thebase.works · Das Kapital III Kap. 27 · semantic zoom
Z3
Kap. 27
Was der Kredit leistet: Ausgleichung der Profitrate, Ökonomie der Zirkulationskosten, Aktiengesellschaften
Coming out of the debate over what fixes the rate of interest and what discounting really does, the reader arrives having watched money and capital pried apart term by term: discount is never a loan of extra capital, and the rate of interest answers to money capital's own supply and demand, never to gold alone. This unit steps back and gathers everything credit has been shown to do into a single summary - lowering the real costs of moving goods and money, and throwing up a wholly new institutional form, the joint-stock company, in which capital stops being one private person's thing. What gets settled here is what that transformation does, and does not, undo.
Die allgemeinen Bemerkungen, wozu das Kreditwesen uns bis jetzt Veranlassung gab, waren folgende:
the recap begins

The general remarks the credit system has given us occasion to make so far come down to these:

I. Notwendige Bildung desselben, um die Ausgleichung der Profitrate zu vermitteln oder die Bewegung dieser Ausgleichung, worauf die ganze kapitalistische Produktion beruht.
why credit is needed

I. Credit has to form to mediate the equalizing of the rate of profit, or the movement of that equalizing, which the whole of capitalist production rests on.

II. Verringerung der Zirkulationskosten.
cutting circulation costs

II. It cuts the costs of circulation.

1. Eine Hauptzirkulationskost ist das Geld selbst, soweit es Selbstwert. Es wird in dreifacher Art durch den Kredit ökonomisiert.
money itself is a cost

1. One of the main costs of circulation is money itself, so far as money itself has value. Credit economizes on this in three ways.

A. Indem es für einen großen Teil der Transaktionen ganz wegfällt.
A: money dropped entirely

A. For a large part of transactions, money drops out entirely.

B. Indem die Zirkulation des umlaufenden Mediums beschleunigt wird.85 Dies fällt zum Teil zusammen mit dem, was unter 2 zu sagen. Einerseits ist nämlich die Beschleunigung technisch; d.h. bei sonst gleichbleibender Größe und Menge der wirklichen, die Konsumtion vermittelnden Warenumsätze verrichtet eine geringere Masse von Geld oder Geldzeichen denselben Dienst. Dies hängt mit der Technik des Bankwesens zusammen. Andrerseits beschleunigt der Kredit die Geschwindigkeit der Warenmetamorphose und hiermit die Geschwindigkeit der Geldzirkulation.
B: the money in use speeds up

B. It speeds up the circulation of the money in use. This partly overlaps with what comes under point 2 below. On one side the speeding-up is technical: with the real turnover of goods for consumption staying the same in size and number, a smaller amount of money or money-tokens does the same job. That is tied to the technique of banking. On the other side, credit speeds up how fast a commodity passes through its changes of form, and with that, how fast money circulates.

C. Ersetzung von Goldgeld durch Papier.
C: paper replaces gold

C. Paper replaces gold money.

2. Beschleunigung, durch den Kredit, der einzelnen Phasen der Zirkulation oder der Warenmetamorphose, weiter der Metamorphose des Kapitals und damit Beschleunigung des Reproduktionsprozesses überhaupt. (Andrerseits erlaubt der Kredit, die Akte des Kaufens und Verkaufens länger auseinanderzuhalten, und dient daher der Spekulation als Basis.) Kontraktion der Reservefonds, was doppelt betrachtet werden kann: einerseits als Verminderung des zirkulierenden Mediums, andrerseits als Beschränkung des Teils des Kapitals, der stets in Geldform existieren muß.86
faster turnover, and its speculative side

2. Credit speeds up the separate phases of circulation, or of a commodity's change of form, and further the change of form capital itself goes through, and so speeds up the whole process of reproduction. (On the other hand, credit also lets the acts of buying and selling be held apart for longer, and so serves as the basis for speculation.) It also contracts the reserve funds a business must hold, which can be looked at two ways: on one side as a reduction of the money in circulation, on the other as a limit on the part of capital that must always exist in money form.

III. Bildung von Aktiengesellschaften. Hierdurch:
III: joint-stock companies form

III. The formation of joint-stock companies. Through this:

1. Ungeheure Ausdehnung der Stufenleiter der Produktion und Unternehmungen, die für Einzelkapitale unmöglich waren. Solche Unternehmungen zugleich, die früher Regierungsunternehmungen waren, werden gesellschaftliche.
1: a scale beyond any single capital

1. A tremendous expansion in the scale of production and of undertakings that would have been impossible for individual capitals. At the same time, undertakings that used to be government undertakings become social ones.

2. Das Kapital, das an sich auf gesellschaftlicher Produktionsweise beruht und eine gesellschaftliche Konzentration von Produktionsmitteln und Arbeitskräften voraussetzt, erhält hier direkt die Form von Gesellschaftskapital (Kapital direkt assoziierter Individuen) im Gegensatz zum Privatkapital, und seine Unternehmungen treten auf als Gesellschaftsunternehmungen im Gegensatz zu Privatunternehmungen. Es ist die Aufhebung des Kapitals als Privateigentum innerhalb der Grenzen der kapitalistischen Produktionsweise selbst.
2: capital becomes social capital

2. Capital, which already rests, in itself, on a social mode of production and presupposes a social concentration of means of production and of labour-power, here directly takes on the form of social capital - the capital of directly associated individuals - as opposed to private capital, and its undertakings appear as social undertakings as opposed to private ones. This is the abolition of capital as private property, but only within the limits of the capitalist mode of production itself.

