Profit

Profit is the transmuted form of surplus-value. As Marx said, in its capacity of offspring of the aggregate advanced capital, surplus-value takes the transmuted form of profit. In the process of capitalist production, there is not any essential difference between the constant capital used for the means of production and the variable capital used for the purchase of labor-power in the capital advanced in the eyes of the capitalist; both are regarded by him as the cost-price of the produced commodities, and both are capable of bringing him surplus-value. Thus, for the capitalist, the three component parts of the original value of the commodity: c + v + m becomes (c + v) + m, with (c + v) as its cost-price. if a commodity is sold at its value, a profit is realized which is equal to the excess of its value over its cost-price, and therefore equal to the entire surplus-value incorporated in the value of the commodity.

When surplus-value is no longer seen as the product of variable capital, but as valorization of the aggregate capital advanced, surplus-value is transformed into the form of profit, which conceals the exploitation of wage-labor by capitalists in the process of capitalist production, resulting in surplus-value being a product of the aggregate capital advanced. Hence, although surplus-value and profit come from the same source, are produced by the surplus-labor of the wage-laborer and are equal in quantity, they reflect different economic relations. Surplus-value is relative to variable capital, while profit is relative to the aggregate capital advanced. Thus, once surplus-value is transformed profit, the real source of surplus-value is concealed.