In the previous chapters of Part III of this book I have suggested that the capitalist mode of production itself is underdeveloped. What I mean by this is that the capitalist mode of production we are all familiar with today has not developed fully in the way that Marx expected that it would, but that the uninterrupted circulation of industrial capital has been undermined in its development by the continuing existence of a highly developed form of mercantile capitalism (characterized by an independent circuit of money capital) and which is erroneously called ‘finance capital’ by Rudolf Hilferding. If this is the case it seems as well to conclude this discussion by looking at what Marx had to say about the development and underdevelopment of the capitalist mode of production in Capital, Vol. I (see especially Ch. 25, section 5, entitled ‘Illustrations of the General Law of Capitalist Accumulation’, 1974a, 607–66 [1976, 802–70]), as well as what he had to say on this subject elsewhere in his writings, before we go on to look at what he has to say on the question of surplus value and profit at the beginning of Capital, Vol. I, in Part IV of this present study.