Capital II, Chapter 9 - Part 2

As Marx states,

“In calculating the aggregate turnover of the advanced productive capital we therefore fix all its elements in the money-form, so that the return to that form concludes the turnover. We assume that value is always advanced in money, even in the continuous process of production, where this money-form of value is only that of money of account. Thus we can compute the average.” (p 187)

Note Marx's terminology here. Firstly he begins by making clear that what he is talking about is “the advanced productive capital”. To make clear it is not the advance of the money-capital used to purchase that productive capital, that Marx is talking of, he then says that what he is doing is only to “fix all its elements in the money-form”. Finally, to make clear that his analysis here is one based on the actual capital-value advanced, and not on the money-capital advanced, he makes clear that the use of money here, is merely a convenience of calculation, and that he is using it essentially only in its role as “money of account”.

Marx makes clear here that his calculation of the rate of
profit is based on the advanced capital-value of the
productive-capital, whereas the TSSI calculates the
 Rate of Profit based on the paid out money-capital.

This is important in relation to the arguments put forward by the TSSI, because once again Marx is making clear that central to his analysis of this process of reproduction of capital, of which the Rate of Profit, and Rate of Turnover, are important aspects, it is value and not money that is central. His analysis of reproduction here continues to be one of the physical reproduction of the capital consumed, and that can only be viewed in value terms, in order to deal with any changes that occur in capital-values outside the process of the self-expansion of capital.

“Suppose the fixed capital is £80,000 and its period of reproduction 10 years, so that £8,000 of it annually return to their money-form, or it completes one-tenth of its turnover. Suppose further the circulating capital is £20,000, and its turnover is completed five times per year. The total capital would then be £100,000. The turned-over fixed capital is £8,000, the turned-over circulating capital five times £20,000, or £100,000. Then the capital turned over during one year is £108,000, or £8,000 more than the advanced capital. 1 + 2/25 of the capital have been turned over.” (p 187-8)

So, what is being calculated here is the turnover time of the capital-value advanced, for the productive-capital, not the turnover time of the actual money-capital advanced. What returns at the end of each turnover is an amount of value, equal to that advanced, (if we discount the surplus value) and sufficient to reproduce the capital physically consumed.

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