[Chapter XXI]  Opposition to the Economists (Based on the Ricardian Theory)

||852| During the Ricardian period of political economy its antithesis, communism (Owen) and socialism (Fourier, St. Simon, the latter only in his first beginnings), [comes] also [into being].  According to our plan we are here concerned only with that opposition, which takes as its starting-point the premises of the economists.

It will be seen from the works which we quote that in fact they all derive from the Ricardian form.

1.  [The Pamphlet] “The Source and Remedy of the National Difficulties”

[a) Profit, Rent and Interest Regarded as Surplus Labour of the Workers.  The Interrelation Between the Accumulation of Capital and the so-called “Labour Fund”]

The Source and Remedy of the National Difficulties, [deduced from Principles of Political Economy, in] a Letter to Lord John Russell, London, 1821.  (anonymous).

This scarcely known pamphlet (about 40 pages) [which appeared] at a time when McCulloch, “this incredible cobbler”, began to make a stir, contains an important advance on Ricardo.  It bluntly describes surplus-value—or “profit”, as Ricardo calls it (often also “surplus produce”), or “interest”, as the author of the pamphlet terms it—as “surplus labour”, the labour which the worker performs gratis, the labour he performs over and above the quantity of labour by which the value of his labour-power is replaced, i.e., by which he produces an equivalent for his wages.  Important as it was to reduce value to labour, it was equally important [to present] surplus-value, which manifests itself in surplus product, as surplus labour.  This was in fact already stated by Adam Smith and constitutes one of the main elements in Ricardo’s argumentation.  But nowhere did he clearly express it and record it in an absolute form.

Whereas the only concern of Ricardo and others is to understand the conditions of capitalist production, and to assert them as the absolute forms of production, the pamphlet and the other works of this kind to be mentioned seize on the mysteries of capitalist production which have been brought to light in order to combat the latter from the standpoint of the industrial proletariat.

[We read in the pamphlet:]

“… whatever may be due to the capitalist” (from the viewpoint of the capitalist) “he can only receive the surplus labour of the labourer; for the labourer must live…” (The Source and Remedy of the National Difficulties, p. 23).

To be sure, these conditions of life, the minimum on which the worker can live, and consequently also the quantity of surplus labour which can be squeezed out of him, are relative magnitudes.

“… if capital does not decrease in value as it increases in amount, the capitalists will exact from the labourers the produce of every hour’s labour beyond what it is possible for the labourer to subsist on: and however horrid and disgusting it may seem, the capitalist may eventually speculate on the food that requires the least labour to produce it, and eventually say to the labourers, ‘You sha’n’t eat bread, because barley meal is cheaper; you sha’n’t eat meat, because it is possible to subsist on beet root and potatoes’.  And to this point have we come!” (loc. cit., pp. 23-24).

“… if the labourer can be brought to feed on potatoes instead of bread, it is indisputably true that more can be exacted from his labour; that is to say,[a] if when he fed on bread he was obliged to retain for the maintenance of himself and family the labour of Monday and Tuesday, he will, on potatoes, require only the half of Monday; and the remaining half of Monday and the whale of Tuesday are available either for the service of the state or the capitalist” (loc. cit., p. 26).

Here profit, etc., is reduced directly to appropriation of the labour-time for which the worker receives no equivalent.

“It is admitted that the interest paid to the capitalists, whether in the nature of rents, interests of money, or profits of trade, is paid out of the labour of others” (loc. cit., p. 23).

Rent, money interest, industrial profit, are thus merely different forms of “interest of capital”, which again is reduced to the “surplus labour of the labourer”.  This surplus labour takes the form of surplus produce.  The capitalist is the owner of the surplus labour or of the surplus produce.  The surplus produce is capital.

“Suppose … there is no surplus labour, consequently, nothing that can be allowed to accumulate as capital” (op. cit., p. 4).

And, immediately after this he says:

“… the possessors of the surplus produce, or capital…” (loc. cit., p. 4).

The author says, in a quite different sense from the whining Ricardians:

“… the natural and necessary consequence of an increased capital, [is] its decreasing value…” (op. cit., pp. 21-22).

And in reference to Ricardo:

“Why set out by telling us that no accumulation of capital will lower profits, because nothing will lower profits but increased wages, when it appears that if population does not increase with capital, wages would increase from the disproportion between capital and labour; and if population does increase, wages would increase from the difficulty of producing food” (loc. cit., p. 23, note).

||853| If the value of capital, that is, the interest of capital, i.e., the surplus labour which it commands, which it appropriates, did not decrease when the amount of capital increases, the [accumulation of] interest from interest would follow in geometrical progression, and just as, calculated in money (see Price), this presupposes an impossible accumulation (rate of accumulation), so, reduced to its real element—labour, it would swallow up not only the surplus labour, but also the necessary labour as “being due” to capital.  (We shall return to Price’s fantasy in the section on Revenue and its Sources.)

“… if it were possible to continue to increase capital and keep up the value of capital, which is proved by the interest of money continuing the same, the interest to be paid for capital would soon exceed the whole produce of labour…  capital tends in more than arithmetical progression to increase capital.  It is admitted that the interest paid to the capitalists, whether in the nature of rents, interests of money, or profits of trade, is paid out of the labour of others.  If then[b] capital go on accumulating […] the labour to be given for the use of capital must go on increasing, interest paid for capital continuing the same, till all the labour of all the labourers of the society is engrossed by the capitalist.  […] that it is[c]b […] impossible to happen; for whatever may be due to the capitalist, he can only receive the surplus labour of the labourer; for the labourer must live…” (loc. cit., p. 23).

But it is not clear to him how the value of capital decreases.  He himself says, when dealing with Ricardo, that this recurs because wages rise when capital accumulates more rapidly than the population grows, or because the value of wages (not the quantity) increases when the population grows more rapidly than capital accumulates (or even if population increases simultaneously) as a result of decreasing productivity of agriculture.  But how does he explain it?  He does not accept the latter alternative; he assumes that wages are reduced more and more to the minimum possible.  [A reduction of “interest” on capital] can only take place, he says, because the portion of capital which is exchanged for living labour declines relatively, although the worker is exploited more than, or just as much as, before.

In any case, it is a step forward that the nonsense about the geometrical progression of interest is reduced to its true sense, that is, nonsense.*

There are, by the way, according to the pamphleteer, two methods which, in spite of the growth of surplus product or surplus labour, prevent capital from being forced to give a greater share of its plunder back to the workers.

The first is the conversion of surplus product into fixed capital, which prevents the labour fund—or the part of the product consumed by the worker—from necessarily increasing with the accumulation of capital.

The second is foreign trade, which enables the capitalist to exchange the surplus product for foreign luxury articles and thus to consume it himself, In this way, even that part of the product which exists as necessaries may quite well increase without the need for it to be returned to the worker in the form of a proportionate increase in wages.

It should be noted that the first method—which is only effective for a time and then neutralises its own effect (at least as regards the fixed capital consisting of machinery, etc., which itself is used in the production of necessaries)—implies the transformation of surplus product into capital, whereas the second method implies consumption of an ever-increasing portion of the surplus product by the capitalists—increasing consumption on the part of the capitalists and not the reconversion of surplus product into capital.  If the same surplus product were to remain in the form in which it immediately exists, a greater part of it would have to be exchanged with the workers as variable capital.  The result would be an increase in wages and a reduction in the amount of absolute or relative surplus-value.  Here is the real secret of the necessity for increasing consumption by “the rich”, advocated by Malthus, in order that the part of the product which is exchanged for labour and converted into capital, should have great value, yield large profits, absorb a large amount of surplus labour.  He does not however propose that the industrial capitalists themselves should increase their consumption, but [allots] this function to landlords, sinecurists, etc., because the urge for accumulation and the urge for expenditure, if united in the same person, would play tricks on each other.  It is here also that the erroneousness of the view of Barton, Ricardo, and others stands out.  Wages are not determined by that portion of the total product that is either consumed as, or can be converted into, variable capital, but by that part of it which is actually converted into variable capital.  A part can be consumed by retainers even in its natural form, another can be consumed in the shape of luxury products by means of foreign trade, etc.

Our pamphleteer overlooks two things:

As a result of the introduction of machinery, a mass of workers is constantly being thrown out of employment, a section of the population is thus made redundant; the surplus product therefore finds fresh labour for which it can be exchanged without any increase in population and without any need to extend the absolute working-time.  Let us assume that 500 workers were employed previously, whereas now there are 300 workers, who perform relatively more surplus labour.  The other 200 can be employed by the surplus product as soon as it has increased sufficiently.  One portion of the old [variable] capital is converted into fixed capital, the other gives employment to fewer workers but extracts from them more surplus-value in relation to their number and in particular also more surplus product.  The remaining 200 are material created for the purpose of capitalising additional surplus product.

||853a| The transformation of necessaries into luxuries by means of foreign trade, as interpreted in the pamphlet, is important in itself:

1) because it puts an end to the nonsensical idea that wages depend on the amount of necessaries produced, as if these necessaries had to be consumed in this form by the producers or even by the whole body of people engaged in production, in other words that they must be transformed again into variable capital or “circulating capital”, as it is termed by Barton and Ricardo;

2) because it determines the whole social pattern of backward nations—for example, the slave-holding states in the United States of North America (see Cairnes) or Poland, etc. (as was already understood by old Büsch, unless he stole the idea from Steuart)—which are associated with a world market based on capitalist production.  No matter how large the surplus product they extract from the surplus labour of their slaves in the simple form of cotton or corn, they can adhere to this simple, undifferentiated labour because foreign trade enables them [to convert] these simple products into any kind of use-value.