3. Verwandlung des wirklich fungierenden Kapitalisten in einen bloßen Dirigenten, Verwalter fremdes Kapitals, und der Kapitaleigentümer in bloße Eigentümer, bloße Geldkapitalisten. Selbst wenn die Dividenden, die sie beziehn, den Zins und Unternehmergewinn, d.h. den Totalprofit einschließen (denn das Gehalt des Dirigenten ist, oder soll sein, bloßer Arbeitslohn einer gewissen Art geschickter Arbeit, deren Preis im Arbeitsmarkt reguliert wird, wie der jeder andren Arbeit), so wird dieser Totalprofit nur noch bezogen in der Form des Zinses, d.h. als bloße Vergütung des Kapitaleigentums, das nun ganz so von der Funktion im wirklichen Reproduktionsprozeß getrennt wird wie diese Funktion, in der Person des Dirigenten, vom Kapitaleigentum. Der Profit stellt sich so dar (nicht mehr nur der eine Teil desselben, der Zins, der seine Rechtfertigung aus dem Profit des Borgers zieht) als bloße Aneignung fremder Mehrarbeit, entspringend aus der Verwandlung der Produktionsmittel in Kapital, d.h. aus ihrer Entfremdung gegenüber den wirklichen Produzenten, aus ihrem Gegensatz als fremdes Eigentum gegenüber allen wirklich in der Produktion tätigen Individuen, vom Dirigenten bis herab zum letzten Taglöhner. In den Aktiengesellschaften ist die Funktion getrennt vom Kapitaleigentum, also auch die Arbeit gänzlich getrennt vom Eigentum an den Produktionsmitteln und an der Mehrarbeit. Es ist dies Resultat der höchsten Entwicklung der kapitalistischen Produktion ein notwendiger Durchgangspunkt zur Rückverwandlung des Kapitals in Eigentum der Produzenten, aber nicht mehr als das Privateigentum vereinzelter Produzenten, sondern als das Eigentum ihrer als assoziierter, als unmittelbares Gesellschaftseigentum. Es ist andrerseits Durchgangspunkt zur Verwandlung aller mit dem Kapitaleigentum bisher noch verknüpften Funktionen im Reproduktionsprozeß in bloße Funktionen der assoziierten Produzenten, in gesellschaftliche Funktionen.
manager, owner, profit as bare interest

3. The capitalist who actually does the functioning turns into a mere manager, someone in charge of another's capital, and the owner of the capital turns into a mere owner, a mere money capitalist. Even where the dividends they draw include both interest and profit of enterprise - that is, the total profit (since the manager's salary is, or should be, simply the wage for a certain kind of skilled labour, its price set on the labour market the way any other labour's price is) - this total profit is now drawn only in the form of interest, that is, as a bare reward for owning the capital, which is now separated from its function in the actual process of production every bit as completely as that function, in the person of the manager, is separated from owning the capital.

Profit then presents itself - and no longer just the one part of it, interest, which draws its justification from the profit of the borrower - as nothing but the appropriation of other people's surplus labour, arising from the turning of means of production into capital, that is, from their estrangement from the actual producers, from their standing opposed, as someone else's property, to every individual really at work in production, from the manager down to the lowest day-labourer. In joint-stock companies the function is separated from owning the capital, so labour too is completely separated from owning the means of production and the surplus labour. This result of capitalist production at its highest development is a necessary point of transition toward capital being turned back into the property of the producers - no longer, though, as the private property of separate individual producers, but as their property as associated producers, as directly social property. It is, on the other hand, also a point of transition toward turning every function still tied to owning capital in the reproduction process into a mere function of the associated producers, into a social function.

Bevor wir weitergehn, ist noch dies ökonomisch Wichtige zu bemerken: Da der Profit hier rein die Form des Zinses annimmt, sind solche Unternehmungen noch möglich, wenn sie bloßen Zins abwerfen, und es ist dies einer der Gründe, die das Fallen der allgemeinen Profitrate aufhalten, indem diese Unternehmungen, wo das konstante Kapital in so ungeheurem Verhältnis zum variablen steht, nicht notwendig in die Ausgleichung der allgemeinen Profitrate eingehn.
why this holds up the falling rate

Before going further, there is one more economically important point to note. Since profit here takes purely the form of interest, undertakings that yield nothing but interest are still able to carry on, and this is one of the causes that hold up the fall in the general rate of profit, since these undertakings, where constant capital stands in such an enormous ratio to variable capital, do not necessarily enter into the equalizing of the general rate of profit.

Kap. 27
Aufhebung innerhalb der Grenzen: Kartelle, Glücksritter, Kooperativfabriken und der Doppelcharakter des Kreditsystems
The reader arrives having watched credit concentrate loanable capital and lay bare what a banker actually does; this unit turns to what credit does at its furthest reach. It states plainly what the joint-stock company is - a contradiction that abolishes capitalist production only from within capitalist limits, producing monopoly and a new financial aristocracy in the same breath - then widens the claim to credit as such: it gives command over other people's capital, sinks the appeal to saving and self-denial, and sets the cooperative factory beside the share company as its positive counterpart. It closes by stating outright that credit is at once the purest system of swindling and a transition toward a new mode of production.
{Seit Marx obiges schrieb, haben sich bekanntlich neue Formen des Industriebetriebs entwickelt, die die zweite und dritte Potenz der Aktiengesellschaft darstellen. Der täglich wachsenden Raschheit, womit auf allen großindustriellen Gebieten heute die Produktion gesteigert werden kann, steht gegenüber die stets zunehmende Langsamkeit der Ausdehnung des Markts für diese vermehrten Produkte. Was jene in Monaten herstellt, kann dieser kaum in Jahren absorbieren. Dazu die Schutzzollpolitik, wodurch jedes Industrieland sich gegen die andern und namentlich gegen England abschließt und die heimische Produktionsfähigkeit noch künstlich steigert. Die Folgen sind allgemeine chronische Überproduktion, gedrückte Preise, fallende und sogar ganz wegfallende Profite; kurz, die altgerühmte Freiheit der Konkurrenz ist am Ende ihres Lateins und muß ihren offenbaren skandalösen Bankrott selbst ansagen. Und zwar dadurch, daß in jedem Land die Großindustriellen eines bestimmten Zweigs sich zusammentun zu einem Kartell zur Regulierung der Produktion. Ein Ausschuß setzt das von jedem Etablissement zu produzierende Quantum fest und verteilt in letzter Instanz die einlaufenden Aufträge. In einzelnen Fällen kam es zeitweise sogar zu internationalen Kartellen, so zwischen der englischen und deutschen Eisenproduktion. Aber auch diese Form der Vergesellschaftung der Produktion genügte noch nicht. Der Interessengegensatz der einzelnen Geschäftsfirmen durchbrach sie nur zu oft und stellte die Konkurrenz wieder her. So kam man dahin, in einzelnen Zweigen, wo die Produktionsstufe dies zuließ, die gesamte Produktion dieses Geschäftszweigs zu einer großen Aktiengesellschaft mit einheitlicher Leitung zu konzentrieren. In Amerika ist dies schon mehrfach durchgeführt, in Europa ist das größte Beispiel bis jetzt der United Alkali Trust, der die ganze britische Alkaliproduktion in die Hände einer einzigen Geschäftsfirma gebracht hat. Die früheren Besitzer der - mehr als dreißig - einzelnen Werke haben für ihre gesamten Anlagen den Taxwert in Aktien erhalten, im ganzen gegen 5 Millionen Pfd.St., die das fixe Kapital des Trusts darstellen. Die technische Direktion bleibt in den bisherigen Händen, aber die geschäftliche Leitung ist in der Hand der Generaldirektion konzentriert. Das Zirkulationskapital (floating capital) im Betrag von etwa einer Million Pfd.St. wurde dem Publikum zur Zeichnung angeboten. Gesamtkapital also 6 Millionen Pfd.St. So ist in diesem Zweig, der die Grundlage der ganzen chemischen Industrie bildet, in England die Konkurrenz durch das Monopol ersetzt und der künftigen Expropriation durch die Gesamtgesellschaft, die Nation, aufs erfreulichste vorgearbeitet. - F. E.}
Engels's 1894 update: cartels and trusts

