We have, therefore, moved from the stage of production, P, to the stage where the commodities that comprise the productive-capital have been turned into the end product, and now comprise the firm's commodity-capital. We have moved from P...C`. C` signifies that a surplus product, and surplus value has already arisen as part of this production process. If we examine the commodities that comprise P, but reduce them to their yarn equivalent, it is as though we started with 15.24 kilos of yarn, and it was transformed into 20 kilos of yarn, as a result of the production process. Or to put it another way C...P...C`. C` is equal to C + c, where C is the initial 15.24 kilos of yarn, and c is the surplus product, equal to 4.76 kilos of yarn. Following Marx, and using money only as unit of account, C = M = £7.62, and c = m = £2.38. £2.38 is the surplus value created by labour, and it is embodied in the surplus product of 4.76 kilos of yarn.
“In the second phase M — C, the capital-value M, which is equal to P (the value of the productive capital that at this point opens the circuit of industrial capital), is again present, delivered of its surplus-value, therefore having the same magnitude of value as it had in the first stage of the circuit of money-capital M — C. In spite of the difference in place the function of the money-capital into which the commodity-capital has now been transformed is the same: its transformation into MP and L, into means of production and labour-power.”
(Capital II, Chapter 2)
As Marx sets out in Capital II, Chapter 15, the capitalist must now metamorphose this commodity-capital into money-capital, i.e. sell the 20 kilos of yarn, and must then metamorphose the resultant money-capital once more into productive-capital. If we assume simple reproduction, then the £2.38 of surplus value/profit is used by the capitalist to fund their own unproductive consumption, so that £7.62 is available as money-capital waiting to be metamorphosed into productive-capital. These stages in which the capital is in the form of commodity-capital, and money-capital, i.e. the circulation period, are inextricable, and integral parts of the circuit of industrial capital, because without them, the value of the output cannot be realised, and so the productive-capital cannot be reproduced.
The industrial capitalist, therefore, must employ capital in order to metamorphose the commodity-capital into money. In other words, they must employ commercial workers who deal with the marketing of the commodities. In addition, they must employ other commercial workers who deal with taking in and processing the payments for the commodities when they have been sold, as well as paying for the inputs that must be bought to replace the consumed means of production. In short they must employ commercial workers who take on the functions of merchants in buying and selling, and they must employ commercial workers who take on the function of money-dealers, making and receiving payments, and keeping records of all such transactions. None of these costs add value to the output, but they are, nonetheless essential costs that must be borne by the industrial capitalist. As Marx puts it in Capital III, Chapter 17,
“All these costs are not incurred in producing the use-value of commodities, but in realising their value. They are pure costs of circulation. They do not enter into the immediate process of production, but since they are part of the process of circulation they are also part of the total process of reproduction.”
All productive-capitals retain commercial workers in these functions. They must have sales and purchasing departments, accountancy and book-keeping departments etc. But, large productive-capitals that produce commodities on a large scale, also devolve these functions to other specialised commercial capitals. Large merchant capitals develop that specialise in the buying and selling of commodities, but which do not engage in production; other commercial capitals specialise in money-dealing as a specific form of merchant activity. The former represents merely the commodity-capital stage of the reproduction process that has taken on independent form, whereas the latter represents the money-capital stage of the process having taken on independent form. But, it is precisely for this reason that these capitals are also forms of industrial capital, even though they take no part in the actual production process. A large retailer is an industrial capital, just as much as a producer of baked beans, because the retailer simply takes on that phase of the industrial capital's cycle of reproduction involved in metamorphosing the commodity-capital into money. A bank that acts as a money-dealer, by processing payments, simply takes on that function of the circuit of industrial capital of taking in receipts, and making payments, as well as keeping a record of these transactions.
Productive-capital transfers these functions to these specialised commercial capitals, because they are able to reduce these costs of circulation, and consequently, whilst they do not create additional value or surplus value, they reduce the capital required for the circuit of industrial capital, they increase the amount of realised profit, and they reduce the turnover time of industrial capital. As a consequence, they release capital for productive purposes, thereby, increasing the mass of surplus value, and they increase the annual rate of profit. All of this commercial capital, thereby participates in the formation of the average industrial rate of profit, and it, thereby, claims its share of that profit.
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