The formula c + v + s will now be considered as the expression of the total social product. Is this a mere theoretical construct, an abstract schema? Or is there a real content immanent within this formula when it is applied to society as a whole—i.e. does it have an objective social existence?
It was Marx who first established constant capital, c, as a theoretical category of fundamental significance. However, Smith himself, although he operates exclusively with the categories of fixed and circulating capital, actually transforms fixed capital, albeit unconsciously, into constant capital—i.e. he includes not only means of production that are expended over the course of several years under this category, but also those that are entirely consumed annually in production.26 His very theory that total value resolves into v + s, and the arguments that he offers for it, lead him to distinguish two categories of the conditions of production: living labor and all dead means of production. On the other hand, when he attempts to construct the social process of reproduction on the basis of individual capitals and revenues, “fixed capital” (i.e. in reality, constant capital) is omitted.
Each individual capitalist employs certain material means of production in order to produce his commodities, such as buildings, raw materials, and tools. It is obvious that the aggregate of material means of production used by individual capitalists is required for the total production of commodities in a given society. The existence of these means of production in this society is a very real fact, even if they only exist in the form of private, individual capitals. This is the expression of the universal, absolute condition of social production in all its historical forms. The particular capitalist form manifests itself in the fact that the material means of production function precisely as constant capital, c; that is, they function as capital, as the property of those who do not work, as the opposite pole to proletarianized labor-power, as the counterpart to wage-labor. Variable capital, v, is the sum of wages actually paid in the society in the course of a year’s production. This fact, too, has a real objective existence, even if variable capital is manifested as innumerable individual wages. In every society, the quantity of labor-power actually engaged in production and its annual maintenance is a question of fundamental importance. The particular capitalist form of this category—i.e. variable capital—implies the following: the workers’ means of subsistence confront them as (1) wages, i.e. as the price of the labor-power that they have sold, and as the property of others, of non-workers, the owners of the material means of production; (2) as a sum of money—i.e. as the mere value-form of their means of consumption. Variable capital expresses both the fact that workers are doubly “free”—they are personally free and also free of all means of production—and the fact that commodity production is the general form of production in the given society.
Finally, surplus value, s, represents the aggregate of surplus values obtained by the individual capitalists. Surplus labor is performed in all societies, and will also have to be carried out in a socialist society, for instance. This is true in three senses: first, as a quantity of labor for the maintenance of non-workers (those unable to work, children, the elderly, the disabled, public servants, and the so-called liberal professions, who do not immediately participate in the production process);27 second, as an insurance fund of society in case of natural disasters that threaten to cause a shortfall in the annual mass of products (crop failure, forest fires, floods, etc.); and third, as a fund for the expansion of production, whether as a result of an increase in population, or of the cultural enhancement of needs. The capitalist form of surplus labor expresses itself in the following: first, in the fact that surplus labor is performed as surplus value—i.e. in the commodity-form, and such that it can be realized as money; and second, that it manifests itself as the property of the non-working owners of the means of production.
Similarly, taken together, both terms in the expression v + s ultimately represent an objective quantity that has a universal validity—namely the total sum of living labor performed in society in the course of a year. Every human society, whatever its historical form, must take heed of this fact, both in relation to the results that have been achieved and to the existence and availability of labor power. The division into v + s is also a universal phenomenon, independent of the particular historical form of society. The capitalist expression of this division does not only manifest itself in the qualitative particularities of the two terms highlighted above, but also in their quantitative relationship: variable capital tends to be reduced to the physiological and social minimum necessary for the existence of the workers, and surplus value tends to increase continually at the cost of, and relative to, variable capital.
Finally, the latter circumstance expresses the predominant characteristic of capitalist production, namely that the generation and appropriation of surplus value is the actual goal and driving motive of this production.
