Constant capital

Constant capital, or c, is a concept created by Karl Marx and used in Marxian political economy. It refers to one of the forms of capital invested in production, which contrasts with variable capital (v). The distinction between constant and variable refers to an aspect of the economic role of factors of production in creating a new output value.

Constant capital includes the outlay on (1) fixed assets, i.e. plant,machinery, land and buildings, (2) raw materials, and (3) certain faux frais of production (incidental expenses).

Measurement

Constant capital can be measured as a stock magnitude, i.e., the total value of means of production in use at a specific point in time. It can also be measured as a flow magnitude, i.e., the total value of raw materials and fixed means of production used up in an accounting period. Which measure is used depends on the purposes and assumptions of one's analysis, for example whether one is interested in the unit-costs of output or in the rate of return on capital invested. The flow value divided by the stock value provides a measure of the number of rotations of the stock in an accounting period.

Why "constant"?

Marx calls the constant part of the capital outlay "constant" because according to his labour theory of value, constant capital inputs - once purchased, withdrawn from the market and used to create new products - do not by themselves add new value to output, or increase in value in the production process. Instead, the value of equipment and materials being used in production is conserved and transferred to the new product by living labor.

It is true that the ruling market prices for constant capital inputs could change after they have been bought for use in production, but normally this cannot affect those inputs (having been withdrawn from the market), only the market valuation of the outputs created from those inputs.

Variable capital

Constant capital contrasts with variable capital, v, the cost incurred in hiring labor-power. Marx argues that only living labour creates new value. The higher value of output, compared to input costs, is (other things being equal) attributable to the exploitation of living labour-power only. Variable capital is "variable" because its value changes within the production process.

Criticism

Critics of Marxian value theory object that this attribution of the source of value-added to labour only is arbitrary and political, not scientific. In various ingenious thought experiments, cases are presented in which constant capital appears as the only possible source of the variability of an entrepreneur's capital. The objection cuts to the heart of the main dispute between Marx and mainstream economic theory -- their different conceptions of value.

For Marx's critics, value, if it exists at all, is a technical feature of economic calculus or is simply another word for the price of a product. For Marx, however, economic value is a social attribution, which expresses a social relation specific to certain historical conditions. Inanimate objects can only feature in value relations as tokens of prior human effort, since they are not social beings.

The fetish of capital

The fact that the productive force of labour appears within capitalism as the productive force of capital was for Marx an example of reification of the relations of production or of commodity fetishism. In other words, property (a "thing") is given human powers and characteristics which it does not truly have. The fetish of capital is broken as soon as all human labour is withdrawn; then it becomes clear that the constant part of capital produces nothing and declines in value, ultimately leaving nothing but a situation similar to a ghost town.

Critics object however that without the supply of means of production, labour also can produce nothing. That is, separated from means of production, workers are also nothing. This however raises the question of why and how workers come to be separated from the means of production which they have themselves created. For Marx at least, the answer to this question is not "technical" but purely social, i.e. a matter of property relations which provides capital and its owners with a social power over people. But ownership by itself creates no net addition to new value, other than, perhaps, profit from speculation which redistributes existing asset values and claims to them.

Different capital compositions

The ratio, c/v is one measure of the organic composition of capital. The distinction between constant and variable capital overlaps with the distinction between fixed capital and circulating capital. Constant capital has both fixed and circulating components; variable capital is exclusively a component of circulating capital. The faster the turnover of constant capital, other things being equal, the higher the rate of profit.

References

• Karl Marx, "Constant capital and variable capital", in Capital Vol. 1, Chapter 8

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch08.htm

• Karl Marx, "Fixed capital and circulating capital", in Capital Vol. 2, Chapter 8

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1885-c2/ch08.htm