Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Vol. II. The Process of Circulation of Capital

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 immediate 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 turnover of capital.

However, every individual capital forms but an individual 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 turnovers of the individual capitals. Just as the metamorphosis of the individual commodity is a link in the series of metamorphoses of the commodity-world—the circulation of commodities—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 consumption (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 includes 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 circulation of surplus-value, hence also the purchases and sales, by which the capitalists promote their individual consumption, the consumption of surplus-value.

In volume I the process of capitalist production was analyzed 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 substance 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 circulation the material means of production required for the renewal or continuation of the process. The only transaction 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.

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 movement of social capital. Just as in the simple circulation of commodities the total metamorphosis of a certain commodity 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 circulation 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 individual 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.

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 circulation—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 compensation of the interruptions of the circulation.

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-capital 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 element 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 additional auxiliary materials, the money-capital, in which the capital-value is advanced, is not increased proportionately 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, without 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.

The same is true of the social combination of labor-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 productivity 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 capitalists, 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 contraction 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.

Now we come to the second point. It is a matter of course, that that portion of the social labor and means of production, 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 functions 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 natural sources of wealth. It cannot be regarded as a barrier of production. By its transformation into elements of production, 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.

On the basis of capitalist production, it must be ascertained, 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 working 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 labor process, not to its social form. In the case of socialized production, the money-capital is eliminated. Society distributes labor-power and means of production to the different 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.