-- Ed .]) (The Transformation of Money into Capital), and furthermore (Buch I, Kap. XXI [English edition: Ch. XXIII. -- Ed .]) (Simple Reproduction), that the capital-value is in general advanced, not expended, as this value, having passed through the various phases of its circuit, returns to its point of departure, and at that enriched by surplus-value.
This characterises it as advanced. The time that elapses from the moment of its departure to the moment of its return is the time for which it was advanced. The entire circular movement described by capital-value, measured by the time from its advance to its return, constitutes its turnover, and the duration of this turnover is a period of turnover. When this period has expired and the circuit is completed, the same capital-value can renew the same circuit, can therefore expand anew, can create surplus-value.
If the variable capital is turned over ten times in one year, as in the case of capital A, then the same advance of capital begets in the course of one year ten times the quantity of surplus-value that corresponds to one period of turnover.
One must get a clear conception of the nature of this advance from the standpoint of capitalist society.
Capital A, which is annually turned over ten times, is advanced ten times during one year. It is advanced anew for every new period of turnover. But at the same time, during the year A never advances more than this same capital-value of £500 and in actual fact never disposes of more than these £500 for the productive process examined by us.
As soon as these £500 have completed one circuit A makes them start anew the same circuit; by its very nature capital preserves its character of capital only because it always functions as capital in successive production processes. It is, moreover, never advanced for more than five weeks. Should the turnover last longer, it proves inadequate. Should the turnover be curtailed, a part become superfluous. Not ten capitals of £500 are advanced, but one capital of £500 is advanced ten times at successive intervals. The annual rate of surplus-value is therefore not calculated for ten advances of a capital of £500 or for £5,000, but for one advance of a capital of £500. It is the same as if one shilling circulates ten times and yet never represents more than one single shilling in circulation, although it performs the function of 10 shillings.
But in the pocket which holds it after each change of hands it retains the same identical value of one shilling as before.
In the same way capital A indicates at each successive return, and likewise on its return at the end of the year, that its owner has operated always with the same capital-value of £500. Hence only £500return to him each time. His advanced capital is therefore never more than £500. Hence the advanced capital of £500 forms the denominator of the fraction which expresses the annual rate of surplus-value. We had for it the above formula S' = s'v n /v = s' n . Since the real rate of surplus-value, s', equals s/v, the quantity of surplus-value divided by the variable capital which produced it, we may substitute s/v for the value of s' in s' n , and get the other formula S' = s n /v.
But by its ten-fold turnover and thus the ten-fold renewal of its advance, the capital of £500 performs the function of a ten times larger capital, of a capital of £5,000, just as 500 shillings which circulate ten times per year perform the same function as 5,000 shillings which circulate only once.
II. THE TURNOVER OF THE INDIVIDUAL VARIABLE CAPITAL"Whatever the form of the process of production in a society, it must be a continuous process, must continue to go periodically through the same phases. . . . When viewed therefore as a connected whole and as flowing on with incessant renewal, every social process of production is, at the same time, a process of reproduction. . . . As a periodic increment of the capital advanced, or periodic fruit of capital in process, surplus-value acquires the form of a revenue flowing out of capital." (Buch I, Kap. XXI, pp. 588, 589.) [English edition: pp. 566 and 567. -- Ed .]
In the case of capital A we have 10 five-week turnover periods.
In the first period of turnover £500 of variable capital are advanced;i.e., £100 are weekly converted into labour-power, so that £500are spent on labour-power at the end of the first turnover period. These £500, originally a part of the total capital advanced, have ceased to be capital. They are paid out in wages. The labourers in their turn pay them out in the purchase of means of subsistence, consuming means of subsistence worth £500. A quantity of commodities of that value is therefore annihilated; (what the labourer may save up in money, etc., is not capital either). As far as concerns the labourer, this quantity of commodities has been consumed unproductively, except inasmuch as it preserves the efficacy of his labour-power, an instrument indispensable to the capitalist.