Routledge Library Editions karl marx

independent of each other, now join together in fact and form a great brotherhood, and thanks to the credit system and the banks they continually advance each other the money they need and take up the available money so that the uninterrupted progress of production and the sale of commodities is ensured both for the individual capitalist and for society as a whole.

Bourgeois economists have never found any explanation for the credit system beyond calling it an ingenious institution for “ facilitating commodity exchange”, but in the second volume of Capital Marx demonstrates, quite incidentally, that the credit system is a necessary part of capitalist life, the connecting link between two phases of capital, in production and on the commodity market, and between the apparently arbitrary movements of individual capital.

And then the permanent circulation of production and consumption in society as a whole must be kept in movement in the confusion of individual capitals, and this must be done in such a fashion that the necessary conditions of capitalist production are assured : the production of the means of production, the maintenance of the working class and the progressive enrichment of the capitalist class, i.e. the increasing accumulation and activity of all the capital of society. The second volume of Capital investigates how a whole is developed from the innumerable deviating movements of individual capital, how this movement of the whole vacillates between the surplus of the boom years and the collapse of the crisis years, but is wrenched back again and again into correct proportions only to swing out of them again immediately, and how out of all this there develops in ever more powerful dimensions that which is only a means for present-day society, its own maintenance and economic progress, and that which is its end, the progressive accumulation of capital. Marx offers us no final solution, but for the first time in a hundred years, since Adam Smith, the whole is presented on the firm foundations of definite laws.

But even with this the capitalist has not completely traversed the thorny path before him, for although profit has been turned and is being turned in increasing measure into money, the great problem now arises of how to distribute the booty. Many different groups of capitalists put forward their demands. Apart from the employer there is the merchant, [he loan capitalist and the landowner. Each of these has done his share to make possible the exploitation of the wage-worker and the sale of the commodities produced by the latter, and each now demands his share of the profit. This distribution of profit is a much more complicated affair than it might appear to be on the surface,




for even amongst the employers themselves big differences exist, according to the type of undertaking, in the profits obtained, so to speak, fresh from the factory.

In one branch of production commodities are produced and sold quickly, and capital plus the normal addition returns to the undertaking in a short space of time. Under such circumstances business and profits are made rapidly. In other branches of production capital is held fast in production for years and yields profit only after a long time. In some branches of production the employer must invest the greater part of his capital in lifeless means of production, in buildings, expensive machinery, etc., i.e. in things which yield no profit on their own account no matter how necessary they may be for profit-making. In other branches of production the employer need invest very little of his capital in such things and can use the greater part of it for the employment of workers, each of whom represents the industrious goose that lays the golden egg for the capitalist.

Thus in the process of profit-making big differences develop as between the individual capitalists, and in the eyes of bourgeois society these differences represent a much more urgent “ injustice” than the peculiar “ exchange” which takes place between the capitalist and the worker. The problem is to come to some arrangement which. will ensure a “just” division of the spoils, whereby each capitalist gets “ his share”, and what is more, it is a problem which has to be solved without any conscious and systematic plan, because distribution in present-day society is as anarchic as production. There is in fact no “ distribution” at all in the sense of a social measure and what takes place is solely exchange, commodity circulation, buying and selling. How therefore does unregulated commodity exchange permit each individual exploiter and each category of exploiters to obtain that share of the wealth produced by the labour-power of the proletariat which is his or its “ right” in the eyes of capitalist society?

Marx gives the answer to this question in the third volume of Capital. In the first volume he deals with the production of capital and lays bare the secret of profit-making. In the second volume he describes the movement of capital between the factory and the market, between the production and consumption of society. And in the third volume he deals with the distribution of the profit amongst the capitalist class as a whole. And all the time he proceeds from the basis of the three fundamental principles of capitalist society: firstly, that everything that

happens in capitalist society is not the result of arbitrary forces, but the result of definite and regularly operating laws, although




these laws are unknown to the capitalists themselves; secondly, that economic relations in capitalist society are not based on violence, robbery and cheating ; and, thirdly, that no social reason is at work controlling the movements of society as a whole. He analyses and systematically lays bare one after the other all the phenomena and all the relations of the capitalist economic system exclusively on the basis of the exchange mechanism of capitalist society, i.e. the law of value and the surplus-value which results from it.

Taking his great work as a whole we can say that the first volume, which develops the law of value, wages and surplus- value, lays bare the foundations of present-day society, whilst the second and third volumes show us the house which is based on these foundations. Or, to use a different comparison, we can say that the first volume shows us the heart of the social organism, which generates the living sap, whilst the second and third volumes show us the circulation of the blood and the nourishment of the body from the centre out to the cutaneous cells.

The contents of the second and third volumes take us on to a different plane. In the first volume we are in the factory, in the deep social pit of labour where we can trace the source of capitalist wealth. In the second and third volumes we are on the surface, on the official stage of society. Department stores, banks, the stock exchanges, finance and the troubles of the “ needy ” agriculturalists take up the foreground. The worker has no role on this stage, and in fact he shows little interest in the things which happen behind his back after he has been skinned. We see the workers in the noisy mob of business people only when they troop off to the factories in the grey light of the early morning or hurry home again in the dusk when the factories eject them in droves after the day’s work.

