This simplest case does not then give us Marx's law, but this other law; 'Technical improvement, supposing all the other conditions remain unchanged, causes a decrease in the _amount_ (not the _rate_) of surplus-value and of profits.' This law assumes that the 1/10 of the labourers left unemployed become entirely superfluous. These ten labourers are henceforth to be a dead weight supported by the charity of others, or to die of starvation, or to emigrate--to a new world. Let them be left to their fate. Social production will remain at its former level, thanks to the technical improvement, but accomplished without their help. This is the hypothesis; but given this hypothesis, of what importance is the law? To see this clearly it will suffice to push the hypothesis yet further, as we are entitled to do, and suppose that the technical improvements continuing, the employment gradually becomes superfluous, not only of 1/10, but of 1/4, 1/3, 1/2 of the labourers, _i.e._ that the employment of labourers tends to become = 0. In this case capitalist society as such would come entirely to an end, since the utility of labour, on which it is based, would come to an end. Where there is nothing the King loses his rights; and where labour has no utility the capitalist loses his. The ex-capitalists would have no more workmen to impoverish, but would be changed into the owners of automatic fountains of wealth; like those fortunate mortals in the fable enriched by charmed knives, by wonderful lamps, by gardens producing with instantaneous and spontaneous energy all God's gifts. In other words the law here resolves itself into a _truism_. But Marx did not think of this _truism_. He wished to determine exactly the organic law of the variations in the rate of profits. In fact--as is seen in the illustration given--he does not at all suppose that the energy of labour may become superfluous; but rather that the labourers will find fresh employment with an increase in the original fixed capital. Given technical improvement and production also will be increased; this is the second stage which he considers. The 100 labourers are still all working, the fixed capital with which they work must be increased from 500 to 700, and the total has hence become 1200. The law which he deduces, of the fall in the rate of profits (in the illustration, from 50 per cent. to 41 per cent.) is not a _truism_; on the contrary it presents itself with all the importance and originality of a scientific discovery. All den ends on seeing whether in the scientific discovery we have indeed--the truth. The crux of Marx's proof lies in the statement; that the labourers who would have had to remain unemployed, find on the contrary employment, but with a capital _increased by so much_ (= 200) over the original. Is this statement correct? On what does Marx base it?