The Accumulation Of Capital Part 10

So the capitalist h.o.a.rding will not do as a way out of our difficulties.

This conclusion should not come as a surprise, since the very exposition of the difficulty was misleading. It is not the source of money that const.i.tutes the problem of acc.u.mulation, but the source of the demand for the additional goods produced by the capitalised surplus value; not a technical hitch in the circulation of money but an economic problem pertaining to the reproduction of the total social capital. Quite apart from the question which had claimed Marx's entire attention so far, namely where B, B', etc., (I), get the money to buy additional means of production from A, A', etc., (I), successful acc.u.mulation will inevitably have to face a far more serious problem: to whom can B, B', etc., now sell their increased surplus-product? Marx finally makes them sell their products to one another:

'It may be that the different B, B', B", etc., (I), whose virtual new capital enters upon its active function, are compelled to buy from one another their product (portions of their surplus-product) or to sell it to one another. In that case, the money advanced by them for the circulation of their surplus-product flows back under normal conditions to the different B's in the same proportion in which they advanced it for the circulation of their respective commodities.'[122]

'In that case'--the problem simply has not been solved, for after all B, B', and B" have not cut down on their consumption and expanded their production just so as to buy each other's increased product, i.e. means of production. Even that, incidentally, would only be possible to a very limited extent. Marx a.s.sumes a certain division of labour in Department I itself: the A's turn out means of production for making producer goods and the B's means of production for making consumer goods, which is as much as to say that, though the product of A, A', etc., need never leave Department I, the product of B, B', etc., is by its natural form predestined from the first for Department II. Already the acc.u.mulation of B, B', etc., it follows, must lead us to circulation between Departments I and II. Thus Marx's a.n.a.lysis itself confirms that, if Department I is to acc.u.mulate, the department for means of consumption must, in the last resort, increase its immediate or mediate demand for means of production, and so it is to Department II and its capitalists that we must look for buyers for the additional product turned out by Department I.

Sure enough, Marx's second attack on the problem takes up from there: the demand of capitalists in Department II for additional means of production. Such a demand inevitably implies that the constant capital II_c_ is in process of expanding. This is where the difficulty becomes truly formidable:

'Take it now that A(I) converts his surplus-product into gold by selling it to a capitalist B in Department II. This can be done only by the sale of means of production on the part of A(I) to B(II) without a subsequent purchase of articles of consumption, in other words, only by a one-sided sale on A's part. Now we have seen that II_c_ cannot be converted into the natural form of productive constant capital unless not only I_v_ but also at least a portion of I_s_, is exchanged for a portion of II_c_, which II_c_ exists in the form of articles of consumption. But now that A has converted his I_s_ into gold by making this exchange impossible and withdrawing the money obtained from II_c_ out of circulation, instead of spending it for articles of consumption of II_c_, there is indeed on the part of A(I) a formation of additional virtual money-capital, but on the other hand there is a corresponding portion of the value of the constant capital B(II) held in the form of commodity-capital, unable to transform itself into natural productive constant capital. In other words, a portion of the commodities of B(II), and at that a portion which must be sold if he wishes to reconvert his entire constant capital into its productive form, has become unsaleable.

To that extent, there is an over-production which clogs reproduction, even on the same scale.'[123]

Department I's efforts to acc.u.mulate by selling its additional product to Department II have met with an unlooked-for result: a deficit for the capitalists of Department II serious enough to prevent even simple reproduction on the old scale.

Having got to this crucial point, Marx seeks to lay bare the root of the problem by a careful and detailed exposition:

'Let us now take a closer look at the acc.u.mulation in Department II. The first difficulty with reference to II_c_, that is to say the conversion of an element of the commodity-capital of II into the natural form of constant capital of II, concerns simple reproduction. Let us take the formula previously used. (_1,000v + 1,000s_) I are exchanged for 2,000 II_c_. Now, if one half of the surplus-product of I, or 500_s_, is reincorporated in Department I as constant capital, then this portion, being detained in Department I, cannot take the place of any portion of II_c_. Instead of being converted into articles of consumption, it is made to serve as an additional means of production in Department I itself.... It cannot perform this function simultaneously in I and II.

