ABSTRACT
Matters are different in a society which lacks the conscious organization. Such a society is dissolved into a large number of mutually independent individuals for whom production is a private matter rather than a social concern. The outcome of completing all possible acts of exchange in such a society is what would have been accomplished in a communist, consciously planned, society by the central authorities; namely, what is produced, how much, where, and by whom. The task of theoretical economics is to discover the law which governs this type of exchange and regulates the course of production in a commodity producing society, just as the laws, decrees and directives of the authorities regulate production in a socialist society. The act of exchange becomes the necessary mediator in the circulation of social goods because their circulation is itself a social necessity. Commodities are the embodiment of socially necessary labour time.
