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is its end and aim. The circuit M-C-M, on the contrary, commences with money and ends with
money. Its leading motive, and the goal that attracts it, is therefore mere exchange-value.
In the simple circulation of commodities, the two extremes of the circuit have the same economic
form. They are both commodities, and commodities of equal value. But they are also use-values
differing in their qualities, as, for example, corn and clothes. The exchange of products, of the
different materials in which the labour of society is embodied, forms here the basis of the
movement. It is otherwise in the circulation M-C-M, which at first sight appears purposeless,
because tautological. Both extremes have the same economic form. They are both money, and
therefore are not qualitatively different use-values; for money is but the converted form of
commodities, in which their particular use-values vanish. To exchange £100 for cotton, and then
this same cotton again for £100, is merely a roundabout way of exchanging money for money, the
same for the same, and appears to be an operation just as purposeless as it is absurd.
4
One sum of
money is distinguishable from another only by its amount. The character and tendency of the
process M-C-M, is therefore not due to any qualitative difference between its extremes, both
being money, but solely to their quantitative difference. More money is withdrawn from
circulation at the finish than was thrown into it at the start. The cotton that was bought for £100 is
perhaps resold for £100 + £10 or £110. The exact form of this process is therefore M-C-M', where
M' = M + D M = the original sum advanced, plus an increment. This increment or excess over the
original value I call “surplus-value.” The value originally advanced, therefore, not only remains
intact while in circulation, but adds to itself a surplus-value or expands itself. It is this movement
that converts it into capital.
Of course, it is also possible, that in C-M-C, the two extremes C-C, say corn and clothes, may
represent different quantities of value. The farmer may sell his corn above its value, or may buy
the clothes at less than their value. He may, on the other hand, “be done” by the clothes merchant.
Yet, in the form of circulation now under consideration, such differences in value are purely
accidental. The fact that the corn and the clothes are equivalents, does not deprive the process of
all meaning, as it does in M-C-M. The equivalence of their values is rather a necessary condition
to its normal course.
The repetition or renewal of the act of selling in order to buy, is kept within bounds by the very
object it aims at, namely, consumption or the satisfaction of definite wants, an aim that lies
altogether outside the sphere of circulation. But when we buy in order to sell, we, on the contrary,
begin and end with the same thing, money, exchange-value; and thereby the movement becomes
interminable. No doubt, M becomes M + D M, £100 become £110. But when viewed in their
qualitative aspect alone, £110 are the same as £100, namely money; and considered
quantitatively, £110 is, like £100, a sum of definite and limited value. If now, the £110 be spent
as money, they cease to play their part. They are no longer capital. Withdrawn from circulation,
they become petrified into a hoard, and though they remained in that state till doomsday, not a
single farthing would accrue to them. If, then, the expansion of value is once aimed at, there is
just the same inducement to augment the value of the £110 as that of the £100; for both are but
limited expressions for exchange-value, and therefore both have the same vocation to approach,
by quantitative increase, as near as possible to absolute wealth. Momentarily, indeed, the value
originally advanced, the £100 is distinguishable from the surplus-value of £10 that is annexed to
it during circulation; but the distinction vanishes immediately. At the end of the process, we do
not receive with one hand the original £100, and with the other, the surplus-value of £10. We
simply get a value of £110, which is in exactly the same condition and fitness for commencing
the expanding process, as the original £100 was. Money ends the movement only to begin it
again.
5
Therefore, the final result of every separate circuit, in which a purchase and consequent
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sale are completed, forms of itself the starting-point of a new circuit. The simple circulation of
commodities - selling in order to buy - is a means of carrying out a purpose unconnected with
circulation, namely, the appropriation of use-values, the satisfaction of wants. The circulation of
money as capital is, on the contrary, an end in itself, for the expansion of value takes place only
within this constantly renewed movement. The circulation of capital has therefore no limits.
6
As the conscious representative of this movement, the possessor of money becomes a capitalist.
His person, or rather his pocket, is the point from which the money starts and to which it returns.
The expansion of value, which is the objective basis or main-spring of the circulation M-C-M,
becomes his subjective aim, and it is only in so far as the appropriation of ever more and more
wealth in the abstract becomes the sole motive of his operations, that he functions as a capitalist,
that is, as capital personified and endowed with consciousness and a will. Use-values must
therefore never be looked upon as the real aim of the capitalist;
7
neither must the profit on any
single transaction. The restless never-ending process of profit-making alone is what he aims at.
8
This boundless greed after riches, this passionate chase after exchange-value
9
, is common to the
capitalist and the miser; but while the miser is merely a capitalist gone mad, the
capitalist is a
rational miser. The never-ending augmentation of exchange-value, which the miser strives after,
by seeking to save
10
his money from circulation, is attained by the more acute capitalist, by
constantly throwing it afresh into circulation.
11
The independent form,
i.e., the money-form, which the value of commodities assumes in the case
of simple circulation, serves only one purpose, namely, their exchange, and vanishes in the final
result of the movement. On the other hand, in the circulation M-C-M, both the money and the
commodity represent only different modes of existence of value itself, the money its general
mode, and the commodity its particular, or, so to say, disguised mode.
12
It is constantly changing
from one form to the other without thereby becoming lost, and thus assumes an automatically
active character. If now we take in turn each of the two different forms which self-expanding
value successively assumes in the course of its life, we then arrive at these two propositions:
Capital is money: Capital is commodities.
13
In truth, however, value is here the active factor in a
process, in which, while constantly assuming the form in turn of money and commodities, it at
the same time changes in magnitude, differentiates itself by throwing off surplus-value from
itself; the original value, in other words, expands spontaneously. For the movement, in the course
of which it adds surplus-value, is its own movement, its expansion, therefore, is automatic
expansion. Because it is value, it has acquired the occult quality of being able to add value to
itself. It brings forth living offspring, or, at the least, lays golden eggs.
Value, therefore, being the active factor in such a process, and assuming at one time the form of
money, at another that of commodities, but through all these changes preserving itself and
expanding, it requires some independent form, by means of which its identity may at any time be
established. And this form it possesses only in the shape of money. It is under the form of money
that value begins and ends, and begins again, every act of its own spontaneous generation. It
began by being £100, it is now £110, and so on. But the money itself is only one of the two forms
of value. Unless it takes the form of some commodity, it does not become capital. There is here
no antagonism, as in the case of hoarding, between the money and commodities. The capitalist
knows that all commodities, however scurvy they may look, or however badly they may smell,
are in faith and in truth money, inwardly circumcised Jews, and what is more, a wonderful means
whereby out of money to make more money.
In simple circulation, C-M-C, the value of commodities attained at the most a form independent
of their use-values, i.e., the form of money; but that same value now in the circulation M-C-M, or
the circulation of capital, suddenly presents itself as an independent substance, endowed with a