Yet the figures we have quoted fail to show a quicker accumulation in Department II, and in fact show it to fluctuate. Here the principle seems to be as follows: Marx enables accumulation to continue by broadening the basis of production in Department I. Accumulation in Department II appears only as a condition and consequence of accumulation in Department I: absorbing, in the first place, the other's surplus means of production and supplying it, secondly, with the necessary surplus of consumer goods for its additional labour. Department I retains the initiative all the time, Department II being merely a passive follower. Thus the capitalists of Department II are only allowed to accumulate just as much as, and are made to consume no less than, is needed for the accumulation of Department I. While in Department I half the surplus value is capitalised every time, and the other half consumed, so that there is an orderly expansion both of production and of personal consumption by the capitalists, the twofold process in Department II takes the following erratic course: 1st year: 150 are capitalised, 600 consumed 2nd 240 660 3rd 254 626 4th 290 678 5th 320 745 Here there is no rule in evidence for accumulation and consumption to follow; both are wholly subservient to the requirements of accumulation in Department I. Needless to say, the absolute figures of the diagram are arbitrary in every equation, but that does not detract from their scientific value. It is the _quantitative ratios_ which are relevant, since they are supposed to express strictly determinate relationships. Those precise logical rules that lay down the relations of accumulation in Department I, seem to have been gained at the cost of any kind of principle in construing these relations for Department II; and this circumstance calls for a revision of the immanent connections revealed by the analysis. It might, however, be permissible to assume the defect to lie in a rather unhappy choice of example. Marx himself, dissatisfied with the diagram quoted above, proceeded forthwith to give a second example in order to elucidate the movements of accumulation, where the figures of the equation run in the following order: I. _5,000c + 1,000v + 1,000s = 7,000_ II. _1,430c + 285v + 285s = 2,000_ ----- Total: 9,000