Das Kapital III — Kap. 12

Kap. 12

Nachträge: Was den Produktionspreis ändert - und was die Konkurrenz nicht zeigt

Part Two has taken capitals of one size and unequal composition, shown their rates of profit levelling into one general rate, watched values turned into prices of production and market value settling inside each branch, and asked what a general wage movement does to prices already formed. Three things were left over. They are taken up here, and the Part ends on the third of them.

Der Produktionspreis einer Ware kann nur variieren aus zwei Ursachen:

two causes, no more

A commodity's price of production can change for only two reasons:

Erstens. Die allgemeine Profitrate ändert sich. Dies ist nur dadurch möglich, daß sich die Durchschnittsrate des Mehrwerts selbst ändert oder, bei gleichbleibender durchschnittlicher Mehrwertsrate, das Verhältnis der Summe der angeeigneten Mehrwerte zur Summe des vorgeschoßnen gesellschaftlichen Gesamtkapitals.

first cause: the general rate changes

(1) The general rate of profit changes. This can happen only in one of two ways: either the average rate of surplus-value itself changes, or — with the average rate of surplus-value staying the same — the ratio between the total surplus-value appropriated and the total social capital advanced changes.

Soweit die Änderung der Rate des Mehrwerts nicht auf Herunterdrücken des Arbeitslohns unter, oder dessen Steigen über seinen normalen Stand beruht - und derartige Bewegungen sind nur als oszillatorische zu betrachten -, kann sie nur stattfinden entweder dadurch, daß der Wert der Arbeitskraft sank oder stieg; das eine so unmöglich wie das andre ohne Veränderung in der Produktivität der Arbeit, die Lebensmittel produziert, also ohne Wechsel im Wert der Waren, die in den Konsum des Arbeiters eingehn.

how the rate of surplus-value changes

If we set aside the cases where the rate of surplus-value changes only because wages are pushed below, or rise above, their normal level — and movements of that kind count only as oscillations — then the rate of surplus-value can change only because the value of labour-power has fallen or risen. And neither of those can happen without a change in the productivity of the labour that produces the means of subsistence — that is, without a change in the value of the commodities that go into the worker's consumption.

Oder das Verhältnis der Summe des angeeigneten Mehrwerts zum vorgeschoßnen Gesamtkapital der Gesellschaft ändert sich. Da der Wechsel hier nicht von der Rate des Mehrwerts ausgeht, so muß er ausgehn vom Gesamtkapital, und zwar von seinem konstanten Teil. Dessen Masse, technisch betrachtet, vermehrt oder vermindert sich im Verhältnis zu der vom variablen Kapital gekauften Arbeitskraft, und die Masse seines Werts wächst oder fällt so mit dem Wachstum oder der Abnahme seiner Masse selbst; sie wächst oder fällt also ebenfalls im Verhältnis zur Wertmasse des variablen Kapitals. Setzt dieselbe Arbeit mehr konstantes Kapital in Bewegung, so ist die Arbeit produktiver geworden. Wenn umgekehrt, umgekehrt. Also hat Wechsel in der Produktivität der Arbeit stattgefunden, und ein Wechsel muß vorgegangen sein im Wert gewisser Waren.

the other route: constant capital

Alternatively, the ratio between the total surplus-value appropriated and the total social capital advanced changes. Since this change does not start from the rate of surplus-value, it must start from the total capital — specifically from its constant part. Looked at technically, the amount of that constant part grows or shrinks in proportion to the labour-power bought by the variable capital, and the value of that amount rises or falls as its own quantity rises or falls — so it also rises or falls in proportion to the value of the variable capital. If the same labour sets more constant capital in motion, labour has become more productive; if less, then less productive. So a change has taken place in the productivity of labour, and a change must have occurred in the value of certain commodities.

Für beide Fälle also gilt dies Gesetz: Wechselt der Produktionspreis einer Ware infolge eines Wechsels in der allgemeinen Profitrate, so kann zwar ihr eigner Wert unverändert geblieben sein. Es muß aber ein Wertwechsel mit andren Waren vorgegangen sein.

the law covering both cases

For both cases, this law holds. If a commodity's price of production changes because the general rate of profit has changed, the commodity's own value may well have stayed the same. But some other commodities must have changed in value.

Zweitens. Die allgemeine Profitrate bleibt unverändert. Dann kann der Produktionspreis einer Ware nur wechseln, weil ihr eigner Wert sich verändert hat; weil mehr oder weniger Arbeit erheischt ist, um sie selbst zu reproduzieren, sei es, daß die Produktivität der Arbeit wechselt die die Ware selbst in ihrer letzten Form produziert, oder die, welche die Waren produziert, die in ihre Produktion eingehn. Baumwollengarn kann im Produktionspreis fallen, entweder weil Rohbaumwolle wohlfeiler hergestellt wird oder weil die Arbeit des Spinnens infolge bessrer Maschinerie produktiver geworden ist.

second cause: the commodity's own value

(2) The general rate of profit stays the same. Then a commodity's price of production can change only because the commodity's own value has changed — because more or less labour is now needed to reproduce it, whether because the labour that produces the commodity itself in its finished form has become more or less productive, or the labour that produces what goes into making it. Cotton yarn, for instance, can fall in price of production either because raw cotton is now produced more cheaply, or because the labour of spinning has become more productive thanks to better machinery.

