The Accumulation of Capital. Rosa Luxemburg

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СКАЧАТЬ the means of production change their form, crude paleoliths are replaced by sharpened tools, stone implements by elegant bronze and iron, the artisan’s tool by steam-driven machinery. Yet, though the means of production and the social organisation of the productive process continually change their form, society already possesses for its labour process a certain amount of past labour serving as the basis for annual reproduction.

      Under capitalist methods of production past labour of society preserved in the means of production takes the form of capital, and the question of the origin of this past labour which forms the foundation of the reproductive process becomes the question of the genesis of capital. This is much less legendary, indeed it is writ in letters of blood in modern history. The very fact, however, that we cannot think of simple reproduction unless we assume a hoard of past labour, surpassing in volume the labour annually performed for the maintenance of society, touches the sore spot of simple reproduction; and it shows that simple reproduction is a fiction not only for capitalist production but also for the progress of civilisation in general. If we merely wish to understand this fiction properly, and to reduce it to a scheme, we must presume, as its sine qua non, results of a past productive process which cannot possibly be restricted to simple reproduction but inexorably points towards enlarged reproduction. By way of illustration, we might compare the aggregate fixed capital of society with a railway. The durability and consequently the annual wear and tear of its various parts is very different. Parts such as viaducts and tunnels may last for centuries, steam engines for decades, but other rolling stock will be used up in a short time, in some instances in a few months. Yet it is possible to work out an average rate of wear and tear, say thirty years, so that the value of the whole is annually depreciated by one thirtieth. This loss of value is now continually made good by partial reproduction of the railway (which may count as repairs), so that a coach is renewed to-day, part of the engine to-morrow, and a section of sleepers the day after. On our assumption then, the old railway is replaced by a new one after thirty years, a similar amount of labour being performed each year by the society so that simple reproduction takes place. But the railway can only be reproduced in this manner—it cannot be so produced. In order to make it fit for use and to make good its gradual wear and tear, the railway must have been completed in the first place. Though the railway can be repaired in parts, it cannot be made fit for use piecemeal, an axle to-day and a coach to-morrow. Indeed, the very essence of fixed capital is always to enter into the productive process in its entirety, as a material use-value. In order to get this use-form ready in the first place, society must apply a more concentrated amount of labour to its manufacture. In terms of our example, the labour of thirty years that is used for repairs, must be compressed into, say, two or three years. During this period of manufacture, society must therefore expend an amount of labour far greater than the average, that is to say it must have recourse to expanding reproduction; later, when the railway is finished, it may return to simple reproduction. Though we need not visualise the aggregate fixed capital as a single coherent use-object or a conglomeration of objects which must be produced all at once, the manufacture of all the more important means of production, such as buildings, transport facilities, and agricultural structures, requires a more concentrated application of labour, and this is true for the modern railway or steamship as much as it was for the rough stone-axe and the handmill. Therefore it is only in theory that simple reproduction can be conceived as alternating with enlarged reproduction; the latter is not only a general condition of a progressive civilisation and an expanding population, but also the sine qua non for the economic form of fixed capital, or those means of production which in every society correspond to the fixed capital.

      Marx deals with this conflict between the formation of fixed capital and simple reproduction but indirectly, in connection with fluctuations in the wear and tear of the fixed capital, more rapid in some years than in others. Here he emphasises the need for perpetual ‘over-production’, i.e. enlarged reproduction, since a strict policy of simple reproduction would periodically lead to reproductive losses. In short, he regards enlarged reproduction under the aspect of an insurance fund for the fixed capital of the society, rather than in the light of the actual productive process.[87]

      In quite a different context Marx appears to endorse the opinion expressed above. In Theories on the Surplus Value, vol ii, part 2, analysing the conversion of revenue into capital, he speaks of the peculiar reproduction of the fixed capital, the replacement of which in itself already provides a fund for accumulation. He draws the following conclusion:

      ‘The point we have in mind is as follows: even if the aggregate capital employed in machine manufacture were just large enough to make good the annual wear and tear of the machines, many more machines could be annually produced than are required, since the wear and tear is in parts merely idealiter and must be made good realiter, in natura, only after a certain number of years. Capital so employed supplies each year a mass of machinery which becomes available for, and anticipates new, capital investments. Let us suppose, for instance, a machine manufacturer who starts production this year. During this year, he supplies machines for £12,000. If he were merely to reproduce the machines he has manufactured, he would have to produce, during the subsequent eleven years, machines for £1,000 only, and even then, a year’s production would not be consumed within the year. Still less could it be consumed, if he were to employ the whole of his capital. To keep this capital working, to keep it reproducing itself every year, a new and continuous expansion of the branches of manufacture that require these machines, is indispensable. This applies even more, if the machine manufacturer himself accumulates. In consequence, even if the capital invested in one particular branch of production is simply being reproduced,[88] a continuous accumulation in the other branches of production must go with it.’[89]

      We might take the machine manufacturer of Marx’s example as illustrating the production of fixed capital. Then the inference is that if society maintains simple reproduction in this sphere, employing each year a similar amount of labour for the production of fixed capital (a procedure which is, of course, impossible in practical life), then annual production in all other spheres must expand. But if here, too, simple reproduction is to be maintained, then, if the fixed capital once created is to be merely renewed, only a small part of the labour employed in its creation can be expended. Or, to put it the other way round: if society is to provide for investment in fixed capital on a large scale, it must, even assuming simple reproduction to prevail on the whole, resort periodically to enlarged reproduction.

      With the advance of civilisation, there are changes not only in the form of the means of production but also in the quantity of value they represent—or better, changes in the social labour stored up in them. Apart from the labour necessary for its immediate preservation, society has increasingly more labour time and labour power to spare, and it makes use of these for the manufacture of means of production on an ever increasing scale. How does this affect the process of reproduction? How, in terms of capitalism, does society create out of its annual labour a greater amount of capital than it formerly possessed? This question touches upon enlarged reproduction, and it is not yet time to deal with it.

CHAPTER V

      THE CIRCULATION OF MONEY

       Table of Contents

      In our study of the reproductive process we have not so far considered the circulation of money. Here we do not refer to money as a measuring rod, an embodiment of value, because all relations of social labour have been expressed, assumed and measured in terms of money. What we have to do now is to test our diagram of simple reproduction under the aspect of money as a means of exchange.

      Quesnay already saw that we shall only understand the social reproductive process if we assume, side by side with the means of production and consumer goods, a certain quantity of money.[90]

      Two questions now arise: (1) by whom should the money be owned, and (2) how much of it should there be? The answer to the first question, no doubt, is that the СКАЧАТЬ