f profits. In whatever trade this rate indicates a higher profit, competition will cause increased investment of capital, and thereby cause a universal tendency towards the equalising of profits. Similarly no one will invest capital where he does not expect profit corresponding to this rate."
It will repay us to look more closely into this passage.
Rodbertus speaks of competition as that factor which will establish a uniform rate of profit over the field of manufacture. In what manner it will do so is only slightly indicated by him. He assumes that every rate of profit which is higher than the average level is reduced to the average by an increase of the supply of capital; and we may supplement this by saying that every lower rate of profit is raised to the average level by the flowing off of capital.
Let us continue a little farther the consideration of the process from the point at which Rodbertus breaks off. In what manner can an increased supply of capital level down the abnormally high rate of profit? Clearly in this way; that with the increased capital the production of the particular article is increased, and through the increase of supply the exchange value of the product is lowered till such time as after deducting the wages of labour, it only leaves the usual rate of profit as rent. In our above example of the shoemaking business we might evidently have pictured to ourselves the levelling down of the abnormal rate of profit of 50 per cent to the average rate of 5 per cent in the following manner. Attracted by the high rate of profit of 50 per cent, a great many persons will go into the shoemaking business. At the same time those who have been engaged in producing will extend their business. Thus the supply of shoes is increased, and their price and exchange value reduced. This process will continue till such time as the exchange value of the year's product of ten labourers in the shoemaking trade is reduced from £1000 to £550. Then the undertaker, after deducting £500 for necessary wages, has only £50 over as rent, which, distributed over a business capital of £1000, shows interest at the usual rate of 5 per cent. On reaching this point the exchange value of shoes will require to remain fixed if the profit in the shoemaking trade is not to become abnormal again, in which case a repetition of the process of levelling down would ensue.
On the same analogy, if the rate of profit in the jeweller's trade be under the average, say 2½ per cent, it will be raised to 5 per cent in this way. The profit in jewellery being so small, its manufacture will be curtailed, the supply of jewellery thereby reduced and its exchange value raised, till such time as the additional product of ten labourers in the jewellery trade reaches an exchange value of £1500. There now remain to the undertaker, after deducting £500 for necessary wages, £1000 as rent, this being interest on the business capital of £20,000 at the usual rate of 5 per cent. Thus is reached the resting-point at which the exchange value of jewellery, as in the former example the exchange value of shoes, may remain steady.
Before going farther I shall, by looking at the matter from another side, make entirely clear the important point that the levelling of abnormal profits cannot take place without a steady alteration in the exchange value of the products concerned.
If the exchange value of the products were to remain unaltered, then an insufficient rate of profit could only be raised to the normal level if the difference were made up at the cost of the labourers' necessary wages. For example, if the product of ten labourers in the jewellery manufacture retained without alteration the value of £1000, corresponding to the amount of labour expended, then evidently a levelling up of the rate of profit to 5 per cent—that is, an increase in the amount of profit from £500 to £1000—is only conceivable if the wages which the ten labourers have hitherto received were to be wholly withdrawn, and the entire product handed over to the capitalist as profit. To say nothing of the fact