The capitalist cannot spend the value of his surplus-product for articles of consumption, and at the same time consume the surplus-product itself productively, by incorporating it in his productive capital. Instead of 2,000 I(_v + s_), only 1,500 are exchangeable for 2,000 II_c_, namely _1,000v + 500s_ of I. But 500 I_c_ cannot, be reconverted from the form of commodities into productive constant capital of II.'[124]

By now, hardly anybody could fail to be convinced that the difficulty is real, but we have not taken a single step nearer a solution. This, incidentally, is where Marx has to do penance for his ill-advised continual recourse in an earlier over-simplification, to a fict.i.tious moment of transition--in order in elucidate the problem of acc.u.mulation--from simple reproduction to enlarged reproduction, making his major premise acc.u.mulation at its very inception, in its feeble infancy instead its vigorous stride. There was something to be said, at least, for this fiction, so long as it was just a question of acc.u.mulation within Department I. The capitalists of Department I, who denied themselves part of what they had been wont to consume, at once had a new h.o.a.rd of money in hand with which they could start capitalisation. But when it comes to Department II, the same fiction only piles on the difficulties. The 'abstinence' of the capitalists in Department I here finds expression in a painful loss of consumers for whose expected demand production had largely been calculated. Since the capitalists of Department II, on whom we tried the experiment whether they might not possibly be the long-sought buyers of the additional product of acc.u.mulation in Department I, are themselves in sore straits--not knowing as yet where to go with their own unsold product--they are even less likely to be of any help to us. There is no shutting our eyes to the fact that an attempt to make one group of capitalists acc.u.mulate at the expense of the other is bound to get involved in glaring inconsistencies.

Yet another attempt to get round the difficulty is subsequently mentioned by Marx who at once rejects it as a subterfuge. The unmarketable surplus value in Department II that is the result of acc.u.mulation in Department I might be considered a reserve of commodities the society is going to need in the course of the following year. This interpretation Marx counters with his usual thoroughness:

'(1) ... the forming of such supplies and the necessity for it applies to all capitalists, those of I as well as of II. Considering them in their capacity as sellers of commodities, they differ only by the fact that they sell different kinds of commodities. A supply of commodities of II implies a previous supply of commodities of I. If we neglect this supply on the one side, we must also do so on the other. But if we count them in on both sides, the problem is not altered in any way. (2) Just as this year closes on the side of II with a supply of commodities for the next year, so it was opened by a supply of commodities on the same side, taken over from last year. In the a.n.a.lysis of annual reproduction, reduced to its abstract form, we must therefore strike it out at both ends. By leaving this year in possession of its entire production, including the supply held for next year, we take from it the supply of commodities transferred from last year, and thus we have actually to deal with the aggregate product of an average year as the object of our a.n.a.lysis. (3) The simple circ.u.mstance that the difficulty which must be overcome did not show itself in the a.n.a.lysis of simple reproduction proves that it is a specific phenomenon due merely to the different arrangement of the elements of Department I with a view to reproduction, an arrangement without which reproduction on an expanded scale cannot take place at all.'[125]

The last remark, be it noted, is equally damaging to his own earlier attempt at resolving the specific difficulties of acc.u.mulation by moments pertaining to simple reproduction, viz. the formation of a h.o.a.rd consequent upon the gradual turnover of the fixed capital in the hands of the capitalists which was previously adduced as the explanation of acc.u.mulation in Department I.

Marx then proceeds to set out enlarged reproduction in the form of diagrams. But no sooner does he begin to a.n.a.lyse his diagram, than the same difficulty crops up anew in a slightly different guise. a.s.suming that the capitalists of Department II must for their part convert 140_s_ into constant capital so as to make acc.u.mulation possible for the others, he asks:

'Therefore Department II must buy 140_s_ for cash without recovering this money by a subsequent sale of its commodities to I. And this is a process which is continually repeated in every new annual production, so far as it is reproduction on an enlarged scale. Where does II get the money for this?'[126]

In the following, Marx tries out various approaches in order to discover this source. First the expenditure on variable capital by the capitalists in Department II is closely scrutinised. True, it exists in the form of money; but its proper function is the purchase of labour power, and it cannot possibly be withdrawn and made to serve, maybe, for purchasing additional means of production.

'This continually repeated departure from and return to the starting point, the pocket of the capitalist, does not add in any way to the money moving in this cycle. This, then, is not a source of the acc.u.mulation of money.'[127]

Marx then considers all conceivable dodges, only to show them up as evading the issue.

