part III |
CHAPTER IX
|
part III |
CHAPTER IX
|
SECTION 1.
The surplus-value generated in the process of
production by C, the capital advanced, or in other words, the
self-expansion of the value of the capital C, presents itself for our
consideration, in the first place, as a surplus, as the amount by which
the value of the product exceeds the value of its constituent
elements.
The capital C is made up of two components, one, the sum of money
c laid out upon the means of production, and the other, the sum
of money v expended upon the labour-power; c represents the portion
that has become constant capital, and v the portion that has become
variable capital. At first then, C = c + v: for example, if £500
is the capital advanced, its components may be such that the £500
= £410 const. + £90 var. When the process of production
is finished, we get a commodity whose value = (c + v) + s,
where s is the surplus-value; or taking our former figures, the
value of this commodity may be (£410 const. + £90 var.)
+ £90 surpl. The original capital has now changed from C
to C', from £500 to £590. The difference is s
or a surplusvalue of £90, Since the value of the constituent
elements of the product is equal to the value of the advanced
capital, it is mere tautology to say, that the excess of the value
of the product over the value of its constituent elements, is
equal to the expansion of the capital advanced or to the surplus-value
produced.
Nevertheless, we must examine this tautology a little more closely. The
two things compared are, the value of the product and the value of its
constituents consumed in the process of production. Now we have seen
how that portion of the constant capital which consists of the
This being so, let us return to the formula C = c + v, which we saw was
transformed into C' = (c + v) + s, C becoming C'. We know that the
value of the constant capital is transferred to, and merely re-appears
in the product. The new value actually created in the process, the
value produced, or value-product, is therefore not the same as the
value of the product; it is not, as it would at first sight appear (c +
v) + s or £410 const. + £90 var. + £90 surpl.; but v + s
or £90 var. + £90 surpl., not £590 but £180. If c
= 0, or in other words, if there were branches of industry in which the
capitalist could dispense with all means of production made by previous
labour, whether they be raw material, auxiliary material, or
instruments of labour, employing only labour-power and materials
supplied by Nature, in that case, there would be no constant capital to
transfer to the product. This component of the value of the product,
i.e., the £410 in our example, would be eliminated, but the
sum of £180, the amount of new value created, or the value
produced, which contains £90 of surplus-value, would remain just
as great as if c represented the highest value imaginable. We should
have C = (0 + v) = v or C' the expanded capital = v + s and therefore
From what has gone before, we know that surplus-value is purely the
result of a variation in the value of v, of that portion of the capital
which is transformed into labour-power; consequently, v + s = v + v, or
v plus an increment of v. But the fact that it is v alone that varies,
and the conditions of that variation, are obscured by the circumstance
that in consequence of the increase in the variable component of the
capital, there is also an increase in. the sum total of the advanced
capital. It was originally £500 and becomes £590. Therefore
in order that our investigation may lead to accurate results, we must
make abstraction from that portion of the value of the product, in
which constant capital alone appears, and consequently must equate the
constant capital to zero or make c = 0. This is merely an application
of a mathematical rule, employed whenever we operate with constant and
variable magnitudes, related to each other by the symbols of addition
and subtraction only.
A further difficulty is caused by the original form of the variable
capital. In our example, C' = £410 const. + £90 var. +
£90 surpl.; but £90 is a given and therefore a constant
quantity; hence it appears absurd to treat it as variable. But in
fact, the term £90 var. is here merely a symbol to show that this
value undergoes a process. The portion of the capital invested in the
purchase of labour-power is a definite quantity of materialised labour,
a constant value like the value of the labour-power purchased. But in
the process of production the place of the £90 is taken by the
labour-power in action, dead labour is replaced by living labour,
something stagnant by something flowing, a constant by a variable. The
result is the reproduction of v plus an increment of v. From the point
of view then of capitalist production, the whole process appears as the
spontaneous variation of the originally constant value, which is
transformed into labour-power. Both the process and its result, appear
to be owing to this value. If, therefore, such expressions as
"£9O variable capital," or "so much self-expanding value", appear
contradictory, this is only because they bring to the surface a
contradiction immanent in capitalist production.
