Das Kapital

CONSTANT CAPITAL AND VARIABLE CAPITAL

Economic Manuscripts: Capital Vol. I - Chapter Eight
Karl Marx. Capital Volume One
Chapter Eight: Constant Capital and Variable Capital
The various factors of the labour-process play different
parts in forming the value of the product.
The labourer adds fresh value to the subject of his labour by
expending upon it a given amount of additional labour, no matter what the
specific character and utility of that labour may be. On the other hand,
the values of the means of production used up in the process are preserved,
and present themselves afresh as constituent parts of the value of the
product; the values of the cotton and the spindle, for instance, re-appear
again in the value of the yarn. The value of the means of production is
therefore preserved, by being transferred to the product. This transfer
takes place during the conversion of those means into a product, or in
other words, during the labour-process. It is brought about by labour;
but how?
The labourer does not perform two operations at once, one in order
to add value to the cotton, the other in order to preserve the value of
the means of production, or, what amounts to the same thing, to transfer
to the yarn, to the product, the value of the cotton on which he works,
and part of the value of the spindle with which he works. But, by the very
act of adding new value, he preserves their former values. Since, however,
the addition of new value to the subject of his labour, and the preservation
of its former value, are two entirely distinct results, produced simultaneously
by the labourer, during one operation, it is plain that this two-fold nature
of the result can be explained only by the two-fold nature of his labour;
at one and the same time, it must in one character create value, and in
another character preserve or transfer value.
Now, in what manner does every labourer add new labour and consequently
new value? Evidently, only by labouring productively in a particular
way; the spinner by spinning, the weaver by weaving, the smith by forging.
But, while thus incorporating labour generally, that is value, it is by
the particular form alone of the labour, by the spinning, the weaving and
the forging respectively, that the means of production, the cotton and
spindle, the yarn and loom, and the iron and anvil become constituent
elements of the product, of a new use-value. Each
use-value disappears, but only to re-appear under a new form in a new use-value.
Now, we saw, when we were considering the process of creating value, that,
if a use-value be effectively consumed in the production of a new use-value,
the quantity of labour expended in the production of the consumed article,
forms a portion of the quantity of labour necessary to produce the new
use-value; this portion is therefore labour transferred from the means
of production to the new product. Hence, the labourer preserves the values
of the consumed means of production, or transfers them as portions of its
value to the product, not by virtue of his additional labour, abstractedly
considered, but by virtue of the particular useful character of that labour,
by virtue of its special productive form. In so far then as labour is such
specific productive activity, in so far as it is spinning, weaving, or
forging, it raises, by mere contact, the means of production from the
dead, makes them living factors of the labour-process, and combines with
them to form the new products.
If the special productive labour of the workman were not spinning,
he could not convert the cotton into yarn, and therefore could not transfer
the values of the cotton and spindle to the yarn. Suppose the same workman
were to change his occupation to that of a joiner, he would still by a
day’s labour add value to the material he works upon. Consequently, we
see, first, that the addition of new value takes place not by virtue of
his labour being spinning in particular, or joinering in particular, but
because it is labour in the abstract, a portion of the total labour of
society; and we see next, that the value added is of a given definite amount,
not because his labour has a special utility, but because it is exerted
for a definite time. On the one hand, then, it is by virtue of its general
character, as being expenditure of human labour-power in the abstract,
that spinning adds new value to the values of the cotton and the spindle;
and on the other hand, it is by virtue of its special character, as being
a concrete, useful process, that the same labour of spinning both transfers
the values of the means of production to the product, and preserves them
in the product. Hence at one and the same time there is produced a two-fold
result.
By the simple addition of a certain quantity of labour,
new value is added, and by the quality of this added labour, the original
values of the means of production are preserved in the product. This two-fold
effect, resulting from the two-fold character of labour, may be traced
in various phenomena.
Let us assume, that some invention enables the spinner to spin
as much cotton in 6 hours as he was able to spin before in 36 hours. His
labour is now six times as effective as it was, for the purposes of useful
production. The product of 6 hours’ work has increased six-fold, from 6
lbs. to 36 lbs. But now the 36 lbs. of cotton absorb only the same amount
of labour as formerly did the 6 lbs. One-sixth as much new labour is absorbed
by each pound of cotton, and consequently, the value added by the labour
to each pound is only one-sixth of what it formerly was. On the other hand,
in the product, in the 36 lbs. of yarn, the value transferred from the
cotton is six times as great as before. By the 6 hours’ spinning, the value
of the raw material preserved and transferred to the product is six times
as great as before, although the new value added by the labour of the spinner
to each pound of the very same raw material is one-sixth what it was formerly.
