Brentano vs. Marx

 

After the word "income", Hansard immediately continues with the words:

 

"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."

 

Although Hansard omits the "notorious" sentence, it says in substance just what the other papers say: it would be very

embarrassing for the speaker if this intoxicating augmentation were confined to CLASSES IN EASY CIRCUMSTANCES,

but although it pains him, this augmentation he has described is confined to people who do not belong to the working class

and who are rich enough to pay income tax; yes, it is indeed a "mere augmentation of Capital"!

 And here, finally, the secret of Mr. Brentano's fury stands revealed. He reads the sentence in the Inaugural Address, finds

in it an embarrassing admission, obtains the Hansard version, fails to find the embarrassing sentence in it, and hurries to

publish to the world: Marx lyingly added the sentence in form and in content! -- Marx shows him the sentence in The

Times, The Morning Star, The Morning Advertiser. Now finally, for appearance's sake at least, Mr. Brentano must make a

"detailed comparison of texts" and discovers -- what? That The Times, The Morning Star, The Morning Advertiser "fully

coincide materially" with Hansard! Unfortunately he overlooks the fact that the "lyingly added" sentence must then fully

coincide materially with Hansard, and that then in the end it must turn out that Hansard coincides materially with the

Inaugural Address.

 The whole hullabaloo therefore because Mr. Brentano had neglected to undertake the detailed textual comparison ascribed

to him by Mr. Sedley Taylor, and because, in fact, he had himself not understood what Mr. Gladstone had said according to

Hansard. Of course, this was not that easy, for although Mr. Brentano claims that this speech

 

"aroused the interest and admiration of the entire educated world ... notably through ... its clarity",

 

readers have been able to see for themselves that in the Hansard version it is presented in a particularly stilted, complicated

and involved language, tying itself up in its own repetitions. In particular the sentence stating that the increase in Capital is

of extraordinary advantage to the worker, because it cheapens the commodity which in the business of production comes

into direct competition with labour, is sheer nonsense. If a commodity comes into Competition with labour, and this

commodity (for example, machinery) is cheapened, then the first and immediate result is a fall in wages, and according to

Mr. Gladstone this should be "of great benefit to the workers"! How philanthropic it was of some London morning papers,

i. e. The Morning Star, in their "necessarily bungling" reports, to replace the above incomprehensible sentence by what Mr.

Gladstone probably wanted to say, namely that an increase in Capital is of benefit to the workers because it cheapens the

main articles of consumption!

 When Mr. Gladstone said that he should look with some degree of pain and much apprehension at this intoxicating growth

if he believed that it was confined to classes in easy circumstances -- whether Mr. Gladstone thought thereby of another

growth of wealth than that of which he spoke, namely, in his opinion, of the greatly improved situation of the entire nation;

whether he forgot at that moment that he was speaking of the increase in income of the classes that pay income tax and of

no others: this we cannot know. Marx has been charged with forgery, and what is at issue is the text and the grammatical

meaning of what Mr. Gladstone said, and not what he possibly wanted to say. Mr. Brentano does not know the latter either,

and on this point Mr. Gladstone, 27 years later, is no longer a competent authority. And in no way does this concern us.

 The abundantly clear meaning of the words is: taxable income has undergone an intoxicating augmentation. I should be

very sorry if this augmentation just described were confined to classes of property, but it is confined to them, since the

workers have no income liable to tax, and it is thus purely an increase in Capital! But the latter, too, is of advantage to the

workers, because they, etc.

 And now Marx:

 

"This intoxicating augmentation of wealth and power ... is entirely confined to classes of property."

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Thus runs the sentence in the Inaugural Address, where it provided the occasion for this whole jolly controversy. But since

Mr. Brentano has no longer dared to claim that Marx lyingly added it, since then the Inaugural Address has no longer been

mentioned at all, and all attacks have been directed against the quotation of this passage in Capital There Marx adds the

following sentence:

 

"but... but it must be of indirect benefit to the labouring population, because it cheapens the commodities of general

consumption."

 

The "arbitrarily thrown-together mosaic of sentences torn from their context" in Marx thus states "materially", "only

formally more contracted", exactly what the immaculate Hansard has Gladstone say. The only reproach which can be

levelled at Marx is that he utilised The Morning Star and not Hansard, and thus, in the final sentence, placed words of

sense in Mr. Gladstone's mouth, although he had spoken nonsense. Further, according to Hansard:

 

"But, besides this, a more direct and a larger benefit has, it may safely be asserted, been conferred upon the mass of

the people [of the country]. It is a 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."

 

In Marx:

 

"...while the rich have been growing richer, the poor have been growing less poor. At any rate, whether the extremes

of poverty are less, I do not presume to say."

 

Marx gives only the two rare positive statements which, in Hansard, swim in a whole tureen of phrases as trivial as they are

unctuous. It can be stated with certainty that they lose nothing thereby, but rather gain.

 Finally the conclusion, according to Hansard:

 

"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

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

any age."

 

This sentence is quoted in the Inaugural Address a few lines above the "notorious" one just given. There we find:

 

"Such are the official statements published by order of Parliament in 1864, during the millennium of free trade, at a

time when the Chancellor of the Exchequer told the House of Commons that:

 

'The average condition of the British labourer has improved in a degree we know to be extraordinary and

unexampled in the history of any country or any age.'"

 

Thus everything essential is cited. But that this may be read in the Inaugural Address, original edition, p. 4, this fact is

stubbornly concealed from his readers by Mr. Brentano; however, his readers cannot check upon him, for we cannot

possibly present each of them with a copy of the Address, as we did Mr. Sedley Taylor.

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