but a general accumulation of money-capital on the part of the capitalist class. Apart from this class, there is, according to or assumption — the general and exclusive domination of capitalist production — no other class but /the working class. All that the working class buys is equal to the sum total of its wages, equal to the sum total of the variable capital advanced by the entire capitalist class. This money flows back to the capitalist class by the sale of their product to the working class. The variable capital thus resumes its money-form. Let the sum total of the variable capital be x times 100 p. st., that is to say, the sum total of the vari- able capital actually employed, not merely advanced for the current year. It does not alter the question fundamentally, whether we know how much or how little money is actually advanced in this variable capital-value during the year, ac- cording to the velocity of the turn-over. The capitalist buys with these x times 100 p. st. a certain amount of labor power, or pays wages to a certain number of laborers — first transaction. The laborers buy with this same amount a certain quantity of commodities from the capitalists, where- by the same x times 100 p. st. flow back into the hands of the capitalist class — second transaction. And this is con- tinually repeated. This amount of x times 100 p. st., then, can never enable the working class to buy that portion of its product in which the constant capital is embodied, much less that in which the surplus-value of the capitalist class is incorporated. The laborers can never buy more with these x times 100 p. st. than a portion of the social product, and the value of this portion is equal to that value of the social product in which the advanced variable capital is embodied.
Apart from the case, in which this universal accumulation of money expresses nothing but the distribution of the ad- ditional incoming precious metal, in whatever proportion, among the various individual capitalists, how can the entire capitalist class accumulate money under such circumstances?
They would all have to sell a portion of their product without buying anything in return. It is not at all mys- terious that they should all have a certain fund of money which they throw into circulation for their consumption, 402 Capital.
and a certain portion of which flows back to each one of them. But this fund of money, as a fund for circulation, arises precisely through the monetization of surplus-value and is not by any means latent money-capital.
If we view the matter as it takes place in reality, we find that the latent money-capital, which is accumulated for future use, consists: (1). Of deposits in banks; and it is a comparatively in- significant sum which is really at the disposal of the bank. Money-capital is but nominally accumulated there. What is actually accumulated are outstanding claims on money which can be monetized (so far as they are really monetized) only because there is a certain balance between the money drawn and the money deposited. It is a relatively small sum that is in the hands of the banker as money.
(2). Of public bonds. These are not capital at all, but mere claims on the annual product of the nation.
(3). Of stocks. So far as they are not bogus, they are titles of ownership of some actual capital belonging to some corporation and drafts on the surplus-value flowing from it.
There is no accumulation of money in any of these cases. What appears on the one side as an accumulation of money- capital, appears on the other as a continual and actual ex- penditure of money. It does not alter the case, whether the money is expended by its owner, or by others who are his debtors.
On the basis of capitalist production, the formation of a hoard is never an end in itself, but the result, either of a clogging of the circulation — larger amounts of money than is generally the case assuming the form of a hoard — or of accumulations conditioned on the turn-over; or, finally, the hoard is merely a formation of latent money-capital held temporarily and intended for future employment as pro- ductive capital.
Hence, while a portion of the money realized in surplus- value is on the one hand always withdrawn from circu- lation and accumulated as a hoard, another part of the surplus-value is at the same time continually converted into The Circulation of Surplus- Value. 403 productive capital. With the exception of the distribution of additional precious metals among the members of the capitalist class, accumulation in the form of money never takes place simultaneously at all points.
That which is true of the other portion of the annual product, is also true of that portion of it which represents surplus-value in the form of commodities. A certain sum of money is required for its circulation. This sum of money belongs to the capitalist class quite as much as the annually produced quantity of commodities which represent surplus- value. It is originally thrown into circulation by the capi- talist class itself. It is constantly redistributed among them by means of circulation itself. Just as in the case of the circulation of coin in general, so is there a clogging of a portion of this mass at ever varying points, while another portion is continually circulating. "Whether a part of this accumulation is made intentionally for the purpose of form- ing money-capital, or not, does not alter the matter.
Exception has been made here of those adventures of cir- culation by which one capitalist grasps a portion of the surplus-value, or even of the capital, of another, thereby causing a onesided accumulation and centralization of money-capital as well as of productive capital. For instance, a portion of the appropriated surplus-value accumulated by A as money-capital may be a portion of the surplus-value of B which does not flow back to him.
