Complete abstraction from the circulation of money, though making the
process of accumulation so smooth and simple in the diagram of enlarged
reproduction, has great disadvantages of its own, we see. There was much
to be said for this method in the analysis of simple reproduction, where
consumption is the be-all and end-all of production. Money there had an
ephemeral part, mediating the distribution of the social product among
the various groups of consumers--the agent for the renewal of capital.
In the process of accumulation, however, the money form has an essential
function: it no longer serves as a mere agent in the circulation of
commodities--here it has come to be a feature of capital itself, an
element in the circulation of capital. Even if the transformation of the
surplus value is not essential to real reproduction, it is the economic
_sine qua non_ of capitalist accumulation. In the transition from
production to reproduction, the surplus product is thus subjected to two
metamorphoses: first it casts off its use-form and then it assumes a
natural form which is fit for the purpose of accumulation. The point
here is not that the different cycles of production are counted off in
units of years. It would be just as well to take the month; for that
matter, the successive transformation of individual portions of the
surplus value in Departments I and II may even intersect in time. Series
of years here do not mean units of time but really intend the sequence
of economic transformations. What matters is that this sequence must be
observed if accumulation is to keep its capitalist character, whether it
extends over a longer or a shorter period of time. This brings us back
to the old question: How, and by whom, is the accumulated surplus value
to be realised?
Marx was well aware that his seemingly water-tight scheme of
accumulation did not cover this point adequately, and he himself kept
reviewing the problem from various angles. What he says is this:
'It has been shown in volume i, how accumulation works in the case of
the individual capitalist. By the conversion of the commodity-capital
into money, the surplus-product, in which the surplus-value is
incorporated, is also monetised. The capitalist reconverts the
surplus-value thus monetised into additional natural elements of his
productive capital. In the next cycle of production the increased
capital furnishes an increased product. But what happens in the case of
the individual capital, must also show in the annual reproduction of
society as a whole, just as we have seen it does in the case of
reproduction on a simple scale, where the successive precipitation of
the depreciated elements of fixed capital in the form of money,
accumulated as a hoard, also makes itself felt in the annual
reproduction of society.'[113]
He examines the mechanism of accumulation further from this very point
of view, focusing on the fact that surplus value must pass through the
money stage before it is accumulated.
'For instance, capitalist A, who sells during one year, or during a
number of successive years, certain quantities of commodities produced
by him, thereby converts that portion of the commodities, which bears
surplus-value, the surplus-product, or, in other words, the
surplus-value produced by himself, successively into money, accumulates
it gradually, and thus makes for himself a new potential money-capital.
It is potential money-capital on account of its capacity and destination
of being converted into the elements of productive capital. But
practically he merely accumulates a simple hoard, which is not an
element of actual production. His activity for the time being consists
only in withdrawing circulating money out of circulation. Of course, it
is not impossible that the circulating money thus laid away by him was
itself, before it entered into circulation, a portion of some other
hoard.'[114] 'Money is withdrawn from circulation and accumulated as a
hoard by the sale of commodities without a subsequent purchase. If this
operation is conceived as one taking place universally, then it seems
inexplicable where the buyers are to come from, since in that case
everybody would want to sell in order to hoard, and no one would want
to buy. And it must be so conceived, since every individual capital may
be in process of accumulation.
'If we were to conceive of the process of circulation as one taking
place in a straight line between the various divisions of annual
reproduction--which would be incorrect as it consists with a few
exceptions of mutually retroactive movements--then we should have to
start out from the producer of gold (or silver) who buys without
selling, and to assume that all others sell to him. In that case, the
entire social surplus-product of the current year would pass into his
hands, representing the entire surplus-value of the year, and all the
other capitalists would distribute among themselves their relative
shares in his surplus-product, which consists naturally of money, gold
being the natural form of his surplus-value. For that portion of the
product of the gold producer, which has to make good his active capital,
is already tied up and disposed of. The surplus-value of the gold
producer, in the form of gold, would then be the only fund from which
all other capitalists would have to derive the material for the
conversion of their annual surplus-product into gold. The magnitude of
its value would then have to be equal to the entire annual surplus-value
of society, which must first assume the guise of a hoard. Absurd as this
assumption would be, it would accomplish nothing more than to explain
the possibility of a universal formation of a hoard at the same period.