This shows that the two properties of labour, by virtue of which it is
enabled in one case to preserve value, and in the other to create value,
are essentially different. On the one hand, the longer the time necessary
to spin a given weight of cotton into yarn, the greater is the new value
added to the material; on the other hand, the greater the weight of the
cotton spun in a given time, the greater is the value preserved, by being
transferred from it to the product.
Let us now assume, that the productiveness of the spinner’s labour,
instead of varying, remains constant, that he therefore requires the same
time as he formerly did, to convert one pound of cotton into yarn, but
that the exchange-value of the cotton varies, either by rising to six times
its former value or falling to one-sixth of that value. In both these cases,
the spinner puts the same quantity of labour into a pound of cotton, and
therefore adds as much value, as he did before the change in the value:
he also produces a given weight of yarn in the same time as he did before.
Nevertheless, the value that he transfers from the cotton to the yarn is
either one-sixth of what it was before the variation, or, as the case may
be, six times as much as before. The same result occurs when the value
of the instruments of labour rises or falls, while their useful efficacy
in the process remains unaltered.
Again, if the technical conditions of the spinning process remain
unchanged, and no change of value takes place in the means of production,
the spinner continues to consume in equal working-times equal quantities
of raw material, and equal quantities of machinery of unvarying value.
The value that he preserves in the product is directly proportional
to the new value that he adds to the product. In two weeks he incorporates
twice as much labour, and therefore twice as much value, as in one week,
and during the same time he consumes twice as much material, and wears
out twice as much machinery, of double the value in each case: he therefore
preserves, in the product of two weeks, twice as much value as in the product
of one week. So long as the conditions of production remain the same, the
more value the labourer adds by fresh labour, the more value he transfers
and preserves; but he does so merely because this addition of new value
takes place under conditions that have not varied and are independent of
his own labour. Of course, it may be said in one sense, that the labourer
preserves old value always in proportion to the quantity of new value that
he adds. Whether the value of cotton rise from one shilling to two shillings,
or fall to sixpence, the workman invariably preserves in the product of
one hour only one half as much value as he preserves in two hours. In like
manner, if the productiveness of his own labour varies by rising or falling,
he will in one hour spin either more or less cotton, as the case may be,
than he did before, and will consequently preserve in the product of one
hour, more or less value of cotton; but, all the same, he will preserve
by two hours’ labour twice as much value as he will by one.
Value exists only in articles of utility, in objects: we leave
out of consideration its purely symbolical representation by tokens. (Man
himself, viewed as the impersonation of labour-power, is a natural object,
a thing, although a living conscious thing, and labour is the manifestation
of this power residing in him.) If therefore an article loses its utility,
it also loses its value. The reason why means of production do not lose
their value, at the same time that they lose their use-value, is this:
they lose in the labour-process the original form of their use-value, only
to assume in the product the form of a new use-value. But, however important
it may be to value, that it should have some object of utility to embody
itself in, yet it is a matter of complete indifference what particular
object serves this purpose; this we saw when treating of the metamorphosis
of commodities. Hence it follows that in the labour-process the means of
production transfer their value to the product only so far as along with
their use-value they lose also their exchange-value. They give up to the
product that value alone which they themselves lose as means of production.
But in this respect the material factors of the labour-process do not all
behave alike.
The coal burnt under the boiler vanishes without leaving a trace;
so, too, the tallow with which the axles of wheels are greased. Dye stuffs
and other auxiliary substances also vanish but re-appear as properties
of the product. Raw material forms the substance of the product, but only
after it has changed its form. Hence raw material and auxiliary substances
lose the characteristic form with which they are clothed on entering the
labour-process. It is otherwise with the instruments of labour. Tools,
machines, workshops, and vessels, are of use in the labour-process, only
so long as they retain their original shape, and are ready each morning
to renew the process with their shape unchanged. And just as during their
lifetime, that is to say, during the continued labour-process in which
they serve, they retain their shape independent of the product, so, too,
they do after their death. The corpses of machines, tools, workshops, &c.,
are always separate and distinct from the product they helped to turn out.
