Abstract
In this chapter, Teixeira seeks to locate the Marxist theory of money in relation to the major objective of his intellectual pathway, which was to unravel the mode of being of capitalist sociability through a theory of capital. Money in Marx appears not as an autonomous and self-sufficient entity of a specific monetary theory but as a theoretical moment prior to the advent of capital, a concept that, notwithstanding, assumes the protagonism of the process of social reproduction, modifying the forms of the existence of money and reconfiguring the elements of the Marxist exposition method, potentially making it capable of explaining the monetary and financial phenomena of contemporary capitalism.
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Notes
- 1.
This claim confronts two problems: on the one hand, it may sound like a truism to those already familiar with Marx’s work, but, on the other, may seem to be incoherent to the proponents of alternative theoretical currents, even, and perhaps most importantly, for those considered heterodox, who, unaffected by the dialectical method, recognized (or only heard) how much Marx had delved into the subject of money.
- 2.
In all the Brazilian translations of The Capital and in the renowned Spanish translations of the Siglo XXI and of Fondo de Cultura Económica, section II is composed only of chapter four, unlike the one published in English by Penguin Books, in which section II is distributed in three chapters.
- 3.
We will not here track the evolution of Marx’s theoretical thought which culminated in the election/discovery of the category of capital as the center of his analysis nor will we attempt to indicate the various stages in which category appeared in Marx’s work until it found relative maturity in the Grundrisse. What is in focus here moves away from the period of the young Marx to find a place in the time that begins with The Introduction of 1857, passes through the Grundrisse (1857/1858) and the Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859), and ends with the definitive choice of commodity as the starting point in Capital.
- 4.
This quote is taken by some as proof of the methodological rupture between the Marx of Introduction and the Marx of Capital since the latter has commodity as the starting point.
- 5.
Later, we will also highlight how in Capital history plays a fundamental role in the passing of money to capital, although the categorical ordering of this work seems to give history a lesser weight, a mere accessory, given the vigor and prominence of the logic of the exposition. It is in this sense that Marx (1990, p. 102), in postponing it to the second German edition of Capital, that Marx advertised the moment for revealing the results of his research: “if the life of the subject-matter is now reflected back in the ideas, then it may appear as if we have before us an a priori construction.”
- 6.
- 7.
Medeiros and Leite (2018) use the term “missing link” to indicate the categorical development from which capital can appear in Marx’s work.
- 8.
In Grundrisse, Marx (1993, p. 274) began to deal with this double contradiction, but at the time he referred to labor, not to labor force, as the commodity owned by the worker: “If we consider the exchange between capital and labour, then we find that it splits into two processes which are not only formally but also qualitatively different, and even contradictory: (I) The worker sells his commodity, labour, which has a use value, and, as commodity, also a price, like all other commodities (…).”
- 9.
Marx changed the term labor capacity to labor force in Capital.
- 10.
Referring to the transition from money to capital made by Marx in Grundrisse, Bidet writes (Bidet 2010, p. 115): “this dialectical attempt is not therefore conclusive.” Just as Marx’s formulation in the Economic Manuscripts of 1861–1863 bears similarities to the production of Grundrisse, it is possible to say that same applies to Grundrisse, and that only in Capital does “Marx therefore proceed in a totally distinct manner (…) starting from the ideological formulation of every holder of money who makes capitalist use of it.”
- 11.
In a letter to Engels dated July 31st, 1865, Marx says “(…) the advantage of my writings is that they are an artistic whole, and this can only be achieved through my practice of never having things printed until I have them in front of me in their entirety” (Marx and Engels 1987b, p. 173).
- 12.
We will refer to Grundrisse when the development of the category appears more clearly in it.
- 13.
We do not agree with a possible objection to this question, when some say that this should be merchandise, because Marx would have started his work with category, only to explain it later, since in this case it was the ground zero of that starting point, a debate that would take us away from the subject of this chapter.
- 14.
Specifically discussing the transformation of money into capital, Campbell (2013) makes a thorough analysis of Marx’s argument throughout chapter 4, section II of Capital and stresses the importance of that chapter in understanding the transition.
- 15.
“The economic categories already discussed similarly bear a historical imprint” (Marx 1990, p. 273).
- 16.
References to capital in chapter three are made by Marx only in footnotes and are unrelated to the discussion of capital in its general form.
- 17.