At first sight it appears a strange proceeding, to equate the constant
capital to zero. Yet it is what we do every day. If, for example, we
wish to calculate the amount of England's profits from the cotton
industry, we first of all deduct the sums paid for cotton to the United
States, India, Egypt and other countries; in other words, the value of
the capital that merely re-appears in the value of the product, is put
= 0.
In the first place then we equate the constant capital to zero. The
capital advanced is consequently reduced from c + v to v, and instead
of the value of the product (c + v) + s we have now the value produced
(v + s). Given the new value produced = £180, which sum
consequently represents the whole labour expended during the process,
then subtracting from it £90 the value of the variable capital, we
have remaining £90, the amount of the surplus-value. This sum of
£90 or s expresses the absolute quantity of surplus-value
produced. The relative quantity produced, or the increase per cent of
the variable capital, is determined, it is plain, by the ratio of the
surplus-value to the variable capital, or is expressed by s/v. In our
example this ratio is 90/90, which gives an increase of 100%. This
relative increase in the value of the variable capital, or the relative
magnitude of the surplus-value, I call, "The rate of surplus-value." [3]
Since, on the one hand, the values of the variable capital and of the
labour-power purchased by that capital are equal, and the value of this
labour-power determines the necessary portion of the working-day; and
since, on the other hand, the surplus-value is determined by the
surplus portion of the working-day, it follows that surplus-value bears
the same ratio to variable capital, that surplus-labour does to
necessary labour, or in other words, the rate of surplus-value
The rate of surplus-value is therefore an exact expression for the
degree of exploitation of labour-power by capital, or of the labourer
by the capitalist. [7]
The method of calculating the rate of surplus-value is therefore,
shortly, as follows. We take the total value of the product and put
the constant capital which merely re-appears in it, equal to zero.
What remains, is the only value that has, in the process of producing
the commodity, been actually created. If the amount of surplus-value
be given, we have only to deduct it from this remainder, to find the
variable capital. And vice versâ, if the latter be given,
and we require to find the surplus-value. If both be given, we have
only to perform the concluding operation, viz., to calculate s/v, the
ratio of the surplus-value to the v variable capital.
Though the method is so simple, yet it may not be amiss, by means of a
few examples, to exercise the reader in the application of the novel
principles underlying it.
First we will take the case of a spinning mill containing 10,000 mule
spindles, spinning No. 32 yarn from American cotton, and producing 1
lb. of yarn weekly per spindle. We assume the waste to be 6%: under
these circumstances 10,600 lbs. of cotton are consumed weekly, of which
600 lbs. go to waste. The price of the cotton in April, 1871, was 7
3/4d. per lb.; the raw material therefore costs in round numbers
£342.
One more example. Jacob gives the following calculation for the year
1815. Owing to the previous adjustment of several items it is very
imperfect; nevertheless for our purpose it is sufficient. In it he
assumes the price of wheat to be 8s. a quarter, and the average yield
per acre to be 22 bushels.
Assuming that the price of the product is the same as its value, we
here find the surplus-value distributed under the various heads of
profit, interest, rent, &c. We have. nothing to do with these in
detail; we simply add them together, and the sum is a surplus-value of
£3 11s. 0d. The sum of £3 19s. 0d., paid for seed and
manure, is constant capital, and
Let us now return to the example by which we were
shown how the capitalist converts money into capital.
The product of a working-day of 12 hours is 20 lbs. of yarn, having a
value of 30s. No less than 8/10ths of this value, or 24s., is due to
mere re-appearance in it, of the value of the means of production (20
lbs. of cotton, value 20s., and spindle worn away, 4s.): it is
therefore constant capital. The remaining 2/10ths or 6s. is the new
value created during the spinning process: of this one half replaces
the value of the day's labour-power, or the variable capital, the
remaining half constitutes a surplus-value of 3s. The total value then
of the 20 lbs. of yarn is made up as follows:
30s. value of yarn = 24s. const. + 3s. var. + 3s. surpl.
