Abstract

In this chapter Otani clarifies capital’s attribute of valorisation. Capital is money that augments through two transformations: money into commodity, and commodity into money. The «riddle of capital» comes down to understanding the source of that augmentation. The increase is possible if there is a purchasable commodity with the use-value of being able to generate value through its consumption. The previous chapter indicated that the labour that forms the value of a commodity is the consumption of labour-power. And one can obtain new value by purchasing labour-power on the market and then consuming it. Human labour-power can only be purchased on a daily basis, but the quantity of value generated by daily labour exceeds the daily value of labour-power. This difference becomes the surplus-value that augments capital.