- •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
-
Commercial profit and mechanism of its formation.
Commercial capital, therefore — stripped of all heterogeneous functions, such as storing, expressing, transporting, distributing, retailing, which may be connected with it, and confined to its true function of buying in order to sell — creates neither value nor surplus-value, but acts as middleman in their realization and thereby simultaneously in the actual exchange of commodities, i.e., in their transfer from hand to hand, in the social metabolism. Nevertheless, since the circulation phase of industrial capital is just as much a phase of the reproduction process as production is, the capital operating independently in the process of circulation must yield the average annual profit just as well as capital operating in the various branches of production. Should merchant's capital yield a higher percentage of average profit than industrial capital, then a portion of the latter would transform itself into merchant's capital. Should it yield a lower average profit, then the converse would result. A portion of the merchant's capital would then be transformed into industrial capital. No species of capital changes its purpose, or function, with greater ease than merchant's capital.
Since merchant's capital does not itself produce surplus-value, it is evident that the surplus-value which it pockets in the form of average profit must be a portion of the surplus-value produced by the total productive capital. But now the question arises: How does merchant's capital attract its share of the surplus-value or profit produced by the productive capital?
It is just an illusion that commercial profit is a mere addition to, or a nominal rise of, the prices of commodities in excess of their value.
Suppose, the total industrial capital advanced in the course of the year = 720c + 180v = 900 (say million £), and that s' = 100%. The product therefore = 720c + 180v + 180s. Let us call this product or the produced commodity-capital, C, whose value, or price of production (since both are identical for the totality of commodities) = 1,080, and the rate of profit for the total social capital of 900 = 20%. These 20% are, according to our earlier analyses, the average rate of profit, since the surplus-value is not calculated here on this or that capital of any particular composition, but on the total industrial capital of average composition. Thus, C = 1,080, and the rate of profit = 20%. Let us now assume, however, that aside from these £900 of industrial capital, there are still £100 of merchant's capital, which shares in the profit pro rata to its magnitude just as the former. According to our assumption, it is 1/10 of the total capital of 1,000. Therefore, it participates to the extent of 1/10 in the total surplus-value of 180, and thus secures a profit of 18%. Actually, then, the profit to be distributed among the other 1/10 of the total capital is only = 162, or on the capital of 900 likewise = 18%. Hence, the price at which C is sold by the owners of the industrial capital of 900 to the merchants = 720c + 180v + 162s = 1,062. If the dealer then adds the average profit of 18% to his capital of 100, he sells the commodities at 1,062 + 18 = 1,080, i.e., at their price of production, or, from the standpoint of the total commodity-capital, at their value, although he makes his profit only during and through the circulation process, and only from an excess of his selling price over his purchase price. Yet he does not sell the commodities above their value, or above their price of production, precisely because he has bought them from the industrial capitalist below their value, or below their price of production.
Thus, merchant's capital enters the formation of the general rate of profit as a determinant pro rata to its part in the total capital. Hence, if we say in the given case that the average rate of profit = 18%, it would = 20%, if it were not that 1/10 of the total capital was merchant's capital and the general rate of profit thereby lowered by 1/10. This leads to a closer and more comprehensive definition of the price of production.
By price of production we mean, just as before, the price of a commodity = its costs (the value of the constant + variable capital contained in it) + the average profit. But this average profit is now determined differently. It is determined by the total profit produced by the total productive capital; but not as calculated on the total productive capital alone, so that if this = 900, as assumed above, and the profit = 180, then the average rate of profit = 180/900 = 20%. But, rather, as calculated on the total productive + merchant's capital, so that with 900 productive and 100 merchant's capital, the average rate of profit = 180/1,000 = 18%. The price of production is, therefore = k (the costs) + 18, instead of k + 20. The share of the total profit falling to merchant's capital is thus included in the average rate of profit. The actual value, or price of production, of the total commodity-capital is therefore = k + p + m (where m is commercial profit). The price of production, or the price at which the industrial capitalist as such sells his commodities, is thus smaller than the actual price of production of the commodity; or in terms of all commodities taken together, the prices at which the class of industrial capitalists sell their commodities are lower than their value. Hence, in the above case, 900 (costs) + 18% on 900, or 900 + 162= 1,062. It follows, then, that in selling a commodity at 118 for which he paid 100 the merchant does, indeed, add 18% to the price. But since this commodity, for which he paid 100, is really worth 118, he does not sell it above its value. We shall henceforth use the term price of production in this, its more precise, sense.
It is evident, therefore, that the profit of the industrial capitalist equals the excess of the price of production of the commodity over its cost-price, and that commercial profit, as distinct from this industrial profit, equals the excess of the selling price over the price of production of the commodity which, for the merchant, is its purchase price; but that the actual price of the commodity = its price of production + the commercial profit. Just as industrial capital realizes only such profits as already exist in the value of commodities as surplus-value, so merchant's capital realizes profits only because the entire surplus-value, or profit, has not as yet been fully realized in the price charged for the commodities by the industrial capitalist. The merchant's selling price thus exceeds the purchase price not because the former exceeds the total value, but because the latter is below this value.
Merchant's capital, therefore, participates in leveling surplus-value to average profit, although it does not take part in its production. Thus, the general rate of profit contains a deduction from surplus-value due to merchant's capital, hence a deduction from the profit of industrial capital.