Michele Naples writes in her contribution to *Marx and Non Equilibrium Economics*, ed. Alan Freeman and Guglielmo Carchedi (1996): "Marx used 'value of money' and 'exchange value' of money interchangeably because to him, gold, was a non transformed value...As I have suggested elsewhere...Marx's language is consistent because gold is produced in mines. Thus *gold exchanges at its value* rather than price of production, since mineowners collect absolute rent. The neo Ricardian solution is wrong on gold because it abstracts from land, a crucial means of production in mining, and from landowners' rent. It treats gold as infinitely reproducible, like other commodities. But Marx made clear that the good which serves as commodity money must be scarce to serve as money. Just as Marx rejected Ricardo, he would reject the neo Ricardian model where the exchange value of money is determined in the same way as other commodities' price of production." p.103 Note: there is an important discussion of goldin Ernest Mandel's contribution to the *Ricardo, Marx and Sraffa* volume which he edited with Alan Freeman. In *Economics and Marxism, vol I* Karl Kuhne suggests that Bortkiewicz's conversion of dept III into the production of gold which is then used as the unit of account has had the unfortunate implication that Marx was much more of a metallist than he actually was. rb
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