[c)] So-called Accumulation as a Mere Phenomenon of Circulation. (Stock, etc.—Circulation Reservoirs)
In considering circulating capital, Hodgskin only considers variable-capital, i.e. that portion that constitutes the use values that form wage goods consumed by workers. However, a part of circulating capital (wear and tear of fixed capital) continually replaces fixed capital, as well as auxiliary materials. But, a much larger proportion consists of raw materials, which enter either as primary products or as intermediate production.
“The problem Hodgskin is concerned with is: what is the relation of the present labour performed by the worker for the capitalist to the labour embodied in his articles of consumption, the labour contained in those articles on which his wages are spent, which, in actual fact, are the use-values of which variable capital consists? It is admitted that the worker cannot labour without finding these articles ready for consumption. And that is why the economists say that circulating capital—the previous labour, commodities already created which the capitalist has stored up—is the condition for labour and, amongst other things, also the condition for the division of labour.” (p 280-1)
Herein, of course, resides the basis of surplus value, because the labour that the workers, as a class, perform, and which determines the value they produce, has no necessary relation to the past labour they have performed, and which determines the value of the variable-capital, i.e. the value of the wage goods required for the reproduction of their labour-power. The variable-capital is usually conceived as being all of these commodities that constitute wage goods, as though they have been stored up, as a hoard, to be paid to the workers as wages. There may have been some element of that with agricultural labourers paid in kind. With the Truck System, employers operated shops, which sold wage goods to their workers, which could only be bought with tokens paid to the workers in their wages. However, this concept of the storing up of use values that comprise the variable-capital, really applies to the relation between capitalists and workers in aggregate. Individual capitalists do not store up these wage goods to pay to their workers as wages. They store up money-capital, as an equivalent value, which is paid out as wages. Department I capitalists do not produce wage goods.
It is only Department IIa capitalists that produce wage goods/necessaries, and, of these, each individual capitalist only produces a portion of the total. In other words, some produce food, some produce clothes, some produce shelter, some produce transport, some produce entertainment, leisure, education and so on. So, each individual capitalist firm, in Department IIa, only stores up a portion of the total wage goods, as a part of their commodity-capital. And, not all of this commodity-capital is stored up wage goods, because a part of it is exchanged with other capitalists, landlords etc. to meet their consumption needs. As Marx sets out in Capital II, the workers, as a whole, receive the wage goods they require from the capitalists, as a whole, in exchange for their money wages. They do so either directly, or indirectly. In other words, Department IIa workers are paid money wages by their employers, which they exchange directly with those employers for wage goods. Department I and Department IIb workers are paid money wages by their employers, and their employers obtain the money to pay those money wages from Department IIa capitalists, in payment for that part of the the means of production, or luxury goods sold to them, equal to the value of the variable-capital consumed in their production. The Department I, and Department IIb workers then exchange these money wages for wage goods produced by Department IIa.
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