What in the hell …

I have previously argued that the permanence of simple circulation within capitalism means that the capital relation as such is biopolitical in the sense which Hardt and Negri give the term. This is because the sale of labor power as a commodity — L-M-C, a specific form of the circuit C-M-C which Marx calls simple circulation, where labor power is sold for money (wages) to buy means of subsistence — both historically and conceptually involves command over life.

I want to address these circuits further. I plan to use the following passages from Marx to address three other issues which are at least tangentially related. The first is what I call, for lack of a better term, ‘the conscience wage’ and its relation to money or nonmonetary commodity exchange (the permanence or recurrence of the elementary form of value). The second is the definitions of use value and exchange value. The third is the category of self-valorization used by Negri (more in his earlier work, I think) and by Cleaver, in connection or resonance with the aspects of Badiou and Ranciere that I find most compelling. For now, just the quotes.

Marx writes in v2 of Capital “The circulation of money-capital M is divided into M—MP and M—L, into the purchase of means of production and the purchase of labour-power. Let us consider the last-named process by itself. M—L is the purchase of labour-power by the capitalist. It is also the sale of labour-power (…) by the laborer who owns it. What is M—C (= M—L) for the buyer is here, as in every other purchase, L—M (= C—M) for the seller (the laborer). It is the sale of his labour-power. This is the first stage of circulation, or the first “metamorphosis, of the commodity (Buch I, Kap. III, 2a).[English edition: Ch. III, 2a-Ed.] It is for the seller (…) a transformation of his commodity into the money-form. The laborer spends the money so obtained gradually for a number of commodities required for the satisfaction of his needs, for articles of consumption. The complete circulation of his commodity therefore appears as L—M—C, that is to say first as L—M (= C—M) and secondly as M—C; hence in the general form of the simple circulation of commodities, C—M—C. Money is in this case merely a passing means of circulation, a mere medium in the exchange of one commodity for another.” (Capital v2, page 27 International Publishers edition.)

Marx defines simple circulation in v1 of Capital, as circulation which does not self expand. The various formulas for capital that Marx gives all have in common an accumulation, in the sense that the end result of the process enters back into a renewed and expanded version of the process. This is not the case with simple circulation.

That which “first and foremost distinguishes the circuit C-M-C from the circuit M-C-M,” that is, the circuit of simple circulation from the circuit of the circulation of money as capital, “is the inverted order of succession of the two phases. The simple circulation of commodities begins with a sale and ends with a purchase, while the circulation of money as capital begins with a purchase and ends with a sale. In the one case both the starting-point and the goal are commodities, in the other they are money. (…)

In the circulation C-M-C, the money is in the end converted into a commodity, that serves as a use-value; it is spent once for all. In the inverted form, M-C-M, on the contrary, the buyer lays out money in order that, as a seller, he may recover money. By the purchase of his commodity he throws money into circulation, in order to withdraw it again by the sale of the same commodity. He lets the money go, but only with the sly intention of getting it back again. The money, therefore, is not spent, it is merely advanced.” (Capital v1, page 148, International Publishers edition.)

“The circuit C-M-C comes completely to an end, so soon as the money brought in by the sale of one commodity is abstracted again by the purchase of another.

If, nevertheless, there follows a reflux of money to its starting-point, this can only happen through a renewal or repetition of the operation. If I sell a quarter of corn for £3, and with this £3 buy clothes, the money, so far as I am concerned, is spent and done with. It belongs to the clothes merchant. If I now sell a second quarter of corn, money indeed flows back to me, not however as a sequel to the first transaction, but in consequence of its repetition. The money again leaves me, so soon as I complete this second transaction by a fresh purchase. Therefore, in the circuit C-M-C, the expenditure of money has nothing to do with its reflux. On the other hand, in M-C-M, the reflux of the money is conditioned by the very mode of its expenditure. Without this reflux, the operation fails, or the process is interrupted and incomplete, owing to the absence of its complementary and final phase, the sale.

The circuit C-M-C starts with one commodity, and finishes with another, which falls out of circulation and into consumption. Consumption, the satisfaction of wants, in one word, use-value, is its end and aim. The circuit M-C-M, on the contrary, commences with money and ends with money. Its leading motive, and the goal that attracts it, is therefore mere exchange-value.”

As Marx notes, M-C-M is actually M-C-M’, where M’ is an increased quantity of money greater than the initial advanced quantity of money M. In simple circulation, on the other hand, there is no increase, no accumulation. “Every commodity, when it first steps into circulation, and undergoes its first change of form, does so only to fall out of circulation again and to be replaced by other commodities.” (117.)

“The repetition or renewal of the act of selling in order to buy, is kept within bounds by the very object it aims at, namely, consumption or the satisfaction of definite wants, an aim that lies altogether outside the sphere of circulation. (…)The simple circulation of commodities - selling in order to buy - is a means of carrying out a purpose unconnected with circulation, namely, the appropriation of use-values, the satisfaction of wants.”

Matters are different re: the circulation of money as capital. ” Money ends the movement only to begin it again. Therefore, the final result of every separate circuit, in which a purchase and consequent sale are completed, forms of itself the starting-point of a new circuit. (…) The circulation of money as capital is (…) an end in itself, for the expansion of value takes place only within this constantly renewed movement. The circulation of capital has therefore no limits.” (151.)

“As the conscious representative of this movement, the possessor of money becomes a capitalist. His person, or rather his pocket, is the point from which the money starts and to which it returns. The expansion of value, which is the objective basis or main-spring of the circulation M-C-M, becomes his subjective aim, and it is only in so far as the appropriation of ever more and more wealth in the abstract becomes the sole motive of his operations, that he functions as a capitalist, that is, as capital personified and endowed with consciousness and a will. Use-values must therefore never be looked upon as the real aim of the capitalist; neither must the profit on any single transaction. The restless never-ending process of profit-making alone is what he aims at.” (152.)

“in the circulation M-C-M, both the money and the commodity represent only different modes of existence of value itself, the money its general mode, and the commodity its particular, or, so to say, disguised mode. It is constantly changing from one form to the other without thereby becoming lost, and thus assumes an automatically active character. If now we take in turn each of the two different forms which self-expanding value successively assumes in the course of its life, we then arrive at these two propositions: Capital is money: Capital is commodities. In truth, however, value is here the active factor in a process, in which, while constantly assuming the form in turn of money and commodities, it at the same time changes in magnitude, differentiates itself by throwing off surplus-value from itself; the original value, in other words, expands spontaneously.” (153-154.) [Look up “active factor” in German.]

“In simple circulation, C-M-C, the value of commodities attained at the most a form independent of their use-values, i.e., the form of money; but that same value now in the circulation M-C-M, or the circulation of capital, suddenly presents itself as an independent substance, endowed with a motion of its own, passing through a life-process of its own, in which money and commodities are mere forms which it assumes and casts off in turn. (…) Value therefore now becomes value in process, money in process, and, as such, capital. It comes out of circulation, enters into it again, preserves and multiplies itself within its circuit, comes back out of it with expanded bulk, and begins the same round ever afresh. M-M’, money which begets money, such is the description of Capital from the mouths of its first interpreters, the Mercantilists. ” (154-155.)