Deposits are always made in money, in gold or notes, or in checks upon these. With the exception of the reserve fund, which is contracted or expanded in proportion to the requirements of actual circulation, these deposits are in fact always in the hands, on one side, of the industrial capitalists and merchants, whose bills of exchange are discounted with them, and who receive advances out of them; on the other side, they The Conhposition of Banking Capital. 553 are in the hands of dealers in securities (exchange brokers), or in the hands of private parties, who have sold their securities, or in the hands of the government (in the case of treasury notes and new loans). The deposits themselves play a double role. On the one hand, as we have just mentioned, they are loaned out as interest-bearing capital and are not found in the cash boxes of the banks, but figure merely in their books as credits of the depositors. On the other hand they figure as such book entries to the extent that the mutual credits of the depositors in the shape of checks on their deposits are balanced against one another and so recorded. In this procedure it is immaterial, whether these deposits are entrusted to the same banker, who can thus balance the various credits against each other, or whether this is done in different banks, who mutually exchange checks and pay only the balances to one another.
With the development of the credit system and of interestbearing capital all capital seems to double, or even treble, itself by the various modes, in which the same capital, or perhaps the same claim on a debt, appears in different forms in different hands.^^ The greater portion of this " money-capital " is purely fictitious. All the deposits, with the exception of the reserve fund, are merely credits placed with the banker, which, how- *° [This duplication and triplication of capital has developed considerably further in recent years, for instance through financial trusts, which already occupy a column of their own in the London bank reports. A society is organised for the purchase of a certain class of interest-bearing papers, say, of foreign government bonds, English municipal or American public bonds, railroad stocks, etc. The capital, for instance, 2 million pounds sterling, is secured by stock subscriptions.
The Board of Directors buys the desired values up, or speculates more or less actively in them, and distributes the ■ annual amounts of interest as dividends among the stockholders, after deducting the expenses. Furthermore, some stock companies have adopted the custom of dividing the ordinary shares into two classes, preferred and deferred. The preferred receive a fixed rate of interest, say 5%, provided that the total profit permits it; if there is anything left after that, the deferred get it. In this way the " solid " investment of capital is more or less separated by preferred shares from the speculation with the deferred shares. Since a few large enterprises have been unwilling to adopt this new mode, the expedient has been resorted to of organising new companies, that invest one or several millions of pounds sterling in shares of the first company and then issue new shares to the amount of the nominal value of the first shares, but make half of them preferred and the other half deferred. In t'lis case the original shares are doubled, by serving as a basis for a new issue of shares. — F. E.]
554 Capitalist Production.
ever, never exist in deposit. To the extent that they serve in the Giro business, they perform the function of capital for the bankers, after these have loaned them out. They pay to one another their mutual checks upon the nonexisting deposits by balancing their mutual accounts.
Adam Smith says justly with regard to the role played by capital in the loaning of money: " Even in the money business the money is merely a check transferring from one hand to another such capitals as are not used by their owners. These capitals may be almost to any amount larger than the amount of money, which serves as an instrument of their transfer. The same pieces of money serve successively in many different loans, likewise in many different purchases. For instance, A lends to W 1,000 pounds sterling, with which W immediately buys from B 1,000 pounds sterling worth of commodities. Since B himself has no immediate use for this money, he lends the identical pieces of money to X, who immediately buys from C commodities worth 1,000 pounds sterling. In the same way and for the same reason C lends this money to Y, who again buys with it commodities from D. In this way the same pieces of gold or paper may serve in the course of a few days in the promotion of three different loans and three different purchases, each one of which has a value equal to the full amount of these pieces. What the three moneyed men, A, B and C have transferred to the three borrowers, W, X and Y, is the power to make these purchases.
In this power consists both the value and the usefulness of these loans. The capital loaned out by these three moneyed men is equal to the value of the commodities that can be bought with it, and it is three times greater than the value of the money with which these purchases are made. ISTevertheless all these loans may be perfectly safe, since the commodities bought with them by the different debtors are employed in such a way, that they will in time bring an equal value in gold or paper money with a profit to boot. And just as the same pieces of money may serve in the promotion of different loans to an amount exceeding their own value three times, or The Composition of Banking Capital. 555 even thirty times, just so may they serve successively as means of return payment." (Book II, chapter IV.)