It can be seen, then, that the relations underlying the capitalist formula for the total social product are universally valid and that they are the object of conscious regulation by society in every planned form of economy, whether by the ensemble of the workers and their democratic organs in a communist society or by the property-owning core and its despotic power in a society resting upon class rule. There is no planned regulation of the whole within the capitalist form of production. In reality, the totality of capitals and commodities in society consists in a sum of innumerable fragmented individual capitals and individual commodities.
The question thus arises whether these aggregates have any more significance in capitalist society than mere statistical agglomerations, and imprecise and fluctuating ones at that. What is expressed at the level of society as a whole, however, is that the completely independent and autonomous individual existence of private capitalist enterprises is merely a historically conditioned form whose foundation is constituted by social interrelations. Although the individual capitals act completely independently, and regulation by society is utterly lacking, the total movement of all capitals occurs as a unified whole. This total movement also manifests itself in specifically capitalist forms. In every planned form of production, regulation above all concerns the relation between the total labor already performed, the labor to be performed, and the means of production, or, in terms of the formula given above, the relation between (v + s) and c. To formulate it another way, this is the relation between the requisite means of subsistence and the requisite means of production—again, in terms of the formula, the relation between (v + s) and c. In the capitalist form, however, the social labor necessary for the maintenance of dead means of production as well as that of living labor-power is treated as a unified whole, as capital, and is contrasted with the surplus-labor performed, i.e., with surplus value, s. The relation between these two magnitudes, s and (c + v) is a real, objective, tangible relation of capitalist society: it is the average rate of profit, which treats each private capital only as a part of a common whole, the total social capital, and allocates the total surplus value extracted from society to each private capital according to its size, irrespective of the actual quantity of surplus value produced by the latter. Total social capital and its counterpart, total social surplus value, are thus not merely real entities with an objective existence—indeed the relation between them, the average rate of profit, governs and directs the whole exchange. The average rate of profit does this by determining the quantitative relations of exchange of individual kinds of commodities independently of their particular value relations; furthermore, it governs the social division of labor (i.e. the allocation of corresponding portions of capital and labor-power to the individual spheres of production); finally, it drives the development of the productivity of labor both by stimulating individual capitals to pioneer new labor processes in order to secure a higher than average profit, and by causing the technical advances achieved by individual capitals to be extended to the whole of production, etc. In short: total social capital completely governs the apparently autonomous movements of individual capitals through the average rate of profit.28
The formula c + v + s thus does not merely correspond to the value-composition of each individual commodity, but also to the aggregate of commodities produced by capitalist production in society. This is only the case in relation to the value-composition—the analogy cannot be taken further.
The above formula is perfectly correct, then, if the aim is to analyze the total product of a society engaging in capitalist production as a totality (as the product of one year’s labor) into its respective components. The term c indicates how much past labor (i.e. labor performed in previous years) is transferred into this year’s product in the form of means of production. The term v + s represents the value-component of the product exclusively created by new labor in the current year. Finally, the relation between v and s reveals the division of the annual workload of society between the maintenance of workers and that of non-workers. This analysis remains correct and pertinent also for the reproduction of individual capitals irrespective of the material form of the product generated by them. To the capitalist of the machine industry, c, v, and s all reappear in the form of machines or machine components. For his colleague in the branch of sugar production, c, v, and s emerge into the world from the production process in the form of sugar. For the proprietor of a music hall, they are objectified in the bodily attractions of the dancers and the “eccentrics” who appear on stage. They differ from one another in the undifferentiated product only as aliquot parts of value. This is quite sufficient for the reproduction of the individual capital, for it begins in the value-form of capital—i.e. its starting point is a certain sum of money yielded by the realization of the product that has been produced. The formula c + v + s, then, is the given foundation for the division of this sum of money into one part for the purchase of material means of production, another part for the purchase of labor-power, and a third part for the personal consumption of the capitalist—in the case where simple reproduction occurs, which is the initial assumption here. In the case of expanded reproduction, this third part is itself divided between a component for the personal consumption of the capitalist and another for the expansion of capital. It goes without saying that, having divided his money-capital in this way, the capitalist must turn once again to the commodity market in order to acquire the material presuppositions of production: raw materials, tools, etc., and labor-power. The individual capitalist takes it as given that he will actually find the means of production and labor-power that he needs for his business available to him on the market, as does his scientific ideologue, the vulgar economist.
