tags : [[Marx]] [[political economy]]
source : capital_vol_2
type : literature
M-C is the conversion of a sum of money into a sum of commodities
\(C = L + mp\), where C is capital, L is labor power, and mp is the means of production
We can just as easily say \(M-C = L + mp\), so subsequently there are two new portions, M-L and M-mp
Marx says that \(M-C = L + mp\) does not express simply a qualitative relationship, but also a ratio between the portions of money spent on labor power and the means of production
This relationship reveals that the means of production must be sufficient to absorb the amount of labor which is to be turned into products
At the end of this process, the money advanced by the capitalist now exists as commodities, which can be used to âbreedâ [[surplus-value]]. This is called productive capital (P), and \(P = L + mp\)
As money capital, money can perform monetary actions, such as payment
What makes money into capital, and not merely money, is the movement of said money and their relationship in the circuit
M-L is the movement of the transformation of money capital into productive capital, as itâs through labor that surplus-value is generated
M-L is characteristic of [[capitalism]]
[[Wages]] are not the value of labor itself, but the value of labor-power for a period of time (also mentioned in vol. 1)
Labor-power is a commodity, like any other
The capitalist must purchase the means of production first, as that is the object of labor
The fact that M-L is possible is only because labor-power exists separately from its means of production.
Thereâs nothing inherent to money that causes capitalism to exist. Rather, itâs the result of the production process and the relations that go into that.
The capital relation arises only in the production process because it exists implicitly in the act of circulation, in the basically different economic conditions in which buyer and seller confront one another, in their class relation. It is not the nature of money that gives rise to this relation; it is rather the existence of the relation that can transform a mere function of money into a function of capital.
The purchase and sale of slaves is also in its form a purchase and sale of commodities. Without the existence of slaves, however, money cannot fulfil this function. If there is slavery, then money can be spent on the acquisition of slaves. But money in the hand of the buyer is in no way a sufficient condition for the existence of slavery.
The general formula for the circulation of commodities is C-P-Câ-Mâ
During the process, value is realized in money capital and commodity capital independently at each transformation phase. Productive capital represents the capital used in the production process. Finally, industrial capital is the capital of the total circuit
Money, productive, and commodity capital are not their own independent varieties of capital, merely particular forms of industrial capital
Not all industrial activity is productive. The transport industry doesnât produce anything, however it creates value in its role in the production process: by transporting commodities from one place to another
âThe manufacturer can produce articles first and look for customers afterwards.â (His product, after it is ejected in finished form from the production process, passes into circulation as a commodity separate from this process.) âProduction and consumption thus appear as two acts separated in time and space. In the transport industry, however, which does not create new products, but only displaces people and things, these two acts coincide; the servicesâ (the change of place) âare necessarily consumed the moment they are produced. This is why the area within which railways can seek their customers is at most 50 verstsâ (53 km.) âon either side.â6
The result in each case, whether it is people or commodities that are transported, is a change in their spatial location, e.g. that the yarn finds itself in India instead of in England, where it was produced.
But what the transport industry sells is the actual change of place itself. The useful effect produced is inseparably connected with the transport process, i.e. the production process specific to the transport industry. People and commodities travel together with the means of transport, and this journeying, the spatial movement of the means of transport, is precisely the production process accomplished by the transport industry. The useful effect can only be consumed during the production process; it does not exist as a thing of use distinct from this process, a thing which functions as an article of commerce and circulates as a commodity only after its production. However the exchange-value of this useful effect is still determined, like that of any other commodity, by the value of the elements of production used up in it (labour-power and means of production), plus the surplus-value created by the surplus labour of the workers occupied in the transport industry. In respect of its consumption, too, this useful effect behaves just like other commodities. If it is consumed individually, then its value vanishes with its consumption; if it is consumed productively, so that it is itself a stage of production of the commodity that finds itself transported, then its value is carried over to the commodity as an addition to it. The formula for the transport industry is thus ImageâŚPâŚMâ for it is the production process itself, and not a product separable from it, that is paid for and consumed. This therefore has almost exactly the same form as that for the production of precious metals, except that MⲠis here the transformed form of the useful effect produced in the course of the production process, and not the natural form of the gold and silver that is produced during this process and ejected from it.
