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Volume IV: [Chapter VII] Linguet

Volume IV
[Chapter VII] Linguet
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table of contents
  1. Theories of Surplus-Value[Volume IV of Capital]
  2. Preface
  3. Contents of the Manuscript Theories of Surplus-Value
  4. PART I
    1. [Chapter I] Sir James Steuart
      1. [Distinction Between “Profit Upon Alienation” and the Positive Increase of Wealth]
      2. Author’s Footnotes
    2. [Chapter II] The Physiocrats
      1. [1.  Transfer of the Inquiry into the Origin of Surplus-Value from the Sphere of Circulation into the Sphere of Direct Production.  Conception of Rent as the Sole Form of Surplus-Value]
      2. [2.  Contradictions in the System of the Physiocrats: the Feudal Shell of the System and Its Bourgeois Essence; the Twofold Treatment of Surplus-Value]
      3. [3.  Quesnay on the Three Classes in Society.  Further Development of Physiocratic Theory with Turgot: Elements of a Deeper Analysis of Capitalist Relations]
      4. [4.  Confusion of Value with Material Substance (Paoletti)]
      5. [5.  Elements of Physiocratic Theory in Adam Smith]
      6. [6.  The Physiocrats as Partisans of Large-Scale Capitalist Agriculture]
      7. [7.  Contradictions in the Political Views of the Physiocrats. The Physiocrats and the French Revolution]
      8. [8.  Vulgarisation of the Physiocratic Doctrine by the Prussian Reactionary Schmalz]
      9. [9.  An Early Critique of the Superstition of the Physiocrats in the Question of Agriculture (Verri)]
      10. Editors’ Footnotes
    3. [Chapter III] Adam Smith
      1. [1.  Smith’s Two Different Definitions of Value; the Determination of Value by the Quantity of Labour Expended Which Is Contained in a Commodity, and Its Determination by the Quantity of Living Labour Which Can Be Bought in Exchange for This Commodity]
      2. [2.  Smith’s General Conception of Surplus-Value.  The Notion of Profit, Rent and Interest as Deductions from the Product of the Worker’s Labour]
      3. [3.  Adam Smith’s Extension of the Idea of Surplus-Value to All Spheres of Social Labour]
      4. [4.  Smith’s Failure to Grasp the Specific Way in Which the Law of Value Operates in the Exchange between Capital and Wage-Labour]
      5. [5.  Smith’s Identification of Surplus-Value with Profit.  The Vulgar Element in Smith’s Theory]
      6. [6.  Smith’s Erroneous View of Profit, Rent of Land and Wages as Sources of Value]
      7. [7.  Smith’s Dual View of the Relationship between Value and Revenue.  The Vicious Circle of Smith’s Conception of “‘Natural Price” as the Sum of Wages, Profit and Rent]
      8. [8.  Smith’s Error in Resolving the Total Value of the Social Product into Revenue.  Contradictions in His Views on Gross and Net Revenue]
      9. [9.  Say as Vulgariser of Smith’s Theory.  Say’s Identification of the Social Gross Product with the Social Revenue.  Attempts to Draw a Distinction between Them by Storch and Ramsay]
      10. [10.  Inquiry into How It Is Possible for the Annual Profit and Wages to Buy the Annual Commodities, Which Besides Profit and Wages Also Contain Constant Capital]
      11. [11.  Additional Points: Smith’s Confusion on the Question of the Measure of Value.  General Character of the Contradictions in Smith]
      12. Footnotes
    4. [Chapter IV]  Theories of Productive and Unproductive Labour
      1. [1.  Productive Labour from the Standpoint of Capitalist Production: Labour Which Produces Surplus-Value]
      2. [2.  Views of the Physiocrats and Mercantilists on Productive Labour]
      3. [3.  The Duality in Smith’s Conception of Productive Labour.  His First Explanation: the View of Productive Labour as Labour Exchanged for Capital]
      4. [4.  Adam Smith’s Second Explanation: the View of Productive Labour as Labour Which Is Realised in a Commodity]
      5. [5.  Vulgarisation of Bourgeois Political Economy in the Definition of Productive Labour]
      6. [6.  Advocates of Smith’s Views on Productive Labour.  On the History of the Subject]
      7. [7.]  Germain Garnier [Vulgarisation of the Theories Put Forward by Smith and the Physiocrats]
      8. [8.]  Charles Ganilh [Mercantilist Conception of Exchange and Exchange-Value.  Inclusion of All Paid Labour in the Concept of Productive Labour]
      9. [9.  Ganilh and Ricardo on Net Revenue.  Ganilh as Advocate of a Diminution of the Productive Population; Ricardo as Advocate of the Accumulation of Capital and the Growth of Productive Forces]
      10. [10.]  Exchange of Revenue and Capital [Replacement of the Total Amount of the Annual Product: (a) Exchange of Revenue for Revenue; (b) Exchange of Revenue for Capital; (c) Exchange of Capital for Capital]
      11. [11.]  Ferrier [Protectionist Character of Ferrier’s Polemics against Smith’s Theory of Productive Labour and the Accumulation of Capital, Smith’s Confusion on the Question of Accumulation, The Vulgar Element in Smith’s View of “Productive Labourers”]
