Suppose his fixed capital has to be renewed in 10 years. So the capitalist pays every year one-tenth, or £400, into a sinking fund and thus has only a value of £3,600 of fixed capital left plus £400in money. If the repairs are necessary and do not exceed the average, they represent nothing but capital invested later. We may look at the matter the same as if he had allowed for the cost of repairs beforehand, when calculating the value of his investment capital, so far as this enters into the annual commodity-product, so that it is included in the one-tenth sinking fund payment. (If his need for repairs is below average he is so much money to the good, and the reverse if above. But this evens out for the entire class of capitalists engaged in the same branch of industry.)At any rate, although his annual demand still remains £5,000, equal to the original capital-value he advanced (assuming his total capital is turned over once a year), this demand increases with regard to the circulating part of the capital, while it steadily decreases with regard to its fixed part.
We now come to reproduction. Let us assume that the capitalist consumes the entire surplus-value m and reconverts only capital C of the original magnitude into productive capital. Then the demand of the capitalist is equal in value to his supply; but this does not refer to the movement of his capital. As a capitalist he exercises a demand for only four-fifths of his supply (in terms of value). He consumes one-fifth as a non-capitalist, not in his function as capitalist but for his private requirements or pleasures.
His calculation, expressed in percentages, is then as follows:
Demand as capitalist . . . . . . . . . . . 100, supply 120Demand as man about town . . . . . . . 20, supply --Total demand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120, supply 120This assumption is tantamount to assuming that capitalist production does not exist, and therefore that the industrial capitalist himself does not exist. For capitalism is abolished root and branch by the bare assumption that it is personal consumption and not enrichment that works as the compelling motive.
But such an assumption is impossible also technically. The capitalist must not only form a reserve capital to cushion price fluctuations and enable him to wait for favorable buying and selling conditions. He must accumulate capital in order to extend his production and build technical progress into his productive organism.
In order to accumulate capital he must first withdraw in money-form from circulation a part of the surplus-value which he obtained from that circulation, and must hoard it until it has increased sufficiently for the extension of his old business or the opening of a side-line. So long as the formation of the hoard continues, it does not increase the demand of the capitalist. The money is immobilised. It does not withdraw from the commodity-market any equivalent in commodities for the money equivalent withdrawn from it for commodities supplied.
Credit is not considered here. And credit includes for example deposits by the capitalist of accumulating money in a bank on current account paying interest.
NOTES
[7] End of Manuscript V. What follows to the end of the chapter, is a note contained in a notebook of 1877 or 1878 amid extracts from various books. -- F.E.