022-Chapter-8-Constant-Capital-and-Variable-Capital

Chapter 8: Constant Capital and Variable Capital

第8章：不变资本和可变资本

The various factors of the labour-process play different parts in forming the
value of the product.

劳动过程的不同要素在形成产品Value的过程中扮演不同的角色。

The labourer adds fresh value to the subject of his labour by expending upon it
a given amount of additional labour, no matter what the specific character and
utility of that labour may be. On the other hand, the values of the means of
production used up in the process are preserved, and present themselves afresh
as constituent parts of the value of the product; the values of the cotton and
the spindle, for instance, re-appear again in the value of the yarn. The value
of the means of production is therefore preserved, by being transferred to the
product. This transfer takes place during the conversion of those means into a
product, or in other words, during the labour-process. It is brought about by
labour; but how?

劳动者把一定量的劳动加到劳动对象上，就给劳动对象添加了新的Value。生产资料上的原有的Value，成了产品Value的组成部分。例如，纺纱消耗的棉花和纱锭的Value成为棉纱Value的一部分。生产资料的Value被转移到了产品上。这种转移是如何进行的呢？

The labourer does not perform two operations at once, one in order to add value
to the cotton, the other in order to preserve the value of the means of
production, or, what amounts to the same thing, to transfer to the yarn, to the
product, the value of the cotton on which he works, and part of the value of the
spindle with which he works. But, by the very act of adding new value, he
preserves their former values. Since, however, the addition of new value to the
subject of his labour, and the preservation of its former value, are two
entirely distinct results, produced simultaneously by the labourer, during one
operation, it is plain that this two-fold nature of the result can be explained
only by the two-fold nature of his labour; at one and the same time, it must in
one character create value, and in another character preserve or transfer value.

劳动者并不是同时劳动两次：一次将新Value添加到产品上，另一次将生产资料的Value转移到产品上。他在添加新增Value的时候，就保存了旧有Value。但是，添加新Value和保存旧Value是两码事，是一个劳动过程里包含的两件事。这只能用劳动的双重特性解释：抽象劳动创造新Value，具体劳动转移和保存旧Value。【下3段解释了这个结论。】

Now, in what manner does every labourer add new labour and consequently new
value? Evidently, only by labouring productively in a particular way; the
spinner by spinning, the weaver by weaving, the smith by forging. But, while
thus incorporating labour generally, that is value, it is by the particular form
alone of the labour, by the spinning, the weaving and the forging respectively,
that the means of production, the cotton and spindle, the yarn and loom, and the
iron and anvil become constituent elements of the product, of a new use-value.1
Each use-value disappears, but only to re-appear under a new form in a new
use-value. Now, we saw, when we were considering the process of creating value,
that, if a use-value be effectively consumed in the production of a new
use-value, the quantity of labour expended in the production of the consumed
article, forms a portion of the quantity of labour necessary to produce the new
use-value; this portion is therefore labour transferred from the means of
production to the new product. Hence, the labourer preserves the values of the
consumed means of production, or transfers them as portions of its value to the
product, not by virtue of his additional labour, abstractedly considered, but by
virtue of the particular useful character of that labour, by virtue of its
special productive form. In so far then as labour is such specific productive
activity, in so far as it is spinning, weaving, or forging, it raises, by mere
contact, the means of production from the dead, makes them living factors of the
labour-process, and combines with them to form the new products.

If the special productive labour of the workman were not spinning, he could not
convert the cotton into yarn, and therefore could not transfer the values of the
cotton and spindle to the yarn. Suppose the same workman were to change his
occupation to that of a joiner, he would still by a day’s labour add value to
the material he works upon. Consequently, we see, first, that the addition of
new value takes place not by virtue of his labour being spinning in particular,
or joinering in particular, but because it is labour in the abstract, a portion
of the total labour of society; and we see next, that the value added is of a
given definite amount, not because his labour has a special utility, but because
it is exerted for a definite time. On the one hand, then, it is by virtue of its
general character, as being expenditure of human labour-power in the abstract,
that spinning adds new value to the values of the cotton and the spindle; and on
the other hand, it is by virtue of its special character, as being a concrete,
useful process, that the same labour of spinning both transfers the values of
the means of production to the product, and preserves them in the product. Hence
at one and the same time there is produced a two-fold result.

By the simple addition of a certain quantity of labour, new value is added, and
by the quality of this added labour, the original values of the means of
production are preserved in the product. This two-fold effect, resulting from
the two-fold character of labour, may be traced in various phenomena.

