Abstract
In this chapter Otani looks at the forms taken by the laws of social reproduction under capitalist society. Within the commodity capital of the departments producing the means of production and the means of consumption, the social reproduction process advances through the intertwinement of various metamorphoses: constant capital into means of production, variable capital into labour-power, labour-power into means of consumption of workers, and surplus-value into means of consumption of capitalists. What is important, first of all, is that a condition for the progression of simple reproduction is that the variable capital and surplus-value within the capital value of the department of the means of production and the constant capital of the department of the means of consumption can replace each other so that the value parts of each are equivalent. The second important point is that the value part of the constant capital within the commodity capital of the department producing the means of production can carry out a conversion through mutual replacements within the individual capitals in this same department; in clarifying the existence of this constant capital, Marx overcame «Smith’s dogma».
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Notes
- 1.
In order to fully understand the following explanation of the reproduction schema, it is necessary, above all, to correctly grasp the concept of the circuit of commodity capital explained in 7 Chap. 12 (see 7 Sect. «Circuit of Commodity Capital (C′...C′ Circuit: C′–M′–C...P...C′)»).
- 2.
The term advance used here does not mean an «investment» of capital in expection of valorisation, but rather the «handing over of money in payment» in the expectation of a subsequent reflux.
- 3.
The durability period of the means of labour is not necessarily the period up to the point of time when it has physically lost its use-value because—under the pressure of competition between capitals or as the result of the «moral depreciation» of fixed capital (cf. footnote 4 of 7 Chap. 5) arising from the development of productive powers—individual capital often replaces its means of labour before their physical durability has expired.
- 4.
Some Japanese researchers have advanced a «theory» that deduces an «equilibrium rate of accumulation» from the sum of capital accumulation possible under a premised reproduction schema in which the reproduction elements in both departments can be reciprocally replaced without any excess or deficiency. Furthermore, they go on to depict the progression of reproduction as it expands in accordance with that rate, which they call the «equilibrium trajectory of accumulation». But this conception, which they insist has theoretical significance, overlooks the real relations, wherein capital accumulation and the accompanying development of productive power are the independent variables, while the proportion between the departments is the dependent variable. These real relations have a decisive significance for an understanding of the conditions of expanded reproduction.
- 5.
Marx (1885) writes: «In as much as one-sided conversions take place, a number of mere purchases on the one hand, and isolated sales on the other—the normal exchange of the annual product on the capitalist basis requires these one-sided metamorphoses—this balance exists only on the assumption that the values of the one-sided purchases and the one-sided sales cover each other. The fact that the production of commodities is the general form of capitalist production already implies that money plays a role, not just as means of circulation but also as money capital within the circulation sphere, and gives rise to certain conditions for normal exchange that are peculiar to this mode of production, i.e. conditions for the normal course of reproduction, whether simple or on an expanded scale, which turn into an equal number of conditions for an abnormal course, possibilities of crisis, since, on the basis of the spontaneous pattern of this production, this balance is itself an accident». (Marx 1978, pp. 570–571; my emphasis).
Reference
Marx K (1885) Das Kapital. Kritik der politischen Oekonomie. Bd. 2. Buch 2: Der Circulationsprocess des Kapitals. Hrsg. von F. Engels. Hamburg. English edition: Marx K (1978) Capital. A critique of political economy, vol. 2 (trans: Fernbach D). Penguin Books, London
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Otani, T. (2018). Reproduction and Circulation of the Total Social Capital. In: A Guide to Marxian Political Economy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65954-1_14
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