Commodity-Capital

Capital in the form of commodities. It is the functional form of capital adopted in the third stage of the circuit of industrial capital, i.e., the stage of sale, and its function is to recover the value of capital advanced and to realize surplus-value through the sale of commodities and the transformation of commodities containing surplus-value into money. Commodities that contain surplus-value perform the functions of capital in the process of sale in the market, so commodity-capital is capital that exists in the form of commodities. Marx pointed out that commodities become commodity-capital as a functional form of existence—stemming directly from the process of production itself—of capital-value which has already produced surplus-value.

Since commodity-capital exists in the form of commodities, it is on the surface indistinguishable from ordinary commodities, but in terms of its form of value, commodity-capital contains, in addition to the value of the capital advanced, the newly created surplus-value of the laborer, and it is only through the stage of sale, when the commodity is transformed into money, that the value of the commodity and the surplus-value are realized. The transformation of commodities into money is decisive for the continuity of capitalist reproduction and the smooth circuit and turnover of capital. In addition, with the development of capitalism, the commodity-capital function of industrial capital became independent of commercial capital, but it is still subordinate to and serves industrial capital.