less fixed character and fall within various periods of life of the fixed capital. These are the diseases of childhood and the far more numerous diseases in the period following the prime of life. A machine, for instance, may be placed in the process of production in ever so perfect a condition, still the actual work will always reveal shortcomings which must be remedied by additional labor. On the other hand, the more a machine passes beyond the prime of life, when, therefore, the normal wear and tear has accumulated and has rendered its material worn and weak, the more numerous and considerable will be the repairs required to keep it in order for the remainder of its average life-time; it is the same with an old man, who needs more medical care to keep from dying than a young and strong man. In spite of its accidental character, the labor of repairing is therefore unequally distributed over the various periods of life of fixed capital.
From the foregoing, and from the otherwise accidental character of the labor of repairing, we make the following deductions.
In one respect, the actual expenditure of labor-power and labor-material for repairs is as accidental as the conditions which cause these repairs; the amount of the necessary repairs is differently distributed over the various life-periods of fixed capital. In other respects, it is taken for granted in the calculation of the average life of fixed capital that it is constantly kept in good working order, partly by cleaning (including the cleaning of the rooms), partly by repairs such as the occasion may require. The transfer of value through wear and tear of fixed capital is calculated on its average life, but this average life itself is based on the assumption that the additional capital required for keeping machine in order is continually advanced.
On the other hand it is also evident that the value added by this extra expenditure of capital and labor cannot be transferred to the price of the products simultaneously as it is made. For instance, a manufacturer of yarn cannot sell his yarn dearer this week than last, merely because one of his machines broke a wheel or tore a belt this week. The general expenses of the spinning industry have not been 200 Capital.
200 Capital.
changed by this accident in some individual factory. Here as in all determinations of value, the average decides. Experience teaches the average extent of such accidents and of the necessary labors of conservation and repair during the average life-time of the fixed capital invested in a given branch of industry. This average expense is distributed over the average life-time. It is added to the price of the product in corresponding aliquot parts and hence also reproduced by means of its sale.
The extra capital which is thus reproduced belongs to the circulating capital, although the manner of its expenditure is irregular. As it is highly important to remedy every injury to a machine immediately, every large factory employs in addition to the regular factory hands a number of other employees, such as engineers, wood-workers, mechanics, smiths, etc. The wages of these special employees are a part of the variable capital, and the value of their labor is distributed over their product. On the other hand, the expenses for means of production are calculated on the basis of the above-mentioned average, according to which they form continually a part of the value of the product, although they are actually advanced in irregular periods and therefore transferred in irregular periods to the product or the fixed capital. This capital, invested in regular repairs, is in many respects a peculiar capital, which can be classed neither with the circulating nor the fixed capital, but still belongs with more justification to the former, since it is a part of the running expenses.
The manner of bookkeeping does not, of course, change in any way the actual condition of the things of which an account is kept. But it is important to note that it is the custom of many businesses to class the expenses of repairing with the actual wear and tear of the fixed capital, in the following manner: Take it that the advanced fixed capital is 10,000 pounds sterling, its life-time 15 years; the annual wear and tear 666 and 2/3 pounds sterling. But the wear and tear is calculated at only ten years, in other words, 1,000 pounds sterling are added annually for wear and tear of the fixed capital to the prices of the produced commodities, Fixed Capital and Circulating Capital. 201 instead of 60G and 2/3 pounds sterling. Thus 333 and 1/3 pounds sterling are reserved for repairs, etc. (The figures 10 and 15 are chosen at random.) This amount is spent on an average for repairs, in order that the fixed capital may last 15 years. This calculation does not alter the fact that the fixed capital and the additional capital invested in repairs belong to different categories. On the strength of this mode of calculation it was, for instance, assumed that the lowest estimate for the consefvation and reproduction of steamships was 15 per cent, the time of reproduction therefore equal to 6 2/3 years. In the sixties, the English government indemnified the Peninsular and Oriental Co. for it at the rate of 16 per cent, making the time of reproduction equal to G 1/3 years. On railroads, the average life-time of a locomotive is 10 years, but the wear and tear including repairs is assumed to be 12 1/2 per cent, reducing the life-time down to 8 years. In the case of passenger and freight cars, 9 per cent are estimated, or a life-time of 11 1/9 years.
