Das Kapital III — Kap. 51

Kap. 51

Verteilungsverhältnisse wesentlich identisch mit Produktionsverhältnissen

Behind stands what the fifth reason left: the method spreading by analogy past its conditions, and the reduction — strip the capitalist character from wages and surplus-value and not these forms remain but only their foundations, common to every social mode of production. What opens here is the relations of distribution themselves: the customary view that reads them as natural and the one truth granted it, and the more critical awareness that would keep production untouched. Can distribution be historical while production stays what it is?

Der durch die jährlich neu zugesetzte Arbeit neu zugesetzte Wert - also auch der Teil des jährlichen Produkts, worin sich dieser Wert darstellt und der aus dem Gesamtertrag herausgezogen, ausgeschieden werden kann - zerfällt also in drei Teile, die drei verschiedne Revenueformen annehmen, in Formen, die einen Teil dieses Werts als dem Besitzer der Arbeitskraft, einen Teil als dem Besitzer des Kapitals und einen dritten Teil als dem Besitzer des Grundeigentums gehörig oder zufallend ausdrücken. Es sind dies also Verhältnisse oder Formen der Distribution, denn sie drücken die Verhältnisse aus, worin sich der neu erzeugte Gesamtwert unter die Besitzer der verschiednen Produktionsagentien verteilt.

three revenue forms of new value

The value added fresh each year by that year's newly added labour — and so also the piece of the yearly product in which that value shows up, the piece that can be pulled out and separated from the whole yield — falls into three parts. Those parts take three different forms of revenue: forms that say a part of this value belongs to, or falls to, the owner of labour-power, a part to the owner of capital, and a third part to the owner of landed property. So these are relations or forms of distribution — because they spell out the relations under which the total value newly produced is shared out among the owners of the different agents of production.

Der gewöhnlichen Anschauung erscheinen diese Verteilungsverhältnisse als Naturverhältnisse, als Verhältnisse, die aus der Natur aller gesellschaftlichen Produktion, aus den Gesetzen der menschlichen Produktion schlechthin entspringen. Es kann zwar nicht geleugnet werden, daß vorkapitalistische Gesellschaften andre Verteilungsweisen zeigen, aber diese werden dann als unentwickelte, unvollkommene und verkleidete, nicht auf ihren reinsten Ausdruck und ihre höchste Gestalt reduzierte, anders gefärbte Weisen jener naturgemäßen Verteilungsverhältnisse gedeutet.

the customary view: distribution looks natural

To the usual way of looking at things, these relations of distribution appear to be natural relations — relations that spring from the nature of all social production, from the laws of human production as such. It is true that this view cannot deny that pre-capitalist societies show other modes of distribution; but it then reads those as undeveloped, incomplete and disguised versions of those same natural relations — versions not reduced to their purest expression and highest form, just differently coloured.

Das einzig Richtige in dieser Vorstellung ist dies: Gesellschaftliche Produktion irgendeiner Art (z.B. die der naturwüchsigen indischen Gemeinwesen oder die des mehr künstlich entwickelten Kommunismus der Peruaner) vorausgesetzt, kann stets unterschieden werden zwischen dem Teil der Arbeit, dessen Produkt unmittelbar von den Produzenten und ihren Angehörigen individuell konsumiert wird, und - abgesehn von dem Teil, der der produktiven Konsumtion anheimfällt - einem andern Teil der Arbeit, der immer Mehrarbeit ist, dessen Produkt stets zur Befriedigung allgemeiner gesellschaftlicher Bedürfnisse dient, wie immer dies Mehrprodukt verteilt werde und wer immer als Repräsentant dieser gesellschaftlichen Bedürfnisse fungiere. Die Identität der verschiednen Verteilungsweisen kommt also darauf hinaus, daß sie identisch sind, wenn man von ihren Unterscheidungen und spezifischen Formen abstrahiert, nur die Einheit in ihnen, im Gegensatz zu ihrem Unterschied festhält.

its one truth; identity by abstraction

The one thing that is right in this way of seeing things is this. Suppose social production of any kind at all — the Indian communities that grew up of themselves, say, or the more artificially developed communism of the Peruvians. Given that, you can always tell apart two parts of labour: the part whose product the producers and their dependants consume directly and individually, and — leaving aside the part that goes into productive consumption — another part of labour that is always surplus labour, whose product always serves general social needs, however that surplus product gets distributed and whoever acts as the representative of those needs. So the identity of the different modes of distribution comes down to this: they are identical if you abstract from their distinctions and their specific forms, and hold on only to the unity in them, against their difference.

Weitergebildetes, mehr kritisches Bewußtsein gibt jedoch den geschichtlich entwickelten Charakter der Verteilungsverhältnisse zu^56a, hält dafür aber um so fester an dem sich gleichbleibenden, aus der menschlichen Natur entspringenden und daher von aller geschichtlichen Entwicklung unabhängigen Charakter der Produktionsverhältnisse selbst.

critical awareness keeps relations of production natural

A more developed, more critical awareness does concede the historically developed character of the relations of distribution. But in exchange it holds all the more firmly to the relations of production themselves as staying the same — as springing from human nature and therefore independent of all historical development.

Die wissenschaftliche Analyse der kapitalistischen Produktionsweise beweist dagegen umgekehrt, daß sie eine Produktionsweise von besondrer Art, von spezifischer historischer Bestimmtheit ist; daß sie, wie jede andre bestimmte Produktionsweise, eine gegebne Stufe der gesellschaftlichen Produktivkräfte und ihrer Entwicklungsformen als ihre geschichtliche Bedingung voraussetzt: eine Bedingung, die selbst das geschichtliche Resultat und Produkt eines vorhergegangnen Prozesses ist und wovon die neue Produktionsweise als von ihrer gegebnen Grundlage ausgeht; daß die dieser spezifischen, historisch bestimmten Produktionsweise entsprechenden Produktionsverhältnisse - Verhältnisse, welche die Menschen in ihrem gesellschaftlichen Lebensprozeß, in der Erzeugung ihres gesellschaftlichen Lebens eingehn - einen spezifischen, historischen und vorübergehenden Charakter haben; und daß endlich die Verteilungsverhältnisse wesentlich identisch mit diesen Produktionsverhältnissen, eine Kehrseite derselben sind, so daß beide denselben historisch vorübergehenden Charakter teilen.

distribution: a reverse side of production

The scientific analysis of the capitalist mode of production proves the opposite. It is a mode of production of a particular kind, with a specific historical determinacy. Like every other determinate mode of production, it presupposes a given stage of the social productive forces and of their forms of development as its historical condition — a condition that is itself the historical result and product of an earlier process, and which the new mode of production takes as its given foundation. The relations of production that correspond to this specific, historically determined mode — the relations people enter into in their social life-process, in producing their social life — have a specific, historical and transitory character. And finally, the relations of distribution are essentially identical with these relations of production; they are a reverse side of them, so that both share the same historically transitory character.