由于添加了一定量的新劳动，劳动者添加了新Value。由于这个劳动的具体性质，生产资料上的旧Value被保存到了产品中。劳动的二重特性导致的这二重效果，清楚地表现在各种现象上。【恩对，非常简单……】

Let us assume, that some invention enables the spinner to spin as much cotton in
6 hours as he was able to spin before in 36 hours. His labour is now six times
as effective as it was, for the purposes of useful production. The product of 6
hours’ work has increased six-fold, from 6 lbs. to 36 lbs. But now the 36 lbs.
of cotton absorb only the same amount of labour as formerly did the 6 lbs.
One-sixth as much new labour is absorbed by each pound of cotton, and
consequently, the value added by the labour to each pound is only one-sixth of
what it formerly was. On the other hand, in the product, in the 36 lbs. of yarn,
the value transferred from the cotton is six times as great as before. By the 6
hours’ spinning, the value of the raw material preserved and transferred to the
product is six times as great as before, although the new value added by the
labour of the spinner to each pound of the very same raw material is one-sixth
what it was formerly. This shows that the two properties of labour, by virtue of
which it is enabled in one case to preserve value, and in the other to create
value, are essentially different. On the one hand, the longer the time necessary
to spin a given weight of cotton into yarn, the greater is the new value added
to the material; on the other hand, the greater the weight of the cotton spun in
a given time, the greater is the value preserved, by being transferred from it
to the product.

Let us now assume, that the productiveness of the spinner’s labour, instead of
varying, remains constant, that he therefore requires the same time as he
formerly did, to convert one pound of cotton into yarn, but that the
exchange-value of the cotton varies, either by rising to six times its former
value or falling to one-sixth of that value. In both these cases, the spinner
puts the same quantity of labour into a pound of cotton, and therefore adds as
much value, as he did before the change in the value: he also produces a given
weight of yarn in the same time as he did before. Nevertheless, the value that
he transfers from the cotton to the yarn is either one-sixth of what it was
before the variation, or, as the case may be, six times as much as before. The
same result occurs when the value of the instruments of labour rises or falls,
while their useful efficacy in the process remains unaltered.

Again, if the technical conditions of the spinning process remain unchanged, and
no change of value takes place in the means of production, the spinner continues
to consume in equal working-times equal quantities of raw material, and equal
quantities of machinery of unvarying value. The value that he preserves in the
product is directly proportional to the new value that he adds to the product.
In two weeks he incorporates twice as much labour, and therefore twice as much
value, as in one week, and during the same time he consumes twice as much
material, and wears out twice as much machinery, of double the value in each
case: he therefore preserves, in the product of two weeks, twice as much value
as in the product of one week. So long as the conditions of production remain
the same, the more value the labourer adds by fresh labour, the more value he
transfers and preserves; but he does so merely because this addition of new
value takes place under conditions that have not varied and are independent of
his own labour. Of course, it may be said in one sense, that the labourer
preserves old value always in proportion to the quantity of new value that he
adds. Whether the value of cotton rise from one shilling to two shillings, or
fall to sixpence, the workman invariably preserves in the product of one hour
only one half as much value as he preserves in two hours. In like manner, if the
productiveness of his own labour varies by rising or falling, he will in one
hour spin either more or less cotton, as the case may be, than he did before,
and will consequently preserve in the product of one hour, more or less value of
cotton; but, all the same, he will preserve by two hours’ labour twice as much
value as he will by one.

如果生产资料的Value改变了，那么同样的劳动过程保存的旧Value就随之改变，但添加的新Value却不变。如果劳动生产率改变了，那么同样的劳动过程添加的新Value就随之改变，但保存的旧Value却不变。这也说明了劳动过程转移旧Value和添加新Value是两码事。

Value exists only in articles of utility, in objects: we leave out of
consideration its purely symbolical representation by tokens. (Man himself,
viewed as the impersonation of labour-power, is a natural object, a thing,
although a living conscious thing, and labour is the manifestation of this power
residing in him.) If therefore an article loses its utility, it also loses its
value. The reason why means of production do not lose their value, at the same
time that they lose their use-value, is this: they lose in the labour-process
the original form of their use-value, only to assume in the product the form of
a new use-value. But, however important it may be to value, that it should have
some object of utility to embody itself in, yet it is a matter of complete
indifference what particular object serves this purpose; this we saw when
treating of the metamorphosis of commodities. Hence it follows that in the
labour-process the means of production transfer their value to the product only
so far as along with their use-value they lose also their exchange-value. They
give up to the product that value alone which they themselves lose as means of
production. But in this respect the material factors of the labour-process do
not all behave alike.