      12. [12.]  Earl of Lauderdale [Apologetic Conception of the Ruling Classes as Representatives of the Most Important Kinds of Productive Labour]
      13. [13.  Say’s Conception of “Immaterial Products”.  Vindication of an Unrestrained Growth of Unproductive Labour]
      14. [14.]  Count Destutt de Tracy [Vulgar Conception of the Origin of Profit.  Proclamation of the Industrial Capitalist” as the Sole Productive Labourer]
      15. [15.  General Nature of the Polemics against Smith’s Distinction between Productive and Unproductive Labour.  Apologetic Conception of Unproductive Consumption as a Necessary Spur to Production]
      16. [16.]  Henri Storch [Unhistorical Approach to the Problem of the Interaction between Material and Spiritual Production.  Conception of “Immaterial Labour” Performed by the Ruling Class]
      17. [17.]  Nassau Senior [Proclamation of All Functions Useful to the Bourgeoisie as Productive.  Toadyism to the Bourgeoisie and the Bourgeois State]
      18. [18.]  Pellegrino Rossi [Disregard of the Social Form of Economic Phenomena.  Vulgar Conception of “Labour-saving” by Unproductive Labourers]
      19. [19.  Apologia for the Prodigality of the Rich by the Malthusian Chalmers]
      20. [20.  Concluding Observations on Adam Smith and His Views on Productive and Unproductive Labour]
      21. Footnotes
    5. [Chapter V]  Necker
      1. [Attempt to Present the Antagonism of Classes in Capitalism as the Antithesis Between Poverty and Wealth]
    6. [Chapter VI]  Quesnay’s Tableau Économique
      1. [1.  Quesnay’s Attempt to Show the Process of Reproduction and Circulation of the Total Capital]
      2. [2.  Circulation between Farmers and Landowners.  The Return Circuit of Money to the Farmers, Which Does Not Express Reproduction]
      3. [3.  On the Circulation of Money between Capitalist and Labourer]
      4. [4.  Circulation between Farmer and Manufacturer According to the Tableau Économique]
      5. [5.  Circulation of Commodities and Circulation of Money in the Tableau Économique.  Different Cases in Which the Money Flows Back to Its Starting-Point]
      6. [6.  Significance of the Tableau Économique in the History of Political Economy]
    7. [Chapter VII]  Linguet
      1. [Early Critique of the Bourgeois-Liberal View of the “Freedom” of the Labourer]
    8. Addenda to PART I
      1. [1.  Hobbes on Labour, on Value and on the Economic Role of Science]
      2. [2.]  Historical: Petty
      3. [3.]  Petty, Sir Dudley North, Locke
      4. [4.]  Locke
      5. [5.]  North  [Money as Capital. The Growth of Trade as the Cause of the Fall in the Rate of Interest]
      6. [6.  Berkeley on Industry as the Source of Wealth]
      7. [7.]  Hume and Massie
      8. [8.  Addendum to the Chapters on the Physiocrats]
      9. [9.  Glorification of the Landed Aristocracy by Buat, an Epigone of the Physiocrats]
      10. [10.  Polemics Against the Landed Aristocracy from the Standpoint of the Physiocrats (An Anonymous English Author)]
      11. [11.  Apologist Conception of the Productivity of All Professions]
      12. [12.]  Productivity of Capital.  Productive and Unproductive Labour
      13. [13.  Draft Plans for parts I and III of Capital]
  5. PART II
    1. [Chapter VIII]  Herr Rodbertus.  New Theory of Rent.
      1. [1.  Excess Surplus-Value in Agriculture.  Agriculture Develops Slower Than Industry under Conditions of Capitalism]
      2. [2.  The Relationship of the Rate of Profit to the Rate of Surplus-Value.  The Value of Agricultural Raw Material as an Element of Constant Capital in Agriculture]
      3. [3.  Value and Average Price in Agriculture.  Absolute Rent]
      4. [4.  Rodbertus’s Thesis that in Agriculture Raw Materials Lack Value Is Fallacious]
      5. [5.  Wrong Assumptions in Rodbertus’s Theory of Rent]
      6. [6.  Rodbertus’s Lack of Understanding of the Relationship Between Average Price and Value in Industry and Agriculture.  The Law of Average Prices]
      7. [7.  Rodbertus’s Erroneous Views Regarding the Factors Which Determine the Rate of Profit and the Rate of Rent]
      8. [8.  The Kernel of Truth in the Law Distorted by Rodbertus]
      9. [9.  Differential Rent and Absolute Rent in Their Reciprocal Relationship.  Rent as an Historical Category.  Smith’s and Ricardo’s Method of Research]
      10. [10.  Rate of Rent and Rate of Profit.  Relation Between Productivity in Agriculture and in Industry in the Different Stages of Historical Development]
    2. [Chapter IX]  Notes on the History of the Discovery of the So-Called Ricardian Law of Rent.
      1. [1.  The Discovery of the Law of Differential Rent by Anderson.  Distortion of Anderson’s Views by His Plagiarist, Malthus, in the Interests of the Landowners]
      2. [2.  Ricardo’s Fundamental Principle in Assessing Economic Phenomena Is the Development of the Productive Forces.  Malthus Defends the Most Reactionary Elements of the Ruling Classes.  Virtual Refutation of Malthus’s Theory of Population by Darwin]