âIndustrial capital is the only mode 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.â
M-CâŚPâŚCâ-Mâ is marked by the following features:
The capitalist production process is a precondition for the circuit of capital to actualize itself
[[Capital is a process, a unity. It is not a fixed, static thing]]
It we take all three forms together, then all the premises of the process appear as its result, as premises produced by the process itself. Each moment appears as a point of departure, of transit, and of return. The total process presents itself as the unity of the process of production and the process of circulation; the production process is the mediator of the circulation process, and vice versa.
[[Capital]] sounds like a state machine, transitioning from one state to another constantly
In a constantly rotating orbit, every point is simultaneously a starting-point and a point of return. If we interrupt the rotation, then not every starting-point is a point of return. Thus we have seen that not only does every particular circuit (implicitly) presuppose the others, but also that the repetition of the circuit in one form includes the motions which have to take place in the other forms of the circuit. Thus the entire distinction presents itself as merely one of form, a merely subjective distinction that exists only for the observer.
[[Capital]] is not only something in movement, but also is something that comprises class relations
Capital, as self-valorizing value, does not just comprise class relations, a definite social character that depends on the existence of labour as wage-labour. It is a movement, a circulatory process through different stages, which itself in turn includes three different forms of the circulatory process. Hence it can only be grasped as a movement, and not as a static thing.
[[Capital only acquires value in its movement.]]
The movements of capital appear as actions of the individual industrial capitalist in so far as he functions as buyer of commodities and labour, seller of commodities and productive capitalist, and thus mediates the circuit by his own activity. If the social capital value suffers a revolution in value, it can come about that his individual capital succumbs to this and is destroyed, because it cannot meet the conditions of this movement of value. The more acute and frequent these revolutions in value become, the more the movement of the independent value, acting with the force of an elemental natural process, prevails over the foresight and calculation of the individual capitalist, the more the course of normal production is subject to abnormal speculation, and the greater becomes the danger to the existence of the individual capitals. These periodic revolutions in value thus confirm what they ostensibly refute: the independence which value acquires as capital, and which is maintained and intensified through its movement.
[[Capitalism is a relation of production, not a relation of commerce.]]
The producer becomes an industrial capitalist to the same extent that labour becomes wage-labour; hence capitalist production (and thus also commodity production) appears in its full extent only when the direct agricultural producer is also a wage-labourer. In the relation between capitalist and wage-labourer, the money relation, the relation of buyer and seller, becomes a relation inherent in production itself. But this relation rests fundamentally on the social character of production, not on the mode of commerce; the latter rather derives from the former. It is typical of the bourgeois horizon, moreover, where business deals fill the whole of peopleâs minds, to see the foundation of the mode of production in the mode of commerce corresponding to it, rather than the other way round.
[[Supply and demand being equal causes no value to be produced.]]
The capitalist casts less value into circulation in the form of money than he draws out of it, because he casts in more value in the form of commodities than he has extracted in the form of commodities. In so far as he functions merely as the personification of capital, as industrial capitalist, his supply of commodity-value is always greater than his demand for it. If his supply and demand matched one another in this respect, this would be equivalent to the non-valorization of his capital; it would not nave functioned as productive capital; productive capital would have been transformed into commodity capital that had not been impregnated with surplus-value; it would not have extracted from labour-power during the production process any surplus-value in the commodity form, and thus not functioned as capital at all. The capitalist must indeed âsell dearer than he has boughtâ, but he manages to do this only because the capitalist production process enables him to transform the cheaper, because less valuable, commodities that he has bought into more valuable and hence dearer ones. He sells dearer, not because he sells above the value of his commodities, but because he sells commodities of a value greater than the sum of values of the ingredients required to produce them.
