he twenty
hectolitres have the same value as the fifteen in the same market
under identical conditions. In other words 20 equals 15. And this is
called political economy!

The entire development of human society from the position of savagery
began from the day when the labor of a family resulted in the
production of more than was necessity for its support, from the day
when a part of the labor was no longer expended on mere means of
living but was transformed into means of production. A surplus of
labor product over and above the cost of the maintenance of labor, and
the creation and increase of a social production and reserve fund out
of this surplus was and is the foundation of all social, political and
intellectual development. In history up to the present time this fund
has been the property of a certain superior class which has, with its
possession, also the political mastery and the spiritual supremacy.
The approaching social revolution will make this social production and
reserve fund that is the entire mass of raw material, instruments of
production, and means of life for the first time really social
property, in that it will put an end to its monopolisation by the
superior class and make it the common possession of the entire
society.

It is one of two things. Suppose value shows itself in the cost of
maintenance of the necessary labor, that is in present society in
wages. If such is the case every worker gets the value of his product
in wages and the robbery of the working class by the capitalistic
class is an impossibility. Let it be granted that the cost of
maintaining a worker in a given society is three marks. Then the daily
product of the worker is, according to the popular economist, of the
value of three marks. Now let us consider that the capitalist who
employs this worker takes a profit on this product and sells it for
four marks. Other capitalists do the same thing. But thereupon the
worker can no longer maintain himself with three marks a day, it will
cost him four marks. Other conditions remaining the same, wages
expressed in terms of the means of life must remain the same and wages
expressed in gold will rise therefore from three to four marks daily.
What the capitalists gain in the form of profit on the working class
they have to return in the form of wages. So we are just where we were
at the beginning. If wages signify value, no plunder of the working
class by the capitalist is possible. But