Der Produktionspreis ist, wie früher gezeigt, = k + p, gleich Kostpreis und Profit. Dies aber ist = k + kp´, wo k, der Kostpreis, eine unbestimmte Größe, die für verschiedne Produktionssphären wechselt und überall gleich ist dem Wert des in der Produktion der Ware verbrauchten konstanten und variablen Kapitals, und p´ die prozentig berechnete Durchschnittsprofitrate. Ist k = 200 und p´ = 20%, so ist der Produktionspreis k + kp´ = 200 + 200 20/100 = 200 + 40 = 240. Es ist klar, daß dieser Produktionspreis derselbe bleiben kann, obgleich der Wert der Waren sich verändert.

cost price: indeterminate, varying by sphere

The price of production is, as shown earlier, k + p — cost price plus profit. That is the same as k + kp', where k, the cost price, is an indeterminate magnitude that varies from one sphere of production to another, and is everywhere equal to the value of the constant and variable capital used up in producing the commodity, while p' is the average rate of profit reckoned as a percentage. If k = 200 and p' = 20 per cent, the price of production is k + kp' = 200 + 200 × 20/100 = 200 + 40 = 240. It is clear that this price of production can stay exactly the same even though the value of the commodities has changed.

Alle Wechsel im Produktionspreis der Waren lösen sich auf in letzter Instanz in einen Wertwechsel, aber nicht alle Wechsel im Wert der Waren brauchen sich in einem Wechsel des Produktionspreises auszudrücken, da dieser bestimmt ist nicht allein durch den Wert der besondren Ware, sondern durch den Gesamtwert aller Waren. Der Wechsel in Ware A kann also ausgeglichen sein durch einen entgegengesetzten der Ware B, so daß das allgemeine Verhältnis dasselbe bleibt.

why the link runs one way

Every change in a commodity's price of production ultimately comes down to a change in value somewhere. But not every change in a commodity's value has to show up as a change in its price of production — because that price is fixed not just by the value of this one commodity, but by the total value of all commodities together. So a change in commodity A can be balanced by an opposite change in commodity B, so that the general proportion stays the same.

Man hat gesehn, wie die Abweichung der Produktionspreise von den Werten dadurch entspringt:

two sources of divergence

We have seen how the price of production comes to diverge from value, and it happens in two ways:

1. daß zum Kostpreis einer Ware nicht der in ihr enthaltne Mehrwert, sondern der Durchschnittsprofit hinzugeschlagen wird;

first source: average profit added

(1) what gets added to a commodity's cost price is not the surplus-value actually contained in it, but the average profit;

2. daß der so vom Wert abweichende Produktionspreis einer Ware als Element in den Kostpreis andrer Waren eingeht, wodurch also schon im Kostpreis einer Ware eine Abweichung vom Wert der in ihr konsumierten Produktionsmittel enthalten sein kann, abgesehn von der Abweichung, die für sie selbst durch die Differenz zwischen Durchschnittsprofit und Mehrwert hineinkommen kann.

second source: the divergence feeds forward

(2) a commodity's price of production, once it has diverged from value in this way, itself becomes one of the elements in the cost price of other commodities. So a commodity's cost price can already contain a divergence from the value of the means of production it used up — and this is separate from, and additional to, whatever divergence comes into that same commodity's own price through the gap between average profit and surplus-value.

Es ist hiernach also möglich, daß auch bei Waren, die durch Kapitale mittlerer Zusammensetzung produziert werden, der Kostpreis abweichen kann von der Wertsumme der Elemente, aus denen dieser Bestandteil ihres Produktionspreises sich zusammensetzt. Angenommen, die mittlere Zusammensetzung sei 80c + 20v. Es ist nun möglich, daß in den wirklichen Kapitalen, die so zusammengesetzt sind, 80c größer oder kleiner ist als der Wert von c, dem konstanten Kapital, weil dies c durch Waren gebildet ist, deren Produktionspreis abweicht von ihrem Wert. Ebenso könnte 20v von seinem Wert abweichen, wenn in den Verzehr des Arbeitslohns Waren eingehn, deren Produktionspreis von ihrem Wert verschieden ist; der Arbeiter also zum Rückkauf dieser Waren (ihrem Ersatz) mehr oder minder Arbeitszeit arbeiten, also mehr oder minder viel notwendige Arbeit verrichten muß, als nötig wäre, wenn die Produktionspreise der notwendigen Lebensmittel mit ihren Werten zusammenfielen.

