MARXIAN POLITICAL ECONOMY 53 sion of the initial value, is 'logically limitless'. To put it in another way, while SCP is limited in dynamic terms by the fact that use-values (consumption) are here the aim of social production, the GMP, based on the self-expansion of value is inherently a dynamic and self-expanding mode. Under the CMP, while M-C-M' becomes the determining circuit, the circuit G-M-C' does not by any means vanish. In particular, the vast majority of the population that needs to sell its labour-power in order to live, engages precisely in the circuit G-M-C'. They sell their labour-power (C), and with the money (M) thus obtained, they buy the necessities of life (C'). For the capitalist class, and for the dynamic of the GMP, the relevant circuit is of course M-C-NT. We may call G-M-C5, th^ circuit of commodities, and M-C-M5, the circuit of capital. Circuits of Capital M-C-M' or the expansion of initial value advanced constitutes the essence of ^he circuit of capital. The logical and historical mechanisms for effecting this essence are many. Logically, for example, the gain from M to M" can be achieved by buying a commodity cheap and selling it dear. Historically, this would correspond to trading or merchant capital. This along with usury (moneylending) in fact, is the form in which capital first presents itself historically. In usurious capital, even the burden of purchase and sale is dispensed with, and we have M-M5 instead of M-C-M5. While usurious and merchant capital are the earliest forms of appearance of capital in history they are by no means the most significant in the capitalist mode of production. Far more important for CMP is the circuit of productive (industrial) capital. This circuit involves the following stages: (a) The capitalist buys commodities with money. This can be denoted by M-C. (b) The capitalist carries out a prod'icti 'e p^oc^ss with the commodities purchased in step (a) and the end result is a different commodity C9. This step may be denoted C-P-C", P standing for the production process. (c) Finally, the capitalist sells C' on the market to recover money of value equal to M\ To carry out step (b) the capitalist does not simply buy just any set of commodities in step (a). In fact, he buys means of production (MP) and labour-power (LP). He sets the labourers he has hired to work with the means of production he has bought and produce the new commodity C'. Thus we may write the circuit of productive capital as /LP M-_G-"—~ P——C'——M' \MP It can be seen that in the course of its circuit, prcductive capital