Note 972 — Chapter III · : MARXISM

“Our friend Money-bags … must buy his commodities at their value, must sell them at their value, and yet at the end of the process must withdraw more value from circulation than he threw into it at starting.… These are the conditions of the problem. Hic Rhodus! hic salta!” (Kapital, p. 145.) Cf. p. 215, where something is said about the different phases through which the idea of exploitation has passed.

Although Marx never says that the worker is actually robbed by the capitalist, but simply that the capitalist profits by circumstances which he is powerless to change, that has not prevented him treating the capitalist somewhat harshly and unjustly even, judging from his own point of view. He speaks of the capitalist as “a vampire which thrives upon the blood of others and becomes stouter and broader the more blood it gets.” He might have added that no blame could be attached to the vampire, seeing that it only obeyed the tendencies of its nature.