第36章

THE METAMORPHOSES OF CAPITAL AND THEIR CIRCUITSTHE CIRCUIT OF COMMODITY-CAPITAL The general formula for the circuit of commodity-capital is:

C'---M'---C ... P ... C'.C' appears not alone as the product but also as the premise of the two previous circuits, since that which M---C means for the one capital C'---M'

means for the other, inasmuch as at least a part of the means of production is itself the commodity-product of other individual capitals describing their circuits. In our case for instance coal, machinery, etc., represent the commodity-capital of the mine-owner, of the capitalist machine-manufacturer, etc. Furthermore we have shown in Chapter I, 4, that not only the circuit P ... P but also the circuit C' ... C' is assumed even in the first repetition of M ... M', before this second circuit of money-capital is completed.

If reproduction takes place on an extended scale, then the final C' is greater than the initial C' and should therefore be designated here as C''.

The difference between the third form and the first two is as follows: First, in this case the total circulation with its two antithetical phases opens the circuit, while in the Form I the circulation is interrupted by the process of production and in Form II the total circulation with its two complementary phases appears merely as a means of effecting the process of reproduction and therefore constitutes the movement mediating between P ... P. In the case of M ... M', the form of circulation is M---C... C'---M'=M---C---M. In the case of P ... P it has the inverted form C'---M'. M---C=C---M---C. In the case of C'---C' it likewise has this form.

Secondly, when circuits I and II are repeated, even if the final points M'and P' form the starting-points of the renewed circuit, the form in which M' and P' were produced disappears. M'=M plus m and P'=P plus p begin the new process as M and P. But in the form III the starting-point C must be designated as C', even if the circuit is renewed on the same scale, for the following reason. In Form I, as soon as M' as such opens a new circuit it functions as money-capital M, as an advance in money-form of the capital-value that is to produce surplus-value. The size of the advanced money-capital, augmented by the accumulation achieved during the first circuit, has increased. But whether the size of the advanced money-capital is £422 or £500 does not alter the fact that it appears as simple capital-value. M' no longer exists as self-expanded capital or a capital pregnant with surplus-value, as a capital-relation. Indeed, it is to expand itself only during its process. The same is true of P ...

P'; P must steadily continue to function as P, as capital-value which is to produce surplus-value, and must renew its circuit.

The commodity-capital circuit, on the contrary, does not open with just capital-value but with capital-value augmented in the commodity-form.

Hence it includes from the start the circuit of not only capital-value existing in the form of commodities, but also of surplus-value. Consequently if simple reproduction takes place in this form, the C' at the terminal point is equal in size to the C' at the starting-point. If a part of the surplus-value enters into the capital circuit, C'', an enlarged C', appears at the close instead of C'. This is merely a larger C' than that of the proceeding circuit, with a larger accumulated capital-value. Hence it begins its new circuit with a relatively larger, newly created surplus-value.

In any event C' always inaugurates the circuit as a commodity-capital which is equal to capital-value plus surplus-value.

C' as C does not appear in the circuit of an individual industrial capital as a form of this capital but as a form of some other industrial capital, so far as the means of production are the product of the latter.

The act M---C (i.e., M---MP) of the first capital is C'---M' for this second capital.

In the circulation act M---C< L MP L and MP bear identical relations, as they are commodities in the hands of their sellers -- on the one hand the labourers who sell their labour-power, on the other the owner of the means of production, who sells these. For the purchaser, whose money here functions as money-capital, L and MP function merely as commodities until he has bought them, hence so long as they confront his capital, existing in the form of money, as commodities of others. MPand L differ here only in this respect, that MP may be C', hence capital, in the hands of its seller, if MP is the commodity-form of his capital, while L is always nothing else but a commodity for the labourer and becomes capital only in the hands of its purchaser as a constituent part of P.

For this reason C' can never open any circuit as a mere C, as a mere commodity-form of capital-value. As commodity-capital it is always two-fold. From the point of view of use-value it is the product, in the present case yarn, of the functioning of P whose elements L and MP, coming as commodities from the sphere of circulation, have functioned only as factors in the creation of this product. Secondly, from the point of view of value, it is the capital-value P plus the surplus-value s produced by the functioning of P.

It is only in the circuit described by C' itself that C equal to P and equal to the capital-value can and must separate from that part of C' in which the surplus-value is lodged. It does not matter whether the two things can be actually separated, as in the case of yarn, or whether they cannot, as in the case of a machine. They always become separable as soon as C' is transformed into M'.

If the entire commodity-product can be separated into independent homogeneous partial products, as in the case of our 10,000 lbs. of yarn, and if therefore the act C'---M' can be represented by a number of successive sales, then the capital-value in the form of commodities can function as C, can be separated from C', before the surplus-value, hence before C'

in its entirety, has been realised.