ABSTRACT
In the general formula of capital, M–C–M′, capital starts and finishes its process of valorisation with an act of circulation, namely M–C and C′–M′. Between the two acts the creation of surplus value as such takes place in the sphere of production. The general formula of capital is therefore made up of two types of totally different processes: the process of surplus value production by the living labour and the process of circulation of objective forms of value. By expressly recognising the opposition between labour as an activity and the objective forms under which labour circulates and realises the value it produces, Marx establishes the continuity of transition from one form of value to another as an absolute requirement of the valorisation process (1). This also holds for its maximal security and fluidity as the very object of State policies (2). Thus the process of valorisation can be reduced neither to the circuit of money-capital, nor to the circuit of productive capital, nor even to the circuit of commodity-capital (schemes of reproduction). It requires the unity of the three circuits. According to Marx none of the forms capital takes can claim to represent the capital pre-eminently, nor even money which has to be privileged only as far it represents the absolute form of value. Thus the circuit of money-capital taken in isolation illustrates in fact Mercantilist thinking which saw precious metals as constituting the exclusive form of capital (3). But the process of valorisation does not find a more adequate expression in the cycle of productive capital on which classical and neoclassical theories are based and in which money just functions as a means of exchange that guarantees the repetition of the production process (4). A close reading of Keynes’ theory of money and interest shows that the limits and ambiguities of his preference for liquidity arise precisely from his attempt to really integrate money into economic analysis within the framework set by the formula of productive capital (5).
