The Devil and Commodity Fetishism in South America - autonomous ...

TABLE 2:
Characteristics of Money
Baptism of Money and Secret of Capital 131
Type of Value Use-Value Exchange-Value
Aim of circulation To satisfy natural To gain money as
wants an end in itself
Characteristics of Means of exchange Means to make
money more money
(means as ends;
capital)
C-M-C M-C-M'
Natural Unnatural
Barren Fertile
Note: M = Money; M' = Money plus interest on that money, i.e., capital.
The analogy between animals and money as use-value expresses
relationships both of similarity and of difference. They are similar in
that both are part of the natural world and their properties function
to ensure the original purpose of the ideal society: "to re-establish
nature's own equilibrium of self-sufficiency," as Aristotle phrases
the issue. They are different in that it is the natural property of
animals to breed more of themselves, whereas money is by nature
barren.
The analogies between animals and capital and between money
and capital are also based on a set of similarities and differences. For
instance, capital reproduces, just as animals do; but whereas one is
natural, the other is unnatural. Likewise, money in the use-value
paradigm is similar to money as capital, but whereas the former is
barren, the latter is fertile.
Therefore, the task facing the inhabitants of the plantation zones
in the southern Cauca Valley is how to explain, and in some cases
actually effect, the transformation of properties of similarity into
those of difference and those of difference into those of similarity.
They must explain how characteristics that were once the exclusive
property of animals are now ascribed to money, the natural property
of which is to remain barren. They must explain the transformation
of money into interest-bearing capital and the conversion of usevalue
into exchange-value.
This is done through the illicit rite of baptizing money. Unbap-