Kap. 51

Das Produkt verteilt sich in Kapital und Revenuen

The reader arrives from relations of distribution essentially identical with the relations of production, a reverse side of those relations, and from the customary and more critical views answered by that identity. The revenues are known as forms of the newly added value, historical with production itself. What follows settles what the alleged fact of a three-way split actually states, why the wage is a revenue only after meeting capital, how the conditions of labour become capital, and how a distribution capital itself presupposes differs from the titles to consumption that term usually covers. It leaves that presupposition's reproduction in view.

Bei der Betrachtung der Verteilungsverhältnisse geht man zunächst von der angeblichen Tatsache aus, daß das jährliche Produkt sich als Arbeitslohn, Profit und Grundrente verteilt. Aber so ausgesprochen ist die Tatsache falsch. Das Produkt verteilt sich auf der einen Seite in Kapital und auf der andern in Revenuen. Die eine dieser Revenuen, der Arbeitslohn, nimmt selbst immer nur die Form einer Revenue, der Revenue des Arbeiters an, nachdem er vorher demselben Arbeiter in der Form von Kapital gegenübergetreten ist. Das Gegenübertreten der produzierten Arbeitsbedingungen und der Arbeitsprodukte überhaupt als Kapital, gegenüber den unmittelbaren Produzenten, schließt von vornherein ein einen bestimmten gesellschaftlichen Charakter der sachlichen Arbeitsbedingungen gegenüber den Arbeitern und damit ein bestimmtes Verhältnis, worin sie in der Produktion selbst zu den Besitzern der Arbeitsbedingungen und zueinander treten. Die Verwandlung dieser Arbeitsbedingungen in Kapital schließt ihrerseits die Expropriation der unmittelbaren Produzenten von Grund und Boden und damit eine bestimmte Form des Grundeigentums ein.

the alleged fact corrected

In considering the relations of distribution, one starts, at first, from an alleged fact: that the annual product is distributed as wages, profit and ground-rent. But put in those terms, the fact is false. The product splits into capital on one side and revenues on the other. One of those revenues, wages, itself only ever takes the form of a revenue — the worker's revenue — after it has first confronted that same worker in the form of capital. When the produced conditions of labour, and the products of labour in general, stand opposite the immediate producers as capital, this includes from the outset a definite social character that the material conditions of labour bear towards the workers, and with it a definite relation in which the workers enter, in production itself, towards the owners of those conditions and towards one another. And converting those conditions of labour into capital in turn includes the expropriation of the immediate producers from the land, and with that a particular form of landed property.

Verwandelte sich der eine Teil des Produkts nicht in Kapital, so würde der andre nicht die Formen von Arbeitslohn, Profit und Rente annehmen.

condition for the forms of wages, profit, rent

If one part of the product were not turned into capital, the other part would not take on the forms of wages, profit and rent.

Andrerseits, wenn die kapitalistische Produktionsweise diese bestimmte gesellschaftliche Gestalt der Produktionsbedingungen voraussetzt, reproduziert sie dieselbe beständig. Sie produziert nicht nur die materiellen Produkte, sondern reproduziert beständig die Produktionsverhältnisse, worin jene produziert werden, und damit auch die entsprechenden Verteilungsverhältnisse.

capitalism reproduces its presupposition

On the other hand: if the capitalist mode of production presupposes this particular social form of the conditions of production, it also keeps reproducing that form, constantly. What it produces is not only material products: it constantly reproduces the relations of production within which those products are made, and with them the relations of distribution that correspond to them.

Allerdings kann gesagt werden, daß das Kapital (und das Grundeigentum, welches es als seinen Gegensatz einschließt) selbst schon eine Verteilung voraussetzt: die Expropriation der Arbeiter von den Arbeitsbedingungen, die Konzentration dieser Bedingungen in den Händen einer Minorität von Individuen, das ausschließliche Eigentum am Grund und Boden für andre Individuen, kurz, alle die Verhältnisse, die im Abschnitt über die ursprüngliche Akkumulation (Buch I, Kap. XXIV) entwickelt worden sind. Aber diese Verteilung ist durchaus verschieden von dem, was man unter Verteilungsverhältnissen versteht, wenn man diesen, im Gegensatz zu den Produktionsverhältnissen, einen historischen Charakter vindiziert. Man meint darunter die verschiednen Titel auf den Teil des Produkts, der der individuellen Konsumtion anheimfällt. Jene Verteilungsverhältnisse sind dagegen die Grundlagen besondrer gesellschaftlicher Funktionen, welche innerhalb des Produktionsverhältnisses selbst bestimmten Agenten desselben zufallen im Gegensatz zu den unmittelbaren Produzenten. Sie geben den Produktionsbedingungen selbst und ihren Repräsentanten eine spezifische gesellschaftliche Qualität. Sie bestimmen den ganzen Charakter und die ganze Bewegung der Produktion.

two senses of distribution, kept apart

It can admittedly be said that capital — and landed property, which capital includes as its opposite — itself already presupposes a distribution: the workers expropriated from the conditions of labour, those conditions concentrated in the hands of a minority of individuals, the land owned exclusively by other individuals — in short, all the relations set out in the section on primitive accumulation.

But this distribution is an altogether different thing from what people mean by relations of distribution when they claim a historical character for them, in contrast to the relations of production. What they mean by that term are the various titles to the part of the product that goes to individual consumption.

