In this ingenious theory there are quite a few points to make us wonder. If our commercial crises are entirely due to the fact that the workers' 'wage rate', the variable capital, represents a constantly diminishing portion of the total value of the national product, then this unfortunate law brings with it the cure for the evil it has caused, since it must be an ever smaller part of the aggregate product for which there is over-production. Although Rodbertus delights in such terms as 'an overwhelming majority', 'the large popular masses' of consumers, it is not the number of heads that make up the demand, but the value they represent which is relevant. This value, if Rodbertus is to be believed, forms a more and more trifling part of the aggregate product. Crises are thus made to rest on an ever narrowing economic basis, and all that remains to discover is how in spite of it all it can still happen that the crises are universal and increasingly severe besides, as Rodbertus is fully aware. The purchasing power lost by the working classes should be gained by the capitalist class; if _v_ decreases, _s_ must grow larger to make up for it. On this crude scheme, the purchasing power of society as a whole cannot change, as Rodbertus says in so many words: 'I know very well that what is taken from the workers' share goes ultimately to swell that of the "rentiers" (rent and surplus value are used as synonyms, _R.L._), and that purchasing power remains constant on the whole and in the long run. But as far as the product on the market is concerned, the crisis always sets in before this increase can make itself felt.'[259] In short, the most it can amount to is that there is 'too much' of 'common goods' and 'too little' of superior goods for the capitalists. Quite unawares, and by devious ways, Rodbertus here falls in with the Say-Ricardian theory he so ardently contested, the theory that over-production on one side always corresponds to under-production on the other. Seeing that the ratio of the two shares is persistently shifting to the advantage of the capitalists, our commercial crises might be expected on the whole to take on increasingly the character of periodical under- instead of over-production! Enough of this exercise in logic. The upshot of it all is that Rodbertus conceives the national product in respect of its value as made up of two parts only, of _s_ and _v_, thus wholly subscribing to the views and traditions of the classical school he is fighting tooth and nail, and even adding his own flourish that the capitalists consume the entire surplus value. That is why he repeatedly says without mincing his words, as in the fourth _Letter on Social Problems_: