[12. Contradictions Between Production and Consumption under Conditions of Capitalism. Over-production of the Principal Consumer Goods Becomes General Over-production]
Capitalist production has been analysed as dividing into Department I, means of production, and Department II means of consumption. In Capital II, it was also described how Department II itself divides into IIa, the production of necessaries, and IIb, the production of luxury items. In terms of supply, of production, workers produce all of the commodities in Department I and II, and yet, in terms of demand they only buy the output of Department IIa, though, on occasion, when wages rise above the value of labour-power, or revolutions in productivity reduce the value of some commodities, in Department IIb, they may also buy some of these. But, the majority of IIb is bought by the exploiting classes – the capitalists, landlords and rentiers, and their lackeys within the state. Workers never buy the commodities that comprise Department I, because they do not own their own independent means of labour. As Marx points out, this illustrates the nonsense of the idea that producers and consumers are coterminous. The landlords, rentiers and their lackeys produce nothing, and yet they consume the output of both Department IIa and IIb.
The workers, because they use the instruments of labour, and process means of production, thereby consume these commodities, as part of the production process, but although they thereby consume these means of production, they are not buyers of them. Only the productive-capitalist is a buyer of means of production, although they do not thereby consume them. Workers then are precluded from being buyers of a whole series of commodities, of which they are nevertheless the producer.
“They are never direct consumers or buyers of this large part of their own products, although they pay a portion of the value of these products in the articles of consumption that they buy.” (p 518)
The fact that it is their employer who represents them in the market, in the purchase of these means of production itself demonstrates the difference in the conditions under which this purchase takes place and the possibility it thereby creates for crisis. Incidentally, this is also the difference between the free labourer, and the slave as outlined by Marx in The Grundrisse. It's not only in respect of the purchase of means of production that the slave owner represents the slave in the market, as purchases of means of production, but also as purchaser of the slave's means of consumption. So, the slave or serf occupies no different role, no more independent position than does a beast of burden, or a machine, or other element of constant capital that must be maintained.
If we take the petty commodity producer, in order to continue to produce, they only need to ensure that, in selling their commodities, they are thereby enabled to reproduce the means of production used in their production, along with their own wages, i.e. the value of the means of subsistence required for the reproduction of their labour-power. But, that is not the case for the capitalist. The capitalist, in selling commodities must not only reproduce the value of the means of production, and the wages of their workers, they must also realise the surplus value contained in those commodities. At the very least, if the capitalist does not realise this surplus value, they cannot fund their own basic consumption. But, the capitalist does not advance capital even just to be able to barely subsist. The capitalist advances their capital in order to increase their wealth, and also to be able to produce sufficient surplus value as to be able to accumulate capital.
“He therefore requires a wider market than they would require. It depends, moreover, on him and not on them, whether he considers the conditions of the market sufficiently favourable to begin reproduction.” (p 518-9)
It makes their ability to produce, and therefore, their ability to consume, dependent upon the capitalists consideration as to whether the potential profit from such activity is adequate.
“Thus nothing is more absurd as a means of denying crises, than the assertion that the consumers (buyers) and producers (sellers) are identical in capitalist production. They are entirely distinct categories. In so far as the reproduction process takes place, this identity can be asserted only for one out of 3,000 producers, namely, the capitalist. On the other hand, it is equally wrong to say that the consumers are producers. The landlord does not produce (rent), and yet he consumes. The same applies to all monied interests.” (p 519)
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