'But stop!' he exclaims. 'Isn't there a chance to make a little profit?'[127]

He considers whether the capitalists could not manage to save a little of the variable capital by depressing the wages of the workers below the normal average and thus to tap a new source of money for acc.u.mulation. A mere flick of his fingers, of course, disposes of this notion:

'But it must not be forgotten that the wages actually paid (which determine the magnitude of the variable capital under normal conditions) do not depend on the benevolence of the capitalists, but must be paid under certain conditions. This does away with this expedient as a source of additional money.'[127]

He even explores what hidden methods there may be of 'saving' on the variable capital, such as the truck system, frauds, etc., only to comment finally: 'This is the same operation as under (1), only disguised and carried out by a detour. Therefore it must likewise be rejected as an explanation of the present problem.'[128]

All efforts to make the variable capital yield a new source of money for the purpose of acc.u.mulation are thus unrewarded: 'In short, we cannot accomplish anything with 376 II_v_ for the solution of this question.'[128]

Marx next turns to the cash reserves which the capitalists in Department II keep for the circulation of their own consumption and investigates whether none of this money can be diverted to the purposes of capitalisation. Yet this, he allows, is 'still more impossible'.

'Here the capitalists of the same department are standing face to face, heavily buying and selling their articles of consumption. The money required for these transactions serves only as a medium of circulation and must flow back to the interested parties in the normal course of things, to the extent that they have advanced it to the circulation, in order to pa.s.s again and again over the same course.'[129]

The next attempt to follow belongs, as was to have been expected, to the category of those 'subterfuges' which Marx ruthlessly refutes: the attempt to explain that money-capital can be formed in the hands of one capitalist group in Department II by defrauding the other capitalists within the same department--viz. in the process of the mutual selling of consumer goods. No time need be wasted on this little effort.

Then comes a more sober proposition: 'Or, a certain portion of II_s_, represented by necessities of life, might be directly converted into new variable capital of Department II.'[130]

It is not quite clear how this can help us over the hurdle, help to get acc.u.mulation going. For one thing, the formation of additional variable capital in Department II is not much use if we have no additional constant capital for this department, being in fact engaged on the task of finding it. For another thing, our present concern is to see if we can find in Department II a source of money for the purchase of additional means of production from I, and Department II's problem how to place its own additional product in some way or other in the process of production is beside the point. Further, is the implication that the respective consumer goods should be used 'direct', i.e. without the mediation of money, in the production of Department II, so that the corresponding amount of money can be diverted from variable capital to the purpose of acc.u.mulation? If so, we could not accept the solution.

Under normal conditions of capitalist production, the remuneration of the workers by consumer goods direct is precluded, one of the corner-stones of capitalist economy being the money-form of the variable capital, the independent transaction between the worker as buyer of commodities and producer of consumer goods. Marx himself stresses this point in another context:

'We know that the actual variable capital consists of labour-power, and therefore the additional must consist of the same thing. It is not the capitalist of I who among other things buys from II a supply of necessities of life for his labourers, or acc.u.mulates them for this purpose, as the slave holder had to do. It is the labourers themselves who trade with II.'[131]

And that goes for the capitalists of Department II just as much as for those of Department I, thus disposing of Marx's last effort.

Marx ends up by referring us to the last part of _Capital_, volume ii, chapter 21, the 'Concluding Remarks _sub iv_', as Engels has called them. Here we find the curt explanation:

'The original source for the money of II is _v + s_ of the gold producers in Department I, exchanged for a portion of II_c_. Only to the extent that the gold producer acc.u.mulates surplus-value or converts it into means of production of I, in other words, to the extent that he expands his production, does his _v + s_ stay out of Department II. On the other hand, to the extent that the acc.u.mulation of gold on the part of the gold producer himself leads ultimately to an expansion of production, a portion of the surplus-value of gold production not spent as revenue pa.s.ses into Department II as additional variable capital of the gold producers, promotes the acc.u.mulation of new h.o.a.rds in II and supplies it with means by which to buy from I without having to sell to it immediately.'[132]

After the breakdown of all conceivable attempts at explaining acc.u.mulation, therefore, after chasing from pillar to post, from A I to B I, and from B I to A II, we are made to fall back in the end on the very gold producer, recourse to whom Marx had at the outset of his a.n.a.lysis branded as 'absurd'. The a.n.a.lysis of the reproductive process, and the second volume of _Capital_ finally comes to a close without having provided the long sought-for solution to our difficulty.

FOOTNOTES:

[113] _Capital_, vol. ii, p. 571.

[114] Ibid., p. 572.

[115] Ibid., pp. 573-4.

[116] _Capital_, vol. ii, p. 375.

[117] Ibid., pp. 575-6.

[118] _Capital_, vol. ii, pp. 579-81.

[119] Ibid., p. 581.

[120] _Capital_, vol. ii, pp. 583-4.

[121] Ibid., p. 584.

[122] _Capital_, vol. ii, p. 585.

[123] Ibid., pp. 586-7.

[124] Ibid., pp. 588-9.

[125] _Capital_, vol. ii, pp. 590-1.

[126] Ibid., p. 593.

[127] _Capital_, vol. ii, p. 594.