If we now consider the case of any instrument of labour during the whole
period of its service, from the day of its entry into the workshop, till
the day of its banishment into the lumber room, we find that during this
period its use-value has been completely consumed, and therefore its exchange-value
completely transferred to the product. For instance, if a spinning machine
lasts for 10 years, it is plain that during that working period its total
value is gradually transferred to the product of the 10 years. The lifetime
of an instrument of labour, therefore, is spent in the repetition of a
greater or less number of similar operations. Its life may be compared
with that of a human being. Every day brings a man 24 hours nearer to his
grave: but how many days he has still to travel on that road, no man can
tell accurately by merely looking at him. This difficulty, however, does
not prevent life insurance offices from drawing, by means of the theory
of averages, very accurate, and at the same time very profitable conclusions.
So it is with the instruments of labour. It is known by experience how
long on the average a machine of a particular kind will last. Suppose its
use-value in the labour-process to last only six days. Then, on the average,
it loses each day one-sixth of its use-value, and therefore parts with
one-sixth of its value to the daily product. The wear and tear of all instruments,
their daily loss of use-value, and the corresponding quantity of value
they part with to the product, are accordingly calculated upon this basis.
It is thus strikingly clear, that means of production never transfer
more value to the product than they themselves lose during the labour-process
by the destruction of their own use-value. If such an instrument has no
value to lose, if, in other words, it is not the product of human labour,
it transfers no value to the product. It helps to create use-value without
contributing to the formation of exchange-value. In this class are included
all means of production supplied by Nature without human assistance, such
as land, wind, water, metals in situ, and timber in virgin forests.
Yet another interesting phenomenon here presents itself. Suppose
a machine to be worth £1,000, and to wear out in 1,000 days. Then
one thousandth part of the value of the machine is daily transferred to
the day’s product. At the same time, though with diminishing
vitality, the machine as a whole continues to take part in the labour-process.
Thus it appears, that one factor of the labour-process, a means of production,
continually enters as a whole into that process, while it enters into the
process of the formation of value by fractions only. The difference between
the two processes is here reflected in their material factors, by the same
instrument of production taking part as a whole in the labour-process,
while at the same time as an element in the formation of value, it enters
only by fractions.
On the other hand, a means of production may take part as a whole
in the formation of value, while into the labour-process it enters only
bit by bit. Suppose that in spinning cotton, the waste for every 115 lbs.
used amounts to 15 lbs., which is converted, not into yarn, but into “devil’s
dust.” Now, although this 15 lbs. of cotton never becomes a constituent
element of the yarn, yet assuming this amount of waste to be normal and
inevitable under average conditions of spinning, its value is just as surely
transferred to the value of the yarn, as is the value of the 100 lbs. that
form the substance of the yarn. The use-value of 15 lbs. of cotton must
vanish into dust, before 100 lbs. of yarn can be made. The destruction
of this cotton is therefore a necessary condition in the production of
the yarn. And because it is a necessary condition, and for no other reason,
the value of that cotton is transferred to the product. The same holds
good for every kind of refuse resulting from a labour-process, so far at
least as such refuse cannot be further employed as a means in the production
of new and independent use-values. Such an employment of refuse
may be seen in the large machine works at Manchester, where mountains of
iron turnings are carted away to the foundry in the evening, in order the
next morning to re-appear in the workshops as solid masses of iron.
We have seen that the means of production transfer value to the
new product, so far only as during the labour-process they lose value in
the shape of their old use-value. The maximum loss of value that they can
suffer in the process, is plainly limited by the amount of the original
value with which they came into the process, or in other words, by the
labour-time necessary for their production. Therefore, the means of production
can never add more value to the product than they themselves possess independently
of the process in which they assist. However useful a given kind of raw
material, or a machine, or other means of production may be, though it
may cost £150, or, say, 500 days’ labour, yet it cannot, under any
circumstances, add to the value of the product more than £150. Its
value is determined not by the labour-process into which it enters as a
means of production, but by that out of which it has issued as a product.
In the labour-process it only serves as a mere use-value, a thing with
useful properties, and could not, therefore, transfer any value to the
product, unless it possessed such value previously.
While productive labour is changing the means of production into
constituent elements of a new product, their value undergoes a metempsychosis.
It deserts the consumed body, to occupy the newly created one. But this
transmigration takes place, as it were, behind the back of the labourer.
