Economic Manuscripts: Karl Marx: Grundrisse

Economic Manuscripts: Karl Marx: Grundrisse
Grundrisse
Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy (Rough Draft)
Karl Marx
Written:
1857–61;
Published:
in German 1939–41;
Source:
Grundrisse, Penguin Books in association with New Left Review, 1973;
Translated by:
Martin Nicolaus;
Notes by:
Ben Fowkes;
Scanned by:
Tim Delaney, 1997;
HTML Mark-up:
Andy Blunden, 2002; Dave Allinson, 2015.
This translation is licensed by the copyright owner, Martin Nicolaus, exclusively to MIA. Publication on other online sites is prohibited. Editorial notes are included by permission of Ben Fowkes.
Grundrisse in eBook formats:
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pdf
* * *
Note on the Text
Marx wrote this huge manuscript as part of his preparation for what would become
A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy
(published in 1859) and
Capital
(published 1867).
Soviet Marxologists released several never-before-seen Marx/Engels works in the 1930s. Most were early works – like the
Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts
– but the
Grundrisse
stood alone as issuing forth from the most intense period of Marx’s decade-long, in-depth study of economics. It is an extremely rich and thought-provoking work, showing signs of humanism and the influence of Hegelian dialectic method. Do note, though, Marx did not intend it for publication as is, so it can be stylistically very rough in places.
The series of seven notebooks were rough-drafted by Marx, chiefly for purposes of self-clarification, during the winter of 1857-8. The manuscript became lost in circumstances still unknown and was first effectively published, in the German original, in 1953. A limited edition was published by Foreign Language Publishers in Moscow in two volumes, 1939 and 1941 respectively, under the editorship of the Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute, Moscow. The first volume contained the introduction and the seven notebooks translated here. The second added fragments from Marx’s 1851 notebooks of excerpts from Ricardo, the fragment ‘Bastiat and Carey’ (also included in this translation), and miscellaneous related material; also extensive annotations and sources. A photo-offset reprint of the two volumes bound in one, minus illustrations and facsimiles, was issued by Dietz Verlag, Berlin (E.), in 1953, and is the basis of the present translation. It is referred to hereafter as
Grundrisse
. Rosdolsky states that only three or four copies of the 1939-41 edition ever reached ‘the western world’.
* * *
Analytical Contents List
INTRODUCTION (Notebook M)
p81
(1) Production in general
p81
(2) General relation between production, distribution, exchange and consumption
p88
(3) The method of political economy
p100
(4) Means (forces) of production and relations of production, relations of production and relations of circulation
p109
THE CHAPTER ON MONEY (Notebooks I and II, pp. 1–7)
p113-238
Darimon’s theory of crises
p115
Gold export and crises
p125
Convertibility and note circulation
p130
Value and price
p136
Transformation of the commodity into exchange value; money
p140
Contradictions in the money relation
p147
(1) Contradiction between commodity as product and commodity as exchange value
p147
(2) Contradiction between purchase and sale
p148
(3) Contradiction between exchange for the sake of exchange and exchange for the sake of commodities
p148
(Aphorisms)
p149
(4) Contradiction between money as particular commodity and money as general commodity
p150
(The
Economist
and the
Morning Star
on money)
p151
Attempts to overcome the contradictions by the issue of time-chits
p153
Exchange value as mediation of private interests
p156
Exchange value (money) as social bond
p156
Social relations which create an undeveloped system of exchange
p163
The product becomes a commodity; the commodity becomes exchange value; the exchange value of the commodity becomes money
p165
Money as measure
p166
Money as objectification of general labour time
p168
(Incidental remark on gold and silver)
p169
Distinction between particular labour time and general labour time