The assertion that the portion of the annual product which must be expended as wages depends on the size of the circulating capital, is equal to the assertion that, when a large part of the product consists of “buildings”, houses for workers are built in large numbers relative to the size of the working population, and that consequently the workers must live in cheap and well-built houses because the supply of houses increases more quickly than the demand for them.

It is correct, on the other hand, that, if the surplus product is large and the greater part of it is to be employed as capital, then there must be an increase in the demand for labour and therefore also in that part of the surplus product which is exchanged for wages (provided large numbers of workers did not have to be thrown out of work in order to obtain a surplus product of this size).  At all events, it is not the absolute size of the surplus product (in whatever form it may exist, even that of necessaries) which necessarily requires it to be expended as variable capital and which consequently causes an increase in wages, but it is the desire to capitalise which results in a large part of the surplus product being laid out in variable capital and this would consequently make wages grow with the accumulation of capital if machinery did not constantly make [a section of] the population redundant and if an ever greater portion of capital (in particular as a result of foreign trade) were not exchanged for capital, not for labour.  The portion of surplus product which is already produced directly in a form in which it can only serve as capital, and that portion of it which acquires this form as a result of foreign trade, grow more rapidly than the portion which must be exchanged against immediate labour.

The proposition that wages depend on existing capital and that therefore a rapid accumulation of capital is the sole means by which wages are made to rise, amounts to this:

On the one hand, to a tautology, if we disregard the form in which the conditions of labour exist as capital.  How rapidly the number of workers can be increased without worsening their living conditions depends on the productivity of labour which a given number of workers perform.  The more raw materials, tools and means of subsistence they produce, the greater the means at their disposal not only to bring up their children so long as these cannot work themselves, but to realise the labour of the new, growing generation, and consequently to make the growth of production keep up with, and even outdo, the growth of population, since with the growth of the population, the [workers’] skill increases, division of labour grows, the possibility [for using] machinery grows, constant capital grows, in short, the productivity of labour grows.

While the growth of population depends on the productivity of labour, the productivity of labour depends on the growth of population.  It is a case of reciprocity.  But this, expressed in capitalist terms, signifies that the means of subsistence of the working population depend on the productivity of capital, on the largest possible portion of their product confronting them as a force which commands their labour.  Ricardo himself expresses the matter correctly—I mean the tautology—when he makes wages depend on the productivity of capital, and the latter de-pendent on the productivity of labour.[d]

That labour depends on the growth of capital signifies nothing more than, on the one hand, the tautology ||854| that the increase in the means of subsistence and the means of employment of the population depends on the productivity of the population’s own labour and, secondly, expressed in capitalist terms, that it depends on the fact that the population’s own product confronts them as alien property and that as a consequence their own productivity confronts them as the productivity of the things which they create.

In practice this means that the worker must appropriate the smallest possible part of his product in order that the largest possible part of it may confront him as capital; he must surrender as much as possible to the capitalist gratis, in order that the latter s means for purchasing his labour—with what has been taken away from the worker without compensation—may increase as much as possible.  In this case it can happen that, if the capitalist has made the worker work a great deal for nothing, he may then, in exchange for what he has received for nothing, allow the worker to do a little less work for nothing.  However, since this prevents the achievement of what is aimed at, namely, accumulation of capital as rapidly as possible, the worker must live in such circumstances that this reduction in the amount of labour he performs for nothing is in turn counteracted by a growth of the working population, either relatively as a result of the use of machinery, or absolutely as a result of early marriage.  (It is the same relationship which is derided by the Ricardians when the Malthusians preach it between landlords and capitalists.)  The workers must relinquish the largest possible part of their product to the capitalist without receiving anything in return, so as, when conditions are more favourable, to buy back with new labour a part of the product so relinquished.  However, since the conditions for the favourable change are at the same time counteracted by this favourable change, it can only be temporary and must turn again into its own opposite.

3) What applies to the transformation of necessaries into luxuries by means of foreign trade, applies in general to luxury production, whose unlimited diversification and expansion depends, however, on foreign trade.  Although the workers engaged in luxury production produce capital for their employers, their product, in the form in which it exists, cannot be transformed into capital, either constant or variable capital.

Luxury products, apart from those which are sent abroad to be exchanged for necessaries which enter into variable capital either in whole or in part, simply constitute surplus labour and [moreover] surplus labour which is immediately in the shape of surplus products which the rich consume as revenue.  But they do not represent only the surplus labour of the workers who produce them.  On the average, these perform the same surplus labour as the workers in other branches of industry.  But in the same way as one-third of the product, which contains a third of the surplus labour, can be considered as the embodiment of this surplus labour, and the remaining two-thirds as reproduction of the capital advanced, so the surplus labour of the producers of those necessaries which constitute the wages of the producers of luxuries can also be considered as the necessary labour of the work-in g class as a whole.  Their surplus labour consists 1) of that part of the necessaries which is consumed by the capitalists and their retainers; and 2) of the total amount of luxuries.  With regard to the individual capitalist or a particular branch of industry the matter appears quite different.  For the capitalist, one part of the luxuries created by him represents merely an equivalent for the capital laid out.

If too large a part of surplus labour is embodied directly in luxuries, then clearly, accumulation and the rate of reproduction will stagnate, because too small a part is reconverted into capital.  If too small a part [of surplus labour] is embodied in luxuries, then the accumulation of capital (that is, of that part of the surplus product which can in kind serve as capital again) will proceed more rapidly than increase in population, and the rate of profit will fall, unless a foreign market for necessaries exists.

[b) On the Exchange Between Capital and Revenue in the Case of Simple Reproduction and of the Accumulation of Capital]

In the exchange between capital and revenue I have regarded wages, too, as revenue and have merely examined the relationship of constant capital to revenue.  The fact that the revenue of the worker is at the same time variable capital is important only insofar as in the accumulation of capital—the formation of new capital—the surplus consisting of means of subsistence (necessaries) in the possession of the capitalist producing them can be exchanged directly for the surplus consisting of raw materials or machinery in the possession of the capitalist producing constant capital.  Here one form of revenue is exchanged for the other, ||855| and, once the exchange is effected, the revenue of A is converted into the constant capital of B and the revenue of B into the variable capital of A.

In considering this circulation, reproduction and manner of replacement of the different capitals, etc., one must first of all disregard foreign trade.

Secondly, it is necessary to distinguish between the two aspects of the phenomenon:

1) Reproduction on the existing scale,

2) Reproduction on an extended scale, or accumulation; transformation of revenue into capital.

With regard to 1.

I have shown:

That what the producers of necessaries have to replace is 1) their constant capital, 2) their variable capital.  The part of their product in excess of these two constitutes the surplus product, the material existence of surplus-value, which in its turn only represents surplus labour.

Variable capital, that part of their product which represents it, is made up of wages, the revenue of the workers.  This part already exists here in the natural form in which it serves as variable capital once again.  With this part, the equivalent reproduced by the worker, the labour of the worker is bought once again.  This is the exchange of capital for immediate labour.  The worker receives this part in the form of money with which he buys back his own product, or other products of the same category.  This is the exchange of the different portions of the variable part of capital for one another after the worker has in the form of money received an assignment to his quota.  This is exchange of one part of newly added labour for another part within the same category (necessaries).

The part of the surplus product (newly added labour) consumed by the capitalists (who produce necessaries) themselves, is either consumed by them in kind or they exchange one type of surplus product existing in consumable form against another type.  This is exchange of revenue for revenue, both of them consisting of newly added labour.

We cannot really speak of exchange between revenue and capital in the above transaction.  Capital (necessaries) is exchanged against labour (labour-power).  This is therefore not an exchange of revenue for capital.  It is true that as soon as the worker receives his wages, he consumes them.  But what he exchanges for capital is not his revenue, but his labour.

The third part [of the product of the producer of necessaries which constitutes] constant capital is exchanged for a part of the product of those manufacturers who produce constant capital; namely, for that part which represents newly added labour.  This consists of an equivalent for the wages (that is, of variable capital) and of the surplus product, the surplus-value, the revenue of the capitalists which exists in a form in which it can only be consumed industrially and not individually.  On the one hand, this is therefore exchange of the variable capital of these producers for a part of the necessaries which constitute the constant capital [of the producers of necessaries].  In fact they exchange a part of their product which constitutes variable capital but exists in the form of constant capital, for a part of the product of those manufacturers who produce necessaries, a part which constitutes constant capital but exists in the form of variable capital.  Here newly added labour is exchanged for constant capital.

On the other hand, that part of the product which represents surplus product but exists in the form of constant capital is exchanged for a portion of necessaries which represents constant capital for its producers.  Here revenue is exchanged for capital.  The revenue of the capitalists who produce constant capital is exchanged for necessaries and replaces the constant capital of the capitalists who produce necessaries.

Finally, a part of the product of the capitalists who produce constant capital, namely, that part which itself represents constant capital, is replaced partly in kind, partly through barter (concealed by money) between the producers of constant capital.

It is assumed in all this that the scale of reproduction is the same as the original scale of production.

If we enquire what part of the total annual product is made up of newly added labour, then the calculation is quite simple.

A.  Consumable articles [for individual consumption.  These] consist of three parts.  [Firstly,] the revenue of the capitalist which equals the surplus labour added during the year.

Secondly, wages, i.e., variable capital, which is equal to the newly added labour by which the workers have reproduced their wages.

Finally, the third part, raw materials, machinery, etc.  This is constant capital, that part of the value of the product which is only retained, not produced.  That is, it is not labour newly added during the course of the year.

||856| If we call constant capital [in this category] c', variable capital v', and surplus product, the revenue r', then this category consists of [c' and v'+r']:

c' (which constitutes a part of the product) is merely retained value and does not consist of newly added labour; on the other hand, v'+r' consist of labour newly added during the course of the year.