He is unable to add new labour, to create new value, without
at the same time preserving old values, and this, because the labour he
adds must be of a specific useful kind; and he cannot do work of a useful
kind, without employing products as the means of production of a new product,
and thereby transferring their value to the new product. The property therefore
which labour-power in action, living labour, possesses of preserving value,
at the same time that it adds it, is a gift of Nature which costs the labourer
nothing, but which is very advantageous to the capitalist inasmuch as it
preserves the existing value of his capital. So long
as trade is good, the capitalist is too much absorbed in money-grubbing
to take notice of this gratuitous gift of labour. A violent interruption
of the labour-process by a crisis, makes him sensitively aware of it.
As regards the means of production, what is really consumed is
their use-value, and the consumption of this use-value by labour results
in the product. There is no consumption of their value,
and it would therefore be inaccurate to say that it is reproduced. It is
rather preserved; not by reason of any operation it undergoes itself in
the process; but because the article in which it originally exists, vanishes,
it is true, but vanishes into some other article. Hence, in the value of
the product, there is a reappearance of the value of the means of production,
but there is, strictly speaking, no reproduction of that value. That which
is produced is a new use-value in which the old exchange-value reappears.

It is otherwise with the subjective factor of the labour-process,
with labour-power in action. While the labourer, by virtue of his labour
being of a specialised kind that has a special object, preserves and transfers
to the product the value of the means of production, he at the same time,
by the mere act of working, creates each instant an additional or new value.
Suppose the process of production to be stopped just when the workman has
produced an equivalent for the value of his own labour-power, when, for
example, by six hours’ labour, he has added a value of three shillings.
This value is the surplus, of the total value of the product, over the
portion of its value that is due to the means of production. It is the
only original bit of value formed during this process, the only portion
of the value of the product created by this process. Of course, we do not
forget that this new value only replaces the money advanced by the capitalist
in the purchase of the labour-power, and spent by the labourer on the necessaries
of life. With regard to the money spent, the new value is merely a reproduction;
but, nevertheless, it is an actual, and not, as in the case of the value
of the means of production, only an apparent, reproduction. The substitution
of one value for another, is here effected by the creation of new value.
We know, however, from what has gone before, that the labour-process
may continue beyond the time necessary to reproduce and incorporate in
the product a mere equivalent for the value of the labour-power. Instead
of the six hours that are sufficient for the latter purpose, the process
may continue for twelve hours. The action of labour-power, therefore, not
only reproduces its own value, but produces value over and above it. This
surplus-value is the difference between the value of the product and the
value of the elements consumed in the formation of that product, in other
words, of the means of production and the labour-power.
By our explanation of the different parts played by the various
factors of the labour-process in the formation of the product’s value,
we have, in fact, disclosed the characters of the different
functions allotted to the different elements of capital in the process
of expanding its own value. The surplus of the total value of the product,
over the sum of the values of its constituent factors, is the surplus of
the expanded capital over the capital originally advanced. The means of
production on the one hand, labour-power on the other, are merely the different
modes of existence which the value of the original capital assumed when
from being money it was transformed into the various factors of the labour-process.
That part of capital then, which is represented by the means of production,
by the raw material, auxiliary material and the instruments of labour does
not, in the process of production, undergo any quantitative alteration
of value. I therefore call it the constant part of capital, or, more shortly,
constant capital.
On the other hand, that part of capital, represented by labour-power,
does, in the process of production, undergo an alteration of value. It
both reproduces the equivalent of its own value, and also produces an excess,
a surplus-value, which may itself vary, may be more or less according to
circumstances. This part of capital is continually being transformed from
a constant into a variable magnitude. I therefore call it the variable
part of capital, or, shortly, variable capital. The same elements
of capital which, from the point of view of the labour-process, present
themselves respectively as the objective and subjective factors, as means
of production and labour-power, present themselves, from the point of view
of the process of creating surplus-value, as constant and variable capital.
The definition of constant capital given above by no means excludes
the possibility of a change of value in its elements. Suppose the price
of cotton to be one day sixpence a pound, and the next day, in consequence
of a failure of the cotton crop, a shilling a pound. Each pound of the
cotton bought at sixpence, and worked up after the rise in value, transfers
to the product a value of one shilling; and the cotton already spun before
the rise, and perhaps circulating in the market as yarn, likewise transfers
to the product twice its original value. It is plain, however, that these
changes of value are independent of the increment or surplus-value added
to the value of the cotton by the spinning itself.
If the old cotton had
never been spun, it could, after the rise, be resold at a shilling a pound
instead of at sixpence. Further, the fewer the processes the cotton has
gone through, the more certain is this result. We therefore find that speculators
make it a rule when such sudden changes in value occur, to speculate in
that material on which the least possible quantity of labour has been spent:
to speculate, therefore, in yarn rather than in cloth, in cotton itself,
rather than in yarn. The change of value in the case we have been considering,
originates, not in the process in which the cotton plays the
part of a means of production, and in which it therefore functions as constant
capital, but in the process in which the cotton itself is produced. The
value of a commodity, it is true, is determined by the quantity of labour
contained in it, but this quantity is itself limited by social conditions.
If the time socially necessary for the production of any commodity alters
— and a given weight of cotton represents, after a bad harvest, more labour
than after a good one — all previously existing commodities of the same
class are affected, because they are, as it were, only individuals of the
species, and their value at any given time is measured
by the labour socially necessary, i.e., by the labour necessary
for their production under the then existing social conditions.
As the value of the raw material may change, so, too, may that
of the instruments of labour, of the machinery, &c., employed in the
process; and consequently that portion of the value of the product transferred
to it from them, may also change. If in consequence of a new invention,
machinery of a particular kind can be produced by a diminished expenditure
of labour, the old machinery becomes depreciated more or less, and consequently
transfers so much less value to the product. But here again, the change
in value originates outside the process in which the machine is acting
as a means of production. Once engaged in this process, the machine cannot
transfer more value than it possesses apart from the process.
Just as a change in the value of the means of production, even
after they have commenced to take a part in the labour-process, does not
alter their character as constant capital, so, too, a change in the proportion
of constant to variable capital does not affect the respective functions
of these two kinds of capital. The technical conditions of the labour-process
may be revolutionised to such an extent, that where formerly ten men using
ten implements of small value worked up a relatively small quantity of
raw material, one man may now, with the aid of one expensive machine, work
up one hundred times as much raw material. In the latter case we have an
enormous increase in the constant capital, that is represented by the total
value of the means of production used, and at the same time a great reduction
in the variable capital, invested in labour-power. Such a revolution, however,
alters only the quantitative relation between the constant and the variable
capital, or the proportions in which the total capital is split up into
its constant and variable constituents; it has not in the least degree
affected the essential difference between the two.
Footnotes
1. “Labour gives a new creation for one extinguished.” (“An Essay on the Polit. Econ. of Nations,” London, 1821, p. 13.)
2. The subject of repairs of the implements
of labour does not concern us here. A machine that is undergoing repair,
no longer plays the part of an instrument, but that of a subject of labour.
Work is no longer done with it, but upon it. It is quite permissible for
our purpose to assume, that the labour expended on the repairs of instruments
is included in the labour necessary for their original production. But
in the text we deal with that wear and tear, which no doctor can cure,
and which little by little brings about death, with “that kind of wear
which cannot be repaired from time to time, and which, in the case of a
knife, would ultimately reduce it to a state in which the cutler would
say of it, it is not worth a new blade.” We have shewn in the text, that
a machine takes part in every labour-process as an integral machine, but
that into the simultaneous process of creating value it enters only bit
by bit. How great then is the confusion of ideas exhibited in the following
extract! “Mr. Ricardo says a portion of the labour of the engineer in making
[stocking] machines” is contained for example in the value of a pair of
stockings. “Yet the total labour, that produced each single pair of stockings
... includes the whole labour of the engineer, not a portion; for one machine
makes many pairs, and none of those pairs could have been done without
any part of the machine.” “Obs. on Certain Verbal Disputes in Pol. Econ.,
Particularly Relating to Value,” p. 54. The author, an uncommonly self-satisfied
wiseacre, is right in his confusion and therefore in his contention, to
this extent only, that neither Ricardo nor any other economist, before
or since him, has accurately distinguished the two aspects of labour, and
still less, therefore, the part played by it under each of these aspects
in the formation of value.
3. From this we may judge of the absurdity
of J. B. Say, who pretends to account for surplus-value (Interest, Profit,
Rent), by the “services productifs” which the means of production, soil,
instruments, and raw material, render in the labour-process by means of
their use-values. Mr. Wm. Roscher who seldom loses an occasion of registering,
in black and white, ingenious apologetic fancies, records the following
specimen: - “J. B. Say (Traité, t. 1, ch. 4) very truly remarks:
the value produced by an oil mill, after deduction of all costs, is something
new, something quite different from the labour by which the oil mill itself
was erected.” (l.c., p. 82, note.) Very true, Mr. Professor! the oil produced
by the oil mill is indeed something very different from the labour expended
in constructing the mill! By value, Mr. Roscher understands such stuff
as “oil,” because oil has value, notwithstanding that “Nature” produces
petroleum, though relatively “in small quantities,” a fact to which he
seems to refer in his further observation: “It (Nature) produces scarcely
any exchange-value.” Mr. Roscher’s “Nature” and the exchange-value it produces
are rather like the foolish virgin who admitted indeed that she had had
a child, but “it was such a little one.” This “savant sérieux” in
continuation remarks: “Ricardo’s school is in the habit of including capital
as accumulated labour under the head of labour. This is unskilful work,
because, indeed, the owner of capital, after all, does something more than
the merely creating and preserving of the same: namely, the abstention
from the enjoyment of it, for which he demands, e.g., interest.”
(l.c.) How very “skilful” is this “anatomico-physiological method” of
Political Economy, which, “indeed,” converts a mere desire “after all”
into a source of value.
4. “Of all the instruments of the farmers’
trade, the labour of man ... is that on which he is most to rely for the
repayment of his capital. The other two ... the working stock of the cattle
and the ... carts, ploughs, spades, and so forth, without a given portion
of the first, are nothing at all.” (Edmund Burke: “Thoughts and Details
on Scarcity, originally presented to the Right Hon. W. Pitt, in the month
of November 1795,” Edit. London, 1800, p. 10.)
5. In The Times of 26th November,
1862, a manufacturer, whose mill employed 800 hands, and consumed, on the
average, 150 bales of East Indian, or 130 bales of American cotton, complains,
in doleful manner, of the standing expenses of his factory when not working.
He estimates them at £6,000 a year. Among them are a number of items
that do not concern us here, such as rent, rates, and taxes, insurance,
salaries of the manager, book-keeper, engineer, and others. Then he reckons
£150 for coal used to heat the mill occasionally, and run the engine
now and then. Besides this, he includes the wages of the people employed
at odd times to keep the machinery in working order. Lastly, he puts down
£1,200 for depreciation of machinery, because “the weather and the
natural principle of decay do not suspend their operations because the
steam-engine ceases to revolve.” He says, emphatically, he does not estimate
his depreciation at more than the small sum of £1,200, because his
machinery is already nearly worn out.
6. “Productive consumption ... where
the consumption of a commodity is a part of the process of production.
... In these instances there is no consumption of value.” (S. P. Newman,
l.c., p. 296.)
7. In an American compendium that has
gone through, perhaps, 20 editions, this passage occurs: “It matters not
in what form capital re-appears;” then after a lengthy enumeration of all
the possible ingredients of production whose value re-appears in the product,
the passage concludes thus: “The various kinds of food, clothing, and shelter,
necessary for the existence and comfort of the human being, are also changed.
They are consumed from time to time, and their value re-appears in that
new vigour imparted to his body and mind, forming fresh capital, to be
employed again in the work of production.” (F. Wayland, l.c., pp. 31,
32.) Without noticing any other oddities, it suffices to observe, that
what re-appears in the fresh vigour, is not the bread’s price, but its
bloodforming substances. What, on the other hand, re-appears in the value
of that vigour, is not the means of subsistence, but their value. The same
necessaries of life, at half the price, would form just as much muscle
and bone, just as much vigour, but not vigour of the same value. This confusion
of “value” and “vigour” coupled with our author’s pharisaical indefiniteness, mark an attempt, futile for all that, to thrash out an explanation of surplus-value
from a mere re-appearance of pre-existing values.
8. “Toutes les productions d’un même genre ne forment proprement qu’une masse, dont le prix se détermine
en général et sans égard aux circonstances particulières.”
(Le Trosne, l.c., p. 893.) [“Properly speaking, all products of the same kind form a single mass, and their price is determined in general and without regard to particular circumstances.”]
Transcribed by Zodiac
Html Markup by Stephen Baird (1999)
Next: Chapter Nine: The Rate of Surplus-Value
Capital Volume One- Index