Valorisation

The valorisation or valorization of capital is a theoretical concept created by Karl Marx in his critique of political economy. The German original term is "Verwertung" (specifically Kapitalverwertung) but this is difficult to translate, and often wrongly rendered as "realisation of capital", "creation of surplus-value" or "self-expansion of capital" or "increase in value".

In German, the general meaning of "Verwertung" is the use or application of something (an object, process or activity) so that it makes money, or generates value, with the connotation that the thing validates itself and proves its worth when it results in earnings, a yield. Thus, something is "valorized" if it has yielded its value. Similarly, Marx's specific concept refers both to the process whereby a capital value is conferred or bestowed on something, and to the increase in the value of a capital asset.

In modern translations of Marx's economic writings, such as the Penguin edition of Capital and the English Marx-Engels Collected Works, the term valorization (as in French) is preferred because it is recognized that it denotes a highly specific economic concept, i.e., a term with a technical meaning.

Note: "Valorisation" is nowadays also a term used in the vocational training community, in academia and in project management. In this sense, it refers to getting the maximum value and usefulness out of education programmes and managed projects, by generalizing what has been learnt from the specialist experiences to other, related fields. In this modern sense of the word, the European Commission defines the term as "a process of exploiting project learning and outcomes (training products and processes, methodology, course materials etc) with a view to optimising their value and impact in existing and new contexts (target groups, companies, sectors, training institutions and systems etc). This meaning is unrelated to Marx's concept, other than the reference to making the best use of an activity or getting the best value out of it for all concerned. The modern meaning relates not to capital, but to spreading the benefits of upskilling.