p171
Distinction between planned distribution of labour time and measurement of exchange values by labour time
p172
(Strabo on money among the Albanians)
p172
The precious metals as subjects of the money relation
p173
(a) Gold and silver in relation to the other metals
p174
(b) Fluctuations in the value-relations between the different metals
p180
(c) and (d) (headings only): Sources of gold and silver; money as coin
p185
Circulation of money and opposite circulation of commodities
p186
General concept of circulation
p187
(a) Circulation circulates exchange values in the form of prices
p187
(Distinction between real money and accounting money)
p190
(b) Money as the medium of exchange
p193
(What determines the quantity of money required for circulation)
p194
(Comment on (a))
p195
Commodity circulation requires appropriation through alienation
p196
Circulation as an endlessly repeated process
p197
The price as external to and independent of the commodity
p198
Creation of general medium of exchange
p199
Exchange as a special business
p200
Double motion of circulation: C–M; M–C, and M–C; C–M
p201
Three contradictory functions of money
p203
(1) Money as general material of contracts, as measuring unit of exchange values
p203
(2) Money as medium of exchange and realizer of prices
p208
(Money, as representative of price, allows commodities to be exchanged at equivalent prices)
p211
(An example of confusion between the contradictory functions of money)
p213
(Money as particular commodity and money as general commodity)
p213
(3) Money as money: as material representative of wealth (accumulation of money)
p215
(Dissolution of ancient communities through money)
p223
(Money, unlike coin, has a universal character)
p226
(Money in its third function is the negation (negative unity) of its character as medium of circulation and measure)
p228
(Money in its metallic being; accumulation of gold and silver)
p229
(Headings on money, to be elaborated later)
p237
THE CHAPTER ON CAPITAL (Notebooks II pp. 8–28, III–VII)
p239-250
The Chapter on Money as Capital
p239
Difficulty in grasping money in its fully developed character as money
p239
Simple exchange: relations between the exchangers
p240
(Critique of socialists and harmonizers: Bastiat, Proudhon)
p247
SECTION ONE: THE PRODUCTION PROCESS OF CAPITAL
p250-401
Nothing is expressed when capital is characterized merely as a sum of values
p251
Landed property and capital
p252
Capital comes from circulation; its content is exchange value; merchant capital, money capital, and money interest
p253
Circulation presupposes another process; motion between presupposed extremes
p254
Transition from circulation to capitalist production
p256
Capital is accumulated labour (etc.)
p257
‘Capital is a sum of values used for the production of values’
p258
Circulation, and exchange value deriving from circulation, the presupposition of capital
p259
Exchange value emerging from circulation, a presupposition of circulation, preserving and multiplying itself in it by means of labour
p262
Product and capital. Value and capital. Proudhon
p264
Capital and labour. Exchange value and use value for exchange value
p266
Money and its use value (labour) in this relation capital. Self-multiplication of value is its only movement
p269
Capital, as regards substance, objectified labour. Its antithesis living, productive labour
p271
Productive labour and labour as performance of a service
p272
Productive and unproductive labour. A. Smith etc.
p273
The two different processes in the exchange of capital with labour
p274
Capital and modern landed property
p275
The market
p279
Exchange between capital and labour. Piecework wages
p281
Value of labour power
p282
Share of the wage labourer in general wealth determined only quantitatively
p283
Money is the worker’s equivalent; he thus confronts capital as an equal
p284
But the aim of his exchange is satisfaction of his need. Money for him is only medium of circulation
p284
Savings, self-denial as means of the worker’s enrichment
p284
Valuelessness and devaluation of the worker a condition of capital
p289
(Labour power as capital!)
