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At the historical dawn of capitalist production, – and every capitalist upstart has personally to go
through this historical stage – avarice, and desire to get rich, are the ruling passions. But the
progress of capitalist production not only creates a world of delights; it lays open, in speculation
and the credit system, a thousand sources of sudden enrichment. When a certain stage of
development has been reached, a conventional degree of prodigality, which is also an exhibition
of wealth, and consequently a source of credit, becomes a business necessity to the “unfortunate”
capitalist. Luxury enters into capital’s expenses of representation. Moreover, the capitalist gets
rich, not like the miser, in proportion to his personal labour and restricted consumption, but at the
same rate as he squeezes out the labour-power of others, and enforces on the labourer abstinence
from all life’s enjoyments. Although, therefore, the prodigality of the capitalist never possesses
the bona fide character of the open-handed feudal lord’s prodigality, but, on the contrary, has
always lurking behind it the most sordid avarice and the most anxious calculation, yet his
expenditure grows with his accumulation, without the one necessarily restricting the other. But
along with this growth, there is at the same time developed in his breast, a Faustian conflict
between the passion for accumulation, and the desire for enjoyment.
Dr. Aikin says in a work published in 1795:
“The trade of Manchester may be divided into four periods. First, when
manufacturers were obliged to work hard for their livelihood.”
They enriched themselves chiefly by robbing the parents, whose children were bound as
apprentices to them; the parents paid a high premium, while the apprentices were starved. On the
other hand, the average profits were low, and to accumulate, extreme parsimony was requisite.
They lived like misers and were far from consuming even the interest on their capital.
“The second period, when they had begun to acquire little fortunes, but worked as
hard as before,” – for direct exploitation of labour costs labour, as every slave-
driver knows – “and lived in as plain a manner as before.... The third, when luxury
began, and the trade was pushed by sending out riders for orders into every market
town in the Kingdom.... It is probable that few or no capitals of £3,000 to £4,000
acquired by trade existed here before 1690. However, about that time, or a little
later, the traders had got money beforehand, and began to build modern brick
houses, instead of those of wood and plaster.”
Even in the early part of the 18th century, a Manchester manufacturer, who placed a pint of
foreign wine before his guests, exposed himself to the remarks and headshakings of all his
neighbours. Before the rise of machinery, a manufacturer’s evening expenditure at the public
house where they all met, never exceeded sixpence for a glass of punch, and a penny for a screw
of tobacco. It was not till 1758, and this marks an epoch, that a person actually engaged in
business was seen with an equipage of his own.
“The fourth period,” the last 30 years of the 18th century, “is that in which
expense and luxury have made great progress, and was supported by a trade
extended by means of riders and factors through every part of Europe.”
22
What would the good Dr. Aikin say if he could rise from his grave and see the Manchester of
today?
Accumulate, accumulate! That is Moses and the prophets! “Industry furnishes the material which
saving accumulates.”
23
Therefore, save, save, i.e., reconvert the greatest possible portion of
surplus-value, or surplus-product into capital! Accumulation for accumulation’s sake, production
for production’s sake: by this formula classical economy expressed the historical mission of the
bourgeoisie, and did not for a single instant deceive itself over the birth-throes of wealth.
24
But
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Chapter 24
what avails lamentation in the face of historical necessity? If to classical economy, the proletarian
is but a machine for the production of surplus-value; on the other hand, the capitalist is in its eyes
only a machine for the conversion of this surplus-value into additional capital. Political Economy
takes the historical function of the capitalist in bitter earnest. In order to charm out of his bosom
the awful conflict between the desire for enjoyment and the chase after riches, Malthus, about the
year 1820, advocated a division of labour, which assigns to the capitalist actually engaged in
production, the business of accumulating, and to the other sharers in surplus-value, to the
landlords, the place-men, the beneficed clergy, &c., the business of spending. It is of the highest
importance, he says,
“to keep separate the passion for expenditure and the passion for accumulation.”
25
The capitalists having long been good livers and men of the world, uttered loud cries. What,
exclaimed one of their spokesmen, a disciple of Ricardo, Mr. Malthus preaches high rents, heavy
taxes, &c., so that the pressure of the spur may constantly be kept on the industrious by
unproductive consumers! By all means, production, production on a constantly increasing scale,
runs the shibboleth; but
“production will, by such a process, be far more curbed in than spurred on. Nor is
it quite fair thus to maintain in idleness a number of persons, only to pinch others,
who are likely, from their characters, if you can force them to work, to work with
success.”
26
Unfair as he finds it to spur on the industrial capitalist, by depriving his bread of its butter, yet he
thinks it necessary to reduce the labourer’s wages to a minimum "to keep him industrious.” Nor
does he for a moment conceal the fact, that the appropriation of unpaid labour is the secret of
surplus-value.
“Increased demand on the part of the labourers means nothing more than their
willingness to take less of their own product for themselves, and leave a greater
part of it to their employers; and if it be said, that this begets glut, by lessening
consumption” (on the part of the labourers), “I can only reply that glut is
synonymous with large profits.”
27
The learned disputation, how the booty pumped out of the labourer may be divided, with most
advantage to accumulation, between the industrial capitalist and the rich idler, was hushed in face
of the revolution of July. Shortly afterwards, the town proletariat at Lyons sounded the tocsin of
revolution, and the country proletariat in England began to set fire to farm-yards and corn-stacks.
On this side of the Channel Owenism began to spread; on the other side, St. Simonism and
Fourierism. The hour of vulgar economy had struck. Exactly a year before Nassau W. Senior
discovered at Manchester, that the profit (including interest) of capital is the product of the last
hour of the twelve, he had announced to the world another discovery.
“I substitute,” he proudly says, “for the word capital, considered as an instrument
of production, the word abstinence.”
An unparalleled sample this, of the discoveries of vulgar economy! It substitutes for an economic
category, a sycophantic phrase – voilà tout. [that’s all]
“When the savage,” says Senior, “makes bows, he exercises an industry, but he
does not practise abstinence.”
28
This explains how and why, in the earlier states of society, the implements of labour were
fabricated without abstinence on the part of the capitalist.
“The more society progresses, the more abstinence is demanded,”
29