404 Capital.
PART III.
The Reproduction and Circulation of the Aggregate Social Capital.
CHAPTER XVIII » INTRODUCTION.
I. The Object of the Analysis.
The immediate process of production of capital is its labor process and self-expansion, the process whose result is the commodity-product, and whose compelling motive is the production of surplus-value.
The process of reproduction of capital comprises this im- mediate process of production as well as the two phases of the process of circulation, strictly so called, in other words, it comprises the entire cycle, which, as a periodic process, constantly repeated at definite intervals, constitutes the turn- over of capital.
No matter whether we study the rotation in the form of M — M' or that of P — P, the immediate process of P itself always forms but one link in the chain of this ro- tation. In the one form it appears as a promoter of the process of circulation, in the other the process of circulation appears as its promoter. Its continual renewal, the continual rehabilitation of capital as productive capital, is in either case conditioned on its metamorphoses in the process of cir- culation. On the other hand, the continually renewed process of production is the condition of the metamorphoses which the capital traverses ever anew in the sphere of circulation, its alternate incarnation as money-capital and commodity- capital.
29 From manuscript II.
Introduction. 405 However, every individual capital forms but an individ- ual fraction, endowed with individual life, as it were, of the aggregate social capital, just as every individual capitalist is but an individual element of the capitalist class. The movement of the social capital consists of the totality of the movements of its individualized fractional parts, the turn- overs of the individual capitals. Just as the metamorphosis of the individual commodity is a link in the series of meta- morphoses of the commodity-world — the circulation of com- modities— so the metamorphosis of the individual capital, its turn-over, is a link in the rotation of the social capital.
This total process comprises both the productive consump- tion (the immediate process of production) together with the metamorphoses (materially considered, exchanges) which promote it, and the individual consumption together with its corresponding metamorphoses, or exchanges. It in- cludes on the one hand the conversion of variable capital into labor-power, and thus the incorporation of labor-power in the process of capitalist production. Here the laborer appears as the seller of his commodity, labor-power, and the capitalist as its buyer. But on the other hand the sale of the commodities implies their purchase by the working class, in other words, their individual consumption. Here the working class appear as buyers and the capitalists as sellers of commodities to the laborers.
The circulation of the commodity-capital implies the cir- culation of surplus-value, hence also the purchases and sales, by which the capitalists promote their individual consump- tion, the consumption of surplus-value.
The rotation of individual capitals, then, in their ag- gregation as social capital, but in their totality, comprises not only the circulation of capital, but also the general cir- culation of commodities. The last named can originally consist of only two parts: (1) The rotation of the capi- tal itself, and (2) the rotation of the commodities which pass into individual consumption, the commodities for which the laborer expends his wages and the capitalist his surplus-value (or a part of it). True, the rotation of capital comprises also the circulation of surplus-value, so far as it is a part of the commodities, and likewise the con- 406 Capital.
version of the variable capital into labor-power, the payment of wages. But the expenditure of this surplus-value and wage for commodities does not form a link in the circula- tion of capital, although at least the expenditure of wages is a requirement for this circulation.
In volume I the process of capitalist production was ana- lyzed as an individual transaction as well as a process of reproduction, the production of surplus-value as well as the production of capital. The changes of form and sub- stance experienced by capital in the sphere of circulation were assumed without lingering over them. It was assumed that, on one hand, the capitalist sells the product at its value, and on the other, that he finds within the sphere of circu- lation the material means of production required for the renewal or continuation of the process. The only transac- tion within the sphere of circulation over which we had lingered in the first volume was the sale and purchase of labor-power as the fundamental condition of the capitalist mode of production..
In the first part of volume II, the various forms were considered which capital assumes in its rotation, and the various forms of this rotation itself.