The situation is different with regard to total social production. From the standpoint of society as a whole, commodity exchange can only bring about an all-round redistribution of the individual components of the total social product, but it cannot alter its material composition. Whether this redistribution occurs or not, the reproduction of the total social capital can only take place if the total social product resulting from the previous period of production contains the following: first, sufficient means of production; second, enough means of subsistence for the maintenance of the same amount of labor power as in the previous period; third (last but not least), the requisite means of consumption in order to maintain the capitalist class and the strata appended to it “in a manner befitting their station.” This leads onto a new domain, from the sphere of pure value-relations to that of material considerations. At issue now is the use-form of the total social product. What is a matter of complete indifference* to the individual capitalist becomes one of grave concern for the collective capitalist.* For the individual capitalist, it is neither here nor there whether the commodities he produces are machines, sugar, fertilizer, or newspapers for freethinking intellectuals, provided only that he can find takers for them, so that he can extract his capital together with surplus value. For the collective capitalist, on the other hand, it is crucial that its total product should have a very determinate use-form. Three kinds of things must be found in this total product: means of production for the renewal of the labor process; simple means of subsistence for the maintenance of the working class; and means of consumption of a higher (necessarily luxurious) quality for the maintenance of the collective capitalist itself. These requirements are not general and vague ones—instead they are precisely determined in a quantitative sense. If the question is posed which quantities of these three categories are required by the collective capitalist, a precise specification is given in the value-composition of the previous year’s total social product (still assuming simple reproduction, which forms the starting point here). The formula c + v + s, which has thus far been interpreted (both in the case of total social capital and in that of individual capitals) as a merely quantitative division of total value, i.e. of the amount of labor incorporated in the annual product of society, now appears simultaneously as the given foundation for the material division of the product. It is clear that, in order to undertake reproduction on the same scale, the collective capitalist must find the following available in its new total product: means of production corresponding to the magnitude of c; simple means of subsistence for workers corresponding to aggregate wages, v, and as many refined means of consumption for itself and its appended strata as is required by the magnitude of s. The value-composition of the annual social product thus translates itself into the material form of the product in the following manner: if simple reproduction is to take place, the total social constant capital must reappear as the corresponding quantity of means of production, the total social variable capital as the corresponding quantity of workers’ means of subsistence and total social surplus value as the corresponding quantity of capitalists’ means of consumption.
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*“Was dem Einzelkapitalisten völlig Hekuba …” Luxemburg employs a figure of speech deriving from Shakespeare’s Hamlet: “What’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba/That he should weep for her?” (Act 2, Scene 2).
*That is, the capitalist class as whole.
Here a tangible difference between the individual capitalist and the collective capitalist is encountered. The former constantly reproduces his constant and variable capital as well as his surplus value such that (1) all three components appear in the same material form within his homogeneous product; and (2) the actual material form of his product is entirely indifferent to him—indeed this will vary from one individual capitalist to the next. The collective capitalist reproduces each component of the value of its annual product in a different material form—to be more precise, constant capital, c, as means of production; variable capital, v, as means of subsistence for the workers, and s as means of consumption for the capitalists. For the reproduction of the individual capital, value-relations alone are the decisive factor, and the material conditions for such reproduction are presupposed as a phenomenon of commodity exchange whose occurrence can be taken as given. For the reproduction of the total social capital, however, both value-relations and material considerations are at issue. Moreover, it is evident that the individual capital can focus on pure value considerations and treat material conditions as if regulated by a divine law only insofar as total social capital itself allows for these material conditions. If the total social constant capital were not reproduced annually in the form of the corresponding amount of means of production, then each individual capitalist would pace the commodity-market in vain with his constant capital realized in money, unable to find what he needed to satisfy the material conditions of his individual reproduction. From the standpoint of reproduction, then, the general formula for total social capital, c + v + s, is not sufficient—and this, incidentally, is further proof that the concept of reproduction is something real, and more than a mere paraphrase for the concept of production. Instead, the exposition of total social capital must make distinctions of a material character, presenting it in its three main divisions rather than as a single whole. Alternatively (for the sake of simplification, since this can initially do no harm from a theoretical point of view), total social capital can be considered in terms of two divisions, or departments: the production of means of production, and the production of means of consumption for workers and capitalists. Each department must be considered separately in its own right, and such that the fundamental conditions for capitalist production are adhered to in each. At the same time, however, the reciprocal connections between both departments from the point of view of reproduction must be indicated, for it is only by considering them in their interconnection that the foundations of the reproduction of total social capital as a whole can be derived.
