tain economic conditions; and that a capitalist may, and under certain conditions usually does, receive as profits on his capital surplus-value created by some capital other than his own. The price of production at which commodities are sold at a certain stage of their existence is always below their value; and the capitalists engaged in the circulation of commodities exclusively, the merchants, get as profits on their capitals surplus-value not produced by them but merely realized by them. The capitalists who produced this surplus-value are forced to divide up with them by the very economic conditions which permit them to retain their own proportionate share.
This principle, which we have heretofore examined with relation only to one sphere of production, must be extended to all the spheres of production wherein the law of equal return prevails. Where the law of equal return prevails in spheres of production wherein the capital employed is of different organic compositions, the prices at which the commodities are finally sold are not their actual values, but a sort of modified Prices of Production which may be either above or below their value, and which will be above their value in the branches of industry with a capital whose organic composition is above the average, and below their value in the branches of industry with a capital whose organic composition is below the average. Just as in the single commodity the surplus-value produced by one capital had to be distributed among all the capitals engaged in its production and circulation, so here the various amounts of surplus-value produced in the different spheres of production must be distributed ratably among the whole social capital or that part thereof which enters into the equalization process, that is, of those branches of industry where the law of equal return prevails. The whole social capital is regarded as one, and the whole amount of surplus-value produced in the different spheres of production is distributed ratably among the different individual capitals, by the formation of the price of production, and the goods in