Those first relations of distribution, by contrast, are the foundations of particular social functions — functions that fall, within the relation of production itself, to particular agents of it, as opposed to the immediate producers. They give the conditions of production themselves, and the people who represent them, a specific social quality. They determine the whole character and the whole movement of production.

Kap. 51

Erstens: Ware als der beherrschende, bestimmende Charakter des Produkts; Arbeit als Lohnarbeit

The reader arrives carrying the correction that the annual product divides into capital on one side and revenues on the other; that the wage becomes a revenue only after it has confronted the worker as capital; that the mode of production constantly reproduces the division it presupposes; and that the separation of the producers from the conditions of labour is not the same thing as titles to consume. Two traits stamp the capitalist mode from the outset, and the first trait is named here; it concerns the commodity's rule over the product and over its agents, together with the way value's law works.

Es sind zwei Charakterzüge, welche die kapitalistische Produktionsweise von vornherein auszeichnen.

two traits from the outset

Two characteristic traits set the capitalist mode of production apart from the very start.

Erstens. Sie produziert ihre Produkte als Waren. Waren zu produzieren, unterscheidet sie nicht von andern Produktionsweisen; wohl aber dies, daß Ware zu sein, der beherrschende und bestimmende Charakter ihres Produkts ist. Es schließt dies zunächst ein, daß der Arbeiter selbst nur als Warenverkäufer und daher als freier Lohnarbeiter, die Arbeit also überhaupt als Lohnarbeit auftritt. Es ist nach der bisher gegebnen Entwicklung überflüssig, von neuem nachzuweisen, wie das Verhältnis von Kapital und Lohnarbeit den ganzen Charakter der Produktionsweise bestimmt. Die Hauptagenten dieser Produktionsweise selbst, der Kapitalist und der Lohnarbeiter, sind als solche nur Verkörperungen, Personifizierungen von Kapital und Lohnarbeit; bestimmte gesellschaftliche Charaktere, die der gesellschaftliche Produktionsprozeß den Individuen aufprägt; Produkte dieser bestimmten gesellschaftlichen Produktionsverhältnisse.

first trait: commodity as product's dominant, determining character

First: it produces its products as commodities. But producing commodities does not set this mode apart from other modes of production. What sets it apart is that being a commodity is the dominant and determining character of its product. This includes, first of all, that the worker himself appears only as a seller of commodities, and so as a free wage-labourer, with labour in general appearing as wage-labour. After the argument developed so far, there is no need to show all over again how the relation of capital and wage-labour determines the whole character of the mode of production. Take the chief agents of this mode of production itself, the capitalist and the wage-labourer: as such they are only embodiments, personifications of capital and wage-labour — definite social characters stamped on individuals by the social production process, products of these definite social relations of production.

Der Charakter 1. des Produkts als Ware, und 2. der Ware als Produkt des Kapitals, schließt schon die sämtlichen Zirkulationsverhältnisse ein, d.h. einen bestimmten gesellschaftlichen Prozeß, den die Produkte durchmachen müssen und worin sie bestimmte gesellschaftliche Charaktere annehmen; er schließt ein ebenso bestimmte Verhältnisse der Produktionsagenten, von denen die Verwertung ihres Produkts und seine Rückverwandlung, sei es in Lebensmittel, sei es in Produktionsmittel, bestimmt ist. Aber auch abgesehn hiervon, ergibt sich aus den beiden obigen Charakteren des Produkts als Ware, oder Ware als kapitalistisch produzierter Ware, die ganze Wertbestimmung und die Regelung der Gesamtproduktion durch den Wert. In dieser ganz spezifischen Form des Werts gilt die Arbeit einerseits nur als gesellschaftliche Arbeit; andrerseits ist die Verteilung dieser gesellschaftlichen Arbeit und die wechselseitige Ergänzung, der Stoffwechsel ihrer Produkte, die Unterordnung unter und Einschiebung in das gesellschaftliche Triebwerk, dem zufälligen, sich wechselseitig aufhebenden Treiben der einzelnen kapitalistischen Produzenten überlassen. Da diese sich nur als Warenbesitzer gegenübertreten und jeder seine Ware so hoch als möglich zu verkaufen sucht (auch scheinbar in der Regulierung der Produktion selbst nur durch seine Willkür geleitet ist), setzt sich das innere Gesetz nur durch vermittelst ihrer Konkurrenz, ihres wechselseitigen Drucks aufeinander, wodurch sich die Abweichungen gegenseitig aufheben. Nur als inneres Gesetz, den einzelnen Agenten gegenüber als blindes Naturgesetz, wirkt hier das Gesetz des Werts und setzt das gesellschaftliche Gleichgewicht der Produktion inmitten ihrer zufälligen Fluktuationen durch.

an inner law, asserted through competition

The character, 1. of the product as a commodity, and 2. of the commodity as the product of capital, already includes all the relations of circulation — that is, a definite social process which the products have to pass through, and in which they take on definite social characters. It includes, equally, definite relations among the agents of production, and these decide how their product is valorized and how it is turned back into means of subsistence or into means of production. But even leaving that aside, the two characters above — the product as a commodity, and the commodity as a capitalistically produced commodity — give rise to the whole determination of value and to the regulation of total production by value. In this quite specific form of value, labour counts on the one hand only as social labour. On the other hand, the distribution of this social labour — the way its products complement one another, their metabolism, their subordination to and insertion into the social mechanism — is left to the accidental, mutually cancelling activity of the individual capitalist producers. These producers meet one another only as owners of commodities, and each tries to sell his commodity as dear as he can; even in regulating production itself he seems to follow nothing but his own caprice. So the inner law gets its way only through their competition, through the pressure they put on one another, and it is that pressure which makes the deviations cancel out. Only as an inner law, and towards the individual agents as a blind natural law, does the law of value work here, and assert the social equilibrium of production amid its accidental fluctuations.

Es ist ferner schon in der Ware eingeschlossen, und noch mehr in der Ware als Produkt des Kapitals, die Verdinglichung der gesellschaftlichen Produktionsbestimmungen und die Versubjektivierung der materiellen Grundlagen der Produktion, welche die ganze kapitalistische Produktionsweise charakterisiert.

reification and subjectification together

The commodity, further, already includes — and the commodity as the product of capital includes still more — two things: the social determinations of production turned into things (their reification), and the material bases of production turned into subjects (their subjectification). Together these characterize the whole capitalist mode of production.