The greater the difference between the capitalistâs supply and his demand, i.e. the greater the additional commodity value that he supplies over the commodity value that he demands, the greater the rate at which he valorizes his capital. His goal is not simply to cover his demand with his supply, but to have the greatest possible excess of supply over demand.
[[Production time]] is the time in which capital functions as means of production
There is therefore a difference between the capitalâs production time and its functioning time. The production time of the means of production generally comprises (1) the time during which they function as means of production, and thus serve in the production process; (2) the pauses during which the production process, and thus also the functioning of the means of production incorporated in it, is interrupted; (3) the time during which they are held in reserve as conditions of the process, and thus already represent productive capital, but are not yet engaged in the production process.
Within the realm of circulation, capital exists as commodity capital and money capital, and transforms between the two during circulation
Within the circulation sphere, capital exists as commodity capital and money capital. Its two circulation processes consist in transforming itself from the commodity form into the money form and from the money form into the commodity form. The circumstance that the transformation of the commodity into money is here at the same time the realization of the surplus-value embodied in the commodity, and that the transformation of money into commodity is at the same time the transformation of capital value into, or back into, the form of its elements of production, in no way changes the fact that these processes, as processes of circulation, are processes of simple commodity metamorphosis.
While capital is in circulation, it cannot be used in production.
Circulation time and production time are mutually exclusive. During its circulation time, capital does not function as productive capital, and therefore produces neither commodities nor surplus-value. If we consider the circuit in its simplest form, so that the entire capital value always moves at one stroke from one phase to the other, then it is obvious that the production process is interrupted, and with it therefore the self-valorization of capital, so long as its circulation time lasts, and that according to the duration of the latter, the production process will be repeated sooner or later. If the various parts of the capital pass through the circuit in succession, so that the circuit of the total capital value is successively accomplished in the circuit of its various portions, then it is clear that the longer its aliquot parts remain in the circulation sphere, the smaller must be the part that functions at any time in the production sphere. The expansion and contraction of the circulation time hence acts as a negative limit on the contraction or expansion of the production time, or of the scale on which a capital of a given magnitude can function. The more that the circulation metamorphoses of capital are only ideal, i.e. the closer the circulation time comes to zero, the more the capital functions, and the greater is its productivity and self-valorization.
(see quote above) [[Capital can only create value during production, therefore it is more productive the less time it has to circulate]]
The sale of a commodity is not the realization of the surplus-value contained within it.
There is a distinction between CâM and MâC that has nothing to do with the difference in form between commodities and money, but derives from the capitalist character of production. In and for themselves, both CâM and MâC are mere translations of the given value from one form into the other. But Câ˛âMⲠis at the same time the realization of the surplus-value contained in CⲠ. Not so MâC . Hence the sale is more important than the purchase. MâC is in normal conditions a necessary act for the valorization of the value expressed in M , but it is not a realization of surplus-value; it is a prelude to its production, not an appendix to it.
241
He expends his labour-power and his labour time in the operations CâM and MâC . And hence he lives off this in the same way as someone else might live from spinning or making pills. He performs a necessary function, because the reproduction process itself includes unproductive functions. He works as well as the next man, but the content of his labour creates neither value nor products. He is himself part of the faux frais * of production. His usefulness does not lie in his transforming an unproductive function into a productive one, or unproductive labour into productive. It would be a miracle if a transformation of this kind could be brought about by such a transference of functions. He is useful rather because a smaller part of societyâs labour-power and labour time is now tied up in these unproductive functions. Still more. Let us assume that he is simply a wage-labourer, even if one of the better paid. Whatever his payment, as a wage-labourer he works part of the day for nothing. He may receive every day the value product of eight hoursâ labour, and function for ten. The two hoursâ surplus labour that he performs no more produce value than do his eight hours of necessary labour, although it is by means of the latter that a part of the social product is transferred to him. In the first place, both before and after, from the social point of view a personâs labour-power is used up for ten hours in this mere circulation who performs them. Society does not appropriate by this means any additional product or value. But the costs of circulation that he represents are reduced by a fifth, from ten hours to eight. Society pays no equivalent for a fifth of this active circulation time whose agent he is. If it is the capitalist who employs these agents, then the circulation costs of his capital, which form a deduction from his receipts, are reduced by the non-payment of the two hours. For him, this is a positive profit, because the negative restriction on the valorization of his capital is reduced. As long as small independent commodity producers spend a part of their own time in buying and selling, this simply presents itself as time spent in the intervals between their productive function, or as a loss in their production time.