In the second part of this volume, the rotation of capital was studied as a periodical process, as a turn-over. It was shown on one side, in what manner the various constituent parts of capital (fixed and circulating) accomplish the ro- tation of forms in different periods of time and different ways; and, on the other side, the circumstances were ana- lyzed on which the different duration of the working period and the period of circulation is conditioned. We observed the influence of the period of turn-over and of the different proportions of its component parts upon the volume of the process of production and upon the annual rate of surplus-value. Indeed, while it was the successive forms continually assumed and discarded by capital in its rotation which were studied in part I of volume II, it was shown in part II of this volume, how a capital of a given magnitude is simultaneously divided, within this flow and succession, into the different forms of productive capital, money-capi- Introduction. 407 Introduction. 407 tal, and commodity-capital, in varying proportions, so that they do not only relieve one another, but that different por- tions of the total capital-value are continually side by side and serve in these different forms. Especially money-capi- tal was revealed in its peculiarities, which had not been shown in volume I. Certain laws were found, according to which certain portions of different size of a given capital must be continually advanced and renewed in the form of money-capital, according to the conditions of the turn-over, in order to maintain in service a productive capital of a certain volume.
But in both the first and second parts of this volume, it was only a question of some individual capital, of the movement of some individualized part of social capital.
However, the turn-overs of individual capitals intermingle, are mutually conditioned on one another, are their mutual premises, and form precisely in this interrelation the move- ment of social capital. Just as in the simple circulation of commodities the total metamorphosis of a certain com- modity appeared as a link in the series of metamorphoses of the world of commodities, so now the metamorphosis of individual capital appears as a link in the series of a metamorphoses of the aggregate social capital. But while the simple circulation of commodities did not necessarily imply the rotation of capital — since it may take place on the basis of non-capitalist production — the rotation of the aggregate social capital, as we have seen, implies also the cir- culation of commodities not belonging to the rotation of some individual capital, in other words, the circulation of commodities which do not represent any capital.
We have now to study the process of circulation of in- dividual capitals in their capacity as component parts of the aggregate social capital (which circulation constitutes in its entirety the process of reproduction), that is to say, the process of rotation of this aggregate social capital.
II. The Role of Money-Capital. (Although the following belongs in a later part of this section, we shall analyze it immediately, namely, the money- 408 Capital.
capital considered as a constituent part of the aggregate social capital.)
In the study of the turn-over of the individual capital, the money-capital revealed two sides.
In the first place, it is the form in which every individual capital appears upon the scene and opens its process as capital. It therefore appears as the prime promoter, giving the first impetus to the entire process.
In the second place, according to the different durations of the periods of turn-over and the different proportion of its two parts — the working period and the period of cir- culation— that portion of the advanced capital-value which must be continually advanced and renewed in the form of money maintains a different proportion to the productive capital which it sets in motion, or in other words, to the continuous scale of production. But whatever may be this proportion, that portion of the active capital- value which can continually serve as productive capital is limited under any circumstances by that portion of the advanced capital- value which must exist continually beside the productive capital in the form of money. It is here merely a question of a normal turn-over, an abstract average. Exception is made of the additional money-capital required for the com- pensation of the interruptions of the circulation.
In regard to the first point, we have seen that the pro- duction of commodities implies the circulation of commodi- ties, and the circulation of commodities implies the ma- terialization of commodities in money, the circulation of money; the duplication of commodities in commodities and money is a law of the transformation of products into com- modities. The capitalist production of commodities likewise implies — whether considered socially or individually — that capital in the form of money, or money-capital, is the prime motor of every new business and its continual motor. Es- pecially the circulating capital implies the continuous re- appearance of money-capital in short intervals as a motor. The entire advanced capital-value, that is to say, all the ele- ments of capital composed of commodities, labor-power, in- struments and materials of production, must be continually Introduction. 409 bought with money and again bought with money. What is true of the individual capital, is also true of the social capital which functions only in the form of many individual capitals. But, as we showed in volume I, this does not im- ply that the field of activity of capital, the scale of produc- tion, even on a capitalist basis, depends absolutely for its extension on the amount of the money-capital in service.
Elements of production are incorporated in the capital whose expansion within certain limits is independent of the magnitude of the advanced money-capital. The payment of labor-power remaining the same, it can yet be exploited more or less extensively or intensively. If the money-capi- tal is increased with this greater exploitation, that is to say, if wages are raised, it is not proportionately, or, in other words, they are not actually raised.
