workingmen, or that every capitalist pockets all the surplus-value produced by his workingmen. Such a statement would be absolutely repugnant to the spirit of the Marxian doctrine as laid down in the first volume. The cardinal difference between the Marxian theory of profits and the theories which preceded it, is that according to Marx all profits of the capitalist class are derived from the process of production. It is with the exhaustive elaboration of this doctrine that the first volume is chiefly concerned, and this is supplemented in the second volume by showing the negative implied thereby,—that no profits are created in the circulation process. But Marx certainly knew that profits are made by the capitalists engaged in the circulation process. It was this very knowledge that impelled him to write so exhaustively in order to prove that while these capitalists derive their profits from the circulation process, they merely realize during this process, and by means thereof, the profits which are created in the form of surplus-values during the process of production.
Of course, this could only happen if some of the capitalists receive profits not created in the form of surplus-value by their own workingmen; nay, notwithstanding the fact that their workingmen created no surplus-value whatever, or that they employed no workingmen at all. This, again, could only happen if the capitalists engaged in the production process did not retain all the surplus-value created by their workingmen, but divided them with the capitalists engaged in the circulation process. It is with the explanation of these facts that the first and second volumes are filled. Yet, some Marx-critics evidently missed even this!
This disposes of the proposition placed first by us because of the prominence given to it by Marx-critics. How could all the surplus-value be produced in the production process of commodities and yet part of it realized in the circulation process, if goods are actually sold at their values? If the value of commodities is the point about which their prices oscillate at all stages of their existence, all the surplus-
