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

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СКАЧАТЬ But we do not revert any further to our previous analysis.

      We considered first simple reproduction, and we assumed that the entire surplus-value was spent as revenue. But in reality and under normal conditions, only a part of the surplus-value can be spent as revenue, and another part must be capitalized. And it is quite immaterial, whether a certain surplus-value, produced within a certain period, is entirely consumed or entirely capitalized. In the average movement—and the general formula cannot represent any other—both cases occur. But in order not to complicate the formula, it is better to assume that the entire surplus-value is accumulated. The formula P...C'—M'—C'{^LPm...P stands for productive capital, which is reproduced on an enlarged scale and with enlarged values, and which begins its second cycle as enlarged productive capital, or, what amounts to the same, which renews its first cycle. As soon as this second cycle is begun, we have once more P as a starting point; only P is a larger productive capital than the first P was. Hence, if the second cycle begins with M' in the formula M—M', this M' functions as M, as an advanced capital of a definite size. It is a larger money-capital than the one with which the first cycle was opened; but all relations to its growth by the capitalization of surplus-value have disappeared, as soon as it appears in the function of advanced money-capital. This origin is extinguished in its form of money-capital which begins its cycle. This also applies to P', as soon as it becomes the starting point of a new cycle.

      If we compare P...P' with M...M', or with the first cycle, we find that they have not the same significance. M...M', taken by itself as an individual cycle, expresses only that M, money-capital, or industrial capital in its cycle as money-capital, is money generating more money, value generating more value, in other words, producing surplus-value. But in the cycle of P, the process of utilization is completed as soon as the first stage, the process of production, is over with, and after going through the second stage (the first stage of the circulation), C'—M', the capital-value plus surplus-value exists already as materialized money-capital, as M', which appeared as the last extreme in the first cycle. The fact that surplus-value has been produced is registered in the first considered formula P...P by c—m—c (see expanded formula previously given). This, in its second stage, falls outside of the circulation of capital and represents the circulation of surplus-value as revenue. In this form, where the entire movement is represented by P...P and where there is no difference in value between the two extremes, the utilization of the advanced value, or the production of surplus-value, is represented in the same way as in M...M', only the act C'—M', which appears as the last stage in M—M', and as the second stage of the cycle, appears as the first stage of the circulation P...P.

      In P...P', the term P' does not express the fact that surplus-value has been produced, but that the produced surplus-value has been capitalized, that capital has been accumulated, and that P' as distinguished from P consists of the original capital-value plus the value of capital accumulated by its movements.

      M', as the closing link of M...M', and C', as it appears within all these cycles, do not express the movement, but its result, if taken by themselves: they represent the result, in the form of money or commodities of the utilization of capital-value, and capital-value therefore appears as M plus m, or C plus c, as a relation of capital-value to its surplus-value, its offspring. But whether this result appears in the form of M' or C', it is not a function of either money-capital or commodity-capital. As special and different forms corresponding to special functions of industrial capital, money-capital can perform only money functions, and commodity-capital only commodity functions. Their difference is merely that of money and commodity. Industrial capital, in its capacity of productive capital, can likewise consist only of the same elements as those of any other process of labor which creates products: on one side objective means of production, on the other labor-power as the productive element. Just as industrial capital can exist within the process of production only in a composition which corresponds to the requirements of all production, even if it is not capitalist production so it can exist in the sphere of circulation only in the two forms corresponding to it, viz., that of a commodity or of money. Now the sum of the elements of production reveals its character of productive capital at the outside by the fact that the labor-power belongs to another from whom the capitalist purchases it, just as he purchases his means of production from others who own them, so that the process of production itself appears as a productive function of industrial capital. In the same way money and commodities appear as forms of circulation of the same industrial capital, hence their functions as those of the circulation of this capital, which either introduce the function of productive capital or originate from it. The money function and the commodity function become at the same time functions of money-capital and commodity-capital for no other reason than that they enter into relationship with the functional forms through which industrial capital passes in the different stages of its process of circulation. It is, therefore, a mistake to attempt to derive the specific characters of money and commodities, and their specific functions as such, from their capital-character, and it is likewise a mistake to derive the qualities of productive capital from its existence in means of production.

      As soon as M' or C' have become fixed in the relation of M plus m, or C plus c, in other words, as soon as they become parts of the relation between capital-value and its offspring surplus-value, they give expression to this relation either in the form of money or of commodities, without changing the nature of the relation itself. This relation is not due to any qualities or functions of either money or commodities as such. In both cases the characteristic quality of capital, that of being a value generating more value, is expressed only as a result. C' is always the product of the function of P, and M' is always merely a form of C' changed in the cycle of industrial capital. As soon as the realized money-capital begins its special function as money-capital anew, it ceases to express the capital-relation conveyed by the formula M' equal to M plus m. After M...M' has been completed and M' begins the cycle anew, it no longer figures as M' but as M, even if the entire capital-value contained in M' is capitalized. The second cycle begins in our case with a money-capital of 500 pounds sterling, instead of 422 pounds in the first cycle. The money-capital, which opens the cycle, is larger by 78 pounds sterling than before; this difference exists in the comparison of one cycle with another, but it does not exist within each cycle. The 500 pounds sterling advanced as money-capital, 78 pounds of which formerly existed as surplus-value, do not play any different role than some other 500 pounds sterling by which another capitalist opens his first cycle. The increased P' opens a new cycle as P, just as P did in the simple reproduction P...P.

      In the stage M'—C'{^LPm, the increased magnitude is indicated only by C', but not by L' and PM'. Since C is the sum of L and Pm, the term C' indicates sufficiently that the sum of the L and Pm contained in it is greater than the original P. In the second place, the terms L' and PM' would be incorrect, because we know that the growth of capital implies a change in the relative proportions of the values composing it, and that, with the progressive changing of this proportion, the value of Pm increases, while that of L always decreases relatively, if not absolutely.

III. Accumulation of Money

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      Whether or not m, the surplus-value transformed into gold, is immediately combined with the circulating capital-value and is thus enabled to enter into the cycle together with the capital M in the magnitude of M', depends on circumstances which are independent of the mere existence of m. If m is to serve as money-capital in a second independent business, to be run by the side of the first, it is evident that it cannot be used for this purpose, unless it is of the minimum size required for it. And if it is intended to use it for the extension of the original business, the condition of the substances composing P and their relative values likewise demand a minimum magnitude for m. All the means of production employed in this business have not only a qualitative, but also a definite quantitative relation toward one another. These proportions of the substances and of their values entering into the productive capital determine the minimum magnitude required for m, in order to be capable of transformation into additional means of production and labor-power, СКАЧАТЬ