- •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
-
Fixed Capital and Circulating Capital
We have seen that, in relation to the products toward the creation of which it contributes, a portion of the constant capital retains that definite use-form in which it enters into the process of production. Hence it performs the same functions for a longer or shorter period, in ever repeated labour-processes. This applies for instance to industrial buildings, machinery, etc. — in short to all things which we comprise under the name of instruments of labour. This part of constant capital yields up value to the product in proportion as it loses its own exchange-value together with its own use-value. This delivery of value, or this transition of the value of such a means of production to the product which it helps to create is determined by a calculation of averages. It is measured by the average duration of its function, from the moment that the means of production enters into the process of production to the moment that it is completely spent, dead and gone, and must be replaced by a new sample of the same kind, or reproduced.
This, then, is the peculiarity of this part of constant capital, of the labour instruments proper:
A part of capital has been advanced in the form of constant capital, i.e., of means of production, which function as factors of the labour-process so long as they retain the independent use-form in which they enter this process. The finished product, and therefore also the creators of the product, so far as they have been transformed into product, is thrust out of the process of production and passes as a commodity from the sphere of production to the sphere of circulation. But the instruments of labour never leave the sphere of production, once they have entered it. Their function holds them there. A portion of the advanced capital-value becomes fixed in this form determined by the function of the instruments of labour in the process. In the performance of this function, and thus by the wear and tear of the instruments of labour, a part of their value passes on to the product, while the other remains fixed in the instruments of labour and thus in the process of production. The value fixed in this way decreases steadily, until the instrument of labour is worn out, its value having been distributed during a shorter or longer period over a mass of products originating from a series of constantly repeated labour-processes.
This portion of the capital-value fixed in the instrument of labour circulates as well as any other. During the entire period of its functioning, a part of its value always remain fixed in it, independently of the commodities which it helps to produce. It is this peculiarity which gives to this portion of constant capital the form of fixed capital. All the other material parts of capital advanced in the process of production form by way of contrast the circulating, or fluid, capital.
Some means of production do not enter materially into the product. Such are auxiliary materials, which are consumed by the instruments of labour themselves in the performance of their functions, like coal consumed by a steam-engine; or which merely assist in the operation, like gas for lighting, etc. It is only their value which forms a part of the value of the products. The product circulates in its own circulation the value of these means of production. This feature they have in common with fixed capital. But they are entirely consumed in every labour-process which they enter and must therefore be wholly replaced by new means of production of the same kind in every new labour-process. They do not preserve their independent use-form while performing their function. Hence while they function no portion of capital-value remains fixed in their old use-form, their bodily form, either.
That part of the means of production which bodily enters into the product, i.e., raw materials, etc., thus assumes in part forms which enable it later to enter into individual consumption as articles of use. The instruments of labour properly so called, the material vehicles of the fixed capital, are consumed only productively and cannot enter into individual consumption, because they do not enter into the product, or the use-value, which they held to create but retain their independent form with reference to it until they are completely worn out.
As for the variable component of productive capital, which is invested in labour-power, be it noted that labour-power is purchased for a definite period of time. As soon as the capitalist has bought it and embodied it in the process of production, it forms a component part of his capital, its variable component. Labour-power acts daily during the period of time in which it adds to the product not only its own value for the whole day but also a surplus-value in excess of it. We shall not consider this surplus-value for the present. After labour-power has been bought and it has performed its function, say for a week, its purchase must be constantly renewed within the customary intervals of time. The equivalent of its value, which the labour-power adds to the product during its functioning and which is transformed into money in consequence of the circulation of the product, must continually be reconverted from money into labour-power or continually pass through the complete circuit of its forms, that is, must be turned over, if the circuit of continuous production is not to be interrupted.
Hence that part of the value of the productive capital which has been advanced for labour-power is entirely transferred to the product (we constantly leave the question of surplus-value out of consideration here), passes with it through the two metamorphoses belonging in the sphere of circulation and always remains incorporated in the process of production by virtue of this continuous renewal. Hence, however different otherwise may be the relation between labour-power, so far as the creation of value is concerned, and the component parts of constant capital which do not constitute fixed capital, this kind of turnover of its value labour-power shares with them, in contradistinction to fixed capital. These components of the productive capital — the parts of its value invested in labour-power and in means of production which do not constitute fixed capital — by reason of their common turnover characteristics confront the fixed capital as circulating or fluent capital.
From the foregoing one may conclude the following:
1. The definiteness of form of fixed and circulating capital arises merely from the different turnovers of the capital-value, functioning in the process of production, or of the productive capital. This difference in turnover arises in its turn from the different manner in which the various components of productive capital transfer their value to the product; it is not due to the different parts played by these components in the generation of product value, nor to their characteristic behavior in the process of self-expansion.
2. The turnover of the fixed component part of capital, and therefore also the time of turnover necessary for it, comprises several turnovers of the circulating constituents of capital. In the time during which the fixed capital turns over once, the circulating capital turns over several times. One of the component parts of the value of the productive capital acquires the definiteness of form of fixed capital only in case the means of production in which it exists is not wholly worn out in the time required for the fabrication of the product and its expulsion from the process of production as a commodity. One part of its value must remain tied up in the form of the still preserved old use-form, while the other part is circulated by the finished product, and this circulation on the contrary simultaneously circulates the entire value of the fluent component parts of the capital.
3. The value-part of the productive capital, the part invested in fixed capital, is advanced in one lump sum for the entire period of employment of that part of the means of production of which the fixed capital consists. Hence this value is thrown into the circulation by the capitalist all at one time. But it is withdrawn again from the circulation only piecemeal and gradually by realizing the parts of value which the fixed capital adds piecemeal to the commodities. On the other hand the means of production themselves, in which a component part of the productive capital becomes fixed, are withdrawn from the circulation all at one time to be embodied in the process of production for the entire period in which they function. But they do not require for this period any replacement by new samples of the same kind, do not require reproduction. They continue for a longer or shorter period to contribute to the creation of the commodities thrown into circulation without withdrawing from circulation the elements of their own renewal. Hence they do not require from the capitalist a renewal of his advance during this period.
4. The elements of circulating capital are as permanently fixed in the process of production — if it is to be uninterrupted — as the elements of fixed capital. But the elements of circulating capital thus fixed are continually renewed in kind (the means of production by new products of the same kind, labour-power by constantly renewed purchases) while in the case of the elements of fixed capital neither they themselves are renewed nor need their purchases be renewed so long as they continue to exist. There are always raw and auxiliary materials in the process of production, but always new products of the same kind, after the old elements have been consumed in the creation of the finished product. Labour-power likewise always exists in the process of production, but only by means of ever new purchases, frequently involving changes of persons. But the same identical buildings, machines, etc., continue to function, during repeated turnovers of the circulating capital, in the same repeated processes of production.