Value, Surplus Value, and Profit

Abstract

The question of the relation between value, surplus value, and profit and, specifically, of the transformation [Verwandlung] of surplus value into profit, commands Marx’s attention throughout the Grundrisse, a major undertaking which arises from

• (1) his review of the reflections on the nature of the produit net by the Physiocrats; his assessment of the propositions on value and profit of Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and Thomas Malthus; and from his critique of the ‘simplifications’ of some French economists and utopian socialists;

• (2) his desire to fit the analysis of the relation between surplus value and profit and of the declining rates of profit into his reasoning concerning the evolution of capitalism.