      3. [3.  Roscher’s Falsification of the History of Views on Ground-Rent.  Examples of Ricardo’s Scientific Impartiality.  Rent from Capital Investment in Land and Rent from the Exploitation of Other Elements of Nature.  The Twofold Influence of Competition]
      4. [4.  Rodbertus’s Error Regarding the Relation Between Value and Surplus-Value When the Costs of Production Rise]
      5. [5.  Ricardo’s Denial of Absolute Rent—a Result of His Error in the Theory of Value]
      6. [6.  Ricardo’s Thesis on the Constant Rise in Corn Prices.  Table of Annual Average Prices of Corn from 1641 to 1859]
      7. [7.  Hopkins’s Conjecture about the Difference Between Absolute Rent and Differential Rent; Explanation of Rent by the Private Ownership of Land]
      8. [8.  The Costs of Bringing Land into Cultivation.  Periods of Rising and Periods of Falling Corn Prices (1641-1859)]
      9. [9.  Anderson versus Malthus.  Anderson’s Definition of Rent.  His Thesis of the Rising Productivity of Agriculture and Its Influence on Differential Rent]
      10. [10.  The Untenability of the Rodbertian Critique Rodbertus’s of Ricardo’s Theory of Rent.  Lack of Understanding of the Peculiarities of Capitalist Agriculture]
    3. [Chapter X]  Ricardo’s and Adam Smith’s Theory of Cost-price (Refutation)
      1. [A.  Ricardo’s Theory of Cost-price]
      2. [1.  Collapse of the Theory of the Physiocrats and the Further Development of the Theories of Rent]
      3. [2.  The Determination of Value by Labour-Time—the Basis of Ricardo’s Theory.  Despite Certain Deficiencies the Ricardian Mode of Investigation Is a Necessary Stage in the Development of Political Economy]
      4. [3.  Ricardo’s Confusion about the Question of  “Absolute” and “Relative” Value.  His Lack of Understanding of the Forms of Value]
      5. [4.]  Ricardo’s Description of Profit, Rate of Profit, Average Prices etc.
      6. [5.]  Average or Cost-Prices and Market-Prices
      7. [c) Ricardo’s Two Different Definitions of “Natural Price”.  Changes in Cost-Price Caused by Changes in the Productivity of Labour]
      8. [B.  Adam Smith’s Theory of Cost-price]
      9. [1.  Smith’s False Assumptions in the Theory of Cost-Prices.  Ricardo’s Inconsistency Owing to His Retention of the Smithian Identification of Value and Cost-Price]
      10. [2.  Adam Smith’s Theory of the “Natural Rate” of Wages, Profit and Rent]
    4. [Chapter XI]  Ricardo’s Theory of Rent.
      1. [1.  Historical Conditions for the Development of the Theory of Rent by Anderson and Ricardo]
      2. [2.  The Connection Between Ricardo’s Theory of Rent and His Explanation of Cost-Prices]
      3. [3.  The Inadequacy of the Ricardian Definition of Rent]
    5. [Chapter XII]  Tables of Differential Rent and Comment
      1. [1.  Changes in the Amount and Rate of Rent]
      2. [2.  Various Combinations of Differential and Absolute Rent.  Tables A, B, C, D, E]
      3. [3.  Analysis of the Tables]
    6. [Chapter XIII]  Ricardo’s Theory of Rent (Conclusion)
      1. [1.  Ricardo’s Assumption of the Non-Existence of Landed Property.  Transition to New Land Is Contingent on Its Situation and Fertility]
      2. [2.  The Ricardian Assertion that Rent Cannot Possibly Influence the Price of Corn.  Absolute Rent Causes the Prices of Agricultural Products to Rise]
      3. [3.  Smith’s and Ricardo’s Conception of the “Natural Price” of the Agricultural Product]
      4. [4.  Ricardo’s Views on Improvements in Agriculture.  His Failure to Understand the Economic Consequences of Changes in the Organic Composition of Agricultural Capital]
      5. [5.  Ricardo’s Criticism of Adam Smith’s and Malthus’s Views on Rent]
    7. [Chapter XIV]  Adam Smith’s Theory of Rent
      1. [1.  Contradictions in Smith’s Formulation of the Problem of Rent]
      2. [2.  Adam Smith’s Hypothesis Regarding the Special Character of the Demand for Agricultural Produce.  Physiocratic Elements in Smith’s Theory of Rent]
      3. [3.  Adam Smith’s Explanation of How the Relation Between Supply and Demand Affects the Various Types of Products from the Land.  Smith’s Conclusions Regarding the Theory of Rent]
      4. [4.  Adam Smith’s Analysis of the Variations in the Prices of Products of the Land]
      5. [5.  Adam Smith’s Views on the Movements of Rent and His Estimation of the Interests of the Various Social Classes]
    8. [Chapter XV]  Ricardo’s Theory of Surplus-Value
      1. [1.  Ricardo’s Confusion of the Laws of Surplus-Value with the Laws of Profit]
      2. [2.  Changes in the Rate of Profit Caused by Various Factors]
      3. [3.  The Value of Constant Capital Decreases While That of Variable Capital Increases and Vice Versa, and the Effect of These Changes on the Rate of Profit]
      4. [4.  Confusion of Cost-Prices with Value in the Ricardian Theory of Profit]
      5. [5.  The General Rate of Profit and the Rate of Absolute Rent in Their Relation to Each Other.  The Influence on Cost-Prices of a Reduction in Wages]
      6. 1.  Quantity of Labour and Value of Labour.  [As Presented by Ricardo the Problem of the Exchange of Labour for Capital Cannot Be Solved]
