- •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
2. The Two Departments of Social Production
The total product, and therefore the total production, of society may be divided into two major departments:
I. Means of Production, commodities having a form in which they must, or at least may, pass into productive consumption.
II. Articles of Consumption, commodities having a form in which they pass into the individual consumption of the capitalist and the working-class.
All the various branches of production pertaining to each of these two departments form one single great branch of production, that of the means of production in the one case, and that of articles of consumption in the other. The aggregate capital employed in each of these two branches of production constitutes a separate large department of the social capital.
In each department the capital consists of two parts:
1) Variable Capital. This capital, so far as its value is concerned, is equal to the value of the social labour-power employed in this branch of production; in other words, it is equal to the sum of the wages paid for this labour-power. So far as its substance is concerned, it consists of the labour-power in action, i.e., of the living labour set in motion by this capital-value.
2) Constant Capital. This is the value of all the means of production employed for productive purposes in this branch. These, again, are divided into fixed capital, such as machines, instruments of labour, buildings, laboring animals, etc., and circulating constant capital, such as materials of production: raw and auxiliary materials, semi-finished products, etc.
The value of the total annual product created with the aid of this capital in each of the two departments consists of one portion which represents the constant capital c consumed in the process of production and only transferred to the product in accordance with its value, and of another portion added by the entire labour of the year. This latter portion is divided in turn into the replacement of the advanced variable capital v and the excess over and above it, which forms the surplus-value s. And just as the value of every individual commodity, that of the entire annual product of each department consists of c + v + s.
Portion c of the value, representing the constant capital consumed in production, does not coincide with the value of the constant capital employed in production. True, the materials of production are entirely consumed and their values completely transferred to the product. But only a portion of the employed fixed capital is wholly consumed and its value thus transferred to the product. Another part of the fixed capital, such as machines, buildings, etc., continues to exist and function the same as before, though depreciated to the extent of the annual wear and tear. This persistent portion of the fixed capital does not exist for us, when we consider the value of the product. It is a portion of the capital-value, which exists independently and alongside of this newly produced commodity-value. This was shown previously in the analysis of the value of the product of individual capital. However, for the present we must leave aside the method of analysis employed there. We saw in the study of the value of the product of individual capital that the value of which the fixed capital was shorn through wear and tear is transferred to the product created during the time of wear, irrespective of whether or not any portion of this fixed capital is replaced in kind during this time out of the value thus transferred. At this point in the study of the total social product and of its value, however, we are compelled, at least for the present, to leave out of account that portion of value which is transferred from the fixed capital to the annual product by wear and tear, unless fixed capital is replaced in kind during the year. In one of the following sections of this chapter we shall discuss this point in particular.