“It would therefore be pointless to counterpose the later, ‘more realistic’ seeming version of the solution in Capital to the more ‘metaphysical’ one in the Rough Draft. Both are the product of Marx’s dialectical method, and should therefore be accepted or rejected by the same token. The difference lies only in the method of presentation” (Rosdolsky 1977, p. 189–190).
- 18.
Marx will be dealing with a methodological problem that runs through the causal relationship between the first constitution of a market within which the purchase and sale of the merchandise “workforce” operates, and the very role of the workforce for the constitution of a society of capital.
- 19.
We recognize here the influence of the arguments of Leda Paulani (2011).
- 20.
We will not enter into the debate that seeks to distinguish between the functions and determinations of money.
- 21.
“The possibility, therefore, of a quantitative incongruity between price and magnitude of value, i.e. the possibility that the price may diverge from the magnitude of value, is inherent in the price-form itself. This is not a defect, but, on the contrary, it makes this form the adequate one for a mode of production whose laws can only assert themselves as blindly operating averages between constant irregularities” (Marx 1990, p. 196).
- 22.
Following a common procedure, we chose not to deal with the role of world money in the movement from money to capital. In Marx’s concept in Capital, world money must appear in its material form, as gold money, a kind of synthesis of the other two functions, namely, treasury and means of payment: “World money serves as the universal means of payment, as the universal means of purchase, and as the absolute social materialization of wealth as such (universal wealth)” (Marx 1990, p. 242). Therefore, the analysis of the two functions, which together with world money constitute the third determination of money, seemed to us satisfactory for the purposes of the section.
- 23.
Considering Marx’s dialectical method, it seems almost redundant to claim that it is possible to extract from Marx’s analysis the elements for understanding the process of transforming money into capital. But, the repetition of the term “latent” here was not accidental, for we wish to emphasize that, even though it is possible to rebuild the logic of the genesis of capital from chapter three, we do not understand that Marx intended to confine all elements of the “transition” to that chapter, regardless of theoretical developments throughout chapter four.
- 24.
The incomprehension of this limit led authors like Bidet (2010, 113) to consider that, in the passage from money to capital, Marx would have given up dialectics and break with, “the course of an explanation that we could qualify until present as dialectical-systematic (…) That is why it is impossible, in this sense, to “pass dialectically” from money to capital.” A similar position is held by Saad-Filho (2002, p. 13) who, while vindicating Ilyenkov’s materialistic dialectic, states that “Marx does not derive the concept of capital from the concept of commodity (…) He uses materialist dialectics to investigate a ‘real fact’ – the fact that the money placed in the capitalist circulation, passing through all its metamorphoses, brings a return: surplus value.” Saad-Filho seems to confuse research with exposition, and thus the dialectics he invokes is guided by purely epistemological motivations and can be “applied” to investigate the real, without accounting for the role of history (already investigated) in Marx’s mode of exposition.
- 25.
As Luporini (1974, p. 25) points out, “In Capital, the genetic-formal – that is, the systematic development of ‘forms’ or figures – is only possible through the insertion of the genetic-historical into certain points.” The same author, in a later passage, transcribed Marx’s well-known passage on the transformation of money into capital and concluded “The presence of such a variable, that is, the presence of the historical-genetic component is what makes the systematic construction of the model possible” (Ibid., p. 33).
- 26.
Regarding this issue, Rosdolsky (1977, p. 189) clarifies: “It can be seen that this is the same solution to the problem which we have already encountered in Volume I of Capital; except there the solution is present in its finished form, with the intermediary stages left out, whereas here, we can observe it, as it were, in statu nascendi.”
- 27.
It should be noted that section II continues to address a fundamental aspect of the appearance, that is, the buying and selling of the workforce. On this, Campbell (2013, p. 151) develops as follows: “Because circulation is a permanent process, but it is incapable of recreating itself, it presupposes capital. By this, our conception of circulation is transformed: what was formerly conceived as simple circulation, now reveals itself as the sphere of circulation, a phase of the circulation of capital and ‘simple circulation’ – the conception of commodity exchange, independent of capital – is recognised as the appearance of the capitalist mode of production.”
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Teixeira, A.L.A. (2019). The Place of Money in Marx’s Theory of Capital. In: Mello, G., Sabadini, M. (eds) Financial Speculation and Fictitious Profits. Marx, Engels, and Marxisms. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-23360-0_2
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