productive capital, money-capital, and commodity-capital, so that they not only alternate with one another, but different portions of the total capital-value are constantly side by side and function in these different states. Especially money-capital came forward with distinctive features not shown in Book I. Certain laws were found according to which diverse large components of a given capital must be continually advanced and renewed -- depending on the conditions of the turnover -- in the form of money-capital in order to keep a productive capital of a given size constantly functioning.
But in both the first and the second Parts it was always only a question of some individual capital, of the movement of some individualised part of social capital.
However the circuits of the individual capitals intertwine, presuppose and necessitate one another, and form, precisely in this interlacing, the movement of the total social capital. Just as in the simple circulation of commodities the total metamorphosis of a commodity appeared as a link in the series of metamorphoses of the world of commodities, so now the metamorphosis of the individual capital appears as a link in the series of metamorphoses of the social capital. But while simple commodity circulation by no means necessarily comprises the circulation of capital -- since it may take place on the basis of non-capitalist production -- the circuit of the aggregate social capital, as was noted, comprises also the commodity circulation lying outside the circuit of individual capital, i.e., the circulation of commodities which do not represent capital.
We have now to study the process of circulation (which in its entirety is a form of the process of reproduction) of the individual capitals as components of the aggregate social capital, that is to say, the process of circulation of this aggregate social capital. II. THE ROLE OF MONEY-CAPITAL[Although the following belongs in a later section of this Part, we shall analyse it immediately, namely, the money-capital considered as a constituent part of the aggregate social capital.]
In the study of the turnover of the individual capital money-capital revealed two aspects.
In the first place it constitutes the form in which every individual capital appears upon the scene and opens its process as capital. It therefore appears as the primus motor, lending impetus to the entire process.
In the second place, that portion of the advanced capital-value which must be continually advanced and renewed in the form of money differs in its ratio to the productive capital which it sets in motion, i.e., in its ratio to the continuous scale of production, depending on the particular length of the period of turnover and the particular ratio between its two component parts -- the working period and the period of circulation. But whatever this ratio may be, the portion of the capital-value in process which can continually function as productive capital is limited in any event by that portion of the advanced capital-value which must always exist beside the productive capital in the form of money. It is here merely a question of the normal turnover, an abstract average. Additional money-capital required to compensate for interruptions of the circulation is excepted.
As to the first point: commodity production presupposes commodity circulation, and commodity circulation presupposes the expression of commodities in money, the circulation of money; the splitting of a commodity into commodity and money is law of the expression of the product as a commodity. Similarly the capitalist production of commodities -- whether considered socially or individually -- presupposes capital in the form of money, or money-capital, both as the primus motor of every incipient business, and as its continual motor. The circulating capital especially implies that the money-capital acts with constant repetition at short intervals as a motor. The entire advanced capital-value, that is to say, all the elements of capital, consisting of commodities, labour-power, instruments of labour, and materials of production, must be bought over and over again with money. What is true here of the individual capital is also true of the social capital, which functions only in the form of many individual capitals. But as we showed in Book I, it does not at all follow from this that capital's field of operation, the scale of production, depends -- even on a capitalist basis -- for its absolute limits on the amount of functioning money-capital.
Incorporated in capital are elements of production whose expansion within certain limits is independent of the magnitude of the advanced money-capital.
Though payment of labour-power be the same, it can be exploited more or less extensively or intensively. If the money-capital is increased with this greater exploitation (that is, if wages are raised), it is not increased proportionately, hence not at all pro tanto.
The productively exploited nature-given materials -- the soil, the seas, ores, forests, etc. -- which do not constitute elements of capital-value, are more intensively or extensively exploited with a greater exertion of the same amount of labour-power, without an increased advance of money-capital.
The real elements of productive capital are thus multiplied without requiring an additional money-capital. But so far as such an addition becomes necessary for additional auxiliary materials, the money-capital in which the capital-value is advanced is not increased proportionately to the augmented effectiveness of the productive capital, hence is pro tanto not at all increased.