Kap. 51

Das zweite: Mehrwert als direkter Zweck der Produktion

The reader arrives from the first trait: the product's commodity character as dominant and determining, labour as wage-labour, the agents as personifications, and value's regulation of production asserting itself only as an inner law through competition. What remains is the second trait: surplus-value as production's direct aim and determining motive, capital producing capital only in so far as it produces surplus-value. This unit settles what that aim does to the productive powers, to authority in production and anarchy among capitalists, and to the two conditions under which profit and accumulation take their forms — while wage-labour, decisive for the process's shape, is not what determines value.

Das zweite, was die kapitalistische Produktionsweise speziell auszeichnet, ist die Produktion des Mehrwerts als direkter Zweck und bestimmendes Motiv der Produktion. Das Kapital produziert wesentlich Kapital, und es tut dies nur, soweit es Mehrwert produziert. Wir haben bei Betrachtung des relativen Mehrwerts, weiter bei Betrachtung der Verwandlung des Mehrwerts in Profit gesehn, wie sich hierauf eine der kapitalistischen Periode eigentümliche Produktionsweise gründet - eine besondre Form der Entwicklung der gesellschaftlichen Produktivkräfte der Arbeit, aber als dem Arbeiter gegenüber verselbständigter Kräfte des Kapitals, und in direktem Gegensatz daher zu seiner, des Arbeiters, eignen Entwicklung. Die Produktion für den Wert und den Mehrwert schließt, wie sich dies bei der weitern Entwicklung gezeigt hat, die stets wirkende Tendenz ein, die zur Produktion einer Ware nötige Arbeitszeit, d.h. ihren Wert, unter den jedesmal bestehenden gesellschaftlichen Durchschnitt zu reduzieren. Der Drang zur Reduktion des Kostpreises auf sein Minimum wird der stärkste Hebel der Steigerung der gesellschaftlichen Produktivkraft der Arbeit, die aber hier nur als beständige Steigerung der Produktivkraft des Kapitals erscheint.

Second trait: surplus-value as direct aim, determining motive

The second thing that marks the capitalist mode of production in particular is this: producing surplus-value is the direct aim of production and its determining motive. Capital essentially produces capital, and it does that only in so far as it produces surplus-value. When we looked at relative surplus-value, and then at how surplus-value turns into profit, we saw how a mode of production peculiar to the capitalist period rests on this. It is a particular form of development of the social productive powers of labour — but as powers of capital that have become independent in the face of the worker, and so stand in direct opposition to the worker's own development. Producing for value and surplus-value includes, as the later argument showed, a tendency that is always at work: to push the labour-time a commodity needs — that is, its value — below the social average that prevails at the time. The urge to drive the cost price down to its minimum becomes the strongest lever for raising the social productive power of labour. Here, though, that gain in productive power appears only as a steady increase in the productive power of capital.

Die Autorität, die der Kapitalist als Personifikation des Kapitals im unmittelbaren Produktionsprozeß annimmt, die gesellschaftliche Funktion, die er als Leiter und Beherrscher der Produktion bekleidet, ist wesentlich verschieden von der Autorität auf Basis der Produktion mit Sklaven, Leibeignen usw.

Capitalist authority vs authority on slave, serf production

The authority the capitalist takes on in the immediate production process as the personification of capital — the social function he fills as the director and ruler of production — is essentially different from the authority that rests on production with slaves, serfs and the like.

Während, auf Basis der kapitalistischen Produktion, der Masse der unmittelbaren Produzenten der gesellschaftliche Charakter ihrer Produktion in der Form streng regelnder Autorität und eines als vollständige Hierarchie gegliederten, gesellschaftlichen Mechanismus des Arbeitsprozesses gegenübertritt - welche Autorität ihren Trägern aber nur als Personifizierung der Arbeitsbedingungen gegenüber der Arbeit, nicht wie in früheren Produktionsformen als politischen oder theokratischen Herrschern zukommt -, herrscht unter den Trägern dieser Autorität, den Kapitalisten selbst, die sich nur als Warenbesitzer gegenübertreten, die vollständigste Anarchie, innerhalb deren der gesellschaftliche Zusammenhang der Produktion sich nur als übermächtiges Naturgesetz der individuellen Willkür gegenüber geltend macht.

Workplace authority amid capitalists' anarchy

On the basis of capitalist production, the mass of immediate producers is confronted by the social character of their production in the form of a strictly regulating authority and of a social mechanism of the labour process laid out as a complete hierarchy. This authority falls to the people who carry it only as the personification of the conditions of labour set against labour — not to them as political or theocratic rulers, the way it did in earlier forms of production. Among the bearers of this authority, by contrast — the capitalists themselves, who meet one another only as owners of commodities — the most complete anarchy rules. Inside that anarchy, the social interconnection of production makes itself felt against the caprice of the individual only as an overwhelming natural law.

Nur weil die Arbeit in der Form der Lohnarbeit und die Produktionsmittel in der Form von Kapital vorausgesetzt sind - also nur infolge dieser spezifischen gesellschaftlichen Gestalt dieser zwei wesentlichen Produktionsagentien -, stellt sich ein Teil des Werts (Produkts) als Mehrwert und dieser Mehrwert als Profit (Rente) dar, als Gewinn des Kapitalisten, als zusätzlicher disponibler, ihm gehöriger Reichtum. Aber nur weil er sich so als sein Profit darstellt, stellen sich die zusätzlichen Produktionsmittel, die zur Erweiterung der Reproduktion bestimmt sind und die einen Teil des Profits bilden, als neues zusätzliches Kapital und die Erweiterung des Reproduktionsprozesses überhaupt als kapitalistischer Akkumulationsprozeß dar.

