110
Chapter 4
example, as the question of over-production, from transforming the same capitalist into a moral
citizen, whose sole concern is for use-values, and who even develops an insatiable hunger for boots,
hats, eggs, calico, and other extremely familiar sorts of use-values.
10
Sozein is a characteristic Greek expression for hoarding. So in English to save has the same
two meanings: sauver and épargner.
11
“Questo infinito che le cose non hanno in progresso, hanno in giro.” [“That infinity which things do
not possess, they possess in circulation.”] (Galiani.)
12
“Ce n’est pas la matière qui fait le capital, mais la valeur de ces matières.” [“It is not matter which
makes capital, but the value of that matter.”] (J. B. Say: “Traité d’Econ. Polit.” 3ème éd. Paris, 1817,
t. II., p. 429.)
13
“Currency (!) employed in producing articles... is capital.” (Macleod: “The Theory and Practice of
Banking.” London, 1855, v. 1, ch. i, p. 55.) “Capital is commodities.” (James Mill: “Elements of Pol.
Econ.” Lond., 1821, p. 74.)
14
Capital: “portion fructifiante de la richesse accumulée... valeur permanente, multipliante.”
(Sismondi: “Nouveaux Principes d’Econ. Polit.,” t. i., p. 88, 89.)
Chapter 5: Contradictions in the General
Formula of Capital
The form which circulation takes when money becomes capital, is opposed to all the laws we
have hitherto investigated bearing on the nature of commodities, value and money, and even of
circulation itself. What distinguishes this form from that of the simple circulation of commodities,
is the inverted order of succession of the two antithetical processes, sale and purchase. How can
this purely formal distinction between these processes change their character as it were by magic?
But that is not all. This inversion has no existence for two out of the three persons who transact
business together. As capitalist, I buy commodities from A and sell them again to B, but as a
simple owner of commodities, I sell them to B and then purchase fresh ones from A. A and B see
no difference between the two sets of transactions. They are merely buyers or sellers. And I on
each occasion meet them as a mere owner of either money or commodities, as a buyer or a seller,
and, what is more, in both sets of transactions, I am opposed to A only as a buyer and to B only as
a seller, to the one only as money, to the other only as commodities, and to neither of them as
capital or a capitalist, or as representative of anything that is more than money or commodities, or
that can produce any effect beyond what money and commodities can. For me the purchase from
A and the sale to B are part of a series. But the connexion between the two acts exists for me
alone. A does not trouble himself about my transaction with B, nor does B about my business
with A. And if I offered to explain to them the meritorious nature of my action in inverting the
order of succession, they would probably point out to me that I was mistaken as to that order of
succession, and that the whole transaction, instead of beginning with a purchase and ending with
a sale, began, on the contrary, with a sale and was concluded with a purchase. In truth, my first
act, the purchase, was from the standpoint of A, a sale, and my second act, the sale, was from the
standpoint of B, a purchase. Not content with that, A and B would declare that the whole series
was superfluous and nothing but Hokus Pokus; that for the future A would buy direct from B, and
B sell direct to A. Thus the whole transaction would be reduced to a single act forming an
isolated, non-complemented phase in the ordinary circulation of commodities, a mere sale from
A’s point of view, and from B’s, a mere purchase. The inversion, therefore, of the order of
succession, does not take us outside the sphere of the simple circulation of commodities, and we
must rather look, whether there is in this simple circulation anything permitting an expansion of
the value that enters into circulation, and, consequently, a creation of surplus-value.
Let us take the process of circulation in a form under which it presents itself as a simple and
direct exchange of commodities. This is always the case when two owners of commodities buy
from each other, and on the settling day the amounts mutually owing are equal and cancel each
other. The money in this case is money of account and serves to express the value of the
commodities by their prices, but is not, itself, in the shape of hard cash, confronted with them. So
far as regards use-values, it is clear that both parties may gain some advantage. Both part with
goods that, as use-values, are of no service to them, and receive others that they can make use of.
And there may also be a further gain. A, who sells wine and buys corn, possibly produces more
wine, with given labour-time, than farmer B could, and B on the other hand, more corn than
wine-grower A could. A, therefore, may get, for the same exchange-value, more corn, and B
more wine, than each would respectively get without any exchange by producing his own corn
and wine. With reference, therefore, to use-value, there is good ground for saying that “exchange
is a transaction by which both sides gain.”
1
It is otherwise with exchange-value. “A man who has