ABSTRACT
At the beginning of the ‘Chapter on Capital’ in the Grundrisse (N 250, M 173),1 Marx defines a new, fourth determination of money, ‘money as capital’, distinguishing it from the third deter mination — ‘treasure’ or ‘money as money’ or ‘money as an end in itse lf. Then he considers the relation between value and capital as they were developed in theory and in history:
As in theory [in der Theorie] the notion [Begriff] of value precedes that of capital, but on the other hand pre-posits [voraus-setzen] a mode of production grounded on capital, for its pure development, so the same thing takes place in practice [in der Praxis] . . . The existence of value in its purity and generality pre-posits a mode of production in which the individual product has ceased to exist for the producer in general and even more for the individual labourer, and where nothing exists unless it is realized through circulation . . . This determination of value, then, pre-posits a given historic stage of the mode of social production and it is something given with that mode, hence, a historic relation.