生产资料只有丧失旧的使用价值和交换价值，才能将旧Value转移到产品上。不同的劳动要素在劳动过程中对这个转移过程的作用方式是不同的。

The coal burnt under the boiler vanishes without leaving a trace; so, too, the
tallow with which the axles of wheels are greased. Dye stuffs and other
auxiliary substances also vanish but re-appear as properties of the product. Raw
material forms the substance of the product, but only after it has changed its
form. Hence raw material and auxiliary substances lose the characteristic form
with which they are clothed on entering the labour-process. It is otherwise with
the instruments of labour. Tools, machines, workshops, and vessels, are of use
in the labour-process, only so long as they retain their original shape, and are
ready each morning to renew the process with their shape unchanged. And just as
during their lifetime, that is to say, during the continued labour-process in
which they serve, they retain their shape independent of the product, so, too,
they do after their death. The corpses of machines, tools, workshops, &c., are
always separate and distinct from the product they helped to turn out. If we now
consider the case of any instrument of labour during the whole period of its
service, from the day of its entry into the workshop, till the day of its
banishment into the lumber room, we find that during this period its use-value
has been completely consumed, and therefore its exchange-value completely
transferred to the product. For instance, if a spinning machine lasts for 10
years, it is plain that during that working period its total value is gradually
transferred to the product of the 10 years. The lifetime of an instrument of
labour, therefore, is spent in the repetition of a greater or less number of
similar operations. Its life may be compared with that of a human being. Every
day brings a man 24 hours nearer to his grave: but how many days he has still to
travel on that road, no man can tell accurately by merely looking at him. This
difficulty, however, does not prevent life insurance offices from drawing, by
means of the theory of averages, very accurate, and at the same time very
profitable conclusions. So it is with the instruments of labour. It is known by
experience how long on the average a machine of a particular kind will last.
Suppose its use-value in the labour-process to last only six days. Then, on the
average, it loses each day one-sixth of its use-value, and therefore parts with
one-sixth of its value to the daily product. The wear and tear of all
instruments, their daily loss of use-value, and the corresponding quantity of
value they part with to the product, are accordingly calculated upon this basis.

锅炉中的煤被烧得干干净净，轴承中的润滑油也彻底消失。燃料和其他辅助材料一边消失，一边重现在产品上。原料一边改变自己的样子，一边形成产品的肉体。也就是说，原料和辅料失去了在劳动过程开始前的模样。而劳动工具却并非如此。工具、机器、厂房、容器等，只有保持原本的形态，才能在日复一日的劳动过程中发挥作用。【会计中的固定资产】生前身后，它们的肉体与它们的产品始终分离着。从它们第一天开始参与劳动过程，到最后一天报废，在这整个期间，它们的使用价值完全被消耗掉了，它们的交换价值完全转移到产品中了。例如，一台纺纱机的寿命为10年，那么，它的Value就在10年的劳动过程中转移到10年的产品上。劳动工具的一生，就耗费在这日复一日的劳动过程中。这可以和一个人类的一生比较一下。每过一天，人就距离死亡更近了24小时。谁也看不出他还能在生命旅途中游走几天。但这并不妨碍人寿保险公司根据人的平均寿命得出精确且有利的结论。劳动工具也是如此。资本家根据经验可以知道一台机器的平均寿命。假设某机器在劳动过程中能持续使用6天。那么，它平均每天失去使用价值的1/6，将自己1/6的Value转移到产品上。所有劳动工具的折旧，使用价值的丧失，相应Value的转移，都可以像这样计算。

It is thus strikingly clear, that means of production never transfer more value
to the product than they themselves lose during the labour-process by the
destruction of their own use-value. If such an instrument has no value to lose,
if, in other words, it is not the product of human labour, it transfers no value
to the product. It helps to create use-value without contributing to the
formation of exchange-value. In this class are included all means of production
supplied by Nature without human assistance, such as land, wind, water, metals
in situ, and timber in virgin forests.

