Brentano vs. Marx

 

II

BRENTANO AND MARX

No. 3.

THE CHARGE

 CONCORDIA. No. 10, MARCH 7, 1872

How Karl Marx Quotes

 

The following passage may be found in the Inaugural Address [note by Brentano: Reprinted in the Volksstaat, No. 5 of January

17, 1872] of the International Working Men's Association written by Karl Marx.

 

"Dazzled by the 'Progress of the Nation' statistics dancing before his eyes, the Chancellor of the Exchequer exclaims in

wild ecstasy: 'From 1842 to 1852 the taxable income of the country increased by 6 per cent; in the eight years from 1853

to 1861, it has increased from the basis taken in 1853,20 per cent! The fact is so astonishing as to be almost incredible!...

This intoxicating augmentation of wealth and power,' adds Mr. Gladstone, 'is entirely confined to classes of property.'"

 

This quotation by Marx has become famous. We have discovered it in a considerable number of writings. However, the authors

rarely quoted the Inaugural Address of the International as the source upon which they had drawn. They inferred that they had

themselves read Gladstone's budget speech. To what extent this was the case may be seen from the following comparison with

Gladstone's speech (see Hansard, Parliamentary Debates, 3rd Series, Vol. 170, p.243 ff.):

 

"The Income Tax, at 7d. in the pound, in the year 1842 3, attaching to Great Britain only, and in Great Britain only to

incomes of £150 and upwards, was assessed upon an aggregate amount of income in the schedules I have named

reaching £156,000,000. Upon the very same area, with the same limitations, in 1860-1 the amount of assessed income

was £221,000,000. Further, I am not aware that there has been any change in the machinery of the tax, or any

improvement in the powers of levying the tax, as compared with the powers of escaping it, that will in any way account

for the difference. On the contrary, certain concessions and relaxations have from time to time been enacted by the

Legislature, which, as far as they go, would rather tell in the opposite direction. The difference, however, amounts to no

less than £65,000,000 of annual income, or two-sevenths of the whole annual taxable income of the country within the

area described. That is a most remarkable result; but there is a certain feature of that result which, when carefully

examined, is yet more remarkable; and that is the accelerated rate of increase in the latter portion of that period. I again

invite the attention of the Committee for a few minutes. I compare two periods -- one of them before 1853, and the other

since 1853, the year when the basis was altered. In eight years from 1842 to 1852 inclusive, the liable to tax income of

the country, as nearly as we can make out, increased by 6 per cent; but in eight years, from 1853 to 1861, the income of

the country again increased upon the basis taken by 20 per cent. That is a fact so singular and striking as to seem almost

incredible. [...]

 "Such, Sir, is the State of the case as regards the general progress of accumulation; but, for one, I must say that I should

look with some degree of pain, and with much apprehension, upon this extraordinary and almost intoxicating growth, if

it were my belief that it is confined to the class of persons who may be described as in easy circumstances The figures

which I have quoted take little or no cognizance of the condition of those who do not pay income tax; or, in other words,

sufficiently accurate for general truth, they do not take cognizance of the property of the labouring population, or of the

increase of its income. Indirectly, indeed, the mere augmentation of Capital is of the utmost advantage to the labouring

class, because that augmentation cheapens the commodity which in the whole business of production comes into direct

competition with labour. But, besides this, a snare direct and a larger benefit has, it may safely be asserted, been

conferred upon the mass of the people of the country. It is matter of profound and inestimable consolation to reflect, that

while the rich have been growing richer, the poor have become less poor. I will not presume to determine whether the

wide interval which separates the extremes of wealth and poverty is less or more wide than it has been in former times.

But if we look to the average condition of the British labourer, whether peasant, or miner, or operative, or artisan, we

know from varied and indubitable evidence that during the last twenty years such an addition has been made to

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his means of subsistence as we may almost pronounce to be without example in the history of any country and of

any age."

 

What is the relationship between this speech and the quotation by Marx? Gladstone first makes the point that there has

undoubtedly been a colossal increase in the income of the country. This is proved for him by the income tax. But income tax

takes notice only of incomes of 150 pounds sterling and over. Persons with lower incomes pay no income tax in England. The

fact that Gladstone mentions this so that his yardstick can be properly appreciated is utilised by Marx to have Gladstone say:

"This intoxicating augmentation of wealth and power is entirely confined to classes of property." Yet this sentence is nowhere

to be found in Gladstone's speech. It says quite the opposite. Marx has added the sentence lyingly, both in form and in

content!

 

No. 4.

KARL MARX'S REPLY

 DER VOLKSSTAAT, No. 44. SATURDAY, JUNE 1, 1572

 

A friend has sent me, from Germany, Concordia. Zeitschrift für die Arbeiterfrage, No. 10, dated March 7, in which this "organ

of the German Manufacturers' Association" publishes an editorial entitled "How Karl Marx Quotes".

 In the Inaugural Address of the International Working Men's Association I quote, amongst other material, a portion of

 Gladstone's budget speech of April 16, 1863, which is not contained in Hansard's semi-official report of parliamentary debates.

On this basis, with comfortable manufacturers' logic the Concordia concludes: "This sentence is nowhere to be found in

Gladstone's speech", and jubilates in the fullness of its heart with this mocking sentence in manufacturers' German, printed in

mocking bold face:

 

"Marx has added the sentence lyingly, both in form and in content!"

 

It would, in fact, be extremely strange if the Inaugural Address, originally printed in English in London under Gladstone's very

eyes, had placed in his mouth a sentence interpolated by me, a sentence that, for seven and a half years, circulated unchallenged

in the London press, to be finally detected by the "learned men" of the German Manufacturers' Association in Berlin.

 The sentence in question of the Inaugural Address reads as follows:

 

"This intoxicating augmentation of wealth and power is entirely confined to classes of property" (p.6, Inaugural Address

etc.). (In the German translation literally: )

 

In an article in The Fortnightly Review (November 1870), which attracted great attention and was discussed by all the London

press, Mr. Beesly, Professor of History at the university here, quoted as follows, p. 518:

 

"An intoxicating augmentation of wealth and power, as Mr. Gladstone observed, entirely confined to classes of

property." (In the German translation: )

 

Yet Professor Beesly's article appeared six years later than the Inaugural Address! Good! Let us now take a specialised

publication, intended solely for the City and published not only before the appearance of the Inaugural Address, but even

before the International Working Men's Association was founded It is entitled: The Theory of Exchanges. The Bank Charter Act

of 1844 London 1864, published by T. Cautley Newby, 30, Welbeck Street. It examines Gladstone's budget speech at length

and p. 134 gives the following quotation from this speech:

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