The total product [of the category A] (or its value) P^a after deduction of c', therefore, consists of newly added labour.

Thus the product of category A, namely: P^a–c', is equal to the labour newly added during the course of the year.

B.  Articles for industrial consumption.

Here also v''+r'' are made up of newly added labour.  But not c'', the constant capital which operates in this sphere.

But v''+r''=c' for which they are exchanged.  c' is transformed into variable capital and revenue for B.  On the other hand, v'' and r'' are transformed into c', into constant capital for A.

The product of the category [B, that is] P^b.  P^b–c'' is equal to the labour newly added during the course of the year.

But P^b-c''=c', for the whole product of P^b after deduction of c'', the constant capital employed in this category, is exchanged for c'.

After v''+r'' have been exchanged for c', the matter can be presented as follows:

P^a consists solely of newly added labour, the product of which is divided between profits and wages, that is, it constitutes the equivalent of necessary labour and the equivalent of surplus labour.  For the v''+r'' which now replace c' are equal to the newly added labour in category B.

Thus the whole product P^a—not only its surplus product, but also its variable capital and its constant capital—consists of the products of labour newly added during the course of the year.

On the other hand, P^b can be regarded in such a way that it does not represent any part of the newly added labour, but merely old labour which is retained, For its part c'' does not represent newly added labour.  Neither does the part c' which it has received in exchange for v''+r'', for this c' represents the constant capital laid out in A, and not newly added labour.

The whole part of the annual product which, as variable capital, constitutes the revenue of the workers and as surplus product constitutes the consumption fund of the capitalist, therefore consists of newly added labour, whereas the remaining part of the product, which represents constant capital, consists merely of old labour which has been retained and simply replaces constant capital.

Consequently, just as it is correct to say that the whole portion of the annual product which is consumed as revenue, wages and profits (together with the branches of profit, rent, interest, etc., as well as the wages of the unproductive labourers) consists of newly added labour, so it is false to assert that the total annual product resolves itself into revenue, wages and profits and thus merely into portions of newly added labour.  A part of the annual product resolves itself into constant capital, which regarded as value does not comprise newly added labour and, as regards use does not form part of either wages or profits.  Its value represents accumulated labour in the real sense of the word, and its use-value, the utilisation of this accumulated past labour.

On the other hand, it is equally correct that the labour added during the year is not represented entirely by that part of the product which constitutes wages and profits.  For these wages and profits also buy services, that is, labour which does not enter into the product of which wages and profit form [a part].  These services are labour which is used up in the consumption of the product and does not enter into its immediate production.

||857| With regard to 2.

It is a different matter with regard to accumulation, transformation of revenue into capital, reproduction on an extended scale, insofar as this latter does not simply result from more productive employment of the old capital.  Here the whole new capital consists of newly added labour, that is, of surplus labour in the form of profit, etc.  But although it is correct that here the entire element in new production arises from and consists of newly added labour—which is a part of the surplus labour of the labourers—it is wrong to assume, as the economists do, that, when it is converted into capital, it constitutes only variable capital, that is, wages.  Let us suppose for example that a part of the surplus product of the farmer is exchanged for a part of the surplus product of the machine manufacturer.  It is then possible that the latter will convert the corn into variable capital and employ more workers, directly or indirectly.  On the other hand, the farmer has converted a part of his surplus product into constant capital, and it is possible that, as a result of this conversion, he will discharge some of his old workers instead of taking on new ones.  The farmer may cultivate more land.  In this case, a part of his corn will be converted not into wages, but into constant capital, etc.

It is precisely accumulation which reveals clearly that everything—i.e., revenue, variable capital and constant capital—is nothing but appropriated alien labour; and that both the means of labour with which the worker works, and the equivalent he receives for his labour, consist of labour performed by the worker and appropriated by the capitalist, who has not given any equivalent for it.

[The same applies] even to original accumulation.  Let us assume that I have saved £500 from my wages.  In fact, therefore, this Sum represents not only accumulated labour but, in contrast to the “accumulated labour” of the capitalist, my own labour accumulated by me and for me.  I convert the £500 into capital, buy raw material, etc., and take on workers.  Profit is, say, 20 per cent, that is, £100 a year.  In five years I shall have “eaten up” my capital in the form of revenue (provided new accumulation does not continuously take place and the £100 [profit] is consumed).  In the sixth year, my capital of £500 itself consists of other people’s labour appropriated without any equivalent.  If, on the other hand, I had always accumulated half of the profit made, the process [of eating up my original capital] would have been slower, for I would not have consumed so much, and [the process of appropriating other people’s labour] more rapid.

My capital will have been almost doubled in eight years although I have consumed more than my original capital.  The capital of £972 does not contain a single farthing of paid labour or of labour for which I have returned any kind of equivalent.  I have consumed my entire original capital in the form of revenue, that is, I have received an equivalent for it, which I have consumed.  The new capital consists solely of the appropriated labour of other people.

In considering surplus-value as such, the original form of the product, hence of the surplus product, is of no consequence.  It becomes important when considering the actual process of reproduction, partly in order to understand its forms, and partly in order to grasp the influence of luxury production, etc., on reproduction.  Here is another example of how use-value as such acquires economic significance.

[c) The Merits of the Author of the pamphlet and the Theoretical Confusion of His Views.  The Importance of the Questions He Raises about the Role of Foreign Trade in Capitalist society and of “Free Time” as Real Wealth]

||858|| Now to return to our pamphlet.

“Suppose the whole labour of the country to raise just sufficient for the support of the whole population; it is evident there is no surplus labour, consequently, nothing that can be allowed to accumulate as capital.  Suppose the whole labour of the country to raise as much in one year as would maintain it two years, it is evident one year’s consumption must perish, or for one year men must cease from productive labour.  But the possessors of the surplus produce, or capital, will neither maintain the population the following year in idleness, nor allow the produce to perish; they will employ them upon something not directly and immediately productive, for instance, in the erection of machinery, etc., etc., etc.  But the third year, the whole population may again return to productive labour, and the machinery erected in the last year coming now into operation, it is evident the produce […] will be greater than the first year’s produce [… ] and[e] the produce of the machinery in addition.  […] this surplus labour must[f] perish, or be put to use as before; and this usance again adds to the productive power […] of the society […] till men must cease from productive labour for a time, or the produce of their labour must perish, This is the palpable consequence in the simplest state of society” (op. cit., pp. 4-5).

“The demand of other countries is limited, not only by our power to produce, but by their power to produce… ”

<This is the answer to Say’s assertion that we do not produce too much, but they produce too little.  Their power to produce is not necessarily equal to our power to produce.>

“For do what you will, in a series of years the whole world can take little more of us, than we take of the world […] so that all your foreign trade, of which there is so much talking, never did, never could, nor ever can, add one shilling, or one doit to the wealth of the country, as for every bale of silk, chest of tea, pipe of wine that ever was imported, something of equal value was exported; and even the profits made by our merchants in their foreign trade are paid by the consumer of the return goods here” (op. cit., pp. 17-18).

“…foreign trade is mere barter and exchange for the convenience and enjoyment of the capitalist: he has not a hundred bodies, nor a hundred legs: he cannot consume, in cloth and cotton stockings, all the cloth and cotton stockings that are manufactured; therefore they are exchanged for wines and silks; but those wines and silks represent the surplus labour of our own population, as much as the cloths and cottons, and in this way the destructive power of the capitalist list is increased beyond all bounds:—by foreign trade the capitalists contrive to outwit nature, who had put a thousand natural limits to their exactions, and to their wishes to exact; there is no limit now, either to their power, or […] desires…” (loc. cit., p. 18).

One sees that he accepts Ricardo’s teaching on foreign trade.  In Ricardo’s work its only purpose is to support his theory of value or to demonstrate that his views on foreign trade are not at variance with it.  But the pamphlet stresses that it is not only national labour, but also national surplus labour which is embodied in the outcome of foreign trade.

If surplus labour or surplus-value were represented only in the national surplus product, then the increase of value for the sake of value and therefore the exaction of surplus labour would be restricted by the limited, narrow circle of use-values in which the value of the [national] labour would be represented.  But it is foreign trade which develops its [the surplus product’s] real nature as value by developing the labour embodied in it as social labour which manifests itself in an unlimited range of different use-values, and this in fact gives meaning to abstract wealth.

“… It is the infinite variety of wants, and of the kinds of commodities” <and therefore also the infinite variety of real labour, which produces those different kinds of commodities> “necessary to their gratification, which alone renders the passion for wealth” (and hence the passion for appropriating other people’s labour) “indefinite and insatiable” (Wakefield’s edition of Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Source of the Wealth of Nations, Vol. 1, London, 1835, p. 64, note).

But it is only foreign trade, the development of the market to a world market, which causes money to develop into world money and abstract labour into social labour.  Abstract wealth, value, money, hence abstract labour, develop in the measure that concrete labour becomes a totality of different modes of labour embracing the world market.  Capitalist production rests on the value or the transformation of the labour embodied in the product into social labour.  But this is only [possible] on the basis of foreign trade and of the world market.  This is at once the pre-condition and the result of capitalist production.

||859| The pamphlet is no theoretical treatise.  [It is a] protest against the false reasons given by the economists for the distress and the “national difficulties” of the times.  It does not, consequently, make the claim that its conception of surplus-value as surplus labour carries with it a general criticism of the entire system of economic categories, nor can this be expected of it.  The author stands rather on Ricardian ground and is only consistent in stating one of the consequences inherent in the system itself and he advances it in the interests of the working class against capital.