p293
Wages not productive
p294
The exchange between capital and labour belongs within simple circulation, does not enrich the worker
p295
Separation of labour and property the precondition of this exchange
p295
Labour as object absolute poverty, labour as subject general possibility of wealth
p296
Labour without particular specificity confronts capital
p296
Labour process absorbed into capital
p297
(Capital and capitalist)
p303
Production process as content of capital
p304
The worker relates to his labour as exchange value, the capitalist as use value
p306
The worker divests himself of labour as the wealth-producing power; capital appropriates it as such
p307
Transformation of labour into capital
p308
Realization process
p310
(Costs of production)
p315
Mere self-preservation, non-multiplication of value contradicts the essence of capital
p316
Capital enters the cost of production as capital. Interest-bearing capital
p318
(Parentheses on: original accumulation of capital, historic presuppositions of capital, production in general)
p319
Surplus value. Surplus labour time
p321
Value of labour. How it is determined
p322
Conditions for the self-realization of capital
p324
Capital is productive as creator of surplus labour
p325
But this is only a historical and transitory phenomenon
p325
Theories of surplus value (Ricardo; the Physiocrats; Adam Smith; Ricardo again)
p326
Surplus value and productive force. Relation when these increase
p333
Result: in proportion as necessary labour is already diminished, the realization of capital becomes more difficult
p340
Concerning increases in the value of capital
p341
Labour does not reproduce the value of material and instrument, but rather preserves it by relating to them in the labour process as to their objective conditions
p354
Absolute surplus labour time. Relative
p359
It is not the quantity of living labour, but rather its quality as labour which preserves the labour time already contained in the material
p359
The change of form and substance in the direct production process
p360
It is inherent in the simple production process that the previous stage of production is preserved through the subsequent one
p361
Preservation of the old use value by new labour
p362
The quantity of objectified labour is preserved because contact with living labour preserves its quality as use value for new labour
p363
In the real production process, the separation of labour from its objective moments of existence is suspended. But in this process labour is already incorporated in capital
p364
The capitalist obtains surplus labour free of charge together with the maintenance of the value of material and instrument
p365
Through the appropriation of present labour, capital already possesses a claim to the appropriation of future labour
p367
Confusion of profit and surplus value. Carey’s erroneous calculation
p373
The capitalist, who does not pay the worker for the preservation of the old value, then demands remuneration for giving the worker permission to preserve the old capital
p374
Surplus Value and Profit
p376-398
Difference between consumption of the instrument and of wages. The former consumed in the production process, the latter outside it
p378
Increase of surplus value and decrease in rate of profit
p381
Multiplication of simultaneous working days
p386
Machinery
p389
Growth of the constant part of capital in relation to the variable part spent on wages = growth of the productivity of labour
p389
Proportion in which capital has to increase in order to employ the same number of workers if productivity rises
p390
Percentage of total capital can express very different relations
p395
Capital (like property in general) rests on the productivity of labour
p397
Increase of surplus labour time. Increase of simultaneous working days. (Population)
p398
(Population can increase in proportion as necessary labour time becomes smaller)
p400
Transition from the process of the production of capital into the process of circulation
p401
SECTION TWO: THE CIRCULATION PROCESS OF CAPITAL
p401-743
Devaluation of capital itself owing to increase of productive forces
p402
(Competition)
p413
Capital as unity and contradiction of the production process and the realization process
p414
Capital as limit to production. Overproduction
p415
Demand by the workers themselves
p419
Barriers to capitalist production
p422
Overproduction; Proudhon
p423
Price of the commodity and labour time
p424
The capitalist does not sell too dear; but still above what the thing costs him
p430
Price can fall below value without damage to capital
p432
Number and unit (measure) important in the multiplication of prices
p432
Specific accumulation of capital. (Transformation of surplus labour into capital)
p433
The determination of value and of prices
p433
The general rate of profit
p434
The capitalist merely sells at his own cost of production, then it is a transfer to another capitalist. The worker gains almost nothing thereby
p436
Barrier of capitalist production. Relation of surplus labour to necessary labour. Proportion of the surplus consumed by capital to that transformed into capital
p443
Devaluation during crises
p446
Capital coming out of the production process becomes money again
p447
(Parenthesis on capital in general)
p449
Surplus Labour or Surplus Value Becomes Surplus Capital
p450-459
All the determinants of capitalist production now appear as the result of (wage) labour itself
p450
The realization process of labour at the same time its de-realization process
p452
Formation of surplus capital I
p456
Surplus capital II