even average composition: cost price diverges

So it is possible that even for commodities produced by capitals of average composition, the cost price diverges from the sum of the values of the elements that make it up. Suppose the average composition is 80c + 20v. It is possible that, in the real capitals composed this way, the 80c is larger or smaller than the value of c, the constant capital — because this c is itself made up of commodities whose price of production diverges from their value. In the same way, the 20v could diverge from its value, if the commodities that go into the worker's consumption have a price of production different from their value; the worker would then have to work more or less time to buy those commodities back, performing more or less necessary labour than would be needed if the prices of production of the necessary means of subsistence coincided with their values.

Indes ändert diese Möglichkeit durchaus nichts an der Richtigkeit der für Waren mittlerer Zusammensetzung aufgestellten Sätze. Das Quantum Profit, das auf diese Waren fällt, ist gleich dem in ihnen selbst enthaltnen Quantum Mehrwert. Z.B. bei obigem Kapital von der Zusammensetzung 80c + 20v ist das Wichtige für die Bestimmung des Mehrwerts nicht, ob diese Zahlen Ausdrücke der wirklichen Werte, sondern wie sie sich zueinander verhalten; nämlich daß v = 1/5 des Gesamtkapitals und c = 4/5 ist. Sobald dies der Fall, ist, wie oben angenommen, der von v erzeugte Mehrwert gleich dem Durchschnittsprofit. Andrerseits: weil er gleich dem Durchschnittsprofit ist, ist der Produktionspreis = Kostpreis + Profit = k + p = k + m, praktisch dem Wert der Ware gleichgesetzt. D.h., eine Erhöhung oder Erniedrigung des Arbeitslohns läßt k + p in diesem Fall ebenso unverändert, wie sie den Wert der Ware unverändert lassen würde, und bewirkt bloß eine entsprechende umgekehrte Bewegung, Erniedrigung oder Erhöhung, auf Seite der Profitrate. Würde nämlich infolge einer Erhöhung oder Erniedrigung des Arbeitslohns der Preis der Waren hier verändert, so käme die Profitrate in diesen Sphären mittlerer Zusammensetzung über oder unter ihr Niveau in den andern Sphären zu stehn. Nur soweit der Preis unverändert bleibt, bewahrt die Sphäre mittlerer Zusammensetzung ihr Profitniveau mit den andern Sphären. Es findet also bei ihr praktisch dasselbe statt, als ob die Produkte dieser Sphäre zu ihrem wirklichen Wert verkauft würden. Werden Waren nämlich zu ihren wirklichen Werten verkauft, so ist es klar, daß bei sonst gleichen Umständen Steigen oder Sinken des Arbeitslohns entsprechendes Sinken oder Steigen des Profits, aber keinen Wertwechsel der Waren hervorruft und daß unter allen Umständen Steigen oder Sinken des Arbeitslohnes nie den Wert der Waren, sondern stets nur die Größe des Mehrwerts affizieren kann.

why the average case still works

None of these possible deviations makes the propositions laid down for commodities of average composition any less correct. The amount of profit that falls to these commodities is equal to the amount of surplus-value actually contained in them. Take the capital above, composed 80c + 20v: what matters for working out the surplus-value is not whether these figures express real values, but how they stand to each other — namely that v is one-fifth of the total capital and c is four-fifths. Whenever that holds, as assumed above, the surplus-value produced by v is equal to the average profit.

And because it is equal to the average profit, the price of production — cost price plus profit, k + p = k + s — is in practice equated with the value of the commodity. That is: a rise or fall in wages leaves k + p just as unchanged in this case as it would leave the value of the commodity unchanged, and produces only a corresponding movement the other way, a fall or a rise, in the rate of profit. For if the price of these commodities did change as a result of a rise or fall in wages, the rate of profit in these spheres of average composition would end up standing above or below its level in the other spheres. Only so far as the price stays unchanged does the sphere of average composition keep its profit level in line with the other spheres.

So in practice the same thing happens here as if the products of this sphere were sold at their real value. And when commodities are sold at their real values, it is clear that, other things being equal, a rise or fall in wages produces a corresponding fall or rise in profit, but no change in the value of the commodities — and that under all circumstances, a rise or fall in wages can never affect the value of commodities, only ever the magnitude of surplus-value.

