The automatic fetish of capital: the transition from ‘money as capital’ to ‘capital as capital’ in Marx’s Manuscripts of 1864–1865

This paper provides a reconstruction of Marx’s categorial path throughout the three volumes of Capital in unfolding the capital fetish, which pervades the entire capitalist mode of production, circulation, appropriation and reproduction. Drawn on abundant textual evidence, this reconstruction shows how interest becomes the presupposition of all forms of valorisation, expressed monetarily; hence the automatic fetish that money ‘breeds’ more money. The analysis departs from the transition in Marx’s Capital from money in simple commodity circulation to the circulation of money as capital, which is widely discussed in the scholarly literature. It is argued, however, that there is another fundamental categorial transition—which, to my knowledge, has not been yet identified—from the circulation of money as capital to capital as capital that was being elaborated by Marx in the Manuscripts of 1864–5 (the draft for volume 3 of Capital). It is precisely in the circulation of capital as capital that the fetish of money capital ownership as immanently yield-bearing is introduced as a general feature. Indeed, up until today, capital investment decisions always consider an ex-ante risk-free interest rate that supposedly arises from money capital ownership per se (benchmark interest rate). The relevance of Marx’s highly complex theoretical edifice to grasp contemporary developments goes beyond the identification of interest as systemic presupposition, as it also sheds light on the further inversion that is a byproduct of the capital fetish: if present ownership of money capital implies a future inflow of more money (interest), future income flows may correspond to present capital values (capitalisation); hence the category of fictitious capital, which is crucial to capturing what today many scholars identify as a process of financialisation.