In Marx's examples and in his reproduction schema, total output is equal to 3 social working days/years/periods, whereas, clearly, the total new value created can only be equal to 1 social working day/year/period. The other 2 social working days/years/periods of value is attributable to the existing value of constant capital produced in the previous period, or before that, and whose value is merely preserved by the action of concrete labour upon it, and, thereby, transferred to the value of current production, producing no revenues in the process. It is similarly reproduced out of current production at current values. This constant capital does not consist of the fixed capital stock, because only the wear and tear of fixed capital is being transferred to current production, and replaced out of it. The large bulk of the constant capital value consists of raw and auxiliary materials, and, according to Marx, as set out in Theories of Surplus Value, and in Capital III, Chapter 6, it is this element that grows disproportionately, precisely because of rising social productivity, i.e. a given mass of labour processes a growing mass of material.
Dealing with the question referred to earlier, of those commodities that can be consumed both productively and unproductively, Marx notes,
“It is clear that it makes no difference if a third category C exists, whose products are consumable both industrially and individually; for example, corn, by men or by cattle or as seed or as bread; vehicles, horses, cattle, etc. In so far as these products enter into individual consumption they must be consumed as revenue, direct or indirect, by their own producers, or by the producers (direct or indirect) of the part of the constant capital contained in them. They therefore come under A. In so far as they do not enter into individual consumption, they come under B.” (p 240)
And, noting the point made above about it being only wear and tear of fixed capital that must be replaced, and the consequence for the rate of profit, Marx notes,
“A large part of the existing constant capital—large as regards the relation of the fixed capital to the total capital—does not therefore require to be replaced annually by new labour. For that reason the (absolute) amount [of the capital to be annually replaced] may be considerable, but nevertheless it is not large in relation to the total (annual) product. This entire part of the constant capital, in A and B, which enters into the determination of the rate of profit (with a given surplus-value), does not enter as a determining element into the current reproduction of the fixed capital. The larger this part in relation to the total capital—the greater the scale on which present, already existing, fixed capital is employed in production—the greater the current volume of reproduction will be that is used for the replacement of the worn-out fixed capital, but the smaller relatively will be the proportional amount, in relation to the total capital.” (p 242)
Marx notes the effect of moral depreciation, because firstly, the larger the element of fixed capital, the more durable it tends to be, meaning that a smaller proportion of its value, as wear and tear, has to be reproduced out of current production, and,
“This proves among other things that the quantity of labour reproducing machinery or fixed capital is not at all proportional to the labour which originally produced these machines (conditions of production remaining the same), since only the annual wear and tear has to be replaced. If the productivity of labour rises—as it constantly does in this branch of production—the quantity of labour required for the reproduction of this part of the constant capital diminishes still more.” (p 243)
This reduction, which cheapens the fixed capital means that it causes the rate of profit to rise, and also brings about a release of capital.
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