For the rest, the author remains a captive of the economic categories as he finds them.  Just as in the case of Ricardo the confusion of surplus-value with profit leads to undesirable contradictions, so in his case the fact that he christens surplus-value the interest of capital.

To be sure, he is in advance of Ricardo in that he first of all reduces all surplus-value to surplus labour, and when he calls surplus-value interest of capital, he at the same time emphasises that by this he understands the general form of surplus labour in contrast to its special forms—rent, interest of money and industrial profit.

“…interest paid to the capitalists, whether in the nature” (it should be shape, form) “of rents, interests of money, or profits of trade” ([The Source and Remedy of the National Difficulties, London, 1821,] p. 23).

He thus distinguishes the general form of surplus labour or surplus-value from their particular forms, something which neither Ricardo nor Adam Smith [does], at least not consciously or consistently.  But on the other hand, he applies the name of one of these particular forms—interest—to the general form.  And this suffices to make him relapse into economic slang.

“The progress of […] increasing capital would, in established societies, he marked by the decreasing interest of money, or, which is the same thing,[g] the decreasing quantity of the labour of others that would be given for its use…” (op. cit., p. 6).

This passage reminds one of Carey.  But with him it is not the labourer who uses capital, but capital which uses the labourer.  Since by interest he understands surplus labour in any form, the matter of the remedy of our “national difficulties” amounts to an increase in wages; for the reduction of interest means a reduction of surplus labour.  However, what he really means is that in the exchange of capital for labour the appropriation of alien labour should be reduced or that the worker should appropriate more of his own labour and capital less.

Reduction of surplus labour can mean two things:

Less work should be performed over and above the time which is necessary to reproduce the labour-power, that is, to create an equivalent for wages;

or, less of the total quantity of labour should assume the form of surplus labour, that is, the form of time worked gratis for the capitalist; therefore less of the product in which labour manifests itself should take the form of surplus product; in other words, the worker should receive more of his own product and less of it should go to the capitalist.

The author is not quite clear about this himself, as can be seen from the following passage which is really the last word in this matter as far as the pamphlet is concerned:

A[h] nation is really rich only if no interest is paid for the use of capital; when only six hours instead of twelve hours are worked…  “Wealth […] is disposable time, and nothing more” (loc. cit., p. 6).

Since what is understood by interest here is profit, rent, interest—in short, all the forms of surplus-value—and since, according to the author himself, capital is nothing but the produce of labour, i.e., accumulated labour which is able to exact in exchange for itself not only an equal quantity of labour, but surplus labour, according to him the phrase: capital bears no interest, therefore means that capital ||860| does not exist.  The product is not transformed into capital.  No surplus product and no surplus labour exist.  Only then is a nation really rich.

This can mean however: There is no product and no labour over and above the product and the labour required for the reproduction of the workers.  Or, they [the workers] themselves appropriate this surplus either of the product or of the labour.

That the author does not simply mean the latter is, however, clear from the fact that the words “no interest is paid for the use of capital” are juxtaposed to the proposition that a nation is really rich when only six hours not twelve hours are worked[i]; “wealth […] is disposable time, and nothing more”.

This can now mean:

If everybody has to work, if the contradiction between those who have to work too much and those who are idlers disappears—and this would in any case be the result of capital ceasing to exist, of the product ceasing to provide a title to alien surplus labour—and if, in addition, the development of the productive forces brought about by capitalism is taken into account, society will produce the necessary abundance in six hours, [producing] more than it does now in twelve, and, moreover, all will have six hours of “disposable time”, that is, real wealth; time which will not be absorbed in direct productive labour, but will be available for enjoyment, for leisure, thus giving scope for free activity and development, Time is scope for the development of man’s faculties, etc.  The economists themselves justify the slave-labour of the wage-labourers by saying that it creates leisure, free time for others, for another section of society—and thereby also for the society of wage-labourers.

Or it can also mean:

The workers now work six hours more than the time (now) required for their own reproduction.  (This can hardly be the author’s view, since he describes what they use now as an in human minimum.)  If capital ceases to exist, then the workers will work for six hours only and the idlers will have to work the same amount of time.  The material wealth of all would thus be depressed to the level of the workers.  But all would have disposable time, that is, free time for their development.

The author himself is obviously not clear about this.  Nevertheless, there remains the fine statement:

A nation is really rich when six hours instead of twelve hours are worked.  “Wealth […] is disposable time, and nothing more.”

Ricardo himself, in the chapter entitled “Value and Riches, Their Distinctive Properties”, also says that real wealth consists in producing the greatest possible amount of values in use having the least possible [exchange-] value.  This means, in other words, that the greatest possible abundance of material wealth is created in the shortest possible labour-time.  Here also, the “disposable time” and the enjoyment of that which is produced in the labour-time of others, appear as the real wealth, but like everything in capitalist production—and consequently in its interpreters—it appears in the form of a contradiction.  In Ricardo’s work the contradiction between riches and value later appears in the form that the net product should be as large as possible in relation to the gross product, which again, in this contradictory form, amounts to saying that those classes in society whose time is only partly or not at all absorbed in material production although they enjoy its fruits, should be as numerous as possible in comparison with those classes whose time is totally absorbed in material production and whose consumption is, as a consequence, a mere item in production costs, a mere condition for their existence as beasts of burden.  There is always the wish that the smallest possible portion of society should be doomed to the slavery of labour, to forced labour.  This is the utmost that can be accomplished from the capitalist standpoint.

The author puts an end to this.  Labour-time, even if exchange-value is eliminated, always remains the creative substance of wealth and the measure of the cost of its production.  But free time, disposable time, is wealth itself, partly for the enjoyment of the product, partly for free activity which—unlike labour—is not dominated by the pressure of an extraneous purpose which must be fulfilled, and the fulfilment of which is regarded as a natural necessity or a social duty, according to one’s inclination.

It is self-evident that if labour-time is reduced to a normal length and, furthermore, labour is no longer performed for someone else, but for myself, and, at the same time, the social contradictions between master and men, etc., being abolished, it acquires a quite different, a free character, it becomes real social labour, and finally the basis of disposable time—the labour of a man who has also disposable time, must be of a much higher quality than that of the beast of burden.

2.  Ravenstone.  [The View of Capital as the Surplus Product of the Worker.  Confusion of the Antagonistic Form of Capitalist Development with Its Content.  This Leads to a Negative Attitude Towards the Results of the Capitalist Development of the Productive Forces]

||861| Piercy Ravenstone, M. A., Thoughts on the Funding System, and its Effects, London, 1824.

A most remarkable work.

The author of The Source and Remedy of the National Difficulties discussed above understands surplus-value in its original form, i.e., that of Surplus labour.  Consequently his attention is mainly centred on the extent of labour-time.  In particular, the conception of surplus labour or [surplus-] value in its absolute form; the extension of labour-time beyond that required for the reproduction of the labourer himself, not the reduction of necessary labour as a result of the development of the productive power of labour.

The reduction of this necessary labour is the principal aspect examined by Ricardo, but in the way it is carried out in capitalist production, namely, as a means for extending the amount of labour-time accruing to capital.  This pamphlet, on the contrary, declares that the final aim is the reduction of the producers’ labour-time and the cessation of labour for the possessor of surplus produce.

Ravenstone seems to assume the working-day as given.  Hence, what he is particularly interested in—just as was also the author of the pamphlet previously discussed, so that the theoretical questions only crop up incidentally—is relative surplus-value or the surplus product (which accrues to capital) as a result of the development of the productive power of labour.  As is usual with those who adopt this standpoint, surplus labour is conceived here more in the form of surplus product, whereas in the previous [pamphlet], surplus product is conceived more in the form of surplus labour.

“To teach that the wealth and power of a nation depend on its capital is to make industry ancillary to riches, to make men subservient to property” ([Ravenstone, Thoughts on the Funding System, and its Effects, London, 1824,] p. 7).

The opposition evoked by the Ricardian theory—on the basis of its own assumptions—has the following characteristic feature.

To the same extent as political economy developed—and this development finds its most trenchant expression in Ricardo, as far as fundamental principles are concerned—it presented labour as the sole element of value and the only creator of use-values, and the development of the productive forces as the only real means for increasing wealth; the greatest possible development of the productive power of labour as the economic basis of society.  This is, in fact, the foundation of capitalist production.  Ricardo’s work, in particular, which demonstrates that the law of value is not invalidated either by landed property or by capitalist accumulation, etc., is, in reality, only concerned with eliminating all contradictions or phenomena which appear to run counter to this conception.  But in the same measure as it is understood that labour is the sole source of exchange-value and the active source of use-value, “capital” is likewise conceived by the same economists, in particular by Ricardo (and even more by Torrens, Malthus, Bailey, and others after him), as the regulator of production, the source of wealth and the aim of production, whereas labour is regarded as wage-labour, whose representative and real instrument is inevitably a pauper (to which Malthus’s theory of population contributed), a mere production cost and instrument of production dependent on a minimum wage and forced to drop even below this minimum as soon as the existing quantity of labour is “superfluous” for capital.  In this contradiction, political economy merely expressed the essence of capitalist production or, if you like, of wage-labour, of labour alienated from itself, which stands confronted by the wealth it has created as alien wealth, by its own productive power as the productive power of its product, by its enrichment as its own impoverishment and by its social power as the power of society.  But this definite, specific, historical form of social labour which is exemplified in capitalist production is proclaimed by these economists as the general, eternal form, as a natural phenomenon, and these relations of production as the absolutely (not historically) necessary, natural and reasonable relations of social labour.  Their thoughts being entirely confined within the bounds of capitalist production, they assert that the contradictory form in which social labour manifests itself there, is just as necessary as labour itself freed from this contradiction.  Since in the self-same breath they proclaim on the one hand, labour as such (for them, labour is synonymous with wage-labour) and on the other, capital as such—that is the poverty of the workers and the wealth of the idlers—to be the sole source of wealth, they are perpetually involved in absolute contradictions without being in the slightest degree aware of them.  (Sismondi was epoch-making in political economy because he had an inkling of this contradiction.)  Ricardo’s phrase “labour or capital” reveals in a most striking fashion both the contradiction inherent in the terms and the naïvety with which they are stated to be identical.

