Abstract: The capitalist system of credit relations is an outright economic fraud and legalized open plunder cleverly employed by the bourgeoisie in the economic materialisirt space. It is the most peculiar I-other self-reflexive labor alienation of the capitalist mode of production, and the highest pseudo-realm of capital (interest-bearing capital) fetishism. When the industrial capitalist directly takes possession of the huge social capital not privately owned by him through virtual credit relations, he holds the huge capital power to exploit the surplus value created by the workers, and in a certain sense this socialized capital can be adapted to the requirements of socialized mass production, which provides a buffer space for the contradiction between the private appropriation of the means of production and socialized mass production. The joint-stock company created by the bourgeoisie in a credit relationship is a kind of social appropriation of the means of production in the form of virtual capital, but it foreshadows a possible transition from private ownership to “the property of associated producers, . . . direct social property”, which is the objective historical trend towards socialism.

　　From：STUDIES ON MARXISM，No.1，January 2023

　　Editor：Jian