At first glance therefore it may not be clear why the workers should concern themselves with the private worries of the capitalists and with the squabbles which take place over the division of the spoils. However, both the second and the third volumes are as necessary to a thorough understanding of present-day economic mechanism as is the first volume. It is true that they do not play the same decisive and fundamental historic role for the modern working-class movement as the first volume does, but nevertheless they offer a wealth of insight into the workings of capitalism which is invaluable to the intellectual equipment of the proletariat in the practical struggle for its emancipation. Two examples will suffice.

When dealing with the process by which the regular maintenance of society results from the chaotic movement of indi




vidual capitals, in the second volume, Marx naturally touches on the problem of the crises. One must not expect any systematic and didactic dissertation on this phenomenon. There are in fact only a few incidental observations, but the utilization of these observations would be of the greatest value for all enlightened and thinking workers. For instance, it is one of the main planks in the agitation of the social democrats, and above all of the trade-union leaders, that economic crises take place chiefly as the result of the short-sightedness of the capitalists, who simply will not grasp the fact that the masses of the workers are their best customers and that all they need do is to pay these workers higher wages in order to ensure the existence of unfailing purchasing power for their goods and thus avoid all danger of crises.

This argument is a very popular one, but it is wholly fallacious, and Marx refutes it in the following words : “ It is sheer tautology to say that crises are produced by the lack of paying consumption or paying consumers. The capitalist system recognizes only paying consumers, with the exception of those in receipt of poor law support or the ‘rogues ’. That commodities are unsaleable means no more than that there are no purchasers, or consumers, for them. And if people are inclined to give this tautology an appearance of some deeper meaning by saying that the working class does not receive enough of its own product and that the evil would be dispelled immediately it received a greater share, i.e. if its wages were increased, all one can say is that crises are invariably preceded by periods in which wages in general rise and the working class receives a relatively greater share of the annual product intended for consumption. From the standpoint of these valiant upholders of ‘plain common sense,’, such periods should prevent the corning of crises. It would appear therefore that capitalist production includes conditions which are independent of good will or bad will and which permit such periods of relative prosperity for the working class only temporarily and always as the harbingers of the corning crises.”

The investigations which Marx pursues in the second and third volumes of Capital offer a thorough insight into the nature of crises, which are seen to be the inevitable result of the movement of capital, which in its impetuous and insatiable urge to accumulation and growth quickly plunges beyond the limits of consumption, no matter how wide these limits may be set as the result of increased purchasing power of one section of society or by the opening up of new markets. Thus the idea of a harmony of interests between capital and labour which lurks behind the popular agitation of the trade unions. harmony which is




prevented only by the short-sightedness of the capitalists, is refuted, and all hope of palliative measures to patch up the economic anarchy of capitalism must be abandoned. The struggle to improve the material conditions of life of the proletariat has a thousand brilliant arguments in its favour in the intellectual armoury of the modern working-class, and it certainly does not need the help of a theoretically untenable and practically ambiguous argument such as the one dealt with above.

A second example : in the third volume of Capital Marx provides for the first time a scientific 'explanation of a phenomenon which has puzzled bourgeois economic science since its inception, namely that, although invested under varying conditions, capital in al branches of production yields as a general rule only the so-called “customary rate of profit”. At first glance this phenomenon would seem to contradict a statement which Marx himself makes, i.e. that capitalist wealth arises exclusively from the unpaid labour of the wage-workers. How can the capitalist who is compelled to invest comparatively large proportions of his capital in lifeless means of production secure the same profit as his colleague who need invest far less of his capital in such things and can therefore use proportionately larger quantities of living labour-power ?

Marx solves this riddle with extraordinary simplicity by showing that with the sale of one sort of commodity above its value and other sorts of commodities below their value the differences in profit are levelled out and an “ average rate of profit” developed for all branches of production. Quite unconsciously, and without any agreement amongst themselves, the capitalists exchange their commodities in such a fashion that each capitalist contributes the surplus-value which he has extracted from his workers to a general pool, and the total result of their combined exploitation is then divided fraternally amongst the capitalists, each of whom receives a share in accordance with the size of his capital. The individual capitalist therefore does not enjoy the profit which he directly extracts from his workers, but only his share of that total profit which he and his capitalist colleagues together have extracted from the workers. “ As far as profit is concerned, the various capitalists play the role of mere shareholders in a joint-stock company distributing its profits in equal percentages so that the shares of the various capitalists differ only according to the amount of capital invested by each in the joint undertaking, according to the proportionate participation of each in the undertahisng as a whole.”

What penetrating insight into the real and material basis of capitalist class-solidarity are we offered by this apparently




dry-as-dust law of the “ average rate of profit ” ! We observe that although the capitalists are hostile brothers in their daily activities, nevertheless, as far as the working class is concerned they represent a sort of Freemasonry interested intensely and personally in the total result of all the exploitation conducted by all its members. Although the capitalists have naturally not the least idea of these objective economic laws, their unfailing instinct as members of a ruling" class shows itself in an appreciation of their own class interests and of their antagonism to the proletariat, and unfortunately it has persisted far more firmly through the storms of history than has the class-consciousness of the workers, whose scientific basis is revealed in the works of Marx and Engels.

