- •Lecture 1. The subject and the method of Political Economy
- •The economic activity as a condition of existence and society development. The labour-process and its elementary factors.
- •Instruments of labour.
- •The productive forces and productive relations: their unity and interdependency.
- •Economic laws and their objective character.
- •The subject and functions of Political Economy.
- •The method of Political Economy.
- •Lecture 2. Commodity production
- •Commodity and its factors: use-value and value. Exchange value.
- •The magnitude of commodity value.
- •Commodity and its factors: use-value and value. Exchange value.
- •The magnitude of commodity value.
- •Lecture 3. Commodity and Money
- •The form of value and its historical development.
- •The appearance of money. The essence and functions of money
- •The Fetishism of Commodities.
- •The form of value and its historical development.
- •Elementary or Accidental Form of Value.
- •X commodity a is worth y commodity b.
- •20 Yards of linen are worth 1 coat.
- •Total or Expanded Form of Value.
- •The General Form of Value
- •1. The altered character of the form of value
- •The Money-Form
- •The appearance of money. The essence and functions of money
- •The measure of Values
- •The medium of Circulation
- •Commodity — Money — Commodity.
- •The mean of hoarding
- •The means of Payment
- •Universal Money
- •The Fetishism of Commodities.
- •Lecture 4. Labour-Process and process of producing surplus-value.
- •Transformation of money into capital.
- •Labour-power as a commodity.
- •Labour-Process and process of producing surplus-value.
- •The Transformation of money into capital.
- •The labour-power as a commodity.
- •The Labour-Process and the Process of Producing Surplus-Value.
- •Lecture 5. Capital and Labour-Power
- •The essence of the capital. Constant Capital and Variable Capital
- •The Rate and the Mass of Surplus-Value
- •Modes of surplus-value production
- •Working-day I. Working-day II. Working-day III.
- •The relative surplus-value.
- •The absolute surplus-value.
- •In what follows the chief combinations alone are considered.
- •The stages of labour division in condition of capitalism
- •Simple capitalist co-operation
- •Division of Labour and Manufacture
- •Machinery and Modern Industry
- •Lecture 6. Wages
- •The essence of wages
- •The main forms and systems of wages
- •National Differences of Wages
- •The essence of wages
- •The main forms and systems of wages
- •2.1. Time-Wages
- •Daily value of labour-power/working-day of a given number of hours’
- •Piece-Wages as transformed condition of Time-Wages
- •Daily value of labour-power/the working day of a given number of hours
- •National Differences of Wages
- •Lecture 7. The accumulation of capital
- •The substance and types of reproduction. Simple Reproduction.
- •Capitalist production on a progressively increasing scale.
- •The substance and factors which determine the magnitude of accumulation.
- •Technical, value and organic composition of capital and tendencies of their dynamics.
- •Forms of accumulation. Centralization and concentration of capital.
- •The accumulation of capital and the employment. Unemployment and its forms.
- •Lecture 8. The circuit of capital
- •The circuit of capital and its stages.
- •The Circuit of Money Capital
- •I. First Stage. M — c
- •II. Second Stage. Function of Productive Capital
- •III. Third Stage. C' — m'
- •IV. The Circuit as a Whole
- •The Circuit of Productive Capital
- •The Circuit of Commodity-Capital
- •Three Formulas of the Circuit
- •The Time of Circulation
- •The Costs of Circulation
- •The Time of Purchase and Sale
- •Costs of Storage
- •Costs of Transportation
- •Lecture 9. Turnover of capital
- •The Turnover Time and the Number of Turnovers
- •Fixed Capital and Circulating Capital
- •The Aggregate Turnover of Advanced Capital. Cycles of Turnover
- •The Turnover of Variable Capital. The Annual Rate and mass of Surplus-Value.
- •(Capital turned over annually) / (capital advanced)
- •(Quantity of surplus-value produced during the year) / (variable capital advanced)
- •(Real rate of surplus-value × variable capital advanced × n) / (variable capital advanced)
- •(Quantity of s produced in one turnover period) / (variable capital employed in one turnover period)
- •Lecture 10. The Reproduction and Circulation of the Aggregate Social Capital
- •2. The Two Departments of Social Production
- •In each department the capital consists of two parts:
- •The exchange of the Aggregate Social Commodity in the case of simple reproduction.
- •I. Production of Means of Production:
- •II. Production of Articles of Consumption:
- •The exchange of the Aggregate Social Commodity in the case of Reproduction on an Expanded Scale.