The productively exploited materials of nature — the soil, the seas, ore, forests, etc. — which do not constitute an ele- ment in the value of capital, are intensively or extensively better exploited with an increasing exertion of the same labor-power, without requiring an additional advance of money-capital. The actual elements of productive capital are thus multiplied without requiring a greater advance of money- capital. But so far as such an advance is required for ad- ditional auxiliary materials, the money-capital, in which the capital-value is advanced, is not increased proportionate- ly to the augmented effectiveness of the productive capital, so that in reality it is not increased.
The same instruments of labor, and thus the same fixed capital, may be more effectively used by a prolongation of their daily use and by greater intensity of employment, with- out an additional investment of money for fixed capital. There is, in that case, only a more rapid turn-over of the fixed capital, but the elements of its reproduction are also supplied more rapidly.
Apart from materials of nature, it is possible to incor- porate natural forces which do not cost anything as agents of the productive progress with more or less heightened effect. The degree of their effectiveness depends on the methods and scientific progress which do not cost the capitalist anything.
410 Capital.
410 Capital.
The same is true of the social combination of laboi- power in the process of production and of the accumulated skill of the individual laborers. Carey calculates that the real estate owner never receives enough, because he is not paid for all the capital or labor which have been put into the soil since time immemorial in order to give it its present productivity. (Of course, no mention is made of the pro- ductivity of which the soil is robbed.) According to this argument, the laborer would have to be paid according to the work which had to be done by the entire human race in order to develop a savage into a modern mechanic. One should rather think: If all the unpaid labor embodied in the soil and appropriated by the real estate owner is counted, then all the capital ever invested in this soil has been paid over and over with usury, so that society has long ago bought the real estate over and over.
The increase in the productive powers of labor, so far as it does not imply an additional investment of capital-value, augments in the first analysis indeed only the quantity of the product, not its value, except the extent to which it is enabled to produce more constant capital with the same labor and thus to preserve its value. But it forms at the same time new material for capital, hence the basis for an increased accumulation of capital.
So far as the organization of social labor itself, and thus the increase in the social productivity of labor, requires a production on a large scale and thus the advance of large quantities of money-capital on the part of individual capi- talists, we have shown in volume I that this is accomplished in part by the centralization of capitals in a few hands, without necessarily implying an increase in the volume of the actively engaged capital-values, and consequently in the volume of the money-capital, in which they are advanced.
Finally, we have shown in the preceding part that a con- traction of the period of turn-over permits of setting in motion the same productive capital with less money-capital, or to set in motion more productive capital with the same money-capital.
But evidently all this has nothing to do with the real Introduction. 411 question of money capital. It shows only that the advanced capital, a given sum of values consisting in its free form, in its value-form, of a certain sum of money after its conver- sion into productive capital, includes productive potentiali- ties whose limits are confined within those of its values, but which may exert themselves extensively or intensively with- in a certain playroom. If the prices of the elements of production — the materials of production and labor-power — are given, the magnitude of the money-capital required for the purchase of a definite quantity of these elements of production in the form of commodities is determined. Or, the magnitude of the value of the capital to be advanced is determined. But the extent to which this capital acts as a creator of values and products is elastic and variable.
Now we come to the second point. It is a matter of course, that that portion of the social labor and means of produc- tion, which must be annually expended for the production or purchase of money, in order to make up for the wear and tear of coin, is to that extent a reduction of the volume of social production. But as for the money-value which func- tions partly as a medium of circulation, partly as a hoard, it exists, having once been acquired, it is present apart from the labor-power, the finished means of production, and the na- tural sources of wealth. It cannot be regarded as a barrier of production. By its transformation into elements of pro- duction, by its exchange with other nations, the scale of production might be extended. This implies, however, that the money plays its role as international money the same as ever.
According to the duration of the period of turn-over, a greater or smaller amount of money-capital is required in order to set the productive capital in motion. We have also seen that the division of the period of turn-over into a working period and a period of circulation requires an increase of the capital latent or suspended in the form of money.
So far as the period of turn-over is determined by the dura- tion of the working period, it is determined, other con- ditions remaining equal, by the material nature of the pro- 412 Capital.
cess of production, not by the specific social character of this process of production. However, on the basis of capitalist production, extensive operations of a long duration require large advances of money-capital for a long time. Produc- tion in such spheres is, therefore, dependent on the limits within which the individual capitalist has money-capital at his disposal. This barrier is broken down by the credit system and associations, connected with it, for instance, stock companies. Disturbances in the money-market, therefore, set such businesses out of action, while they, on the other hand cause disturbances in the money-market themselves.