p456
Inversion of the law of appropriation
p458
Chief result of the production and realization process
p458
Original Accumulation of Capital
p459-471
Once developed historically, capital itself creates the conditions of its existence
p459
(Performance of personal services, as opposed to wage labour)
p465
(Parenthesis on inversion of the law of property, real alien relation of the worker to his product, division of labour, machinery)
p469
Forms which precede capitalist production. (Concerning the process which precedes the formation of the capital relation or of original accumulation)
p471
Exchange of labour for labour rests on the worker’s propertylessness
p514
Circulation of capital and circulation of money
p516
Production process and circulation process moments of production. The productivity of the different capitals (branches of industry) determines that of the individual capital
p517
Circulation period. Velocity of circulation substitutes for volume of capital. Mutual dependence of capitals in the velocity of their circulation
p518
The four moments in the turnover of capital
p520
Moment II to be considered here: transformation of the product into money; duration of this operation
p521
Transport costs
p521
Circulation costs
p524
Means of communication and transport
p525
Division of the branches of labour
p527
Concentration of many workers; productive force of this concentration
p528
General as distinct from particular conditions of production
p533
Transport to market (spatial condition of circulation) belongs in the production process
p533
Credit, the temporal moment of circulation
p534
Capital is circulating capital
p536
Influence of circulation on the determination of value; circulation time = time of devaluation
p537
Difference between the capitalist mode of production and all earlier ones (universality, propagandistic nature)
p540
(Capital itself is the contradiction)
p543
Circulation and creation of value
p544
Capital not a source of value-creation
p547
Continuity of production presupposes suspension of circulation time
p548
Theories of Surplus Value
p549-602
Ramsay’s view that capital is its own source of profit
p549
No surplus value according to Ricardo’s law
p551
Ricardo’s theory of value. Wages and profit
p553
Quincey
p557
Ricardo
p559
Wakefield. Conditions of capitalist production in colonies
p563
Surplus value and profit. Example (Malthus)
p564
Difference between labour and labour capacity
p576
Carey’s theory of the cheapening of capital for the worker
p579
Carey’s theory of the decline of the rate of profit
p580
Wakefield on the contradiction between Ricardo’s theories of wage labour and of value
p581
Bailey on dormant capital and increase of production without previous increase of capital
p582
Wade’s explanation of capital. Capital, collective force. Capital, civilization
p584
Rossi. What is capital? Is raw material capital? Are wages necessary for it?
p591
Malthus. Theory of value and of wages
p595
Aim of capitalist production value (money), not commodity, use value etc. Chalmers
p600
Difference in return. Interruption of the production process. Total duration of the production process. Unequal periods of production
p602
The concept of the free labourer contains the pauper. Population and overpopulation
p604
Necessary labour. Surplus labour. Surplus population. Surplus capital
p608
Adam Smith: work as sacrifice
p610
Adam Smith: the origin of profit
p614
Surplus labour. Profit. Wages
p616
Immovable capital. Return of capital. Fixed capital. John Stuart Mill
p616
Turnover of capital. Circulation process. Production process
p618
Circulation costs. Circulation time
p633
Capital’s change of form and of substance; different forms of capital; circulating capital as general character of capital
p637
Fixed (tied down) capital and circulating capital
p640
Constant and variable capital
p649
Competition
p649
Surplus value. Production time. Circulation time. Turnover time
p650
Competition (continued)
p657
Part of capital in production time, part in circulation time
p658
Surplus value and production phase. Number of reproductions of capital = number of turnovers
p663
Change of form and of matter in the circulation of capital C–M–C. M–C–M
p667
Difference between production time and labour time
p668
Formation of a mercantile estate; credit
p671
Small-scale circulation. The process of exchange between capital and labour capacity generally
p673
Threefold character, or mode, of circulation
p678
Fixed capital and circulating capital
p679
Influence of fixed capital on the total turnover time of capital
p684
Fixed capital. Means of labour. Machine
p690
Transposition of powers of labour into powers of capital both in fixed and in circulating capital
p699
To what extent fixed capital (machine) creates value
p701
Fixed capital & continuity of the production process. Machinery & living labour
p702
Contradiction between the foundation of bourgeois production (value as measure) and its development
p704
Significance of the development of fixed capital (for the development of capital generally)
p707
The chief role of capital is to create disposable time; contradictory form of this in capital
p708
Durability of fixed capital
p710
Real saving (economy) = saving of labour time = development of productive force
p711
True conception of the process of social production
p712
Owen’s historical conception of industrial (capitalist) production
p712
Capital and value of natural agencies
p714
Scope of fixed capital indicates the level of capitalist production
p715
Is money fixed capital or circulating capital?
