8 - Extended Reproduction in Capital, Vol. II, Ch. 21, Section 3

Summary

In this chapter we will consider Marx's detailed discussion of extended reproduction in the case of the DI–DII model from what is in fact the last chapter of Capital, Vol. II (Ch. 21, 1974b, 493–527 [1978, 565–99]). However, as before, we are here really only concerned with a very small part of this already short chapter, namely section 3 (1974b, 510–26 [1978, 581–97]), and even then only with the second illustration of his argument (1974b, 518–26 [1978, 589–97]). This is because we will look at Marx's discussion of the precipitation of fixed capital in the first part of Vol. II, Chapter 21 (1974b, 493–509 [1978, 565–81]) in detail in the following chapter, but also because Marx makes a number of false starts in his first attempt to express the essential relations of extended reproduction, all of which were nevertheless included by Engels in Chapter 21, presumably in order to show the stages by which Marx arrived at his first successful formulation of the model for extended reproduction. In this chapter Marx is once again particularly concerned with the material form of the exchanges that take place between DI and DII, and he continues to assume a closed economy model exists and to consider the question of accumulation from the point of view of the total social capital.