The process of production appears merely as an unavoidable intermediate link, as a necessary evil for the sake of money-making. All nations with a capitalist mode of production are therefore seized periodically by a feverish attempt to make money without the intervention of the process of production.
2. The stage of production, the function of P, represents in this circuit an interruption between the two phases of circulation M---C ...
C'---M', which in its turn represents only the intermediate link in the simple circulation M---C---M'. The process of production appears in the form of a circuit-describing process, formally and explicitly as that which it is in the capitalist mode of production, as a mere means of expanding the advanced value, hence enrichment as such as the purpose of production.
3. Since the series of phases is opened by M---C, the second link of the circulation is C'---M'. In other words, the starting-point is M, the money-capital that is to be self-expanded; the terminal point is M', the self-expanded money-capital M plus m, in which M figures as realised capital along with its offspring m. This distinguishes the circuit of Mfrom that of the two other circuits P and C', and does so in two ways.
On the one hand by the money-form of the two extremes. And money is the independent, tangible form of existence of value, the value of the product in its independent value-form, in which every trace of the use-value of the commodities has been extinguished. On the other hand the form P ...
P does not necessarily become P ... P' (P plus p), and in the form C ...
C' no difference whatever in value is visible between the two extremes.
It is therefore characteristic of the formula M---M' that for one thing capital-value is its starting-point and expanded capital-value its point of return, so that the advance of capital-value appears as the means and expanded capital-value as the end of the entire operation; and that for another thing this relation is expressed in money-form, in the independent value-form, hence money-capital as money begetting money. The generation of surplus-value by value is not only expressed as the Alpha and Omega of the process, but explicitly in the form of glittering money.
4. Since M', the money-capital realised as a result of C'---M', the complementary and concluding phase of M---C, has absolutely the same form as that in which it began its first circuit, it can, as soon as it emerges from the latter, begin the same circuit over again as an increased (accumulated) money-capital; M' = M + m. And at least it is not expressed in the form M ... M' that, in the repetition of the circuit, the circulation of m separates from that of M. Considered in its one-time form, formally, the circuit of money-capital expresses therefore simply the process of self-expansion and of accumulation. Consumption is expressed in it only as productive consumption, by M---C< L MP , and it is only this consumption that is included in this circuit of individual capital. M---L is L---M or C---M on the part of the labourer. It is therefore the first phase of circulation which brings about his individual consumption, thus: L---M---C (means of subsistence). The second phase M---C, no longer falls within the circuit of individual capital, but is initiated and premised by it, since the labourer must above all live, hence maintain himself by individual consumption, in order to always be in the market as material that the capitalist can exploit. But this consumption itself is here only assumed as a condition for the productive consumption of labour-power by capital, hence only to the extent that the worker maintains and reproduces himself as labour-power by means of his individual consumption. However the MP, the commodities proper which enter into the circuit of capital, are nutriment for the productive consumption only. The act L---M promotes the individual consumption of the labourer, the transformation of the means of subsistence into his flesh and blood. True, the capitalist must also be there, must also live and consume to be able to perform the function of a capitalist. To this end, he has, indeed, to consume only as much as the labourer, and that is all this form of the circulation process presupposes.
But even this is not formally expressed, since the formula concludes with M', i.e., a result which can at once resume its function as money-capital, now augmented.
C'---M' directly contains the sale of C'; but C'---M', a sale on the one part, is M---C, a purchase, on the other part, and in the last analysis a commodity is bought only for its use-value, in order to enter (leaving intermediate sales out of consideration) the process of consumption, whether this is individual or productive, according to the nature of the article bought. But this consumption does not enter the circuit of individual capital, the product of which is C'. This product is eliminated from the circuit precisely because it is a commodity for sale. C' is expressly designed for consumption by others than the producer. Thus we find that certain exponents of the mercantile system (which is based on the formula M---C... P ... C'---M') deliver lengthy sermons to the effect that the individual capitalist should consume only as much as the labourer, that the nation of capitalists should leave the consumption of their own commodities, and the consumption process in general, to the other, less intelligent nations but that they themselves should make productive consumption their life's task. These sermons frequently remind one in form and content of analogous ascetic expostulations of the fathers of the church.
Capital's movement in circuits is therefore the unity of circulation and production; it includes both. Since the two phases M---C and C'---M'