For as soon as C' has been sold, been converted into money, it
 can be reconverted into the real factors of the labour process, and thus
 of the reproductive process. Whether C' is bought by the ultimate consumer
 or by a merchant for resale does not affect the case. The quantity of commodities
 created in masses by capitalist production depends on the scale of production
 and on the need for constantly expanding this production, and not on a
 predestined circle of supply and demand, on wants that have to be satisfied.
 Mass production can have no other direct buyer, apart from other industrial
 capitalists, than the wholesaler. Within certain limits, the process of
 reproduction may take place on the same or on an increased scale even when
 the commodities expelled from it did not really enter individual or productive
 consumption. The consumption of commodities is not included in the circuit
 of the capital from which they originated. For instance, as soon as the
 yarn is sold the circuit of the capital value represented by the yarn may
 begin anew, regardless of what may next become of the sold yarn. So long
 as the product is sold, everything is taking its regular course from the
 standpoint of the capitalist producer. The circuit of capital-value he
 is identified with is not interrupted. And if this process is expanded
 — which includes increased productive consumption of the means of production
 — this reproduction of capital may be accompanied by increased individual
 consumption (hence demand) on the part of the labourers, since this process
 is initiated and effected by productive consumption. Thus the production
 of surplus-value, and with it the individual consumption of the capitalist,
 may increase, the entire process of reproduction may be in a flourishing
 condition, and yet a large part of the commodities may have entered into
 consumption only apparently, while in reality they may still remain unsold
 in the hands of dealers, may in fact still be lying in the market. Now
 one stream of commodities follows another, and finally it is discovered
 that the previous streams had been absorbed only apparently by consumption.
 The commodity-capitals compete with one another for a place in the market.
 Late-comers, to sell at all, sell at lower prices. The former streams have
 not yet been disposed of when payment for them falls due. Their owners
 must declare their insolvency or sell at any price to meet their
 obligations. This sale has nothing whatever to do with the actual state
 of the demand. It only concerns the demand for payment, the pressing
 necessity of transforming commodities into money. Then a crisis breaks
 out. It becomes visible not in the direct decrease of consumer demand,
 the demand for individual consumption, but in the decrease of exchanges
 of capital for capital, of the reproductive process of capital.