243
Labour-power and labour-time must be spent to a certain degree in the circulation process (in so far as this is a mere change of form). But this now appears as an additional outlay of capital; a part of the variable capital must be deployed in acquiring these labour-powers that function only in circulation. This capital advance creates neither products nor value. It proportionately reduces the scale on which the capital advanced functions productively. It is the same as if a part of the product was transformed into a machine that bought and sold the remaining part of the product. This machine means a deduction from the product. It is not involved in the production process, although it can reduce the labour-power, etc. spent on circulation. It simply forms a part of the circulation costs.
245
This part of the capital is withdrawn from the production process and belongs to the costs of circulation, as a deduction from the total yield (including the actual labour-power
245
Book-keeping, however, as the supervision and the ideal recapitulation of the process, becomes ever more necessary the more the process takes place on a social scale and loses its purely individual character; it is thus more necessary in capitalist production than in the fragmented production of handicraftsmen and peasants, more necessary in communal production than in capitalist.
251
Adam Smith held that no stock existed in societies based on this mode of production. Adam Smith thus confused the form of stock with the stock itself, and believed that society previously lived from hand to mouth, abandoning itself to the hazards of the next day
256
Ultimately, most members of the society are transformed into wage-labourers, people who live from hand to mouth, who receive their wages by the week and spend them by the day, and must thus find their means of subsistence available as a stock. However rapidly the particular elements of this stock may flow, a part of them must always stand still in order for the stock to remain in motion.
259
The commodity stock must have a certain volume in order to satisfy the scale of demand over a given period. The continual extension of the circle of buyers is taken into account in this connection.
262
The general law is that all circulation costs that arise simply from a change inform of the commodity cannot add any value to it .
265
The capitalist mode of production reduces the transport costs for the individual commodity by developing the means of transport and communication, as well as by concentrating transport â i.e. by increasing its scale. It increases the part of social labour, both living and objectified, that is spent on commodity transport, firstly by transforming the great majority of all products into commodities, and then by replacing local by distant markets
265
The âcirculatingâ of commodities, i.e. their actual course in space, can be resolved into the transport of commodities. The transport industry forms on the one hand an independent branch of production, and hence a particular sphere for the investment of
267
the overall time of circulation of a given capital is the sum of its circulation time proper and its production time. It is the period of time that elapses from the moment that the capital value is advanced in a particular form until the return of the capital value in process in the same form.
269
Just as the economists have rarely distinguished between the different forms of the circuit, so too they have rarely considered these separately in connection with the turnover of capital. They have generally concentrated on the form M ⌠MⲠbecause it is this that dominates the individual capitalist and is used by him in his calculations, even if money forms the starting-point only in the shape of money of account. Certain others proceed from outlays in the form of elements of production, finishing with the receipt of returns, without even mentioning the form of these returns, whether they are in commodities or money.
