Once the process of commodity production and exchange begins, it sets in place a process whereby it inexorably extends. Any direct producer that has any kind of natural advantage can increase their revenue, and thereby their wealth and productive capacity by specialising in that sphere of production. A talented potter may not only gain more demand for their wares than other potters, but they may spend less labour-time in their production than others. By spending all their time in pottery production, rather than most of their time tending their fields etc., they may be able to exchange their ware for all of the food, clothes and other commodities they need, with money to spare. And, with this money, they can buy better tools, etc. so as to increase their advantage. Increasingly, production is undertaken for the purpose of obtaining this exchange value, rather than the production of use values. In other words this specialisation enables them to obtain a comparative advantage.
The more production is the production of commodities, for exchange, rather than production of use values for direct consumption, the more the requirement to sell what has been produced imposes itself. The wine producer who spends most of his time producing those things required for his own consumption, and who only takes his surplus wine to market, to exchange for other commodities can take it or leave it, whether he sells all of his 12 litres, or whether he only exchanges 10 with the producer of bibles. He can always consume an additional 2 litres himself. But, the matter is different if the only thing he produces is wine, and in order to obtain all of the things required for his own subsistence, and to be able to cultivate his vineyard, for the next season, he must sell all of the wine he has produced. Here lies the possibility of crises, in the separation of production and consumption, and in the contradiction inherent within the commodity itself between use value and exchange value.
“The possibility of crisis is indicated in the metamorphosis of the commodity like this:
Firstly, the commodity which actually exists as use-value, and nominally, in its price, as exchange-value, must be transformed into money. C-M. If this difficulty, the sale, is solved then the purchase, M-C, presents no difficulty, since money is directly exchangeable for everything else. The use-value of the commodity, the usefulness of the labour contained in it, must be assumed from the start, otherwise it is no commodity at all. It is further assumed that the individual value of the commodity is equal to its social value, that is to say, that the labour-time materialised in it is equal to the socially necessary labour-time for the production of this commodity. The possibility of a crisis, in so far as it shows itself in the simple form of metamorphosis, thus only arises from the fact that the differences in form—the phases—which it passes through in the course of its progress, are in the first place necessarily complimentary and secondly, despite this intrinsic and necessary correlation, they are distinct parts and forms of the process, independent of each other diverging in time and space, separable and separated from each other. The possibility of crisis therefore lies solely in the separation of sale from purchase.” (p 507-8)
In fact, this metamorphosis involves a series of sales and purchases, as well as purchases and sales. A wine producer purchases materials for the cultivation of their vineyard. They purchase vats in which to ferment and store the wine, wine presses to squeeze the grape, and possibly labour-power to undertake the work. They buy bottles in which to put the wine before it is sold. The sale of the wine only takes place many months, or even years after all of these purchases have been made, and the labour process undertaken to produce the wine. As Marx said earlier, any number of changes in the market, and in market prices may have occurred between these various purchases and the sale of the wine. By the time the wine is ready to be sold, on the market, a fad for drinking coffee may have swept society, so that there is a much reduced demand for wine. All of the wine output may then only be sold at market prices way below what is required to replace all of the inputs consumed in the wine's production. Here, Marx says that if the sale proceeded, C-M, then there is no problem with the purchase, because money can be exchanged for anything. However, that assumes that what is to be bought is available.
As Marx sets out in Capital III, Chapter 6, and again later, the US Civil War cut off supplies of cotton to the Lancashire cotton mills. Having sold their textiles, and obtained money, the textile capitalists could not metamorphose it once more into cotton. A crisis arose, and thousands of textile workers were thrown out of work. But, it can also be the case that the demand for inputs rises so fast that it is simply a matter that supply cannot be increased fast enough to meet it. Then the price of those inputs will also rise sharply. That happened with copper, oil, iron ore and food prices after the new long wave boom started in 1999. And, Marx later in Theories of Surplus Value looks at the same effect with labour-power, where the demand exceeds the supply, increasing wages and reducing surplus value.
But, whilst the possibility of crisis is inherent within the commodity, because the process of exchange implies the separation of production and consumption, under barter, at least, either what is produced for exchange is exchanged for some other commodity or it isn't. Either A exchanges their bible for 10 litres of wine or they don't. If they don't, both retain their products, and either consume them themselves or bring them to market another day, refraining from any additional production of these commodities until they have sold. Moreover, under systems of barter, the producers often produce to order, so that they know in advance that they will be able to engage in mutual exchange. But, that is not the case where money intervenes.
“If the commodity could not be withdrawn from circulation in the form of money or its retransformation into commodity could not be postponed—as with direct barter—if purchase and sale coincided, then the possibility of crisis would, under the assumptions made, disappear. For it is assumed that the commodity represents use-value for other owners of commodities. In the form of direct barter, the commodity is not exchangeable only if it has no use-value or when there are no other use-values on the other side which can be exchanged for it; therefore, only under these two conditions: either if one side has produced useless things or if the other side has nothing useful to exchange as an equivalent for the first use-value. In both cases, however, no exchange whatsoever would take place. But in so far as exchange did take place, its phases would not be separated. The buyer would be seller and the seller buyer. The critical stage, which arises from the form of the exchange—in so far as it is circulation—would therefore cease to exist, and if we say that the simple form of metamorphosis comprises the possibility of crisis, we only say that in this form itself lies the possibility of the rupture and separation of essentially complimentary phases.” (p 508)
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