Two 'only because' conditions

Only because labour is presupposed in the form of wage-labour, and the means of production in the form of capital — that is, only as a result of this specific social shape of these two essential agents of production — does one part of the value (the product) present itself as surplus-value, and this surplus-value present itself as profit (rent): as the capitalist's gain, as extra wealth at his disposal and belonging to him. But only because it presents itself in this way as his profit do the additional means of production — meant for the expansion of reproduction, and forming a part of the profit — present themselves as new, additional capital, and the expansion of the reproduction process in general present itself as a process of capitalist accumulation.

Obgleich die Form der Arbeit als Lohnarbeit entscheidend für die Gestalt des ganzen Prozesses und für die spezifische Weise der Produktion selbst, ist nicht die Lohnarbeit wertbestimmend. In der Wertbestimmung handelt es sich um die gesellschaftliche Arbeitszeit überhaupt, das Quantum Arbeit, worüber die Gesellschaft überhaupt zu verfügen hat und dessen relative Absorption durch die verschiednen Produkte gewissermaßen deren respektives gesellschaftliches Gewicht bestimmt. Die bestimmte Form, worin sich die gesellschaftliche Arbeitszeit im Wert der Waren als bestimmend durchsetzt, hängt allerdings mit der Form der Arbeit als Lohnarbeit und der entsprechenden Form der Produktionsmittel als Kapital insofern zusammen, als nur auf dieser Basis die Warenproduktion zur allgemeinen Form der Produktion wird.

Wage-labour is not value-determining

The form of labour as wage-labour is decisive for the shape of the whole process and for the specific way production itself is carried on — but even so, it is not wage-labour that determines value. Determining value is about social labour-time in general, the whole quantity of labour that society has at its disposal; and the relative absorption of that labour by the different products determines, as it were, their respective social weight. The particular form in which social labour-time asserts itself as what determines the value of commodities is admittedly connected with labour taking the form of wage-labour, and with the means of production taking the corresponding form of capital — in so far as it is only on this basis that commodity production becomes the general form of production.

Kap. 51

Die sogenannten Verteilungsverhältnisse selbst

Behind us: surplus-value as production's direct aim, capital producing capital only in so far as it produces surplus-value, wage-labour not value-determining. The so-called relations of distribution come under review. Profit governs reproduction: in the regulated prices of production it shows itself a factor not of the distribution of the products but of their production itself. Interest's split from profit of enterprise arises from capital as self-valorizing value, and rent's seeming mere form is answered by a specific historical result. The view that historicizes distribution alone is an incipient, still constrained critique built on confusing the social production process with the simple labour process; the moment of crisis shows itself as the contradiction with the productive forces gains breadth and depth.

Betrachten wir übrigens die sogenannten Verteilungsverhältnisse selbst. Der Arbeitslohn unterstellt die Lohnarbeit, der Profit das Kapital. Diese bestimmten Verteilungsformen unterstellen also bestimmte gesellschaftliche Charaktere der Produktionsbedingungen und bestimmte gesellschaftliche Verhältnisse der Produktionsagenten. Das bestimmte Verteilungsverhältnis ist also nur Ausdruck des geschichtlich bestimmten Produktionsverhältnisses.

relation of distribution as only expression

Let us look, further, at the so-called relations of distribution themselves. Wages presuppose wage-labour; profit presupposes capital. So these particular forms of distribution presuppose particular social characters of the conditions of production, and particular social relations among the agents of production. The particular relation of distribution is therefore only the expression of the historically determined relation of production.

Und nun nehme man den Profit. Diese bestimmte Form des Mehrwerts ist die Voraussetzung dafür, daß die Neubildung der Produktionsmittel in der Form der kapitalistischen Produktion vorgeht; also ein die Reproduktion beherrschendes Verhältnis, obgleich es dem einzelnen Kapitalisten scheint, er könne eigentlich den ganzen Profit als Revenue aufessen. Indessen findet er dabei Schranken, die ihm schon in der Form von Assekuranz- und Reservefonds, Gesetz der Konkurrenz usw. entgegentreten und ihm praktisch beweisen, daß der Profit keine bloße Verteilungskategorie des individuell konsumierbaren Produkts ist. Der ganze kapitalistische Produktionsprozeß ist ferner reguliert durch die Preise der Produkte. Aber die regulierenden Produktionspreise sind selbst wieder reguliert durch die Ausgleichung der Profitrate und die ihr entsprechende Verteilung des Kapitals in die verschiednen gesellschaftlichen Produktionssphären. Der Profit erscheint hier also als Hauptfaktor, nicht der Verteilung der Produkte, sondern ihrer Produktion selbst, Teil der Verteilung der Kapitale und der Arbeit selbst in die verschiednen Produktionssphären. Die Spaltung des Profits in Unternehmergewinn und Zins erscheint als Verteilung derselben Revenue. Aber sie entspringt zunächst aus der Entwicklung des Kapitals als sich selbst verwertenden, Mehrwert erzeugenden Werts, dieser bestimmten gesellschaftlichen Gestalt des herrschenden Produktionsprozesses. Sie entwickelt aus sich heraus den Kredit und die Kreditinstitutionen und damit die Gestalt der Produktion. Im Zins usw. gehn die angeblichen Verteilungsformen als bestimmende Produktionsmomente in den Preis ein.

profit governs reproduction, not mere distribution

Now take profit. This particular form of surplus-value is the presupposition for new means of production being formed in the form of capitalist production. So it is a relation that governs reproduction — even though it seems to the individual capitalist that he could really eat up the whole profit as revenue. But he runs into limits, meeting them already in the form of insurance and reserve funds, the law of competition and the like, and these prove to him in practice that profit is no mere category of distribution of the individually consumable product. The whole capitalist production process, further, is regulated by the prices of the products. But the regulating prices of production are themselves regulated in turn by the equalization of the rate of profit and by the distribution of capital among the various spheres of social production that goes with it. So what profit turns out to be here is the principal factor — not of the distribution of the products, but of their production itself: a part of how capitals, and labour itself, are distributed among the various spheres of production. The split of profit into profit of enterprise and interest appears as a distribution of the same revenue. But in the first place it springs from the development of capital as value that valorizes itself and produces surplus-value — this particular social shape of the dominant production process. Out of itself it develops credit and the credit institutions, and with them the shape of production. In interest and the like, the alleged forms of distribution enter the price as determining moments of production.

