But, the concept of storing up is itself just a figure of speech. As Hodgskin previously set out, a lot of the wage goods that workers consume are not ones that have been stored up somewhere, waiting to be issued as wages. They are goods that are themselves currently being produced. A lot of what is consumed is merely part of circulation. Accumulation, therefore, of circulating capital, can take the form not of larger stores, but simply of greater volumes of circulation. A supermarket undoubtedly holds a greater level of stock than a small corner shop, but the real basis of its greater sales is the fact that it turns over its stock at a far more rapid pace. The use of “Just In Time” production and stock control systems shows that far larger levels of output can be achieved with lower and lower levels of stock, if the stock is simply turned over more quickly. In so doing, the companies that adopt such a system raise their annual rate of profit, by reducing the amount of their advanced circulating capital.
Marx makes a distinction between this increase in the volume of circulation, and the stocks held by say shopkeepers.
“First of all, we are not speaking here of the shopkeepers who sell means of subsistence. These must naturally have a full stock in trade. Their stores, shops, etc. are simply reservoirs in which the various commodities are stored once they are ready for circulation. This kind of storing is merely an interim period in which the commodity remains until it leaves the sphere of circulation and enters that of consumption. It is its mode of existence as a commodity on the market. Strictly speaking, as a commodity it exists only in this form.” (p 281)
The shops, warehouses, and so on are only holding pens for these commodities. But, the real storing up that enables more workers to be employed, more production to take place, really comes down to the volume of commodities that pass through those holding pens. To use the analogy that Marx uses later, the determinant of how much the freight, or how many passengers can be carried on a railway is how many trains have been “stored up”, how many carriages, and so on, not how many are standing in the station at any one time.
“If this is called “storing up” then it means nothing more than “circulation” or the existence of commodities as commodities. This kind of “storing” is exactly the opposite of treasure-hoarding, the aim of which is to retain commodities permanently in the form in which they are capable of entering into circulation, and it achieves this only by withdrawing commodities in the form of money from circulation. If production, and therefore also consumption, is varied and on a mass scale, then a greater quantity of the most diverse commodities will be found continually at this stopping place, at this intermediate station, in a word, in circulation or on the market. Regarded from the standpoint of quantity, storing on a large scale in this context means nothing more than production and consumption on a large scale.” (p 281-2)
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