270
When the entire capital value that the individual capitalist invests in one branch of production or other has described its cyclical movement, it exists once again in its original form and of the capital, the individual circuit forms only a section that is constantly repeated, i.e. a period. At the close of the period M ⌠MⲠ, the capital exists again in the form of money capital and passes once more through the series of changes of form that constitute its process of reproduction and valorization. At the close of the period P ⌠P , the capital exists again in the form of the elements of production which constitute the premise of its repeated circuit. The circuit of capital, when this is taken not as an isolated act but as a periodic process, is called its turnover. The duration of this turnover is given by the sum of its production time and its circulation time. This period of time forms the capitalâs turnover time. It thus measures the interval between one cyclical period of the total capital value and the next; the periodicity in the capitalâs life-process, or, if you like, the time required for the renewal and repetition of the valorization and production process of the same capital value.
271
For the capitalist, the turnover time of his capital is the time for which he has to advance his capital in order for this to be valorized and for him to receive it back in its original shape.
272
The extent to which the value of such a means of production is given up or transferred to the product that it helps to fashion is determined by an average calculation; it is measured by the average duration of its function, from the time that it enters the production process as means of production to the time it is completely used up, is dead, and has to be replaced or reproduced by a new item of the same kind.
The means of labour, on the other hand, never leave the production sphere once they have stepped into it. Their function confines them firmly within it. A part of the capital value advanced is fixed in this form, which is determined by the function of the means of labour in the process.
273
The part of the capital value that is fixed in the means of labour circulates, just like any other part. As we have seen, the whole of the capital value is in constant circulation, and in this sense, therefore, all capital is circulating capital. But the circulation of the part of the capital considered here is a peculiar one. In the first place, it does not circulate in its use form. It is rather its value that circulates, and this does so gradually, bit by bit, in the degree to which it is transferred to the product that circulates as a commodity. A part of its value always remains fixed in it as long as it continues to function, and remains distinct from the commodities that it helps to produce. This peculiarity is what gives this part of the constant capital the form of fixed capital . All other material components of the capital advanced in the production process, on the other hand, form, by contrast to it, circulating or fluid capital .
274
There is a further part of the means of production â those ancillaries that are consumed by the means of labour proper as they support the action, such as gas for lighting, etc., which also do not enter the product in their material form. It is only their value that constitutes part of the value of the product. The product circulates their value in its own circulation, and they have this in common with fixed capital. But they are completely consumed in every labour process that they enter into, and therefore, with each new labour process, they must be completely replaced by new items of the same kind. They do not preserve their independent use-shape as they function. And so no part of the capital value, either, remains fixed in their old use-shape, their natural form.
276
If a means of production which is not a means of labour in the strict sense (e.g. ancillaries, raw material, semi-finished goods, etc.) behaves with respect to the way it gives up value and hence to the mode of circulation of its value in the same way as the means of labour, then it is also a material bearer, a form of existence, of fixed capital. This is the case with the already mentioned improvements to the soil, which put into it chemical components whose effect extends over several periods of production or several years. Here, one part of the value continues to exist alongside the product in its independent shape, or in the shape of fixed capital, while another portion of value is given up to the product and hence circulates with it. In a case like this, it is not only a part of the value of the fixed capital that enters the product, but also the use-value, the substance, in which this portion of value exists.
284
The different ways in which value is given up to the product, and hence also the different ways in which this value is circulated by the product and replaced in its original natural form as a result of its metamorphoses, ultimately arise from the different material shapes in which productive capital exists, one part of it being consumed entirely in the course of forming the particular product, while another is used up only gradually. Thus it is only productive capital that can be divided up into fixed and fluid capital. This antithesis does not exist for the two other modes of existence of industrial capital, neither for commodity capital nor for money capital, nor yet as an antithesis between these two and productive capital. It exists only for productive capital and only within it . No matter how much money capital and commodity capital function as capital, and how fluidly they circulate, they can become fluid capital in contrast to fixed only when they have been transformed into the fluid components of productive capital.
288
Wear and tear is occasioned in the first place by actual use.
A further item of wear and tear is that caused by natural forces.
