ABSTRACT
The Circuit of Capital is a conceptual tool first advanced by Marx to analyze the process of capitalist accumulation, its requirements, and potential contradictions. It is founded on consideration of the characteristic motion or metamorphoses experienced by capital value as it seeks self-expansion through the exploitation of wage-labor. Aggregate social capital is composed of myriad pulses of value traversing the circuit, so that at any given time a certain measure of value is engaged in each stage of the process. Duncan K. Foley codified the Circuit of Capital into a well-specified dynamic model of capitalist accumulation. The Circuit of Capital consists of three flows of value—capital outlays, the value of finished output, and sales—and three stocks of value—productive capital, inventories, and financial or money capital. In constructing a mathematical representation of the circuit it is easiest to make the simplifying assumption that the time lags in the circuit are simple delays.
