The Process of Circulation of Capital (Capital Vol. II). Karl Marx

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СКАЧАТЬ In the means of production, into which the advanced constant capital of 372 pounds sterling is transformed, the instruments of labor, buildings, machinery, etc., figure only as would objects which were rented in the market for a weekly rate. But this does not change the problem in any way. We have but to multiply the quantity of yarn produced in one week, or 10,000 pounds of yarn, with the number of weeks contained in a certain number of years, in order to transfer the entire value of the means of production bought and consumed during this period. It is then plain that the advanced money-capital must first be transformed into these means of production, must first have gone through the phase M-C, before it can be used as productive capital, P. And it is likewise plain that, in our illustration, the capital value of 422 pounds sterling, embodied in the yarn during the process of production, cannot become a part of the value of the 10,000 pounds of yarn and enter the circulation phase C'-M', until it has been produced. The yarn cannot be sold, until it has been spun.

      In the general formula, the product of P is regarded as a material thing different from the elements of the productive capital, as an object existing apart from the process of production and having a different use-value than the elements of production. And if the fruit of production assumes the form of such an object, it always corresponds to this description, even if a part of it should re-enter production as one of its elements. Grain, for instance, serves as seed for its own reproduction, but the final product is always grain and has a different composition than the elements used in its production, such as labor-power, implements, and fertilizer. But there are certain independent branches of industry, in which the result of the productive process is not a new material product, not a commodity. Among these, only the industries representing communication, such as transportation proper for commodities and human beings, and the transmission of communications, letters, telegrams, etc., are economically important.

      A. Cuprov5 says on this score: "The manufacturer may first produce articles and then look for consumers" (his product, having been completed in the process of production, is transferred to the process of circulation as a separate commodity). "Production and consumption thus appear as two acts distinct from one another in space and time. In the transportation industry, which does not create any new products, but merely transfers men and things, these two acts coincide; its services (change of place) must be consumed at the same time that they are produced. For this reason the distance, within which railroads can find customers, extends at best 50 verst (53 kilometers or about 30 miles) on either side of their tracks."

      The result in the transportation of either men or commodities is a change of place. Yarn, for instance, is thus transferred from England, where it was produced, to India.

      Now transportation, as an industry, sells this change of location. This utility is inseparably connected with the process of transportation, which is the productive process of transportation. Men and commodities travel by the help of the means of transportation, and this traveling, this change of location, constitutes the production in which these means of transportation are consumed. The utility of transportation can be consumed only in this process of production. It does not exist as a use-value apart from this process, it does not, like other commodities, serve as a commodity which circulates after its process of production. The exchange value of this utility is determined, like that of any other commodity, by the value of the elements of production (labor-power and means of production) plus the surplus-value created by the surplus-labor of the laborers employed in transportation. This utility also entertains the same relations to consumption that all other commodities do. If it is consumed individually, its value is used up in consumption; if it is consumed productively by entering into the process of production of the transported commodities, its value is added to that of the commodity. The formula for the transportation industry would, therefore, be M-C{^L_P...P-M', since it is the process of production itself which is paid for and consumed, not a product distinct and separate from it. This formula has almost the same form as that of the precious metals, only with the difference, that in this case M' represents the changed form of the utility resulting during the process of production, while in the case of the precious metals it represents the natural form of the gold or silver obtained in this process and transferred from it to other stages.

      Industrial capital is the only form of existence of capital, in which not only the appropriation of surplus value or surplus product, but also its creation is a function of capital. Therefore it gives to production its capitalist character. Its existence includes that of class antagonisms between capitalists and laborers. To the extent that it assumes control over social production, the technique and social organization of the labor process are revolutionized and with them the economic and historical type of society. The other classes of capital, which appear before industrial capital amid past or declining conditions of social production, are not only subordinated to it and suffer changes in the mechanism of their functions corresponding to it, but move on it as a basis, live and die, stand and fall with this basis. Money-capital and commodity-capital, so far as they still persist as independent branches of industry along with industrial capital, are nothing but modes of existence of different functional forms either assumed or discarded by industrial capital in the sphere of circulation, made independent and developed one-sidedly by the social division of labor.

      The cycle M...M' on one side intermingles with the general circulation of commodities, proceeds from it and flows back into it, is a part of it. On the other hand, it is for the individual capitalist an independent movement of his capital value, taking place partly within the general circulation of commodities, partly outside of it, but always preserving its independent character. For in the first place, its two phases taking place in the sphere of circulation, M-C and C'-M', have functionally different characters as functions of capital circulation. In M-C, the commodity C is composed of labor-power and means of production; in C'-M', capital value is realized plus surplus-value. In the second place, the process of production, P, includes productive consumption. In the third place, the return of money to its starting point makes of the cycle M...M' a process of circulation complete in itself.

      Every individual capital is therefore, on the one hand, in its two phases M-C and C'-M', an active element in the general circulation of commodities, with which it is connected either as money or as a commodity. Thus it forms a link in the general chain of metamorphoses in the world of commodities. On the other hand, it goes through its own independent circulation within the general circulation. Its independent circulation passes through the sphere of production and returns to its starting point in the same form in which it left that point. Within its own circulation, which includes its natural metamorphosis in the process of production, it changes at the same time its value. It returns not only as the same money-value, but as an increased money-value.

      Let us finally consider M-C...P...C'-M' as a special form of the process of circulation of capital, apart from the other forms which we shall analyze later. It is distinguished by the following points:

      1. It appears as the circulation of money-capital, because industrial capital in its money form, as money-capital, forms the starting and terminal point of its total process. The formula itself expresses the fact that money is not expended as money at this stage, but advanced as the money-form of capital. It expresses furthermore that exchange-value, not use-value, is the determining aim of this movement. Just because the money-form of this value is its tangible and independent form, the compelling motive of capitalist production, the making of money, is most fittingly expressed by the circulation formula M...M.' The process of production appears merely as an indispensable and intermediate link, as a necessary evil of money-making. All nations with a capitalist mode of production are seized periodically by a feverish attempt to make money without the mediation of the process of production.

      2. The stage of production, the function of P, represents an interruption of the two phases of circulation M-C...C'-M', which in their turn represent links in the simple circulation M-C-M'. The process of production appears formally and essentially in circulation as that which is typical of capitalist production, that is to say as a mere means of utilizing previously advanced values. The accumulation of wealth is the purpose of production.

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