Legislation has everywhere made a distinction, in the leases of houses and other things, which represent fixed capital for their owners, between the normal wear and tear which is the result of time, the influence of the elements, and normal use and between those occasional repairs which are required for keeping up the normal life-time of the house during its normal use. As a rule, the former expenses are borne by the owner, the latter by the tenant. The repairs are further distinguished as ordinary and substantial. The last-named are partly a renewal of the fixed capital in its natural form, and they fall likewise on the shoulders of the owner, unless the lease explicitly states the contrary. For instance, the English law, according to Hodsworth (Law of Landlord and Tenant, pages 90 and 91), prescribes that a tenant from year to year is merely obliged to keep the buildings water-and-wind proof, so long as this is possible without substantial repairs, and to attend only to such repairs as are known as ordinary. And even in this respect the age and the general condition of the building at the time when the tenant took possession must be considered, for he is not obliged to replace either old or worn-out ma- 202 Capital terial by new, or to make up for the inevitable deprecia* tion incidental to the lapse of time and normal usage.
Entirely different from the reproduction of wear and tear and from the work of preserving and repairing is the insurance, which relates to destruction caused by extraordinary phenomena of nature, fire, flood, etc. This must be made good out of the surplus-value and is a deduction from it. Or, considered from the point of view of the entire society, there must be a continuous overproduction, that is to say, a production on a larger scale than is necessary for the simple replacement and reproduction of the existing wealth, quite apart from an increase of the population, in order to be able to dispose of the means of production required for making good the extraordinary destruction caused by accidents and natural forces.
In point of fact, only the smallest part of the capital needed for making good such destruction consists of the money-reserve fund. The most important part consists in the extension of the scale of production itself, which is either actual expansion, or a part of the normal scope of the branches of production which manufacture the fixed capital. For instance, a machine factory is managed with a view to the fact that on the one side the factories of its customers are annually extended, and that on the other hand a number of them will always stand in need of total or partial reproduction.
In the determination of the wear and tear and of the cost of repairing, according to the social average, there are necessarily great discrepancies, even for investments of capital of equal size and in equal conditions, in the same branch of production. In practice, a machine lasts in the case of one capitalist longer than its average time, while in the case of another it does not last so long. The expenses of the one for repairs are above, of the other below the average, etc. But the addition to the price of the commodities resulting from wear and tear and from repairs is the same and is determined by the average. The one therefore gets more out of this additional price than he really spent, the other less. This as well as other circumstances which produce dif- Fixed Capital and Circulating Capital. 203 ferent gains for different capitalists in the same branch of industry with the same degree of the exploitation of laborpower renders an understanding of the true nature of surplus-value difficult.
The boundary between regular repairs and replacement, between expenses of repairing and expenses of renewal, is more or less shifting. Hence we see the continual dispute, for instance in railroading, whether certain expenses are for repairs or for reproduction, whether they must be paid from running expenses or from the capital itself. A transfer of expenses for repairs to capital-account instead of revenueaccount is the familiar method by which railway managements artificially inflate their dividends. However, experience has already furnished the most important clues for this. According to Lardner, page 49 of the previously quoted work, the additional labor required during the first period of life of a railroad is not counted under the head of repairs, but must be regarded as an essential factor of railway construction, and is to be charged, therefore, to the account of capital, since it is not due to wear and tear or • to the normal effect of the traffic, but to the original and inevitable imperfection of railway construction. On the other hand, it is the only correct method, according to Captain Fitzmaurice (Committee of Inquiry of Caledonian Railway, published in Money Market Review, 1867), to charge the revenue of each year with the depreciation, which is the necessary concomitant of the transactions by which this revenue has been earned, regardless of whether this sum has been spent or not.
