return of a value, originally advanced in money, to its old form, a return to that form of value which opened the process. On the other hand, it is the first metamorphosis of a value which originally enters the circulation in the form of a commodity. If the commodities composing the commodity-capital are sold at their value, as we assume, then C plus c is transformed into M plus m, its equivalent. The sold commodity-capital now exists in the hands of the capitalist in the form of M plus m (422 pounds sterling plus 78 pounds sterling, equal to 500 pounds sterling). Capital-value and surplus-value are now present in the form of money, the form of the general equivalent.
At the conclusion of the process, capital-value has resumed the form in which it entered, and can now open a new cycle of the same kind, in the form of money-capital, and go through it. Just because the opening and concluding form of this process is that of money-capital, M, we call this form of the circulation process the circulation of money-capital. It is not the form, but merely the magnitude of the advanced value which is changed in the end.
M plus m is a sum of money of a definite magnitude, in this case 500 pounds sterling. As a result of the circulation of capital, of the sale of commodity-capital, this sum of money contains the capital-value and the surplus-value. And these values are now no longer organically connected, as they were in the yarn, they are now arranged side by side. Their sale has given both of them an independent money form; 211-250th of this money represent the capital value of 422 pounds sterling, and 39-250th constitute the surplus-value of 78 pounds sterling. This separation of capital-value and surplus-value, which results from the sale of the commodity-capital, has not only the formal meaning to which we shall refer presently. It becomes important in the process of the reproduction of capital, according to whether m is entirely, or partially, or not at all, lumped together with M, that is to say according to whether or not it continues to perform the functions of capital-value. Both m and M may also pass through widely different cycles of circulation.
In M', capital has returned to its original form M, to its money-form. But it then has a form, in which it is materialized capital.
There is in the first place a difference of quantity. It was M, 422 pounds sterling. It is now M', 500 pounds sterling, and this difference is expressed by the quantitatively different points M...M' of the cycle, the movement of which is indicated by the dots. M' is greater than M, and M'-M is equal to the surplus-value s. But as a result of this cycle M...M' it is only M' which exists now; it is the product which marks the close of the process of formation of money-capital. M' now exists independently of the movement which it started. This movement is completed, and M' exists in its place.
But M', being M plus m, or in this case 500 pounds sterling, composed of 422 pounds sterling advanced capital plus an increment of 78 pounds sterling, represents at the same time a qualitative relation. It is true that this qualitative relation does not exist outside of the quantitative relation of the parts of one and the same sum. M, the advanced capital, which is now once more present in its original form (422 pounds sterling), exists as the realization of capital. It has not only preserved itself, but also realized its own capital-form, distinguished from m (78 pounds sterling), to which it stands in the relation of creator, m being its fruit, an increment born by it. It has realized its capital-form, because it is a value which has created more value. M' exists as a capital relation. M no longer appears as mere money, but it is explicitly used as money-capital, as a value which has utilized itself by creating a higher value than itself. M acts as capital by virtue of its relation to another part of M', which it has created. Thus M' appears as a sum of values expressing the capital relation, being differentiated into functionally different parts.
But this expresses only a result, without showing the intermediate process which caused it.
Parts of value as such are not qualitatively different from one another, except in so far as they are values of different articles, of concrete things, embodied in different use-values. They are values of different commodities, and this difference is not due to their character as exchange-values. In money, all differences of commodities are extinguished, because it is an equivalent form common to all of them. A sum of money of 500 pounds sterling consists of equal elements of one pounds sterling each. Since the intermediate links of descent are extinguished in the simple form of this sum of money. and all traces of the specific differences of the individual parts of capital in the productive process have disappeared, there exists only the mental distinction between the main sum of 422 pounds sterling, which was the capital advanced, and a surplus sum of 78 pounds sterling.
Or, again, let M' be equal to 110 pounds sterling, of which 100 may be equal to the main sum M and 10 equal to the surplus-value s. There is an absolute homogeneity, an absence of distinctions, between the two constituent parts of the sum of 110 pounds sterling. Any 10 pounds of this sum always constitute 1-11th of the sum of 110 pounds regardless of the fact that they are also 1-10th of the advanced main sum of 100 pounds, or the excess of 10 pounds above it. Main sum and surplus sum (capital and surplus-value), may simply be expressed as fractional parts of the total sum. In our illustration, 10-11th form the main sum, and 1-11th the surplus sum. Materialized capital, at the end of its cycle, therefore appears as an undifferentiated expression, the money expression, of the capital relation.
True, this applies also to C' (C plus c). But there is this difference, that C', of which C and c are also proportional parts of the same homogeneous mass of commodities, indicates its origin P, the immediate product of which it is, while in M', a form derived immediately from circulation, the direct relation to P is obliterated.
The undifferentiated distinction between the main sum and the surplus sum, which are contained in M', so far as this expresses the result of the movement M...M', disappears as soon as it performs its active function of money-capital and is not preserved as a fixed expression of materialized industrial capital. The circulation of money-capital can never begin with M' (although M' now performs the function of M). It can begin only with M, that is to say, it can never begin as an expression of the capital relation, but only as an advance of capital-value. As soon as the 500 pounds sterling are once more advanced as capital, in order to be again utilized, they constitute a point of departure, not one of conclusion. Instead of a capital of 422 pounds sterling, a capital of 500 pounds sterling is now advanced. It is more money than before, more capital-value, but the relation between its two constituent parts has disappeared. In fact, a sum of 500 pounds sterling might have served instead of the 422 pounds sterling as the original capital.
It is not an active function of money-capital to materialize in the form of M'; this is rather a function of C'. Even in the simple circulation of commodities, first in C-M, then in M-C2, money M does not figure actively until in the second movement, M-C.2 Its embodiment in the form of M is the result of the first act, by virtue of which it becomes a transformation of C.1 The capital relation contained in M', the relation of its constituent parts in the form of capital-value and surplus-value, assumes a functional importance only in so far as the repeated cycle M...M' splits M' into two circulations, one of them a circulation of capital, the other of surplus-value. In this case these two parts perform not only quantitatively, but also qualitatively different functions, M others than m. But considered by itself, M...M' does not include the consumption of the capitalist, but emphatically only the self-utilization and accumulation of money-capital, the latter function expressing itself at the outset as a periodical augmentation of ever renewed advances of money-capital.
Although M' (M plus m) is the undifferentiated form of capital, it is at the same time a materialization of money-capital, it is money which has generated more money. But this is different from the role played by money-capital in the first stage, M-C{LPm. In this first stage, M circulates as money. It assumes the functions of money-capital only because it cannot serve as money unless it assumes the form of money, because it cannot transform itself in any other way into the component parts of P, L and Pm, which stand opposed to it in the form of commodities. In this circulation act it serves as money. But as this act is the first stage in the circulation of capital-value, it is also a function of money-capital, by virtue of the specific use-value of the commodities L and
