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6
If the reader reminds me of Malthus, whose “Essay on Population” appeared in 1798, I remind him
that this work in its first form is nothing more than a schoolboyish, superficial plagiary of De Foe, Sir
James Steuart, Townsend, Franklin, Wallace, &c., and does not contain a single sentence thought out
by himself. The great sensation this pamphlet caused, was due solely to party interest. The French
Revolution had found passionate defenders in the United Kingdom; the “principle of population,”
slowly worked out in the eighteenth century, and then, in the midst of a great social crisis, proclaimed
with drums and trumpets as the infallible antidote to the teachings of Condorcet, &c., was greeted with
jubilance by the English oligarchy as the great destroyer of all hankerings after human development.
Malthus, hugely astonished at his success, gave himself to stuffing into his book materials
superficially compiled, and adding to it new matter, not discovered but annexed by him. Note further:
Although Malthus was a parson of the English State Church, he had taken the monastic vow of
celibacy — one of the conditions of holding a Fellowship in Protestant Cambridge University: “Socios
collegiorum maritos esse non permittimus, sed statim postquam quis uxorem duxerit socius collegii
desinat esse.” (“Reports of Cambridge University Commission,” p. 172.) This circumstance
favourably distinguishes Malthus from the other Protestant parsons, who have shuffled off the
command enjoining celibacy of the priesthood and have taken, “Be fruitful and multiply,” as their
special Biblical mission in such a degree that they generally contribute to the increase of population to
a really unbecoming extent, whilst they preach at the same time to the labourers the “principle of
population.” It is characteristic that the economic fall of man, the Adam’s apple, the urgent appetite,
“the checks which tend to blunt the shafts of Cupid,” as Parson Townsend waggishly puts it, that this
delicate question was and is monopolised by the Reverends of Protestant Theology, or rather of the
Protestant Church. With the exception of the Venetian monk, Ortes, an original and clever writer,
most of the population theory teachers are Protestant parsons. For instance, Bruckner, “Théorie du
Système animal,” Leyde, 1767, in which the whole subject of the modern population theory is
exhausted, and to which the passing quarrel between Quesnay and his pupil, the elder Mirabeau,
furnished ideas on the same topic; then Parson Wallace, Parson Townsend, Parson Malthus and his
pupil, the arch-Parson Thomas Chalmers, to say nothing of lesser reverend scribblers in this line.
Originally, Political Economy was studied by philosophers like Hobbes, Locke, Hume; by
businessmen and statesmen, like Thomas More, Temple, Sully, De Witt, North, Law, Vanderlint,
Cantillon, Franklin; and especially, and with the greatest success, by medical men like Petty, Barbon,
Mandeville, Quesnay. Even in the middle of the eighteenth century, the Rev. Mr. Tucker, a notable
economist of his time, excused himself for meddling with the things of Mammon. Later on, and in
truth with this very “Principle of population,” struck the hour of the Protestant parsons. Petty, who
regarded the population as the basis of wealth, and was, like Adam Smith, an outspoken foe to
parsons, says, as if he had a presentiment of their bungling interference, “that Religion best flourishes
when the Priests are most mortified, as was before said of the Law, which best flourisheth when
lawyers have least to do.” He advises the Protestant priests, therefore, if they, once for all, will not
follow the Apostle Paul and “mortify” themselves by celibacy, “not to breed more Churchmen than
the Benefices, as they now stand shared out, will receive, that is to say, if there be places for about
twelve thousand in England and Wales, it will not be safe to breed up 24,000 ministers, for then the
twelve thousand which are unprovided for, will seek ways how to get themselves a livelihood, which
they cannot do more easily than by persuading the people that the twelve thousand incumbents do
poison or starve their souls, and misguide them in their way to Heaven.” (Petty: “A Treatise of Taxes
and Contributions,” London, 1667, p. 57.) Adam Smith’s position with the Protestant priesthood of his
time is shown by the following. In “A Letter to A. Smith, L.L.D. On the Life, Death, and Philosophy
of his Friend, David Hume. By one of the People called Christians,” 4th Edition, Oxford, 1784, Dr.