It would not further reproduction itself, except on the part of the gold
producer, by one single step.
'Before we solve this _seeming difficulty_, we must
distinguish....'[115]
The obstacle in the way of realising the surplus value which Marx here
calls a 'seeming difficulty' nevertheless is important enough for the
whole further discussion in _Capital_, volume ii, to be concentrated on
overcoming it. As a first attempt, Marx proffers the solution of a hoard
which, owing to the separation of the different individual constant
capitals in the process of circulation, will inevitably be formed in a
capitalist system of production. Inasmuch as different capital
investments have different spans of life, and there is always an
interval before the parts of a plant are due for renewal, at any given
moment we may find that one individual capitalist is already busy
renewing his plant, while another is still building up reserves from
the proceeds yielded by the sale of his commodities against the day
when he will have enough to renew his fixed capital.
'For instance, let A sell 600, representing _400c + 100v + 100s_ to B,
who may represent more than one buyer. A sells 600 in commodities for
600 in money, of which 100 are surplus-value which he withdraws from
circulation and hoards in the form of money. But these 100 in money are
but the money-form of the surplus-product in which a value of 100 was
incorporated.'[116]
In order to comprehend the problem in complete purity, Marx here assumes
the whole of the surplus value to be capitalised, for which reason he
ignores altogether that part of the surplus value is used for the
capitalists' personal consumption; in addition, A´, A´´ and A´´´ as well
as B´, B´´ and B´´´ here belong to Department I.
'The formation of a hoard, then, is not a production, nor is it an
increment of production. The action of the capitalist consists merely in
withdrawing from circulation 100 obtained by the sale of his
surplus-product, in holding and hoarding this amount. This operation is
carried on, not alone on the part of A, but at numerous points of the
periphery of circulation by other capitalists named A´, A´´, A´´´....
However, A accomplishes the formation of a hoard only to the extent that
he acts as a seller, so far as his surplus-product is concerned, not as
a buyer. His successive production of surplus-products, the bearers of
his surplus-value convertible into money, is therefore a premise for the
formation of his hoard. In the present case, where we are dealing only
with the circulation within Department I, the natural form of the
surplus-product, and of the total product of which it is a part, is that
of an element of constant capital of I, that is to say it belongs to the
category of a means of production creating means of production. We shall
see presently what becomes of it, what function it performs, in the
hands of the buyers such as B, B´, B´´, etc.
'It must particularly be noted at this point that A, while withdrawing
money from circulation and hoarding it, on the other hand throws
commodities into it without withdrawing other commodities in return. The
capitalists, B, B´, B´´, etc., are thereby enabled to throw only money
into it and withdraw only commodities from it. In the present case,
these commodities, according to their natural form and destination,
become a fixed or circulating element of the constant capital of B, B´,
etc.'[117]
There is nothing new about this whole process. Marx had already
described it extensively in connection with simple reproduction, since
it alone can explain how a society is able to renew constant capital
under conditions of capitalist reproduction. How this process can lay
the besetting problem of our analysis of enlarged reproduction is far
from self-evident. The difficulty had been that for the purpose of
accumulation, part of the surplus value is not consumed by the
capitalists but added to capital in order to expand production, giving
rise to the question of buyers for this additional product. The
capitalists do not want to consume it and the workers are not able to do
so, their entire consumption being covered in every case by the
available variable capital. Whence the demand for the accumulated
surplus value? or, as Marx would have it: Whence the money to pay for
the accumulated surplus value?
If, by way of answer, we are referred to the process of hoarding
attendant upon the gradual renewal of the constant capital by the
individual capitalists at various times, the connection between these
two points remains obscure. As long as B, B´ and B´´, etc., buy producer
goods from their colleagues A, A´ and A´´ in order to renew their
constant capital that has in fact been used up, the limits of simple
reproduction are not transcended, and the whole thing has nothing to do
with our problem. The moment the producer goods purchased by B, B´, B´´,
etc., serve to increase their constant capital, however, for purposes of
accumulation, a number of new questions clamour for attention. First and
foremost where do the B's get the cash to buy an additional product from
the A's? The only way they could have made their money is by sale of
their own surplus product. Before they can acquire new means of
production for expanding their enterprises, before they appear as
buyers, that is to say, of the surplus product that is to be
accumulated, they must first have disposed of their own surplus
product--in a word, B, B´, B´´, etc., must have been vendors themselves.
