Just as from the point of view of the labour-process, the product of II is the result of newly functioning living labour and of the assumed means of production assigned to it, in which that labour materialises itself as in its objective conditions, so, from the point of view of the process of self-expansion, the value of the product of II, equal to 3,000, is composed of a new value (500v + 500s = 1,000) produced by the newly added one-third of the social working-day and of a constant value in which are embodied two-thirds of a past social working-day that had elapsed before the present process of production of II here under consideration. This portion of the value of the II product finds expression in a portion of the product itself. It exists in a quantity of articles of consumption worth 2,000, or two-thirds of a social working-day. This is the new use-form in which this value-portion re-appears. The exchange of part of the articles of consumption equal to 2,000 IIc for means of production of I equal to I (1,000v + l,000s) thus really represents an exchange of two-thirds of an aggregate working-day — which do not constitute any portion of this year’s labour, and elapsed before this year — for two-thirds of the working-day newly added this year. Two-thirds of this year’s social working-day could not be employed in the production of constant capital and at the same time constitute variable capital-value plus surplus-value for their own producers unless they were to be exchanged for a portion of the value of the annually consumed articles of consumption, in which are incorporated two-thirds of a working-day spent and realised before this year. It is an exchange of two-thirds of this year’s working-day for two-thirds of a working-day spent before this year, an exchange of this year’s labour-time for last year’s. This explains the riddle of how the value-product of an entire social working-day can resolve itself into variable capital-value plus surplus-value, although two-thirds of this working-day were not expended in the production of articles in which variable capital or surplus-value can be realised, but rather in the production of means of production for the replacement of the capital consumed during the year. The explanation is simply that two-thirds of the value of the product of II, in which the capitalists and labourers of I realise the variable capital-value plus surplus-value produced by them (and which constitute two-ninths of the value of the entire annual product), are, so far as their value is concerned, the product of two-thirds of a social working-day of a year prior to the current one.