Capitalism; Imperialism; Saving and investment; Socialism
The other side of this picture of continual changes in the relation
between the portions of constant and variable capital is the formation
of a relative surplus population, as Marx called it, that is to say that
part of the working population which exceeds the average needs of
capital, and thus becomes redundant. This reserve of unemployable
industrial labour (taken here in a broader sense, and including a
proletariat that is dominated by merchant capital) is always present. It
forms a necessary prerequisite of the sudden expansion of production in
times of boom, and is another specific condition of capitalist
accumulation.[99]
From the accumulation of individual capitals we can therefore deduce the
following four characteristic phenomena of enlarged reproduction:
(1) The volume of enlarged reproduction is independent, within certain
limits, of the growth of capital, and can transcend it. The necessary
methods for achieving this are: increased exploitation of labour and
natural forces, and increased labour productivity (including increased
efficiency of the fixed capital).
(2) All real accumulation starts with that part of the surplus value
which is intended for capitalisation being divided into constant and
variable capital.
(3) Accumulation as a social process is accompanied by continuous
changes in the relation between constant and variable capital, whereby
that portion of capital which is invested in inanimate means of
production continually increases as compared with that expended on
wages.
(4) Concomitant with the accumulative process, and as a condition of the
latter, there develops an industrial reserve army.
These characteristics, derived from the reproductive process as it is
performed by the individual capitals, represent an enormous step
forward as compared with the analyses of bourgeois economists. Now,
however, our problem is to demonstrate the accumulation of the aggregate
capital which originates from these movements of individual capitals,
and on the basis of the diagram of simple reproduction to establish the
precise relations between the aspects of value prevalent in the
production of surplus value and the material considerations in the
production of consumer and producer goods, with a view to accumulation.
The essential difference between enlarged reproduction and simple
reproduction consists in the fact that in the latter the capitalist
class and its hangers-on consume the entire surplus value, whereas in
the former a part of the surplus value is set aside from the personal
consumption of its owners, not for the purpose of hoarding, but in order
to increase the active capital, i.e. for capitalisation. To make this
possible, the new additional capital must also find the material
prerequisites for its activity forthcoming. Here the concrete
composition of the aggregate social product becomes important. Marx says
already in volume i, when he considers the accumulation of individual
capitals:
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