taining a worker in a given society is three marks. Then the daily product of the worker is, according to the popular economist, of the value of three marks. Now let us consider that the capitalist who employs this worker takes a profit on this product and sells it for four marks. Other capitalists do the same thing. But thereupon the worker can no longer maintain himself with three marks a day, it will cost him four marks. Other conditions remaining the same, wages expressed in terms of the means of life must remain the same and wages expressed in gold will rise therefore from three to four marks daily. What the capitalists gain in the form of profit on the working class they have to return in the form of wages. So we are just where we were at the beginning. If wages signify value, no plunder of the working class by the capitalist is possible. But the creation of a surplus is impossible if, according to our hypothesis the workers consume as much as they produce. And since the capitalists produce no value it is impossible to see how they can live. And if such a surplus of production over consumption does exist, if such a production and reserve fund exists in the hands of the capitalists there is no other explanation possible than that the working class uses only enough values for its own maintenance and turns over the rest of the goods which it produces to the capitalist.
On the other hand, if this production and reserve fund actually exists in the hands of the capitalist class, if it has really come into existence through the piling up of profits, (we will leave rent out of the question for the present); it necessarily comes from the accumulated profits of the capitalist class taken from the working class over and above the sums paid by the capitalist class to the working class in the form of wages. Value
