The Process of Circulation of Capital (Capital Vol. II). Karl Marx

successively and consume the different portions of surplus-value contained in them in the same way, thus realizing gradually the sum of c plus v. But this operation likewise requires the final sale of the entire lot, so that the value of c plus v would be made good by the sale of 8,440 pounds of yarn (vol. I, chap IX, 2).

      However that may be, by the movement C'—M', both the capital-value and surplus-value contained in C' secure a separate existence in separate sums of money. In both cases, M and m are actually transformed values, which had originally only an ideal existence in C as prices of commodities.

      The formula c—m—c represents the simple circulation of commodities, the first phase of which, c—m, is included in the circulation of the commodity-capital C'—M', in short, included in the cycle of capital; while its supplementary phase m—c falls outside of this cycle and is a separate process in the general circulation of commodities. The circulation of C and c, of capital-value and surplus-value, is differentiated after the transformation of C' into M'. Hence it follows:

      First, by the realization on the commodity-capital in the process C'—M', or C'—(M+m), the courses of capital-value and surplus-value, which are united so long as they are both embodied in the same mass of commodities in C'—M', are separated, for both of them henceforth appear in two independent sums of money.

      Second, after this separation has taken place, m being spent as the income of the capitalist, while M continues its way as a functional form of capital-value in a course determined by this cycle, the movement C'—M' in connection with the subsequent movements M—C and m—c, may be represented in the form of two different circulations, viz.: C—M—C and c—m—c, and both of these, so far as their general form is concerned, belong to the general circulation of commodities.

      By the way, in the case of commodities which cannot be cut up into their constituent parts, it is a matter of practice to isolate their different portions of value and surplus-value ideally. In the building-business of London, for instance, which is carried on mainly on credit, the contractor receives advances in proportion to the different stages in which the construction of a house proceeds. None of these stages is a house, but only an actually existing fraction of the growing house; in spite of its actuality, each stage is but an ideal portion of the entire house, but it is real enough to serve as security for an additional advance. (See on this point chapter XII, vol. II.)

      Third, if the movement of capital-value and surplus-value, which proceeds unitedly so long as they are in the form of C and M, is separated only in part (so that a portion of the surplus-value is not spent as income), or is not separated at all, a change takes place in the capital-value itself within its own cycle, before it is completed. In our illustration the value of the productive capital was equal to 422 pounds sterling. If it continues its cycle M-C, for instance as 480 pounds sterling or 500 pounds sterling, then it goes through the further stages of its cycle with an increase of 58 pounds sterling or 78 pounds sterling over its original value. This change may also go hand in hand with a change in the proportion of its component parts.

      C'—M', the second stage of the circulation and the final stage of cycle I (M...M'), is the second stage in our cycle and the first in the circulation of commodities. So far as the circulation is concerned, this stage must be supplemented by M'—C'. But C'—M' has not only passed the process of utilization (in this case the function of P, the first stage), but has also realized as its result the commodity C'. The process of utilization of capital, and the realization on the commodities which are its product, are therefore completed in C'—M'.

      We have started out with simple reproduction and assumed that m—c separates entirely from M—C. Since both circulations, c—m—c as well as C—M—C, belong to the circulation of commodities, so far as their general form is concerned (and do not show, for this reason, any difference in the value of their extremes), it is easy to conceive of the process of capitalist production, after the manner of vulgar economy, as a mere production of commodities, of use-value destined for consumption of some sort, which the capitalist produces for no other purpose than that of getting in their place commodities with different use-values, or exchanging them, as vulgar economy erroneously states.

      C' appears from the very outset as commodity-capital, and the purpose of the entire process, the accumulation of wealth, does not exclude an increasing consumption on the part of the capitalist in proportion as his surplus-value (and thus his capital) increases; on the contrary, it promotes such an increasing consumption.

      Indeed, in the circulation of the income of the capitalist, the produced commodity c, or the ideal fraction of the commodity C corresponding to it, serves merely for its transformation, first into money, and from money into a number of other commodities required for individual consumption. But we must not, at this point, overlook the trifling circumstance that c is that part of the commodity-value which did not cost the capitalist anything, since it is the embodiment of surplus-labor and steps originally on the stage as a part of the commodity-capital C'. This c is, by the varying nature of its existence, bound to the cycle of circulating capital-value, and if this cycle is clogged, or otherwise disturbed, not only the consumption of c is restricted or entirely arrested, but also the disposal of that series of commodities which are to take the place of c. The same is true in the case that the movement C'—M' is a failure, or that only a part of C' is sold.

      We have seen that c—m—c, as representing the circulation of the revenue of the capitalist, enters into the circulation of capital only so long as c is a part of the value of C', of the commodity-capital; but that, as soon as it materializes in the form of m—c, that is to say, as soon as it completes the entire cycle c—m—c, it does not enter into the movements of the capital advanced by the capitalist, although this advance is its cause. It is connected with the movements of capital only in so far as the existence of capital presupposes the existence of the capitalist, and this is conditioned on the consumption of surplus-value by the capitalist.

      Within the general circulation, C', for instance yarn, passes only as a commodity; but as an element in the circulation of capital it performs the function of commodity-capital, and capital-value alternately assumes and discards this form. After the sale of the yarn to a merchant, it has passed out of the circulation of the capital which produced it, but nevertheless, as a commodity, it moves always in the cycle of the general circulation. The circulation of one and the same mass of commodities continues, although it may have ceased to be an element in the independent cycle of the capital of the manufacturer. Hence the actual and final metamorphosis of the mass of commodities thrown into circulation by the capitalist by means of C—M, their final elimination in consumption, may be separated in space and time from that metamorphosis in which this same mass of commodities performs the function of commodity-capital. The same metamorphosis which has been completed in the circulation of capital still remains to be accomplished in the sphere of the general circulation.

      This state of things is not changed by the transfer of this yarn to the cycle of some other industrial capital. The general circulation comprises as much the interrelations of the various independent fractions of social capital, in other words, the totality of the individual capitals, as the circulation of those values which are not thrown on the market as capital, but enter into individual consumption.

      The different relations in the cycle of capital, according to whether it is a part of the general circulation, or forms certain links in the independent cycles of capital, may be further understood when we consider the circulation of M', or of M plus m. M as money-capital, continues the cycle of capital. On the other hand m, spent as revenue in the act m—c, enters into the general circulation, but is eliminated from the cycle of capital. Only that part enters the capital cycle which performs the function of additional money-capital. In c—m—c, money serves only as coin, and the purpose of this circulation is the individual consumption of the capitalist. It is significant for the idiocy of vulgar economy that it pretends to regard this circulation, which does not enter into the circulation of capital but is merely the circulation of that part of the surplus-product which is consumed as revenue, as the characteristic cycle of capital.

      In its second phase, M—C, the capital-value M (which is equal to P, the value of the productive capital that at this point re-opens the cycle of industrial capital) is again present, delivered of its