VII. Variable Capital and Surplus Value in Both Departments.
The total value of the annually produced articles of consumption is thus equal to the variable capital value II reproduced during the year plus the newly produced surplus value II (i.e., equal to the value produced by II during the year) plus the variable capital value I reproduced during the year and the newly produced surplus value I (i. e., plus the value created by I during the year).
On the assumption of simple reproduction the total value of the annually produced articles of consumption is therefore equal to the annual value product, i. e., equal to the total value produced during the year by social labour, and this must be so, because in simple reproduction this entire value is consumed.
The total social working day is divided into two parts: 1) necessary labour, which creates in the course of the year a value of l,500v; 2) surplus labour, which creates an additional value, or surplus value, of 1,500s. The sum of these values, 3,000, is equal to the value of the annually produced articles of consumption — 3,000. The total value of the articles of consumption produced during the year is therefore equal to the total value produced by the total social working day during the year, equal to the value of the social variable capital plus the social surplus value, equal to the total new product of the year.
But we know that even if these two magnitudes of value are equal, this in no way means that the total value of commodities II, the articles of consumption, has been produced in this department of social production. They are equal because the constant capital value re-appearing in II is equal to the value newly produced by I (value of variable capital plus surplus value); therefore I(v+s) can buy the part of the product of II which represents the constant capital value for its producers (in department II). This shows, then, why the value of the product of capitalists II, from the point of view of society, may be resolved into v + s although for these capitalists it is divided into c + v + s. This is so only because IIC is here equal to I(v+St, and because these two components of the social product interchange their natural forms by exchange, so that after this transformation IIC exists once more in means of production and I(v+S) in articles of consumption.
And it is this circumstance which induced Adam Smith to maintain that the value of the annual product resolves itself into v + s. This is true 1) only for that part of the annual product which consists of articles of consumption, and 2) it is not true in the sense that this total value is produced in II and that the value of its product is equal to the value of the variable capital advanced in II plus the surplus value produced in II. It is true only in the sense that II(c+v+s) = II(V+S) + I(v+S), or because IIC = I(v+s).
It follows furthermore: The social working day (i.e., the labour expended by the entire working class during the whole year), like every individual working day, breaks up into only two parts, namely into necessary labour and surplus labour, and the value produced by this working day consequently likewise resolves itself into only two parts, namely into the value of the variable capital, or that portion of the value with which the labourer buys the means of his own reproduction, and the surplus value which the capitalist may spend for his own individual consumption. Nevertheless, from the point of view of society, one part of the social working day is spent exclusively on the production of new constant capital, namely of products exclusively intended to function as means of production in the labour process and hence as constant capital in the accompanying process of self-expansion of value. According to our assumption the total social working day presents itself as a money value of 3,000, of which only V3 = 1,000 is produced in department II which manufactures articles of consumption, that is, the commodities in which the entire value of the variable capital and the entire surplus value of society are ultimately realised. Thus, according to this assumption, [2]/[3] of the social working day are employed in the production of new constant capital. Although from the standpoint of the individual capitalists and labourers of department I these [2]/[3] of the social working day serve merely for the production of variable capital value plus surplus value, the same as the last third of the social working day in department II, still from the point of view of society and likewise of the use value of the product, these [2]/[3] of the social working day produce only replacement of constant capital in the process of productive consumption or already so consumed. Also when viewed individually, these [2]/[3] of the working day, while producing a total value equal only to the value of the variable capital plus surplus value for the producer, nevertheless do not produce any use values of a kind on which wages or surplus value could be expended; for their products are means of production.
It must be noted in the first place that no portion of the social working day, whether in I or in II, serves for the production of the value of the constant capital employed and functioning in these two great spheres of production. They produce only additional value, 2,000 I(v+s) + 1,000 II(v+s), in addition to the value of the constant capital = 4,000 Ic + 2,000 IIC. The new value produced in the form of means of production is not yet constant capital. It merely is intended to function as such in the future.
The entire product of II — the articles of consumption — viewed concretely as a use value, in its natural form, is a product of the one-third of the social working day spent by II. It is the product of labour in its concrete form — such as the labour of weaving, baking, etc., performed in this department — the product of this labour, inasmuch as it functions as the subjective element of the labour process. As to the constant portion of the value of this product II, it re-appears only in a new use value, in a new natural form, the form of articles of consumption, while it existed previously in the form of means of production. Its value has been transferred by the labour process from its old natural form to its new natural form. But the value of these [2]/[3] of the product value = 2,000 has not been produced in this year's self-expansion process of II.
Just as from the point of view of the labour process, the product of II is the result of newly functioning living labour and of the assumed means of production assigned to it, in which that labour materialises itself as in its objective conditions, so, from the point of view of the process of self-expansion, the value of the product of II = 3,000 is composed of a new value (500v + 500s = 1,000) produced by the newly added [1]/[3] of the social working day and of a constant value in which are objectified [2]/[3] of a past social working day that had elapsed before the present process of production of II here under consideration. This portion of the value of the II product finds expression in a portion of the product itself. It exists in a quantity of articles of consumption worth 2,000 = [2]/[3] of a social working day. This is the new use form in which this value portion re-appears. The exchange of part of the articles of consumption equal to 2,000 IIC for means of production of I = I (l,000v + l,000s) thus really represents an exchange of two-thirds of an aggregate working day — which do not constitute any portion of this year's labour, and elapsed before this year — for [2]/[3] of the working day newly added this year. Two-thirds of this year's social working day could not be employed in the production of constant capital and at the same time constitute variable capital value plus surplus value for their own producers unless they were to be exchanged for a portion of the value of the annually consumed articles of consumption, in which are incorporated [2]/[3] of a working day spent and realised before this year. It is an exchange of [2]/[3] of this year's working day for [2]/[3] of a working day spent before this year, an exchange of this year's labour time for last year's. This therefore explains the riddle of how the value product of an entire social working day can resolve itself into variable capital value plus surplus value, although [2]/[3] of this working day were not expended in the production of articles in which variable capital or surplus value can be realised, but rather in the production of means of production for the replacement of the capital consumed during the year. The explanation is simply that [2]/[3] of the value of the product of II, in which the capitalists and labourers of I realise the variable capital value plus surplus value produced by them (and which constitute [2]/[9] of the value of the entire annual product), are, so far as their value is concerned, the product of [2]/[3] of a social working day of a year prior to the current one.