Since the same real development which provided bourgeois political economy with this striking theoretical expression, unfolded the real contradictions contained in it, especially the contradiction between the growing wealth of the English “nation” and the growing misery of the workers, and since moreover these contradictions are given a theoretically compelling if unconscious expression in the Ricardian theory, etc., it was natural for those thinkers ||XV-862| who rallied to the side of the proletariat to seize on this contradiction, for which they found the theoretical ground already prepared.  Labour is the sole source of exchange-value and the only active creator of use-value.  This is what you say.  On the other hand, you say that capital is everything, and the worker is nothing or a mere production cost of capital.  You have refuted yourselves.  Capital is nothing but defrauding of the worker.  Labour is everything.

This, in fact, is the ultimate meaning of all the writings which defend the interests of the proletariat from the Ricardian standpoint basing themselves on his assumptions.  Just as little as he [Ricardo] understands the identity of capital and labour in his own system, do they understand the contradiction they describe.  That is why the most important among them—Hodgskin, for example—accept all the economic pre-conditions of capitalist production as eternal forms and only desire to eliminate capital, which is both the basis and necessary consequence [of these preconditions].

Ravenstone’s main idea is as follows:

The development of the productive power of labour creates capital or property, in other words a surplus product for “idlers”, non-workers; and indeed the more the productive power of labour develops, the more it produces this, its parasitical excrescence which sucks it dry.  Whether the title to this surplus product, or the power to appropriate the product of other people’s labour, accrues to the non-worker because he already possesses wealth, or because he possesses land, landed property, does not affect the case.  Both are capital, that is, mastery over the product of other people’s labour.  For Ravenstone property is merely appropriation of the products of other people’s labour and this is only possible insofar as and in the degree that productive industry develops.  By productive industry Ravenstone understands industry which produces necessaries.  Unproductive industry, the industry of consumption, is a consequence of the development of capital, or property.  Ravenstone appears ascetic like the author of the pamphlet discussed above.[j] In this respect he himself remains a captive of the notions set forth by the economists.  Without capital, without property, the necessaries of the workers would be produced in abundance, but there would be no luxury industry.  Or it can also be said that Ravenstone, like the author of the pamphlet discussed above, understands or at least in fact admits the historical necessity of capital; since capital, according to the author of the pamphlet, produces surplus labour over and above the labour strictly necessary for the maintenance [of the worker] and at the same time leads to the creation of machinery (what he calls fixed capital) and gives rise to foreign trade, the world market, in order to utilise the surplus product filched from the workers partly to increase productive power, partly to give this surplus product the most diverse forms of use-value far removed from those required by necessity.  Similarly, according to Ravenstone, no conveniences, no machinery, no luxury products would be produced without capital and property, neither would the development of the natural sciences have taken place, nor the literary and artistic productions which owe their existence to leisure, nor the urge of the wealthy to receive an equivalent for their “surplus product” from the non-workers.  Ravenstone and the pamphleteer do not say this in justification of capital, but simply seize on it as a point of attack because all this is done in opposition to [the interest of] the workers and not for them.  But in fact they thus admit that this is a result of capitalist production, which is therefore a historical form of social development, even though it stands in contradiction to that part of the population which constitutes the basis of that whole development, In this respect they share the narrow-mindedness of the economists (although from a diametrically opposite position) for they confuse the contradictory form of this development with its content.  The latter wish to perpetuate the contradiction on account of its results.  The former are determined to sacrifice the fruits which have developed within the antagonistic form, in order to get rid of the contradiction.  This distinguishes their opposition to [bourgeois] political economy from that of contemporary people like Owen; likewise from that of Sismondi, who harks back to antiquated forms of the contradiction in order to be rid of it in its acute form.

[Ravenstone writes:]

It is the “wants” of the poor which “constitute his” (the rich man’s) “wealth…  When all were equal, none would labour for another.  The necessaries of life would be overabundant whilst its comforts were entirely wanting” (op. cit., p. 10).

“The industry which produces is the parent of property; that which aids consumption is its child” (loc. cit., p. 12).

“It is this[k] growth of property, this greater ability to maintain idle men, and unproductive industry, that in political economy is called capital” (loc. cit., p. 13).

“As the destination of property is expense, as without that it is wholly useless to its owner, its existence is intimately connected with that ||863| of the industry of consumption” (loc. cit.).

“If each man’s labour were but enough to procure his own food, there could be no property, and no part of a people’s industry could be turned away to work for the wants of the imagination” (loc. cit., pp. 14-15).

“In every [subsequent] stage of society, as increased numbers and better contrivances add to each man’s power of production, the number of those who labour is gradually diminished…  Property grows from the improvement of the means of production; its sole business is the encouragement of idleness.  When each man’s labour is barely sufficient for his own subsistence, as there can be no property, there will be no idle man.  When one man’s labour can maintain five, there will be four idle men for one employed in production: in no other way can the produce be consumed…  the object of society is to magnify the idle at the expense of the industrious, to create power out of plenty” (loc. cit., p. 11).

<With regard to rent he says (not quite correctly, for it is precisely here that it is necessary to explain why rent accrues to the landlord and not to the farmer, the industrial capitalist) what applies to surplus-value in general, insofar as it develops as a result of the increase in the productivity of labour.

“In the early stages of society, when men have no artificial assistance to their powers of industry, the proportion of their earnings which can be afforded to rent is exceedingly small: for land […] has no natural value, it owes all its produce to industry.  But every increase of skill adds to the proportion which can be reserved for rent.  Where the labour of nine is required for the maintenance of ten, only one-tenth of the gross produce can be given to rent.  Where one man’s labour is sufficient for the maintenance of five, four—fifths will go to rent, or the other charges of the state, which can only be provided for out of the surplus produce of industry.  The first proportion seems to have prevailed in England at the time of the Conquest, the last is that which actually takes place” now since “only one-fifth part of the people are […] employed in the cultivation of the land”… (op. cit., pp. 45-46).

“… so true it is that society turns every improvement but to the increase of idleness”… (loc. cit., p. 48).>

Note.  An original piece of work.  Its real subject is the modern system of national debt, as its title indicates.

Amongst other things he says:

“…the history of the last thirty years[l] […] has achieved no higher adventure than the turning of a few Jews into gentlemen, and a few blockheads into political economists” (op. cit., pp. 66-67).

The funding system has one beneficial consequence although “the ancient gentry of the land” are robbed “of a large portion of their property” in order “to transfer it to these new fangled hidalgos as a reward for their skill in the arts of fraud and peculation…  If it encourage fraud and meanness; if it clothe quackery and pretension in the garb of wisdom; if it turn a whole people into a nation of jobbers … if it break down all the prejudices of rank and birth to render money the only distinction among men … it destroys the perpetuity of property…” (op. cit., pp. 51-52).

[See Labour Defended against the Claims of Capital, Hodgskin 1825.]

3.  Hodgskin

Labour Defended against the Claims of Capital; or, the Unproductiveness of Capital Proved, By a Labourer, London, 1825.  (With reference to the Present Combinations amongst Journeymen.)

Thomas Hodgskin, Popular Political Economy.  Four Lectures delivered at the London Mechanics’ Institution, London, 1827.

The anonymous first work is also by Hodgskin.  Whereas the pamphlets mentioned previously and a series of similar ones have disappeared without trace, these writings, especially the first one, made a considerable stir and are still regarded as belonging to the most important works of English political economy (see John Lalor, Money and Morals, London, 1852).  We shall consider each of these works in turn.

[a) The Thesis of the Unproductiveness of Capital as a Necessary Conclusion from Ricardo’s Theory]

Labour Defended etc.  As the title indicates, the author wishes to prove the “unproductiveness of capital”.

Ricardo does not assert that capital is productive of value.  It only adds its own value to the product, and its own value depends on the labour-time required for its reproduction.  It only has value as accumulated labour (or rather ||864|, materialised labour) and it only adds this—its value—to the product in which it is embodied.  It is true that he is inconsistent when discussing the general rate of profit.  But this is precisely the contradiction which his opponents attacked.

