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13
Thus for instance, Balzac, who so thoroughly studied every shade of avarice, represents the old
usurer Gobseck as in his second childhood when he begins to heap up a hoard of commodities.
14
“Accumulation of stocks ... non-exchange ... over-production.” (Th. Corbet. l. c., p. 104.)
15
In this sense Necker speaks of the “objets de faste et de somptuosité,” [things of pomp and luxury]
of which “le temps a grossi l’accummulation,” [accumulation has grown with time] and which “les
lois de propriété ont rassemblés dans une seule classe de la société.” [the laws of property have
brought into the hands of one class of society alone] (Oeuvres de M. Necker, Paris and Lausanne,
1789, t. ii., p. 291.)
16
Ricardo, l.c., p. 163, note.
17
In spite of his “Logic,” John St. Mill never detects even such faulty analysis as this when made by
his predecessors, an analysis which, even from the bourgeois standpoint of the science, cries out for
rectification. In every case he registers with the dogmatism of a disciple, the confusion of his master’s
thoughts. So here: “The capital itself in the long run becomes entirely wages, and when replaced by
the sale of produce becomes wages again.”
18
In his description of the process of reproduction, and of accumulation, Adam Smith, in many ways,
not only made no advance, but even lost considerable ground, compared with his predecessors,
especially by the Physiocrats. Connected with the illusion mentioned in the text, is the really
wonderful dogma, left by him as an inheritance to Political Economy, the dogma, that the price of
commodities is made up of wages, profit (interest) and rent, i.e., of wages and surplus-value. Starting
from this basis, Storch naively confesses, “Il est impossible de résoudre le prix nécessaire dans ses
éléments les plus simples.” [... it is impossible to resolve the necessary price into its simplest
elements] (Storch, l. c., Petersb. Edit., 1815, t. ii., p. 141, note.) A fine science of economy this, which
declares it impossible to resolve the price of a commodity into its simplest elements! This point will
be further investigated in the seventh part of Book iii.
19
The reader will notice, that the word revenue is used in a double sense: first, to designate surplus-
value so far as it is the fruit periodically yielded by capital; secondly, to designate the part of that fruit
which is periodically consumed by the capitalist, or added to the fund that supplies his private
consumption. I have retained this double meaning because it harmonises with the language of the
English and French economists.
20
Taking the usurer, that old-fashioned but ever renewed specimen of the capitalist for his text, Luther
shows very aptly that the love of power is an element in the desire to get rich. “The heathen were able,
by the light of reason, to conclude that a usurer is a double-dyed thief and murderer. We Christians,
however, hold them in such honour, that we fairly worship them for the sake of their money....
Whoever eats up, robs, and steals the nourishment of another, that man commits as great a murder (so
far as in him lies) as he who starves a man or utterly undoes him. Such does a usurer, and sits the
while safe on his stool, when he ought rather to be hanging on the gallows, and be eaten by as many
ravens as he has stolen guilders, if only there were so much flesh on him, that so many ravens could
stick their beaks in and share it. Meanwhile, we hang the small thieves.... Little thieves are put in the
stocks, great thieves go flaunting in gold and silk.... Therefore is there, on this earth, no greater enemy
of man (after the devil) than a gripe-money, and usurer, for he wants to be God over all men. Turks,
soldiers, and tyrants are also bad men, yet must they let the people live, and Confess that they are bad,
and enemies, and do, nay, must, now and then show pity to some. But a usurer and money-glutton,
such a one would have the whole world perish of hunger and thirst, misery and want, so far as in him
lies, so that he may have all to himself, and every one may receive from him as from a God, and be his
serf for ever. To wear fine cloaks, golden chains, rings, to wipe his mouth, to be deemed and taken for
a worthy, pious man .... Usury is a great huge monster, like a werewolf, who lays waste all, more than
any Cacus, Gerion or Antus. And yet decks himself out, and would be thought pious, so that people
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may not see where the oxen have gone, that he drags backwards into his den. But Hercules shall hear
the cry of the oxen and of his prisoners, and shall seek Cacus even in cliffs and among rocks, and shall
set the oxen loose again from the villain. For Cacus means the villain that is a pious usurer, and steals,
robs, eats everything. And will not own that he has done it, and thinks no one will find him out,
because the oxen, drawn backwards into his den, make it seem, from their foot-prints, that they have
been let out. So the usurer would deceive the world, as though he were of use and gave the world
oxen, which he, however, rends, and eats all alone... And since we break on the wheel, and behead
highwaymen, murderers and housebreakers, how much more ought we to break on the wheel and
kill.... hunt down, curse and behead all usurers.” (Martin Luther, l. c.)
21
See Goethe’s “Faust.”
22
Dr. Aikin: “Description of the Country from 30 to 40 miles round Manchester.” Lond., 1795, p.
182, sq.
23
A. Smith, l. c., bk. iii., ch. iii.
24
Even J. B. Say says: “Les épargnes des riches se font aux dépens des pauvres.” [the savings of the
rich are made at the expense of the poor] “The Roman proletarian lived almost entirely at the expense
of society.... It can almost be said that modern society lives at the expense of the proletarians, on what
it keeps out of the remuneration of labour.” (Sismondi: “études, &c.,” t. i., p. 24.)
25
Malthus, l. c., pp. 319, 320.
26
“An Inquiry into those Principles Respecting the Nature of Demand, &c.,” p. 67.
27
l. c., p. 59.
28
(Senior, “Principes fondamentaux del’Écon. Pol.” trad. Arrivabene. Paris, 1836, p. 308.) This was
rather too much for the adherents of the old classical school. “Mr. Senior has substituted for it” (the
expression, labour and profit) “the expression labour and Abstinence. He who converts his revenue
abstains from the enjoyment which its expenditure would afford him. It is not the capital, but the use
of the capital productively, which is the cause of profits.” (John Cazenove, l. c., p. 130, Note.) John St.
Mill, on the contrary, accepts on the one hand Ricardo’s theory of profit, and annexes on the other
hand Senior’s “remuneration of abstinence.” He is as much at home in absurd contradictions, as he
feels at sea in the Hegelian contradiction, the source of all dialectic. It has never occurred to the vulgar
economist to make the simple reflexion, that every human action may be viewed, as “abstinence” from
its opposite. Eating is abstinence from fasting, walking, abstinence from standing still, working,
abstinence from idling, idling, abstinence from working, &c. These gentlemen would do well, to
ponder, once in a while, over Spinoza’s: “Determinatio est Negatio.”
29
Senior, l. c., p. 342.
30
“No one ... will sow his wheat, for instance, and allow it to remain a twelve month in the ground, or
leave his wine in a cellar for years, instead of consuming these things or their equivalent at once ...
unless he expects to acquire additional value, &c.” (Scrope, “Polit. Econ.,” edit. by A. Potter, New
York, 1841, pp. 133-134.)
31
“La privation que s’impose le capitalisté, en prêtant [The deprivation the capitalist imposes on
himself by lending ...] (this euphemism used, for the purpose of identifying, according to the approved
method of vulgar economy, the labourer who is exploited, with the industrial capitalist who exploits,
and to whom other capitalists lend money) ses instruments de production au travailleur, au lieu d’en
consacrer la valeur à son propre usage, en la transforment en objets d’utilité ou d’agrément.” [his
instruments of production to the worker, instead of devoting their value to his own consumption, by
transforming them into objects of utility or pleasure] (G. de Molinari, l. c., p. 36.)
32
“La conservation d’un capital exige ... un effort constant pour résister a la tentation de le
consommer.” (Courcelle-Seneuil, l. c., p. 57.)