Since the whole of this value is contained in the 20 lbs. of yarn
produced, it follows that the various component parts of this value,
can be represented as being contained respectively in corresponding
parts of the product.
If the value of 30s. is contained in 20 lbs. of yarn, then 8/10ths of
this value, or the 24s. that form its constant part, is contained in
8/10ths of the product or in 16 lbs. of yarn. Of the latter 13 1/3
lbs. represent the value of the raw material, the 20s. worth of cotton
spun, and 2 2/3 lbs. represent the 4s. worth of spindle, &c., worn
away in the process.
Hence the whole of the cotton used up in spinning the 20 lbs. of yarn,
In the same way, the 2 2/3 lbs. of yarn, in which the 4s., the
remainder of the constant capital, is embodied, represents nothing but
the value of the auxiliary materials and instruments of labour consumed
in producing the 20 lbs. of yarn.
We have, therefore, arrived at this result: although eight-tenths of
the product, or 16 lbs. of yarn, is, in its character of an article of
utility, just as much the fabric of the spinner's labour, as the
remainder of the same product, yet when viewed in this connexion, it
does not contain, and has not absorbed any labour expended during the
process of spinning. It is just as if the cotton had converted itself
into yarn, without help; as if the shape it had assumed was mere
trickery and deceit: for so soon as our capitalist sells it for 24s.,
and with the money replaces his means of production, it becomes evident
that this 16 lbs. of yarn is nothing more than so much cotton and
spindle-waste in disguise.
On the other hand, the remaining 2/10 ths of the product, or 4 lbs. of
yarn, represent nothing but the new value of 6s., created during the 12
hours' spinning process. All the value transferred to those 4 lbs.,
from the raw material and instruments of labour consumed, was, so to
say, intercepted in order to be incorporated in the 16 lbs. first spun.
In this case, it is as if the spinner had spun 4 lbs. of yarn out of
air, or, as if he had spun them with the aid of cotton and spindles,
that, being the spontaneous gift of Nature, transferred no value to the
product.
Of this 4 lbs. of yarn, in which the whole of the value newly created
during the process, is condensed, one half represents the equivalent
for the value of the labour consumed, or the 3s. variable capital, the
other half represents the 3s. surplus-value.
Since 12 working-hours of the spinner are embodied in 6s., it follows
that in yarn of the value of 30s., there must be embodied 60
working-hours. And this quantity of labour-time does in fact exist in
the 20 lbs. of yarn; for in 8/10ths or 16 lbs. there are materialised
the 48 hours of 10
On a former page we saw that the value of the yarn is equal to the sum
of the new value created during the production of that yarn plus the
value previously existing in the means of production.
It has now been shown how the various component parts of the value of
the product, parts that differ functionally from each other, may be
represented by corresponding proportional parts of the product
itself.
To split up in this manner the product into different parts, of which
one represents only the labour previously spent on the means of
production, or the constant capital, another, only the necessary labour
spent during the process of production, or the variable capital, and
another and last part, only the surplus-labour expended during the same
process, or the surplus-value; to do this, is, as will be seen later on
from its application to complicated and hitherto unsolved problems, no
less important than it is simple.
In the preceding investigation we have treated the total product as the
final result, ready for use, of a working-day of 12 hours. We can
however follow this total product through all the stages of its
production; and in this way we shall arrive at the same result as
before, if we represent the partial products, given off at the
different stages, as functionally different parts of the final or total
product.
The spinner produces in 12 hours 20 lbs. of yarn, or in I hour 1 2/3
lbs; consequently he produces in 8 hours 13 2/3 lbs., or a partial
product equal in value to all the cotton that is spun in a whole day.
