re-sale of the commodity to the retailer or consumer. This does actually happen in the usual course of business. This operation is repeated until the commodity passes the necessary stages of its circulation and reaches its social destination—the consumer—when the full surplus value contained in the commodity is realized in the purchase price paid by the consumer. This price represents the full value of the commodity, "necessary" as well as "surplus."
The rules in accordance with which the different "interests" share in the surplus-value, and in accordance with which the different prices are paid for the commodity at the successive stages of the circulation process are themselves the result of the peculiar commodity of the capitalist system, stamped upon it by the peculiar commodity which lies at its foundation—labor power. The profit-sharing of the capitalist class is therefore absolutely impersonal. It also requires absolute freedom of movement for the different elements which go into the process of production and distribution. Wherever there is no absolute freedom of movement the laws governing the division of the surplus-value among the different capitalists are interfered with arbitrarily and may even be abrogated. This is a necessary corollary to the observation already made that all the laws of value and consequently the production and realization of the surplus-value require absolute freedom of movement.
The presence in the market of the laborer offering for sale his labor power presupposes the presence in the same market of the capitalist seeking employment for his capital. Labor power as a commodity presupposes that the laborer who has this power for sale is not in possession of the tools of production necessary in order to exercise this power in the process of production. It presupposes a high state of technical development of production; such a state of development that the productivity of labor is considerably above that stage where it can merely reproduce itself; it must yield a surplus-value, and a portion of the surplus value must have been "saved" for the purpose of being