As far as the productivity of capital in relation to use-value is concerned, this is construed by Smith, Ricardo and others, and by political economists in general, as meaning nothing else than that products of previous useful work serve anew as means of production, as objects of labour, instruments of labour and means of subsistence for the workers.  The objective conditions of labour do not face the worker, as in the primitive stages, as mere natural objects (as such, they are never capital), but as natural objects already transformed by human activity.  But in this sense the word “capital” is quite superfluous and meaningless.  Wheat is nourishing not because it is capital but because it is wheat.  The use-value of wool derives from the fact that it is wool, not capital.  In the same way, the action of steam-powered machinery has nothing in common with its existence as capital.  It would do the same work if it were not “capital” and if it belonged, not to the factory owner, but to the workers.  All these things serve in the real labour process because of the relationship which exists between them as use-values—not as exchange-values and still less as capital—and the labour which sets them in motion.  Their productivity in the real labour process, or rather the productivity of the labour materialised in them, is due to their nature as objective conditions of real labour and not to their social existence as alienated, independent conditions which confront the worker and are embodied in the capitalist, the master over living labour.  It is as wealth, as Hopkins (not our Hodgskin) rightly says, and not as “net” wealth, as product and not as “net” product, that they are here consumed and used.  It is true that the particular social form of these things in relation to labour and their real determinateness as factors of the labour process are as confused and inseparably interwoven with one another in the minds of the economists as they are in the mind of the capitalist.  Nevertheless, as soon as they analyse the labour process, they are compelled to abandon the term capital completely and to speak of material of labour, means of labour, and means of subsistence.  But the determinate form of the product as material, instrument and means of subsistence of the worker expresses nothing but the relationship of these objective conditions to labour; labour itself appears as the activity which dominates them.  It says however nothing at all about [the relationship of] labour and capital, only about the relationship of the purposeful activity of men to their own products in the process of reproduction.  They neither cease to be products of labour nor mere objects which are at the disposal of labour.  They merely express the relationship in which labour appropriates the objective world which it has created itself, at any rate in this form; but they do not by any means express any other domination of these things over labour, apart from the fact that activity must be appropriate to the material, otherwise it would not be purposeful activity, labour.

One can only speak of the productivity of capital if one regards it as the embodiment of definite social relations of production.  But if it is conceived in this way, then the historically transitory character of this relationship becomes at once evident, and the general recognition of this fact is incompatible with the continued existence of this relationship, which itself creates the means for its abolition.

But the economists do not regard it [capital] as such a relationship because they cannot admit its relative character, and do not understand it either.  They simply express in theoretical terms the notions of the practical men who are engrossed in capitalist production, dominated by it and interested in it.

In his polemic [with the bourgeois economists], Hodgskin himself starts out from a standpoint which is economically narrow-minded.  Insofar as they [the economists] define capital as an eternal production relation, they reduce it to the general relations of labour to its material conditions, relations which are common to all modes of production and do not express the specific nature of capital.  Insofar as they hold that capital produces “value”, the best of them and [especially] Ricardo, admit that it does not produce any value which it has not received and constantly continues to receive from labour, since the value of a product is determined by the labour-time necessary to reproduce it, that is, its value is the result of living, present labour and not of past labour.  And as Ricardo emphasises, increase in the productivity of labour is marked by the continuous devaluation of the products of past labour.  On the other hand, the economists continually mix up the definite, specific form in which these things constitute capital with their nature as things and as simple elements of every labour process.  The mystification contained in capital—as employer of labour—is not explained by them, but it is constantly expressed by them unconsciously, for it is inseparable from the material aspect of capital.

||867| The first pamphlet[m] draws the correct conclusions from Ricardo and reduces surplus-value to surplus labour.  This is in contrast to Ricardo’s opponents and followers who continue to adhere to his confusion of surplus-value with profit.

In opposition to them, the second pamphlet[n] defines relative surplus-value more exactly as being dependent on the level of development of the productive power of labour.  Ricardo says the same thing, but he avoids the conclusion drawn by the second pamphlet [that by Ravenstone], namely, that the increase in the productive power of labour only increases capital, the wealth of others which dominates labour.

Finally, the third pamphlet[o] bursts forth with the general statement, which is the inevitable consequence of Ricardo’s presentation—that capital is unproductive.  This is in contrast to Torrens, Malthus and others, who, taking one aspect of the Ricardian theory as their point of departure, turn Ricardo’s statement that labour is the creator of value into the opposite—that capital is the creator of value.  The pamphlet, moreover, disputes the statement—which recurs in all of them, from Smith to Malthus, especially in the latter where it is elevated into an absolute dogma (ditto in the case of James Mill)—that labour is absolutely dependent on the amount of capital available, as this is the condition of its existence.

Pamphlet No. 1 ends with the statement:

“Wealth is disposable time, and nothing more”.[p]

[b) Polemic against the Ricardian Definition of Capital as Accumulated Labour.  The Concept of Coexisting Labour.  Underestimation of the Importance of Materialised Past Labour.  Available Wealth in Relation to the Movement of Production]

According to Hodgskin, circulating capital is nothing but the juxtaposition of the different kinds of social labour (coexisting labour) and accumulation is nothing but the amassing of the productive powers of social labour, so that the accumulation of the skill and knowledge (scientific power) of the workers themselves is the chief form of accumulation, and infinitely more important than the accumulation—which goes hand in hand with it and merely represents it—of the existing objective conditions of this accumulated activity.  These objective conditions are only nominally accumulated and must be constantly produced anew and consumed anew.

“… productive capital and skilled labour are […] one.” “Capital and a labouring population are precisely synonymous” ( [Hodgskin, Labour Defended against the Claims of Capital, London, 1825,] p. 33).

These are simply further elaborations of Galiani’s thesis:

“… The real wealth … is man” (Della Moneta, Custodi.  Parte Moderna, t. III, p. 229).

The whole objective world, the “world of commodities”, vanishes here as a mere aspect, as the merely passing activity, constantly performed anew, of socially producing men.  Compare this “idealism” with the crude, material fetishism into which the Ricardian theory develops in the writings “of this incredible cobbler”, McCulloch, where not only the difference between man and animal disappears but even the difference between a living organism and an inanimate object.  And then let them say that as against the lofty idealism of bourgeois political economy, the proletarian opposition has been preaching a crude materialism directed exclusively towards the satisfaction of coarse appetites.

In his investigations into the productivity of capital, Hodgskin is remiss in that he does not distinguish between how far it is a question of producing use-values or exchange-values.

Further—but this has historical justification—he takes capital as it is defined by the economists.  On the one hand (insofar as it operates in the real process of production) as a merely physical condition of labour, and therefore of importance only as a material element of labour, and (in the process of the production of value) nothing more than the quantity of labour measured by time, that is, nothing different from this quantity of labour itself.  On the other hand, although in fact, insofar as it appears in the real process of production, it is a mere name for, and re-christening of, labour itself, it is represented as the power dominating and engendering labour, as the basis of the productivity of labour and as wealth alien to labour.  And this without any intermediate links.  This is how he found it.  And he counterposes the real aspect of economic development to this bourgeois humbug.

“…capital is a sort of cabalistic word, like church or state, or any other of those general terms which are invented by those who fleece the rest of mankind to conceal the hand that shears them” (Labour Defended etc., p.17).

In accordance with the tradition he found prevailing among the economists, he distinguishes between circulating and fixed capital; circulating capital moreover is described as that part which mainly consists of, or is used as, means of subsistence for the workers.

It is maintained “that division of labour is a consequence of previous accumulation of capital”.  But “the effects attributed to a stock of commodities, under the name of circulating capital, are caused by coexisting labour”(op. cit., pp. 8, 9).

Faced with the crude conception of the economists, it is quite correct to say that “circulating capital” is only “the name” for “a stock of” certain “commodities”.  Since the economists have not analysed the specific social relationship which is represented in the metamorphosis of commodities, they can understand only the material aspect of circulating capital.  All the differentiations in capital arising from the circulation process ||868|—in fact the circulation process itself—are actually nothing but the metamorphosis of commodities (determined by their relationship to wage-labour as capital) as an aspect of the reproduction process.

Division of labour is, in one sense, nothing but coexisting labour, that is, the coexistence of different kinds of labour which are represented in different kinds of products or rather commodities.  The division of labour in the capitalist sense, as the breaking down of the particular labour which produces a definite commodity into a series of simple and coordinated operations divided up amongst different workers, presupposes the division of labour within society outside the workshop, as separation of occupations.  On the other hand, it [division of labour] increases it [separation of occupations].  The product is increasingly produced as a commodity in the strict sense of the word, its exchange-value becomes the more independent of its immediate existence as use-value—in other words its production becomes more and more independent of its consumption by the producers and of its existence as use-value for the producers—the more one-sided it itself becomes, and the greater the variety of commodities for which it is exchanged, the greater the kinds of use-values in which its exchange-value is expressed, and the larger the market for it becomes.  The more this happens, the more the product can be produced as a commodity; therefore also on an increasingly large scale.  The producer’s indifference to the use-value of his product is expressed quantitatively in the amounts in which he produces it, which bear no relation to his own consumption needs, even when he is at the same time a consumer of his own product.  The division of labour within the workshop is one of the methods used in this mass production and consequently in the production of the product [as a commodity].  Thus the division of labour within the workshop is based on the division of occupations in society.

The size of the market has two aspects.  First, the mass of consumers, their numbers.  But secondly, also, the number of occupations which are independent of one another.  The latter is possible without the former.  For example, when spinning and weaving become divorced from “domestic” industry and agriculture, all those engaged in agriculture become a market for spinners and weavers.  They likewise [form markets] for one another as a consequence of the separation of their occupations.  What the division of labour in society presupposes above all, is that the different kinds of labour have become independent of one another in such a way that their products confront one another as commodities and must be exchanged, that is, undergo the metamorphosis of commodities and stand in relation to one another as commodities.  (This is why in the Middle Ages, the towns prohibited the spread of as many professions as possible to the countryside, not merely for the purpose of preventing competition—the only aspect seen by Adam Smith—but in order to create markets for themselves.)  On the other hand, the proper development of the division of labour presupposes a certain density of population.  The development of the division of labour in the workshop depends even more on this density of population.  This latter division is, to a certain extent, a pre-condition for the former and in turn intensifies it still further.  It does this by splitting formerly correlated occupations into separate and independent ones, also by differentiating and increasing the indirect preliminary work they require; and as a result of the increase in both production and the population and the freeing of capital and labour it creates new wants and new modes of satisfying them.

