Time in Marx: The Categories of Time in Marx’s Capital

354 Pages·2015·1.746 MB·English

by  Stavros Tombazos

Time in Marx
Historical
Materialism
Book Series
Editorial Board
Sébastien Budgen, Paris – Steve Edwards, London
Marcel van der Linden, Amsterdam – Peter Thomas, London
VOLUME 61
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/hm
Time in Marx
The Categories of Time in Marx’s Capital
By
Stavros Tombazos
LEidEn • BOSTOn
2014
This book was originally published in the French language under the title “Le temps dans l’analyse
économique. Les catégories du temps dans le Capital” (1994, Ed. Société des saisons).
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data
Tombazos, Stavros.
 Time in Marx : the categories of time in Marx’s Capital / by Stavros Tombazos.
  pages cm. — (Historical materialism book series ; volume 61)
 includes bibliographical references and index.
 iSBn 978-90-04-21726-3 (hardback : alk. paper) — iSBn 978-90-04-25626-2 (e-book) 1. Marxian
economics. 2. Marx, Karl, 1818–1883. Kapital. 3. Capital. 4. Time—Economic aspects. i. Title.
 HB97.5.T623 2013
 335.4’12—dc23
2013035067
This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “Brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters
covering Latin, iPA, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the
humanities. For more information, please see www.brill.com/brill-typeface.
iSSn 1570-1522
iSBn 978-90-04-21726-3 (hardback)
iSBn 978-90-04-25626-2 (e-book)
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To daniel Bensaïd, Georges Labica and Jean Marie Vincent

Contents
introduction to the English Edition  ...................................................................... xi
The Missile’s Load  ...................................................................................................... xv
Georges Labica
Rearguard Seasonals  .................................................................................................. xix
Postface to the French edition by Daniel Bensaïd 
Translator’s note  ......................................................................................................... xxv
introduction  ................................................................................................................. 1
Part One: The Time of Production
introduction  ................................................................................................................. 9
Section One: The Commodity and Labour Time
1. Labour Time as a Transhistorical Economic Law  ....................................... 13
2. Abstract Labour Time: Form and Content  .................................................... 17
3. Socially necessary Labour Time  ....................................................................... 33
4. The Hegelian Theory of Measure and Value as ‘Essence’  ......................... 43
Section Two: From Simple Circulation to Capital
5. The Process of Exchange: Historical Time and Logical Time  .................. 59
5.1 Historical time  ................................................................................................ 59
5.2 Logical time ..................................................................................................... 62
viii • Contents
 6. Simple Circulation as a Moment of the notion  ......................................... 69
6.1 The great triad of Hegelian logic  ........................................................... 70
6.2 Simple circulation as a ‘chemical process’  ......................................... 75
 7. The Hidden Time of the Commodity  ............................................................ 83
Section Three: The Time of the Process of Production
 8. The Time of Surplus-Labour or Absolute Surplus-Value  ......................... 91
8.1 Constant and variable capital, mass and rate of surplus-value  ... 91
8.2 The working day  ......................................................................................... 96
 9. The Time of Surplus Labour or Relative Surplus-Value  .......................... 103
9.1 Simple cooperation and the saving of time   ...................................... 104
9.2 The manufacture and the saving of time  ........................................... 106
9.3 Large-scale industry as a clock-making system  ................................ 109
Part Two: The Time of Circulation
introduction  ................................................................................................................. 119
Section One: The Organic Movement of Capital
10. The Three Cycles/Circuits of Capital  ............................................................. 123
10.1 The circuit of money capital  .................................................................. 124
10.2 The circuit of productive capital  ........................................................... 128
10.3 The circuit of commodity capital .......................................................... 130
11. Capital as Syllogism  ............................................................................................ 133
12. Capital in Marx, or ‘Life’ in Hegel ................................................................... 147
12.1 The Hegelian ‘idea’ (generalities)  ......................................................... 148
12.2 Hegelian ‘Life’ and the circuits of capital  ........................................... 151
12.3 ‘The living individual’ or ‘Shape’ and the circuit of productive
capital  ............................................................................................................ 154
12.4 The ‘life process’ or ‘Assimilation’ and the circuit of
commodity capital  ..................................................................................... 155
12.5 The ‘Genus-process’ and the circuit of money capital  ................... 159
12.6 Remarks  ........................................................................................................ 161
Contents • ix
Section Two: The Turnover Times of Capital
13. Value, Real Wealth and Circulation Time  .................................................. 167
14. Turnover Time and Fixed and Circulating Capital  .................................. 177
15. The Labour, Production and Circulation Periods  ..................................... 193
15.1 definition of the three periods  ............................................................ 193
15.2 The turnover time and the quantitative relation between
the different fractions of capital  .......................................................... 198
16. The Annual Turnover of Social Capital
(The Schemas of Reproduction)  .................................................................... 207
16.1 Presentation of the schemas of reproduction  ................................. 208
16.2 interpretation of the schemas of reproduction  .............................. 214
Part Three: Organic Time: The Unity of the Time of Production
and the Time of Circulation
introduction  ................................................................................................................. 219
Section One: Surplus Value, Profit and Time
17. Cost, Wages, Profit and illusions of Time  ................................................... 225
18. Value and Prices of Production (A Logical interpretation) .................... 233
18.1 Marx and the transformation of values into prices of
production  .................................................................................................. 234
18.2 The transformation as a syllogism  ...................................................... 237
Section Two: The Sub-Divisions of Profit or Fetishism
Completely Realised
19. The derived Forms of industrial Capital  .................................................... 249
19.1 Merchant’s capital [Handelskapital]  .................................................. 249
19.2 interest-bearing capital [Das zinstragende Kapital]  ...................... 252
20. Ground Rent  ......................................................................................................... 259