In like manner the partial product of the next period of 1 hour and 36
minutes, is 2 2/3 lbs. of yarn: this represents the value of the
instruments of labour that are consumed in 12 hours. In the following
hour and 12 minutes, the spinner produces 2 lbs. of yarn worth 3
shillings, a value equal to the whole value he creates in his 6 hours'
necessary labour. Finally, in the last hour and 12 minutes he produces
another 2 lbs. of yarn, whose value is equal to the surplus-value,
created by his surplus-labour during half a day. This method of
calculation serves the English manufacturer for every-day use; it
shows, he will say, that in the first 8 hours, or 2/3 of the
working-day, he gets back the value of his cotton; and so on for the
remaining hours. It is also a perfectly correct method: being in fact
the first method given above with this difference, that instead of
being applied to space, in which the different parts of the completed
product lie side by side, it deals with time, in which those parts are
suc
One fine morning, in the year 1836, Nassau W.
Senior, who may be called the bel-esprit of English economists, well
known, alike for his economic "science," and for his beautiful style,
was summoned from Oxford to Manchester, to learn in the latter place,
the Political Economy that he taught in the former. The manufacturers
elected him as their champion, not only against the newly passed
Factory Act, but against the still more menacing Ten-hours' agitation.
With their usual practical acuteness, they had found out- that the
learned Professor "wanted a good deal of finishing;" it was this
discovery that caused them to write for him. On his side the Professor
has embodied the lecture he received from the Manchester manufacturers,
in a pamphlet, entitled: "Letters on the Factory Act, as it affects the
cotton manufacture." London, 1837. Here we find, amongst others, the
following edifying passage: "Under the present law, no mill in which
persons under 18 years of age are employed, ... can be worked more than
11 1/2 hours a day, that is 12 hours for 5 days in the week, and nine
on Saturday.
"Now the following analysis (!) will show that in a mill so worked, the
whole net profit is derived from the last hour. I will suppose a
manufacturer to invest £100,000: -- £80,000 in his mill and
machinery, and £20,000 in raw material and wages. The annual
return of that mill,
And the Professor calls this an "analysis!" If, giving credence to the
out-cries of the manufacturers, he believed that the workmen spend the
best part of the day in the production, i.e., the reproduction or
replacement of the value of the buildings, machinery, cotton, coal,
&c., then his analysis was superfluous. His answer would simply
have been: -- Gentlemen! if you work your mills for 10 hours instead of
11 1/2,
According to your figures, the workman in the last hour but one
produces his wages, and in the last hour your surplus-value or net
profit. Now, since in equal periods he produces equal values, the
produce of the last hour but one, must have the same value as that of
the last hour. Further, it is only while he labours that he produces
any value at all, and the amount of his labour is measured by his
labour-time. This you say, amounts to 11 1/2 hours a day. He employs
one portion of these 11 1/2 hours, in producing or replacing his wages,
and the remaining portion in producing your net profit. Beyond this he
does absolutely nothing. But since, on your assumption, his wages, and
the surplus-value he yields, are of equal value, it is clear that he
produces his wages in 5 3/4 hours, and your net profit in the other 5
3/4 hours. Again, since the value of the yarn produced in 2 hours, is
equal to the sum of the values of his wages and of your net profit, the
measure of the value of this yarn must be 11 1/2 working-hours, of
which 5 3/4 hours measure the value of the yarn produced in the last
hour but one, and 5 3/4, the value of the yarn produced in the last
hour. We now come to a ticklish point; therefore, attention! The last
working-hour but one is, like the first, an ordinary working-hour,
neither more nor less. How then can the spinner produce in one hour,
in the shape of yarn, a value that embodies 5 3/4 hours' labour? The
truth is that he performs no such miracle. The use-value produced by
him in one hour, is a definite quantity of yarn. The value of this
yarn is measured by 5 3/4 working-hours, of which 4 3/4 were, without
any
Senior invented the battle cry of the "last hour" in 1836. [12] In the London Economist of the 15th April,
1848, the same cry was again raised by James Wilson, an economic
mandarin of high standing: this time in opposition to the 10 hours'
bill.