Since the same piece of money may perform different purchases, according to the velocity of its circulation, it may just as well j^erform the service of different loans, for the purchases take it from one hand to another, and a loan is but a transfer from one hand to another without the intervention of a purchase. To every seller his money represents the changed form of his commodities. Nowadays, when every value is expressed as the value of capital, it represents in the various loans different capitals, and this is but another way of saying that it can realise different commodity-values successively. At the same time it serves as a medium of circulation, in order to transfer the material capitals from hand to hand. In the transaction of loaning it does not pass from hand to hand as a medium of circulation. So long as it remains in the hands of the lender, it is in his hands not a medium of circulation, but the existing value of his capital. And in this form he transfers it when loaning it to another. If A had loaned the money to B, and B to C, without the intervention of purchases, then the same money would not represent three capitals, but only one, only one capital-value. How many capitals it actually represents depends on the number of times in which it performs the service of the embodied value of different commodity-capitals.
The same thing which Adam Smith says of loans in general applies also to deposits, since these are merely another name for loans, which the public gives to the bankers. The same pieces of money may serve as instruments for any number of deposits.
" It is undoubtedly true, that the 1,000 pounds sterling, which some one deposits today with A, are again issued tomorrow and become a deposit with B. The day after, paid away by B, they may form a deposit with C, and so forth infinitely. The same 1,000 pounds sterling may, therefore, by a number of transfers, multiply themselves into an absolutely indeterminable sum of deposits. It is, therefore, possible, that nine-tenths of all the deposits in the United King- 556 Capitalist Production.
dom have no existence, save for the entries in the books of bankers registering them, who have to square accounts in due time...Such was the case in Scotland, where the currency of money never exceeded 3 million pounds sterling, while the deposits amounted to 27 millions. Unless a general run be made on the banks on account of these deposits, the same 1,000 pounds sterling, traveling backwards, might easily balance an equally indeterminable sum. Since the same 1,000 pounds sterling, with which some one pays today his debt to some dealer, may tomorrow settle this dealer's debt to some merchant, and next day the debt of the merchant to his bank, and so forth without end, the same 1,000 pounds sterling may also wander from hand to hand and from bank to bank, and balance any conceivable amount of deposits." (The Currency Question Reviewed, pp. 162, 163.)
Just as everything is duplicated and triplicated in this credit system and commuted into a mere fiction, so the same applies to the " reserve fund," where one would at last hope to grasp something solid.
Listen once more to Mr. Morris, the Governor of the Bank of England: " The reserves of the private banks are in the hands of the Bank of England in the form of deposits. The first effects of an export of gold seem to strike only the Bank of England; but it would just as well influence the reserves of the other banks, since it means an export of a part of the reserves, which they have deposited in our bank. In the same way it would influence the reserves of all provincial banks." (Commercial Distress 184:7-4:8.) Ultimately, then, the reserve funds actually dissolve themselves into the reserve fund of the Bank of England.^^ *' [To what extent this has since increased is proved by the following official tabulation of the bank reserves of the fifteen largest London banks in November, 1892, taken from the Daily News of December 15, 1892: NAME OF BANK LIABILITIES CASH RESERVE PERCENTAGES Capital and Counties 11,392,744 1,307,483 11.47 The Composition of Banking Capital. 557 However, this reserve fund again has a double existence. The reserve fund of the banking department of the Bank of England is equal to the excess of the notes, which the Bank is authorised to issue, over the notes in circulation. The legal maximum of the note issue is 14 million pounds sterling (for which no metallic reserve is required; it is the approximate amount owed by the state to the Bank) plus the amount of the precious metals in the Bank. If the supply of precious metals in the Bank amounts to 14 million pounds sterling, the Bank can issue 28 millions in notes, and if 20 millions of these are in circulation, the reserve fund of the banking department is 8 million pounds sterling. These 8 million pounds sterling are, in that case, legally the banking capital at the disposal of the Bank, and at the same time the reserve fund for its deposits. If an exportation of gold takes place now, by which the supply of precious metals in the Bank is reduced by 6 millions — notes to this amount must be destroyed at the same time — tlien the reserve of the banking department would fall from 8 millions to 2 millions. On the one hand, the Bank would raise its rate of interest considerably; on the other hand, the banks having deposits with it, and the other depositors, would observe a large decrease of the reserve fund covering their own credits in the Bank.