But who could have bought their surplus product? It is obvious that the
difficulty is simply shifted from the A's to the B's without having been
mastered.
At one stage of the analysis it really does seem for a time as if a
solution were found at last. After a short digression, Marx returns to
the main line of his investigation in the following words:
'In the present case, this surplus-product consists at the outset of
means of production used in the creation of means of production. It is
not until it reaches the hands of B, B´, B´´, etc., (I), that this
surplus-product serves as an additional constant capital. But it is
virtually that even in the hands of the accumulators of hoards, the
capitalists A, A´, A´´, (I), before it is sold. If we consider merely
the volume of values of the reproduction on the part of I, then we are
still moving within the limits of simple reproduction, for no additional
capital has been set in motion for the purpose of creating this virtual
additional capital (the surplus-product), nor has any greater amount of
surplus-labour been performed than that done on the basis of simple
reproduction. The difference is here only one of the form of the
surplus-labour performed, of the concrete nature of its particularly
useful service. It is expended in means of production for Department
I_c_ instead of II_c_, in means of production of means of production
instead of means of production of articles of consumption. In the case
of simple reproduction it had been assumed that the entire surplus-value
was spent as revenue in the commodities of II. Hence it consisted only
of such means of production as restore the constant capital of II_c_ in
its natural form. In order that the transition from simple to expanded
reproduction may take place, the production in Department I must be
enabled to create fewer elements for the constant capital of II and more
for that of I.... Considering the matter merely from the point of view
of the volume of values, it follows, then, that the material
requirements of expanded reproduction are produced within simple
reproduction. It is simply a question of the expenditure of the
surplus-labour of the working class of I for the production of means of
production, the creation of virtual additional capital of I. The virtual
additional money-capital, created on the part of A, A´, A´´, by the
successive sale of their surplus-product, which was formed without any
capitalist expenditure of money, is in this case simply the money-form
of the additional means of production made by I.'[118]
On this interpretation, the difficulty seems to dissolve into thin air
at our touch. Accumulation requires no new sources of money at all.
Before, when the capitalists themselves consumed their surplus value,
they had to have a corresponding money reserve in hand, the analysis of
simple reproduction already having proved that the capitalist class must
itself put into circulation the money needed for the realisation of
their surplus value. Now, instead of consumer goods, the capitalist
class, or rather B, B´, and B´´, buy an equivalent amount of means of
production in order to expand their production. In this way, money to
the same value is accumulated in the hands of the other capitalist
group, viz. A, A´, A´´, etc.
'This hoarding ... does not in any way imply an addition to the wealth
in precious metals, but only a change of function on the part of money
previously circulating. A while ago it served as a medium of
circulation, now it serves as a hoard, as a virtual additional
money-capital in process of formation.'[119]
And that is that! Yet this way out of the difficulty is open to us only
on one condition, and that is not far to seek: Marx here takes
accumulation in its first rudiments, _in statu nascendi_, as it begins
to evolve from simple reproduction. In respect of the amount of value,
production is not yet enlarged, it has only been rearranged so that its
material elements are grouped in a different way. That the sources of
money also seem adequate is therefore not surprising. This solution,
however, is only true for one specific moment, the period of transition
from simple reproduction to enlarged reproduction--in short, a moment
that has no reference to reality and can only be conceived
speculatively. Once accumulation has been established for some time,
when increasing amounts of value are thrown upon the market in every
period of production, buyers for these additional values cannot fail to
become a problem. And on this point the proffered solution breaks down.
For that matter, it was never more than a seeming solution, _not a real
one_. On closer scrutiny, it fails us even at the precise instant it
appears to have smoothed the way for us. For if we take accumulation
just at the very moment of its emergence from simple reproduction, the
prime condition it demands is a decrease in the consumption of the
capitalist class. No sooner have we discovered a way to expand
reproduction with the means of circulation already at hand, than we
find previous consumers trickling away at the same rate. What, then, is
the good of expanding production; who is there able to buy from B, B´
and B´´ this increased amount of products which they could turn out only
by denying themselves the money they need for buying new means of
production from A, A´ and A´´?