很清楚的是，生产资料转移给产品的Value，不会大于它们在劳动过程中丧失的Value。如果一种生产资料没有Value，也就是说，它不是人类劳动的产品，它就不会向产品转移任何Value。它只用于创造使用价值，无法创造交换价值。所有天然存在的生产资料都是如此，例如土地、风、水、矿脉中的金属、原始森林中的树木等。

Yet another interesting phenomenon here presents itself. Suppose a machine to be
worth £1,000, and to wear out in 1,000 days. Then one thousandth part of the
value of the machine is daily transferred to the day’s product. At the same
time, though with diminishing vitality, the machine as a whole continues to take
part in the labour-process. Thus it appears, that one factor of the
labour-process, a means of production, continually enters as a whole into that
process, while it enters into the process of the formation of value by fractions
only. The difference between the two processes is here reflected in their
material factors, by the same instrument of production taking part as a whole in
the labour-process, while at the same time as an element in the formation of
value, it enters only by fractions.2

一台机器每天都全身心地进入劳动过程，但只转移一部分Value，即全部进入劳动过程，部分进入Value形成过程。此时，劳动过程与Value形成过程的区别反映在它们的物质因素上。这台机器，作为劳动过程的要素，是全部加入生产过程；作为Value形成的要素，是部分加入生产过程。

On the other hand, a means of production may take part as a whole in the
formation of value, while into the labour-process it enters only bit by bit.
Suppose that in spinning cotton, the waste for every 115 lbs. used amounts to 15
lbs., which is converted, not into yarn, but into “devil’s dust.” Now, although
this 15 lbs. of cotton never becomes a constituent element of the yarn, yet
assuming this amount of waste to be normal and inevitable under average
conditions of spinning, its value is just as surely transferred to the value of
the yarn, as is the value of the 100 lbs. that form the substance of the yarn.
The use-value of 15 lbs. of cotton must vanish into dust, before 100 lbs. of
yarn can be made. The destruction of this cotton is therefore a necessary
condition in the production of the yarn. And because it is a necessary
condition, and for no other reason, the value of that cotton is transferred to
the product. The same holds good for every kind of refuse resulting from a
labour-process, so far at least as such refuse cannot be further employed as a
means in the production of new and independent use-values. Such an employment of
refuse may be seen in the large machine works at Manchester, where mountains of
iron turnings are carted away to the foundry in the evening, in order the next
morning to re-appear in the workshops as solid masses of iron.

另一方面，有的生产资料可能全部进入Value形成过程，却部分进入劳动过程。例如在把棉花纺成棉纱的时候，每115斤棉花中有15斤没有变成棉纱，而是变成了飞花。如何损失这15斤棉花是生产过程中的正常损失【会计上的合理损耗】，那么这15斤棉花的肉体虽然没有成为棉纱的要素，但它的Value却也转移到棉纱上。劳动过程中的一切排泄物都是这样，至少在这些排泄物不能形成新的生产资料时【废物再利用】是这样。这种废物再利用的例子之一，是曼彻斯特（Manchester）的大机器工厂，被大机器像刨花一样削下的铁屑堆积成山，晚上用大车运到炼铁厂，变成铁锭再回来。

We have seen that the means of production transfer value to the new product, so
far only as during the labour-process they lose value in the shape of their old
use-value. The maximum loss of value that they can suffer in the process, is
plainly limited by the amount of the original value with which they came into
the process, or in other words, by the labour-time necessary for their
production. Therefore, the means of production can never add more value to the
product than they themselves possess independently of the process in which they
assist. However useful a given kind of raw material, or a machine, or other
means of production may be, though it may cost £150, or, say, 500 days’ labour,
yet it cannot, under any circumstances, add to the value of the product more
than £150. Its value is determined not by the labour-process into which it
enters as a means of production, but by that out of which it has issued as a
product. In the labour-process it only serves as a mere use-value, a thing with
useful properties, and could not, therefore, transfer any value to the product,
unless it possessed such value previously.3

【重复上文结论】

While productive labour is changing the means of production into constituent
elements of a new product, their value undergoes a metempsychosis. It deserts
the consumed body, to occupy the newly created one. But this transmigration
takes place, as it were, behind the back of the labourer. He is unable to add
new labour, to create new value, without at the same time preserving old values,
and this, because the labour he adds must be of a specific useful kind; and he
cannot do work of a useful kind, without employing products as the means of
production of a new product, and thereby transferring their value to the new
product. The property therefore which labour-power in action, living labour,
possesses of preserving value, at the same time that it adds it, is a gift of
Nature which costs the labourer nothing, but which is very advantageous to the
capitalist inasmuch as it preserves the existing value of his capital.4 So long
as trade is good, the capitalist is too much absorbed in money-grubbing to take
notice of this gratuitous gift of labour. A violent interruption of the
labour-process by a crisis, makes him sensitively aware of it.5