Therefore when Hodgskin says “division of labour” is the effect not of a stock of Commodities called circulating capital but of “coexisting labour”, it would be tautologous if in this context he understood by division of labour the separation of trades.  It would only mean that division of labour is the cause or the effect of the division of labour.  He can therefore only mean that division of labour within the workshop depends on the separation of occupations, the social division of labour, and is, in a certain sense, its effect.

It is not a stock of commodities which gives rise to this separation of occupations and with it the division of labour in the workshop, but it is the separation of occupations (and division of labour) that is manifested in the stock of commodities, or rather in the fact that a stock of products becomes a stock of commodities.  (The properties, the characteristic features of the capitalist mode of production and therefore of capital itself insofar as it expresses a definite relation of the producers to one another and to their products, are inevitably always described by the economists as the properties of the objects.)

||869| If, however, “previous accumulation of capital” is being discussed from an economic standpoint (see Turgot, Smith, etc.)  as a condition for the division of labour, then what is understood by this is the previous concentration of a stock of commodities as capital in the possession of the buyer of labour, since the kind of co-operation characteristic of the division of labour presupposes a conglomeration of workers—consequently, accumulation of the means of subsistence necessary for them while they are working—increased productivity of labour—consequently, increase in the amount of raw materials, tools and auxiliary materials which must be available in order that labour proceeds continuously, since it constantly requires large amounts of these things—in short, of the objective conditions of production on a large scale.

Here, accumulation of capital cannot mean increase in the amount of means of subsistence, raw materials and instruments of labour as a condition for the division of labour, for insofar as the accumulation of capital is taken to mean this, it is a consequence of the division of labour, not its pre-condition.

Similarly, accumulation of capital cannot here mean that means of subsistence for the workers must be available in general before new necessaries are reproduced, or that products of their labour must constitute the raw material and means of labour for the new production which they carry out.  For this is the pre-condition of labour in general and was just as true before the development of the division of labour as it is after it.

On the one hand: if we consider the material element of accumulation, it means nothing more than that the division of labour requires the concentration of means of subsistence and means of labour at particular points, whereas formerly these were scattered and dispersed as long as the workers in individual trades—which could not have been very numerous under these conditions—themselves carried out all the manifold and consecutive operations required for the production of one or more products.  Not an increase in absolute terms is presupposed, but concentration, the gathering together of more at a given point, and of relatively more [means of labour] compared with the numbers of workers brought together there.  More flax, for example, [is used] by the workers in manufacture (in proportion to their numbers) than the relative amount of flax required in proportion to all the peasants—both men and women—who used to spin flax as a sideline.  Hence, conglomeration of workers, concentration of raw materials, instruments, and means of subsistence.

On the other hand: if we consider the historical foundation on which this process develops, from which manufacture arises, the industrial mode of production whose characteristic feature is the division of labour, then this concentration can only take place in the form that these workers are assembled together as wage-workers, that is, as workers who must sell their labour-power because their conditions of labour confront them as alien property, as an independent, alien force.  This implies that these conditions of labour confront them as capital; in other words, these means of subsistence and means of labour (or, what amounts to the same thing, the disposal of them through the intermediary of money) are in the hands of individual owners of money or of commodities, who, as a result, become capitalists.  The loss of the conditions of labour by the workers is expressed in the fact that these conditions become independent as capital or as things at the disposal of the capitalists.

Thus primitive accumulation, as I have already shown, means nothing but the separation of labour and the worker from the conditions of labour, which confront him as independent forces.  The course of history shows that this separation is a factor in social development.  Once capital exists, the capitalist mode of production itself evolves in such a way that it maintains and reproduces this separation on a constantly increasing scale until the historical reversal takes place.

It is not the ownership of money which makes the capitalist a capitalist.  For money to be transformed into capital, the prerequisites for capitalist production must exist, whose first historical presupposition is that separation.  The separation, and therefore the existence of the means of labour as capital, is given in capitalist production; this separation which constantly reproduces itself and expands, is the foundation of production.

Accumulation by means of the reconversion of profit, or surplus product, into capital now becomes a continuous process as a result of which the increased products of labour which are at the same time its objective conditions, conditions of reproduction, continuously confront labour as capital, i.e., as forces—personified in the capitalist—which are alienated from Labour and dominate it.  Consequently, it becomes a specific function of the capitalist to accumulate, that is, to reconvert a part of the surplus product into conditions of labour.  And the stupid economist concludes from this that if this operation did not proceed in this contradictory, specific way, it could not take place at all.  Reproduction on an extended scale is inseparably connected in his mind with accumulation, the capitalist form of this reproduction.

||870| Accumulation merely presents as a continuous process what in primitive accumulation appears as a distinct historical process, as the process of the emergence of capital and as a transition from one mode of production to another.

The economists, caught as they are in the toils of the notions proper to the agents of the capitalist mode of production, advance a double quid pro quo, each side of which depends on the other.

On the one hand, they transform capital from a relationship into a thing, a stock of commodities (already forgetting that commodities themselves are not things) which, insofar as they serve as conditions of production for new labour, are called capital and, with regard to their mode of reproduction, are called circulating capital.

On the other hand, they transform things into capital, that is, they consider the social relationship which is represented in them and through them as an attribute which belongs to the thing as such as soon as it enters as an element into the labour process or the technological process.

[On the one hand,] the concentration in the hands of non-workers of raw materials and of the disposition over the means of subsistence, i.e., the powers dominating labour, the preliminary condition for the division of labour (later on, the division of labour increases not only concentration, but also the amount [available for] concentration by increasing the productivity of labour), in other words the preliminary accumulation of capital as the condition for the division of labour therefore means for them the augmentation or concentration (they do not differentiate between the two) of means of subsistence and means of labour.

On the other hand, these necessaries and means of labour would not operate as objective conditions of production if these things did not possess the attribute of being capital, if the product of labour, the condition of labour, did not absorb labour itself; [if] past labour did not absorb living labour, and if these things did not belong to them selves or by proxy to the capitalist instead of to the worker.

As if the division of labour was not just as possible if its conditions belonged to the associated workers (although historically it could not at first appear in this form, but can only achieve it as a result of capitalist production) and were regarded by the latter as their own products and the material elements of their own activity, which they are by their very nature.

Furthermore, because in the capitalist mode of production capital appropriates the surplus product of the worker, consequently, because it has appropriated the products of labour and these now confront the worker in the form of capital, it is clear that the conversion of the surplus product into conditions of labour can only be initiated by the capitalist and only in the form that he turns the products of labour—which he has appropriated without any equivalent—into means of production of new labour performed without receiving an equivalent.  Consequently, the extension of reproduction appears as the transformation of profit into capital and as a saving by the capitalist who, instead of consuming the surplus product which he has acquired gratis, converts it anew into a means of exploitation, but is able to do this only insofar as he converts the surplus product again into productive capital; this entails the conversion of surplus product into means of labour.  As a result, the economists conclude that the surplus product cannot serve as an element of new production if it has not been transformed previously from the product of the worker into the property of his employer in order to serve as capital once again and to repeat the old process of exploitation.  The more inferior economists add to this the idea of hoarding and the accumulation of treasure.  Even the better ones—Ricardo, for example—transfer the notion of renunciation from the hoarder to the capitalist.

The economists do not conceive capital as a relation.  They cannot do so without at the same time conceiving it as a historically transitory, i.e., a relative—not an absolute—form of production.  Hodgskin himself does not share this concept.  Insofar as it justifies capital it does not justify its justification by the economists, but on the contrary refutes it.  Thus Hodgskin is not concerned in all this.

As far as matters stood between him and the economists, the kind of polemic he had to wage seemed to be mapped out beforehand and quite simple.  To put it simply, he had to vindicate the one aspect which the economists elaborate “scientifically” against the fetishistic conception they accept without thinking, naïvely and unconsciously from the capitalist way of looking at things.

The utilisation of the products of previous labour, of labour in general, as materials, tools, means of subsistence, is necessary if the worker wants to use his products for new production.  This particular mode of consumption of his products is productive.  But what on earth has this kind of utilisation, this mode of consumption of his product, to do with the domination of his product over him, with its existence as capital, with the concentration ||870a| in the hands of individual capitalists of the right to dispose of raw materials and means of subsistence and the exclusion of the workers from ownership of their products?  What has it to do with the fact that first of all they have to hand over their product gratis to a third party in order to buy it back again with their own labour and, what is more, they have to give him more labour in exchange than is contained in the product and thus have to create more surplus product for him?

Past labour exists here in two forms.  [In one] as product, use-value.  The process of production requires that the workers consume one portion of this product [as means of subsistence, and use] another portion as raw materials and instruments of labour.  This applies also to the technological process and merely demonstrates the relations that have to exist in industrial production between the workers and the products of their own labour, their own products, in order to turn them into means of production.

Or, [past labour exists as] value.  This only shows that the value of their new product represents not only their present, but also their past labour, and that by increasing it they retain the old value, because they increase it.

The claim put forward by the capitalist has nothing to do with this process as such.  It is true that he has appropriated the products of labour, of past labour, and that he therefore possesses a means for acquiring new products and living labour.  This, however, is precisely the kind of procedure against which protests are made.  The preliminary concentration and accumulation necessary for the “division of labour” must not take the form of accumulation of capital.  It does not follow that because this [concentration] is necessary, the capitalist must inevitably have the disposal of the conditions of labour of today created by the labour of yesterday.  If accumulation of capital is supposed to be nothing but accumulated labour, it by no means implies that accumulation of other people’s labour has to take place.

