Only to the extent that the commodity-supply is a premise of commodity
 circulation and is itself a form necessarily arising in commodity circulation,
 only in so far as this apparent stagnation is therefore a form of the movement
 itself, just as the formation of a money-reserve is a premise of money
 circulation — only to that extent is such stagnation normal. But as soon
 as the commodities lying in the reservoirs of circulation do not make room
 for the swiftly succeeding wave of production, so that the reservoirs become
 over-stocked, the commodity-supply expands in consequence of the stagnation
 in circulation just as the hoards increase when money-circulation is clogged.
 It does not make any difference whether this jam occurs in the warehouses
 of the industrial capitalist or in the storerooms of the merchant. The
 commodity-supply is in that case not a prerequisite of uninterrupted sale,
 but a consequence of the impossibility of selling the goods. The costs
 are the same, but since they now arise purely out of the form, that is
 to say, out of the necessity of transforming the commodities into money
 and out of the difficulty of going through this metamorphosis, they do
 not enter into the values of the commodities but constitute deductions,
 losses of value in the realisation of the value. Since the normal and abnormal
 forms of the supply do not differ in form and both clog circulation, these
 phenomena may be confused and deceive the agent of production himself so
 much the more since for the producer the process of circulation of his
 capital may continue while that of his commodities which have changed hands
 and now belong to merchants may be arrested. If production and consumption
 swell, other things being equal, then the commodity-supply swells likewise.
 It is renewed and absorbed just as fast, but its size is greater. Hence
 the bulging size of the commodity-supply, for which stagnant circulation
 is responsible, may be mistaken for a symptom of the expansion of the process
 of reproduction, especially when the development of the credit-system makes
 it possible to wrap the real movement in mystery.