ABSTRACT

This chapter treats one of Marx’s most important theoretical contributions, a contribution frequently overlooked or not appreciated for its radical nature. As explained previously, the circuit of capital has three moments, associated with three forms of capital; money capital, productive capital and commodity capital. Marx demonstrated that this circuit is simultaneously the realization of value and the replacement of use value. Indeed, the reason Marx used his famous M→C→M′ representation of capital was because of the simultaneity of the movement of value and use value. Their interaction and the contradiction between the circulation of value and the circulation of use values proves to be the source of crises.