Marx now pivots from his discussion of money and towards a discussion of capital.

The difficulty in grasping money in its modern development (“a difficulty which political economy attempts to evade”) lies in the fact that a social relation—“a definite relation between individuals”, takes the form of a physical object. Marx summarises the conundrum like this.

Nature does not produce money, any more than it produces a rate of exchange or a banker. In Peru and Mexico gold and silver did not serve as money, although it does appear here as jewellery, and there is a developed system of production. To be money is not a natural attribute of gold and silver, and is therefore quite unknown to the physicist, chemist etc. as such. But money is directly gold and silver.

More (pdf, 269 KB): The Chapter on Capital Part 1: The World of Equality and Freedom of Pure Exchange Value (pp. 239-250)