Thus a certain modification occurs in the exposition of total social capital and its total product when compared with an exposition of reproduction that takes the individual capital as its starting point. Quantitatively, as a magnitude of value, the total social constant capital, c, is composed of the exact sum of the individual constant capitals, and the same applies to the other terms, variable capital, v, and surplus value, s. However, the form in which they appear is altered. Whereas the constant capital of the individual capitals reemerges from the production process as a component of the value of an endless variety of objects for use, in the total social product it emerges concentrated, as it were, in a determinate quantity of means of production. Likewise, whereas the variable capital and surplus value of the individual capital resurface as portions of a colorful hotchpotch of commodities, in the total social product they emerge concentrated in corresponding amounts of means of consumption for workers and capitalists. This is also the fact roughly struck upon by Smith in his observation that the categories of fixed capital, circulating capital, and revenue in relation to the individual capitalist do not correspond to the same categories in relation to society as a whole.
The following conclusions have thus been reached:
1. Like the production of the individual capitalist, the total production of society, regarded as a whole, can be expressed in the formula c + v + s.
2. Social production is divided into two departments: production of means of production, and the production of means of consumption.
3. Both departments are organized as capitalist production, i.e., as surplus value production, and thus the formula c + v + s applies to them both.
4. The two departments are interdependent, and must therefore exhibit certain quantitative relations between each other. More precisely, one department must produce all the means of production for both departments, while the other must produce all the means of consumption for the workers and capitalists of both departments.
On the basis of these considerations, Marx constructs the following schema of capitalist reproduction:*
I. 4,000c + 1,000v + 1,000s = 6,000 means of production
II. 2,000c + 500v + 500s = 3,000 means of consumption.29
The figures in this schema represent value-magnitudes (i.e. quantities of money) that have been chosen arbitrarily, but whose ratios are exact. The two departments are differentiated from one another in terms of the use-form of the commodities produced in each. The reciprocal circulation between them occurs as follows: Department I supplies the means of production for the entire process of production, i.e. both for itself and for Department II. From this it follows that the total product of Department I (6,000 I) must be equal to the value of the sum of constant capitals of both departments (I 4,000c + II 2,000c) in order to ensure the smooth continuation of reproduction (here simple reproduction is still assumed—i.e. reproduction on the same scale). Similarly, Department II supplies means of consumption for society as a whole, i.e. both for its own workers and capitalists, and for those of Department I. Accordingly, for consumption and production to proceed smoothly and to be renewed on the same scale, the total mass of means of consumption supplied by Department II should be equal in value to the combined revenues of all employed workers and capitalists in society—here: 3,000 II = I (1,000v + 1,000s) + II (500v + 500s).
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*The following units can be understood as millions of working hours, or, from a capitalist standpoint, expressed in money, any given currency unit.
