Accumulation

“ Sir, I firmly believe that abundance and cheapness of provisions is one of the constituents by which the continuance of manufacturing and commercial pre-eminence may be maintained. You may say the object of these observations is to flatter the love of gain, and administer merely to the desire of accumulating money. I advise this measure on no such ground. I believe that the accumulation of wealth, that is, the increase of capital, is a main element, or at least one of the chief means by which we can retain the eminence we have so long possessed. ”

“ When we consider that the individual's value to the rest of society is measured by the excess of his production over consumption, while his position in industry is determined by his rate of accumulation, which is merely his acquisition minus his consumption, we shall see how important it is that acquisition and production should be identified. ”

“ Its accumulations, or capital, which have been considered to amount to twenty-two hundred million pounds sterling, could not be purchased by several times the amount of all the bullion that exists in the world. A great part of what is saved, therefore, is an accumulation of products suitable for consumption. The moment that they are applied to the encouragement of production, they begin to be consumed. They encourage production only as far as they enable the producers to consume while they are in the act of producing. Accumulation, therefore, is no hindrance to consumption. ”

“ The accumulation of capital, as has been said, enables industry to utilize such methods of production as result in a high volume of product for a given expenditure of effort. Much of the hopefulness and energy which has characterized our industrial life arose out of the belief that the continuous course of capital accumulation, since it made possible the utilization of new inventions and improved methods of production, was preparing the way for a future that would be marked by even a wider distribution of comfort than men saw around them. ”

“ The conditions of accumulation we have enumerated are no more than those without which there can be no accumulation. There may even be a desire to accumulate in both departments, yet the desire to accumulate plus the technical prerequisites of accumulation is not enough in a capitalist economy of commodity production. A further condition is required to ensure that accumulation can in fact proceed and production expand: the effective demand for commodities must also increase. ”

“ Accumulation necessarily increases production and as necessarily increases consumption. Accumulation of produce, if properly selected, may always be accumulation of capital, and it cannot fail to be worth more than it cost, estimated in corn or labour,—and this I think would be true although all our soldiers, sailors, and menial servants were employed in productive labour. ”

“ When the progress of accumulation has reduced profits either to the ultimate or to the practical minimum,—to the rate, less than which would either put a stop to the increase of capital, or send the whole of the new accumulations abroad ”

“ Nor is the realisation of the surplus value the only vital aspect of reproduction. Given that Department I has disposed of its surplus value outside, thereby starting the process of accumulation, and further, that it can expect a new increase in the demand in non-capitalist circles, these two conditions add up to only half of what is required for accumulation. There is many a slip ’twixt the cup and the lip. The second requirement of accumulation is access to material elements necessary for expanding reproduction. ”

“ Some degree of duration and a consequent susceptibility of accumulation seems to be essential to our usual conceptions of wealth, not only because produce of this kind seems to be alone capable of forming those accumulations which tend so much to facilitate future production, but because they so essentially contribute to increase that store reserved for consumption, the possession of which is certainly one of the most distinguishing marks of riches compared with poverty. ”

“ Once accumulation has been established for some time, when increasing amounts of value are thrown upon the market in every period of production, buyers for these additional values cannot fail to become a problem. ”

“ In Marx’s diagram, admittedly, accumulation, production, realisation and exchange run smoothly with clockwork precision, and no doubt this kind of ‘accumulation’ can continue ad infinitum, just as long, that is to say, as ink and paper do not run out. ”

“ But this can only be accomplished by a proper proportion of the supply to the demand, that is, by an accumulation so proportioned to the actual consumption of produce by those who can make an effectual demand for it, as to occasion the greatest permanent annual increase in the value of the materials of capital. ”

“ If the accumulation of money, or of exchangeable property, were a certain means of extending existence, it would be useless, in discussing economical questions, to fix our attention upon the more distant object—life—instead of the immediate one—money. ”

“ But all methods for the production of surplus value are at the same time methods of accumulation; and every extension of accumulation becomes again a means for the development of those methods. It follows, therefore, that in proportion as capital accumulates, the lot of the labourer, be his payment high or low, must grow worse. ”

“ Instead of waiving an answer to the problem of accumulation which refers to the production of luxuries, he pursues his opponent into this field without noticing that the ground under his feet has shifted. ”

“ The Importance of the Character of the Increases which are the Largest Sources of Accumulation.—If one has a doubt whether the large sums which enter into the capital which is steadily accumulating are saved under the influence of a desire to maintain a standard, this doubt will be removed by a consideration of the source from which great accumulations come. They come most largely from the net profits of the entrepreneur. Next to that they come from the earnings of what must be classed as labor, though much of it is labor of a special and very superior sort. ”

“ If we have succeeded in making our meaning clear, by stating a general truth, not in an abstract form, but as brought out by various instances of the modes in which it is exhibited, we shall have led the reader to the conclusion that accumulation, or capital, is absolutely essential to the profitable employment of labour; and that the greater the accumulation the greater the extent of that profitable employment. ”

“ To put it mathematically: the rate of accumulation is the independent not the dependent, variable; the rate of wages, the dependent, not the independent, variable. Thus, when the industrial cycle is in the phase of crisis, a general fall in the price of commodities is expressed, as a rise in the value of money, and, in the phase of prosperity, a general rise in the price of commodities, as a fall in the value of money. ”

