[55th-58th 1/2] " Within the 51 weeks which here stand for one year, capital I runs through six full working periods, producing 6 times 450, or £2,700 worth of commodities, and capital II producing in five full working periods 5times £450, or £2,250 worth of commodities. In addition, capital II produced, within the last one and a half weeks of the year (middle of the 50th to the end of the 51st week), an extra £150 worth. The aggregate product in 51 weeks is worth £5,100. So far as the direct production of surplus-value is concerned, which takes place only during the working period, the aggregate capital of £900 would have been turned over 5 2/3 times (5 2/3 times 900 equals £5,100)). But if we consider the real turnover, capital I has been turned over 5 2/3 times, since at the close of the 51st week it still has 3 weeks to go of its sixth period of turnover; 5 2/3 times 450 makes £2,550; and capital II turned over 5 1/6 times, since it has completed only 1 1/2 weeks of its sixth period of turnover, so that 7 1/2 weeks of it run into the next year; 51/6 times 450 makes £2,325; real aggregate turnover: £4,875.
Let us consider capital I and capital II as two capitals wholly independent of one another. They are entirely independent in their movements;these movements complement one another merely because their working and circulating periods directly relieve one another. They may be regarded as two totally independent capitals belonging to different capitalists.
Capital I has completed five full turnovers and two-thirds of its sixth turnover period. At the end of the year it has the form of commodity-capital, which is three weeks short of its normal realisation. During this time it cannot enter into the process of production. It functions as commodity-capital, it circulates. It has completed only two-thirds of its last period of turnover.
This is expressed as follows: It has been turned over only two-thirds of a time, only two-thirds of its total value have performed a complete turnover.
We say that £450 complete their turnover in 9 weeks, hence £300do in 6 weeks. But in this mode of expression the organic relations between the two specifically different components of the turnover time are ignored.
The exact meaning of the expression that the advanced capital of £450has made 5 2/3 turnovers is merely that it has accomplished five turnovers fully and only two-thirds of the sixth. On the other hand the expression that the turned-over capital equals 5 2/3 times the advanced capital --hence, in the above case, 5 2/3 times £450, ****** £2,550 --is correct, meaning that unless this capital of £450 were complemented by another capital of £450, one portion of it would have to be in the process of production while another in the process of circulation.
If the time of turnover is to be expressed in terms of the capital turned over, it can always be expressed only in terms of existing value (in fact, of finished product). The circumstance that the advanced capital is not in a condition in which it may re-open the process of production finds expression in the fact that only a part of it is in a state capable of production or that, in order to be in a state of uninterrupted production, the capital would have to be divided into a portion which would be continually in the period of production and into another which would be continually in the period of circulation, depending upon the relation of these periods to each other. It is the same law which determines the quantity of the constantly functioning productive capital by the ratio of the time of circulation to the time of turnover.
By the end of the 51st week, which we regard here as the end of the year, £150 of capital II have been advanced to the production of an unfinished lot of goods. Another part of it exists in the form of circulating constant capital -- raw materials, etc. -- i.e., in a form in which it can function as productive capital in the production process.
But a third part of it exists in the form of money, at least the amount of the wages for the remainder of the working period (3 weeks), which is not paid, however, until the end of each week. Now, although at the beginning of a new year, hence of a new turnover cycle, this portion of the capital is not in the form of productive capital but in that of money-capital, in which it cannot take part in the process of production, at the opening of the new turnover circulating variable capital, i.e., living labour-power, is nevertheless active in the process of production. This is due to the fact that labour-power is not paid until the end of the week, although bought at the beginning of the working period, say, per week, and so consumed.
Money serves here as a means of payment. For this reason it is still as money in the hands of the capitalist, on the one hand, while, on the other hand, labour-power, the commodity into which money is being transformed, is already active in the process of production, so that the same capital-value appears here doubly.
If we look merely at the working periods, capital I produces 6 times 450, or £2,700 capital II produces 5 1/3 times 450, or £2,400 ----------------------------------------------- Hence together 5 1/3 times 900, or £5,100.
Hence the total advanced capital of £900 has functioned 5 2/3times throughout the year as productive capital. It is immaterial for the production of the surplus-value whether there are always £450 in the production process and always £450 in the circulation process, or whether £900 function 4 1/2 weeks in the process of production and the following 4 1/2 weeks in the process of circulation.
On the other hand, if we consider the periods of turnover, there has been turned over:
