governing capitalist production, and automatically. In so far, of course, as such distribution is according to rule, normal. There is always, however, the possibility of one capitalist getting the better of the other, and the individual capitalist invariably attempts to do so. Whether or not these attempts are successful makes, however, no difference in this connection, as was already shown at length above. It is the rule of capitalist society that we are concerned with. The problem that confronts us, therefore, is: how does part of the surplus value which, after its production by the workingmen, is in the possession of the manufacturer, find its way into the hands of the other members of the capitalist class?
As was already indicated above, all value, and therefore also surplus value, is not realized until the product which is the embodiment of the value reaches its ultimate destination, the consumer, who takes it out of the market, disregards its exchange-value and enjoys its use-value. Before it has reached this, its ultimate destination, a commodity, while possessing exchange value possesses it only potentially. Exchange value, not being something intrinsically inherent in the commodity, but expressing merely a social relation of production and distribution, may at any time before its final realization, when it ceases to be exchange value, be adversely affected by some social change. We have already seen that the exchange value of a thing is the amount of labor necessary for the reproduction, at the time when it is needed, that is to say, when it reaches the consumer. Before it has reached the consumer its exchange value is always liable to change. There is therefore really no telling what the surplus value contained in a commodity is until it has reached the consumer. It cannot reach the consumer, however, before it has gone through the process of circulation in which it is being bought and sold, that is, exchanged. In all these transactions its exchange value, as the same expresses itself in the price which it fetches,