Horne, Bishop of Norwich, reproves Adam Smith, because in a published letter to Mr. Strahan, he
“embalmed his friend David” (sc. Hume); because he told the world how “Hume amused himself on
his deathbed with Lucian and Whist,” and because he even had the impudence to write of Hume: “I
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have always considered him, both in his life-time and since his death, as approaching as nearly to the
idea of a perfectly wise and virtuous man, as, perhaps, the nature of human frailty will permit.” The
bishop cries out, in a passion: “Is it right in you, Sir, to hold up to our view as ‘perfectly wise and
virtuous,’ the character and conduct of one, who seems to have been possessed with an incurable
antipathy to all that is called Religion; and who strained every nerve to explode, suppress and extirpate
the spirit of it among men, that its very name, if he could effect it, might no more be had in
remembrance?” (l. c., p. 8.) “But let not the lovers of truth be discouraged. Atheism cannot be of long
continuance.” (P. 17.) Adam Smith, “had the atrocious wickedness to propagate atheism through the
land (viz., by his “Theory of Moral Sentiments”). Upon the whole, Doctor, your meaning is good; but
I think you will not succeed this time. You would persuade us, by the example of David Hume, Esq.,
that atheism is the only cordial for low spirits, and the proper antidote against the fear of death.... You
may smile over Babylon in ruins and congratulate the hardened Pharaoh on his overthrow in the Red
Sea.” (l. c., pp. 21, 22.) One orthodox individual, amongst Adam Smith’s college friends, writes after
his death: “Smith’s well-placed affection for Hume ... hindered him from being a Christian.... When
he met with honest men whom he liked ... he would believe almost anything they said. Had he been a
friend of the worthy ingenious Horrox he would have believed that the moon some times disappeared
in a clear sky without the interposition of a cloud.... He approached to republicanism in his political
principles.” (“The Bee.” By James Anderson, 18 Vols., Vol. 3, pp. 166, 165, Edinburgh, 1791-93.)
Parson Thomas Chalmers has his suspicions as to Adam Smith having invented the category of
“unproductive labourers,” solely for the Protestant parsons, in spite of their blessed work in the
vineyard of the Lord.
7
“The limit, however, to the employment of both the operative and the labourer is the same; namely,
the possibility of the employer realising a
profit on the produce of their industry. If the rate of wages is
such as to reduce the master’s gains below the average profit of capital, he will cease to employ them,
or he will only employ them on condition of submission to a reduction of wages.” (John Wade, l. c., p.
241.)
8
Note by the Institute of Marxism-Leninism to the Russian edition: The MS in the first case says
“little” and in the second case “much”; the correction has been introduced according to the authorised
French translation.
9
Cf. Karl Marx: “Zur Kritik der Politischen Oekonomie,” pp. 166, seq.
10
“If we now return to our first inquiry, wherein it was shown that capital itself is only the result of
human labour... it seems quite incomprehensible that man can have fallen under the domination of
capital, his own product; can be subordinated to it; and as in reality this is beyond dispute the case,
involuntarily the question arises: How has the labourer been able to pass from being master of capital
— as its creator — to being its slave?” (Von Thünen, “Der isolierte Staat” Part ii., Section ii.,
Rostock, 1863, pp. 5, 6.) It is Thünen’s merit to have asked this question. His answer is simply
childish.
11
Adam Smith, “Enquiry into the Nature of ...”, Volume I.
12
Note in the 4th German edition. — The latest English and American “trusts” are already striving to
attain this goal by attempting to unite at least all the large-scale concerns in one branch of industry
into one great joint-stock company with a practical monopoly. F. E.
13
Note in the 3rd German edition. — In Marx’s copy there is here the marginal note: “Here note for
working out later; if the extension is only quantitative, then for a greater and a smaller capital in the
same branch of business the profits are as the magnitudes of the capitals advanced. If the quantitative
extension induces qualitative change, then the rate of profit on the larger capital rises simultaneously.”
F. E.