II. _1,600c + 800v + 800s = 3,200_
-----
Total: 9,800
The aggregate product of society has grown from 9,000 to 9,800, the
surplus value of Department I from 1,000 to 1,100, and of Department II
from 750 to 800. The object of the capitalist expansion of production,
the increased production of surplus value, has been gained. At the same
time, the material composition of the aggregate social product again
shows a surplus of 600 as regards the means of production (6,600) over
and above those which are actually needed (4,400 + 1,600), and also a
deficit in consumer goods as against the sum total made up by the wages
previously paid (_1,100v + 800v_) and the surplus value that has been
created (_1,100s + 800s_). And thus we again have the material
possibility as well as the necessity to use part of the surplus value,
not for consumption by the capitalist class, but for a new expansion of
production.
The second enlargement of production, and increased production of
surplus value, thus follows from the first as a matter of course and
with mathematical precision. The accumulation of capital, once it has
started, automatically leads farther and farther beyond itself. The
circle has become a spiral which winds itself higher and higher as if
compelled by a natural law in the guise of mathematical terms. Assuming
that in the following years there is always capitalisation of half the
surplus value, while the composition of the capital and the rate of
exploitation remain unchanged, the reproduction of capital will result
in the following progression:
_2nd year:_ I. _4,840c + 1,210v + 1,210s = 7,260_
II. _1,760c + 880v + 880s = 3,520_
------
Total: 10,780
_3rd year:_ I. _5,324c + 1,331v + 1,331s = 7,986_
II. _1,936c + 968v + 968s = 3,872_
------
Total: 11,858
_4th year:_ I. _5,856c + 1,464v + 1,464s = 8,784_
II. _2,129c + 1,065v + 1,065s = 4,259_
------
Total: 13,043
_5th year:_ I. _6,442c + 1,610v + 1,610s = 9,662_
II. _2,342c + 1,172v + 1,172s = 4,686_
------
Total: 14,348
Thus, after five years of accumulation, the aggregate social product is
found to have grown from 9,000 to 14,348, the social aggregate capital
from (_5,500c + 1,750v = 7,250_) to (_8,784c + 2,782v = 11,566_) and the
surplus value from (_1,000s + 500s = 1,500_) to (_1,464s + 1,065s =
2,529_), whereby the surplus value for personal consumption, being 1,500
at the beginning of accumulation, has grown to 732 + 958 = 1,690 in the
last year.[102] The capitalist class, then, has capitalised more, it has
practised greater abstinence, and yet it has been able to live better.
Society, in a material respect, has become richer, richer in means of
production, richer in consumer goods, and it has equally become richer
in the capitalist sense of the term since it produces more surplus
value. The social product circulates _in toto_ in society. Partly it
serves to enlarge reproduction and partly it serves consumption. The
requirements of capitalist accumulation correspond to the material
composition of the aggregate social product. What Marx said in volume i
of _Capital_ is true: the increased surplus value can be added on to
capital because the social surplus product comes into the world from the
very first in the material form of means of production, in a form
incapable of utilisation except in the productive process. At the same
time reproduction expands in strict conformity with the laws of
circulation: the mutual supply of the two departments of production with
additional means of production and consumer goods proceeds as an
exchange of equivalents. It is an exchange of commodities in the course
of which the very accumulation of one department is the condition of
accumulation in the other and makes this possible. The complicated
problem of accumulation is thus converted into a diagrammatic
progression of surprising simplicity. We may continue the above chain of
equations _ad infinitum_ so long as we observe this simple principle:
that a certain increase in the constant capital of Department I always
necessitates a certain increase in its variable capital, which
predetermines beforehand the extent of the increase in Department II,
with which again a corresponding increase in the variable capital must
be co-ordinated. Finally, it depends on the extent of increase in the
variable capital in both departments, how much of the total may remain
for personal consumption by the capitalist class. The extent of this
increase will also show that this amount of consumer goods which remains
for private consumption by the capitalist is exactly equivalent to that
part of the surplus value which has not been capitalised in either
department.
There are no limits to the continuation of this diagrammatic development
of accumulation in accordance with the few easy rules we have
demonstrated. But now it is time to take care lest we should only have
achieved these surprisingly smooth results through simply working out
certain fool-proof mathematical exercises in addition and subtraction,
and we must further inquire whether it is not merely because
mathematical equations are easily put on paper that accumulation will
continue _ad infinitum_ without any friction.
In other words: the time has come to look for the concrete social
conditions of accumulation.