The separation of the reproduction and conservation of fixed capital becomes practically impossible and useless in agriculture, at least in so far as it does not operate with steam. According to Kirchhoff (Handbuch der landwirthschaftlichen Betriebslehre, Berlin, 1862, page 137), "it is the custom to estimate on a general average the annual wear and tear and conservation of the implements, according to the differences of existing conditions, at from 15 to 20 per cent of the purchasing capital, wherever there is a complete, though not excessive, supply of implements on the farm."
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In the case of the rolling stock of a railroad, repairs and reproduction cannot be separated. According to T. Gooch, Chairman of the Great Western Railway Co. (R. C. No. 17,-327-29), his company maintained its rolling stock numerically. Whatever number of locomotives they might have, would be maintained. If one of them became worn out in the course of time, so that it was more profitable to build a new one, it was built at the expense of the revenue, in which case the value of the material remaining from the old locomotive was credited to the revenue. There always was a good deal of material left. The wheels, the axles, the boilers, in short, a good part of the old locomotive remained.
"To repair means to renew; for me there is no such word as 'replacement';...once that a railway company has bought a car or a locomotive, they ought to keep them in such repair that they will run for all eternity (17,784). We calculate 8 1/2 d. per English freight mile for locomotive expenses. Out of this 8 1/2 d. we maintain the locomotives forever. We renew our machines. If you want to buy a machine new, you spend more money than is necessary...You can always find a few wheels, an axle, or some other part of an old machine in condition to be used, and that helps to construct cheaply a machine which is just as good as an entirely new one (17,790). I now produce every week one new locomotive, that is to say, one that is as good as new, for its boiler, cylinder, and frame are new." (17,843.) Archibald Sturrock, locomotive superintendent of Great Northern Railway, in R. C, 1867.
Lardner says likewise about cars, on page 116 of his work, that in the course of time, the supply of locomotives and cars is continually renewed; at one time new wheels are put on, at another a new frame is constructed. Those parts on which the motion is conditioned and which are most exposed to wear and tear are gradually renewed; the machines and cars may then undergo so many repairs that not a trace of the old material remains in them...Even if the old cars and locomotives get so that they cannot be repaired any more, pieces of them are still worked in to others, so that they never disappear wholly from the track. The rolling stock is therefore in process of continuous re- Fixed Capital and Circulating Capital. 205 production; that which must be done at one time for the track, takes place for the rolling stock gradually, from year to year. Its existence is perennial, it is in process of continuous rejuvenation.
This process, which Lardner here describes relative to a railroad, is not typical for an individual factory, but may serve as an illustration of continuous and partial reproduction of fixed capital intermingled with repairs, within an entire branch of production, or even within the aggregate production considered on a social scale.
Here is a proof to what extent clever managers may manipulate the terms repairs and replacement for the purpose of making dividends. According to the above quoted lecture of R. B. Williams, various English railway companies deducted the following sums from the revenue-account, as averages of a period of years, for repairs and maintenance of the track and buildings, per English mile of track per year: London & North Western £370 Midland £225 London & South Western £257 Great Northern £360 Lancashire & Yorkshire £377 South Eastern £263 Brighton £266 Manchester & Sheffield £200 These differences arise only to a minor degree from differences in the actual expenses; they are due almost exclusively to different modes of calculation, according to whether expenses are charged to the account of capital or revenue. Williams says in so many words that the lesser charge is made, because this is necessary for a good dividend, and a high charge is made, because there is a greater revenue which can bear it.
In certain cases, the wear and tear, and therefore its replacement, is practically infinitesimal so that nothing but expenses for repairs have to be charged. The statements of Lardner relative to works of art, which are given in substance below, also apply in general to all solid works, docks, canals, iron and stone bridges, etc. According to him, pages 206 Capital.
