Capital II, Chapter 15 - Part 21

The tables below illustrate the situation described in Part 19. Its assumed that all the capital is present from Day 1, and that all the means of production required for the entire turnover period are bought in week 1.

Form	Week
	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14
Money	160	140	120	100	80	60	40	20	0	100	80	60	40	120
LP	20	20	20	20	20	20	20	20	20	20	20	20	20	20
Means of Production	720	640	560	480	400	320	240	160	80	480	400	320	240	640
Commodity	0	100	200	300	400	500	600	700	800	300	400	500	600	100

At the start of week 1, £20 has been allocated for wages, and £720 has gone to buy all the means of production for 9 weeks. £160 of the £900 capital remains in the form of money capital to cover wages for the next 9 weeks. At the start of week 7, production has created £600 of output, which now exists as commodity-capital and has been sent into circulation. It remains as commodity-capital for the next 3 weeks until it is sold at the end of week 9. In the meantime, an additional £100 of commodity-capital is produced during each of those 3 weeks.

At the start of week 10, the £600 of commodity-capital sent into circulation is sold, and has been turned into money-capital, £480 of which has gone to buy means of production to cover the next 6 week working period, and £20 of which has gone to pay for labour-power for that week. At the start of week 10, the output of week 7-9, £300, exists as commodity-capital. Production continues through week 12, at which point the capital is turned over again.

That can be compared to where the turnover period is 8 weeks, as the circulation period is reduced to 2 weeks.

Form	Week
	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14
Money	140	120	100	80	60	40	20	0	100	80	60	40	20	100
LP	20	20	20	20	20	20	20	20	20	20	20	20	20	20
Means of Production	640	560	480	400	320	240	160	80	480	480	400	320	240	640
Commodity	0	100	200	300	400	500	600	700	300	400	500	600	700	100

Here the amount held as Money Capital falls by £20 in each week, compared with the previous situation, whilst the amount of commodity-capital reaches a maximum of £700 rather than £800. This reflects the fact that here wages have to be advanced for 1 week less. Moreover, the amount of means of production is also reduced by £80 in each week, for the same reason. Had it been the case that the means of production required only for the working period had been bought from Day 1, as was done at the start of the second turnover that would obviously have changed the amount of money capital held, as opposed to the amount of means of production for each week.

“Now only £800 are necessary to carry out the same productive process. The £100 thus released in money now form a new, employment-seeking money-capital, a new constituent part of the money-market. True, they have already previously been periodically in the form of released money-capital and of additional productive capital, but these latent states were themselves the requisites for the execution of the process of production, because they were the requisites for its continuity. Now they are no longer needed for that purpose and for this reason form new money-capital and a constituent part of the money-market, although they by no means form either an additional element of the available social money-supply (for they existed at the beginning of the business and were thrown by it into the circulation), or a newly accumulated hoard.” (p 292)

This last point is important. This is not additional capital that has been produced, which can only arise from additional surplus-value, but is merely additional capital available for use, i.e. the more efficient use of capital in one place means a bigger proportion of it is available for use elsewhere.

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