From Capital Vol 1 In chapter four Marx says that the starting point of capital is through commodies. Marx states “from the exchange of various use-values, and consider only the economic forms produced by this process of circulation, we find its final result to be money” (329). Marx explains his idea with two kinds of circulation which are C-M-C and M-C-M. C-M-C stans for commodities transformed into money. In senario the money that is obtained from the commodity s used to get another commodity. This is in terms as an exchange like if a person where to sell a shirt for $20 dollars, and then use that money to buy bread. M-C-M stands for buying in order to sell meaning that a commodity turns into money. The difference is that the end money has “surplus value (332)”. Marxis states that the final M in M-C-M' is “M'= M+Δ= the orignal sum advanced, plus increment”(332). M-C-M represent modern capitalism because the end result is money. Meaning in the end of M-C-M we exchange money for money. There is a constant cycle but the the beginning point is money, therefore in reality the M-C-M is the general formula for capital. Aristole says states that there is an opposition between this cycle. He calls the conflict between this cycle Oeconomic to Chrematistic. As stated by Aristole Oeconomic is “True wealth consist as such values in use; for the quantity of possessions of this kind, capable of making life pleasant, is not unlimited”(333). The opposition is Chrematistic where it states that that there is no limits to riches and possessions. He states that Chremastic can only be possible if there is resources, which in this case that resource is money. This allows for the capitalistic goal of boundless enrichment. In chapter six Marx writes about how money is created into capital. Marx states “Labor-power or capacity for labour is to be understood the aggregate of those mental and physical capabilities existing in the human being, which he exercises whenever he produces a use-value of any description”(336). Labor-power becomes a commodity that the individual uses to create value for a product. But the owner must have free time to create a commodity. He in turn becomes the commodity to sell their labor power. Marx then writes about that in order to make capital out of money there has to be someone interested in the commodity that a free man is selling. Marx states his idea by saying “For the conversion of his money into capital, therefore, the owner of money must meet in the market with the free laborer, free in the double sense, that as a free man he can dispose of his labor-power as his own commodity, and that on the other hand he has no other commodity for sale, is short of everything necessary for the realization of his labor-power. “(338).
This idea can be further explain by the labor theory of value stating that the price of commodity is determined by how much labor (or time) goes into its production. In doing so there can be a an abstract labor time allowing an exchange between commodities. So if the laborer wants to earn money to live he alienates himself from his means of production in order to survive. The Laborer has to sell his labor-power to someone else in order to make a profit and survive.