The Poverty of Philosophy

in contradiction with the law of the equal rate of profit the ratio of surplus value to the total capital invested. If the products of both branches of business are sold at their values, the rates of profit cannot be equal; but if the rates of profit are equal, the products of both branches of business cannot consistently be sold at their values. We have here, therefore, a contradiction, an antinomy a paradox or contradiction between two logical conclusions of two economic laws; the practical solution, according to Ricardo (Chapter I, sections 4 and 5), usually comes about in favor of the rate of profit at the expense of value.

Now, however, the Ricardian determination of value the theory that the value of a commodity is determined by the labor required for its production, despite its ominous characteristics, has a side that makes it dear and precious to the honest citizen. It appeals with irresistible force to his sense of justice. Justice and equality of rights, these are the cornerstones upon which the citizen of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries would like to erect his social edifice over the ruins of feudal injustices, inequalities, and privileges. And the determination of commodity value the worth of goods in exchange by labor, and the free exchange of the products of labor between equal commodity owners which takes place according to this measure of value, these are, as Marx has already demonstrated, the real foundations upon which the entire political, juridical, and philosophical ideology of the modern bourgeoisie has been built. Once the realization is given that labor is the measure of commodity value, the better feeling of the honest citizen must also feel deeply injured by the wickedness of a world that acknowledges this fundamental law of justice in name, but in practice seems to set it aside without hesitation at every moment. And in particular