m | --- c m---c represents a series of purchases by means of money which the capitalist spends either for commodities proper or for personal services to his cherished self or family. These purchases are made piecemeal at various times. The money therefore exists temporarily in the form of a supply, or hoard, destined for current consumption, since money whose circulation been interrupted assumes the form of a hoard. Its function as a medium of circulation, which includes its transient form of a hoard, does not enter the circulation of capital in its money-form M. This money is not advanced but spent.
We have assumed that the total advanced capital always passes wholly from one of its phases to the other; and so here too we assume that the commodities produced by P represent the total value of the productive capital P, or £422 plus £78 of surplus-value created in the process of production. In our illustration, which deals with a discrete commodity, the surplus-value exists in the form of 1,560 lbs. of yarn;if computed on the basis of one pound of yarn, it would exist in the form of 2.496 ounces of yarn. But if the commodity were for instance a machine valued at L500 and having the same value-composition, one a part of the value of this machine, £78, would be surplus-value, but these £78would exist only in the machine as a whole. This machine cannot be divided into capital-value and surplus-value without breaking it to pieces and thus destroying its value together with its use-value. For this reason the two value-components can be represented only ideally as components of the commodity, not as independent elements of the commodity C', like any pound of yarn, which represents a separable independent element of the 10,000 lbs. of commodity. In the first case the aggregate commodity, the commodity-capital, the machine, must be sold in its entirety before m can enter upon its separate circulation. On the other hand when the capitalist has sold 8,440 lbs., the sale of the remaining 1,560 lbs. would represent a wholly separate circulation of the surplus-value in the form of c (1,560lbs. of yarn)---m (£78)---c (articles of consumption). But the elements of value of each individual portion of the 10,000 lbs. of yarn, the product, can be represented by parts of the product as well as by the total product.
Just as the latter, 10,000 lbs. of yarn, the product, can be represented by parts of the product as well as by the total product. Just as the latter, 10,000 lbs. of yarn, can be divided into the value of the constant capital (c), 7,440 lbs. of yarn worth £372, variable capital-value (v) of 1,000 lbs. of yarn worth £50, and surplus-value (s) of 1,560 lbs.
of yarn worth £78, so every pound of yarn may be divided into c, equal to 11.904 ounces worth 8.928 d., v equal to 1.600 ounces of yarn worth 1.200 d., and s equal to 2.496 ounces of yarn worth 1.872 d. The capitalist might also sell various portions of the 10,000 lbs. of yarn successively and successively consume successive portions of the surplus-value elements contained in them, thus realising, also successively, the sum of c plus v. But in the final analysis this operation likewise premises the sale of the entire lot of 10,000 lbs., that therefore the value of c and v will be replaced by the sale of 8,440 lbs. (Buch I, Kap. VII, 2.)[English edition: Ch. IX, 2. -- Ed .]
However that may be, by means of C'---M' both the capital-value and surplus-value contained in C' acquire a separable existence, the existence of different sums of money. In both cases M and m are really a converted form of the value which originally in C' had only a peculiar, an ideal expression as the price of the commodity.
C---m---c represents the simple circulation of commodities, the first phase of which, c---m, is included in the circulation of commodity-capital, C'---M', i.e., included in the circuit of capital; its complementary phase m---c falls, on the contrary, outside of this circuit, being a separate act in the general circulation of commodities. The circulation of C and c, of capital-value and surplus-value, splits after the transformation of C' into M'. Hence it follows:
First, while the commodity-capital is realised by C'---M' = C'---(M+ m), the movement of capital-value and surplus-value, which in C'---M'
is still united and carried on by the same quantity of commodities, becomes separable, both of them henceforth possessing independent forms as separate sums of money.
Secondly, if this separation takes place, m being spent as the revenue of the capitalist, while M as a functional form of capital-value continues its course determined by the circuit, the first act, C'---M', in connection with the subsequent acts, M---C and m---c, may be represented as two different circulations C---M---C and c---m---c; and both of these series, so far as their general form is concerned, belong in the usual circulation of commodities.
By the way, in the case of the continuous, indivisible commodities, it is a matter of practice to isolate the value constituents ideally. For instance in the London building-business, which is carried on mainly on credit, the building contractor receives advances in accordance with the stage of construction reached. None of these stages is a house, but only a really existing constituent part of an inchoate future house; hence, in spite of its reality, it is but an ideal fraction of the entire house, but real enough to serve as security for an additional advance. (See on this point Chapter XII below.) [See pp. 237-38 of this book. -- Ed .]