Es ist gesagt worden, daß die Konkurrenz die Profitraten der verschiednen Produktionssphären zur Durchschnittsprofitrate ausgleicht und ebendadurch die Werte der Produkte dieser verschiednen Sphären in Produktionspreise verwandelt. Und zwar geschieht dies durch fortwährende Übertragung von Kapital aus einer Sphäre in die andre, wo augenblicklich der Profit über dem Durchschnitt steht; wobei jedoch in Betracht kommen die mit dem Wechsel der magern und fetten Jahre, wie sie in einem gegebnen Industriezweig innerhalb einer gegebnen Epoche einander folgen, verbundnen Profitschwankungen. Diese ununterbrochne Aus- und Einwanderung des Kapitals, die zwischen verschiednen Sphären der Produktion stattfindet, erzeugt steigende und fallende Bewegungen der Profitrate, die sich gegenseitig mehr oder weniger ausgleichen und dadurch die Tendenz haben, die Profitrate überall auf dasselbe gemeinsame und allgemeine Niveau zu reduzieren.

how competition levels profit rates

It has already been said that competition equalizes the profit rates of the different spheres of production into the average rate of profit, and by doing so turns the values of the products of these spheres into prices of production. This happens through a continual transfer of capital from one sphere into another, wherever profit currently stands above the average — though this has to be considered alongside the profit fluctuations that come with the lean and fat years that follow one another in a given branch of industry over a given period. This ceaseless emigration and immigration of capital between different spheres of production produces rising and falling movements in the rate of profit, which more or less balance one another out and so tend to reduce the rate of profit everywhere to one common, general level.

Diese Bewegung der Kapitale wird in erster Linie stets verursacht durch den Stand der Marktpreise, die die Profite hier über das allgemeine Niveau des Durchschnitts erhöhen, dort sie darunter hinabdrücken. Wir sehn einstweilen noch ab vom Kaufmannskapital, womit wir hier noch nichts zu tun haben und das, wie die plötzlich emporschießenden Paroxysmen der Spekulation in gewissen Lieblingsartikeln zeigen, mit außerordentlicher Schnelligkeit Kapitalmassen aus einer Geschäftsbranche ziehn und sie ebenso plötzlich in eine andre werfen kann. Aber in jeder Sphäre der eigentlichen Produktion - Industrie, Ackerbau, Bergwerke etc. - bietet die Übertragung von Kapital aus einer Sphäre in die andre bedeutende Schwierigkeit, besonders wegen des vorhandnen fixen Kapitals. Zudem zeigt die Erfahrung, daß, wenn ein Industriezweig, z.B. die Baumwollindustrie, zu einer Zeit außerordentlich hohe Profite abwirft, er dann auch zu einer andern Zeit sehr geringen Profit oder gar Verlust bringt, so daß in einem gewissen Zyklus von Jahren der Durchschnittsprofit ziemlich derselbe ist wie in andern Zweigen. Und mit dieser Erfahrung lernt das Kapital bald rechnen.

market prices drive the movement

This movement of capital is always caused, in the first place, by the state of market prices — which push profits above the general average level in one place and down below it in another. For now we leave commercial capital aside; we are not dealing with it here, though the paroxysms of speculation that suddenly flare up around certain favoured articles show that it can pull masses of capital out of one line of business with extraordinary speed and throw them just as suddenly into another. But in every sphere of actual production — industry, agriculture, mining, and so on — moving capital from one sphere to another is a considerable difficulty, especially because of the fixed capital already invested there. Experience also shows that when a branch of industry, the cotton industry for instance, yields extraordinarily high profits at one time, it brings very low profit, or even a loss, at another — so that, over a certain cycle of years, the average profit works out much the same as in other branches. And capital soon learns to reckon with this experience.

Was aber die Konkurrenz nicht zeigt, das ist die Wertbestimmung, die die Bewegung der Produktion beherrscht; das sind die Werte, die hinter den Produktionspreisen stehn und sie in letzter Instanz bestimmen. Die Konkurrenz zeigt dagegen: 1. die Durchschnittsprofite, die unabhängig sind von der organischen Zusammensetzung des Kapitals in den verschiednen Produktionssphären, also auch von der Masse der von einem gegebnen Kapital in einer gegebnen Exploitationssphäre angeeigneten lebendigen Arbeit; 2. Steigen und Fallen der Produktionspreise infolge von Wechsel in der Höhe des Arbeitslohns - eine Erscheinung, die dem Wertverhältnis der Waren auf den ersten Blick durchaus widerspricht; 3. Schwankungen der Marktpreise, die den Durchschnittsmarktpreis der Waren in einer gegebnen Zeitperiode reduzieren, nicht auf den Marktwert, sondern auf einen von diesem Marktwert abweichenden, sehr verschiednen Marktproduktionspreis. Alle diese Erscheinungen scheinen ebensosehr der Bestimmung des Werts durch die Arbeitszeit, wie der aus unbezahlter Mehrarbeit bestehenden Natur des Mehrwerts zu widersprechen. Es erscheint also in der Konkurrenz alles verkehrt. Die fertige Gestalt der ökonomischen Verhältnisse, wie sie sich auf der Oberfläche zeigt, in ihrer realen Existenz, und daher auch in den Vorstellungen, worin die Träger und Agenten dieser Verhältnisse sich über dieselben klarzuwerden suchen, sind sehr verschieden von, und in der Tat verkehrt, gegensätzlich zu ihrer innern, wesentlichen, aber verhüllten Kerngestalt und dem ihr entsprechenden Begriff.

