Profit upon alienation: Are there two sources of profit?

Abstract Financialisation has given rise to a variety of financial profit forms that often obscure their underlying sources. This development has led a number of Marxist scholars to revisit the concept of ‘profit upon alienation’, which Marx is argued to have inherited from James Steuart, as a means of explaining profits generated in the sphere of exchange rather than in production. Yet this perspective appears to contradict Marx’s consistent assertion that all profit in a capitalist economy originates in production, while exchange merely redistributes it. This paper re-examines Marx’s interpretation of Steuart, along with Steuart’s own distinction, to clarify how the notion of profit upon alienation is understood in both. It further engages with Lapavitsas’s argument that interest derived from lending to workers for personal consumption represents a form of profit upon alienation, and argues that this claim loses relevance under financialisation, where such interest is more appropriately understood as a form of merchant profit—that is, a mere subdivision of surplus value produced in the sphere of production.