pc2 [4]
as their own prerequisites, i.e., as a base presupposed for production, the following state of affairs appears to exist: In the first instance, it seems that the capitalist must possess not only a fund of raw materials and means of subsistence sufficient for the laborer to reproduce himself, to produce the necessary means of subsistence, to realize _necessary labor_; but also a fund of raw material and instruments of production, by means of which the laborer realizes his surplus labor, i.e., the capitalist's profit. Further analysis will reveal that the laborer is constantly creating a double fund for the capitalist, or in the form of capital. One part of this fund constantly fulfils the conditions of his own existence, the other part, the conditions of existence of capital. As we have seen, surplus capital -- and surplus capital in its relation to its prehistoric relation to labor -- includes the _appropriation_ of all _real, present capital_, and of each element of such capital, which is appropriated uniformly as _alien labor_ transformed into an object and appropriated by capital, without exchange, without the transfer of an equivalent for it.) This action of capital, which is independent and not established by labor, is then transferred from this history of its origin into the present, and transformed into a factor of its reality and effectiveness, of its self-creation [Selbstformation]. Finally, the eternal right of capital to the fruit of other men's labor is derived from this state of affairs, or rather what happens is, that the mode of acquisition of capital is derived from the simple and "just" laws of the exchange of equivalents. Wealth occurring in the form of money can only be realized against the objective conditions of labor, because and if these have been separated from labor itself. We have seen that money can in part be accumulated by the sheer exchange of equivalents; however, this is so insignificant a source that it is not worth mention historically -- assuming, that is, that we suppose this money to have been earned by the exchange of one's own labor. It is rather money accumulated by usury -- especially usury on landed property -- and mobile (monetary) wealth accumulated through mercantile profits, that turns into capital in the strictest sense, into industrial capital. We will have occassion to deal with both forms below -- that is, insofar as they themselves appear not as forms of capital but as prior forms of wealth which are the prerequisites for capital. As we have seen, the concept -- the origin -- of capital implies _money_ as its starting point, and therefore it implies a derivation from circulation; capital appears as the _product_ of circulation. Capital formation does not therefore arise from landed property (though it might arise from the agricultural tenant insofar as he is also a trader in farm products), nor from the gild (though this provides a possibility) but from mercantile and usurious wealth. But the merchant and usurer only encounter the conditions which permit the purchase of free labor, once free labor has been detached from the objective conditions of its existence as a result of a historical process. At this point, it also becomes possible to buy these _conditions_ themselves. Under gild conditions, for instance, mere money (unless it is the money of gild masters) cannot purchase looms in order to put men to work on them; there are regulations determining how many looms a man may employ, etc. In short, the instrument of labor is still so intimately merged with living labor, appearing as the domain of living labor, that is does not truly circulate. What enable monetary wealth to run into capital is, on the one hand, that it finds free laborers, and on the other hand, it finds means of subsistence, materials, etc., which would otherwise be in one form or another the _property_ of the now objectiveless masses, and are also _free_ and available for sale. However, the other condition of labor --