4) McCulloch
The vulgariser of Ricardian political economy and simultaneously the most pitiful embodiment of its decline.
He vulgarises not only Ricardo but also James Mill. He is moreover a vulgar economist in everything and an apologist for the existing state of affairs. His only fear, driven to ridiculous extremes, is the tendency of profit to fall; he is perfectly contented with the position of the workers, and in general, with all the contradictions of bourgeois economy which weigh heavily upon the working class. Here everything is green. He even knows that
* "the introduction of machines into any employment necessarily occasions an equal or greater demand for the disengaged labourers in some other employment".*[3]
Here HE DEVIATES FROM Ricardo, and in his later writings, he also becomes very MEALY-MOUTHED about the landowners. But HIS WHOLE TENDER ANXIETY is reserved FOR THE POOR CAPITALISTS, CONSIDERING THE
TENDENCY OF THE RATE OF PROFIT TO FALL!
"Mr. McCulloch, unlike other exponents of science, SEEMS TO LOOK not *for characteristic differences, but only for resemblances: and proceeding upon this principle, he is led to confound material with immaterial objects; productive with unproductive labour; capital with revenue; the food of the labourer with the labourer himself; production with consumption; and labour with profits" (Malthus, Definitions in Political Economy etc, London, 1827, [pp.] 69-70).
"Mr. McCulloch, in his Principles of Political Economy, London, 1825,(1)° divides value into real and relative or exchangeable value; the former, he says, (p. 225) is dependent on the quantity of labour expended in its appropriation or production, and the latter on the quantity of labour, or of any other commodity for which it will exchange; and these two values are, he says (p. 215), identical in the ordinary state of things, that is, when the supply of commodities in the market is exacdy proportioned to the effectual demand for them. Now, if they be identical, the two quantities of labour which he refers to must be identical also; but, at page 221, he tells us that they are not, for that the one includes profits, while the other excludes them" * ([J. Cazenove,] Outlines of Political Economy etc., London, 1832, [p.] 25).
Namely McCulloch says on page 221 of his Principles of Political Economy :
* "In point of fact, it" * (the commodity) * "will always exchange for more" //labour than that by which it has been produced//; "and it is this excess that constitutes profits."*
This is a brilliant example of the methods used by this archhumbug of a Scotsman.
The arguments of Malthus, Bailey, etc., compel him to differentiate between REAL VALUE and EXCHANGEABLE or RELATIVE VALUE. But he does so, basically, in the way he finds the difference dealt with by Ricardo. REAL VALUE means the commodity examined with regard to the labour required for its production; RELATIVE VALUE implies the consideration of the proportions of different commodities which can be produced in the same amount of time, which are consequently equivalents, and the value of one of which can therefore be expressed in the quantity of use value of the other which costs the same amount of labour time. The RELATIVE VALUE of commodities, in this Ricardian sense, is only another expression for their REAL VALUE and means nothing more than that the commodities exchange with one another in proportion to the labour time embodied in them, in other words, that the labour time embodied in both is equal If, therefore, the market price of a commodity is equal to its EXCHANGEABLE VALUE (as is the case when DEMAND and SUPPLY are in equilibrium), then the commodity bought contains as much labour as that which is sold. It merely realises its EXCHANGEABLE VALUE, or it is only sold at its EXCHANGEABLE VALUE when one receives the same amount of labour in exchange for it as one hands over.
McCulloch relates all this, correctly repeating what has already been said.[3] But he goes too far here since the Malthusian definition of EXCHANGEABLE VALUE — the quantity of wage labour which a commodity commands — already sticks in his throat. He therefore defines RELATIVE VALUE as the "QUANTITY OF LABOUR, OR OF ANY OTHER COMMODITY FOR WHICH A COMMODITY WILL EXCHANGE". Ricardo, in dealing with RELATIVE VALUE, always speaks only of COMMODITIES EXCLUSIVE OF LABOUR, BECAUSE IN THE EXCHANGE OF COMMODITIES ONLY A PROFIT IS REALISED, BECAUSE IN THE EXCHANGE BETWEEN COMMODITY AND LABOUR EQUAL QUANTITIES OF LABOUR ARE NOT EXCHANGED. By putting the main emphasis right at the beginning of his book on the fact that the determination of the value [XIV-841] of a commodity by the labour time embodied in it differs toto coeloh from the determination of this value by the quantity of labour which it can buy,a Ricardo, on the one hand, posits the difference between the quantity of labour contained in a commodity and the quantity of labour which it commands. On the other hand, he excludes the exchange of commodity and labour from t h e RELATIVE VALUE OF A COMMODITY. BECAUSE, IF A COMMODITY EXCHANGES WITH A COMMODITY, EQUAL QUANTITIES OF LABOUR ARE EXCHANGED. I F IT EXCHANGES WITH LABOUR ITSELF, UNEQUAL QUANTITIES OF LABOUR ARE EXCHANGED, AND CAPITALISTIC PRODUCTION RESTS ON THE INEQUALITY OF THIS EXCHANGE. Ricardo does not explain how this exception fits in with the concept of value. This is the reason for the arguments amongst his followers. But his instinct is sound when he makes the exception. (In actual fact, there is no exception; it exists only in his formulation.) Thus McCulloch goes farther than Ricardo and is apparently more consistent than he.
