Trinitarian Formula (Factors of Production)
As a trinitarian formula , Karl Marx criticizes the view that social production consists of the three factors capital , land and labor , which yield profit or interest , rent and wages . The name alludes to the Christian doctrine of the Trinity of God .
Release
"The Trinitarian Formula" is the 48th chapter of the third volume of the work Das Kapital . It is the first chapter of the seventh section “The Revenues and Their Sources”.
The third volume of Das Kapital was published by Friedrich Engels in 1894 after Marx's death .
Engels compiled the 48th chapter from three fragments from Marx's manuscript for the VI. Section followed by the beginning of the manuscript for chapter 48. The first of the three fragments is partly illegible; the second breaks off unfinished.
A folio sheet is missing from the manuscript of chapter 48 ; it also breaks off unfinished.
content
Marx writes:
“Capital - profit (entrepreneurial profit plus interest), land - rent, work - wages, this is the trinitarian form that understands all the secrets of the social production process.
Since, furthermore, as shown earlier, interest appears as the actual, characteristic product of capital and entrepreneurial profit, in contrast, as wages independent of capital, that trinitarian form is reduced more closely to these:
capital - interest, land - rent, labor - wages where profit, the form of surplus value that specifically characterizes the capitalist mode of production , is happily eliminated. "
According to Marx, this is a common view of vulgar economics that reflects the common sense of the agents of production, but does not provide an actual understanding of capitalist economics. Towards the end of the manuscript he writes:
“Capital - profit, or even better capital - interest, land - rent, labor - wages, in this economic trinity as the connection between the components of value and wealth in general with its sources is the mystification of the capitalist mode of production, the reification of social relations , the immediate convergence of the material relations of production with their historical-social determinacy is completed: the enchanted, perverted and upside-down world, where Monsieur le Capital and Madame la Terre haunt their spirits as social characters and at the same time as mere things. It is the great merit of classical economics to have dissolved this false appearance and deceit, this independence and ossification of the various social elements of wealth against each other, this personification of things and objectification of the relations of production, this religion of everyday life by dissolving the interest on one Part of the profit and the rent reduced to the surplus over the average profit, so that both coincide in the surplus value; in that it depicts the process of circulation as a mere metamorphosis of forms and, finally, in the immediate process of production, it reduces the value and surplus value of goods to labor. Nevertheless, even the best of their spokesmen, as it is not otherwise possible from the bourgeois standpoint, remain more or less caught up in the world of appearances, which they critically resolve, and therefore all more or less fall into inconsistencies, half-measures and unresolved contradictions. On the other hand, it is just as natural, on the other hand, that the real agents of production feel completely at home in these alienated and irrational forms of capital - interest, land - rent, work - wages, because it is precisely the forms of appearance in which they move and what they have to do with every day. It is therefore just as natural that vulgar economics, which is nothing but a didactic, more or less doctrinal translation of the everyday ideas of the real agents of production and brings under them a certain reasonable order, precisely in this trinity, in which the whole inner connection is obliterated finds natural and beyond all doubt the basis of their shallow self-importance. At the same time, this formula corresponds to the interests of the ruling classes by proclaiming the natural necessity and eternal justification of their sources of income and elevating them to a dogma. "
In contrast to classical economics, Marx wants to completely dissolve this mystification by initially disregarding its concrete form. He would like to represent the internal organization of the capitalist mode of production as “objectifying the relations of production and making them independent from the agents of production” “in its ideal average, so to speak”.
If one takes a closer look at this economic trinity, one finds that "the alleged sources of the annual disposable wealth belong to very disparate spheres and have not the slightest analogy to one another. They behave like notary fees, beets and music."
reception
In Jan Rehmann's interpretation of Marx's criticism of ideology , the combination of reification and mystification, as expressed in the Trinitarian formula, among other things, shows that for Marx in his analysis of fetishism the phenomena of reification, hypocrisy and voluntary subordination are not only connected, but directly in that material dispositive of bourgeois dominance are inscribed.
In contrast to this, Dieter Wolf, in agreement with Moishe Postone , emphasizes that social work as an economic social totality is the content of the entire work capital , "from the value of simple goods to the Trinitarian formula at the end of the third volume".
The Trinitarian formula, along with other examples such as the commodity fetish, is also an indication of Marx's frequent reference to ghosts . This is seen in connection with his preference for the romantic German literature ( Adelbert von Chamisso and ETA Hoffmann ) as well as poets like William Shakespeare and Honoré de Balzac .
To this day, non-Marxist economists and sociologists differentiate between three production factors, namely capital, land and labor.
Individual evidence
- ↑ See Das Kapital, Section 7 "Revenuen and their Sources", Chapter 48 "The Trinitarian Formula", in: [1] .
- ↑ Jan Rehmann: Ideology theory ( memento of the original from February 1, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (pdf; 292 kB). In: Historical Materialism 15 (2007) 211-239
- ↑ Dieter Wolf: On the unity of natural and human history . Page 55
- ↑ Harald Bluhm , review of: Dick Howard: The Specter of Democracy . In: Marx-Engels-Jahrbuch 2005, Akademie Verlag Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-050040-08-4 , page 263
- ↑ Horst Claus Recktenwald : Dictionary of the economy. Kröner, Stuttgart 1967, p. 425; Gunter E. Zimmermann: Work . In: Bernhard Schäfers (ed.): Basic concepts of sociology . 8th edition, Leske + Budrich, Opladen 2003, p. 22; Dirk Piekenbrock: Production factors . In: Gabler Wirtschaftslexikon , accessed October 15, 2017.
literature
- Karl Marx : Das Kapital III , MEW Vol. 25, pp. 822-839