what competition hides and shows

What competition does not show is the determination of value that governs the movement of production — the values standing behind prices of production, which ultimately determine them. What competition shows instead is this: (1) average profits that are independent of the organic composition of capital in the different spheres of production, and so also independent of how much living labour a given capital appropriates in a given sphere; (2) rises and falls in prices of production as a result of changes in the level of wages — a phenomenon that, at first glance, flatly contradicts the value-relation of commodities; (3) fluctuations in market prices that pull the average market price of commodities over a given period down, not to the market value, but to a market price of production that diverges considerably from that market value.

All these appearances seem to contradict, equally, both the determination of value by labour-time and the nature of surplus-value as unpaid surplus-labour. So in competition everything appears upside down. The finished shape economic relations take on the surface, in their real existence — and so too in the ideas by which the people who carry and work these relations try to make sense of them — is very different from their inner, essential but concealed, core shape and from the concept that answers to it. It is in fact the reverse of that core, its very opposite.

Ferner: Sobald die kapitalistische Produktion einen gewissen Entwicklungsgrad erreicht hat, geht die Ausgleichung zwischen den verschiednen Profitraten der einzelnen Sphären zu einer allgemeinen Profitrate keineswegs bloß noch vor sich durch das Spiel der Attraktion und Repulsion, worin die Marktpreise Kapital anziehn oder abstoßen. Nachdem sich die Durchschnittspreise und ihnen entsprechende Marktpreise für eine Zeitlang befestigt haben, tritt es in das Bewußtsein der einzelnen Kapitalisten, daß in dieser Ausgleichung bestimmte Unterschiede ausgeglichen werden, so daß sie dieselben gleich in ihrer wechselseitigen Berechnung einschließen. In der Vorstellung der Kapitalisten leben sie und werden von ihnen in Rechnung gebracht als Kompensationsgründe.

grounds for compensation enter the books

Furthermore: once capitalist production has reached a certain degree of development, the equalizing of the different profit rates of the various spheres into a general rate of profit no longer happens only through the pull and push by which market prices attract or repel capital. Once average prices, and the market prices that go with them, have settled for a while, individual capitalists become aware that certain differences are being evened out in this equalization — so that they start building those differences straight into the reckonings they make against one another. In the capitalists' view of things these differences live on, and get entered into the books as grounds for compensation.

Die Grundvorstellung dabei ist der Durchschnittsprofit selbst, die Vorstellung, daß Kapitale von gleicher Größe in denselben Zeitfristen gleich große Profite abwerfen müssen. Ihr liegt wieder die Vorstellung zugrunde, daß das Kapital jeder Produktionssphäre pro rata seiner Größe teilzunehmen hat an dem von dem gesellschaftlichen Gesamtkapital den Arbeitern ausgepreßten Gesamtmehrwert; oder daß jedes besondre Kapital nur als Stück des Gesamtkapitals, jeder Kapitalist in der Tat als Aktionär in dem Gesamtunternehmen zu betrachten ist, der pro rata der Größe seines Kapitalanteils am Gesamtprofit sich beteiligt.

the underlying idea: capitalist as shareholder

The basic idea behind this is average profit itself — the idea that capitals of equal size must yield equally large profits in the same span of time. And underneath that idea lies a further one: that the capital of each sphere of production has to participate, in proportion to its size, in the total surplus-value squeezed out of the workers by the total social capital — or, put another way, that each particular capital is only a piece of the total capital, and each capitalist in effect a shareholder in the whole joint enterprise, drawing his share of the total profit in proportion to the size of his stake.

Auf diese Vorstellung stützt sich dann die Berechnung des Kapitalisten, z.B. daß ein Kapital, welches langsamer umschlägt, weil entweder die Ware länger im Produktionsprozeß verharrt oder weil sie auf entfernten Märkten verkauft werden muß, den Profit, der ihm dadurch entgeht, dennoch anrechnet, sich also durch Aufschlag auf den Preis entschädigt. Oder aber, daß Kapitalanlagen, die größern Gefahren ausgesetzt sind, wie z.B. in der Reederei, eine Entschädigung durch Preisaufschlag erhalten. Sobald die kapitalistische Produktion, und mit ihr das Assekuranzwesen entwickelt ist, ist die Gefahr in der Tat für alle Produktionssphären gleich groß (s. Corbet); die gefährdeteren zahlen aber die höhere Assekuranzprämie und erhalten sie im Preis ihrer Waren vergütet. In der Praxis kommt dies alles darauf hinaus, daß jeder Umstand, der eine Kapitalanlage - und alle gelten für gleich notwendig, innerhalb gewisser Schranken - weniger, und eine andre mehr profitlich macht, als ein für allemal gültiger Kompensationsgrund in Rechnung gebracht wird, ohne daß es immer von neuem wieder der Tätigkeit der Konkurrenz bedürfte, um die Berechtigung solches Motivs oder Berechnungsfaktors darzutun. Nur vergißt der Kapitalist - oder sieht vielmehr nicht, da die Konkurrenz ihm das nicht zeigt -, daß alle diese, in der wechselseitigen Berechnung der Warenpreise verschiedner Produktionszweige von den Kapitalisten gegeneinander geltend gemachten Kompensationsgründe sich bloß darauf beziehn, daß sie alle, pro rata ihres Kapitals, gleich großen Anspruch haben auf die gemeinschaftliche Beute, den Totalmehrwert. Ihnen scheint vielmehr, da der von ihnen einkassierte Profit verschieden von dem von ihnen ausgepreßten Mehrwert, daß seine Kompensationsgründe nicht die Beteiligung am Gesamtmehrwert ausgleichen, sondern den Profit selbst schaffen, indem dieser einfach aus dem so oder so motivierten Aufschlag auf den Kostpreis der Waren herstamme.

the illusion that mark-ups create profit

The capitalist's calculations rest on this idea. For instance: a capital that turns over more slowly — either because the commodity stays longer in the production process, or because it has to be sold in distant markets — still counts in the profit it loses by this delay, and so compensates itself with a mark-up on the price. Or again: capital investments exposed to greater risk, shipping for instance, receive compensation through a mark-up on price. Once capitalist production, and insurance along with it, has developed, the risk is in fact the same for all spheres of production (see Corbet); but the more exposed ones pay the higher insurance premium, and get it back in the price of their commodities.

In practice, all of this comes down to this: whatever circumstance makes one capital investment less profitable and another more profitable — and within certain limits all investments are held equally necessary — gets entered into the books once and for all as a valid ground for compensation, without the working of competition being needed all over again to show that such a motive, or such a factor in the reckoning, is justified.

Only the capitalist forgets — or rather does not see, because competition does not show it to him — that all these grounds for compensation, which capitalists assert against one another when they reckon up commodity prices across the different branches of production, come down merely to the fact that they all, in proportion to their capital, have an equally large claim on the common booty, the total surplus-value. Instead, because the profit he pockets is different from the surplus-value he actually squeezes out, it seems to him that his grounds for compensation do not equalize his share in the total surplus-value but themselves create the profit — as if the profit simply arose from the mark-up, however it is justified, added to the cost price of the commodities.

Im übrigen gilt auch für den Durchschnittsprofit, was in Kap. VII, S.116 <Siehe vorl. Band, S. 148> gesagt wurde über die Vorstellungen des Kapitalisten von der Quelle des Mehrwerts. Hier stellt sich die Sache nur insoweit anders dar, daß bei gegebnem Marktpreis der Waren und gegebner Exploitation der Arbeit die Ersparung in den Kostpreisen von individuellem Geschick, Aufmerksamkeit etc. abhängt.

the same illusion, one variation

What was said in Chapter 7 about the capitalist's ideas concerning the source of surplus-value also holds, moreover, for average profit. Here the picture differs only in this: with the market price of the commodities given, and the exploitation of labour given, the saving in cost prices depends on individual skill, attentiveness, and so on.

Kap. 12

Supplementary Remarks: What Changes a Price of Production - and What Competition Does Not Show

The price of production of a commodity can vary for only two reasons:

two causes, no more

A commodity's price of production can change for only two reasons:

(1) A change in the general rate of profit. This is possible only if the average rate of surplus-value itself alters, or, given an average rate of surplus-value, the ratio between the sum of surplus-value appropriated and the total social capital advanced.

first cause: the general rate changes

In so far as the change in the rate of surplus-value does not rest on the depression of wages below their normal level, or a rise above this – and movements of this kind are never more than oscillations – it can occur only because the value of labour-power has either fallen or risen; both of these are impossible without a change in the productivity of that labour which produces the means of subsistence, i.e. without a change in value of the commodities that are consumed by the worker.

how the rate of surplus-value changes

Alternatively, there may be a change in the ratio between the sum of surplus-value appropriated and the total social capital advanced. Since this change does not arise from the rate of surplus-value, it must proceed from the total capital, and moreover from its constant part. The mass of this, in its technical aspect, is increased or reduced in proportion to the labour-power bought by the variable capital, and the sum of its value then rises or falls with the growth or decline in the mass itself; thus the mass of constant capital rises or falls similarly in proportion to the sum of value of the variable capital. If the same labour sets more constant capital in motion, it has become more productive, and vice versa. Thus a change has taken place in the productivity of labour and a change must have occurred in the value of certain commodities.

the other route: constant capital

Both of these cases are therefore covered by the following law: if the production price of a commodity changes as the result of a change in the general rate of profit, its own value may well remain unaffected. However, there must have been a change in its value relative to other commodities.

the law covering both cases

(2) The general rate of profit remains unaltered. In this case the production price of a commodity can change only because its value has altered; because more or less labour is required for its actual reproduction, whether because of a change in the productivity of the labour that produces the commodity in its final form, or in that of the labour producing those commodities that go towards producing it. The price of production of cotton yarn may fall either because raw cotton is produced more cheaply, or because the work of spinning has become more productive as a result of better machinery.

second cause: the commodity's own value

Price of production, as we have already shown, is k + p, cost price plus profit. But this = k + kp', where k, the cost price, is a magnitude which varies according to the different spheres of production and is everywhere equal to the value of the constant and variable capital used up to produce the commodity, while p' is the average rate of profit calculated as a percentage. If k = 200 and p' = 20 per cent, the price of production k + kp' = 200 + 200 × 20/100 = 200 + 40 = 240. It is evident that this price of production may remain the same even though the value of the commodity changes.

cost price: indeterminate, varying by sphere

All changes in the price of production of a commodity can be ultimately reduced to a change in value, but not all changes in the value of a commodity need find expression in a change in the price of production, since this is not determined simply by the value of the particular commodity in question, but rather by the total value of all commodities. A change in commodity A, therefore, may be balanced by an opposite change in commodity B, so that the general proportion remains the same.

why the link runs one way

We have already seen that the divergence of price of production from value arises for the following reasons:

two sources of divergence

We have seen how the price of production comes to diverge from value, and it happens in two ways:

(1) because the average profit is added to the cost price of a commodity, rather than the surplus-value contained in it;

first source: average profit added

(1) what gets added to a commodity's cost price is not the surplus-value actually contained in it, but the average profit;

(2) because the price of production of a commodity that diverges in this way from its value enters as an element into the cost price of other commodities, which means that a divergence from the value of the means of production consumed may already be contained in the cost price, quite apart from the divergence that may arise for the commodity itself from the difference between average profit and surplus-value.

second source: the divergence feeds forward

It is quite possible, accordingly, for the cost price to diverge from the value sum of the elements of which this component of the price of production is composed, even in the case of commodities that are produced by capitals of average composition. Let us assume that the average composition is 80c + 20v. It is possible now that, for the actual individual capitals that are composed in this way, the 80c may be greater or less than the value of c, the constant capital, since this c is composed of commodities whose prices of production are different from their values. The 20v can similarly diverge from its value, if the spending of wages on consumption involves commodities whose prices of production are different from their values. The workers must work for a greater or lesser amount of time in order to buy back these commodities (to replace them) and must therefore perform more or less necessary labour than would be needed if the prices of production of their necessary means of subsistence did coincide with their values.

even average composition: cost price diverges

Yet this possibility in no way affects the correctness of the principles put forward for commodities of average composition. The quantity of profit that falls to the share of these commodities is equal to the quantity of surplus-value contained in them. For the above capital, with its composition of 80c + 20v, for example, the important thing as far as the determination of surplus-value is concerned is not whether these figures are the expression of actual values, but rather what their mutual relationship is; i.e. that v is one-fifth of the total capital and c is four-fifths. As soon as this is the case, as assumed above, the surplus-value v produces is equal to the average profit. On the other hand, because it is equal to the average profit, the price of production = cost price + profit = k + p = k + s, which is equal in practice to the commodity’s value. In other words, an increase or decrease in wages in this case leaves k + p unaffected, just as it would leave the commodity’s value unaffected, and simply brings about a corresponding converse movement, a decrease or increase, on the side of the profit rate. If an increase or decrease in wages did affect the price of commodities in this case, the profit rate in these spheres of average composition would come to stand below or above its level in the other spheres. It is only in so far as their prices remain unaltered that the spheres of average composition maintain the same level of profit as the others. The same thing thus takes place in practice as if the products of these spheres were sold at their actual values. For if commodities are sold at their actual values, it is clear that with other circumstances remaining the same, a rise or fall in wages provokes a corresponding fall or rise in profit but no change in the commodity’s value, and that in no circumstances can a rise or fall in wages ever affect the value of commodities, but only the size of the surplus-value.

why the average case still works

It has been said that competition equalizes profit rates between the different spheres of production to produce an average rate of profit, and that this is precisely the way in which the values of products from these various spheres are transformed into prices of production. This happens, moreover, by the continual transfer of capital from one sphere to another, where profit stands above the average for the time being. Something that must also be considered here, however, is the cycle of fat and lean years that follow one another in a given branch of industry over a particular period of time, and the fluctuations in profit that these involve. This uninterrupted emigration and immigration of capitals that takes place between various spheres of production produces rising and falling movements in the profit rate which more or less balance one another out and thus tend to reduce the profit rate everywhere to the same common and general level.