These two short and arbitrarily chosen examples must suffice to give the reader some idea of what treasures still remain unmined in the second and third volumes of Capital and awaiting a popularization, and what a wealth of intellectual stimulation and intellectual profundity they offer the enlightened workers. Incomplete as the two volumes are, they offer more than any final truth could : an urge to thought, to criticism and self-criticism, and this is the essence of the lessons which Marx gave the working class.

2. 
   The Reception of Capital
   

The hope expressed by Engels that after having completed the first volume and got rid of the “ incubus ” Marx would “ feel a different fellow altogether ” was fulfilled only in part.

The improvement in the latter’s health was unfortunately not permanent whilst his pecuniary situation remained embarrassingly uncertain. At about this time he even considered moving to Geneva, where he would have been able to live much more cheaply, but circumstances bound him to London and the treasures of the British Museum. He hoped to find a publisher for an English translation of his work, and he was unable and unwilling to surrender the intellectual leadership of the International before he had seen it safely started along the correct path.

The marriage of- his second daughter Laura to his “ medical Creole ” Paul Lafargue was a happy domestic event. The young couple had become engaged in August 1866, but it had been agreed that Lafargue should first complete his medical studies




before they married. He had been struck off the rolls of the University of Paris for a period of two years owing to his participation in a students’ congress in Llege, and he then went to London in connection with the International. At first he was a follower of Proudhon and had no relations with Marx beyond visiting him as a matter of politeness to leave a card from Tolain, but fate took a hand in the usual fashion and not long afterwards Marx wrote to Engels: “At first the young fellow attached himself to me, but it was not long before he found the daughter more attractive than the father. He is the only child of a former planter’s family and his economic position is tolerably good.” According to Marx’s description Lafargue was good-looking, intelligent, energetic, physically well-developed and good-hearted, but a little spoiled and nevertheless somewhat too unsophisticated.

Lafargue was born in Santiago on the island of Cuba, but when he was nine his parents took him to France. His paternal grandmother wrs a Mulattress and through her he had Negro blood in his veins, a fact to which he referred willingly and which accounted for the subdued duskiness of his complexion and for the great whites of his eyes, though otherwise his features were very regular. It was probably this Negro strain in him which accounted for a certain obstinacy which occasionally caused Marx to reproach him, half in annoyance and half in amusement, for his “ Nigger skull”. However, the tone of good-humoured banter which they used towards each other is sufficient proof of how well they got on together. For Marx Lafargue became not only a son-in-law who brought happiness to his daughter Laura, but also a capable and dexterous assistant who proved a loyal defender of his intellectual legacy.

Marx’s chief worry in this period was his anxiety about his book, and on the 2nd of November 1867 he wrote to Engels: ” The fate of my book makes me nervous. I hear and see nothing. The Germans are fine fellows! Their achievements on this field as the lackeys of the English and the French and even of the Italians no doubt give them the right to ignore my work. Our friends over there don’t know how to agitate. And in the meantime one must follow the Russian policy and wait. Patience is the secret of Russian diplomacy and success, but we poor creatures who live only once can starve the while.” The impatience these lines betray is understandable enough, but it was not quite justified.

The book had hardly been published two months, and in such a short space of time it was impossible to write any really thorough criticism, but both Engels and Kugelmann had done everything possible to “ make a noise about the book”, and even




Marx thought that this was the most necessary thing at the moment in the hope of producing some effect in England also. It cannot be said that Engels and Kugelmann were over-punctilious in their efforts, but they met with a certain amount of success. They secured the publication of advance notices of the book in quite a number of papers, including bourgeois publications, and even a reprint of the introduction. And in addition they had even prepared a piece of advertisement which whis quite sensational for those days, namely the publication of a biographical article in Die Gartenlaube, when Marx requested them to stop such “ nonsense” :. “ I consider that that sort of thing is likely to do more harm than good and, in any case, it is beneath the dignity of a man of science. For instance, long ago Meyer’s Encyclopedia asked me for biographical notes, but I did not even answer their letter, much less give them the information they wanted. Every man to his taste.”

The article which Engels had written for Die Gartenlaube, “ a blurb, written in great hhiste, which would have done justice to Beta ”,¹ as its author described it, whis finally published in Die Zukunft, Johann Jacoby’s organ which Guido Weiss had been publishing in Berlin since 1867, and then reprinted by Liebknecht in the Demokratisches Wochenblatt, but much shortened, a fact which caused Engels to observe disagreeably : “ Wilhelm has now happily arrived at a stage where he dare not even say that Lassalle copied you and did it badly. He has completely emasculated the article, and why he thought it worth while printing at all after that only he can know.” Liebknecht whis, in fact, completely in agreement with the phissages he cut out of the article, but he cut them out nevertheless in order to avoid giving offence to a number of Lassalleans who had just fallen away from Schweitzer and were helping to found the Eisenach fraction.