Gil
---Paul, I agree with the sense of this, subject to two caveats. The first one is for the sake of clarification: it is under the *capitalist mode of production* that merchant capital is a subsidiary element of the surplus product. Prior to this, and this is the second caveat, Marx describes merchant's capital as appropriating all of the surplus labour plus some of the workers' subsistence. Thus merchant's capital was capable of taking the "greater part" of the surplus product, all by itself.
Paul ----
No. The greater part of the surplus product was appropriated by the landowning classes.