3
" Exchange converts a good into a commodity, an object no longer intended
for the satisfaction of an individual need or brought into existence and
vanishing with that need. On the contrary, it is intended for society,
and its fate, now dependent on the laws which govern the social
circulation of goods, can be far more capricious than that of Odysseus;
for what is one-eyed Polyphemus compared with the argus-eyed customs
officials of Newport, or the fair Circe compared with the German meat
inspectors? It has become a commodity because its producers participate
in a specific social relationship in which they have to confront each
other as independent producers. Originally a natural, quite
unproblematic thing, a good comes to express a social relation, acquires
a social aspect. It is a product of labour, no longer merely a natural
quality but a social phenomenon. We must therefore discover the law
which governs this society as a producing and working community.
Individual labour now appears in a new aspect, as part of the total
labour force over which society disposes, and only from this point of
view does it appear as value-creating labour. "
― , Finance Capital: A study in the latest phase of capitalist development
4
" Exchange is thus accessible to analysis because it not only satisfies
individual needs, but is also a social necessity which makes individual
need its instrument while at the same time limiting its satisfaction.
For a need can be satisfied only to the extent that social necessity
will permit. It is of course a presupposition, for human society is
inconceivable without the satisfaction of individual needs. This does
not mean, however, that exchange is simply a function of individual
need, as indeed it would be in a collectivist economy, but that
individual needs are satisfied only to the extent that exchange allows
them to participate in the product of society. It is this participation
which determines exchange. The latter appears to be simply a
quantitative ratio between two things,[4] <#n4> which is determined when
this quantity is determined. The quantity which is turned over in
exchange, however, counts only as a part of social production, which
itself is quantitatively determined by the labour time that society
assigns to it. Society is here conceived as an entity which employs its
collective labour power to produce the total output, while the
individual and his labour power count only as organs of that society. In
that role, the individual shares in the product to the extent that his
own labour power participates, on average, in the total labour power
(assuming the intensity and productivity of labour to be fixed). If he
works too slowly or if his work produces something useless (an otherwise
useful article would be considered useless if it constituted an excess
of goods in circulation), his labour power is scaled down to average
labour time, i.e. socially necessary labour time. The aggregate labour
time for the total product, once given, must therefore find expression
in exchange. In its simplest form, this happens when the quantitative
ratios between goods exchanged correspond to the quantitative ratios of
the socially necessary labour time expended in their production.
Commodities would in that case exchange at their values. "
― , Finance Capital: A study in the latest phase of capitalist development
5
" In fact, this can happen only when the conditions for commodity
production and exchange are equal for all members of society; that is to
say, when they are all independent owners of their means of production
who use these means to fabricate the product and exchange it on the
market. This is the most elementary relationship, and constitutes the
starting point for a theoretical analysis. Only on this basis can later
modifications be understood; but they must always satisfy the condition
that, whatever the nature of an individual exchange may be, the sum of
exchange acts must clear the market of the total product. Any
modification can be induced only by a change in the position of the
members of society within production. In fact, the modification must
take place in this manner because production and the producers can only
be integrated as a social unit through the operation of the exchange
process. Thus the expropriation of one section of society and the
monopolization of the means of production by another modify the exchange
process, because only there can the fact of social inequality appear.
However, since the exchange relationship is one of equality, social
inequality must assume the form of a parity of prices of production
rather than an equality of value. In other words, the inequality in the
expenditure of labour (which is a matter of indifference to capitalists
since it is the labour expenditure of others) is concealed behind an
equalization of the rate of profit. This kind of equality simply
underlines the fact that capital is the decisive factor in a capitalist
society. The individual act of exchange no longer has to satisfy the
requirement that units of labour in exchange shall be equal, and instead
the principle now prevails that equal profits shall accrue to equal
capitals. The equalization of labour is replaced by the equalization of
profit, and products are sold not at their values, but at their prices
of production. "
― , Finance Capital: A study in the latest phase of capitalist development
7
" Commodities are the embodiment of socially necessary labour time. But
labour time as such is not expressed directly, as it is in the society
envisaged by Rodbertus, in which the central authority establishes the
unit of labour time which it will accept as valid for each commodity.
Labour time is expressed only in the exchange commensurability of two
articles. Thus the value of an article, i.e., its average time of
production, is not expressed directly as eight, ten or twelve hours, but
as a specific quantity of another article. In other words, a natural
object with all its material attributes expresses the equivalent value
of another thing. For example, in the equation, one coat equals twenty
metres of linen, the twenty metres of linen are the equivalent of one
coat simply because both are embodiments of socially necessary labour
time. It is in this sense that all commodities are commensurable. "
― , Finance Capital: A study in the latest phase of capitalist development
11
" In principle the human productive community may be constituted in either
of two ways. First, it may be consciously regulated. Whether its scale
is that of a self-sufficient patriarchal family, a communistic tribe, or
a socialist society, it creates the organs which, acting as the agents
of social consciousness, fix the extent and methods of production and
distribute the social product thus obtained among the members. Given the
material and man-made conditions of production, all decisions as to
method, place, quantity and available tools involved in the production
of new goods are made by the /pater familias, /or by the local regional
or national commissars of the socialist society. The personal experience
of the former gives him a knowledge of the needs and productive
resources of his family; the latter can acquire a like knowledge of the
requirements of their society by means of comprehensively organized
statistics of production and consumption. They can thus shape, with
conscious foresight, the whole economic life of the communities of which
they are the appointed representatives and leaders in accordance with
the needs of the members. The individual members of such a community
consciously regulate their productive activity as members of a
productive community. Their labour process and the distribution of their
products are subject to central control. Their relations of production
are directly manifest as social relations, and the economic relations
between individuals can be seen as being determined by the social order,
by social arrangements rather than by private inclination. Relations of
production are accepted as those which are established and desired by
the whole community.