      7. 2.  Value of Labour-Power.  Value of Labour.  [Ricardo’s Confusion of Labour with Labour-Power.  Concept of the “Natural Price of Labour”]
      8. 3.  Surplus-Value.  [An Analysis of the Source of Surplus-Value Is Lacking in Ricardo’s Work.  His Concept of Working-Day as a Fixed Magnitude]
      9. 4.  Relative Surplus-Value.  [The Analysis of Relative Wages Is One of Ricardo’s Scientific Achievements]
    9. [Chapter XVI]  Ricardo’s Theory of Profit
      1. [1.  Individual Instances in Which Ricardo Distinguishes Between Surplus-Value and Profit]
      2. [2.]  Formation of the General Rate of Profit.  (Average Profit or “Usual Profit”)
      3. [3.]  Law of the Diminishing Rate of Profit
      4. Author’s Footnotes
      5. Editors’ Footnotes
    10. [Chapter XVII]  Ricardo’s Theory of Accumulation and a Critique of it.  (The Very Nature of Capital Leads to Crises)
      1. [1.  Adam Smith’s and Ricardo’s Error in Failing to Take into Consideration Constant Capital.  Reproduction of the Different Parts of Constant Capital]
      2. [2.  Value of the Constant Capital and Value of the Product]
      3. [3.  Necessary Conditions for the Accumulation of Capital.  Amortisation of Fixed Capital and Its Role in the Process of Accumulation]
      4. [4.  The Connection Between Different Branches of Production in the Process of Accumulation.  The Direct Transformation of a Part of Surplus-Value into Constant Capital—a Characteristic Peculiar to Accumulation in Agriculture and the Machine-building Industry]
      5. [5.  The Transformation of Capitalised Surplus-Value into Constant and Variable Capital]
      6. [6.  Crises (Introductory Remarks)]
      7. [7.  Absurd Denial of the Over-production of Commodities, Accompanied by a Recognition of the Over-abundance of Capital]
      8. [8.  Ricardo’s Denial of General Over-production.  Possibility of a Crisis Inherent in the Inner Contradictions of Commodity and Money]
      9. [9.  Ricardo’s Wrong Conception of the Relation Between Production and Consumption under the Conditions of Capitalism]
      10. [10.  Crisis, Which Was a Contingency, Becomes a Certainty.  The Crisis as the Manifestation of All the Contradictions of Bourgeois Economy]
      11. [11.  On the Forms of Crisis]
      12. [12.  Contradictions Between Production and Consumption under Conditions of Capitalism.  Over-production of the Principal Consumer Goods Becomes General Over-production]
      13. [13.  The Expansion of the Market Does Not Keep in Step with the Expansion of Production.  The Ricardian Conception That an Unlimited Expansion of Consumption and of the Internal Market Is Possible]
      14. [14.  The Contradiction Between the Impetuous Development of the Productive Powers and the Limitations of Consumption Leads to Over-production.  The Theory of the Impossibility of General Over-production Is Essentially Apologetic in Tendency]
      15. [15.  Ricardo’s Views on the Different Types of Accumulation of Capital and on the Economic Consequences of Accumulation]
    11. [Chapter XVIII]  Ricardo’s Miscellanea.  John Barton
      1. [A.] Gross and Net Income
      2. [B.] Machinery [Ricardo and Barton on the Influence of Machines on the Conditions of the Working Class]
      3. Footnotes
    12. Addenda to PART II
      1. [1.  Early Formulation of the Thesis That the Supply of Agricultural Products Always Corresponds to Demand.  Rodbertus and the Practicians among the Economists of the Eighteenth Century]
      2. [2.  Nathaniel Forster on the Hostility Between Landowners and Traders]
      3. [3.  Hopkins’s Views on the Relationship Between Rent and Profit]
      4. [4.  Carey, Malthus and James Deacon Hume on Improvements in Agriculture]
      5. [5.  Hodgskin and Anderson on the Growth of Productivity in Agricultural Labour]
      6. [6.  Decrease in the Rate of Profit]
  6. PART III
    1. [Chapter XIX]  Thomas Robert Malthus
      1. [1.  Malthus’s Confusion of the Categories Commodity and Capital]
      2. [2.  Malthus’s Vulgarised View of Surplus-Value]
      3. [3. The Row Between the Supporters of Malthus and Ricardo in the Twenties of the 19th Century.  Common Features in Their Attitude to the Working Class]
      4. [4. Malthus’s One-sided Interpretation of Smith’s Theory of Value.  His Use of Smith’s Mistaken Theses in His Polemic Against Ricardo]
      5. [5. Smith’s Thesis of the Invariable Value of Labour as Interpreted by Malthus]
      6. [6.  Malthus’s Use of the Ricardian Theses of the Modification of the Law of Value in His Struggle Against the Labour Theory of Value]
      7. [7.  Malthus’s Vulgarised Definition of Value.  His View of Profit as Something Added to the Price.  His Polemic Against Ricardo’s Conception of the Relative Wages of Labour]
      8. [8.  Malthus on Productive Labour and Accumulation]
      9. [9.] Constant and Variable Capital [According to Malthus]
      10. [10.] Malthus’s Theory of Value [Supplementary Remarks]
      11. [11.]  Over-Production, “Unproductive Consumers”, etc.
      12. [12.  The Social Essence of Malthus’s Polemic Against Ricardo.  Malthus’s Distortion of Sismondi’s Views on the Contradictions in Bourgeois Production]
