Money is again a central issue in Chapter 4 of Das Kapital and while the slightly moral commentary is exchanged in favor of rational equations, it is never something free of the utmost scrutiny. Marx states, “The circulation of commodities is the starting point of capital. The production of commodities, their circulation, and that more developed form of their circulation called commerce, these form the historical groundwork from which it rises. The modern history of capital dates from the creation in the 16th century of a world-embracing commerce and a world-embracing market” (247). Again, there is the humanities bent to the discussion as Marx comments upon the historical basis of money and exchange, but strangely, he simply mentions it passing and moves on. It is disappointing that, despite his knowledge of both social andeconomic history, he does not employ history to make suggestions for why capitalism is present and where the need or initial idea developed from. Still, this is one of those minor points worth considering, especially if this book is read in tandem with the Communist Manifesto. Chapter 4 of Das Kapital is one of the more complex but enriching chapters in the text. In short, Marx is suggesting that circulation is ground zero for capital. He introduces CMC, which are commodities that have been exchanged into money and then back into a commodity) and states that it is the most explicit form of circulation. With such a system, we continue selling commodities and perpetuating the system and the capital itself is the go-between.

The other side he speaks of this MCM, which indicates how we make purchases only to sell them. In this case, money is first transformed into a commodity and then commodity itself is transformed into money. In either case, there is a consistent and repeated back and forth exchange of money. In such a system then, the person with the money becomes the capitalist and he is “capital personified and endowed with consciousness and a will” and is endlessly seeking progressively more capital. Again, this is one of those areas where Marx is implicitly stating that there is something about the capitalist that is not quite right. When he states that a person can be “capital personified” and the only thing making him a person is “consciousness and will” (and even that is only used to create more wealth) he is making a criticism of the individual as well as the society that support this. Again, there is the distinct impression that through capitalism, especially when defined by Marx in such sharp and scientific terms, individuals begin to lose not only their own unique identity in the struggle for more capital, but become somehow less human in the process as well.

The integration of more about the worker truly becomes a large factor of the text around the sixth chapter as Marx discusses “The Sale and Purchase of Labor-Power.” In this chapter, Marx considers the social conditions surrounding the question of how labor-power are a commodity. He states that the individual that is selling himself to the capitalist, when doing so, is making himself a commodity and he explains this by stating, “labor-power can appear upon the market as a commodity, on if, and so far as, its possessor, the individual whose labor-power it is, offers it for sale, or sells it, as a commodity” (270). In this sense, it is the individual’s decision to enter him or herself into the market as a commodity. It is not until later that Marx fully explores this “decision” since for the most part, the average worker would not have enough capital to own the means of production, thus is forced to enter into an commodity relationship with the employer as a matter of personal economic necessity. What is most important about this section is that as Marx continues with his description of the laborer, he is suggesting that capitalism is part of old and harmful institutions such as property laws and other hindrances that keep capital centered in the state hands. The workers, even though they labor, do not even own the goods they produce and as we discover later, they are not even paid for their true value based on the commodity since the system of capitalism is based on creating a large amount of surplus profit at the expense of the worker. This is put by Marx as such: “By turning his money into commodities that serve as the material elements of a new product, and as factors in the labor-process, by incorporating living labor with their dead substance, the capitalist at the same time converts value, i.e. past, materialized, and dead labor into capital, into value big with value, a live monster that is fruitful and multiplies” (293). If there was any doubt up until this point about Marx’s views on the true self-perpetuating system of capitalism, it should be solved here. In calling it a “monster,” even if one if a complete proponent of capitalism, this image must still make degree of sense. Everything about the system described until this point demonstrates how it is a self-regulating and multiplying system—every aspect being dependent on another, and another, until the cycle would seem impossible to break.

Chapter Ten discusses how labor-power is purchased and old at its value, which is determined by the time it takes to produce it. The problem is, the amount of labor necessary to lend a sustainable way of life is often more than the time involved in a day of work. According to Marx, the working day fluctuates since the worker is not a machine, but a human with needs, wants, and desires beyond working. According to Marx in one of the important quotes from “Das Kapital”, “Within the 24 hours of the natural day a man can expend only a definite quality of his vital force. A horse, in like matter, can only work from day to day, 8 hours. During part of the day this force must rest, sleep; during another part the man has to satisfy other physical needs, to feed, wash, and clothe himself. Besides these purely physical limitations, the extension of the work day encounters moral ones” (340). He addresses not only that the worker will need time for social, spiritual, familial, and other tasks and thus the time in excess is surplus labor. For a capitalist to thrive there must be surplus labor but this is challenged because of the outside needs of the worker. Since the capitalist is the “soul of the capital” then he needs to create as much surplus labor as he can. For instance, if a worker takes some time for himself to attend a visit with his family, for the capitalist, this is akin to stealing from the capitalist because without surplus labor, he would not be able to continue. In a system based on surplus labor, this is an important point. In sum, when Marx begins to near his conclusion, he states, “The great beauty of capitalist production consists in this—that it not only constantly reproduces the wage-worker as wage-worker, but produces always, in production to the accumulation of capital, a relative surplus-population of wage-workers. Thus the law of supply and demand of labor is kept in the right rut, the oscillation of wages is penned within the limits satisfactory to capitalist exploitation, and lastly, the social dependence of the laborer on the capitalist” (888)

Other essays and articles in the Literature and History Archives related to this topic include: Marx and Locke: Comparison of Views on Government, Property and Labor   •    The Economics of Socialism      •    War and the Downfall of the Monarchies in France and Russia     •      An Analysis of Select Ideas from Hume’s Essays: Moral, Political, and Literary     •     Summary and Analysis ofThe Essential Adam Smith by Robert L. Heilbroner    •     Social Stratification and Class in Animal Farm