p716
Turnover time of capital consisting of fixed capital and circulating capital. Reproduction time of fixed capital
p717
The same commodity sometimes circulating capital, sometimes fixed capital
p723
Every moment which is a presupposition of production is at the same time its result, in that it reproduces its own conditions
p726
The counter-value of circulating capital must be produced within the year. Not so for fixed capital. It engages the production of subsequent years
p727
Maintenance costs of fixed capital
p732
Revenue of fixed capital and circulating capital
p732
Free labour = latent pauperism. Eden
p735
The smaller the value of fixed capital in relation to its product, the more useful
p737
Movable and immovable, fixed and circulating
p739
Connection of circulation and reproduction
p741
SECTION THREE: CAPITAL AS FRUCTIFEROUS.
TRANSFORMATION OF SURPLUS VALUE INTO PROFIT
p745-778
Rate of profit. Fall of the rate of profit
p745
Surplus value as profit always expresses a lesser proportion
p753
Wakefield, Carey and Bastiat on the rate of profit
p754
Capital and revenue (profit). Production and distribution. Sismondi
p758
Transformation of surplus value into profit
p762
Laws of this transformation
p762
Surplus value = relation of surplus labour to necessary labour
p764
Value of fixed capital and its productive power
p765
Machinery and surplus labour. Recapitulation of the doctrine of surplus value generally
p767
Relation between the objective conditions of production. Change in the proportion of the component parts of capital
p771
MISCELLANEOUS
p778-880
Money and fixed capital: presupposes a certain amount of wealth. Relation of fixed capital and circulating capital. (
Economist
p778
Slavery and wage labour; profit upon alienation (Steuart)
p778
Steuart, Montanari and Gouge on money
p781
The wool industry in England since Elizabeth; silk-manufacture; iron; cotton
p783
Origin of free wage labour. Vagabondage. (Tuckett)
p785
Blake on accumulation and rate of profit; dormant capital
p786
Domestic agriculture at the beginning of the sixteenth century. (Tuckett)
p788
Profit. Interest. Influence of machinery on the wage fund. (
Westminster Review
p789
Money as measure of values and yardstick of prices. Critique of theories of the standard measure of money
p789
Transformation of the medium of circulation into money. Formation of treasures. Means of payment. Prices of commodities and quantity of circulating money. Value of money
p805
Capital, not labour, determines the value of money. (Torrens)
p816
The minimum of wages
p817
Cotton machinery and working men in 1826. (Hodgskin)
p818
How the machine creates raw material. (
Economist
p818
Machinery and surplus labour
p819
Capital and profit. Relation of the worker to the conditions of labour in capitalist production. All parts of capital bring a profit
p821
Tendency of the machine to prolong labour
p825
Cotton factories in England. Example for machinery and surplus labour
p826
Examples from Glasgow for the rate of profit
p828
Alienation of the conditions of labour with the development of capital. Inversion
p831
Merivale. Natural dependence of the worker in colonies to be replaced by artificial restrictions
p833
How the machine saves material. Bread. D’eau de la Malle
p834
Development of money and interest
p836
Productive consumption. Newman. Transformations of capital. Economic cycle
p840
Dr Price. Innate power of capital
p842
Proudhon. Capital and simple exchange. Surplus
p843
Necessity of the worker’s propertylessness
p845
Galiani
p846
Theory of savings. Storch
p848
MacCulloch. Surplus. Profit
p849
Arnd. Natural interest
p850
Interest and profit. Carey
p851
How merchant takes the place of master
p855
Merchant wealth
p856
Commerce with equivalents impossible. Opdyke
p861
Principal and interest
p862
Double standard
p862
On money
p864
James Mill’s false theory of prices
p867
Ricardo on currency
p870
On money
p871
Theory of foreign trade. Two nations may exchange according to the law of profit in such a way that both gain, but one is always defrauded
p872
Money in its third role, as money
p872
(I) VALUE (This section to be brought forward)
p881
BASTIAT AND CAREY
p883-893
Bastiat’s economic harmonies
p883
Bastiat on wages
p889
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