206 Capital.
38 and 39 of his work, the wear and tear which is the result of the influence of long periods of time on solid works, is almost imperceptible in short spaces of time; after the lapse of a long period, for instance of centuries, such influences will nevertheless require the partial or total renewal of even the most solid structures. This imperceptible wear and tear, compared to the more perceptible in other parts of the railroad, may be likened to the secular and periodical inequalities in the motions of world-bodies. The influence of time on the more massive structures of a railroad, such as bridges, tunnels, viaducts, etc., furnishes illustrations of that which might be called secular wear and tear. The more rapid and perceptible depreciation, which is compensated by repairs in shorter periods, is analogous to the periodical inequalities. The compensation of the accidental damages, such as the outer surface of even the most solid structures will suffer from time to time, is likewise included in the annual expenses for repairs; but apart from these repairs, age does not pass by such structures without leaving its marks, and the time must inevitably come, when their condition will require a new structure. From a financial and economic point of view, this time may indeed be too far off to be taken into practical consideration.
These statements of Lardner apply to all similar structures of a secular duration, in the case of which the capital advanced for them need not be reproduced according to their gradual wear and tear, but only the annual average expenses of conservation and repairs are to be transferred to the prices of the products.
Although, as we have seen, a greater part of the money returning for the compensation of the wear and tear of the fixed capital is annually, or even in shorter periods, reconverted into its natural form, nevertheless every capitalist requires a sinking fund for that part of his fixed capital, which becomes mature for complete reproduction only after the lapse of years and must then be entirely replaced. A considerable part of the fixed capital precludes gradual reproduction by its composition. Besides, in cases where the reproduction takes place piecemeal in such a way that every now and then new pieces are added in compensation for Fixed Capital and Circulating Capital. 20?
worn-out ones, a previous accumulation of money is necessary to a greater or smaller degree, according to the specific character of the branch of production, before replacement can proceed. It is not any arbitrary sum of money which suffices for this purpose; a sum of a definite size is required for it.
If we study this question merely on the assumption that we have to deal with the simple circulation of commodities, without regard to the credit system, which we shall treat later, then the mechanism of this movement has the following aspect: We showed in Volume I, chapter III, 3a, that the proportion in which the total mass of money is distributed over a hoard and means of production varies continually, if one part of the money available in society lies fallow as a hoard, while another performs the functions of a medium of circulation or of an immediate reserve-fund of the directly circulating money. Now, in the present case, the money accumulated in the hands of a great capitalist in the form of a large-sized hoard is set free all at once in circulation for the purchase of mixed capital. It is on its oart again distributed over the society as medium of circulation and hoard. By means of the sinking fund, through which the value of the fixed capital flows back to its starting point in proportion to its wear and tear, a part of the circulating money forms again a hoard, for a longer or shorter period, in the hands of the same capitalist whose hoard had been transformed into a medium of circulation and passed away from him by the purchase of fixed capital. It is a continually changing distribution of the hoard existing in society, which performs alternately the function of a medium of exchange and is again separated as a hoard from the mass of the circulating money. With the development of the credit-system, which necessarily runs parallel with the development of great industries and capitalist production, this money no longer serves as a hoard, but as capital, not in the hands of its owner, but of other capitalists who have borrowed it.
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CHAPTER IX.
THE TOTAL TURN-OVER OF ADVANCED CAPITAL. CYCLES OF TURN-OVER.
We have seen that the fixed and circulating parts of pro ductive capital turn over in different ways and at difn rent periods, also that the different constitutents of the fixed capital of the same business have different periods of turn-over according to their different durations of life and, therefore, of their different periods of reproduction. (As concerns the actual or apparent difference in the turn-over of different constituents of circulating capital in the same business, see the close of this chapter, under No. 6.)
1. The total turn-over of advanced capital is the average turn-over of its constituent parts; the mode of its calculation is given later. Inasmuch as it is merely a question of different periods of time, nothing is easier than to compute their average. But 2. It is a question, not alone of a quantitive, but also of a qualitative difference.
The circulating capital entering into the process of production transfers its entire value to the product and must, therefore, be continually reproduced in its natural form by the sale of the product, if the process of production is to proceed without interruption. The fixed capital entering into the process of production transfers only a part of its value (the wear and tear) to the product and continues despite this wear and tear, to perform its function in the process of production. Therefore it need not be reproduced until after the lapse of intervals of various duration, at any rate not as frequently as the circulating capital. This necessity of reproduction, this term of reproduction, is not only quantitatively different for the various constituent parts of fixed capital, but, as we have seen, a part of the perennial fixed capi- Total Turn-Over of Advanced Capital. 209 tal may be replaced annually or at shorter intervals and added in natural form to the old fixed capital. In the case of fixed capital of a different composition, the reproduction can take place only all at once at the end of its life-time.