“ This large capital, which had so fructified as to produce more than twenty-five millions as interest, was an accumulation, penny by penny, shilling by shilling, and pound by pound, of the savings of that class of persons who, in every country, have the greatest difficulty in accumulating. Habitual efforts of self-denial, and a rigid determination to postpone temporary gratification to permanent good, could alone have enabled these accumulators to retain so much of what they had produced beyond the amount of what they consumed. ”

“ Both traced the disturbances in the equilibrium of reproduction to accumulative tendencies denying the possibility of accumulation, with the only difference that the one recommended a damper on the productive forces as a remedy, while the other favoured their increasing employment to produce luxuries, the entire surplus value to be consumed. ”

“ With the accumulation of a given kind of highly saleable goods, in excess, by a few men in the group, in the expectation that the surplus will subsequently be used to buy other goods,—as yet perhaps not specifically determined—we have, not money, but a big step toward money. ”

“ Accumulation as a social process is accompanied by continuous changes in the relation between constant and variable capital, whereby that portion of capital which is invested in inanimate means of production continually increases as compared with that expended on wages. ”

“ The first condition of accumulation is that the capitalist must have contrived to sell his commodities, and to reconvert into capital the greater part of the money so received. In the following pages we shall assume that capital circulates in its normal way. ”

“ As the accumulation of stock is previously necessary for carrying on this great improvement in the productive powers of labor, so that accumulation naturally leads to this improvement. The person who employs his stock in maintaining labor, necessarily wishes to employ it in such a manner as to produce as great a quantity of work as possible. ”

“ To any advance in the arts of industry or the comforts of life, a rate of production exceeding the rate of consumption, with consequent accumulation of resources, or in other words, the formation of capital, is indispensable. ”

“ Capital grows in one place to a huge mass in a single hand, because it has in another place been lost by many. This is centralisation proper, as distinct from accumulation and concentration. ”

“ As a matter of fact, the methods of primitive accumulation are anything but idyllic. ”

“ That is to say, in addition to the change in value effected by the change in individual ownership, there is actual deterioration, produced by accumulation, whoever the individual may be who is responsible for that accumulation. ”

“ For any increase in the stock of capital of both departments taken together, required by technical progress and demand conditions, there is an appropriate amount of saving, and so long as the total accumulation required and total saving fit, there is no breakdown. ”

“ You appear to think, indeed you say, 'that you know no other cause for the fall of profits which generally takes place from accumulation than that the price of produce falls compared with the expense of production, or in other words, that the effective demand is diminished;' and by what follows you seem to infer that commodities will not only be relatively lower but really lower ”

“ As a second class we have the resources of which there is a continuous and transitory supply, in contrast to those of which there is a stock, in the using of which we are drawing on an original supply or the accumulation of generations. ”

“ Moreover, they are confined to definite and rather narrow limits which they cannot exceed owing to both natural and social causes. The increasing growth of variable capital which accompanies accumulation must therefore become manifest in ever greater numbers of employed labour. ”

“ Improvements in agriculture or machinery by increasing productiveness permanently increase profits (XX, cf. V and XXIII) .
To these may be added—
5. Consumption and accumulation equally promote demand, and are both of them ineradicable tendencies of our nature, the one adding to our enjoyments, the other to our power (XIX) .
6. Accumulation increases not only production, but consumption (XXI) .
7. It is worth while to establish the truth of a principle, even if we cannot establish its utility (XXI) .
In Letters XXIII to LXVIII, and in LXXVIII to LXXX, the positions are as follows:—
1. ”

“ But without these considerations, which I allude to more for their general than for their special bearing, it is evident that superior accumulations of wealth can account for greater consumption of wealth only in cases where accumulated wealth is decreasing, and that wherever the volume of accumulated wealth is maintained, and even more obviously where it is increasing, a greater consumption of wealth must imply a greater production of wealth. ”

“ In answering it I see that ability is only another name for an already accumulated wealth. If our ability to give is to be large, we must in past time, before the demand arose, have accumulated stock, in which accumulation we are likely to receive small approval from anybody. ”

“ Nothing is more common than energy in money-making, quite independent of any higher object than its accumulation. A man who devotes himself to this pursuit, body and soul, can scarcely fail to become rich. Very little brains will do; spend less than you earn; add guinea to guinea; scrape and save; and the pile of gold will gradually rise. ”

“ Their durability is the reason of the vast accumulations in existence, and this it is which makes the annual product very small in relation to the whole existing supply, and so prevents its value from conforming, except after a long term of years, to the cost of production of the annual supply. ”

“ If every hundred pounds did not produce seventy-five, he had, 109in course of time, for every such hundred, five that brought 50 per cent., and afterwards fifteen that brought 25 per cent.; so that he continued to grow rich, just as individuals and countries may in these days, if accumulation proceeds faster than profits fall. ”

“ However, if we consider a longer period, a whole cycle with its alternating phases of prosperity and depression, of boom and slump, that is if we consider reproduction at its highest and lowest volume, including the stage of suspension, we can set off boom against slump and work out an average, a mean volume of reproduction for the whole cycle. ”

“ The surplus value which has been appropriated, after it has successfully cast off its commodity-form in the market, appears as a given amount of money. This money-form is the form of its absolute value, the beginning of its career as capital. ”

“ The answer to the general question about the origin of the money for putting a certain quantity of commodities into circulation within a country will also tell us where the money for circulating the surplus value comes from. ”

“ How shall we decide how much weight should be given, in forming the index, to the stock of durable capital and how much weight to the flow of goods and services through a period of time,—the flow to individuals, which mirrors consumption? ”