      13. [13.  Critique of Malthus’s Conception of “Unproductive Consumers” by Supporters of Ricardo]
      14. [14.  The Reactionary Role of Malthus’s Writings and Their Plagiaristic Character.  Malthus’s Apologia for the Existence of “Upper” and “Lower” Classes]
      15. [15.  Malthus’s Principles Expounded in the Anonymous “Outlines of Political Economy”]
    2. [Chapter XX]  Disintegration of the Ricardian School
      1. 1.  [Robert Torrens]
      2. 2.  James Mill [Futile Attempts to Resolve the Contradictions of the Ricardian System]
      3. 3.  Polemical Writings
      4. 4.  McCulloch
      5. 5.  Wakefield [Some Objections to Ricardo’s Theory Regarding the “Value of Labour” and Rent]
      6. 6.  Stirling [Vulgarised Explanation of Profit by the Interrelation of Supply and Demand]
      7. 7.  John Stuart Mill  [Unsuccessful Attempts to Deduce the Ricardian Theory of the Inverse Proportionality Between the Rate of Profit and the Level of Wages Directly from the Law of Value]
      8. [8.  Conclusion]
    3. [Chapter XXI]  Opposition to the Economists (Based on the Ricardian Theory)
      1. 1.  [The Pamphlet] “The Source and Remedy of the National Difficulties”
      2. 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]
      3. 3.  Hodgskin
      4. [4.]  Bray as an Opponent of the Economists
    4. [Chapter XXII]  Ramsay
      1. [1.  The Attempt to Distinguish Between Constant and Variable Capital.  The View that Capital Is Not an Essential Social Form]
      2. [2.  Ramsay’s Views on Surplus-Value and on Value.  Reduction of Surplus-Value to Profit.  The Influence Which Changes in the Value of Constant and Variable Capital Exert on the Rate and Amount of Profit]
      3. [3.  Ramsay on the Division of “Gross Profit” into “Net Profit” (Interest) and “Profit of Enterprise”.  Apologetic Elements in His Views on the “Labour of superintendence”, “Insurance Covering the Risk Involved” and “Excess Profit”]
    5. [Chapter XXIII]  Cherbuliez
      1. [1.  Distinction Between Two Parts of Capital—the Part Consisting of Machinery and Raw Materials and the Part Consisting of “Means of Subsistence” for the Workers]
      2. [2.  On the Progressive Decline in the Number of Workers in Relation to the Amount of Constant Capital]
      3. [3.  Cherbuliez’s Inkling that the Organic Composition of Capital Is Decisive for the Rate of Profit.  His Confusion on This Question.  Cherbuliez on the “Law of Appropriation” in Capitalist Economy]
      4. [4.  On Accumulation as Extended Reproduction]
      5. [5.  Elements of Sismondism in Cherbuliez.  On the Organic Composition of Capital Fixed and Circulating Capital]
      6. [6.  Cherbuliez Eclectically Combines Mutually Exclusive Propositions of Ricardo and Sismondi]
    6. [Chapter XXIV]  Richard Jones
      1. 1.  Reverend Richard Jones, “An Essay on the Distribution of Wealth, and on the Sources of Taxation,” London, 1831, Part I, Rent [Elements of a Historical Interpretation of Rent. Jones’s Superiority over Ricardo in particular Questions of the Theory of Rent and His Mistakes in This Field]
      2. 2.  Richard Jones, “An Introductory Lecture on Political Economy etc.” [The Concept of the “Economical Structure of Nations”.  Jones’s Confusion with regard to the “Labor Fund”]
      3. 3.  Richard Jones, “Text-book of Lectures on the Political Economy of Nations”, Hertford, 1852
    7. Addenda to PART III Revenue and its Sources.  Vulgar Political Economy
      1. [1.]  The Development of Interest-Bearing Capital on the Basis of Capitalist Production.  [Transformation of the Relations of the Capitalist Mode of Production into a Fetish.  Interest-Bearing Capital as the Clearest Expression of This Fetish.  The Vulgar Economists and the Vulgar Socialists Regarding Interest on Capital]
      2. [2.]  Interest-Bearing Capital and Commercial Capital in Relation to Industrial Capital.  Older Forms.  Derived Forms
      3. [3.  The Separation of Individual Parts of Surplus-Value in the Form of Different Revenues.  The Relation of Interest to Industrial Profit.  The Irrationality of the Fetishised Forms of Revenue]
      4. [4.  The Process of Ossification of the Converted Forms of Surplus-Value and Their Ever Greater Separation from Their Inner Substance—Surplus Labour.  Industrial Profit as “Wages for the Capitalist”]
      5. [5.  Essential Difference Between Classical and Vulgar Economy.  Interest and Rent as Constituent Elements of the Market Price of Commodities.  Vulgar Economists Attempt to Give the Irrational Forms of Interest and Rent a Semblance of Rationality]
      6. [6.  The Struggle of Vulgar Socialism Against Interest (Proudhon).  Failure to Understand the Inner Connection Between Interest and the System of Wage-Labour]
      7. [7.  Historical Background to the Problem of Interest.  Luther’s Polemic Against Interest Is Superior to That of Proudhon.  The Concept of Interest Changes as a Result of the Evolution of Capitalist Relations]
      8. Post-Ricardian Social Criticism