Von der Grundrente könnte es scheinen, daß sie bloße Verteilungsform ist, weil das Grundeigentum als solches keine oder wenigstens keine normale Funktion im Produktionsprozeß selbst versieht. Aber der Umstand, daß 1. die Rente beschränkt wird auf den Überschuß über den Durchschnittsprofit, 2. daß der Grundeigentümer vom Lenker und Beherrscher des Produktionsprozesses und des ganzen gesellschaftlichen Lebensprozesses herabgedrückt wird zum bloßen Verpachter von Boden, Wucherer in Boden und bloßen Einkassierer von Rente, ist ein spezifisches historisches Ergebnis der kapitalistischen Produktionsweise. Daß die Erde die Form von Grundeigentum erhalten hat, ist eine historische Voraussetzung derselben. Daß das Grundeigentum Formen erhält, welche die kapitalistische Betriebsweise der Landwirtschaft zulassen, ist ein Produkt des spezifischen Charakters dieser Produktionsweise. Man mag die Einnahme des Grundeigentümers auch in andren Gesellschaftsformen Rente nennen. Aber sie ist wesentlich unterschieden von der Rente, wie sie in dieser Produktionsweise erscheint.

rent: seeming against historical result

Of ground-rent it could seem that it is a mere form of distribution, because landed property as such performs no function — or at any rate no normal function — in the production process itself. But the fact that, first, rent is limited to the excess over the average profit, and second, that the landowner is pushed down from guide and master of the production process and of the whole social life-process to a mere leaser of land, a usurer in land and a mere collector of rent — that is a specific historical result of the capitalist mode of production. That the earth has received the form of landed property is a historical precondition of this mode. That landed property takes forms that permit the capitalist way of farming is a product of the specific character of this mode. One may also call the landowner's income rent in other forms of society. But it is essentially different from rent as it appears in this mode of production.

Die sogenannten Verteilungsverhältnisse entsprechen also und entspringen aus historisch bestimmten, spezifisch gesellschaftlichen Formen des Produktionsprozesses und der Verhältnisse, welche die Menschen im Reproduktionsprozeß ihres menschlichen Lebens untereinander eingehn. Der historische Charakter dieser Verteilungsverhältnisse ist der historische Charakter der Produktionsverhältnisse, wovon sie nur eine Seite ausdrücken. Die kapitalistische Verteilung ist verschieden von den Verteilungsformen, die aus andren Produktionsweisen entspringen, und jede Verteilungsform verschwindet mit der bestimmten Form der Produktion, der sie entstammt und entspricht.

distribution arises from relations of production

So the so-called relations of distribution correspond to historically determinate, specifically social forms of the production process — and of the relations people enter into with one another in reproducing their human life — and they arise from those forms. The historical character they have is that of the relations of production; they express only one side of those. Capitalist distribution differs from the forms of distribution that arise from other modes of production, and every form of distribution vanishes along with the particular form of production it stems from and corresponds to.

Die Ansicht, die nur die Verteilungsverhältnisse als historisch betrachtet, aber nicht die Produktionsverhältnisse, ist einerseits nur die Ansicht der beginnenden, aber noch befangnen Kritik der bürgerlichen Ökonomie. Andrerseits aber beruht sie auf einer Verwechslung und Identifizierung des gesellschaftlichen Produktionsprozesses mit dem einfachen Arbeitsprozeß, wie ihn auch ein abnorm isolierter Mensch ohne alle gesellschaftliche Beihilfe verrichten müßte. Soweit der Arbeitsprozeß nur ein bloßer Prozeß zwischen Mensch und Natur ist, bleiben seine einfachen Elemente allen gesellschaftlichen Entwicklungsformen desselben gemein. Aber jede bestimmte historische Form dieses Prozesses entwickelt weiter die materiellen Grundlagen und gesellschaftlichen Formen desselben. Auf einer gewissen Stufe der Reife angelangt, wird die bestimmte historische Form abgestreift und macht einer höhern Platz. Daß der Moment einer solchen Krise gekommen, zeigt sich, sobald der Widerspruch und Gegensatz zwischen den Verteilungsverhältnissen, daher auch der bestimmten historischen Gestalt der ihnen entsprechenden Produktionsverhältnisse einerseits und den Produktivkräften, der Produktionsfähigkeit und der Entwicklung ihrer Agentien andrerseits, Breite und Tiefe gewinnt. Es tritt dann ein Konflikt zwischen der materiellen Entwicklung der Produktion und ihrer gesellschaftlichen Form ein.⁵⁷

Constrained critique and the crisis sign

The view that treats only the relations of distribution as historical, and not the relations of production, is on the one hand only the view of a critique of bourgeois economics that is just beginning but still caught inside what it criticizes. On the other hand it rests on a confusion and identification of the social production process with the simple labour process — the kind of process even an abnormally isolated person, with no social help at all, would have to carry out.

In so far as the labour process is only a mere process between man and nature, its simple elements remain common to all the social forms of its development. But each particular historical form of this process further develops its own material foundations and social forms. Once it has reached a certain stage of maturity, the particular historical form is shed and makes way for a higher one. That the moment of such a crisis has come shows itself as soon as the contradiction and antagonism between the relations of distribution — and hence the particular historical shape of the relations of production corresponding to them — on the one side, and the productive forces, the capacity to produce and the development of their agents on the other, gains in breadth and depth. A conflict then sets in between the material development of production and its social form.