- •Schematic Presentation of Accumulation
- •Lecture 11. Cost-Price and Profit
- •Cost-Price and profit
- •The Rate of Profit
- •Factors which determine the rate of profit.
- •Formation of a General Rate of Profit and Transformation of the Values of Commodities into Prices of Production
- •The Law of the Tendency of the Rate of Profit to Fall
- •Counteracting Influences
- •Lecture 12. Commercial Capital and Commercial Profit
- •Commercial Capital as the isolated part of industrial capital.
- •Commercial profit and mechanism of its formation.
- •Commercial Capital as the isolated part of industrial capital.
- •Commercial profit and mechanism of its formation.
- •Lecture 13. Money Capital and the interest
- •Interest-Bearing Capital
- •The interest.
- •Division of Profit. Rate of Interest. Natural Rate of Interest.
- •The Credit
- •The Role of Credit in Capitalist Production
- •II. Reduction of the costs of circulation.
- •III. Formation of stock companies. Thereby:
- •Lecture 14. Agrarian relations in the case of capitalist economics
- •Economic relations in agriculture.
- •The essence of capitalist ground-rent. Ground-rent and rent.
- •Monopoly in land ownership. The origin of Differential Rent. Differential Rent I
- •1) Fertility.
- •2) The location of the land.
- •Differential Rent II
- •Absolute Ground-Rent and monopolistic Ground-Rent – their unity and differences.
- •Price of Land
- •I. The price of land may rise without the rent rising, namely:
- •II. The price of land may rise, because the rent increases.
- •Lecture 15. National income
- •The essence of national income. The Trinity Formula
- •Production of Gross domestic product and National income.
- •Distribution Relations and Production Relations
- •The essence of national income. The Trinity Formula
- •2. Production of Gross domestic product and National income.
- •Distribution Relations and Production Relations
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The Time of Circulation
We have seen that the movement of capital through the sphere of production and the two phases of the sphere of circulation takes place in a series of periods of time. The duration of its sojourn in the sphere of production is its time of production, that of its stay in the sphere of circulation its time of circulation. The total time during which it describes its circuit is therefore equal to the sum of its time of production and its time of circulation.
The time of production naturally comprises the period of the labour-process, but is not comprised in it. It will be remembered first of all that a part of the constant capital exists in the form of instruments of labour, such as machinery, buildings, etc., which serve the same constantly repeated labour-processes until they are worn out. Periodical interruptions of the labour-process, by night for instance, interrupt the functioning of these instruments of labour, but not their stay at the place of production. They belong to this place when they are in function as well as when they are not. On the other hand the capitalist must have a definite supply of raw material and auxiliary material in readiness, in order that the process of production may take place for a longer or shorter time on a previously determined scale, without being dependent on the accidents of daily supply from the market. This supply of raw material, etc., is productively consumed only by degrees.
The time of production of the means of production in general comprises, therefore, 1) the time during which they function as means of production, hence serve in the productive process; 2) the stops during which the process of production, and thus the functioning of the means of production embodied in it, are interrupted; 3) the time during which they are held in readiness as prerequisites of that process, hence already represent productive capital but have not yet entered into the process of production.
The time of production, then, is always that time in which a capital produces use-values and expands, hence functions as productive capital, although it includes time in which it is either latent or produces without expanding its value.
Within the sphere of circulation, capital abides as commodity-capital and money-capital. Its two processes of circulation consist in its transformation from the commodity-form into that of money and from the money-form into that of commodities. The circumstance that the transformation of commodities into money is here at the same time a realisation of the surplus-value embodied in the commodities, and that the transformation of money into commodities is at the same time a conversion or reconversion of capital-value into the form of its elements of production does not in the least alter the fact that these processes, as processes of circulation, are processes of the simple metamorphosis of commodities.
Within the sphere of circulation capital passes through the two antithetical phases C — M and M — C; it is immaterial in what order. Hence its time of circulation is likewise divided into two parts, viz.: the time it requires for its conversion from commodities into money, and that which it requires for its conversion from money into commodities. We have already learned from the analysis of simple circulation of commodities that C — M, the sale, is the most difficult part of its metamorphosis and that therefore under ordinary conditions it takes up the greater part of its time of circulation. As money, value exists in its always convertible form. As a commodity it must first be transformed into money before it can assume this form of direct convertibility and hence of constant readiness for action.