Similarly, if we consider _v + s_, these two amounts taken together, we see that they represent objective quantities of universal validity: the total of living labour that has been performed within a society in the course of one year. Every human society, whatever its historical form, must take note of this datum, with reference to both the results that have been achieved, and the existing and available labour power. The division into _v + s_ is a universal phenomenon, independent of the society's particular historical form. In its capitalist form, this division shows itself not only in the qualitative peculiarities of both _v_ and _s_ as already outlined, but also in their quantitative relationship: _v_ tends to become depressed to a minimum level, just sufficient for the physiological and social existence of the worker, and _s_ tends to increase continually at the cost of, and relative to, _v_. The predominant feature of capitalist production is expressed in this last circumstance: it is the fact that the creation and appropriation of surplus value is the real purpose of, and the incentive to, production. We have examined the relations upon which the capitalist formula of the aggregate product is based, and have found them universally valid. In every planned economy they are made the object of conscious regulation on the part of society; in a communist society by the community of workers and their democratic organs, and in a society based upon class-rule by the nucleus of owners and their despotic power. In a system of capitalist production there is no such planned regulation. The aggregate of the society's capitals and the aggregate of its commodities alike consist in reality of innumerable fragments of individual capitals and individual items of merchandise, taken together.