how competition levels profit rates

This movement of capitals is always brought about in the first place by the state of market prices, which raise profits above the general average level in one place, and reduce it below the average in another. We are still leaving commercial capital out of consideration for the time being, as we have yet to introduce it, but as is shown by the paroxysms of speculation in certain favoured articles that suddenly break out, this can withdraw masses of capital from one line of business with extraordinary rapidity and fling them just as suddenly into another. In every sphere of actual production, however, industry, agriculture, mining, etc., the transfer of capital from one sector to another presents significant difficulties, particularly on account of the fixed capital involved. Experience shows, moreover, that if one branch of industry, e.g. cotton, yields extraordinarily high profits at one time, it may bring in very low profits at another, or even run a loss, so that in a particular cycle of years the average profit is more or less the same as in other branches. Capital soon learns to reckon with this experience.

market prices drive the movement

What competition does not show, however, is the determination of values that governs the movement of production; that it is values that stand behind the prices of production and ultimately determine them. Competition exhibits rather the following phenomena: (1) average profits that are independent of the organic composition of capital in the various spheres of production, i.e. independent of the mass of living labour appropriated in a given sphere of exploitation; (2) rises and falls in the prices of production as a result of changes in the wage level – a phenomenon which at first sight seems completely to contradict the value relationship of commodities; (3) fluctuations in market prices that reduce the average market price of a commodity over a given period of time, not to its market value but rather to a market price of production that diverges from this market value and is something very different. All these phenomena seem to contradict both the determination of value by labour-time and the nature of surplus-value as consisting of unpaid surplus labour. In competition, therefore, everything appears upside down. The finished configuration of economic relations, as these are visible on the surface, in their actual existence, and therefore also in the notions with which the bearers and agents of these relations seek to gain an understanding of them, is very different from the configuration of their inner core, which is essential but concealed, and the concept corresponding to it. It is in fact the very reverse and antithesis of this.

what competition hides and shows

Moreover, as soon as capitalist production has reached a certain level of development, the equalization between the various rates of profit in individual spheres which produces the general rate of profit does not just take place through the interplay of attraction and repulsion in which market prices attract or repel capital. Once average prices and the market prices corresponding to them have been established for a certain length of time, the various individual capitalists become conscious that certain differences are balanced out in this equalization, and so they take these into account in their calculations among themselves. These differences are actively present in the capitalists’ view of things and are taken into account by them as grounds for compensation.

grounds for compensation enter the books

The basic notion in this connection is that of average profit itself, the idea that capitals of equal size must yield equal profits in the same period of time. This is based in turn on the idea that capital in each sphere of production has to participate according to its size in the total surplus-value extorted from the workers by the total social capital; or that each particular capital should be viewed simply as a fragment of the total capital and each capitalist in fact as a shareholder in the whole social enterprise, partaking in the overall profit in proportion to the size of his share of capital.

the underlying idea: capitalist as shareholder

This idea is then the basis of the capitalist’s calculation, for example, that a capital that turns over more slowly, either because the commodity in question remains in the production process for a longer period or because it has to be sold on distant markets, still charges the profit it would otherwise lose by raising its price and compensates itself in this way. Another example is how capital investments that are exposed to greater risk, as in shipping, for instance, receive compensation through increased prices. Once capitalist production is properly developed, and with it the insurance system, the risk is in fact the same for all spheres of production (see Corbet); those more endangered simply pay higher insurance premiums and receive these back in the price of their commodities. In practice this always boils down to the situation that any circumstance that makes one capital investment less profitable and another one more so (and all these investments are taken as equally necessary, within certain limits) is invariably taken into account as a valid reason for compensation, without there being any need for the constant repetition of the activities of competition in order to demonstrate the justification for including such motives or factors in the capitalist’s calculations. He simply forgets (or rather he no longer sees it, since competition does not show it to him) that all these grounds for compensation that make themselves mutually felt in the reciprocal calculation of commodity prices by the capitalists in different branches of production are simply related to the fact that they all have an equal claim on the common booty, the total surplus-value, in proportion to their capital. It appears to them, rather, that the profit which they pocket is something different from the surplus-value they extort; that the grounds for compensation do not simply equalize their participation in the total surplus-value, but that they actually create profit itself, since profit seems to derive simply from the addition to the cost price made with one justification or another.

the illusion that mark-ups create profit

Finally, what was said in Chapter 7, p. 236, about the capitalist’s ideas as to the source of surplus-value applies also to the average profit. The only way in which the situation looks different in this second case is that for a given market price and a given level of exploitation of labour, savings on the cost price depend on individual talent, attention, etc.

the same illusion, one variation