The portion of the product that represents the
surplus-value, (one tenth of the 20 lbs., or 2 lbs. of yarn, in the
example given in Sec. 2) we call "surplus-produce." Just as the rate of
surplus-value is determined by its relation, not to the sum total of
the capital, but to its variable part; in like manner, the relative
quantity of surplus-produce is determined by the ratio that this
produce bears, not to the remaining part of the total product, but to
that part of it in which is incorporated the necessary labour. Since
the production of surplus-value is the chief end and aim of capitalist
production, it is clear, that the greatness of a man's or a nation's
wealth should be measured, not by the absolute quantity produced, but
by the relative magnitude of the surplus-produce. [13]
[1] "If we reckon the value of the fixed capital employed as a
part of the advances, we must reckon the remaining value of such
capital at the end of the year as a part of the annual returns."
(Malthus, "Princ. of Pol. Econ." 2nd. ed., Lond., 1836, p. 269.)
[2] What Lucretius says is self-evident; "nil posse creari de
nihilo," out of nothing, nothing can be created. Creation of value is
transformation of labour-power into labour. Labourpower itself is
energy transferred to a human organism by means of nourishing
matter.
[3] In the same way that the English use the terms "rate of
profit," "rate of interest." We shall see, in Book III, that the rate
of profit is no mystery, so soon as we know the laws of surplus-value.
If we reverse the process, we cannot comprehend either the one or the
other.
[4] Note added in the 3rd German edition. -- The author
resorts here to the economic language in current use. It will be
remembered that on p. 182 (present edition, p. 174) it was shown that
in reality the labourer "advances" to the capitalist and not the
capitalist to the labourer. -- F. E.
[5] In this work, we have, up to now, employed the term
"necessary labour-time," to designate the time necessary under given
social conditions for the production of any commodity. Henceforward we
use it to designate also the time necessary for the production of the
particular commodity labour-power. The use of one and the same
technical term in different senses is inconvenient, but in no science
can it be altogether avoided. Compare, for instance, the higher with
the lower branches of mathematics.
[6] Herr Wilhelm Thucydides Roscher has found a mare's nest. He
has made the important discovery that if, on the one hand, the
formation of surplus-value, or surplus-produce, and the consequent
accumulation of capital, is now-a-days due to the thrift of the
capitalist, on the other hand, in the lowest stages of civilisation it
is the strong who compel the weak to economise. (l. c., p. 78.) To
economise what? Labour? Or superfluous wealth that does not exist?
What is it that makes such men as Roscher account for the origin of
surplus-value, by a mere rechauffé of the more of less plausible
excuses by the capitalist, for his appropriation of surplus-value? It
is, besides their real ignorance, their apologetic dread of a
scientific analysis of value and surplus-value, and of obtaining a
result, possibly not altogether palatable to the powers that be.
[7] Although the rate of surplus-value is an exact expression
for the degree of exploitation of labour-power, it is, in no sense, an
expression for the absolute amount of exploitation. For example, if
the necessary labour 5 hours and the surplus-labour = 5 hours, the
degree of exploitation is 100%. The amount of exploitation is here
measured by 5 hours. If, on the other hand, the necessary labour = 6
hours and the surplus-labour = 6 hours, the degree of exploitation
remains, as before, 100%, while the actual amount of exploitation has
increased 20%, namely from five hours to six.
[8] The above data, which may be relied upon, were given me by
a Manchester spinner. In England the horse-power of an engine was
formerly calculated from the diameter of its cylinder, now the actual
horse-power shown by the indicator is taken.
[9] The calculations given in the text are intended merely as
illustrations. We have in fact. assumed that prices = values. We
shall, however, see, in Book Ill., that even in the case of average
prices the assumption cannot be made in this very simple manner.
