If, then, leaving rent out of the question, we inquire in what it is that the advances of the capitalist, for purposes of production, consist, we shall find that they consist of wages of labor. A large portion of the expenditure of every capitalist consists in the direct payment of wages. What does not consist of this is composed of materials and implements, including buildings. But materials and implements are produced by labor; and as our supposed capitalist is not meant to represent a single employment, but to be a type of the productive industry of the whole country, we may suppose that he makes his own tools and raises his own materials. He does this by means of previous advances, which, again, consist wholly of wages. If we suppose him to buy the materials and tools instead of producing them, the case is not altered: he then repays to a previous producer the wages which that previous producer has paid. It is true he repays it to him with a profit; and, if he had produced the things himself, he himself must have had that profit on this part of his outlay as well as on every other part. The fact, however, remains, that in the whole process of production, beginning with the materials and tools and ending with the finished product, all the advances have consisted of nothing but wages, except that certain of the capitalists concerned have, for the sake of general convenience, had their share of profit paid to them before the operation was completed. This idea may be more clear, perhaps, if we imagine a large corporation, not only making woolen cloth, but owning sheep-ranches, where the raw materials are produced; the shops where all machinery is made; and who even produce on their own property all the food, clothing, shelter, and consumption of the laborers employed by them. A line of division may be passed through the returns in all these branches of the industry, separating what is wages from what is profit. Then it can be easily imagined that all the returns on one side, representing profits, go to capitalists, no matter whether they are thousands in number, or only one capitalist typifying the rest, or a single corporation acting for many small capitalists. § 5. The Rate of Profit depends on the Cost of Labor. It thus appears that the two elements on which, and which alone, the gains of the capitalists depend, are, first, the magnitude of the produce, in other words, the productive power of labor; and secondly, the proportion of that produce obtained by the laborers themselves; the ratio which the remuneration of the laborers bears to the amount they produce.