour activities is mediated by the exchange of labour products under commodity mode of production, to make appear the confusion at the core of the Proudhonians’ reform between exchange of living labour and exchange of labour products and then, the necessity that money embodies itself in a specific commodity.