Competition among Capitals

Upon the theories of the processes of production, circulation and reproduction of capital in the first and the second volumes of Capital, the third volume ‘The Process of Capitalist Production as a Whole’ is designed ‘to discover and present the concrete forms which grow out of the process of capital’s movement considered as a whole’ examining step by step the forms ‘in the action of different capitals on one another, i.e. in competition’ (III, p. 117). Its first two parts investigate ‘the law that govern the general rate of profit and the so-called prices of production determined by it’, as ‘the basic law of capitalist competition’ (III, pp. 127–8). The forms of distribution of surplus-value, such as commercial profit, interest and ground-rent, which are presented in the following parts, elucidate the concrete mechanisms by which the law of capitalist competition is carried out basically gravitating around the prices of production. A controversial problem is the logical consistency between the law of value and the law that governs the prices of production. Marx clearly intended to show that the forms and the mechanisms of capitalist competition are not merely consistent with, but also essential for, the social working of the law of value. For instance, reviewing his whole analyses in the very last part of Capital, Marx has this to say;