It is, therefore, necessary to reduce the specific turn-overs of the various parts of fixed capital to a homogeneous form of turn-over, so that they remain only quantitatively different so far as the duration of their turn-over is concerned.
This quantitative homogeneity does not materialize, if we take for our starting point P...P, the form of the continuous process of production. For definite elements of P must be continually reproduced in their natural form, while others need not to be. This homogeneity of turn-over is found, however, in the form M — M\ Take, for instance, a machine valued at 10,000 pounds sterling, which lasts ten years and one tenth, or 1,000 pounds of which are annually reconverted into money. These 1,000 pounds have been converted in the course of one year from money-capital into productive capital and commodity-capital, and then reconverted into money-capital. They have returned to their original money-form, just as did the circulating capital, if we study it from this point of view, and it is immaterial whether this money-capital of 1,000 pounds sterling is once more converted, at the end of the year, into the natural form of a machine or not. In calculating the total turn-over of the advanced productive capital, we, therefore, fix all its elements in the mold of money, so that the return to the money-form concludes the turn-over. We as sume that value has always been advanced in money, even in the continuous process of production, where this moneyform of value exists only as calculating money. Then we are enabled to compute the average.
3. It follows that the capital-value turned over during one year may be larger than the total value of the advanced capital, on account of the repeated turn-overs of the circulating capital within the same year, even if by far the greater part of the advanced productive capital consists of fixed capital, whose period of reproduction, and therefore of turn-over, comprises a cycle of several years.
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Take it that the fixed capital is 80,000 pounds sterling, its period of reproduction 10 years, so that 8,000 pounds of this capital annually return to their money-form, or complete one-tenth of its turn-over. Let the circulating capital be 20,000 pounds sterling, and its period of turn-over be five times per year. The total capital would then be 100,000 pounds sterling. The turned over fixed capital is 8,000 pounds, the turned-over circulating capital five times 20,-000, or 100,000 pounds sterling. Then the capital turned over during one year is 108,000 pounds sterling, or 8,000 pounds more than the advanced capital. 1 + 2-25 of the capital have turned over.
4. The turn-over of the values of the advanced capital therefore is to be distinguished from its actual time of reproduction, or from the actual time of turn-over of its component parts. Take, for instance, a capital of 4,000 pounds sterling and let it turn over five times per year. The turned over capital is then five times 4,000, or 20,000 pounds sterling. But that which returns at the end of its turn-ovei and is advanced anew is the original capital of 4,000 pounds sterling. Its magnitude is not changed by the number of its periods of turn-over, during which it performs anew its functions as capital. (We do not consider the question of surplus-value here.)
In the illustration under No. 3, then, the sums returned at the end of one year into the hands of the capitalist are (a) a sum of values in the form of 20,000 pounds sterling, which he invests again in the circulating parts of the capital, and (b) a sum of 8,000 pounds, which have been set free by wear and tear from the advanced fixed capital; at the same time, this same fixed capital remains in the process of production, but with the reduced value of 72,000 pounds, instead of 80,000 pounds sterling. The process of production, therefore, would have to be continued for nine years longer, before the advanced fixed capital would have outlived its term and ceased to perform any service as a creator of products and values, so that it would have to be replaced. The advanced capital-value, then, has to pass through a cycle of turn-overs, in the present case a cycle of ten years, and Total Turn-Over of Advanced Capital. 211 tiiis cycle is determined by the life-time, in other words by the period of reproduction, or turn-over of the invested fixed capital.