[Chapter VII]  Linguet

[Early Critique of the Bourgeois-Liberal View of the “Freedom” of the Labourer]

||438| Linguet, Théorie des lois civiles, etc., Londres, 1767.

In accordance with the plan of my work socialist and communist writers are entirely excluded from the historical reviews.  These reviews are only intended to show on the one hand in what form the political economists criticised each other, and on the other hand the historically determining forms in which the laws of political economy were first stated and further developed.  In dealing with surplus-value I therefore exclude such eighteenth-century writers as Brissot, Godwin and the like, and likewise the nineteenth-century socialists and communists.  The few socialist writers whom I shall come to speak of in this survey either themselves adopt the standpoint of bourgeois economy or contest it from its own standpoint.

Linguet however is not a socialist.  His polemics against the bourgeois-liberal ideals of the Enlighteners, his contemporaries, against the dominion of the bourgeoisie that was then beginning, are given—half-seriously, half-ironically—a reactionary appearance.  He defends Asiatic despotism against the civilised European forms of despotism; thus he defends slavery against wage-labour.

Vol. I.  The only statement directed against Montesquieu: l’esprit des lois, c’est la propriété,* shows the depth of his outlook.

The only economists whom Linguet found to deal with were the Physiocrats.

The rich have taken possession of all the conditions of production; [hence] the alienation of the conditions of production, which in their simplest form are the natural elements themselves.

“In our civilised countries, all the elements [of nature] are slaves” ([Linguet, Théorie des lois civiles…, Londres, 1767], p. 188).

In order to get hold of some of this wealth appropriated by the rich, it must be purchased with heavy labour, which increases the wealth of these rich persons.

“Thus it is that all captive nature has ceased to offer to these children resources of easy access for the maintenance of their life.  Its favours must be paid for by assiduous toil, and its gifts by stubborn labours” [p. 188].

(Here—in the gifts of nature—the Physiocratic view is echoed.)

“The rich man, wino has arrogated to himself the exclusive possession of it, only at this price consents to restore even the smallest part of it to the community.  In order to be allowed to share in its treasures, it is necessary to labour to increase them” (p. 189).  “One must, then, renounce this chimera of liberty” (p. 190).  Laws exist in order to “sanctify a primary usurpation” (of private property), “to prevent new usurpations” (p. 192).  “They are, as it were, a conspiracy against the greater part of the human race” [p. 195] (that is, against those who own no property).  “It is society which has produced the laws, and not the laws which have produced society” (p. 230).  “Property existed before the laws” (p. 236).

Society itself—the fact that man lives in society and not as an independent, self-supporting individual—is the root of property, of the laws based on it and of the inevitable slavery.

On the one hand, there were peaceful and isolated husband-men and shepherds.  On the other hand—

“hunters accustomed to live by blood, to gather together in bands the more easily to entrap and fell the beasts on which they fed, and to concert together on the division of the spoils” (p. 279).  “It is among the hunters that the first signs of society must have appeared” (p. 278).  “Real society came into being at the expense of the shepherds or husbandman, and was founded on their subjection” by a band of hunters who had joined hands (p. 289).  All duties of society were resolved into commanding and obeying “This degradation of a part of the human race, after it had produced society, gave birth to laws” (p. 294).

Stripped of the conditions of production, the labourers are compelled by need to labour to increase the wealth of others in order themselves to live.

