ABSTRACT
The second component was the theory of value and profit. The proletariat, Marx believed, was created and used by the bourgeoisie as wage labourers but were always paid far less than the real value of what they produced. The balance of the value therefore con-stituted profit, which was used as capital to exploit more wage labour. In this self-perpetuating process it was essential to find new outlets for investment and fresh supplies of labour. When home markets became saturated because of ‘epidemics of overproduction’, capital spread to other parts of the world in the form of imperialism. At the same time, ‘unbridled competitive struggle’2 resulted in the elimination of smaller scale capitalism and the emergence of monopolies. Eventually, capitalism of all types would reach a crisis. This would coincide with the growing strength of the proletariat, which ‘becomes concentrated in greater masses’ and would seek to overcome its ‘misery, oppression, slavery, degradation, exploitation’.3