To the same extent that the volume of the value and the duration of the fixed capital develop with the evolution of the capitalist mode of production, does the life of industry and of industrial capital develop in each particular investment into one of many years, say of ten years on an average. If the development of fixed capital extends the length of this life on one side, it is on the other side shortened by the continuous revolution of the instruments of production, which likewise increases incessantly with the development of capitalist production. This implies a change in the instruments of production and the necessity of continuous replacement on account of virtual wear and tear, long before they are worn out physically. One may assume that this lifecycle, in the essential branches of great industry, now averages ten years. However, it is not a question of any one definite number here. So much at least is evident that this cycle comprising a number of years, through which capital is compelled to pass by its fixed part, furnishes a material basis for the periodical commercial crises in which business goes through successive periods of lassitude, average activity, overspeeding, and crisis. It is true that the periods in which capital is invested are different in time and place.
But a crisis is always the starting point of a large amount of new investments. Therefore it also constitutes, from the point of view of society, more or less of a new material basis for the next cycle of turn-over. 22a 5. On the mode of calculation of the turn-overs, Scrope, an American economist, says in substance the following in his work on political economy (published by Alonzo Potter, New York, 1841, pages 141 and 142): In some lines of business the entire capital advanced is turned over, or circulated, several times inside of a year. In some others, one portion is turned over more than once a year, another 22a "Municipal production is bound to a cycle of days, agricultural production to one of years." (Adam G. Mueller, Die Elemente der Staatskunst. Berlin, 1809, II, page, 178.) This is the naive conception tt industry and agriculture held by the romantic school.
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portion not so often. It is the average period required by the entire capital for the purpose of passing through the hands of the capitalist, or in order to turn over once, which must furnish the basis on which the capitalist figures his profits. Take it, that a certain individual engaged in a cer^ tain business has invested half of his capital for buildings and machinery, which are replaced once in every ten years; one-quarter for tools, etc., which are replaced in two years; and the last quarter, invested in wages and raw materials, which quarter is turned over twice per year. Let his entire capital be $50,000. Then his annual expenditure will be: 50,000-2, or $25,000 in 10 years, or $2,500 in one year. 50,000-4, or $12,500 in 2 years, or $6,250 in one year. 50,000-4, or $12,500 in y2 year, or $25,000 in one year.
The average time, then, in which his capital is turned over once, is 16 months. Take another case: One quarter of the entire capital of $50,000 circulates in 10 years; another quarter in one year; the other half twice in one year. The annual expenditure will then be: Turned over in one year 63,750 6. Real and apparent differences in the turn-over of the various component parts of capital. Scrope also says in the same place that the capital invested by a manufacturer, landlord, or merchant in wages circulates most rapidly, as it is probably turned over once a week, if he pays his laborers weekly, by the weekly receipts from his sales or from paid bills. The capital invested in raw materials and finished supplies does not circulate so fast; it may be turned over two or four times per year, according to the time passing between the purchase of the one and the sale of the other, provided that the capitalist buys and sells on equal terms Total Turn-Over of Advanced Capital. 213 of credit. The capital invested in tools and machinery circulates still more slowly, as it is turned over, that is to say consumed and circulated, probably on an average of once in five or ten years; many tools, however, are used up in one single series of manipulations. The capital invested in buildings, for instance, in factories, stores, storerooms, barns, streets, irrigation works, etc., circulates almost imperceptibly. But of course these structures are likewise worn out just the same as the others, so long as they serve in production, and must be replaced, in order that the producer may be able to continue his operations. They are merely consumed and reproduced more slowly than the others. The capital invested in them is probably turned over in twenty or fifty years. So far Scrope. — Scrope here confounds the differences in the flow of certain parts of the circulating capital, caused by terms of payment and conditions of credit so far as the individual capitalist is concerned, with the turn-overs due to the nature of capital. He says that wages are paid weekly on account of the weekly receipts from paid sales or bills. We must note in the first place, that certain differences occur relative to wages, according to the length of the term of payment, that is to say the length of time for which the laborer must give credit to the capitalist, whether it be a week, a month, three months, six months, etc. In this case, the rule stated in volume I, chapter III, 3b, page 158, holds good, to the effect that "the quantity of the means of payment required for all periodical payments (in this case the quantity of the money-capital to be advanced at one time) is in inverse proportion to the length of their periods."