Depositories - “The Form of Value or Exchange-Value”
Marx elucidates, “They are, however, commodities, only because they are something two-fold, both objects of utility, and, at the same time, depositories of value.” Comparing commodities to depositories depicts them as stores of value which can be translated into money. Their value can be quantified based on their anticipated usefulness.
Intercourse - “Exchange”
Marx writes, “The necessity for giving an external expression to this contrast for the purposes of commercial intercourse, urges on the establishment of an independent form of value, and finds no rest until it is once for all satisfied by the differentiation of commodities into commodities and money.” The metaphorical intercourse denotes the exchange of commodities which necessitates the presence of money to facilitate the exchange. Price is an intermediary of the intercourse.
Metamorphosis - “The second and concluding metamorphosis of a commodity”
Marx expounds, “Because money is the metamorphosed shape of all other commodities, the result of their general alienation, for this reason it is alienable itself without restriction or condition.” Metamorphosis denotes the transformation of money into a commodity. The change occurs once the buyer has offered the price assigned to a particular commodity. A buyer forfeits money in exchange for the value that he/she would derive from a particular commodity.
Slaughterhouses - “Modern Manufacture”
Marx expounds, “Owing to the excessive labour of their workpeople, both adult and nonadult, certain London houses where newspapers and books are printed, have got the ill-omened name of “slaughterhouses.” The metaphorical ‘ slaughterhouse’ underscores the suffering which the workpeople endure in the London houses. Their suffering, which is attributed to the oversupply of labour, is comparable to the merciless slaughter of animals. The employers exploit the workpeople due to their vulnerability and desperation.
Purgatory - “Modern Manufacture”
Marx reports, “It is impossible for a child to pass through the purgatory of a tile-field without great moral degradation... the low language, which they are accustomed to hear from their tenderest years, the filthy, indecent, and shameless habits, amidst which, unknowing, and half wild, they grow up, make them in after-life lawless, abandoned, dissolute.” Children compelled to work in the manufacture of tiles are overworked and demoralized. Child labour denies them the joys of childhood. Tile manufacturing exhausts the children who are required to labour for extremely long hours. Their exploitative grinding is equivalent to the sinners’ suffering in purgatory.
