Capitalism; Imperialism; Saving and investment; Socialism
We may put our point in yet another way: it is clear that a quicker
growth of constant as compared with variable capital, i.e. the
progressive metamorphosis of the organic composition of capital, must
take the material form of faster expansion of production in Department I
as against production in Department II. Yet Marx's diagram, where strict
conformity of the two departments is axiomatic, precludes any such
fluctuations in the rate of accumulation in either department. It is
quite legitimate to suppose that under the technical conditions of
progressive accumulation, society would invest ever increasing portions
of the surplus value earmarked for accumulation in Department I rather
than in Department II. Both departments being only branches of the same
social production--supplementary enterprises, if you like, of the
'aggregate capitalist',--such a progressive transfer, for technical
reasons, from one department to the other of a part of the accumulated
surplus value would be wholly feasible, especially as it corresponds to
the actual practice of capital. Yet this assumption is possible only so
long as we envisage the surplus value earmarked for capitalisation
purely in terms of value. The diagram, however, implies that this part
of the surplus value appears in a definite material form which
prescribes its capitalisation. Thus the surplus value of Department II
exists as means of subsistence, and since it is as such to be only
realised by Department I, this intended transfer of part of the
capitalised surplus value from Department II to Department I is ruled
out, first because the material form of this surplus value is obviously
useless to Department I, and secondly because of the relations of
exchange between the two departments which would in turn necessitate an
equivalent transfer of the products of Department I into Department II.
It is therefore downright impossible to achieve a faster expansion of
Department I as against Department II within the limits of Marx's
diagram.
However we may regard the technological alterations of the mode of
production in the course of accumulation, they cannot be accomplished
without upsetting the fundamental relations of Marx's diagram.
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