The Rate of Profit
Capital Volume 3, Part 1: The Conversion of Surplus-Value into Profit
and of the Rate of Surplus-Value into the Rate of Profit
Marx begins Volume 3 as
follows:
“In Book I we analysed the phenomena which
constitute the process of capitalist
production as such, as the immediate productive process,
with no regard for any of the secondary effects of outside influences.
“But this
immediate process of production does not exhaust the life span of capital. It
is supplemented in the actual world by the process of circulation, which was
the object of study in Book II. In
the latter, namely in Part III, which treated the process of circulation as a
medium for the process of social reproduction, it developed that the capitalist
process of production taken as a whole represents a synthesis of the processes
of production and circulation.
“Considering
what this third book treats, it
cannot confine itself to general reflection relative to this synthesis. On the
contrary, it must locate and describe the concrete forms which grow out of
the movements of capital as a
whole. In their actual movement capitals confront each other in such
concrete shape, for which the form of capital in the immediate process of
production, just as its form in the process of circulation, appear only as
special instances. The various forms of capital, as evolved in this book, thus
approach step by step the form which they assume on the surface of society, in
the action of different capitals upon one another, in competition, and in the
ordinary consciousness of the agents of production themselves.”
In Chapter 21 of Volume 2
Marx had written:
“Let us note
by the way: Once more we find here, as we did in the case of simple
reproduction, that the exchange of the various component parts of the annual
product, i.e., their circulation …does not by any means presuppose mere
purchase of commodities supplemented by a subsequent sale, or a sale
supplemented by a subsequent purchase, so that there would actually be a bare
exchange of commodity for commodity, as Political Economy assumes, especially
the free-trade school since the physiocrats and Adam Smith.”
Like that of the physiocrats
and Adam Smith, the “ordinary consciousness of the agents of production
themselves” is confined to “the surface of society”. In the journey through
Volume 1 and Volume 2, from Marx’s point of departure in the first line of the
entire work (“The wealth of those
societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails, presents itself
as ‘an immense accumulation of commodities’") we have submarined among
the deep and hidden workings of the system, so as to comprehend its true
nature. Now, in Volume 3, we are going to emerge again into the visible world,
and examine the phenomena that form the conscious narrative of politics, and
which inform the subjective reactions of men and women from day to day and year
to year.
But we must continue to hold
in mind the revelations of Volumes 1 and 2. Marx is still exploring “the secret of the self-expansion of
capital”.
In the beginning of Chapter 2
of Volume III, Marx again allows himself to be terse and direct:
“The general
formula of capital is M-C-M'. In other words, a sum of value is thrown into
circulation to extract a larger sum out of it. The process which produces this
larger sum is capitalist production. The process that realises it is
circulation of capital. The capitalist does not produce a commodity for its own
sake, nor for the sake of its use-value, or his personal consumption. The
product in which the capitalist is really interested is not the palpable
product itself, but the excess value of the product over the value of the
capital consumed by it.
“…he is a
capitalist, and can undertake the process of exploiting labour only because,
being the owner of the conditions of labour, he confronts the labourer as the
owner of only labour-power. As already shown in the first book, (i.e. Volume 1)
it is precisely the fact that non-workers own the means of production which
turns labourers into wage-workers and non-workers into capitalists.”
Capital is more of a
relationship than a thing. It is permanently a relationship. It may have a
money-form as part of its cycle, but the relationship of labourer to capitalist
is constant throughout the cycle.
Volume III is divided into
seven parts. We will take one part at a time, and choose one chapter from each
part as an attached reading text.
·
The above is to
introduce the original reading-text: Capital Volume 3,
Chapter 2, The Rate of Profit, Karl Marx.
