The object of the law of value is to elucidate the actual exchange relations of commodities. Rudolf Hilferding More Quotes by Rudolf Hilferding More Quotes From Rudolf Hilferding The publication of the third volume of Capital has made hardly any impression upon bourgeois economic science. Rudolf Hilferding economic volume made For in the theoretical field bourgeois economics no longer engages in blithe and joyous fights. Rudolf Hilferding economics fighting fields It is obvious, moreover, that the formation of price in capitalist society must differ from the formation of price in social conditions based upon the simple production of commodities. Rudolf Hilferding price must society simple Value manifests itself as exchange value, as a quantitatively determined relationship, in virtue of the fact that one commodity can be exchanged for another. Rudolf Hilferding fact value virtue relationship Value is consequently the necessary theoretical starting point whence we can elucidate the peculiar phenomenon of prices resulting from capitalist competition. Rudolf Hilferding necessary point value competition The expansion of the market creates a need for enhanced and more regular supply, and this in turn impels commercial capital to acquire control of production as well. Rudolf Hilferding turn control need more Since, however, the reduced surplus value is to be distributed among them in like manner, the modification of their respective parts in the production of surplus value must find expression in a modification of the prices. Rudolf Hilferding value find like expression It is therefore utterly false to say that Marx revokes the law of value as far as individual commodities are concerned, and maintains it in force solely for the aggregate of these commodities. Rudolf Hilferding value say force law But whether, for example, a coat can be exchanged for twenty yards of linen cloth or for forty yards is not a matter of chance, but depends upon objective conditions, upon the amount of socially necessary labor time contained in the coat and in the linen respectively. Rudolf Hilferding chance labor matter time As soon, however, as capitalist competition has definitively established the equal rate of profit, that rate becomes the starting point for the calculations of the capitalists in the investment of capital in newly-created branches of production. Rudolf Hilferding investment profit equal competition