Finally, as is the case throughout large-scale industry, moral deterioration also plays its part. After ten years have elapsed, it is generally possible to buy the same quantity of carriages and locomotives for ÂŁ30,000 as previously cost ÂŁ40,000. A depreciation of 25 per cent on the market price must thus be reckoned with on this material, even if there is no depreciation in the use-value
289
Other elements of the fixed capital permit periodic or partial renewal. This partial or periodic replacement should be distinguished from the gradual extension of a business.
292
Fixed capital gives rise to special costs of maintenance. A part of the maintenance is effected by the labour process itself; fixed capital spoils if it does not function in the labour process.
The English law therefore expressly considers it as waste if land that is farmed out is not cultivated according to custom.
But fixed capital also requires positive outlays of labour if it is to be kept in good condition. The machinery must be cleaned from time to time. This involves additional labour, without which it becomes unfit for use; this is merely a defence against the damaging influence of the elements that is inseparable from the production process, and is thus keeping it in working order in the most literal sense. The normal lifespan of fixed capital is naturally reckoned on the assumption that the conditions under which it can function normally during this time are fulfilled, just as it is assumed, if the average life of a man is taken as thirty years, that he washes himself. What is involved here is not the replacement of the labour contained in the machine, but additional labour that is constantly necessary for it to be used. This is not a matter of labour performed by the machine, but of labour performed on the machine; here it is not an agent of production, but rather raw material. The capital spent on this labour is part of the fluid capital, even though it does not properly enter the actual labour process to which the product owes its origin. The labour must be constantly performed in the course of production, and so its value must also be constantly replaced by the value of the product. The capital spent on it belongs overheads, and is distributed over the value of the product according to an average annual calculation.
298
Something that is quite different both from the replacement of wear and tear and from the work of repair and maintenance is insurance , which relates to destruction by way of extraordinary natural events, fire, flood, etc. This must be made good out of surplus-value, and forms a deduction from it.
Marx criticizes the language political economy uses when speaking of âadvancingâ capital laid out. He says that because he only pays the worker after the fact, the laborer is advancing their labor and the capitalist is realizing the value of that labor before the capitalist lays out capital on wages
Marx says that when the capitalist lays out capital for the production process, the value laid out is replaced at different rates. Variable capital and objects of labor are replaced at the point of sale, while means of labor are only replaced gradually
The sale of a commodity replaces the cost laid out on the value of labor-power and objects of labor
Marx continues to criticize Smith (and subsequently Ricardo) for not distinguishing between forms of capital, and says that political economy held to this non-distinction because it obfuscated capitalist exploitation
The production process is mediated by the circulation process
The creation of surplus-value arises from the exchange of value for value-creating power, from the conversion of constant capital into variable capital
What distinguishes fixed capital is the role that it plays in the production process. As a means of labor itâs fixed, as an object of labor itâs fluid
During the production process, value laid out in labor-power and means of production are transformed into a product, and their value is only realized at the point of sale, which allows for this process to repeat itself
Marx criticizes Ricardo (by proxy of Wayland) for thinking that value simply reappears in the finished product, and that this is a mystification, showing that no surplus-value is created
ââŚtransforms the social, economic character that things are stamped with in the production process of social production into a natural character arising from the material nature of these things.â
The means of subsistence that a worker withdraws from circulation depend on the ratio between surplus-value and price of labor
Marxâs fetishism critique comes from the fact that Ricardo confuses something as means of subsistence when it can also serve as raw material (wheat as seed-corn)
A summary on bourgeois political economy confusion since Smith:
The distinction between fixed and fluid capital is confused with the distinction between productive capital and commodity capital. Thus the same machine is circulating capital, for example, when it exists on the market as a commodity, and fixed capital when it is incorporated into the production process. It is impossible to see here why one particular kind of capital should be more fixed or more circulating than another.
All circulating capital is identified with capital laid out or to be laid out on wages. This is the case with John Stuart Mill* among others.
