So, in terms of use-value, the barley of today is grown with the barley of tomorrow, just as the house built today, is built with the bricks of tomorrow, because, in terms of their use-value, which, after all is what is consumed/negated in production, and must be replaced “on a like for like basis”, at its current value (i.e. its value at the time it's replaced, not the historic cost of the use-values consumed), they are identical. If that current value is different to the historic cost, then, contrary to Ramsay and the TSSI, this does not result in profit/loss, but in capital gain/loss, which simply appears as profit, but which Marx sets out, is an illusion. What actually arises is a tie-up, or release of capital, i.e. if social productivity rises so that the current value is lower than the historic price of the consumed capital, there is a release of capital, and vice versa.
Of course, as Marx, also, notes, in Capital III, Chapter 49, and set out above, this use-value, itself may change. Seed selection may result in barley seeds producing 20 grains per plant rather than 10, meaning only half the amount of seed is required. A spinning machine with 10 spindles may be replaced by one with 20 spindles, and so on. In that case, as Marx sets out in Capital III, Chapter 49, as cited above, it is the effectiveness of the use-value that is replaced and compared. If iron rails are replaced, on rail tracks by more durable steel rails that last twice as long, these steel rials have twice the use-value of the iron rails they replace. If the value of these steel rails is the same as that of the iron rails they replace, they effectively replace twice as many iron rails, in terms of use-value.
“Originally in the construction of modern railways it was the prevailing opinion, nursed by the most prominent practical engineers, that a railway would last a century and that the wear and tear of the rails was so imperceptible that it could be ignored for all financial and other practical purposes; 100 to 150 years was supposed to be the life of good rails. But it was soon found that the life of a rail, which naturally depends on the speed of the locomotives, the weight and number of trains, the diameter of the rails, and on a multitude of other attendant circumstances, did not exceed an average of 20 years. In some railway terminals, great traffic centres, the rails even wear out every year. About 1867 began the introduction of steel rails, which cost about twice as much as iron rails but which last more than twice as long.”
If the quality of barley is improved, so that, on average, a seed of barley produces 40 grains per stalk, whereas it previously only produced 20, only half as much seed is required to produce the same quantity of barley grains. As Marx set out in Capital, this improvement in the seed was made not just in the quantity of grains, but the size of the grains, and so on. Further developments have meant that more crops per year can be harvested.
“... if we take a plastic ornamental plant, for example a dahlia or an orchid, and treat the seed and the plant which grows from it according to the gardener’s art, as a result of this negation of the negation we get not only more seeds, but also qualitatively improved ones, which produce more beautiful flowers, and each repetition of this process, each fresh negation of the negation, enhances this improvement.” (p 173)
Engels sets out the similar processes in the life-cycle of insects “to show that the negation of the negation really does take place in both kingdoms of the organic world.” (p 173)
And, the same is true with geology, as witnessed by the carbon cycle, and the creation and destruction of rock layers. After Engels' time, plate tectonics was discovered, showing how, even entire continents came into and out of existence. Indeed, we now understand, by examining other planets, that the process of plate tectonics, which also leads to the stretching and squeezing of the Earth's crust, which produces earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, is the characteristic of a living planet, and where such things do not exist, the planet itself is dead. Engels notes these processes of the erosion and destruction or rocks had the very positive effect of producing soil from which plants could grow, and without which, life on land would not have developed.
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