Note 231 — Chapter XXI · Fundamental Laws of Socialistic Society.

“The amount of social labor represented by a given product need not be determined in a round-about way; daily experience will show directly how much on an average will be required. Society will be able to calculate how many hours of work are represented by a steam-engine, a hectolitre of wheat of the last harvest, or a hundred square yards of cloth of a certain quality. Society will accordingly not think of expressing the quantities of work contained in the products—that will then be directly known—in the relative, fluctuating, uncertain manner of a third product, inevitable at present, instead of expressing them by their natural, adequate, absolute measure-time. It will be necessary to arrange the plan of production in accordance with the means of production, including labor-power. The usefulness of the various commodities, balanced with one another and with the amount of work necessary for their production will ultimately determine the plan. Everything will be adjusted in a very simple way without the intercession of the famous ‘value’.” Fr. Engels—Mr. Eugen Duehring’s Transformation of Science.