Since Marx wrote this, new and more advanced forms of business organization have grown up — the next two stages beyond the plain joint-stock company, as everyone now knows. Production in every big industry can be ramped up faster each year, but the market for all that extra output only grows wider at a crawl. What a factory can turn out in months, buyers can barely absorb in years. On top of that, tariff walls let every industrial country shut out its rivals — England especially — while artificially pumping up its own output even further. The result is constant, general overproduction: prices pushed down, profits shrinking or vanishing altogether. The old, much-praised freedom of competition has run out of road and is about to declare its own scandalous bankruptcy.

It does so in this way: in each country, the big manufacturers in one line of business band together into a cartel to control production. A committee sets how much each firm may produce and has the final say in dividing up the orders that come in. In a few cases this even grew into international cartels — for example between English and German iron producers. But even this way of pooling production was not enough. The clashing interests of the individual firms kept breaking the cartel apart and bringing competition back. So, wherever the stage of production allowed it, people went a step further: they merged the whole of a given branch into one big joint-stock company under a single management. This has already happened several times in America; in Europe the biggest case so far is the United Alkali Trust, which put the whole of Britain's alkali production into the hands of a single firm. The former owners of more than thirty separate works were paid the assessed value of their entire plants in shares — about £5 million in all, which forms the trust's fixed capital. The old managers still run the technical side, but overall business control now sits with a single general management. The floating capital, amounting to some £1 million, was offered to the public to subscribe. Total capital: £6 million. So in this branch, which underlies the whole chemical industry, competition in England has been replaced by monopoly — laying the most agreeable possible groundwork for its eventual expropriation by society as a whole, by the nation.

Es ist dies die Aufhebung der kapitalistischen Produktionsweise innerhalb der kapitalistischen Produktionsweise selbst und daher ein sich selbst aufhebender Widerspruch, der prima facie als bloßer Übergangspunkt zu einer neuen Produktionsform sich darstellt. Als solcher Widerspruch stellt er sich dann auch in der Erscheinung dar. Er stellt in gewissen Sphären das Monopol her und fordert daher die Staatseinmischung heraus. Er reproduziert eine neue Finanzaristokratie, eine neue Sorte Parasiten in Gestalt von Projektenmachern, Gründern und bloß nominellen Direktoren; ein ganzes System des Schwindels und Betrugs mit Bezug auf Gründungen, Aktienausgabe und Aktienhandel. Es ist Privatproduktion ohne die Kontrolle des Privateigentums.
what the joint-stock system is

The joint-stock system is capitalism abolishing itself — but only from within, only inside the limits of the capitalist mode of production itself. It is a contradiction that cancels itself out, and at first sight it looks like nothing more than a mere stepping-stone to a new form of production. And it doesn't just look that way to us — the contradiction shows up as itself even in how things actually appear on the surface. In some fields it produces monopoly outright, and that in turn forces the state to step in. At the same time it breeds a new financial aristocracy — a new species of parasite: company promoters, founders, directors who are directors in name only — and a whole system of swindling and fraud around setting up companies, issuing shares, and trading them. It is production carried on privately, with no control any longer exercised by private ownership.

IV. Abgesehn von dem Aktienwesen - das eine Aufhebung der kapitalistischen Privatindustrie auf Grundlage des kapitalistischen Systems selbst ist, und in demselben Umfang, worin es sich ausdehnt und neue Produktionssphären ergreift, die Privatindustrie vernichtet -, bietet der Kredit dem einzelnen Kapitalisten oder dem, der für einen Kapitalisten gilt, eine innerhalb gewisser Schranken absolute Verfügung über fremdes Kapital und fremdes Eigentum und dadurch über fremde Arbeit.87 Verfügung über gesellschaftliches, nicht eignes Kapital, gibt ihm Verfügung über gesellschaftliche Arbeit. Das Kapital selbst, das man wirklich oder in der Meinung des Publikums besitzt, wird nur noch die Basis zum Kreditüberbau. Es gilt dies besonders im Großhandel, durch dessen Hände der größte Teil des gesellschaftlichen Produkts passiert. Alle Maßstäbe, alle mehr oder minder innerhalb der kapitalistischen Produktionsweise noch berechtigten Explikationsgründe verschwinden hier. Was der spekulierende Großhändler riskiert, ist gesellschaftliches, nicht sein Eigentum. Ebenso abgeschmackt wird die Phrase vom Ursprung des Kapitals aus der Ersparung, da jener gerade verlangt, daß andre für ihn sparen sollen. {Wie neuerdings ganz Frankreich anderthalb Milliarden Franken für die Panamaschwindler zusammengespart hat. Wie denn hier der ganze Panamaschwindel genau beschrieben ist, volle 20 Jahre ehe er sich ereignet. - F. E.} Der andren Phrase von der Entsagung schlägt sein Luxus, der nun auch selbst Kreditmittel wird, direkt ins Gesicht. Vorstellungen, die auf einer minder entwickelten Stufe der kapitalistischen Produktion noch einen Sinn haben, werden hier völlig sinnlos. Das Gelingen und Mißlingen führen hier gleichzeitig zur Zentralisation der Kapitale und daher zur Expropriation auf der enormsten Stufenleiter. Die Expropriation erstreckt sich hier von den unmittelbaren Produzenten auf die kleineren und mittleren Kapitalisten selbst. Diese Expropriation ist der Ausgangspunkt der kapitalistischen Produktionsweise; ihre Durchführung ist ihr Ziel, und zwar in letzter Instanz die Expropriation aller einzelnen von den Produktionsmitteln, die mit der Entwicklung der gesellschaftlichen Produktion aufhören, Mittel der Privatproduktion und Produkte der Privatproduktion zu sein, und die nur noch Produktionsmittel in der Hand der assoziierten Produzenten, daher ihr gesellschaftliches Eigentum, sein können, wie sie ihr gesellschaftliches Produkt sind. Diese Expropriation stellt sich aber innerhalb des kapitalistischen Systems selbst in gegensätzlicher Gestalt dar, als Aneignung des gesellschaftlichen Eigentums durch wenige; und der Kredit gibt diesen wenigen immer mehr den Charakter reiner Glücksritter. Da das Eigentum hier in der Form der Aktie existiert, wird seine Bewegung und Übertragung reines Resultat des Börsenspiels, wo die kleinen Fische von den Haifischen und die Schafe von den Börsenwölfen verschlungen werden. In dem Aktienwesen existiert schon Gegensatz gegen die alte Form, worin gesellschaftliches Produktionsmittel als individuelles Eigentum erscheint; aber die Verwandlung in die der Aktie bleibt selbst noch befangen in den kapitalistischen Schranken; statt daher den Gegensatz zwischen dem Charakter des Reichtums als gesellschaftlicher und als Privatreichtum zu überwinden, bildet sie ihn nur in neuer Gestalt aus.
IV: command over social capital