“It is the impossibility of living by any other means that compels our farm labourers to till the soil whose fruits they will not eat, and our masons to construct buildings in which they will not live.  It is want that drags them to those markets where they await masters who will do them the kindness of buying them.  It is want that compels them to go down on their knees to the rich man in order to get from him permission to enrich him” (p. 274).

“Violence, then, has been the first cause of society, and force the first bond that held it together” (p. 302).  “Their” (men’s) “first care was doubtless to provide themselves with food… the second must have been to seek to provide themselves with it without labour” (pp. 307-08).  “They could only achieve this by appropriating to themselves the fruit of other men’s labour” (p. 308).  “The first conquerors only made themselves despots so that they could be idle with impunity, and kings, in order to have something to live on: and this greatly narrows and simplifies…the idea of domination” (p. 309).  “Society is born of violence, and property of usurpation” (p. 347).  “As soon as there were masters and slaves, society was formed” (p. 343).  “From the beginning, the two ||439| pillars of the civil union were on the one hand the slavery of the greater part of the men, and on the other, the slavery of all the women…  It was at the cost of three-fourths of its members that society assured the happiness, the opulence, the ease of the small number of property-owners whom alone it had in view” (p. 365).

Vol. II: “The question, therefore, is not to examine whether slavery is contrary to nature in itself, but whether it is contrary to the nature of society…it is inseparable from it” (p. 256).  “Society and civil servitude were born together” (p. 257).  “Permanent slavery…the indestructible foundation of societies” (p. 347).

“Men have only been reduced to depend for their subsistence on the liberality of another man when the latter by despoiling them has become rich enough to be able to return a small portion to them.  His feigned generosity could be no more than a restitution of some part of the fruits of their labours which he had appropriated” (p. 242).  “Does not servitude consist in this obligation to sow without reaping for oneself, to sacrifice one’s well-being to that of another, to labour without hope?  And did not its real epoch begin from he moment when there were men whom the whip and a few measures of oats when they were brought to the stable could compel to   labour?  It is only in a fully developed society that food seems to the poor starveling a sufficient equivalent for his liberty; but in n society in its early stages free men would be struck with horror at this unequal exchange.  It could only be proposed for captives.  Only after they have been deprived of the enjoyment of all their faculties can it” [the exchange] “become a necessity for them” (pp. 244-45).

“The essence of society…consists in freeing the rich man from labour, giving him new organs, untiring members, which take upon themselves all the laborious operations the fruits of which he is to appropriate.  That is the plan which slavery allows him to carry out without embarrassment.  He buys men who are to serve him” (p. 461).  “In suppressing slavery, no claim was made that either wealth or its advantages were suppressed…  It was therefore necessary that things should remain the same except in name, It has always been necessary for the majority of men to continue to live in the pay of and in dependence on the minority which has appropriated to itself all wealth.  Slavery has therefore been perpetuated on the earth, but under a sweeter name.  Among us now it is adorned with the title of service” (p. 462).

By these servants, Linguet says, he does not mean lackeys and the like:

“The towns and the countryside are peopled by another kind of servant, more widely spread, more useful, more laborious, and known by the name of journeymen, handicraftsmen, etc.  They are not dishonoured by the brilliant colours of luxury; they sigh beneath the loathsome rags which are the livery of penury.  They never share in the abundance of which their labour is the source.  Wealth seems to grant them a favour when it kindly accepts the presents that they make to it.  It is for them to he grateful for the services which they render to it.  It pours on them the most outrageous contempt while they are clasping its knees imploring permission to be useful to it.  It has to be pleaded with to grant this, and in this peculiar exchange of real generosity for an imaginary favour, arrogance and disdain are on the side of the receiver, and servility, anxiety and eagerness on the side of the giver.  These are the servants who have truly replaced the serfs among us” (pp. 463-64).

“The point that has to he examined is: what effective gain the suppression of slavery has brought to them.  I say with as much sorrow as frankness: all that they have gained is to be every moment tormented by the fear of death from hunger, a calamity that at least never visited their predecessors in this lowest rank of mankind” (p. 464).  “He is free, you say.  Ah!  That is his misfortune.  He is bound to no one; but also no one is bound to him.  When he is needed, he is hired at the cheapest price possible.  The meagre wage that he is promised is hardly equal to the price of his subsistence for the day which he gives in exchange.  He is given overlookers to compel him to fulfil his task quickly; he is hard driven; he is goaded on, for fear that a skilfully concealed and only too comprehensible laziness may make him hold back half his strength; for fear that the hope of remaining employed longer on the same task may stay his hands and blunt his tools.  The sordid economy that keeps a restless watch on him overwhelms him with reproaches at the slightest respite he seems to allow himself, and claims to have been robbed if he takes a moment’s rest.  When he has finished he is dismissed as be was taken on, with the coldest indifference, and without any concern as to whether the twenty or thirty sous that he has just earned for a hard day’s labour ||440| will be enough to keep him if he finds no work the following day” (pp. 466-67).