In 1857 four of the largest stock banks of London threatened to call in their deposits, and thereby bankrupt the banking department, unless the Bank of England would secure a NAME OF BANK LIABILITIES CASH RESERVE PERCENTAGES Union of London 15,502,618 2,300,084 14.84 Williams, Deacon & Manchester, etc. 10,452,381 1,317,628 12.60 Of this sum of almost 28 milions of reserve, at least 25 millions are deposited in the Bank of England, and at most 3 milJJons of cash in the strongboxes of the 15 banks themselves. But the cash reserve of the banking department of the Bank of England never exceeded 16 millions during that same November of 1892. — 558 Capitalist Production.
" government script " suspending the Bank Acts of 1844.®'^ In this wav the banking department might fail, while a certain number of millions (for instance, 8 millions in 1847) are held in its issue department to secure the convertibility of its circulating notes. But this security is once more illusory.
" The greater portion of the deposits, for which the bankers themselves have no immediate demand, passes into the hands of the bill brokers, who in return give to the banker security for his loan by means of commercial bills, which they have already discounted for people in London or in the provinces. The bill broker is responsible to the banker for the return payment of this money at call; and these transactions are of such an enormous volume, that Mr. Neave, the present Governor of the Bank of England, said in his testimony: We know that one broker had 5 millions, and we have reason to assume, that another had between 8 and 10 millions; another had 4, another 3^, a third more than 8. I speak of deposits with the brokers." (Report of Committee on Bank Acts, 1857-58, p. 5, section 8.)
" The London bill brokers...carried on their enormous business without any reserve in cash; they relied upon the incomes from the successively due bills, or wlien it came to the worst, upon their power to secure from the Bank of England loans on depositing bills discounted by them." — Two firms of bill brokers in London suspended payments in 1847; both resumed business later. In 1857 they suspended again. The liabilities of one of these firms amounted in 1847 in round figures to 2,683,000 pounds sterling with a capital of 180,000 pounds sterling; its liabilities in 1857 were 5,-300,000 pounds sterling, while its capital apparently was not more than one-quarter of what it had been in 1847. The liabilities of the other firm were both times between 3 or 4 millions, while its capital amounted to no more than 45,000 pounds sterling. (Ibidem,, p. XXI, section 52.)
'^ The suspension of the Bank Acts of 1844 permitted to the Bank to issue any quantity of bank notes regardless of any backing by the gold reserve in its possession; to create, in this way, an arbitrary quantity of fictitious money-capital made of paper, and use it for the purpose of making loans to banks, exchange brokers, and through them to commerce.
Money-Capital and Actual Capital. 559 CHAPTER XXX.
MONEY-CAPITAL AND ACTUAL CAPITAL, I.
The only difficult questions, Avhich we are now approaching in the matter of the credit system, are the following: First: The accumulation of the money-capital strictly socalled. To what extent is it, and is it not, an indication of an actual accumulation of capital, that is, of reproduction on an enlarged scale? The so-called plethora of capital, an expression used only with reference to the interest-bearing capital, is it only a peculiar way of expressing industrial overproduction, or does it constitute a separate phenomenon alongside of it? Does this plethora, or this excessive supply of moneycapital, coincide with the existence of stagnating masses of money (bullion, gold coin and bank notes), so that this superfluity of actual money is an expression and phenomenon of that plethora of loan capital?
Secondly: To what extent does a stringency of money, that is, a scarcity of loan capital, express a real lack of actual capital (commodity-capital and productive capital)? To what extent does it coincide, on the other hand, with a lack of money as such, a lack of currency?