On the basis of capitalist production, it must be ascer- tained, on what scale those operations which withdraw labor and means of production from it for a long time without furnishing in return any useful product, can be carried on without injuring those lines of production which do not only withdraw continually, or at several intervals, labor-power and means of production from it, but also supply it with means of subsistence and of production. Under social or capitalist production, the laborers in lines with short work- ing periods will always withdraw products only for a short time without giving any products in return; while lines of business with long working periods withdraw products for a long time without any returns. This circumstance, then, is due to the material conditions of the respective Ifibor process, not to its social form. In the case of socialized production, the money-capital is eliminated. Society dis- tributes labor-power and means of production to the dif- ferent lines of occupation. The producers may eventually receive paper checks, by means of which they withdraw from the social supply of means of consumption a share corresponding to their labor-time. These checks are not money. They do not circulate.
We see, then, that, so far as the need of money-capital is due to the length of the working period, it is determined by two things: First, that money is the general form in which every individual capital (apart from credit) must make its entry in order to transform itself into productive capital; this follows from the nature of capitalist production, or of Introduction. 41 3 commodity-production in general. Second: The magnitude of the required money advance is due to the fact that labor- power and means of production must continually be with- drawn from society for a long time without any return of products convertible into money. The first requirement, namely that capital must be advanced in the form of money, is not suspended by the form of this money itself, regard- less of whether it is metal-money, credit-money, token-money, etc. The second circumstance is in no way affected by the money-medium or the form of production by means of which labor, means of subsistence, and means of production are withdrawn, without the return of some equivalent into the circulation.
414 Capital.
CHAPTER XIX. 30 FORMER DISCUSSIONS OP THE SUBJECT.
I. The Physiocrats.
Quesnay's Tableau Economique shows in a few broad outlines, how the result of national production in a certain year, amounting to some definite value, is distributed by means of the circulation in such a way, that, other cir- cumstances remaining the same, simple reproduction can take place, that is to say, reproduction on the same scale. The starting point of this period of production is fittingly last years's crop. The innumerable individual acts of circu- lation are at once viewed in their characteristic social mass movement — the circulation between great social classes dis- tinguished by their economic functions. We are especially interested in the fact that a portion of the total product — ■ which, like every other portion of it is a new result of last year's labor and intended for use — is at the same time the bearer of old capital-values re-appearing in their natural form. It does not circulate, but remains in the hands of its producers, the class of capitalist farmers, in order to be- gin its service as capital once more for them. In this con- stant portion of the capital of one year's product, Quesnay includes also some elements that do not belong to it, but he sees the main thing, thanks to the limits of his horizon, in which agriculture is the only productive sphere of investment where human labor produces surplus-value, hence the only productive one from the capitalist point of view. The economic process of reproduction whatever may be its specific social character, intermingles in this sphere of agri- culture always with a natural process of reproduction. The obvious conditions of the latter throw light on those of the former, and keep off a confusion of thought, which is due only to the witchery of circulation.
30 Beginning of manuscript VIII.
Former Discussions of the Subject. 415 The )abfcl of a system differs from that of other articles, among other things, by the fact that it cheats not only the buyer, but often also the seller. Quesnay himself and his immediate disciples believed in their feudal shop sign. So did our school scientists to this day. But as a matter of fact, the system of the physiocrats is the first systematic con- ception of capitalist production. The representative of capi- talist production, the class of capitalist farmers, directs the entire economic movement. Agriculture is carried on capi- talistically, that is to say, it is the enterprise of a capitalist farmer on a large scale; the immediate cultivator of the soil is the wage laborer. Production creates not only articles of use, but also their value; its compelling motive is the pro- duction of surplus-value, whose birth-place is the sphere of production, not that of circulation. Among the three class- es which figure as the bearers of the process of reproduction promoted by the circulation the immediate exploiter of "pro- ductive" labor, the producer of surplus-value, the capitalist farmer, is distinguished from these who merely appropriate surplus-value.