It Is Whimsical to Suggest that to Increase Surplus Value, the Capitalist Cuts Down That Part of Capital Which Yields Surplus Value and Replaces It By That Part of Capital Which Can Yield None

Along these lines, then, capital seeks to satisfy its insatiable lust for increased surplus value. But here we encounter the first of the two snares which, quite apart from many other besetting difficulties, in the end brought the Marxian system, on this side· at least, to irremediable confusion. The capitalist, thirsting for surplus value, introduces more and more machinery, in order thereby to cut down the time required for the worker's maintenance and so increase the number of hours available for the production of surplus value. But, as we have seen, constant capital [machinery] yields no surplus value, which can be derived only from variable capital [wages]. There is something whimsical in the suggestion that, in order to increase surplus value, the capitalist thus cuts down that part of capital which yields surplus value, replacing it by that part of capital which can yield none. The contradiction is glaring, and Marx's explanation will resolve it only for those who can humbly say: Credo quia impossibile.

--Alexander Gray, The Socialist Tradition: Moses to Lenin (London: Longmans, Green, 1946), 312.