Marx Capital: The Process of Capitalist Production as a Whole

1. Auflage 2018
ISBN: 978-80-268-9285-4
Verlag: e-artnow
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 747 Seiten

Capital: The Process of Capitalist Production as a Whole was prepared by Friedrich Engels from notes left by Karl Marx and published in 1894. Das Kapital is best known today for this part, which says that as the organic fixed capital requirements of production rise as a result of advancements in production generally, the rate of profit tends to fall. Karl Marx (1818-1883) was a famous German philosopher, economist, historian, political theorist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Marx, Karl

Weitere Mitwirkende

Engels, Frederick

Moore, Samuel

Aveling, Edward

Marx, Eleanor

Leseproben

CHAPTER II.: THE RATE OF PROFIT.
Table of Contents The general formula of capital is M—C—M'. In other words, a certain quantity of values is thrown into circulation for the purpose of drawing a larger quantity out of it. The process by which this larger quantity is produced is capitalist production. The process by which this larger quantity is realized is the circulation of capital. The capitalist does not produce a commodity on its own account, he does not care for its use-value, nor does he consume it personally. The product in which the capitalist is really interested is not the tangible product itself, but the excess of the value of the product over the value of the capital assimilated by it. The capitalist advances the total capital without regard to the different roles played by its components in the production of surplus-value. He advances all these components uniformly, not merely for the purpose of reproducing the advanced capital, but rather with a view to producing a surplus-value in excess of it. He cannot convert the value of the variable capital advanced by him into a greater value except by its exchange for living labor and by the exploitation of this labor. But he cannot exploit this labor unless he advances at the same time the material requirements for the incorporation of this labor, namely instruments and materials of labor, machinery and raw materials. This he can do only by converting a certain amount of value in his possession into requirements of production. He could not be a capitalist at all, nor undertake to exploit labor, unless he enjoyed the privilege of owning the material requirements of production and finding at hand a laborer who owns nothing but his labor-power. We have already shown in the first volume that it is precisely the ownership of means of production by idlers which converts laborers into wage-workers and idlers into capitalists. It is immaterial for the capitalist whether he is supposed to advance constant capital in order to make a profit out of his variable capital, or whether he advances variable capital in order to make a profit out of the constant capital; whether he invests money in wages in order to make his machinery and raw materials more valuable, or whether he invests money in machinery and raw materials in order to be able to exploit labor. Although it is only the variable portion of capital which creates surplus-value, it does so only on condition that the other portions, the material requirements of production, are likewise advanced. Seeing that the capitalist can exploit labor only by advancing constant capital, and that he can utilize his constant capital only by advancing variable capital, he lumps them all together in his imagination, and he is all the more apt to do so as the actual rate of his gain is not calculated on its proportion to the variable, but on its proportion to the total capital, in other words, that it is calculated on the rate of profit, not on the rate of surplus-value. And we shall see that the rate of profit may remain unchanged and yet may express different rates of surplus-value. The cost of the product includes all those elements of its value which the capitalist has paid, or for which he has thrown an equivalent into circulation. This cost must be made good in order that the capital may merely be preserved, or reproduced in its original magnitude. The value contained in a certain commodity is equal to the labor-time required for its production, and the sum of this labor consists of paid and unpaid portions. But the expenses of the capitalist consist only of that portion of materialized labor which he paid for the production of the commodity. The surplus-value contained in this commodity does not cost the capitalist anything, while it cost the laborer his labor just as well as that portion for which he is paid, and although it creates value and is embodied in the value of the commodity quite as well as the paid labor. The profit of the capitalist is due to the fact that he offers something for sale for which he has not paid anything. The surplus-value, or the profit, consists precisely of the excess of the value of the commodity over its cost-price, in other words, it consists of the excess of the total amount of labor embodied in the commodity over the paid labor contained in it. The surplus-value, whatever be its genesis, is a surplus above the advanced total capital. The proportion of this surplus to the total capital is expressed by the fraction s/C, in which C stands for the total capital. Thus we obtain the rate of profit s/C = s/(c+v), as distinguished from the rate of surplus-value s/V. The rate of surplus-value measured by the variable capital is called rate of surplus-value. The rate of surplus-value measured by the total capital is called rate of profit. These two modes of measuring the same magnitude express different conditions or relations of this magnitude, owing to the difference of the two standards of measurement. The transformation of surplus-value into profit must be deduced from the transformation of the rate of surplus-value into the rate of profit, not vice versa. And the rate of profit is indeed that from which historical research takes its departure. The surplus-value and the rate of surplus-value are, relatively, the invisible and unknown essence, while the rate of profit and the resulting appearance of surplus-value in the form of profit are phenomena which show themselves on the surface. So far as the individual capitalist is concerned, it is evident that the only thing which interests him is the relation of surplus-value, of the excess of value at which he sells his articles, to the total capital advanced for the production of commodities. On the other hand, the definite relation of this surplus, and its internal connection, with the various components of capital does not interest him, for it is rather to his interest to indulge in vague notions relative to this definite relation and this internal connection. Although the excess in the value of a commodity over its cost-price is created in the process of production, strictly so called, it is realized in the process of circulation. And it assumes so much more easily the semblance of arising from the process of circulation, as it depends in reality on the market conditions under competition whether any surplus is realized or not, or how much of it. It is not necessary to lose any words at this point about the fact that it is merely a different way of dividing the surplus-value, when a commodity is sold above or below its value, and that this different division, this change of proportions in which different persons share in the surplus-value, does not alter in the least the magnitude or the nature of that value. It is not alone the metamorphoses discussed by us in volume II which take place in the process of circulation, but they are accompanied by actual competition, the sale and purchase of commodities above or below their value, so that the surplus-value realized by the individual capitalist depends as much on the outcome of the mutual endeavor to outwit one another as on the direct exploitation of labor. Aside from the working time, the time of circulation exerts its influence in the process of circulation and limits the amount of surplus-value realizable within a certain period. Still other elements arise in the process of circulation and influence the strict process of production. Both the strict process of production and the process of circulation continually intermingle, interpenetrate one another, and thereby incessantly falsify their characteristic marks of distinction. The production of surplus-value, and of value in general, receives new directions in the process of circulation, as we have previously shown. Capital passes through the cycle of its metamorphoses. Finally it steps, so to say, forth out of the internal organism of its life and enters into external conditions of existence, into conditions in which the opposites are not capital and labor, but capital and capital in one case, and individual buyers and sellers in another. The time of circulation and the working time cross one another's paths and seem to determine equally the amount of surplus-value. The original form in which capital and wage-labor meet one another is disguised by the interference of conditions which seem to be independent of them. The surplus-value itself does not appear to be the result of the appropriation of labor-time, but an excess of the selling price of commodities over their cost-price, so that this last named price is easily regarded as their intrinsic value, while profit appears as an excess of the selling price of commodities over their immanent value. It is true, that the nature of the surplus-value impresses itself incessantly upon the consciousness of the capitalist during the process of production. This is shown, among other indications, by his greed for the labor-time of others, to which we called attention in the analysis of surplus-value. But in the first place, the strict process of production is but a fleeting stage passing continually into the process of circulation, just as this does into it, so that the more or less vague inkling of the source of the gains made in the process of production, the source of the surplus-value, stands at best on the same ground with the idea that the realized surplus is due to a movement of capital in the process of circulation and independent of the process of production, a movement of capital independent of its relation to labor. These phenomena of circulation are quoted by modern economists like Ramsay, Malthus, Senior, Torrens, etc., as direct proofs of the alleged fact that capital, in its mere material existence, independent of any social relation to...