The sum of the social product I and II — means of production and articles of consumption — is indeed, viewed from the standpoint of their use value, in their concrete, natural form, the product of this year's labour, but only to the extent that this labour itself is regarded as useful and concrete and not as an expenditure of labour power, as value-creating labour. And even the first is true only in the sense that the means of production have transformed themselves into new products, into this year's products, solely by dint of the living labour added on to them, operating on them. On the contrary, this year's labour could not have transformed itself into products without means of production independent of it, without instruments of labour and materials of production.
Endnotes
[1] In the second half of the 1850s Marx began to study the problems to be dealt with in Volume II of Capital, and continued this work in the 1860s, as is shown, amongst other things, by the Economic Manuscripts of 1861-63 and 1864-65 where the results of these investigations were still, in his words, in the form of preparatory outlines. Later stages in Marx's work on this volume are described at length by Engels in his Preface to the First Edition, which he prepared for the press and published after Marx's death. Manuscript I, written in the early half of 1865, was, in effect, the first composite version of the volume. According to Engels, "Some parts of the argument would be treated in detail, others of equal importance only indicated" in this manuscript (see this volume, p. 5). From the end of 1868 to the middle of 1870 Marx prepared the second version of the volume — Manuscript II — which comprises all three parts (three sections, according to Engels) and "is the only somewhat complete elaboration of Book II" (see this volume, p.7). After 1870 there followed a long interruption in the work on the volume, mainly as a result of the author's illness. Marx was able to resume his work only in 1877. Prior to 1881 he wrote several more manuscripts of varying size; most of them were versions of the beginning of the volume, and only the last represented a revised version of the third chapter of Manuscript II. During the last two years of his life Marx did not work on Volume II. After studying the content of Marx's manuscripts and considering the volume of material involved, Engels decided to divide Volume II into two portions and publish two separate volumes — Vol. II and Vol. III. Engels edited the text with great discretion: according to his own words, he con-tented himself "with reproducing these manuscripts as literally as possible, changing the style only in places where Marx would have changed it himself, and interpolat-ing explanatory sentences or connecting statements only where this was absolutely necessary, and where, besides, the meaning was clear beyond any doubt" (see this volume, pp. 5-6). Structural division was made according to the model used in the Second Edition of Capital, Vol. I (1872). The titles of parts and chapters were also provided by Engels. The first German edition of Vol. II appeared in 1885, the second edition — in 1893. Soon after the publication of the volume the newspaper Le Socialiste printed a review of it in its first number for August 29, 1885. "The second volume of Marx's Capital has just been published in German thanks to the work done by Frederick Engels, his old friend and staunch associate. It was compiled on the basis of manuscripts left by Marx. "In the first volume Marx examined the question of the production of capital; on the basis of a broad and comprehensive analysis he demonstrated that capital was just unpaid labour, in other words, labour stolen from the working class. Although many economists in Germany, France, Italy, Russia and America tried to criticise his book, not one of them could refute Marx's scientific proposition. To this day Capital remains the most formidable indictment written against capitalist society; and the fact that capital is a product of theft is now proved beyond doubt. "In the second volume, which is expected so impatiently, Marx analyses the circulation of capital, that is, the manner in which the bourgeois divide among themselves the products they have stolen from the working class. After making a comprehensive study of all economic theories of ground rent he refuted all of them and formulat-ed a new theory of rent. "Marx's works are not text-books consisting of repetitions, neither are they volumes filled with the banal talk of representatives of various schools, such as the works of Mr. Leroy-Beaulieu and Co.; they are scientific books that must be studied thoroughly as mathematical treatises and works on physics or chemistry; for the moment, therefore, we are merely announcing the fact of publication, and after reading and re-reading it with a clear head we shall return to discuss it with our readers." The first English edition of Capital, Vol. II was published in Chicago in 1907 by the Charles H. Kerr & Company in the translation of Ernest Untermann.— 1
[9] Marx copied out passages from this pamphlet in Notebook XII (London, 1851).— 15 10 "This most incredible cobbler" — was the way John Wilson, the author of the pam-
[2] Engels did not have time to publish Marx's Theories of Surplus Value as the fourth volume of Capital. It was first published in 1905-10 by Karl Kautsky. In 1954-61 and 1962-64, the Institute of Marxism-Leninism of the CC CPSU in Moscow published in Russian a new edition of Theories... which differed from that of Kautsky. In 1956-62 this Russian edition was used by the Institute of Marxism-Leninism of the CC SUPG as the basis for the publication of Theories... in German. In the present edition Theories of Surplus Value is published, according to MEGA 2, Abt. II, Bd. 3, Berlin, 1976-82, as part of the Economic Manuscript of 1861-63 (see present edition, vols 30-34).— 6
[3] From the numerous notebooks compiled by Marx in the period indicated by Engels, the Institute of Marxism-Leninism of the CC CPSU published nearly all the passages from Russian sources (see Marx-Engels Archives, vols XI-XII, XVI, Moscow, 1948, 1952, 1955, 1982) as well as Mathematical Manuscripts (Moscow, 1968). Marx's notebooks are published in full in Section IV of Marx-Engels Gesamtausgabe.— 7