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II. Introducing the Question of the Quantity of Money Circulating Together in Both Functions. - Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. Volume III: The Process of Capitalist Production as a Whole [1894]

Edition used:

Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. Volume III: The Process of Capitalist Production as a Whole, by Karl Marx. Ed. Federick Engels. Trans. from the 1st German edition by Ernest Untermann (Chicago: Charles H. Kerr and Co. Cooperative, 1909).

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II. Introducing the Question of the Quantity of Money Circulating Together in Both Functions.

To the extent that money circulates, either as a means of purchase or as a means of payment, no matter in which one of the two spheres and independently of its function of realising revenue or capital, the quantity of its circulating mass is regulated by the laws developed previously in the discussion of the simple circulation of commodities, Book I, Chapter III, 2 b. The degree of the velocity of circulation, in other words, the number of repetitions of the same function as means of purchase and payment by the same pieces of money in a given period of time, the mass of simultaneous purchases and sales, or payments, the sum of the prices of the circulating commodities, finally the balances of payments to be spared in the same period, determine in either case the mass of the circulating money, of currency. Whether the money so serving represents capital or revenue for the paying or receiving party, is immaterial, and does not alter the matter in any way. Its mass is simply determined by its function as a medium of purchase and payment.