IV. Set the joint-stock system itself aside for a moment — it already abolishes capitalist private industry on the very ground of the capitalist system, and it wipes out private industry further with every new field it takes over. Credit does something else again: it gives the individual capitalist — or anyone who can pass for one — an absolute command, within certain limits, over other people's capital and property, and through that, over other people's labour. What puts him in command of social labour is precisely that he commands capital that is social, not his own. The capital he actually owns, or is merely believed to own, becomes just the foundation for a whole superstructure of credit built on top of it. This is above all true in wholesale trade, through which most of the social product passes. Every yardstick, every explanation that still made some sense within the capitalist mode of production, disappears here. What the speculating wholesale trader risks is social property, not his own.

The old story that capital originates in saving becomes equally absurd, since what this speculator actually demands is that other people do the saving for him. {As recently as our own day, the whole of France scraped together one and a half thousand million francs for the Panama swindlers. The whole Panama swindle is described here exactly, a full twenty years before it happened. — F. E.} And the other old story, about abstaining from consumption, is flatly contradicted by his luxury, which itself now becomes just another means of getting credit. Ideas that still meant something at an earlier, less developed stage of capitalist production become completely meaningless here. Both success and failure now lead, equally, to the centralization of capitals — and so to expropriation on an enormous scale. This expropriation now reaches beyond the immediate producers to the small and medium capitalists themselves.

Expropriation is where the capitalist mode of production starts; carrying it through to the end is its goal — ultimately, expropriating every single individual from the means of production. Those means, as social production develops, stop being tools and products of private production and can only go on existing as means of production in the hands of the associated producers — as their social property, the way they are already their social product. But within the capitalist system itself, this same expropriation shows up in an inverted, antagonistic shape: as the seizure of social property by a few. And credit turns those few more and more into pure adventurers. Since ownership now takes the form of shares, its movement and its transfer become simply the outcome of stock-exchange gambling, where the small fish get eaten by the sharks and the sheep by the wolves of the exchange. The joint-stock form already conflicts with the older form, in which the means of social production appear as someone's individual property; but turning it into shares still stays trapped inside capitalist limits. So instead of overcoming the opposition between wealth as something social and wealth as something private, it only builds that same opposition up again in a new shape.

Die Kooperativfabriken der Arbeiter selbst sind, innerhalb der alten Form, das erste Durchbrechen der alten Form, obgleich sie natürlich überall, in ihrer wirklichen Organisation, alle Mängel des bestehenden Systems reproduzieren und reproduzieren müssen. Aber der Gegensatz zwischen Kapital und Arbeit ist innerhalb derselben aufgehoben, wenn auch zuerst nur in der Form, daß die Arbeiter als Assoziation ihr eigner Kapitalist sind, d.h. die Produktionsmittel zur Verwertung ihrer eignen Arbeit verwenden. Sie zeigen, wie, auf einer gewissen Entwicklungsstufe der materiellen Produktivkräfte und der ihr entsprechenden gesellschaftlichen Produktionsformen, naturgemäß aus einer Produktionsweise sich eine neue Produktionsweise entwickelt und herausbildet. Ohne das aus der kapitalistischen Produktionsweise entspringende Fabriksystem könnte sich nicht die Kooperativfabrik entwickeln und ebensowenig ohne das aus derselben Produktionsweise entspringende Kreditsystem. Letztres, wie es die Hauptbasis bildet zur allmählichen Verwandlung der kapitalistischen Privatunternehmungen in kapitalistische Aktiengesellschaften, bietet ebensosehr die Mittel zur allmählichen Ausdehnung der Kooperativunternehmungen auf mehr oder minder nationaler Stufenleiter. Die kapitalistischen Aktienunternehmungen sind ebensosehr wie die Kooperativfabriken als Übergangsformen aus der kapitalistischen Produktionsweise in die assoziierte zu betrachten, nur daß in den einen der Gegensatz negativ und in den andren positiv aufgehoben ist.
the cooperative factory, its positive counterpart

The cooperative factories the workers run themselves are, while still inside the old form, the first crack in that old form — even though, in how they actually operate, they inevitably reproduce every defect of the existing system, and cannot help doing so. But within them the opposition between capital and labour is abolished, even if at first only in the form that the workers, joined together, are their own capitalist — they use the means of production to make their own labour pay off. They show how, once the material forces of production and the social forms that go with them reach a certain stage, a new mode of production naturally grows and takes shape out of the old one. The cooperative factory could not have developed without the factory system that capitalism itself produced, and just as little without the credit system that grows out of the same mode of production. That credit system is the main basis on which capitalist private firms gradually turn into capitalist joint-stock companies — and by that same means, it offers a way for cooperative enterprises to spread gradually too, on a more or less national scale. Capitalist joint-stock companies and cooperative factories should both be seen as transition forms, leading out of the capitalist mode of production and into the associated one — except that in one, the opposition is abolished negatively, and in the other, positively.

Wir haben bisher die Entwicklung des Kreditwesens - und die darin enthaltne latente Aufhebung des Kapitaleigentums - mit Bezug hauptsächlich auf das industrielle Kapital betrachtet. Wir betrachten in den folgenden Kapiteln den Kredit mit Bezug auf das zinstragende Kapital als solches, sowohl seinen Effekt auf dieses wie die Form, die er hierbei annimmt; und sind dabei überhaupt noch einige spezifisch ökonomische Bemerkungen zu machen.
turning next to interest-bearing capital itself

So far we have looked at the growth of the credit system — and the abolition of capital ownership lying hidden within it — mainly as it bears on industrial capital. In the chapters that follow we take up credit as it bears on interest-bearing capital itself: both what credit does to it, and the form credit takes here. There are still a few more specifically economic points to make about this.