由于添加新Value而保存旧Value，是劳动的自然恩惠，这种自然恩惠不费劳动者什么，但读资本家大有好处。当生意兴隆的时候，资本家埋头赚钱，感觉不到这种自然恩惠。但当劳动过程被危机打断的时候，他就痛苦地感到这种恩惠了。【新冠危机中，生产中断，资本家的生产资料无法成为新产品，生产资料的旧Value面临损失的风险。】

As regards the means of production, what is really consumed is their use-value,
and the consumption of this use-value by labour results in the product. There is
no consumption of their value, 6and it would therefore be inaccurate to say that
it is reproduced. It is rather preserved; not by reason of any operation it
undergoes itself in the process; but because the article in which it originally
exists, vanishes, it is true, but vanishes into some other article. Hence, in
the value of the product, there is a reappearance of the value of the means of
production, but there is, strictly speaking, no reproduction of that value. That
which is produced is a new use-value in which the old exchange-value reappears.7

劳动消费了生产资料的使用价值，得到了产品。生产资料的Value则没有被消费，所以也就没有被再生产出来。生产资料的Value是被保存了，不是因为Value在劳动过程中经历了什么操作，而是因为生产资料消失并融入产品中。因此，生产资料的Value是在产品的Value中重现，而不是重新生产。被生产出来的是新的使用价值，旧的交换价值重现在这个新的使用价值上。

It is otherwise with the subjective factor of the labour-process, with
labour-power in action. While the labourer, by virtue of his labour being of a
specialised kind that has a special object, preserves and transfers to the
product the value of the means of production, he at the same time, by the mere
act of working, creates each instant an additional or new value. Suppose the
process of production to be stopped just when the workman has produced an
equivalent for the value of his own labour-power, when, for example, by six
hours’ labour, he has added a value of three shillings. This value is the
surplus, of the total value of the product, over the portion of its value that
is due to the means of production. It is the only original bit of value formed
during this process, the only portion of the value of the product created by
this process. Of course, we do not forget that this new value only replaces the
money advanced by the capitalist in the purchase of the labour-power, and spent
by the labourer on the necessaries of life. With regard to the money spent, the
new value is merely a reproduction; but, nevertheless, it is an actual, and not,
as in the case of the value of the means of production, only an apparent,
reproduction. The substitution of one value for another, is here effected by the
creation of new value.

而劳动过程的主观要素，即劳动力，就不是这样。劳动的每时每刻都在形成新的Value。在劳动者创造的日Value（假设是6小时劳动）恰好等于劳动力的Value时，劳动者就通过创造新Value的方法，补偿了劳动力消耗的Value。生产资料的Value是表面上看起来像是再生产出来的，劳动力的Value却是真正再生产出来的。

We know, however, from what has gone before, that the labour-process may
continue beyond the time necessary to reproduce and incorporate in the product a
mere equivalent for the value of the labour-power. Instead of the six hours that
are sufficient for the latter purpose, the process may continue for twelve
hours. The action of labour-power, therefore, not only reproduces its own value,
but produces value over and above it. This surplus-value is the difference
between the value of the product and the value of the elements consumed in the
formation of that product, in other words, of the means of production and the
labour-power.

但是劳动过程还会继续，超过6小时，达到12小时。因此，劳动力的运作，不仅产生了Value，而且产生了超额的Value。这个剩余价值就是产品Value与[生产资料+劳动力]Value的差额。

By our explanation of the different parts played by the various factors of the
labour-process in the formation of the product’s value, we have, in fact,
disclosed the characters of the different functions allotted to the different
elements of capital in the process of expanding its own value. The surplus of
the total value of the product, over the sum of the values of its constituent
factors, is the surplus of the expanded capital over the capital originally
advanced. The means of production on the one hand, labour-power on the other,
are merely the different modes of existence which the value of the original
capital assumed when from being money it was transformed into the various
factors of the labour-process. That part of capital then, which is represented
by the means of production, by the raw material, auxiliary material and the
instruments of labour does not, in the process of production, undergo any
quantitative alteration of value. I therefore call it the constant part of
capital, or, more shortly, constant capital.

