Marx-Engels Collected Works Volume 31

Author: Translator: Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party of the Marx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin Works Research Institute
Publisher:
Publish Date: 1998-12-01
Features: This volume is a continuation of the 30th volume of the second Chinese edition of the Collected Works of Marx and Engels. It belongs to the same unit as the 30th volume. The first part of this volume publishes the latter part of the Drafts of the Critique of Political Economy (1857-1858). The former part of this lengthy manuscript is included in the 30th volume, starting with Chapter 11, "Money," followed by Chapter 12, "Capital." The "Capital" chapter is divided into three parts: Part 1, "The Process of Capitalist Production"; Part 2, "The Circulation Process of Capital"; and Part 3, "Capital as a Resultant Substance. Interest. Profit. Production Costs, etc." The manuscript concludes with the beginning of Chapter 1, "Value," and an excerpt on the gold weighing machine. This volume begins with the latter part of Part 2, "The Circulation Process of Capital." In addition to this manuscript, this volume also includes two other economic manuscripts written by Marx after this period, both from the 1857-1858 period: Index to the Seven Notebooks (Part I) and fragments of the first draft of Chapter 2 and the beginning of Chapter 3 of the Critique of Political Economy (Part II). Following these, this volume includes the Critique of Political Economy (Part II), officially published in 1859, followed by three economic manuscripts written by Marx between 1859 and 1861: Draft Plan of the "Capital" Chapter, Index to Quotations, and Outline of My Own Notebook.
In Part 2, "The Circulation Process of Capital," of the Drafts of the Critique of Political Economy (1857-1858), Marx's analysis of the capital circulation process is entirely different from that of bourgeois economists. The latter isolate the circulation process from the production process and analyze it in isolation, whereas Marx views the production and circulation processes of capital as a dialectical unity. Marx points out that the form in which capital performs its functions manifests as a continuous movement: it creates value and surplus value in the production process, realizes this value in the circulation process, and then returns to the production process with greater value, repeating this cycle indefinitely. Thus, the entire movement of capital is "the unity of production and circulation," and this unity itself is movement, is process" (see this volume, p. 6).
When studying capital circulation, Marx elaborates on the theory of capital turnover. He states that one cycle of capital turnover equals the sum of the production time and circulation time of capital. The total value created by capital within a given period depends on the number of times the production process is repeated, and the frequency of repetition depends on the speed of circulation. Therefore, "within a certain cycle of capital turnover, the total value created by capital is proportional to labor time and inversely proportional to circulation time," in other words, "the total value of capital within a given cycle (and thus the total new surplus value created) equals labor time multiplied by the number of capital turnover cycles" (see this volume, p. 15). The faster the turnover, the more cycles it completes, and the greater its total value. For example, capital that turns over four times a year has a total value four times that of the same amount of capital that turns over only once a year. Thus, the speed of capital turnover can replace the quantity of capital. The tendency of capital is to maximize efficiency and accelerate turnover, but at the same time, there are many factors that slow down turnover.
In examining capital turnover, Marx scientifically defines the categories of fixed capital and circulating capital on the basis of a critical analysis of a large amount of bourgeois economic data. The different components of capital transfer their value to products in different ways: fixed capital (the value of means of labor, etc.) transfers its value gradually to the product, while circulating capital (the value of raw materials and labor power) transfers its entire value at once to the product. Marx demonstrates that the ratio between these two types of capital has a significant impact on the speed of turnover, and thus on the rate of surplus value.
In the historical development of capitalism, capitalists have continuously improved production equipment and adopted new technologies to increase surplus value and profits, leading to an ever-increasing proportion of fixed capital. This, in turn, severely affects the speed of capital turnover.