Vorher noch dies:
one thing first

But first, this:

Wenn das Kreditwesen als Haupthebel der Überproduktion und Überspekulation im Handel erscheint, so nur, weil der Reproduktionsprozeß, der seiner Natur nach elastisch ist, hier bis zur äußersten Grenze forciert wird, und zwar deshalb forciert wird, weil ein großer Teil des gesellschaftlichen Kapitals von den Nichteigentümern desselben angewandt wird, die daher ganz anders ins Zeug gehn als der ängstlich die Schranken seines Privatkapitals erwägende Eigentümer, soweit er selbst fungiert. Es tritt damit nur hervor, daß die auf den gegensätzlichen Charakter der kapitalistischen Produktion gegründete Verwertung des Kapitals die wirkliche, freie Entwicklung nur bis zu einem gewissen Punkt erlaubt, also in der Tat eine immanente Fessel und Schranke der Produktion bildet, die beständig durch das Kreditwesen durchbrochen wird.88 Das Kreditwesen beschleunigt daher die materielle Entwicklung der Produktivkräfte und die Herstellung des Weltmarkts, die als materielle Grundlagen der neuen Produktionsform bis auf einen gewissen Höhegrad herzustellen, die historische Aufgabe der kapitalistischen Produktionsweise ist. Gleichzeitig beschleunigt der Kredit die gewaltsamen Ausbrüche dieses Widerspruchs, die Krisen, und damit die Elemente der Auflösung der alten Produktionsweise.
credit as the mechanism of overproduction

If the credit system appears to be the chief lever of overproduction and reckless speculation in trade, that is only because the process of reproduction — which is elastic by its very nature — gets forced here to its most extreme limit. And it gets forced that far because a large part of social capital is put to work by people who do not own it, and who therefore go about it quite differently from an owner who, when he acts for himself, anxiously weighs the limits of his own private capital. All this really shows is that the way capital valorizes itself, built as it is on the antagonistic character of capitalist production, allows genuinely free development only up to a certain point — in other words, that it forms a real, built-in fetter and barrier to production, one that the credit system keeps on breaking through. Because of that, the credit system speeds up the material development of the productive forces and the creation of a world market — bringing both to a certain level, as the material foundations of the new form of production, is capitalist production's own historical task. But at the same time, credit also speeds up the violent outbreaks of this same contradiction — the crises — and with them, the forces that will dissolve the old mode of production.

Die dem Kreditsystem immanenten doppelseitigen Charaktere: einerseits die Triebfeder der kapitalistischen Produktion, Bereicherung durch Ausbeutung fremder Arbeit, zum reinsten und kolossalsten Spiel- und Schwindelsystem zu entwickeln und die Zahl der den gesellschaftlichen Reichtum ausbeutenden Wenigen immer mehr zu beschränken; andrerseits aber die Übergangsform zu einer neuen Produktionsweise zu bilden, - diese Doppelseitigkeit ist es, die den Hauptverkündern des Kredits von Law bis Isaak Péreire ihren angenehmen Mischcharakter von Schwindler und Prophet gibt.
credit's double character: swindler and prophet

The credit system carries a double character built into it. On one side, it takes the driving force of capitalist production — getting rich by exploiting other people's labour — and develops it into the purest, most colossal system of gambling and swindling there is, while narrowing ever further the small number of people who exploit society's wealth. On the other side, it forms the transition to a new mode of production. It is this two-sidedness that gives credit's leading prophets, from Law all the way to Isaac Péreire, their oddly agreeable double role: swindler and prophet at once.

Kap. 27
What Credit Does: Equalization of the Profit Rate, Economy of Circulation Costs, Joint-Stock Companies
Coming out of the debate over what fixes the rate of interest and what discounting really does, the reader arrives having watched money and capital pried apart term by term: discount is never a loan of extra capital, and the rate of interest answers to money capital's own supply and demand, never to gold alone. This unit steps back and gathers everything credit has been shown to do into a single summary - lowering the real costs of moving goods and money, and throwing up a wholly new institutional form, the joint-stock company, in which capital stops being one private person's thing. What gets settled here is what that transformation does, and does not, undo.
The general observations we have so far made on the credit system are as follows:
the recap begins

The general remarks the credit system has given us occasion to make so far come down to these:

I. Its necessary formation to bring about the equalization of the profit rate or the movement of this equalization, on which the whole of capitalist production depends.
why credit is needed

I. Credit has to form to mediate the equalizing of the rate of profit, or the movement of that equalizing, which the whole of capitalist production rests on.

II. The reduction of circulation costs.
cutting circulation costs

II. It cuts the costs of circulation.

1. A major cost of circulation is money itself, in so far as it is itself value. And this is economized on in three ways by credit.
money itself is a cost

1. One of the main costs of circulation is money itself, so far as money itself has value. Credit economizes on this in three ways.

A. In that money is completely dispensed with in a large portion of transactions.
A: money dropped entirely

A. For a large part of transactions, money drops out entirely.

B. In that the circulation of the circulating medium is accelerated. 85 This partly coincides with what is said under 2 below. On the one hand the acceleration is technical; i.e. with the volume and number of real turnovers of commodities for consumption remaining the same, a smaller quantity of money or money tokens performs the same service. This is connected with the technique of banking. On the other hand, credit accelerates the velocity of the metamorphosis of commodities, and with this the velocity of monetary circulation.
B: the money in use speeds up

B. It speeds up the circulation of the money in use. This partly overlaps with what comes under point 2 below. On one side the speeding-up is technical: with the real turnover of goods for consumption staying the same in size and number, a smaller amount of money or money-tokens does the same job. That is tied to the technique of banking. On the other side, credit speeds up how fast a commodity passes through its changes of form, and with that, how fast money circulates.

C. The replacement of gold money by paper.
C: paper replaces gold

C. Paper replaces gold money.

2. Acceleration, through credit, of the individual phases of circulation or commodity metamorphosis, then an acceleration of the metamorphosis of capital and hence an acceleration of the reproduction process in general. (On the other hand, credit also enables the acts of buying and selling to take a longer time, and hence serves as a basis for speculation.) Contraction of the reserve fund, which can be viewed in two ways: on the one hand as a reduction in the circulating medium, on the other hand as a restriction of the part of capital that must always be in existence in the money form. 86
faster turnover, and its speculative side

2. Credit speeds up the separate phases of circulation, or of a commodity's change of form, and further the change of form capital itself goes through, and so speeds up the whole process of reproduction. (On the other hand, credit also lets the acts of buying and selling be held apart for longer, and so serves as the basis for speculation.) It also contracts the reserve funds a business must hold, which can be looked at two ways: on one side as a reduction of the money in circulation, on the other as a limit on the part of capital that must always exist in money form.