综上所述，我们解释了劳动过程的不同要素在形成产品Value时的不同作用。实际上，我们就解释了资本的不同部分在资本增值时的不同作用。生产资料（原料、辅料、工具等）代表的资本，在生产过程中，不改变其Value。因此，我将其称为资本的不变部分，简称不变资本。

On the other hand, that part of capital, represented by labour-power, does, in
the process of production, undergo an alteration of value. It both reproduces
the equivalent of its own value, and also produces an excess, a surplus-value,
which may itself vary, may be more or less according to circumstances. This part
of capital is continually being transformed from a constant into a variable
magnitude. I therefore call it the variable part of capital, or, shortly,
variable capital. The same elements of capital which, from the point of view of
the labour-process, present themselves respectively as the objective and
subjective factors, as means of production and labour-power, present themselves,
from the point of view of the process of creating surplus-value, as constant and
variable capital.

劳动力代表的资本，在生产过程中，Value发生了变化。它既生产了自己Value的等价物，还额外生产了更多的Value。这个多出来的Value具体有多少，要视情况而定。这部分资本的Value在生产过程中不断地改变着，因此，我将其称为资本的可变部分，简称可变资本。资本的这两个要素，从劳动过程的角度看，是客观要素和主观要素，是生产资料和劳动力；从创造剩余价值的角度看，是不变资本和可变资本。

The definition of constant capital given above by no means excludes the
possibility of a change of value in its elements. Suppose the price of cotton to
be one day sixpence a pound, and the next day, in consequence of a failure of
the cotton crop, a shilling a pound. Each pound of the cotton bought at
sixpence, and worked up after the rise in value, transfers to the product a
value of one shilling; and the cotton already spun before the rise, and perhaps
circulating in the market as yarn, likewise transfers to the product twice its
original value. It is plain, however, that these changes of value are
independent of the increment or surplus-value added to the value of the cotton
by the spinning itself. If the old cotton had never been spun, it could, after
the rise, be resold at a shilling a pound instead of at sixpence. Further, the
fewer the processes the cotton has gone through, the more certain is this
result. We therefore find that speculators make it a rule when such sudden
changes in value occur, to speculate in that material on which the least
possible quantity of labour has been spent: to speculate, therefore, in yarn
rather than in cloth, in cotton itself, rather than in yarn. The change of value
in the case we have been considering, originates, not in the process in which
the cotton plays the part of a means of production, and in which it therefore
functions as constant capital, but in the process in which the cotton itself is
produced. The value of a commodity, it is true, is determined by the quantity of
labour contained in it, but this quantity is itself limited by social
conditions. If the time socially necessary for the production of any commodity
alters – and a given weight of cotton represents, after a bad harvest, more
labour than after a good one – all previously existing commodities of the same
class are affected, because they are, as it were, only individuals of the
species,8 and their value at any given time is measured by the labour socially
necessary, i.e., by the labour necessary for their production under the then
existing social conditions.

不变资本的定义绝不排除它的Value在生产过程之外发生变动的可能。【不变资本，是在生产过程中的Value保持不变的意思，如果由于生产率变化、自然条件变化等造成生产资料的Value改变，那不属于生产过程中的变化，而是生产过程外的变化。】

As the value of the raw material may change, so, too, may that of the
instruments of labour, of the machinery, &c., employed in the process; and
consequently that portion of the value of the product transferred to it from
them, may also change. If in consequence of a new invention, machinery of a
particular kind can be produced by a diminished expenditure of labour, the old
machinery becomes depreciated more or less, and consequently transfers so much
less value to the product. But here again, the change in value originates
outside the process in which the machine is acting as a means of production.
Once engaged in this process, the machine cannot transfer more value than it
possesses apart from the process.

原材料是如此，劳动工具也是如此。

Just as a change in the value of the means of production, even after they have
commenced to take a part in the labour-process, does not alter their character
as constant capital, so, too, a change in the proportion of constant to variable
capital does not affect the respective functions of these two kinds of capital.
The technical conditions of the labour-process may be revolutionised to such an
extent, that where formerly ten men using ten implements of small value worked
up a relatively small quantity of raw material, one man may now, with the aid of
one expensive machine, work up one hundred times as much raw material. In the
latter case we have an enormous increase in the constant capital, that is
represented by the total value of the means of production used, and at the same
time a great reduction in the variable capital, invested in labour-power. Such a
revolution, however, alters only the quantitative relation between the constant
and the variable capital, or the proportions in which the total capital is split
up into its constant and variable constituents; it has not in the least degree
affected the essential difference between the two.

生产资料的Value改变，虽然会对已经进入生产过程的生产资料产生影响，但不会改变生产资料作为不变资本的性质。同样，不变资本与可变资本的比例变化，也不影响它们在职能上的区别。