The above is merely the expression in value relations of the foundation not only of capitalist reproduction, but of reproduction in every society. In every productive society, regardless of its social form—whether this be the primitive small village community of the Bakairí of Brazil,* the oikos† of a Timon of Athens with its slaves, or the imperial feudal estates of Charlemagne—the mass of labor at society’s disposal must be allocated such that means of production and means of consumption are produced in sufficient quantities. More precisely, the former must be sufficient both for the direct production of means of consumption and for the future replacement of the means of production themselves; the means of consumption must in turn suffice for the maintenance of the workers employed in their production and in the production of means of production, and, further, for the maintenance of all non-workers. Accordingly, then, Marx’s schema, with its general proportions, represents the absolute, universal foundation for social reproduction, with only the qualification that, in this instance, socially necessary labor manifests itself as value, means of production as constant capital, the labor necessary for the maintenance of workers as variable capital, and the labor required for the maintenance of those who do not work as surplus value.
In capitalist society, however, circulation between the two great departments depends on the exchange of commodities—i.e. on the exchange of equivalents. The workers and capitalists of Department I can only receive as many means of consumption from Department II as the former department can supply the latter with its own commodities—i.e. means of production. However, the requirements of Department II in terms of means of production are measured by the size of its constant capital. It follows from this that the sum of variable capital and surplus value in the production of means of production—here, I (1,000v + 1,000s)—must be equal to the constant capital in the production of means of consumption—in this instance, II (2,000c).
An important qualification should be made in relation to the above schema. The constant capital given for its two departments is in reality only a part of the constant capital employed by society. The latter is divided into (1) fixed capital (buildings, tools, draught animals, etc.), which functions for a number of periods of production, but whose value only partially enters into the product in proportion with its own wear and tear; and (2) circulating capital (raw materials, auxiliary materials, fuel for heating and lighting), whose value enters completely into the new product. However, from the point of view of reproduction, only that part of the means of production that actually enters into the production of value is to be considered; the remaining part of fixed capital that is not absorbed by the product and that continues to operate should be kept in mind, but it can be disregarded for the purposes of a precise exposition of social circulation without compromising the accuracy of the latter. This can be easily demonstrated.
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*The Bakairí are an indigenous tribe of the Matto Grosso, in southern Brazil. As of 2014, they totaled less than 1,000 people, living in about a dozen villages. For a recent study, see Debra Picchi, The Bakairí Indians of Brazil: Politics, Ecology, and Change (Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, 2000).
†The oikos was the ancient Greek equivalent of a household.
Let it be assumed that the constant capital in Departments I and II that actually enters into the annual product of these departments (6,000c) consists of 1,500c fixed capital and 4,500c circulating capital, where the 1,500c fixed capital represents the annual wear and tear on buildings, machines, draught animals, etc. This annual wear and tear represents, say, 10 percent of the total value of the fixed capital employed. In reality there is now 15,000c fixed capital + 4,500c circulating capital in the two departments together, such that total social capital now equals 19,500c + 1,500v. However, the whole fixed capital, whose lifetime is assumed here to be 10 years (corresponding to an annual wear and tear of 10 percent), must only be replaced after this time has elapsed. In the meantime, a tenth of its value enters annually into social production. Assuming wear and tear to the total social fixed capital occurs at the same rate, such that it has the same lifespan, then it would have to be replaced in its entirety all at once every ten years. This is not the case, however. The various use-forms and different components of fixed capital have varying lifetimes, as wear and tear varies for the different kinds of fixed capital and indeed among individual items within each kind. As a result, fixed capital in no way needs to be replaced or reproduced in its concrete use-form all at once; instead, its replacement is staggered throughout the social process of production: while some parts are replaced, others continue to function in their original form. The 10 percent annual wear and tear on fixed capital assumed in this example does not mean, therefore, that every ten years the entire fixed capital to the value of 15,000c must be reproduced all at once, but that on average a part of the total social fixed capital corresponding to one-tenth of its value must be replaced annually. Accordingly, Department I, which has to provide all the means of production employed in society, must produce use-forms of fixed capital (i.e. buildings, machines, etc.) to the value of 1,500c annually, corresponding to the actual wear and tear on fixed capital, in addition to the reproduction of all raw and auxiliary materials, etc., of circulating capital to the value of 4,500c. Together, these total 6,000c, which corresponds to the values chosen for the schema. If Department I continues to replace one-tenth of total social fixed capital in its use-form annually, the result will be that every ten years the total social fixed capital will have been replaced lock, stock, and barrel; it follows therefore that the reproduction of that part of fixed capital whose value was previously disregarded is in fact completely accounted for in the above schema.
