CHAPTER IV 
The Theory of Profit 
<. THE IMPORTANCE OF THE PROBLEM OF DISTRIBUTION; FORMU- 
LATION OF THE QUESTION. 
THE CONCEPT OF CAPITAL. “CAPITAL” AND “PROFIT” IN THE 
“SOCIALIST STATE”. 
3. GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF THE CAPITALIST PRODUCTION PROC- 
ESS; THE ORIGIN OF PROFIT. 
1. The Importance of the Problem of Distribution; Formula- 
tion of the Question. 
WE may observe in any specific branch of political economy 
the peculiarity that it will be developed in a direction depend- 
ing on who it is that works the field; this is particularly true 
of the theory of distribution, and more particularly of the 
theory of profit. For this problem is too closely concerned with 
the “practice” of struggling classes; it touches their interests 
too strongly, and we shall naturally expect to find here a more 
or less crude or delicate—as the case may be—apology for the 
modern order of society, an apology which it is impossible to 
conceal. No doubt great importance must be assigned, from 
the standpoint of logic, to the question of distribution, which 
Ricardo termed one of the most essential problems of political 
economy. (David Ricardo: Principles of Political Economy 
and Taxation, Preface.) It is impossible to understand the 
laws of social evolution—as far as modern society is concerned 
— without undertaking an analysis of the process of reproduc- 
tion of social capital. One of the very first attempts to grasp 
the motion of capital—we refer to Quesnay’s famous economic 
table—necessarily devoted considerable space to the plan of 
distribution. But even aside from the problem of grasping 
the mechanism of the entire capitalist production in all its com- 
pass, in its “complete social measure”, the problem of distri- 
bution as such is of immense theoretical interest. What are 
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