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come, if the capitalist sells the commodities at cost-price? Never mind! Say declares that, in
consequence of increased productivity, every one now receives in return for a given equivalent two
pairs of stockings instead of one as before. The result he arrives at, is precisely that proposition of
Ricardo that he aimed at disproving. After this mighty effort of thought, he triumphantly apostrophises
Malthus in the words: “Telle est, monsieur, la doctrine bien liée, sans laquelle il est impossible, je le
déclare, d’expliquer les plus grandes difficultés de l’économie politique, et notamment, comment il se
peut qu’une nation soit plus riche lorsque ses produits diminuent de valeur, quoique la richesse soit de
la valeur.” [This, Sir, is the well-founded doctrine without which it is impossible, I say, to explain the
greatest difficulties in political economy, and, in particular, to explain why it is that a nation can be
richer when its products fall in value, even though wealth is value] (l. c., p. 170.) An English
economist remarks upon the conjuring tricks of the same nature that appear in Say’s “Lettres”: “Those
affected ways of talking make up in general that which M. Say is pleased to call his doctrine and
which he earnestly urges Malthus to teach at Hertford, as it is already taught ‘dans plusieurs parties de
l’Europe.’ He says, ‘Si vous trouvez une physionomie de paradoxe à toutes ces propositions, voyez les
choses qu’elles expriment, et j’ose croire qu’elles vous paraîtront fort simples et fort raisonnables.’ [in
numerous parts of Europe ... If all those propositions appear paradoxical to you, look at the things they
express, and I venture to believe that they will then appear very simple and very rational] Doubtless,
and in consequence of the same process, they will appear everything else, except original.” (“An
Inquiry into those Principles Respecting the Nature of Demand, &c.,” pp. 116, 110.)
48
MacCulloch took out a patent for “wages of past labour,” long before Senior did for “wages of
abstinence.”
49
Compare among others, Jeremy Bentham: “Théorie des Peines et des Récompenses,” traduct. d’Et.
Dumont, 3ème édit. Paris, 1826, t. II, L. IV., ch. II.
50
Bentham is a purely English phenomenon. Not even excepting our philosopher, Christian Wolff, in
no time and in no country has the most homespun commonplace ever strutted about in so self-satisfied
a way. The principle of utility was no discovery of Bentham. He simply reproduced in his dull way
what Helvétius and other Frenchmen had said with esprit in the 18th century. To know what is useful
for a dog, one must study dog-nature. This nature itself is not to be deduced from the principle of
utility. Applying this to man, he that would criticise all human acts, movements, relations, etc., by the
principle of utility, must first deal with human nature in general, and then with human nature as
modified in each historical epoch. Bentham makes short work of it. With the driest naiveté he takes
the modern shopkeeper, especially the English shopkeeper, as the normal man. Whatever is useful to
this queer normal man, and to his world, is absolutely useful. This yard-measure, then, he applies to
past, present, and future. The Christian religion, e.g., is “useful,” “because it forbids in the name of
religion the same faults that the penal code condemns in the name of the law.” Artistic criticism is
“harmful,” because it disturbs worthy people in their enjoyment of Martin Tupper, etc. With such
rubbish has the brave fellow, with his motto, “nuila dies sine line!,” piled up mountains of books. Had
I the courage of my friend, Heinrich Heine, I should call Mr. Jeremy a genius in the way of bourgeois
stupidity.
51
“Political economists are too apt to consider a certain quantity of capital and a certain number of
labourers as productive instruments of uniform power, or operating with a certain uniform intensity....
Those... who maintain ... that commodities are the sole agents of production ... prove that production
could never be enlarged, for it requires as an indispensable condition to such an enlargement that food,
raw materials, and tools should be previously augmented; which is in fact maintaining that no increase
of production can take place without a previous increase, or, in other words, that an increase is
impossible.” (S. Bailey: “Money and its Vicissitudes,” pp. 58 and 70.) Bailey criticises the dogma
mainly from the point of view of the process of circulation.
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52
John Stuart Mill, in his “Principles of Political Economy,” says: “The really exhausting and the
really repulsive labours instead of being better paid than others, are almost invariably paid the worst of
all.... The more revolting the occupation, the more certain it is to receive the minimum of
remuneration.... The hardships and the earnings, instead of being directly proportional, as in any just
arrangements of society they would be, are generally in an inverse ratio to one another.” To avoid
misunderstanding, let me say that although men like John Stuart Mill are to blame for the
contradiction between their traditional economic dogmas and their modern tendencies, it would be
very wrong to class them with the herd of vulgar economic apologists.
53
H. Fawcett, Professor of Political Economy at Cambridge. “The Economic position of the British
labourer.” London, 1865, p. 120.
54
I must here remind the reader that the categories, “variable and constant capital,” were first used by
me. Political Economy since the time of Adam Smith has confusedly mixed up
the essential
distinctions involved in these categories, with the mere formal differences, arising out of the process
of circulation, of fixed and circulating capital. For further details on this point, see Book II., Part II.
55
Fawcett, l. c., pp. 122, 123.
56
It might be said that not only capital, but also labourers, in the shape of emigrants, are annually
exported from England. In the text, however, there is no question of the peculium of the emigrants,
who are in great part not labourers. The sons of farmers make up a great part of them. The additional
capital annually transported abroad to be put out at interest is in much greater proportion to the annual
accumulation than the yearly emigration is to the yearly increase of population.