[10] Senior, l. c., pp. 12, 13. We let pass such extraordinary
notions as are of no importance for our purpose; for instance, the
assertion, that manufacturers reckon as part of their profit, gross or
net, the amount required to make good wear and tear of machinery, or in
other words, to replace a part of the capital. So, too, we pass over
any question as to the accuracy of his figures. Leonard Homer has
shown in "A Letter to Mr. Senior," &c., London, 1837, that they are
worth no more than so-called "Analysis." Leonard Horner was one of the
Factory Inquiry Commissioners in 1833, and Inspector, or rather Censor
of Factories till 1859. He rendered undying service to the English
working-class. He carried on a life-long contest, not only with the
embittered manufacturers, but also with the Cabinet, to whom the number
of votes given by the masters in the Lower House, was a matter of far
greater importance than the number of hours worked by the "hands" in
the mills.
Apart from efforts in principle, Senior's statement is confused. What
he really intended to say was this: The manufacturer employs the
workman for 11 1/2 hours or for 23 half-hours daily. As the
working-day, so, too, the working year, may be conceived to consist of
11 1/2 hours or 23 half-hours, but each multiplied by the number of
working-days in the year. On this supposition, the 23 half-hours yield
an annual product of £115,000; one half-hour yields 1/23 x
£115,000; 20 half-hours yield 20/23 x £115,000 =
£100,000, i.e., they replace no more than the capital
advanced. There remain 3 half-hours, which yield 3/23 x £115,000 =
£5,000 or the gross profit. Of these 3 half-hours, one yields
1/23 x £115,000 = £5,000; i.e., it makes up for the
wear and tear of the machinery; the remaining 2 half-hours,
i.e., the last hour, yield 2/23 x £115,000 = £10,000
or the net profit. In the text Senior converts the last 2/23 of the
product into portions of the working-day itself.
[11] If, on the one hand, Senior proved that the net profit of
the manufacturer, the existence of the English cotton industry, and
England's command of the markets of the world, depend on "the last
working-hour," on the other hand, Dr. Andrew Ure showed, that if
children and young persons under 18 years of age, instead of being kept
the full 12 hours in the warm and pure moral atmosphere of the factory,
are turned out an hour sooner into the heartless and frivolous outer
world, they will be deprived, by idleness and vice, of all hope of
salvation for their souls. Since 1848, the factory inspectors have
never tired of twitting the masters with this "last," this "fatal
hour." Thus Mr. Hovell in his report of the 21st May, 1855: "Had the
following ingenious calculation (he quotes Senior) been correct, every
cotton factory in the United Kingdom would have been working at a loss
since the year 1850." (Reports of the Insp. of Fact., for the
half-year, ending 30th April, 1855, pp. 19, 20.) In the year 1848,
after the passing of the 10 hours' bill, the masters of some flax
spinning mills, scattered, few and far between, over the country on the
borders of Dorset and Somerset, foisted a petition against the bill on
to the shoulders of a few of their work-people. One of the clauses of
this petition is as follows: "Your petitioners, as parents, conceive
that an additional hour of leisure will tend more to demoralise the
children than otherwise, believing that idleness is the parent of
vice." On this the factory report of 31st Oct., 1848, says: The
atmosphere of the flax mills, in which the children of these virtuous
and tender parents work, is so loaded with dust and fibre from the raw
material, that it is exceptionally unpleasant to stand even 10 minutes
in the spinning rooms: for you are unable to do so without the most
painful sensation, owing to the eyes, the ears, the nostrils, and
mouth, being immediately filled by the clouds of flax dust from which
there is no escape. The labour itself, owing to the feverish haste of
the machinery, demands unceasing application of skill and movement,
under the control of a watchfulness that never tires, and it seems
somewhat hard, to let parents apply the term "idling" to their own
children, who, after allowing for meal-times, are fettered for 10 whole
hours to such an occupation, in such an atmosphere.... These children
work longer than the labourers in the neighbouring villages.... Such
cruel talk about "idleness and vice" ought to be branded as the purest
cant, and the most shameless hypocrisy.... That portion of the public,
who, about 12 years ago, were struck by the assurance with which, under
the sanction of high authority, it was publicly and most earnestly
proclaimed, that the whole net profit of the manufacturer flows from
the labour of the last hour, and that, therefore, the reduction of the
working-day by one hour, would destroy his net profit, that portion of
the public, we say, will hardly believe its own eyes, when it now
finds, that the original discovery of the virtues of "the last hour"
has since been so far improved, as to include morals as well as profit;
so that, if the duration of the labour of children, is reduced to a
full 10 hours, their morals, together with the net profits of their
employers, will vanish, both being dependent on this last, this fatal
hour. (See Repts., Insp. of Fact., for 31st Oct., 1848, p. 101.) The
same report then gives some examples of the morality and virtue of
these same pure-minded manufacturers, of the tricks, the artifices, the
cajoling, the threats, and the falsifications, they made use of, in
order, first, to compel a few defenceless workmen to sign petitions of
such a kind, and then to impose them upon Parliament as the petitions
of a whole branch of industry, or a whole country. It is highly
characteristic of the present status of so-called economic science,
that neither Senior himself, who, at a later period, to his honour be
it said, energetically supported the factory legislation, nor his
opponents, from first to last, have ever been able to explain the false
conclusions of the "original discovery." They appeal to actual
experience, but the why and wherefore remains a mystery.
