Ineverycountrythereisacertainaverageintensityoflabourbelowwhichthelabourfortheproductionofacommodityrequiresmorethanthesociallynecessarytime，andthereforedoesnotreckonaslabourofnormalquality。Onlyadegreeofintensityabovethenationalaverageaffects，inagivencountry，themeasureofvaluebythemeredurationoftheworking—time。
Thisisnotthecaseontheuniversalmarket，whoseintegralpartsaretheindividualcountries。Theaverageintensityoflabourchangesfromcountrytocountry;hereitisgreater，thereless。Thesenationalaveragesformascale，whoseunitofmeasureistheaverageunitofuniversallabour。
Themoreintensenationallabour，therefore，ascomparedwiththelessintense，producesinthesametimemorevalue，whichexpressesitselfinmoremoney。
Butthelawofvalueinitsinternationalapplicationisyetmoremodifiedbythefactthatontheworld—marketthemoreproductivenationallabourreckonsalsoasthemoreintense，solongasthemoreproductivenationisnotcompelledbycompetitiontolowerthesellingpriceofitscommoditiestotheleveloftheirvalue。
Inproportionascapitalistproductionisdevelopedinacountry，inthesameproportiondothenationalintensityandproductivityoflabourthereriseabovetheinternationallevel。[2]Thedifferentquantitiesofcommoditiesofthesamekind，producedindifferentcountriesinthesameworking—time，have，therefore，unequalinternationalvalues，whichareexpressedindifferentprices，i。e。，insumsofmoneyvaryingaccordingtointernationalvalues。Therelativevalueofmoneywill，therefore，belessinthenationwithmoredevelopedcapitalistmodeofproductionthaninthenationwithlessdeveloped。Itfollows，then，thatthenominalwages，theequivalentoflabour—powerexpressedinmoney，willalsobehigherinthefirstnationthaninthesecond;whichdoesnotatallprovethatthisholdsalsofortherealwages，i。e。，forthemeansofsubsistenceplacedatthedisposalofthelabourer。