Kap. 51

Relations of Distribution Essentially Identical with Relations of Production

The value freshly added in a year by freshly added labour — and so also the part of the annual product in which this value is expressed, and which can be extracted and separated from the total product — can therefore be divided into three parts which take on three different forms of revenue, forms that express one part of this value as belonging or accruing to the owner of labour-power, one part to the owner of capital and a third part to the owner of landed property. These are thus relations or forms of distribution, for they express the relationships in which the total value newly produced is distributed among the owners of the various agents of production.

three revenue forms of new value

In the customary view, these relations of distribution appear to be natural relations, relations arising from the nature of all social production, from the laws of human production pure and simple. It cannot be denied, of course, that pre-capitalist societies display other modes of distribution, but these are then explained as undeveloped, incomplete and disguised, not reduced to their purest expression and highest form, modalities of these natural relations of distribution with a different hue.

the customary view: distribution looks natural

The only bit of truth in this conception is this: once any kind of social production is assumed (e.g. that of the indigenous Indian communities or the more artificially developed communism of the Peruvians), it is always possible to distinguish between the portion of labour whose product is directly consumed individually by the producers and their dependants, and — leaving aside the portion for productive consumption — a further portion of labour that is always surplus labour, whose product serves to satisfy general social needs, no matter how this surplus product is distributed and who functions as the representative of these social needs. The identity of the different modes of distribution thus comes down to the fact that they are identical if we abstract from their distinctions and specific forms and cling on just to their unity in contrast to what distinguishes them.

its one truth; identity by abstraction

A more developed and critical awareness concedes the historically developed character of these relations of distribution,^56a but holds all the more firmly to the supposedly constant character of the relations of production themselves, as arising from human nature and hence independent of all historical development.

critical awareness keeps relations of production natural

The scientific analysis of the capitalist mode of production proves the contrary, i.e. that this is a mode of production of a particular kind and a specific historical determinacy; that like any other particular mode of production it assumes a given level of social productive forces and of their forms of development as its historical precondition, a condition that is itself the historical result and product of a previous process and from which the new mode of production proceeds as its given foundation; that the relations of production corresponding to this specific and historically determined mode of production — relations into which men enter in their social life-process, in the production of their social life — have a specific, historical and transitory character; and that finally the relations of distribution are essentially identical with these relations of production, the reverse side of the same coin, so that the two things share the same historically transitory character.

distribution: a reverse side of production

Kap. 51

The Product Divides into Capital and Revenues

In dealing with the relations of distribution, it is usual to start from the ostensible fact that the annual product is divided into wages, profit and ground-rent. But expressed in this way, that is wrong. The product is divided into capital on the one hand and revenues on the other. One of these revenues, wages, only ever assumes the form of a revenue, the revenue of the worker, after it has previously confronted the same worker in the form of capital. The confrontation between the produced conditions of labour and the products of labour all together as capital, and the immediate producers, gives the material conditions of labour right from the start a specific social character vis-à-vis the workers, and hence sets up a specific relationship which the workers enter into, in production itself, to the owners of these conditions of labour and to one another. The transformation of these conditions of labour into capital also involves the expropriation of the immediate producers from the land, and hence a specific form of landed property.

the alleged fact corrected

If one part of the product were not transformed into capital, the other would not assume the forms of wages, profit and rent.

condition for the forms of wages, profit, rent

If one part of the product were not turned into capital, the other part would not take on the forms of wages, profit and rent.

On the other hand, if the capitalist mode of production presupposes this specific social form of the conditions of production, it constantly reproduces it as well. It not only produces the material products, but constantly reproduces the relations of production in which these are produced, and with them also the corresponding relations of distribution.

capitalism reproduces its presupposition

It may be said, incidentally, that capital (and landed property, which this includes as its antithesis) itself already presupposes a distribution: it presupposes the expropriation of the workers from the conditions of labour, the concentration of these conditions in the hands of a minority of individuals, the exclusive ownership of the land by other individuals, in short, all the relations that were developed in the section on primitive accumulation (Volume 1, Part Eight). But this is a completely different distribution from what is understood by relations of distribution when a historical character is claimed for these, in contrast to the relations of production. What is meant under this rubric are the different titles to the part of the product that falls to individual consumption. The former relations of distribution, on the other hand, are the foundation of particular social functions which are ascribed to specific agents of production within the relation of production itself, as distinct from the immediate producers. They give the actual conditions of production, and their representatives, a specific social quality. They determine the whole character and movement of production.

two senses of distribution, kept apart

Kap. 51

Firstly: Commodity as the Product's Dominant, Determining Character; Labour as Wage-Labour

Two characteristic traits mark the capitalist mode of production right from the start.

two traits from the outset

Two characteristic traits set the capitalist mode of production apart from the very start.

Firstly. It produces its products as commodities. The fact that it produces commodities does not in itself distinguish it from other modes of production; but that the dominant and determining character of its product is that it is a commodity certainly does so. This means, first of all, that the worker himself appears only as a seller of commodities, and hence as a free wage-labourer — i.e. labour generally appears as wage-labour. It is unnecessary after the argument already developed to demonstrate once again how the relationship of capital and wage-labour determines the whole character of the mode of production. The principal agents of this mode of production itself, the capitalist and the wage-labourer, are as such simply embodiments and personifications of capital and wage-labour — specific social characters that the social production process stamps on individuals, products of these specific social relations of production.

first trait: commodity as product's dominant, determining character

The character (1) of the product as a commodity, and (2) of the commodity as the product of capital, already involves all the relations of circulation, i.e. a specific social process which products must pass through and in which they assume specific social characters; it involves equally specific relationships between the agents of production, determining the valorization of their product and its transformation back into either means of subsistence or means of production. But even leaving this aside, the two above characters of the product as commodity and the commodity as capitalistically produced commodity give rise to the entire determination of value and the regulation of the total production by value. In this quite specific form of value, labour is valid only as social labour; on the other hand the division of this social labour and the reciprocal complementarity or metabolism of its products, subjugation to and insertion into the social mechanism, is left to the accidental and reciprocally countervailing motives of the individual capitalist producers. Since these confront one another only as commodity owners, each trying to sell his commodity as dear as possible (and seeming to be governed only by caprice even in the regulation of production), the inner law operates only by way of their competition, their reciprocal pressure on one another, which is how divergences are mutually counterbalanced. It is only as an inner law, a blind natural force vis-à-vis the individual agents, that the law of value operates here and that the social balance of production is asserted in the midst of accidental fluctuations.

an inner law, asserted through competition

What is also implied already in the commodity, and still more so in the commodity as the product of capital, is the reification of the social determinations of production and the subjectification [Versubjektifierung] of the material bases of production which characterize the entire capitalist mode of production.

reification and subjectification together

Kap. 51

The Second Trait: Surplus-Value as Production's Direct Object

The second thing that particularly marks the capitalist mode of production is the production of surplus-value as the direct object and decisive motive of production. Capital essentially produces capital, and it does this only as long as it produces surplus-value. In dealing with relative surplus-value and then with the transformation of surplus-value into profit, we have seen how a mode of production peculiar to the capitalist period is based on this — a particular form of development of the social productive powers of labour, but as powers of capital that have asserted their autonomy vis-à-vis the worker, thus directly opposing his own development. Production for value and surplus-value involves a constantly operating tendency, as we went on to show, to reduce the labour-time needed to produce a commodity, i.e. to reduce the commodity’s value, below the existing social average at any given time. The pressure to reduce the cost price to its minimum becomes the strongest lever for raising the social productivity of labour, though this appears here simply as a constant increase in the productivity of capital.

