Cú Chulainn

For a variety of reasons, as we will shortly see, the idea of a capitalist mode of production in a stable, nongrowth state is improbable if not downright impossible.

Chapter 24 examines how and why the surplus-value gained yesterday is converted into tomorrow’s new money capital.

The resultant “production of capital on a progressively increasing scale” involves combining “additional labour-power, annually supplied by the working class in the shape of labour-powers of all ages, with the additional means of production.”

For this to happen requires that capital must first produce the conditions for its own expansion.

„Accumulation requires the transformation of a portion of the surplus product into capital, But we cannot, except by a miracle, transform into capital anything but such articles as can be employed in the labour process

(i.e. means of production), and such further articles as are suitable for the sustenance of the worker (i.e. means of subsistence). Consequently, a part of the annual surplus labour must have been applied to the production of additional means of production and subsistence