In practice, this process becomes apparent in the fact that every capitalist sets aside a certain sum of money from his annual production for the depreciation of fixed capital after his commodities have been realized. These individual annual amortizations must amount to a certain sum before the capitalist has actually replaced his fixed capital or substituted other more efficient items for it. This alternation between setting aside annual reserves of money for the replacement of fixed capital and the periodic expenditure of these accumulated reserves to this end does not occur in a synchronized way for all individual capitalists, however; instead these cycles are staggered through time, with the result that at any one time some capitalists are still setting aside reserves while others are already replacing their fixed capital. Consequently, a part of fixed capital is replaced every year. The monetary processes here only disguise the real process that characterizes the reproduction of fixed capital.
On closer examination, it can be seen that this is as it should be. It is true that the whole of fixed capital takes part in the production process, but only as a mass of objects of use. Buildings, machines, and draught animals are employed in the labor process as physical wholes. Only a part of their value enters into value production, however—and their particularity as fixed capital consists in precisely this fact. Just as in the process of reproduction (assuming simple reproduction) it is only a matter of replacing the values that have been consumed as means of consumption and means of production during annual production in their natural form, fixed capital only figures in relation to reproduction to the extent that it has actually entered into the commodities produced. The remaining value component that is embodied in the whole use-form of fixed capital is of decisive importance for production as a labor process, but for the purposes of the annual reproduction of society as a process of value formation, it does not exist.
Moreover, the process that finds expression here in value relations applies equally to every non–commodity-producing society as well. If, for example, the construction of the famous Lake Moeris (the miraculous lake that was “man-made” according to Herodotus)* and the Nile canals that feed it in ancient Egypt required 10 years labor by 1,000 fellaheen, and if the maintenance of this, the most magnificent irrigation system in the world, required the full labor-power of another 100 fellaheen every year (the figures here are of course arbitrarily chosen), then it may be said that the Moeris basin and canals were reproduced anew every 100 years, even though of course in reality the entire complex was not reconstructed anew once every century. That this is true is demonstrated by the fact that, when the stormy vicissitudes of political history and foreign conquest entailed the usual gross neglect of ancient cultural monuments, as for example by the British in India, or when the understanding for the requirements of ancient cultures in terms of their reproduction had faded, the entire Lake Moeris—its water, causeways, and canals, with the two pyramids at its center, the colossus upon it and other wondrous artefacts—disappeared without trace as if it had never been built. Only ten lines in Herodotus, a dot on Ptolemy’s map of the world, and traces of ancient cultures, large towns, and cities bear testimony to the rich life that formerly sprang from this magnificent irrigation system, where today arid deserts stretch across inner Libya* and lifeless swamps extend along the coast.
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*Lake Moeris, in northern Egypt, was actually formed through natural processes by 3000 BC, but its transformation into a major reservoir during the massive irrigation works built during the Middle Kingdom (in the 1800s BC) led many, including Herodotus, to falsely presume that it was man-made. Although originally a freshwater lake, it today consists of salt water.
