(2) Exchange value emerging from circulation, a presupposition of circulation, preserving and multiplying itself in it by means of labour

(At this point Marx inserts a “plan” (the third in the Manuscript so far) for future work.)

(Marx then interrupts his flow to engage in a pair of tangential digressions directed against Proudhon. This is the first. “Nothing is more erroneous than the manner in which economists as well as socialists regard society in relation to economic conditions,” he (Marx) says. Proudhon, he alleges, stated (in reply to Bastiat) that “[f]or society, the difference between capital and product does not exist. This difference is entirely subjective, and related to individuals.” What Proudhon calls “subjective”, says Marx, is precisely what is social; society, for Proudhon, is “a subjective abstraction.”

Marx elaborates (and it his here that this digression becomes important):

This so-called contemplation [of Proudhon’s] from the standpoint of society means nothing more than the overlooking of the differences which express the social relation (relation of bourgeois society). Society does not consist of individuals, but expresses the sum of interrelations, the relations within which these individuals stand.

More (pdf, 108 KB): The Chapter on Capital Part 4: Capital as Self-Preserving and Self-Expanding Value (pp. 264-275)