Matters are different in a society which lacks this conscious
organization. Such a society is dissolved into a large number of
mutually independent individuals for whom production is a private matter
rather than a social concern. In other words, its members are individual
proprietors who are compelled by the development of the division of
labour to do business with one another. The act by which this is
accomplished is the exchange of commodities. It is only this act which
establishes connections in a society otherwise dismembered into
disparate units by private property and the division of labour. Exchange
is the subject matter of theoretical economics only because, and to the
extent that, it performs this mediating function in the social
structure. It is of course true that exchange may also take place in a
socialist society, but that would be a type of exchange occurring only
after the product had already been distributed according to a socially
desired norm. It would therefore be merely an individual adaptation of
the distributive norm of society, a personal transaction influenced by
subjective moods and considerations. It would not be an object for
economic analysis. It would have no more importance for theoretical
analysis than does the exchange of toys between two children in the
nursery, an exchange which is fundamentally different in character from
the purchases made by their fathers at the toy shop. For the latter is
only one element in the sum of exchanges by which society realizes
itself as the productive community which it really is. A productive
community must express itself in such acts of exchange because only in
this way can the unity of society, dissolved by private property and the
division of labour, be restored. "
― , Finance Capital: A study in the latest phase of capitalist development
12
" The socializing function of finance capital facilitates enormously the
task of overcoming capitalism. Once finance capital has brought the most
importance branches of production under its control, it is enough for
society, through its conscious executive organ - the state conquered by
the working class - to seize finance capital in order to gain immediate
control of these branches of production. Since all other branches of
production depend upon these, control of large-scale industry already
provides the most effective form of social control even without any
further socialization. A society which has control over coal mining, the
iron and steel industry, the machine tool, electricity, and chemical
industries, and runs the transport system, is able, by virtue of its
control of these most important spheres of production, to determine the
distribution of raw materials to other industries and the transport of
their products. Even today, taking possession of six large Berlin banks
would mean taking possession of the most important spheres of
large-scale industry, and would greatly facilitate the initial phases of
socialist policy during the transition period, when capitalist
accounting might still prove useful. There is no need at all to extend
the process of expropriation to the great bulk of peasant farms and
small businesses, because as a result of the seizure of large-scale
industry, upon which they have long been dependent, they would be
indirectly socialized just as industry is directly socialized. It is
therefore possible to allow the process of expropriation to mature
slowly, precisely in those spheres of decentralized production where it
would be a long drawn out and politically dangerous process. In other
words, since finance capital has already achieved expropriation to the
extent required by socialism, it is possible to dispense with a sudden
act of expropriation by the state, and to substitute a gradual process
of socialization through the economic benefits which society will confer.
[pp. 367-368] "
― , Finance Capital: A study in the latest phase of capitalist development
14
" One thing is clear; namely, that since the periodic recurrence of crises
is a product of capitalist society, the causes must lie in the nature of
capital. It must be a matter of a disturbance arising from the specific
character of society. The narrow basis provided by the consumption
relations of capitalist production constitutes, from that point of view,
the general condition of crises, since the impossibility of enlarging
this basis is the precondition for the stagnation of the market. If
consumption could be readily expanded, overproduction would not be
possible. But under capitalist conditions expansion of consumption means
a reduction in the rate of profit. For an increase in consumption by the
broad masses of the population depends upon a rise in wages, which would
reduce the rate of surplus value and hence the rate of profit.
Consequently, if the demand for labour, as a result of the accumulation
of capital, increases so greatly that the rate of profit is reduced, to
a point (at the extreme) where an increased quantity of capital would
not produce a larger profit than did the original capital, then
accumulation must come to an end, since its essential purpose - the
increase of profit - would not be achieved. This is the point at which
one necessary precondition of accumulation, the expansion of
consumption, enters into contradiction with another precondition, namely
the realization of profit. The conditions of realization cannot be
reconciled with the expansion of consumption, and since the former are
decisive, the contradiction develops into a crisis. That is why the
narrow basis of consumption is only a general condition of crises, which
cannot be explained simply by 'underconsumption'. Least of all can the
periodic character of crises be explained in this way, since no periodic
phenomenon can be explained by constant conditions.
[pp. 241-242] "
― , Finance Capital: A study in the latest phase of capitalist development