There is only one instance in which Marx’s schema of simple reproduction can appear unsatisfactory or deficient from the standpoint of fixed capital, namely the issue of the production period in which the total fixed capital was first created. In actual fact, society disposes over more previously performed labor than corresponds to the part of fixed capital that enters into the value of the annual product and is in turn replaced from it. In the figures of the current example: total social capital does not amount to 6,000c + 1,500v as in the schema, but rather 19,500c + 1,500v. Although 1,500c of the fixed capital, which in this example amounts to 15,000c, is annually reproduced in the form of corresponding means of production, the same amount is annually consumed in production itself. Although the whole fixed capital is completely replaced in its use-form, as a quantity of objects, after 10 years, society then possesses 15,000c fixed capital, as it does every year, while it only contributes 1,500c; it possesses 19,500c constant capital in total, whereas it only creates 6,000c. Obviously it must have created this surplus of 13,500c through its labor; it possesses more accumulated past labor than the above reproduction schema can yield. Each annual social working day relies on previously performed and accumulated annual working days as its given basis, and this is also the case at the outset of the reproduction schema. However, this question of past labor as the basis of all present labor leads back in an infinite regress to the “beginning of all beginnings,” which is as meaningless for the economic development of humankind as it is for the natural development of matter. The reproduction schema does not purport to present the moment of inception, the social process in statu nascendi, nor should it—instead it grasps this process in full flow, as a link in “existence’s never-ending chain.”† Past labor is always the precondition of the social process of reproduction, however far back it is retraced. Just as social labor has no end, it has no beginning either. The original foundations of the process of reproduction are lost in the mythical dawn of civilization, as is the historical origin of Herodotus’s Lake Moeris. With technological progress and cultural development, the means of production change their form: crude paleoliths are replaced by sharpened tools, stone implements by elegant bronze and iron ones, the tools of the artisan by steam-powered machines. Yet all these changes in the form of the means of production and in the social forms of the production process do not alter the fact that society always disposes of a certain amount of objectified past labor as the basis for its labor process, and thus for its annual reproduction.
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*That is, what is now the Libyan Desert in western Egypt.
†The phrase comes from the conclusion of Goethe’s poem, “Grenzen der Menschheit.”
In the capitalist mode of production, the past labor of society that is accumulated in the means of production takes the form of capital, and the question of the origin of this past labor that forms the foundation for the process of reproduction becomes the question of the genesis of capital. This is certainly much less mythical, indeed it is written in letters of blood in modern history as the chapter of so-called original accumulation.* The very fact, however, that simple reproduction cannot be conceived except under the presupposition of past, accumulated labor exceeding in scale the labor performed annually for the maintenance of society, represents an aporia† within simple reproduction and demonstrates that it is a mere fiction not only for capitalist production, but for the progress of civilization in general. In order merely to be able to represent this fiction itself in a precise way, as a schema, it is necessary to assume (as the presupposition of such a fiction) that a previous process of production has yielded results corresponding not to simple, but to expanded reproduction. This fact can be illustrated by comparing the total social fixed capital with a railway. The durability of the various components of the railway, and thus also their annual rate of wear and tear varies greatly. Elements such as viaducts and tunnels can last for centuries, locomotives for decades, but other component parts of rolling stock will be used up in very short periods, and partly in only a few months. However, a certain average lifespan can be calculated, say thirty years, which corresponds to an annual depreciation of one-thirtieth of the railway’s total value. This loss in value is now continually replaced through the partial reproduction of the railway (which may take the form of repairs): today a carriage is replaced, tomorrow a component of a locomotive, and the day after tomorrow a stretch of track. In this manner, the original railway is replaced by a new one over the course of thirty years (on the assumption made here), the same amount of labor being performed by society year in, year out, such that simple reproduction takes place. Yet the railway can only be reproduced, but not produced, in this way. In order to be able to put it into use and to gradually make good its gradual wear and tear, the railway must have been completed in the first place. The railway can be repaired part by part, but it cannot be made ready for use in the same way—today an axle, tomorrow a carriage. For this is precisely what characterizes fixed capital: materially, as a use-value, it always enters into the labor process in its totality. In order to complete its use-form in the first place, society must concentrate a greater amount of labor on its production. In terms of the present example, it must concentrate the amount of labor that it expends over thirty years on repairs into, say, two or three years for the production of the railway. In this period of the construction of the railway, society must accordingly perform a greater than average amount of labor, thus resorting to expanded reproduction; when the railway has been completed, society can choose to return to simple reproduction. Of course the total social fixed capital at any given time should not be imagined to be a single, coherent, useful object or a complex of useful objects, having to be produced all at once. However, all the more important instruments of labor, buildings, means of transport, and agricultural infrastructure require a greater concentrated expenditure of labor, which applies equally to the modern railway and the airplane as it does to the rough stone wedge and the handmill. It follows that simple reproduction is only conceivable in periodic alternation with expanded reproduction; the latter is not merely conditioned in general by the progress of civilization and population growth, but also by the economic form of fixed capital, or the economic form of the means of production corresponding to fixed capital in any society.
