of the commodity's production while it is in the possession of the manufacturer, this surplus-value is divided among all the capitalists who are concerned in the production and circulation of the commodity, while the same remains in the circulation process. Strictly speaking, however, as has been already observed, the surplus-value is not divided among the different capitalists concerned in the production and circulation of the commodity, but among the different capitals employed in these two processes through which the life-course of each commodity runs. The distributive share of each of these capitals in the surplus-value is proportionate to its own size and the length of time it was necessarily employed in either the production or the circulation of the commodity. That is to say, the total amount of capital, measured by a given unit, say a dollar, employed during all the time, measured by a given unit, say a day, that the commodity was necessarily in the process of production and circulation, is footed up, and the amount of surplus-value contained in the commodity is divided by that total, giving a certain amount of surplus-value per unit of capital per unit of time, which we will call the rate of profit. The distributive share of each capital is, then, the product of its own size × the time it was employed × the rate of profit.
When the manufacturer sells the commodity, at its first appearance as a commodity and the first realization of its value, the price which he receives and in which the value is realized, is not its final price expressing its actual value when it is ready to perform its full social function in the hands of the consumer. It is merely an intermediate price; Marx calls it "Price of Production." This intermediary price is based on the ultimate price of the commodity to be received from the consumer in accordance with its value. It is by this expected ultimate price representing its full value that the amount of surplus-value contained in it is ascertained. When the surplus-value of the commodity is given, the Price of Production is determined by the "necessary" value contained in it plus the distributive share of
