II. Conflict Between Expansion of Production and Production of Surplus Value
The development of the social productive power of labour is manifested in two ways: First, in the magnitude of the already produced productive forces, the value and mass of the conditions of production under which new production is carried on, and in the absolute magnitude of the already accumulated productive capital; secondly, in the relative smallness of the portion of total capital laid out in wages, i. e., in the relatively small quantity of living labour required for the reproduction and self-expansion of a given capital, for mass production. This also implies concentration of capital.
In relation to employed labour power the development of the productive power again reveals itself in two ways: First, in the increase of surplus labour, i. e., the reduction of the necessary labour time required for the reproduction of labour power. Secondly, in the decrease of the quantity of labour power (the number of labourers) generally employed to set in motion a given capital.
The two movements not only go hand in hand, but mutually influence one another and are phenomena in which the same law expresses itself. Yet they affect the rate of profit in opposite ways. The total mass of profit is equal to the total mass of surplus value, the rate
r „ s surplus value _,, . , , of profit = £-= advanC(Td total capital. The surplus value, however, as a total, is determined first by its rate, and second by the mass of labour simultaneously employed at this rate, or, what amounts to the same, by the magnitude of the variable capital. One of these factors, the rate of surplus value, rises, and the other, the number of labourers, falls (relatively or absolutely). Inasmuch as the development of the productive power reduces the paid portion of employed labour, it raises the surplus value, because it raises its rate; but inasmuch as it reduces the total mass of labour employed by a given capital, it reduces the factor of the number by which the rate of surplus value is multiplied to obtain its mass. Two labourers, each working 12 hours daily, cannot produce the same mass of surplus value as 24 who work only 2 hours, even if they could live on air and hence did not have to work for themselves at all. In this respect, then, the compensation of the reduced number of labourers by intensifying the degree of exploitation has certain insurmountable limits. It may, for this reason, well check the fall in the rate of profit, but cannot prevent it altogether.[3]
With the development of the capitalist mode of production, therefore, the rate of profit falls, while its mass increases with the growing mass of the capital employed. Given the rate, the absolute increase in the mass of capital depends on its existing magnitude. But, on the other hand, if this magnitude is given, the proportion of its growth, i.e., the rate of its increment, depends on the rate of profit. The increase in the productive power (which, moreover, we repeat, always goes hand in hand with a depreciation of the available capital) can directly only increase the value of the existing capital if by raising the rate of profit it increases that portion of the value of the annual product which is reconverted into capital. As concerns the productive power of labour, this can only occur (since this productive power has nothing direct to do with the value of the existing capital) by raising the relative surplus value, or reducing the value of the constant capital, so that the commodities which enter either the reproduction of labour power, or the elements of constant capital, are cheapened. Both imply a depreciation of the existing capital, and both go hand in hand with a reduction of the variable capital in relation to the constant. Both cause a fall in the rate of profit, and both slow it down. Furthermore, inasmuch as an increased rate of profit causes a greater demand of labour, it tends to increase the working population and thus the material, whose exploitation makes real capital out of capital.
Indirectly, however, the development of the productive power of labour contributes to the increase of the value of the existing capital by increasing the mass and variety of use values in which the same exchange value is represented and which form the material substance, i. e., the material elements of capital, the material objects making up the constant capital directly, and the variable capital at least indirectly. More products which may be converted into capital, whatever their exchange value, are created with the same capital and the same labour. These products may serve to absorb additional labour, hence also additional surplus labour, and therefore create additional capital. The amount of labour which a capital can command does not depend on its value, but on the mass of raw and auxiliary materials, machinery and elements of fixed capital and necessities of life, all of which it comprises, whatever their value may be. As the mass of the labour employed, and thus of surplus labour increases, there is also a growth in the value of the reproduced capital and in the surplus value newly added to it.
These two elements embraced by the process of accumulation, however, are not to be regarded merely as existing side by side in repose, as Ricardo does. They contain a contradiction which manifests itself in contradictory tendencies and phenomena/ These antagonistic agencies counteract each other simultaneously.
Alongside the stimulants of an actual increase of the labouring population, which spring from the increase of the portion of the total social product serving as capital, there are agencies which create a merely relative overpopulation.
Alongside the fall in the rate of profit mass of capitals grows, and hand in hand with this there occurs a depreciation of existing capitals which checks the fall and gives an accelerating motion to the accumulation of capital values.
Alongside the development of productivity there develops a higher composition of capital, i. e., the relative decrease of the ratio of variable to constant capital.
These different influences may at one time operate predominantly side by side in space, and at another succeed each other in time. From time to time the conflict of antagonistic agencies finds vent in crises. The crises are always but momentary and forcible solutions of the existing contradictions. They are violent eruptions which for a time restore the disturbed equilibrium.
The contradiction, to put it in a very general way, consists in that the capitalist mode of production involves a tendency towards absolute development of the productive forces, regardless of the value and surplus value it contains, and regardless of the social conditions under which capitalist production takes place; while, on the other hand, its aim is to preserve the value of the existing capital and promote its self-expansion to the highest limit (i. e., to promote an ever more rapid growth of this value). The specific feature about it is that it uses the existing value of capital as a means of increasing this value to the utmost. The methods by which it accomplishes this include the fall of the rate of profit, depreciation of existing capital, and development of the productive forces of labour at the expense of already created productive forces.
The periodical depreciation of existing capital — one of the means immanent in capitalist production to check the fall of the rate of profit and hasten accumulation of capital value through formation of new capital — disturbs the given conditions, within which the process of circulation and reproduction of capital takes place, and is therefore accompanied by sudden stoppages and crises in the production process.
The decrease of variable in relation to constant capital, which goes hand in hand with the development of the productive forces, stimulates the growth of the labouring population, while continually creating an artificial overpopulation. The accumulation of capital in terms of value is slowed down by the falling rate of profit, to hasten still more the accumulation of use values, while this, in its turn, adds new momentum to accumulation in terms of value.
Capitalist production seeks continually to overcome these immanent barriers, but overcomes them only by means which again place these barriers in its way and on a more formidable scale.
Endnotes
[3] Since the late 1860s Marx repeatedly asked his correspondents to send him materials on landed property in various countries (see present edition, Vol. 43, pp. 61 and 412). He also informed them that he intended to use this new material to supplement the section on ground rent. Having received numerous statistical reference books and other publications on landed property in Russia from Nikolai Danielson, in particular, and having made a thorough study of them, Marx wrote to his Russian correspondent on December 12, 1872: "In Volume II of Capital I shall, in the section on landed property, deal in great detail with the Russian form" (ibid., Vol. 44, p. 457). This passage, among other excerpts from Marx's letters to him, was quoted by Danielson in his letter to Engels of August 25 (September 6), 1885. He thought they could be used in the preface to Volume III of Capital. See also Engels' letter to Danielson of June 3, 1885 (ibid., Vol. 47, p. 294).—10