书城公版Capital-2
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第33章

-- Ed .] by c---m---c, which, 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, where consequently there is no difference in value between the two extremes, the self-expansion of the advanced value the production of surplus-value, is therefore represented in the same way as in M ... M', except that the act C'---M', which appears as the last stage in M ... M', and as the second stage of the circuit, serves as the first stage of the circulation in P... P.

In P ... P', P' does not indicate that the surplus-value has been produced but that the produced surplus-value has been capitalised, hence that capital has been accumulated and that therefore P', in contrast to P, consists of the original capital-value plus the value of the capital accumulated because of the capital-value's movement.

M', as the simple close of M ... M', and also C', as it appears within all these circuits, do not if taken by themselves express the movement but its result: the self-expansion of capital-value realised in the form of commodities or money, and hence, capital-value as M plus m, or C plus c, as a relation of capital-value to its surplus-value, as its offspring.

They express this result as various circulation forms of the self-expanded capital-value. But neither in the form of C' nor of M' is the self-expansion which has taken place itself a function of money-capital or of commodity-capital.

As special, differentiated forms, modes of existence corresponding to special functions of industrial capital, money-capital can perform only money-functions and commodity-capital only commodity-functions, the difference between them being merely that between money and commodity. Similarly industrial capital in its form of productive capital can consist only of the same elements as those of any other labour-process which creates products: on the one hand objective conditions of labour (means of production), on the other productively (purposively) functioning labour-power. Just as industrial capital can exist in the sphere of production only in a composition which meets the requirements of the production process in general, hence also of the non-capitalist production process, so it can exist in the sphere of circulation only in the two forms corresponding corresponding to it, viz., that of a commodity and of money. But just as the totality of the elements of production announces itself at the outset as productive capital by the fact that the labour-power is labour-power that belongs to others and that the capitalist purchased it from its proprietor, just as he purchased his means of production from other commodity-owners; just as therefore the process of production itself appears as a productive function of industrial capital, so money and commodities appear as forms of circulation of the same industrial capital, hence their functions appear as the functions of circulation, which either introduce the functions of productive capital or emanate from them. Here the money-function and the commodity-function are at the same time functions of commodity-capital, but solely because they are interconnected as forms of functions which industrial capital has to perform at the different stages of its circuit. It is therefore wrong to attempt to derive the specific properties and functions which characterise money as money and commodities as commodities from their quality as capital, and it is equally wrong to derive on the contrary the properties of productive capital from its mode of existence in means of production.

As soon as M' or C' have become fixed as M plus m or C plus c, i.e., as the relation between the capital-value and surplus-value, its offspring, this relation is expressed in both of them, in the first case in the money-form, in the second case in the commodity-form, which does not change matters in the least. Consequently this relation does not have its origin in any properties or functions inherent in money as such or commodities as such. In both cases the characteristic property of capital, that of being a value, is expressed only as a result. C' is always the product of the function of P, and M' is always merely the form of C' changed in the circuit of industrial capital. As soon therefore as the realised money-capital resumes its special function of money capital, it ceases to express the capital- relation contained in M'=M plus m. After M ...

M' has been passed through and M' begins the circuit anew, it does not figure as M even if the entire surplus-value contained in M' is capitalised.

The second circuit begins in our case with a money-capital of £500, instead of £422, as in the first circuit. The money-capital, which opens the circuit, is £78 larger than before. This difference exists on comparing the one circuit with the other, but no such comparison is made within each particular circuit. The £500 advanced as money-capital, £78 which formerly existed as surplus-value, do not play any other role than would some other £500 with which another capitalist inaugurates his first circuit. The same happens in the circuit of the productive capital.

The increased P' acts as P on recommencing, just as P did in the simple reproduction P ... P. In the stage M'---C'---< L MP , the augmented magnitude is indicated only by C', but not by L' or MP'.

Since C is the sum of L and MP, C' indicates sufficiently that the sum of L and MP contained in it is greater than the original P. In the second place, the terms L' and MP' would be incorrect, because we know that the growth of capital involves a change in the constitution of its value and that as this change progresses the value of MP increases, that of L always decreasing relatively and often absolutely.

III. ACCUMULATION OF MONEY