In order to understand the “full story” of the development of capitalism, we must turn to a consideration of the “value form” of products, which is identical with the “commodity form” of property and which in the same sense contribute to “commodity fetishism”, and results from the historical/ anthropological conditions of simple commodity production and exchange. Marx’s economic construction of “value form” is necessary in order to account for the “social form” of the products of labor in commodity societies that organize need and want however nominally through exchange and exhibit in embryo the system of private property and alienation. The commodity form of property and the value form of products represent only the very beginning foundations or initial conditions for organizing society around accumulation of ever increasing exchange value (capital). That is, commodity production and exchange based on the simple form of value prepare the way for capitalist civilization.
The course of the development of commodity production culminated in the emergence of capitalism, which is “mediated” through relations of production between capital and wage labor. Capitalist society begins in part with the generalization of commodity exchange and the further development of the form of value into the era of capitalist vs. wage worker. The value form is basic to these relations, imposed through the generalization of “non-restricted” exchange, and necessary for emergence of capitalism per se; as well as its reproduction.
















