point at length in a preceding chapter. And this "cumbrous apparatus" is still necessary, and is still the only means of attaining this object of political economy, all the Marx-critics to the contrary notwithstanding. Neither the ordinary nor any extra-ordinary theory of cost of production even as much as attempts to solve this problem, which is the problem of political economy. The theory of cost of production, which even the "Marxist" Sombart places on a level with the Marxian theory, tells us gravely that the value of a commodity is equal to the cost of its production plus "the average rate of profit." But what is this "average rate of profit"? By what is it determined? Where do profits, whether average or non-average, come from?
In vain will the inquirer look to the theory of cost of production for an answer. But these questions are all answered by the Marxian theory, which our astute critics evidently did not begin to understand. The first volume shows the genesis and general laws of profits; the second volume shows the distribution of profits between the different capitalists, instrumental in the production and distribution of commodities, and the influence of the circulation process on profits; and the third volume shows the reciprocal influences of the different spheres of production and distribution of commodities in the whole capitalist system, and the mode of distribution of all the profits netted to the capitalist class among its different members, the formation of the average rate of profit.
By reason of the formation of an average rate of profits, the profit of the individual capitalist does not depend on the amount of surplus-value produced by his own workingmen. This, as we have seen, is the second point on which the third volume is supposed to conflict with the earlier volumes. This objection rests on the grossest misunderstanding of the first and second volumes. Marx never said, and could never have said, that every individual capitalist's profits consist of the surplus-value created by his own