So far as w^e have hitherto considered the peculiar form of accumulation of money-capital and of money wealth in general, it resolved itself into an accumulation of claims of ownership upon labor. The accumulation of the capital of the national debt has been revealed to mean merely an increase of a class of state creditors, who have the privilege of a first claim upon the revenues.^ ^ °' The public funds are nothing else but an imaginary capital, which represents that portion of the annual revenue, which is set aside to pay the debt. A capital of the same amount has been spent; it is this which serves as a denominator for the loan, but it is not this which is represented by the public funds; for this capital does not exist any longer. However, new wealth must be created by the work of industry; a portion of this wealth is annually set aside in advance for those, who 560 Capitalist Production.
In these facts, by which even an accumulation of debts may appear as an accumulation of capital, the perfection of the reversal accomplished by the credit system becomes apparent. These certificates of indebtedness, which are issued in place of the originally loaned and long spent capital, these paper duplicates of destroyed capital, serve for their owners as capital to the extent that they are salable commodities and may, therefore, be reconverted into caj)ital.
The titles of ownership upon company business, railroads, mines, etc., are indeed, as we have seen, titles on actual capital. But they do not imply any control of this capital. It cannot be called in. They merely convey legal titles to a.portion of the surplus-value to be produced by it. But these titles become likewise paper duplicates of the actual capital, as though a bill of lading were to acquire a value separate from the cargo and simultaneously with it. They become nominal representatives of a capital that does not exist. For the actual capital exists simultaneously and does not change hands by the transfer of those duplicates. They assume the form of interest-bearing capital, because they not only safc'-guard a certain income, but also make it possible to secure possession of their capital-value in the shape of a return-payment when sold. To the extent that the accumulation of these papers expresses the accumulation of railroads, mines, steamships, etc., it indicates the expansion of the actual process of reproduction, just as the expansion, say, of a tax list indicates the expansion of the taxed objects, for instance, of movable property. But as duplicates serving themselves as commodities for sale and thus circulating as capital-values they are illusory, and their value may fall or rise independently of the value of the actual capital, upon which they represent a claim. Their value, that is, their quotation at the Stock Exchange, necessarily has a tendency to rise with a fall in the rate of interest, so far as this fall, independently have loaned that wealth, which has been spent; this portion is taken by means of taxes from those who produce it, and is given to the creditors of the state, and, according to the customary proportion between capital and interest in this country, an imaginary capital is assumed of the same magnitude as that which could give rise to the annual income which these creditors are to receive. Sismondi, Nouveaux Principles, II, p. 230.
Money-Capital and Actual Capital. 561 of the peculiar movements of money-capital, is due merely to the tendency of the rate of profit to fall; so that this imaginary wealth, which has originally a nominal value for each of its aliquot parts, expands for this reason alone in the course of capitalist production/-"^ Gain and loss through fluctuations in the price of these titles of ownership, and their centralisation in the hands of railroad kings, etc., naturally becomes more and more a matter of gambling, which takes the place of labor as the original method of acquiring capital and also assumes the place of direct force. This sort of imaginary money wealth does not merely constitute a very considerable part of the money wealth of private people, but also of banking capital, as we have already indicated.
In order to settle this point without delay, we mention the idea, that one might also mean by the accumulation of moneycapital the accumulation of wealth in the hands of bankers (money lenders by profession), acting as middle men between private money-capitalists on one side and the state, communities, and reproducing borrowers on the other. For the entire vast extension of the credit system, and of all credit in general, is exploited by them as though it were their private capital. These fellows possess capital and incomes always in the form of money or of direct claims upon money. The accumulation of the wealth of this class may proceed in a direction very different from actual accumulation, but it proves at any rate, that this class pockets a good deal of the real accumulation.
Let us reduce the inquiry to narrower limits. Government bonds, like stocks and other securities of all kinds, are spheres of investment for loanable capital, for capital intended to bear interest. They are forms of loaning such capital. But they *° A portion of the accumulated loanable money-capital is indeed merely an expression of the industrial capital. For instance, when England, in 1857, had invested SO million pounds sterling in American railroads and other enterprises, this investment was transacted almost throughout by the export of English commodities for which the Americans did not have to make payment in return. The English exporter drew bills of exchange for these commodities on America, the English stock subscribers bought these bills and used them to pay the amount of their stock subscriptions to America.
