Органический состав капитала в теории Маркса

Concept created by Karl Marx

The organic composition of capital (OCC) is a concept created by Karl Marx in his theory of capitalism, which was simultaneously his critique of the political economy of his time. It is derived from his more basic concepts of 'value composition of capital' and 'technical composition of capital'. Marx defines the organic composition of capital as "the value composition of capital, in so far as it is determined by its technical composition and mirrors the changes of the latter". The 'technical composition of capital' measures the relation between the elements of constant capital (plant, equipment and materials) and variable capital (wage workers). It is 'technical' because no valuation is here involved. In contrast, the 'value composition of capital' is the ratio between the value of the elements of constant capital involved in production and the value of the labor. Marx found that the special concept of 'organic composition of capital' was sometimes useful in analysis, since it assumes that the relative values of all the elements of capital are constant.

In Book I of Capital, Marx made the simplifying assumption that all valuation was in terms of what is often called labor values (and he called 'values'). In Book III, however, he states that equilibrium values between industries could not be directly proportional to their labor content. The latter only determined equilibrium values in his pre capitalist 'Simple Commodity Production', where the producers owned their means of production and natural resources were used freely. In Book III, first he assumed that land could be used freely and showed that the equilibrium prices were his 'prices of production'. Later, when he introduced land ownership and the rent on land, the equilibrium prices were to be 'modified production prices' that took the rent of land into account. The implication of this is that the valuation used for the 'value composition of capital' had to be accordingly modified, since the labor values used throughout Book I was an expedient he used in order to not excessively complicate the communication of this theory. But Marx was not able to complete to his satisfaction Books II and III. The various distinct concepts related to the composition of capital are often used in contemporary Marxian economics as a theoretical alternative to similar neo classical concepts. The neoclassical concept most similar to the increasing organic composition of capital is capital deepening. Marx's concept of constant capital is the monetary value of the plant, equipment and materials that are tied up in the production process. And his concept of variable capital is the money value that is tied up in the payment of wages. The concept of OCC does not apply to all capital assets, only to those invested in production (i. e. it excludes assets that are in the 'sphere of consumption', such as homes). In Capital Vol. 3 Marx demonstrates that the organic composition of capital decisively influences industrial profitability. According to Marx, the OCC expresses the specific form which the capitalist mode of production gives to the relationship between means of production and labor power, determining the productivity of labor and the creation of a surplus product. This relationship has both technical and social aspects, reflecting the fact that simultaneously consumable use values and commercial exchange values are being produced. Marx argues that a rising organic composition of capital is a necessary effect of capital accumulation and competition in the sphere of production, at least in the long term. This means that the share of constant capital in the total capital outlay increases, and that labor input per product unit declines. In his discussion, Marx leaves out of account components of capital other than labour power and means of production invested in, such as the faux frais of production (incidental expenses). The full importance of the OCC emerges in chapter 8 of the third volume of Das Kapital.

The value composition of capital (VCC) is usually expressed as a ratio of constant capital to variable capital, or Other measures are also used in the Marxian literature. One is This is the ratio of constant capital to newly produced value (roughly, what modern economists call "value added"), i. e., surplus value + variable capital and close to the concept of a capital/output ratio. Less common is the measure used by Paul M. Sweezy, i. e., , the ratio of constant capital to the total capital invested. The total capital tied up by a capitalist enterprise includes more than fixed assets, materials and wages/salaries; it also includes liquid funds, reserves and other financial assets. For instance, an employer must normally reserve funds to pay for ongoing operating expenses, until these are recouped from product sales.

An empirical proxy measure for the technical composition of capital (TCC) is the average amount of fixed equipment and materials used per worker (capital intensity), or the ratio of the average amount of equipment & materials used to the total hours worked. The value composition of capital (VCC) is usually measured by summing the value of fixed capital ("Cf") and intermediate expenditures (circulating capital or "Cc") and dividing the total by the value of labour costs (V). The estimation procedure is not simple, for example because compensation of employees includes more than wages and part of the tax levy constitutes an element of surplus value. In modern national accounts, an empirical proxy of the flow of variable capital is the wage payments associated with productive activity in an accounting period, and a proxy for constant capital (flow measure) is depreciation charges + intermediate consumption; a stock measure of constant capital would be the fixed capital stock plus the average value of inventories held during the period of account (usually a year). However, because the "circulating" component of constant capital (denoted "Cc") includes purchases of external services and other operating costs, the stock of Cc is sometimes measured as the flow of intermediate consumption divided by the average inventory level. The variable capital actually tied up by an enterprise at any point in time will usually be less than the annual flow value, because wages can in part be paid out of revenues received from ongoing product sales. Thus, the capital reserves held by an enterprise for paying wages may, at any time, be only 1/10 or so of their annual flow value. The most accurate quantitative estimates for the OCC refer to the outlays in specific sectors, e. g. manufacturing.

By any of these measures, the plant and machinery intensive oil industry would have a high organic composition of capital, while labor intensive businesses such as catering would tend to have a low OCC. The OCC varies according to differences in production technology, between sectors of an economy, or according to changes in production technology over time.

The different organic compositions of capital of different branches of industry raised a problem for the classical economic schema of David Ricardo and others, who could not reconcile their labor cost theory of price with the existence of differences in the OCC between sectors. The latter imply different profit rates in different industries. Also, while market competition would establish a ruling price level for a type of output, different enterprises would use more or less labour to produce it. For these reasons, values produced and prices realised by different producers would quantitatively diverge. Marx either solved this problem with his theory of prices of production and the tendency for profitability differentials to be levelled out through competition, or he failed to solve it, according to which side of the debate over the transformation problem one finds convincing. Others see this "problem" (the development of a mathematical relationship between prices and labor values) as a false one, rejecting the idea that Marx aimed to use his labor theory value to understand relative prices. Here the argument is that he aimed to reveal only the social nature or "deep structure" of capitalist society. In a third interpretation, Marx aspired both to relate values and prices, and offer a social critique, because both of these were necessary to make his case truly convincing. Here, the separate concepts of product values and product prices are regarded as essential for a theory of market dynamics and capitalist competition; it is argued that price behaviour in aggregate cannot be understood or theorised about at all without reference to value relations, explicitly or implicitly.