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*This concept has entered the Marxist lexicon in the Anglophone literature as “so-called primitive accumulation.” See Capital, Vol. 1, pp. 873–6.
†An impasse or extreme philosophical difficulty.
Marx does not directly address this contradiction between the form of fixed capital and simple reproduction. What he highlights is only the necessity of a constant “overproduction”—i.e. expanded reproduction in connection with the irregular rate of wear and tear of fixed capital that is higher in one year and lower in another, and that would result in a deficit in reproduction in the case that simple reproduction were strictly complied with. Here he examines expanded reproduction from the point of view of an insurance fund of society for fixed capital, and not from the standpoint of its own production.30
In a completely different context, Marx appears to confirm completely, albeit indirectly, the conception outlined above. In his analysis of the transformation of revenue into capital in Theories of Surplus Value, Volume 1, Part 2, he discusses the peculiar reproduction of fixed capital, whose replacement in itself provides a fund for accumulation, and he draws the following conclusions:
But the point we want to make here is the following: Even if the total capital employed in machine building were only large enough to replace the annual wear and tear of machinery, it would produce much more machinery each year than required, since in part the wear and tear merely exists nominally, and in reality it only has to be replaced in natura after a certain number of years. The capital thus employed, therefore, yields annually a mass of machinery that is available for new capital investments and anticipates these new capital improvements. For example, the factory of the machine builder begins production, say, this year. He supplies £12,000 worth of machinery during the year. If he were merely to replace the machinery produced by him, he would only have to produce machinery worth £1,000 in each of the 11 following years and even this annual production would not be annually consumed. An even smaller part, if he invested the whole of his capital. A continuous expansion of production branches of industry that use these machines is required in order to keep his capital employed and merely to reproduce it annually. (An even greater [expansion is required] if he himself accumulates.) Thus even the mere reproduction of the capital invested in this sphere requires continuous accumulation in the remaining spheres of production.31
If the manufacturer of machines in Marx’s example is thought of as representing the sphere of production of fixed capital for the whole society, then it follows that, if simple reproduction is adhered to in this sphere, i.e. if society expends the same quantity of labor on the production of fixed capital annually (which is impossible in practice), then it must undertake an expansion of production in the remaining spheres of production each year. If it maintains simple reproduction here, too, then it must expend only a small part of the labor employed in the creation of fixed capital on its mere replacement once it has been created. Alternatively, to formulate the problem the other way round: from time to time, society must periodically resort to expanded reproduction, even presupposing simple reproduction for the whole, in order to construct the large-scale infrastructure of fixed capital.
With the progress of civilization, it is not only the form of the means of production that is altered, but also the magnitude of their value—or better, the social labor accumulated in them. Society sets aside ever more labor time and labor-power over and above that necessary for its immediate maintenance, and uses them for the production of means of production on an ever-expanding scale. How, then, is this expressed in the process of reproduction? How, from a capitalist standpoint, does society create more capital from its annual labor than it previously possessed? This question reaches beyond simple reproduction to expanded reproduction, which will be dealt with in due course.