Capitalism; Imperialism; Saving and investment; Socialism
Moreover, there are certain other aspects to be considered. The concept
of expanding reproduction applies only to the quantity of products, to
the aggregate of manufactured objects. So long as production rests
solely or mainly upon a natural economy, consumption determines the
extent and character of the individual labour process, as well as that
of reproduction in general, as an end in itself: this applies to the
agrarian and communist village communities of India, to the Roman
_villa_ with its economy of slave labour, and to the medieval feudal
farm based on _corvée_. But the picture is different in a capitalist
economic system. Capitalist production is not production for the purpose
of consumption, it is production for the purpose of creating value. The
whole process of production as well as of reproduction is ruled by value
relationships. Capitalist production is not the production of consumer
goods, nor is it merely the production of commodities: it is
pre-eminently the production of surplus value. Expanding reproduction,
from a capitalist point of view, is expanding production of surplus
value, though it takes place in the forms of commodity production and is
thus in the last instance the production of consumer goods. Changes in
the productivity of labour during the course of reproduction cause
continual discrepancies between these two aspects. If productivity
increases, the same amount of capital and surplus value may represent a
progressively larger amount of consumer goods. Expanding production,
understood as the creation of a greater amount of surplus value, need
not therefore necessarily imply expanding reproduction in the capitalist
meaning of the term. Conversely, capital may, within limits, yield a
greater surplus value in consequence of a higher degree of exploitation
such as is brought about by wage-cutting and the like, without actually
producing a greater amount of goods. But in both cases the surplus value
has a twofold aspect: it is a quantity of value as well as an aggregate
of material products, and from a capitalist point of view, its elements
in both instances are thus the same.
As a rule, an increased production of surplus value results from an
increase of capital brought about by addition of part of the
appropriated surplus value to the original capital, no matter whether
this capitalist surplus value is used for the expansion of an old
enterprise or for founding a new one, an independent offshoot.
Capitalist expanding reproduction thus acquires the specific
characteristics of an increase in capital by means of a progressive
capitalisation of surplus value, or, as Marx has put it, by the
accumulation of capital.
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