only for the purpose of realizing the quantity of labor bought in the process M-L. This process was discussed from this point of view in Vol. I, Part II, under the head of "Transformation of Money into Capital." But at this point, we shall have to consider it also from another side, relating especially to money-capital as a form of capital.
M-L is regarded as a general characteristic of the capitalist mode of production. But in this case we are doing so, not so much because the purchase of labor-power represents a contract which stipulates the delivery of a certain quantity of labor-power for the reproduction of the price of labor-power, or of wages, not so much for the reason that it means the delivery of surplus-labor which is the fundamental condition for the capitalization of the value advanced, or for the production of surplus-value; but we do so rather on account of its money form, because wages in the form of money buy labor-power, and this is the characteristic mark of the money system.
Nor is it the irrational feature of the money form which we shall note as the characteristic part. We shall overlook the irrationalities. The irrationality consists in the fact that labor itself as a value-creating element cannot have any value which could be expressed in its price, and that, therefore, a certain quantity of labor cannot have any equivalent in a certain quantity of money. But we know that wages are but a disguised form in which, for instance, the price of one day's labor-power is seen to be the price of the quantity of labor materialized by this labor-power in one day. The value produced by this labor-power in six hours of labor is then expressed as the value of twelve hours of its labor.
M-L is regarded as the characteristic signature of the so-called money system, because labor there appears as the commodity of its owner, and money as the buyer. In other words, it is the money relation in the sale and purchase of human activity which is considered. It is a fact, however, that money appears at an early stage as a buyer of so-called services, without the transformation of M into money-capital, and without any change in the general character of the economic system.
It makes no difference to money into what sort of commodities it is transformed. It is the general equivalent of all commodities, which show by their prices that they represent in an abstract way a certain sum of money and anticipate their exchange for money. They do not assume the form in which they may be translated into use-values for their owners, until they change places with money. Once that labor power has come into the market as the commodity of its owner, to be sold for wages in return for labor, its sale and purchase is no more startling than the sale and purchase of any other commodity. The peculiar characteristic is not that the commodity labor-power is salable, but that labor-power appears in the shape of a commodity.
By means of M-C{LPm, that is to say by the transformation of money-capital into productive capital, the capitalist accomplishes the combination of the objective and personal factors of production so far as they consist of commodities. If money is transformed into productive capital for the first time, or if it performs for the first time the function of money-capital for its owner, he must begin by buying means of production, such as buildings, machinery, etc., before he buys any labor-power. For as soon as labor-power passes into his control, he must have means of production for it, in order to utilize it.
This is the capitalist's point of view.
The laborer, on the other hand, looks at this question in the following light: The productive application of his labor-power is not possible, until he has sold it and brought it into contact with means of production. Before its sale, it exists in a state of separation from the means of production which it requires for its materialization. So long as it remains in this state, it cannot be used either for the production of use-values for its owner, or for the production of commodities, by the sale of which he might live. But from the moment that it is brought into touch with means of production, it forms part of the productive capital of its purchaser, the same as the means of production.
It is true, that in the act M-L the owner of money and the owner of labor-power enter into the relation of buyer and seller, of money-owner and commodity-owner. To this extent they enter into a money relation. But at the same time the buyer also appears in the role of an owner of means of production, which are the material conditions for the productive expenditure of labor-power on the part of its owner. The means of production, then, meet the owner of labor-power in the form of the property of another. On the other hand, the seller of labor meets its buyer in the form of the labor-power of another and it must pass into the buyer's possession, it must become a part of his capital, in order that it may become productive capital. The class relation between the capitalist and the wage laborer is therefore established from the moment that they meet in the act M-L, which signifies L-M from the standpoint of the laborer. It is indeed a sale and a purchase, a money relation, but it is a sale and a purchase in which the buyer is a capitalist and the seller a wage-laborer. And this relation arises out of the fact that the conditions required for the materialization of labor-power, viz.: means of subsistence and means of production, are separated from the owner of labor-power and are the property of another.
We are not here concerned in the origin of this separation. It is a fact, as soon as the act M-L can be performed. The thing which interests us here is that M-L does not become a function of money-capital for the sole reason that it is a means of paying for a useful human activity or service. The function of money as a paying medium is not the main object of our attention. Money can be expended in this form only because labor-power finds itself separated from its means of production, including the means of subsistence required for its reproduction; because this separation can be overcome only by the sale of the labor-power to the owner of the means of production; because the materialization of labor-power, which is by no means limited to the quantity of labor required for the reproduction of its own price, is likewise in the control of its buyer. The capital relation during the process of production arises only because it is inherent in the process of circulation based on the different economic conditions, the class distinctions between the buyer and the seller of labor-power. It is not money which by its nature creates this relation; it is rather the existence of this relation which permits of the transformation of a mere money-function into a capital-function.
In the conception of money-capital, so far as it relates to the special function which we are discussing, two errors run parallel to one another or cross each other. In the first place, the functions performed by capital-value in its capacity of money-capital, which are due to its money form, are erroneously derived from its character as capital. But they are due only to the money form of capital-value. In the second and reverse case, the specific nature of the money-function, which renders it simultaneously a capital-function, is attributed to its money nature. Money is here confounded with capital, while the specific nature of the money-function is conditioned on social relations such as are indicated by the act M-L, and these conditions do not exist in the mere circulation of commodities and money.
The sale and purchase of slaves is formally also a sale and purchase of commodities. But money cannot perform this function without the existence of slavery. If slavery exists, then money can be invested in the purchase of slaves. On the other hand, the mere possession of money cannot make slavery possible.
In order that the sale of his labor-power by the laborer, in the form of the sale of labor for wages, may take place as a result of social conditions which make it the basis of the production of commodities, in order that it may not be an isolated instance, so that money-capital may perform, on a social scale, the function in the process M-C{LPm, definite historical processes are required, by which the original connection of the means of production with labor-power is dissolved. These processes must have resulted in opposing the mass of the people, the laborers, as propertiless to the idle owners of the means of production. It makes no difference in this case, whether the connection between the labor-power and the means of production before its dissolution was such that the laborer belonged to the means of production and was a part of them, or whether he was their owner.
The fact which lies back of the process M-C{LPm is distribution; not distribution in the ordinary meaning
