If the capitalist merely executes the logic of capital, then it is not he, but rather capital, self-valorizing capital, that is the “subject” of the process. Marx refers to capital in this regard as the “automatic subject,” a phrase that makes the paradox clear: on the one hand, capital is an automaton, something lifeless, but on the other, as the “subject,” it is the determining agent of the whole process.
As the "dominant subject" (ubergreifendes Subjekt) (Capital, 1:255) in the process of valorization, value needs an independent form and obtains it in money. Money is therefore the starting point and terminal point of the valorization process.
Money was already the independent, if inadequate, form of value within the process of simple circulation. As capital (to repeat: capital is neither money nor commodity taken by itself, but rather the limitless and ceaseless movement of appreciation, M—C—M '), value not only possesses an independent form, it is now “a self-moving substance, which passes through a process of its own,” a rather curious subject with extraordinary powers:
“In truth, however, value is here the subject of a process, in which, while constantly assuming the form in turn of money and commodities, it changes its own magnitude.... By virtue of being value, it has acquired the occult quality to add value to itself.” (Capital, 1:255: corrected translation)
It seems as if value is able to increase itself (some banks use the advertising slogan "let your money work for you” which is characteristic of this illusion). Now let's examine what this "occult quality" rests upon.
4.3 Class Relations: The Worker "Free in the Double Sense"
So far, we have only formally determined what capital is: a sum of value that valorizes itself, that executes the movement M—C—M'. But the question remains, how is this movement at all possible, or to put it another way, where does surplus value come from?
Within the sphere of circulation, valorization would only be possible if commodity C is purchased below its value or sold above its value. In this case, the sum of value advanced can be increased, but one capitalist's gain is only possible if another capitalist takes a loss of the same amount. At the level of society as a whole, the sum of value has not changed; it has simply been redistributed, just as if a simple act of theft had occurred.
Capitalist profit would therefore be explained as a violation of the laws of commodity production. If we assume the normal conditions of commodity production and circulation, then the "exchange of equivalents" applies: the commodities that are exchanged for one another have the same magnitude of value, the price paid is an adequate expression of the magnitude of value of the commodity and does not express a coincidentally greater or lesser magnitude; the commodities are exchanged "at their true values." If surplus value is a normal phenomenon of capitalist commodity production and not just an exception, then its existence must be explained under the presupposition of an "exchange of equivalents” and this is exactly the question that Marx poses.
Marx's deliberations can be summarized as follows: if equivalent exchange is assumed, then surplus value cannot be constituted in circulation, not in the first act of circulation, M—C, nor in the second act, C —M'. A change must take place between both acts. But outside of the sphere of circulation, the use value of the purchased commodity is merely consumed. Thus the owner of money must find a commodity on the market whose use value possesses the quality of being a source of value, so that the use of this commodity creates value, and more value than the commodity itself costs.
Such a special commodity exists. It is the commodity called labor-power. The term labor-power refers to the ability of humans to perform labor, and under the conditions of commodity production, the expenditure of labor can be a source of value. If I sell my labor-power, then I relinquish this ability to someone else for a specific period of time. In the case of selling labor-power, the entire person is not sold (I do not become a slave), but it is also not the case that labor is sold. Labor is the application of labor-power. That only the ability to labor was sold, and not labor itself, is shown among other things by the situation where raw materials are temporarily missing and the owner of money cannot use the labor-power he has purchased.
That the owner of money encounters labor-power as a commodity on the market is not a matter of course. Two conditions have to be satisfied for this to be the case. First, there must be people who act as free proprietors of their own labor-power, who are therefore in a position to sell their labor-power. A slave or a serf is therefore not in such a position, since the sellers of labor-power must be legally free people.
But if these people have means of production at their disposal and can produce and sell their own commodities or can subsist from the products of their own labor, then they will probably not sell their labor-power. They are only driven to sell their labor-power, and this is the second condition, if they do not own any means of production, if they are therefore not only legally free but also free of substantive property. Then they actually treat their labor-power as a commodify. The existence of workers who are "free" in this double sense is an indispensable social precondition of capitalist production.
Thus a specific relationship between social classes underlies the capitalist mode of production: on the one hand, there must exist a class of property owners (owners of money and means of production), and on the other hand there must exist a class of largely propertyless, but legally free workers. This relationship between social classes is usually what is meant when Marx speaks not of capital, but of the capital-relation.
Michael Heinrich, An Introduction to the Three Volumes of Karl Marx’s Capital (2012)