III. Formation of joint-stock companies. This involves:
III: joint-stock companies form

III. The formation of joint-stock companies. Through this:

1. Tremendous expansion in the scale of production, and enterprises which would be impossible for individual capitals. At the same time, enterprises that were previously government ones become social.
1: a scale beyond any single capital

1. A tremendous expansion in the scale of production and of undertakings that would have been impossible for individual capitals. At the same time, undertakings that used to be government undertakings become social ones.

2. Capital, which is inherently based on a social mode of production and presupposes a social concentration of means of production and labour-power, now receives the form of social capital (capital of directly associated individuals) in contrast to private capital, and its enterprises appear as social enterprises as opposed to private ones. This is the abolition of capital as private property within the confines of the capitalist mode of production itself.
2: capital becomes social capital

2. Capital, which already rests, in itself, on a social mode of production and presupposes a social concentration of means of production and of labour-power, here directly takes on the form of social capital - the capital of directly associated individuals - as opposed to private capital, and its undertakings appear as social undertakings as opposed to private ones. This is the abolition of capital as private property, but only within the limits of the capitalist mode of production itself.

3. Transformation of the actual functioning capitalist into a mere manager, in charge of other people’s capital, and of the capital owner into a mere owner, a mere money capitalist. Even if the dividends that they draw include both interest and profit of enterprise, i.e. the total profit (for the manager’s salary is or should be simply the wage for a certain kind of skilled labour, its price being regulated in the labour market like that of any other labour), this total profit is still drawn only in the form of interest, i.e. as a mere reward for capital ownership, which is now as completely separated from its function in the actual production process as this function, in the person of the manager, is from capital ownership. Profit thus appears (and no longer just the part of it, interest, that obtains its justification from the profit of the borrower) as simply the appropriation of other people’s surplus labour, arising from the transformation of means of production into capital; i.e. from their estrangement vis-à-vis the actual producer; from their opposition, as the property of another, vis-a-vis all individuals really active in production from the manager down to the lowest day-labourer. In joint-stock companies, the function is separated from capital ownership, so labour is also completely separated from ownership of the means of production and of surplus labour. This result of capitalist production in its highest development is a necessary point of transition towards the transformation of capital back into the property of the producers, though no longer as the private property of individual producers, but rather as their property as associated producers, as directly social property. It is furthermore a point of transition towards the transformation of all functions formerly bound up with capital ownership in the reproduction process into simple functions of the associated producers, into social functions.
manager, owner, profit as bare interest

3. The capitalist who actually does the functioning turns into a mere manager, someone in charge of another's capital, and the owner of the capital turns into a mere owner, a mere money capitalist. Even where the dividends they draw include both interest and profit of enterprise - that is, the total profit (since the manager's salary is, or should be, simply the wage for a certain kind of skilled labour, its price set on the labour market the way any other labour's price is) - this total profit is now drawn only in the form of interest, that is, as a bare reward for owning the capital, which is now separated from its function in the actual process of production every bit as completely as that function, in the person of the manager, is separated from owning the capital.

Profit then presents itself - and no longer just the one part of it, interest, which draws its justification from the profit of the borrower - as nothing but the appropriation of other people's surplus labour, arising from the turning of means of production into capital, that is, from their estrangement from the actual producers, from their standing opposed, as someone else's property, to every individual really at work in production, from the manager down to the lowest day-labourer. In joint-stock companies the function is separated from owning the capital, so labour too is completely separated from owning the means of production and the surplus labour. This result of capitalist production at its highest development is a necessary point of transition toward capital being turned back into the property of the producers - no longer, though, as the private property of separate individual producers, but as their property as associated producers, as directly social property. It is, on the other hand, also a point of transition toward turning every function still tied to owning capital in the reproduction process into a mere function of the associated producers, into a social function.

Before we go on, the following economically important fact must be noted. Since profit here simply assumes the form of interest, enterprises that merely yield an interest are possible, and this is one of the reasons that hold up the fall in the general rate of profit, since these enterprises, where the constant capital stands in such a tremendous ratio to the variable, do not necessarily go into the equalization of the general rate of profit.
why this holds up the falling rate

Before going further, there is one more economically important point to note. Since profit here takes purely the form of interest, undertakings that yield nothing but interest are still able to carry on, and this is one of the causes that hold up the fall in the general rate of profit, since these undertakings, where constant capital stands in such an enormous ratio to variable capital, do not necessarily enter into the equalizing of the general rate of profit.

Kap. 27
Abolition Within the Limits: Cartels, Adventurers, Cooperative Factories, and the Dual Character of the Credit System
The reader arrives having watched credit concentrate loanable capital and lay bare what a banker actually does; this unit turns to what credit does at its furthest reach. It states plainly what the joint-stock company is - a contradiction that abolishes capitalist production only from within capitalist limits, producing monopoly and a new financial aristocracy in the same breath - then widens the claim to credit as such: it gives command over other people's capital, sinks the appeal to saving and self-denial, and sets the cooperative factory beside the share company as its positive counterpart. It closes by stating outright that credit is at once the purest system of swindling and a transition toward a new mode of production.
(Since Marx wrote the above passage, new forms of industrial organization have been developed, as is well-known, representing the second and third degree of joint-stock company. The speed with which production can nowadays be increased in all fields of large-scale industry, which is greater every day, is confronted by the ever increasing slowness in expanding the market for this increased volume of products. What production produces in months the market can absorb only in years. On top of this there are the protectionist policies by which each industrial country puts up a barrier against others, particularly against England, and artificially boosts domestic productive capacity still further. The results are general and chronic overproduction, depressed prices, falling profits, even their complete cessation; in brief, the ancient and celebrated freedom of competition is at the end of its road and must itself confess its evident and scandalous bankruptcy. A further reason is that in each country the big industrialists in a particular branch of industry come together to form a cartel to regulate production. A committee fixes the quantity each establishment is to produce, and has the last word in dividing up the incoming orders. In a few cases it came to the formation of temporary international cartels, for instance between the English and the German iron producers. But even this form of socialization of production did not suffice. The conflict of interests between the individual businesses broke through too often and restored competition. The next stage, therefore, in certain branches where the scale of production permitted, was to concentrate the entire production of the branch of industry in question into one big joint-stock company with a unified management. In America this has already been achieved in several cases, while in Europe the biggest example up till now is the United Alkali Trust, which has brought the entire British production of alkali into the hands of a single firm. The former owners of more than thirty individual plants received the assessed value of their entire establishments in shares, to a total of some £5 million, which represents the fixed capital of the trust. The technical management remains in the same hands as before, but financial control is concentrated in the hands of the general management. The floating capital, amounting to some £1 million, was offered to public subscription. The total capital is thus £6 million. In this branch, therefore, which forms the basis of the entire chemical industry, competition has been replaced in England by monopoly, thus preparing in the most pleasing fashion its future expropriation by society as a whole, by the nation. — F. E.)
Engels's 1894 update: cartels and trusts

