Capitalism; Imperialism; Saving and investment; Socialism
'The annual production must in the first place furnish all those objects
(use-values) from which the material components of capital, used up in
the course of the year, have to be replaced. Deducting these there
remains the net or surplus-product, in which the surplus-value lies. And
of what does this surplus-value consist? Only of things destined to
satisfy the wants and desires of the capitalist class, things which,
consequently, enter into the consumption fund of the capitalists? Were
that the case, the cup of surplus-value would be drained to the very
dregs, and nothing but simple reproduction would ever take place.
'To accumulate it is necessary to convert a portion of the
surplus-product into capital. But we cannot, except by a miracle,
convert into capital anything but such articles as can be employed in
the labour-process (i.e. means of production), and such further articles
as are suitable for the sustenance of the labourer (i.e. means of
subsistence). Consequently, a part of the annual surplus-labour must
have been applied to the production of additional means of production
and subsistence, over and above the quantity of these things required to
replace the capital advanced. In one word, surplus-value is convertible
into capital solely because the surplus-product, whose value it is,
already comprises the material elements of new capital.'[332]
The following conditions of accumulation are here laid down: (1) The
surplus value to be capitalised first comes into being in the natural
form of capital (as additional means of production and additional means
of subsistence for the workers). (2) The expansion of capitalist
production is achieved exclusively by means of capitalist products, i.e.
its own means of production and subsistence. (3) The limits of this
expansion are each time determined in advance by the amount of surplus
value which is to be capitalised in any given case; they cannot be
extended, since they depend on the amount of the means of production and
subsistence which make up the surplus product; neither can they be
reduced, since a part of the surplus value could not then be employed in
its natural form. Deviations in either direction (above and below) may
give rise to periodical fluctuations and crises--in this context,
however, these may be ignored, because in general the surplus product to
be capitalised must be equal to actual accumulation. (4) Since
capitalist production buys up its entire surplus product, there is no
limit to the accumulation of capital.
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