Hodgskin however does not follow this simple path, and at first this seems strange.  In his polemic against the productivity of capital, to begin with, against circulating and then even more, against fixed capital, he seems to oppose or to reject the importance of past labour, or of its product for the reproduction process as a condition of new labour.  From this follows the importance of past labour embodied in products for labour as present έύέργεια[q] Why this change?

Since the economists identify past labour with capital—past labour being understood in this case not only in the sense of concrete labour embodied in the product, but also in the sense of social labour, materialised labour-time—it is understandable that they, the Pindars of capital, emphasise the objective elements of production and overestimate their importance as against the subjective element, living, immediate labour.  For them, labour only becomes efficacious when it becomes capital and confronts itself, the passive element confronting its active counterpart.  The producer is therefore controlled by the product, the subject by the object, labour which is being embodied by labour embodied in an object, etc.  In all these conceptions, past labour appears not merely as an objective factor of living labour, subsumed by it, but vice versa; not as an element of the power of living labour, but as a power over this labour.  The economists ascribe a false importance to the material factors of labour compared with labour itself in order to have also a technological justification for the specific social form, i.e., the capitalist form, in which the relationship of labour to the conditions of labour is turned upside-down, so that it is not the worker who makes use of the conditions of labour, but the conditions of labour which make use of the worker.  It is for this reason that Hodgskin asserts on the contrary that this physical factor, that is, the entire material wealth, is quite unimportant compared with the living process of production and that, in fact, this wealth has no value in itself, but only insofar as it is a factor in the living production process.  In doing so, he underestimates somewhat the value which the labour of the past has for the labour of the present, but in opposing economic fetishism this is quite all right.

If in capitalist production—hence in political economy, its theoretical expression—past labour were met with only as a pedestal etc. created by labour itself, then such a controversial issue would not have arisen.  It only exists because in the real life of capitalist production, as well as in its theory, materialised labour appears as a contradiction to itself, to living labour.  In exactly the same way in religious reasoning, the product of thought not only claims but exercises domination over thought itself.  |870a|| .

||865| The proposition

“… the effects attributed to a stock of commodities, under the name of circulating capital, are caused by coexisting labour” (op. cit., p. 9),

means first of all:

the simultaneous coexistence of living labour brings about a large part of the effects which are attributed to the product of previous labour called circulating capital.

For example, a part of circulating capital consists of the stock of means of subsistence which the capitalist is supposed to have stored up to support the labourer while working.

The formation of a reserve stock is by no means a feature peculiar to capitalist production although, since under it production and consumption are greater than ever before, the amount of commodities on the market—the amount of commodities in the sphere of circulation—is likewise greater than ever before.  Here memories of hoarding, of accumulation of treasure by hoarders are still discernible.

The consumption fund must be disregarded first of all because we are speaking here of capital and of industrial production.  What has reached the sphere of individual consumption, whether it is consumed more quickly or more slowly, has ceased to be capital.  (Although it can be partly reconverted into capital, for instance, houses, parks, crockery.)

“Do all the capitalists of Europe possess at this moment one week’s food and clothing for all the labourers they employ?  Let us first examine the question as to food.  One portion of the food of the people is bread, which is never prepared till within a few hours of the time when it is eaten…  The produce […] of the baker, cannot be stored up.  In no case can the material of bread, whether it exist as corn or flour, be preserved without continual labour.  […] His conviction[r] that he will obtain bread when he requires it, and his master’s conviction that the money he pays him will enable him to obtain it, arise simply from the fact that the bread has always been obtained when required” (loc. cit., p. 10).

“Another article of the labourer’s food is milk, and milk is manufactured … twice a day.  If it be said that the cattle to supply it are already there;—why the answer is, they require constant attention and constant labour, and their food, through the greater part of the year, is of daily growth.  The fields in which they pasture, require the hand of man.  […] The meat, also […] it cannot be stored up, for it begins instantly to deteriorate after it is brought to market” (loc. cit., p. 10).

Because of moths, even of clothing “… only a very small stock is ever prepared, compared to the general consumption” (loc. cit., p. 11).

“Mr. Mill says, and says justly, ‘what is annually produced is annually consumed’, so that, in fact, to enable men to carry on all those operations which extend beyond a year, there cannot be any stock of commodities stored up.  Those who undertake them must rely, therefore, not on any commodities already created, but that other men will labour and produce what they are to subsist on till their own products are completed.  Thus, should the labourer admit that some accumulation of circulating capital is necessary for operations terminated within the year […] it is plain, that in all operations which extend beyond a year, the labourer does not, and he cannot, rely on accumulated capital” (loc. cit., p. 12).

“If we duly consider the number and importance of those wealth-producing operations which are not completed within the year, and the numberless products of daily labour, necessary to subsistence, which are consumed as soon as produced, we shall […] be sensible that the success and productive power of every different species of labour is at all times more dependent on the coexisting productive labour of other men than on any accumulation of circulating capital” (loc. cit., p. 13).

“… it is by the command the capitalist possesses over the labour of some men, not by his possessing a stock of commodities, that he is enabled to support and consequently employ other labourers” (loc. cit., p. 14).

“… the only thing which can be said to be stored up or previously prepared, is the skill of the labourer” (loc. cit., p. 12).

“ …all the effects usually attributed to accumulation of circulating capital are derived from the accumulation and storing up of skilled labour; and […] this most important operation is performed, as far as the great mass of the labourers is concerned without any circulating capital whatever” (loc. cit., p. 13).

“… the number of labourers must at all times depend on the quantity of circulating capital; or, as I should say, on the quantity of the products of coexisting labour, which labourers are allowed to consume…” (op. cit., p. 20).

||866| “Circulating capital […] is created only for consumption; while fixed capital […] is made, not to be consumed, but to aid the labourer in producing those things which are to be consumed” (loc. cit., p. 19).

Thus first of all:

“… the success and productive power of every different species of labour is at all times more dependent on the coexisting productive labour of other men than on any accumulation of circulating capital” [op. cit., p. 13], that is, of “commodities already created”.  These “already created commodities” confront “the products of coexisting labour”.

{The part of capital which consists of instruments and materials of labour is as “commodities already created” always a pre-condition in each particular branch of production.  It is impossible to spin cotton which has not yet been produced, to operate spindles which have yet to be manufactured, or to burn coal which has not yet been brought up from the mine.  These always enter the [production] process as forms of existence of previous labour.  Existing labour thus depends on antecedent labour and not only on coexisting labour, although this antecedent labour, whether in the form of means of labour or materials of labour, can only be of any use (productive use) when it is in contact with living labour as a material element of it.  Only as an element of industrial consumption, i.e., consumption by labour.

But when considering circulation and the reproduction process, we have seen that it is only possible to reproduce the commodity after it is finished and converted into money, because simultaneously all its elements have been produced and reproduced by means of coexisting labour.

A twofold progression takes place in production.  Cotton, for example, advances from one phase of production to another.  It is produced first of all as raw material, then it is subjected to a number of operations until it is fit to be exported or, if it is further worked up in the same country, it is handed over to a spinner.  It then goes on from the spinner to the weaver and from the weaver to the bleacher, dyer, finisher, and thence to various workshops where it is worked up for definite uses, i.e., articles of clothing, bed-linen, etc.  Finally it leaves the last producer for the consumer and enters into individual consumption if it does not enter into industrial consumption as means (not material) of labour.  But whether it is to be consumed industrially or individually, it has acquired its final form as use-value.  What emerges from one sphere of production as a product enters another as a condition of production, and in this way, goes through many successive phases until it receives its last finish as use-value.  Here previous labour appears continually as the condition for existing labour.

Simultaneously, however, while the product is advancing in this way from one phase to another, while it is undergoing this real metamorphosis, production is being carried on at every stage.  While the weaver spins the yarn, the spinner is simultaneously spinning cotton, and fresh quantities of raw cotton are in the process of production.

Since the continuous, constantly repeated process of production is, at the same time, a process of reproduction, it is therefore equally dependent on the coexisting labour which produces the various phases of the product simultaneously, while the product is passing through metamorphosis from one phase to another.  [Raw] cotton, yarn, fabric, are not only produced one after the other and from one another, but they are produced and reproduced simultaneously, alongside one another.  What appears as the effect of antecedent labour, if one considers the production process of the individual commodity, presents itself at the same time as the effect of coexisting labour, if one considers the reproduction process of the commodity, that is, if one considers this production process in its continuous motion and in the entirety of its conditions, and not merely an isolated action or a limited part of it.  There exists not only a cycle comprising various phases, but all the phases of the commodity are simultaneously produced in the various spheres and branches of production.  If the same peasant just plants flax, then spins it, then weaves it, these operations are performed in succession, but not simultaneously as the mode of production based on the division of labour within society presupposes.

No matter what phase of the production process of an individual commodity is considered, the antecedent labour only acquires significance as a result of the living labour which it provides with the necessary conditions of production.  On the other hand, however, these conditions of production without which living labour cannot realise itself always appear as the result of antecedent labour.  Thus the co-operating labour of the contributing branches of labour always appears as a passive factor and, as such a passive factor, it is a pre-condition.  The economists emphasise this aspect.  In production and circulation, on the other hand, the mediating social labour on which the [production] process of the commodity in each particular phase depends and by which it is determined, appears as present, coexisting, contemporaneous labour.  The early forms of the commodity and its successive or completed forms are produced simultaneously.  Unless this happened it would not be possible, after it has undergone its real metamorphosis, to reconvert it from money into its conditions of existence.  ||870b| A commodity is thus the product of antecedent labour only insofar as it is the product of contemporaneous living labour.  From the capitalist point of view, therefore, all material wealth appears only as a fleeting aspect of the flow of production as a whole, which includes the process of circulation.}