The distinction between variable and constant capital, which Barton, Ricardo and others already confused with that between circulating and fixed capital, is eventually reduced completely to the latter distinction, as with Ramsay for example, who takes not only means of labour, but all means of production, raw materials etc. as fixed capital, and only the capital laid out on wages as circulating capital. But because the reduction is accomplished in this way, the real distinction between constant and variable capital is not grasped.
The most recent English economists, and even more so the Scottish ones, who view everything from the unutterably narrow standpoint of a bank clerk â such as MacLeod, Pattersonâ and others â transform the distinction between fixed and circulating capital into that between âmoney at callâ and âmoney not at callâ (that is to say, between deposit money that can be withdrawn without prior notification, and money whose withdrawal requires such notification).
(link)
No capital is set free if the working period is equal to the circulation period
Capital is set free if the circulation period is greater than the working period (without forming multiples of it), or the working period is greater than the circulation period
Setting free of capital is the rule, while replacement of portions of capital is the exception
This chapter is extremely arduous but Engels jumps in to say that the real point of all of this up until now is that much of what makes up industrial capital is made up of the money form
The uncertain results of this tiresome calculation business led Marx to ascribe an undeserved significance to what in my opinion is in fact a matter of little importance. I refer to what he calls the âsetting-freeâ of money capital. The real question involved, on the assumptions made above, is this:
No matter what the ratio between the length of the working period and the circulation time may be, and thus between capital I and capital II, once the first turnover has occurred there returns to the capitalist, at regular intervals equal in length to the working period, the capital needed for one such working period â thus a sum equal to capital I.
If the working period is five weeks, the circulation time four weeks, and capital I ÂŁ500, then a sum of ÂŁ500 flows back each time, at the end of weeks 9, 14, 19, 24, etc.
If the working period is six weeks, the circulation time three weeks, and capital I ÂŁ600, then ÂŁ600 flows back at the end of weeks 9,15, 21, 27,33, etc.
Finally, if the working period is four weeks, the circulation time five weeks, capital I ÂŁ400, then the reflux of ÂŁ400 follows at the end of weeks 9, 13, 17, 21, 25, etc.
Whether and to what degree this capital that has returned is superfluous for the current working period, and is thus set free, makes no difference. It is assumed that production proceeds uninterruptedly on the existing scale, and, for this to occur, money must be present, and thus flow back, whether it is âset freeâ or not. If production is interrupted, then this setting-free comes to an end.
In other words, there is in any case a release of money, i.e. a formation of latent, only potential capital, in the money form; but this happens in all circumstances, and not only under those particular conditions specified in the text; it happens, moreover, to a greater extent than that assumed in the text. In relation to circulating capital I, the industrial capitalist finds himself, at the end of each turnover, in precisely the same situation as when he set up his business; he has this capital completely in his hands once more, and at one go, while he can only gradually transform it again into productive capital.
The main thing in the text is the proof that a considerable part of industrial capital is always present in the money form, while a still more considerable part must assume this form from time to time. This proof is reinforced, if anything, by these additional remarks of mine. â F.E.)
See also [[Marxâs Criticism of Adam Smith]]
Ricardo basically reproduces Adam Smith wholesale
The quote to sum up the whole project:
The result is that Smithâs confusion persists to this day, and his dogma forms an article of orthodox belief in political economy.
(no notes)
\(II_{(c+v+s)} = I_{(v+s)} + II_{(v + s)}\)
A good quote:
In speaking of the social point of view, i.e. in considering the total social product, which includes both the reproduction of the social capital and individual consumption, it is necessary to avoid falling into the habits of bourgeois economics, as imitated by Proudhon, i.e. to avoid looking at things as if a society based on the capitalist mode of production lost its specific historical and economic character when considered en bloc, as a totality. This is not the case at all. What we have to deal with is the collective capitalist. The total capital appears as the share capital of all individual capitalists together. This joint-stock company has in common with many other joint-stock companies that everyone knows what they put into it, but not what they will get out of it.
Somewhere along the way I gave up trying to follow this chapter super closely.
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