Since Marx wrote this, new and more advanced forms of business organization have grown up — the next two stages beyond the plain joint-stock company, as everyone now knows. Production in every big industry can be ramped up faster each year, but the market for all that extra output only grows wider at a crawl. What a factory can turn out in months, buyers can barely absorb in years. On top of that, tariff walls let every industrial country shut out its rivals — England especially — while artificially pumping up its own output even further. The result is constant, general overproduction: prices pushed down, profits shrinking or vanishing altogether. The old, much-praised freedom of competition has run out of road and is about to declare its own scandalous bankruptcy.

It does so in this way: in each country, the big manufacturers in one line of business band together into a cartel to control production. A committee sets how much each firm may produce and has the final say in dividing up the orders that come in. In a few cases this even grew into international cartels — for example between English and German iron producers. But even this way of pooling production was not enough. The clashing interests of the individual firms kept breaking the cartel apart and bringing competition back. So, wherever the stage of production allowed it, people went a step further: they merged the whole of a given branch into one big joint-stock company under a single management. This has already happened several times in America; in Europe the biggest case so far is the United Alkali Trust, which put the whole of Britain's alkali production into the hands of a single firm. The former owners of more than thirty separate works were paid the assessed value of their entire plants in shares — about £5 million in all, which forms the trust's fixed capital. The old managers still run the technical side, but overall business control now sits with a single general management. The floating capital, amounting to some £1 million, was offered to the public to subscribe. Total capital: £6 million. So in this branch, which underlies the whole chemical industry, competition in England has been replaced by monopoly — laying the most agreeable possible groundwork for its eventual expropriation by society as a whole, by the nation.

This is the abolition of the capitalist mode of production within the capitalist mode of production itself, and hence a self-abolishing contradiction, which presents itself prima facie as a mere point of transition to a new form of production. It presents itself as such a contradiction even in appearance. It gives rise to monopoly in certain spheres and hence provokes state intervention. It reproduces a new financial aristocracy, a new kind of parasite in the guise of company promoters, speculators and merely nominal directors; an entire system of swindling and cheating with respect to the promotion of companies, issue of shares and share dealings. It is private production unchecked by private ownership.
what the joint-stock system is

The joint-stock system is capitalism abolishing itself — but only from within, only inside the limits of the capitalist mode of production itself. It is a contradiction that cancels itself out, and at first sight it looks like nothing more than a mere stepping-stone to a new form of production. And it doesn't just look that way to us — the contradiction shows up as itself even in how things actually appear on the surface. In some fields it produces monopoly outright, and that in turn forces the state to step in. At the same time it breeds a new financial aristocracy — a new species of parasite: company promoters, founders, directors who are directors in name only — and a whole system of swindling and fraud around setting up companies, issuing shares, and trading them. It is production carried on privately, with no control any longer exercised by private ownership.

IV. Apart from the joint-stock system — which is an abolition of capitalist private industry on the basis of the capitalist system itself, and which destroys private industry to the same degree that it spreads and takes over new spheres of production — credit offers the individual capitalist, or the person who can pass as a capitalist, an absolute command over the capital and property of others, within certain limits, and, through this, command over other people’s labour. 87 It is disposal over social capital, rather than his own, that gives him command over social labour. The actual capital that someone possesses, or is taken to possess by public opinion, now becomes simply the basis for a superstructure of credit. This is especially the case in wholesale trade, and the greater part of the social product passes through this. All standards of measurement, all explanatory reasons that were still more or less justified within the capitalist mode of production, now vanish. What the speculating trader risks is social property, not his own. Equally absurd now is the saying that the origin of capital is saving, since what this speculator demands is precisely that others should save for him. (As recently the whole of France saved up one and a half thousand million francs for the Panama swindlers. The whole Panama swindle is exactly described here, a full twenty years before it took place. — F. E.) The other saying about abstention is diametrically refuted by his luxury, which also becomes a means of credit. Conceptions that still had a certain meaning at a less developed state of capitalist production now become completely meaningless. Success and failure lead in both cases to the centralization of capitals and hence to expropriation on the most enormous scale. Expropriation now extends from the immediate producers to the small and medium capitalists themselves. Expropriation is the starting-point of the capitalist mode of production, whose goal is to carry it through to completion, and even in the last instance to expropriate all individuals from the means of production — which, with the development of social production, cease to be means and products of private production, and can only remain means of production in the hands of the associated producers, as their social property, just as they are their social product. But within the capitalist system itself, this expropriation takes the antithetical form of the appropriation of social property by a few; and credit gives these few ever more the character of simple adventurers. Since ownership now exists in the form of shares, its movement and transfer become simply the result of stock-exchange dealings, where little fishes are gobbled up by the sharks, and sheep by the stock-exchange wolves. In the joint-stock system, there is already a conflict with the old form, in which the means of social production appear as individual property. But the transformation into the form of shares still remains trapped within the capitalist barriers; instead of overcoming the opposition between the character of wealth as something social, and private wealth, this transformation only develops this opposition in a new form.
IV: command over social capital

IV. Set the joint-stock system itself aside for a moment — it already abolishes capitalist private industry on the very ground of the capitalist system, and it wipes out private industry further with every new field it takes over. Credit does something else again: it gives the individual capitalist — or anyone who can pass for one — an absolute command, within certain limits, over other people's capital and property, and through that, over other people's labour. What puts him in command of social labour is precisely that he commands capital that is social, not his own. The capital he actually owns, or is merely believed to own, becomes just the foundation for a whole superstructure of credit built on top of it. This is above all true in wholesale trade, through which most of the social product passes. Every yardstick, every explanation that still made some sense within the capitalist mode of production, disappears here. What the speculating wholesale trader risks is social property, not his own.