2J 562 Capitalist Production.
are not the loan capital itself, which is invested in them. On the other hand, so far as credit plays a direct role in the process of reproduction: what the industrial capitalist or the merchant need when wishing to have a bill discounted or a loan granted is neither stocks nor government bonds. What they need is money. They pawn or sell those securities, when they cannot secure money in any other way. It is the accumulation of this loan capital, with which we have to deal here, and more particularly of the loanable money-capital. We are not here concerned in the loans of houses, machines, or other fixed capital. Nor are we concerned in loans, which industrials and merchants make to one another in the shape of commodities and within the circle of the process of rej)roduction. We must, indeed, investigate this point still farther before we proceed. But we are concerned exclusively in loans of money, which are made by bankers, as middle men, to industrials and merchants.
Let us, then, analyse first the commercial credit, that is, the credit which the capitalists engaged in reproduction give to one another. It forms the basis of the credit system. Its representative is the bill of exchange, a certificate of indebtedness whose payment is due at a certain date, a document of deferred payment. Every one gives credit with one hand and takes it with the other. Let us leave aside, for the present, the banking credit, which constitutes another, quite different, element. To the extent that these bills in their turn circulate among the merchants as means of payment, by endorsement from one to another, without the intervention of discount, it is merely a transfer of a claim of indebtedness from A to B, and does not alter anything in the general connection. It merely places one man into the position of another. And even in this case the liquidation may take place without the intervention of money. The spinner A, for instance, has to pay a bill of exchange to the cotton broker B, and he has to pay a bill to the importer C. l^ow, if C also exports yam, which happens often enough, he may buy yarn from A on a Money-Capital and Actual Capital. 563 bill of exchange, and the spinner A may guarantee the broker B with the broker's own bill paid by C to A, whereby at best a balance may have to be settled. The entire transaction then promotes merely the exchange of cotton and yarn. The exporter represents but the spinner, the cotton broker the cotton planter.
In the cycle of this commercial credit we must note two things: First: The settlement of these mutual claims of indebtedness depends upon the reflux. of capital, that is, of C — M, which is merely deferred. If the spinner has received a bill of exchange from a cotton goods manufacturer, then this manufacturer can pay, when he has sold the cotton goods, which he has on the market. If the corn speculator has made out a bill of exchange on his dealer, then the dealer can pay the money, if the corn has meanwhile been sold at the expected price. These payments, then, depend upon the smooth run of the reproduction, that is, the process of production and consumption. But since the credits are mutual, the solvency of one depends upon the solvency of another; for in making out his bill of exchange every one may have counted either on the reflux of the capital in his own business or on the reflux of the capital in anothers business, who has to pay him for a bill of exchange drawn in the meantime. Aside from the prospect of returns, the payment is possible only by means of reserve capital, which the writer of the bill has at his command, in order to meet his obligations in case the returns should be delayed.
Secondly: This credit system does not do away with the necessity of cash payments. For a large portion of the expenses must always be paid in cash, such as wages, taxes, etc. Furthermore, capitalist B, who has received from C a bill of exchange in place of cash payment, may have to pay his own due bill to D before the bill of C becomes due, and so he must have ready cash. A rotation of such completeness as that assumed above in the reproduction from cotton planter to cotton spinner and vice versa will be an exception; as a rule reproduction will be infringed at many points. We have seen in 564 Capitalist Production.
the discussion of the process of reproduction, volume II, Part III, that the producers of constant capital exchange partly constant capital among each other. In such a case the bills of exchange may be balanced against one another more or less. The same may be the case in the ascending line of production, where the cotton broker draws on the cotton spinner, the spinner on the manufacturer of cotton goods, the manufacturer on the exporter, the exporter on the importer (who may be an importer of cotton). But the cycle of these transactions is not completed simultaneously, and the series of claims is not turned around backward in the same way. For instance, the claim of the spinner on the weaver is not settled by the claim of the coal dealer on the machine builder. The spinner never has any counterclaims in his business on the machine manufacturer, because his product, yarn, never enters as an element into the process of reproduction of the machine maker. Such claims must, therefore, be settled by money.