The more the money functions as a paying medium, the more therefore --for instance in the replacement of some commodity-capital by its means of production -- nothing but balances have to be squared, and the shorter the periods of time when payments fall due, as for instance in paying wages, the less money a given mass of capital-value therefore requires for its circulation. On the other hand, assuming that the velocity of the circulation and all other conditions remain the same, the amount of money required to circulate as money-capital is determined by the sum of the prices of the commodities (price multiplied by the volume of commodities), or, if the quantity and value of the commodities are fixed, by the value of the money itself.
But the laws of the general circulation of commodities are valid only when capital's circulation process consists of a series of simple acts of circulation; they do not apply when the latter constitute functionally determined sections of the circuit of individual industrial capitals.
In order to make this plain, it is best to study the process of circulation in its uninterrupted interconnection, such as it appears in the following two forms:
C --- | M --- C < L MP ... P (P')II) P ... C' |--- M'
c --- | m --- c | C --- | M --- C < L MP ... P ... C'
III)
C' |--- M
c --- | m --- c As series of acts of circulation in general, the process of circulation (whether in the form of C---M---C or of M---C---M) represents the two antithetical series of commodity metamorphoses, every single one of which in its turn implies an opposite metamorphosis on the part of the alien commodity or alien money confronting the commodity.
C---M on the part of the owner of a commodity means M---C on the part of its buyer; the first metamorphosis of the commodity appearing in the form of M; the opposite applies to M---C. What has been shown concerning the intertwining of the metamorphosis of a certain commodity in one stage with that of another in another stage applies to the circulation of capital so far as the capitalist functions as a buyer and seller of commodities, and his capital on that account functions in the form of money opposed to the commodities of another. But this intertwining is not to be identified with the intertwining of the metamorphoses of capitals.
In the first place M---C (MP), as we have seen, may represent an intermingling of the metamorphoses of different individual capitals.
For instance the commodity-capital of the spinning-mill owner, yarn is partly replaced by coal. One part of his capital exists in the form of money and is converted into the form of commodities, while the capital of the capitalist producer of coal is in the form of commodities and is therefore converted into the form of money; the same act of circulation represents in this case opposite metamorphoses of two industrial capitals (in different branches of production), hence an intertwining of the series of metamorphoses of these capitals. But as we have seen the MP into which M is transformed need not be commodity-capital in the categorical sense, i.e., need not be a functional form of industrial capital, need not be produced by a capitalist. It is always M---C on one side and C---M on the other, but not always an intermingling of metamorphoses of capitals. Furthermore M---L, the purchase of labour-power, is never an intermingling of metamorphoses of capitals, for labour-power, though the commodity of the labourer, does not become capital until it is sold to the capitalist. On the other hand in the process C'---M', it is not necessary that M' should represent converted commodity-capital; it may be the realisation in money of the commodity labour-power (wages), or of the product of some independent labourer, slave, serf, or community.
In the second place however it is not at all required for the discharge of the functionally determined role played by every metamorphosis occurring within the process of circulation of some individual capital that this metamorphosis should represent the corresponding opposite metamorphosis in the circuit of the other capital, provided we assume that the entire production of the world-market is carried on capitalistically. For instance in the circuit P ... P, the M which converts C' into money may be to the buyer only the realisation in money of his surplus-value (if the commodity is an article of consumption); or in M'---C'< L MP (where therefore already accumulated capital enters) M' may, as far as the vendor of MP is concerned, enter into the circulation of his capital only to replace his advanced capital or it may not re-enter at all by being diverted into revenue expenditure.
herefore the manner in which the various component parts of the aggregate social capital, of which the individual capitals are but constituents functioning independently, mutually replace one another in the process of circulation -- in regard to capital as well as surplus-value -- is not ascertained from the simple intertwinings of the metamorphoses in the circulation of commodities -- intertwinings which the acts of capital circulation have in common with all other circulation of commodities. That requires a different method of investigation. Hitherto one has been satisfied with uttering phrases which upon closer analysis are found to contain nothing but indefinite ideas borrowed from the intertwining of metamorphoses common to all commodity circulation.
_______________One of the most obvious peculiarities of the movement in circuits of industrial capital, and therefore also of capitalist production, is the fact that on one hand the component elements of productive capital are derived from the commodity-market and must be continually renewed out of it, bought as commodities; and that on the other hand the product of the labour-process emerges from it as a commodity and must be continually sold anew as a commodity.