“He is free!  That is precisely why I pity him.  For that reason, he is much less cared for in the labours in which be is used.  His life is much more readily hazarded.  The slave was precious to his master because of the money he had cost him.  But the handicraftsman costs nothing to the rich voluptuary who employs him.  Men’s blood had some p rice in the days of slavery.  They were worth at least as much as they could be sold for in the market.  Since they have no longer been sold they have no real intrinsic value.  A pioneer is much less valued in an army than a pack-horse, because the horse is very costly and a pioneer can be had for nothing.  The suppression of slavery brought these military calculations into civil life; and since that epoch there has been no prosperous bourgeois who does not calculate in this way, as heroes do” (p. 467)

“The day-labourers are born, grow up and are trained for” (are bred for) “the service of wealth without causing it the slightest expense, like the game that it massacres over its estates.  It seems as if it really has the secret of which the unfortunate Pompey vainly boasted.  Wealth has only to stamp on the ground, and from it emerge legions of hard-working men who contend among themselves for the honour of being at its disposal: if one among this crowd of mercenaries putting up its buildings or keeping its gardens straight disappears, the place that he has left empty is an invisible point which is immediately covered again without any intervention from anyone.  A drop of the water of a great river is lost without regret, because new torrents incessantly succeed it.  It is the same with labourers; the ease with which they can be replaced fosters the rich man’s” (this is the form used by Linguet; not yet capitalist) “hard-heartedness towards them” (p. 468).

“These men, it is said, have no master…pure abuse of the word.  What does it mean?  they have no master—they have one, and the most terrible, the most imperious of masters, that is, need.  It is this that reduces them to the most cruel dependence.  It is not one man in particular whose orders they must obey, but the orders of all in general.  It is not a single tyrant whose whims they have to humour and whose benevolence they have to court— which would set a limit to their servitude and make it endurable.  They become the valets of anyone who has money, which gives their slavery an infinite compass and severity.  It is said that if they do not get on well with one master they at least have the consolation that they can tell him so and the power to make a change: but the slaves have neither the one nor the other.  They are therefore all the more wretched.  What sophistry!  For bear in mind that the number of those who make others work is very small and the number of labourers on the contrary is immense” (pp. 470-71).  “What is this apparent liberty which you have bestowed on them reduced to for them?  They live only by hiring out their arms.  They must therefore find someone to hire them, or die of hunger.  Is that to be free?” (p. 472).

“What is most terrible is that the very smallness of this pay is another reason for reducing it.  The more the day-labourer is driven by want, the cheaper he sells himself.  The greater the urgency of his need, the less profitable is his labour.  The despots for the moment whom he beseeches with tears to accept his services feel no shame in, as it were, feeling his pulse, to assure themselves that he has enough strength left; they fix the reward that they offer him by the degree of his weakness.  The nearer they think he is to death from starvation, the more they deduct from what could keep him from it; and what the savages that they are give him is less to prolong his life than to delay his death” (pp. 482-83).  The “independence” (of the day-labourer) “is one of the most baneful scourges that the refinement of modern times has produced.  It augments the wealth of the rich and the poverty of the poor.  The one saves everything that the other spends.  What the latter is forced to economise is not from his superfluity but from what is indispensable to him” (p. 483).

“If today it is so easy to maintain these prodigious armies which join with luxury in order to bring about the extinction of the human race, it is only due to the suppression of slavery…  It is only since there have no longer been slaves that debauchery and beggary make heroes at five sous a day” (pp. 484-85).

“I find this” (Asiatic slavery) “a hundred times more preferable than any other way of existing, for men reduced to having to win their livelihood by daily labour” (p. 496).

“Their” (the slaves’ and the labourers’) “chains are made of the same material and only differently coloured.  Here they are black, and seem heavy: there they look less gloomy and seem hollower: but weigh them impartially and you will find no difference between them; both are equally forged by necessity.  They have precisely the same weight, or rather, if they are a few grains more in one case, it is in the one whose external appearance proclaims that it is lighter” (p. 510).

He calls to the men of the French Enlightenment, in regard to the labourers:

“Do you not see that the subjection, the annihilation—since it must he said—of this large part of the flock creates the wealth of the shepherds?… Believe me, in his interest” (the shepherd’s), “in yours, and even in theirs, leave them” (the sheep) “with the conviction that they have that this cur who yelps at them is stronger by himself than they are all together.  Let them flee with stupid fright at the mere sight of his shadow.  Everyone benefits from it.  It will make it easier for you to gather them in to fleece them for yourself.  They are more easily guarded from being devoured by wolves.  [441] It is true, only to he eaten by men.  But anyway that is their fate from the moment they have entered a stable.  Before talking of releasing them from there, start by overthrowing the stable, that is to say, society” (pp. 512-13).  |X-441||

* The sprit of the laws is property.—Ed.

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Written: 1863; Source: Theories of Surplus Value, Progress Publishers; Past Work: Julio Huato Scan: YongLee Goh Mark-up: Hans G. Ehrbar eBook prepared by: J Eduardo Brissos.
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