That solution, we see, was a mere illusion--the difficulty still
persists. Marx himself at once re-opens the question where B, B´ and B´´
get the money to buy the surplus product of A, A´ and A´´.
'To the extent that the products created by B, B´, B´´, etc., (I)
re-enter in their natural form into their own process, it goes without
saying that a corresponding portion of their own surplus-product is
transferred directly (without any intervention of circulation) to their
productive capital and becomes an element of additional constant
capital. To the same extent they do not help to convert any
surplus-product of A, A´, A´´ etc., (I) into money. Aside from this,
where does the money come from? We know that they have formed their
hoard in the same way as A, A´, etc., by the sale of their respective
surplus-products. Now they have arrived at the point where their
accumulated hoard of virtual money-capital is to enter effectually upon
its function as additional money-capital. But this is merely turning
around in a circle. The question still remains: Where does the money
come from, which the various B's (I) withdrew from the circulation and
accumulated?'[120]
His prompt reply again seems surprisingly simple: 'Now we know from the
analysis of simple reproduction, that the capitalists of I and II must
have a certain amount of ready money in their hands, in order to be able
to dispose of their surplus-products. In that case, the money which
served only for the spending of revenue in articles of consumption
returned to the capitalists in the same measure in which they advanced
it for the purpose of disposing of their commodities. Here the same
money reappears, but in a different function. The A's and B's supply one
another alternately with the money for converting their surplus-product
into virtual additional capital, and throw the newly formed
money-capital alternately into circulation as a medium of
purchase.'[121]
That is harking back to simple reproduction all over again. It is quite
true, of course, that the capitalists A and the capitalists B are
constantly accumulating a hoard of money bit by bit so as to be able to
renew their constant (fixed) capital from time to time, and in this way
they really are assisting one another in realising their products. Yet
this accumulating hoard does not drop from the clouds--it is simply a
natural precipitation of the fixed capital that is (in terms of value)
continually being transferred in instalments to the products which are
then one by one realised in the process of sale. Owing to its very
nature, the accumulated hoard can only cover the renewal of the old
capital; there cannot possibly be enough to serve further for purchasing
additional constant capital. That means that we are still within the
limits of simple reproduction. Perhaps, though, that part of the medium
of circulation which hitherto served the capitalists for their personal
consumption, and is now to be capitalised, becomes a new source of
additional money? For that to be true, however, we should have to be
back at the unique and fleeting moment that has no more than theoretical
existence--the period of transition from simple to enlarged
reproduction. Beyond this gap accumulation cannot proceed--we are in
truth going round in circles.
So the capitalist hoarding 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
constitutes the problem of accumulation, 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 accumulation 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 assumes 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 accumulation
of B, B´, etc., it follows, must lead us to circulation between
Departments I and II. Thus Marx's analysis itself confirms that, if
Department I is to accumulate, 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 accumulate 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 accumulation 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 fictitious
moment of transition--in order in elucidate the problem of
accumulation--from simple reproduction to enlarged reproduction, making
his major premise accumulation 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
accumulation 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 hoard 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 accumulation 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 accumulate 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
accumulation 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 analysis 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
analysis. (3) The simple circumstance that the difficulty which must be
overcome did not show itself in the analysis 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 accumulation by
moments pertaining to simple reproduction, viz. the formation of a hoard
consequent upon the gradual turnover of the fixed capital in the hands
of the capitalists which was previously adduced as the explanation of
accumulation in Department I.
Marx then proceeds to set out enlarged reproduction in the form of
diagrams. But no sooner does he begin to analyse his diagram, than the
same difficulty crops up anew in a slightly different guise. Assuming
that the capitalists of Department II must for their part convert 140_s_
into constant capital so as to make accumulation 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
accumulation 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 accumulation. 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 accumulation 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 pass 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
accumulation 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 accumulation? 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 accumulates 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 accumulates 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 accumulation 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 passes into Department II as additional variable capital of
the gold producers, promotes the accumulation of new hoards 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
accumulation, 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
analysis branded as 'absurd'. The analysis 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.