La possibilità della crisi è già nella metamorfosi della merce

“Now before we proceed further, the following must be said: The ‘possibility’ of crisis, which became apparent in the ‘simple metamorphosis’ of the commodity, is once more demonstrated, and further developed, by the disjunction between the (direct) process of production and the process of circulation. As soon as these processes do not merge smoothly into one another but become independent of one another, the crisis is there. The possibility of crisis is indicated in the metamorphosis of the commodity like this: Firstly, the commodity which actually exists as use-value, and nominally, in its price, as exchange-value, must be transformed into money. C-M. If this difficulty, the sale, is solved then the purchase, M-C, presents no difficulty, since money is directly exchangeable for everything else. The use-value of the commodity, the usefulness of the labour contained in it, must be assumed from the start, otherwise it is no commodity is equal to its social value, that is to say, that the labour-time materialised in it is equal to the socially ‘necessary’ labour-time for the production of this commodity. The possibility of a crisis, in so far as it shows itself in the simple form of metamorphosis, thus only arises from the fact that the differences in form – the phases – which it passes through in the course of its progress, are in the first place necessary correlation, they are distinct parts and forms of the process, independent of each other, diverging in time and pace, separable and separated from each other. The possibility of crisis therefore lies solely in the separation of sale from purchase.” [Karl Marx, Theories of Surplus Value] [in Karl Marx Friedrich Engels, The Marx-Engels Reader, a cura di Robert C. Tucker, 1978]