Capital, Vol. II: The Process of Circulation of Capital
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- Some scanning errors (automatic measure over the whole text, not checked by hand) · 1 illegible passage, excluded from answers
- Extent:
- ~260,000 words · 1,251 passages
Cite this work
- APAKarl Marx. (n.d.). Capital, Vol. II: The Process of Circulation of Capital. Digital reproduction: SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/karl-marx/capital-vol-ii-the-process-of-circulation-of-capital
- MLAKarl Marx. Capital, Vol. II: The Process of Circulation of Capital. Digital reproduction, SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/karl-marx/capital-vol-ii-the-process-of-circulation-of-capital.
- ChicagoKarl Marx. Capital, Vol. II: The Process of Circulation of Capital. Digital reproduction, SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/karl-marx/capital-vol-ii-the-process-of-circulation-of-capital.
Reference to the edition that SigPhi reproduces: SigPhi is its digital reproduction, not its publisher. The edition's year is not in the metadata (hence "n.d."), and the translator appears only when recorded.
What it is about
The second volume of Capital: not production but circulation — how capital passes from money to commodity and back to money, how long that takes, and how an economy as a whole can reproduce itself year after year.
Context and history
Marx did not publish it. Engels assembled it from the manuscripts and brought it out in 1885, two years after Marx's death. It is the least read of the three volumes and the most technical; the reproduction schemes at the end are the ground on which Rosa Luxemburg and her opponents later argued whether capitalist accumulation can sustain itself.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
We have seen on previous occasions that capitalist production, once it is established, does not only reproduce in its further development this separation, but extends its scope more and more, until it becomes the prevailing social condition. However, there is still another side to this question. In order that capital may be able to arise and take control of production, a definite stage in the development of commerce must precede. This includes the circulation of commodities, and therefore also the production of commodities; for no articles can enter circulation in the form of commodities, unless they are manufactured for sale, and intended for commerce. But the production of commodities does not become the normal mode of production, until it finds as its basis the capitalist system of production. The Russian landowners, who are compelled to carry on The Circulation of Money-Capital. 41 agriculture by the help of wage-laborers instead of serfs, since the so-called emancipation of the serfs, complain about two things. They wail in the first place about the lack of money-capital. They say, for instance, that large sums must be paid to wage-laborers, before the crops can be sold, and there is a dearth of ready cash. Capital in the form of money must always be available for the payment of wages, before production on a capitalist scale can be carried on. But the landowners may take hope. In due time the industrial capitalist will have at his disposal, not alone his own money, but also that of others. The second complaint is more characteristic. It is to the effect that even if money is available, there are not enough laborers at hand at any time. The reason is that the Russian farm laborer, owing to the communal property in land, has not been fully separated from his means of production, and hence is not yet a "free wage-worker" in the full capitalist meaning of the word.…