Money Wisdom #126

"Being the external, common medium and faculty for turning an image into reality and reality into a mere image (a faculty not springing from man as man or from human society as society), money transforms the real essential powers of man and nature into what are merely abstract conceits and therefore imperfections - into tormenting chimeras - just as it transforms real imperfections and chimeras - essential powers which are really impotent, which exist only in the mind of the individual - into real powers and faculties."

Karl Marx The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 trans. Martin Milligan (1964) p.169

Quoted in  Marc Shell The Economy of Literature (1978) p 41