Industrial Capital

Capital invested in industry, agriculture, mining, communication, and other spheres of material production, operated according to the capitalist mode of production. The essential function of industrial capital is the creation and realization of surplus-value, which determines the capitalist nature of production.

Capital must exist and develop in motion. Industrial capital goes through three stages in sequence in its continuous movement, assuming different functional forms at different stages. The first stage is the stage of purchase, in which industrial capital performs the function of money-capital. The capitalist uses capital to purchase the means of production and labor-power in the market to prepare for obtaining surplus-value. The second stage is the stage of production, in which industrial capital assumes the form of productive capital, in which the capitalist throws the means of production and labor-power purchased into the sphere of production and produces goods containing surplus-value. The third stage is the stage of sale, in which industrial capital performs the function of commodity-capital, in which the capitalist sells the commodities containing the surplus-value created by the wage-laborers and obtains more money-capital than the capital advanced, the excess being the surplus-value.

The three functional forms of industrial capital must coexist in space and succeed each other in time. The circuit of industrial capital is the unity of the circuit of money-capital, the circuit of productive capital and the circuit of commodity-capital, which governs social production as a whole. Commercial capital and loan capital, separated from the functional form of the circuit of industrial capital, are subordinate to industrial capital and participate in the distribution of surplus-value.