The old story that capital originates in saving becomes equally absurd, since what this speculator actually demands is that other people do the saving for him. {As recently as our own day, the whole of France scraped together one and a half thousand million francs for the Panama swindlers. The whole Panama swindle is described here exactly, a full twenty years before it happened. — F. E.} And the other old story, about abstaining from consumption, is flatly contradicted by his luxury, which itself now becomes just another means of getting credit. Ideas that still meant something at an earlier, less developed stage of capitalist production become completely meaningless here. Both success and failure now lead, equally, to the centralization of capitals — and so to expropriation on an enormous scale. This expropriation now reaches beyond the immediate producers to the small and medium capitalists themselves.

Expropriation is where the capitalist mode of production starts; carrying it through to the end is its goal — ultimately, expropriating every single individual from the means of production. Those means, as social production develops, stop being tools and products of private production and can only go on existing as means of production in the hands of the associated producers — as their social property, the way they are already their social product. But within the capitalist system itself, this same expropriation shows up in an inverted, antagonistic shape: as the seizure of social property by a few. And credit turns those few more and more into pure adventurers. Since ownership now takes the form of shares, its movement and its transfer become simply the outcome of stock-exchange gambling, where the small fish get eaten by the sharks and the sheep by the wolves of the exchange. The joint-stock form already conflicts with the older form, in which the means of social production appear as someone's individual property; but turning it into shares still stays trapped inside capitalist limits. So instead of overcoming the opposition between wealth as something social and wealth as something private, it only builds that same opposition up again in a new shape.

The cooperative factories run by workers themselves are, within the old form, the first examples of the emergence of a new form, even though they naturally reproduce in all cases, in their present organization, all the defects of the existing system, and must reproduce them. But the opposition between capital and labour is abolished here, even if at first only in the form that the workers in association become their own capitalist, i.e. they use the means of production to valorize their own labour. These factories show how, at a certain stage of development of the material forces of production, and of the social forms of production corresponding to them, a new mode of production develops and is formed naturally out of the old. Without the factory system that arises from the capitalist mode of production, cooperative factories could not develop. Nor could they do so without the credit system that develops from the same mode of production. This credit system, since it forms the principal basis for the gradual transformation of capitalist private enterprises into capitalist joint-stock companies, presents in the same way the means for the gradual extension of cooperative enterprises on a more or less national scale. Capitalist joint-stock companies as much as cooperative factories should be viewed as transition forms from the capitalist mode of production to the associated one, simply that in the one case the opposition is abolished in a negative way, and in the other in a positive way.
the cooperative factory, its positive counterpart

The cooperative factories the workers run themselves are, while still inside the old form, the first crack in that old form — even though, in how they actually operate, they inevitably reproduce every defect of the existing system, and cannot help doing so. But within them the opposition between capital and labour is abolished, even if at first only in the form that the workers, joined together, are their own capitalist — they use the means of production to make their own labour pay off. They show how, once the material forces of production and the social forms that go with them reach a certain stage, a new mode of production naturally grows and takes shape out of the old one. The cooperative factory could not have developed without the factory system that capitalism itself produced, and just as little without the credit system that grows out of the same mode of production. That credit system is the main basis on which capitalist private firms gradually turn into capitalist joint-stock companies — and by that same means, it offers a way for cooperative enterprises to spread gradually too, on a more or less national scale. Capitalist joint-stock companies and cooperative factories should both be seen as transition forms, leading out of the capitalist mode of production and into the associated one — except that in one, the opposition is abolished negatively, and in the other, positively.

Up till now, we have considered the development of credit — and the latent abolition of capital ownership contained within it — principally in relation to industrial capital. In the following chapters we discuss credit in relation to interest-bearing capital as such, both its effect on this and the form that it assumes in this connection. With respect to this, in general, a few more specifically economic points remain to be made.
turning next to interest-bearing capital itself

So far we have looked at the growth of the credit system — and the abolition of capital ownership lying hidden within it — mainly as it bears on industrial capital. In the chapters that follow we take up credit as it bears on interest-bearing capital itself: both what credit does to it, and the form credit takes here. There are still a few more specifically economic points to make about this.

But first of all this:
one thing first

But first, this:

If the credit system appears as the principal lever of overproduction and excessive speculation in commerce, this is simply because the reproduction process, which is elastic by nature, is now forced to its most extreme limit; and this is because a great part of the social capital is applied by those who are not its owners, and who therefore proceed quite unlike owners who, when they function themselves, anxiously weigh the limits of their private capital. This only goes to show how the valorization of capital founded on the antithetical character of capitalist production permits actual free development only up to a certain point, which is constantly broken through by the credit system. 88 The credit system hence accelerates the material development of the productive forces and the creation of the world market, which it is the historical task of the capitalist mode of production to bring to a certain level of development, as material foundations for the new form of production. At the same time, credit accelerates the violent outbreaks of this contradiction, crises, and with these the elements of dissolution of the old mode of production.
credit as the mechanism of overproduction

If the credit system appears to be the chief lever of overproduction and reckless speculation in trade, that is only because the process of reproduction — which is elastic by its very nature — gets forced here to its most extreme limit. And it gets forced that far because a large part of social capital is put to work by people who do not own it, and who therefore go about it quite differently from an owner who, when he acts for himself, anxiously weighs the limits of his own private capital. All this really shows is that the way capital valorizes itself, built as it is on the antagonistic character of capitalist production, allows genuinely free development only up to a certain point — in other words, that it forms a real, built-in fetter and barrier to production, one that the credit system keeps on breaking through. Because of that, the credit system speeds up the material development of the productive forces and the creation of a world market — bringing both to a certain level, as the material foundations of the new form of production, is capitalist production's own historical task. But at the same time, credit also speeds up the violent outbreaks of this same contradiction — the crises — and with them, the forces that will dissolve the old mode of production.

The credit system has a dual character immanent in it: on the one hand it develops the motive of capitalist production, enrichment by the exploitation of others’ labour, into the purest and most colossal system of gambling and swindling, and restricts ever more the already small number of the exploiters of social wealth; on the other hand however it constitutes the form of transition towards a new mode of production. It is this dual character that gives the principal spokesmen for credit, from Law through to Isaac Péreire, their nicely mixed character of swindler and prophet.
credit's double character: swindler and prophet

The credit system carries a double character built into it. On one side, it takes the driving force of capitalist production — getting rich by exploiting other people's labour — and develops it into the purest, most colossal system of gambling and swindling there is, while narrowing ever further the small number of people who exploit society's wealth. On the other side, it forms the transition to a new mode of production. It is this two-sidedness that gives credit's leading prophets, from Law all the way to Isaac Péreire, their oddly agreeable double role: swindler and prophet at once.