[12] Nevertheless, the learned professor was not without some
benefit from his journey to Manchester. In the "Letters on the Factory
Act," he makes the whole net gains including "profit" and "interests"
and even "something more," depend upon a single unpaid hour's work of
the labourer. One year previously, in his "Outlines of Political
Economy," written for the instruction of Oxford students and cultivated
Philistines, he had also "discovered, in opposition to Ricardo's
determination of value by labour, that profit is derived from the
labour of the capitalist, and interest from his asceticism, in other
words, from his abstinence." The dodge was an old one, but the word
"abstinence " was new. Herr Roscher translates it rightly by
"Enthaltung." Some of his countrymen, the Browns, Jones, and Robinsons,
of Germany, not so well versed in Latin as he, have, monk-like,
rendered it by "Entsagung" (renunciation).
[13] "To an individual with a capital of £20,000, whose
profits were £2,000 per annum, it would be a matter quite
indifferent whether his capital would employ a 100 or 1,000 men,
whether the commodity produced sold for £10,000 or £20,000,
provided, in all cases, his profit were not diminished below
£2,000. Is not the real interest of the nation similar? Provided
its net real income, its rent and profits, be the same, it is of no
importance whether the nation consists of 10 or of 12 millions of
inhabitants." (Ric. l. c.,.p. 416.) Long before Ricardo, Arthur Young,
a fanatical upholder of surplus-produce, for the rest, a rambling,
uncritical writer, whose reputation is in the inverse ratio of his
merit, says, "Of what use, in a modem kingdom, would be a whole
province thus divided [in the old Roman manner, by small independent
peasants], however well cultivated, except for the mere purpose of
breeding men, which taken singly is a most useless purpose?" (Arthur
Young: "Political Arithmetic, &c." London, 1774, p. 47.)
Very curious is "the strong inclination... to represent net wealth as
beneficial to the labouring class... though it is evidently not on
account of being net." (Th . Hopkins, "On Rent of Land, &c."
London, 1828, p. 126.)
Transcribed for the Internet by zodiac@interlog.com
THE DEGREE OF EXPLOITATION
OF LABOUR-POWER
s surplus-labour
--- = ----------------
v necessary labour
VALUE PRODUCED PER ACRE
Seed
£1 9s. 0d.
Tithes, Rates,
and taxes,
£1 1s. 0d.
Manure
£2 10s. 0d.
Rent
£1 8s. 0d.
Wages
£3 10s. 0d.
Farmer's Profit
and Interest
£1 2s. 0d.
TOTAL
£7 9s. 0d.
TOTAL
£3 11s 0d.
THE REPRESENTATION OF THE COMPONENTS
OF THE VALUE OF THE PRODUCT
BY CORRESPONDING PROPORTIONAL PARTS
OF THE PRODUCT ITSELF
SENIOR'S "LAST HOUR"
SURPLUS-PRODUCE
NOTES
On to chapter 10
Capital, vol. 1
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