ABSTRACT
Since the same real development (reale Entwicklung) which provided bourgeois political economy with this striking theoretical expression unfolded the real contradictions contained in it, especially the contradiction between the growing wealth of the English nation and the growing misery of the workers [ ... ] It was natural for those thinkers who rallied to the proletariat to seize on this contradiction, for which they found the theoretical ground already prepared. Labour is the sole source (Quelle) of exchange value and the only active creator (Schöpfer) of use value [ ... ] you say that capital is everything (das Capital ist alles), and the worker is nothing or a mere production cost of capital. You have refuted yourselves. Capital is nothing but defrauding of the worker. Labour is everything (Die Arbeit ist alles).1 This, in fact, is the ultimate meaning of all the writings which defend the interests of the proletariat.