Second trait: surplus-value as direct aim, determining motive

The authority that the capitalist assumes in the immediate production process, as personification of capital, the social function he dons as manager and ruler of production, is essentially different from authority on the basis of production with slaves or serfs, etc.

Capitalist authority vs authority on slave, serf production

Although on the basis of capitalist production the social character of their production confronts the mass of immediate producers in the form of a strict governing authority, and the social mechanism of the labour process has received here a completely hierarchical articulation — though this authority accrues to its bearers only as the personification of the conditions of labour vis-à-vis labour itself, not to them as political or theocratic rulers as in earlier forms of production — the most complete anarchy reigns among the bearers of this authority, the capitalists themselves, who confront one another simply as owners of commodities, and within this anarchy the social interconnection of production prevails over individual caprice only as an overwhelming natural law.

Workplace authority amid capitalists' anarchy

It is only because labour is presupposed in the form of wage-labour, and the means of production in the form of capital (i.e. only as a result of this specific form of these two essential agents of production), that one part of the value (product) presents itself as surplus-value and this surplus-value presents itself as profit (rent), the gains of the capitalist, as additional available wealth belonging to him. And it is only because it presents itself as his profit that the new additional means of production, designed for the expansion of reproduction and forming a portion of the product, present themselves as new additional capital, and the expansion of the reproduction process in general presents itself as a process of capitalist accumulation.

Two 'only because' conditions

Even though the form of labour as wage-labour is decisive for the shape of the entire process and for the specific mode of production itself, it is not wage-labour that is value-determining. What matters in the determination of value is the overall social labour-time, the total amount of labour which society has at its disposal and whose relative absorption by the different products determines, as it were, their respective social weight. But the particular form in which social labour-time plays its determinant role in the value of commodities coincides with the form of labour as wage-labour, and the corresponding form of the means of production as capital, in so far as it is on this basis alone that commodity production becomes the general form of production.

Wage-labour is not value-determining

Kap. 51

The So-Called Relations of Distribution Themselves

Let us consider, moreover, the so-called relations of distribution themselves. The wage assumes wage-labour, profit assumes capital. These specific forms of distribution thus assume specific social characters for the conditions of production and specific social relations for the agents of production. The specific relation of distribution thus simply expresses the historically determined relation of production.

relation of distribution as only expression

To take profit, for example. This specific form of surplus-value is the presupposition for the fresh formation of means of production in the form of capitalist production; i.e. it is a relationship governing reproduction, even if it appears to the individual capitalist that he could consume the whole profit as revenue. There are limits to this, however, which he encounters already in the form of the insurance and reserve fund, the law of competition, etc., and which prove to him in a practical way that profit is not simply a category appertaining to the distribution of the product for individual consumption. The entire capitalist production process, moreover, is governed by the prices of products. But the governing prices of production are themselves governed in turn by the equalization of the rate of profit and the distribution of capital among the various spheres of social production which is appropriate to that equalization. Thus profit appears in this case as the principal factor not just of the products’ distribution but also of their actual production, part of the distribution of capitals and labour itself among the various spheres of production. The division of profit into profit of enterprise and interest appears simply as a distribution of the same revenue. But it arises first of all from the development of capital as self-valorizing, surplus-value-producing value, this specific social form of the dominant production process. It develops from within itself credit and the credit institutions, and with this the whole configuration of production. In interest, etc., the ostensible forms of distribution go into the price as determining elements of production.

profit governs reproduction, not mere distribution

It might appear for ground-rent that this is a form of distribution pure and simple, since landed property as such performs no function in the production process, at least not in the normal case. But the fact that (1) rent is limited to the excess above the average profit, while (2) the landowner is reduced from guide and master of the production process and the entire process of social life to a mere leaser of land, usurer in land and simple recipient of rent, is a specific historical result of the capitalist mode of production. It is a historical precondition for this mode of production that the earth has to receive the form of landed property. And it is a product of the specific character of this mode of production that landed property obtains forms which permit the capitalist mode of operation in agriculture. It is possible to give the name of rent to the landowner’s income in other forms of society. But this is essentially different from rent as it appears in the present mode.

rent: seeming against historical result

The so-called relations of distribution, therefore, correspond to and arise from historically particular and specific social forms of the production process and of the relationships which men enter into among themselves in the process of reproducing their human life. The historical character of these relations of distribution is the historical character of the relations of production, and they simply express one side of these. The capitalist distribution is different from those forms of distribution that arise from other modes of production, and every form of distribution vanishes along with the particular form of production that it arises from and corresponds to.

distribution arises from relations of production

The view that considers only the relations of distribution to be historical, and not the relations of production, is simply the perspective of a criticism of bourgeois economics that is incipient but still timid and restrained. It is also based, however, on a confusion and identification of the social production process with the simple labour process, as this would have to be performed by an abnormally isolated person without any social aids. In so far as the labour process is a simple process between man and nature, its simple elements remain common to all social forms of its development. But each particular historical form of this process further develops the material foundations and social forms. Once a certain level of maturity is attained, the particular historical form is shed and makes way for a higher form. The sign that the moment of such a crisis has arrived is that the contradiction and antithesis between, on the one hand, the relations of distribution, hence also the specific historical form of relations of production corresponding to them, and, on the other hand, the productive forces, productivity, and the development of its agents, gains in breadth and depth. A conflict then sets in between the material development of production and its social form.⁵⁷

Constrained critique and the crisis sign