There is no flaw in his system; it is all of a piece. Whether a commodity is exchanged for a commodity or for labour, this ratio of exchange is in both cases THE RELATIVE VALUE OF A COMMODITY. And if the commodities exchanged are sold at their value (i.e. if demand and supply are in equilibrium), this RELATIVE VALUE is always the expression of the REAL VALUE. That is, there are equal quantities of labour at both poles of the exchange. Thus "IN THE ORDINARY STATE OF THINGS" a commodity only exchanges for a quantity of wage labour equal to the quantity of labour contained in it. The workman receives in WAGES just as much MATERIALISED LABOUR as he gives back to capital in the form of IMMEDIATE LABOUR. With this the source of SURPLUS VALUE disappears and the whole Ricardian theory collapses. Thus Mr. McCulloch first destroys it under the appearance of making it more consistent.
And what next? H e then flits shamelessly from Ricardo to Malthus, according to whom the value of a commodity is determined by the quantity of labour which it buys and which must always be greater than that which the commodity itself contains. The only difference is that in Malthus this is plainly stated to be what it is, opposition to Ricardo, and Mr. McCulloch adopts this opposite viewpoint after he has adopted the Ricardian formula with an apparent consistency (that is, with the consistency of incogitancy) which destroys the whole sense of the Ricardian theory. McCulloch therefore does not understand the essential kernel of Ricardo's teaching — how profit is realised because commodities exchange at their value—and abandons it. Since
a D. Ricardo, On the Principles of Political Economy, and Taxation, 3rd ed., London, 1821, pp. 1-12.— Ed EXCHANGEABLE VALUE w h i c h IN "THE ORDINARY STATE OF THE MARKET" i s , according to McCulloch, equal to the REAL VALUE but "IN POINT OF FACT" is always greater, since profit is based on this surplus (a fine contradiction and a fine discourse based on a "POINT OF FACT")—is "THE QUANTITY OF LABOUR, OR OF ANY OTHER COMMODITY", for which the commodity is exchanged, hence what applies to "LABOUR" applies to "ANY OTHER COMMODITY". This means that the commodity is not only exchanged for a greater amount of IMMEDIATE LABOUR than it itself contains, but for more MATERIALISED LABOUR IN THE OTHER COMMODITIES than it itself contains; in other words, profit is "profit UPON EXPROPRIATION" and with this we are back again amongst the Mercantilists. Malthus draws this conclusion.[3] With McCulloch this conclusion follows naturally buf with the pretence that this constitutes an elaboration of the Ricardian system.
And this total decline of the Ricardian system into twaddle — a decline which prides itself on being its most consistent exposition — has been accepted by the MOB, especially by the CONTINENTAL MOB (with Mr. Roscher naturally amongst them), as the conclusion of the Ricardian system carried too far, to its extreme limit; they thus believe Mr. McCulloch that the Ricardian mode of "coughing and spitting",[101] which he uses to conceal his helpless, thoughtless and unprincipled eclecticism, is in fact a scientific attempt to set forth this system consistently.
McCulloch is simply a man who wanted to turn Ricardian economics to his own advantage — an aim in which he succeeded in a most remarkable degree. In the same way Say used Smith, but Say at least made a contribution by bringing Smith's theories into a certain formal order and, apart from misconceptions, he occasionally also ventured to advance theoretical objections. Since McCulloch first obtained a professorial chair in London on account of Ricardian economics,[102] in the beginning he had to come forward as a Ricardian and especially to participate in the struggle against the landlords. As soon as he had obtained a foothold and climbed to a position on Ricardo's [XIV-842] shoulders, his main effort was directed to expounding political economy, especially Ricardian economics, within the framework of Whiggism[103] and to eliminate all conclusions which were distaste-ful to the Whigs. His last works on money, taxes, etc.,b are mere PLAIDOYERS on behalf of the Whig Cabinet of the day. In this way
a See this volume, p. 212, and also present edition, Vol. 30, pp. 405-25.— Ed. b See J. R. MacCulloch, A Treatise on Metallic and Paper Money and Banks, Edinburgh, London, 1858.— Ed.
the m a n secured a lucrative job. His statistical writings a are merely CATCHPENNIES. T h e incogitant decline and vulgarisation of the theory likewise reveal the fellow himself as "A VULGARIAN", a matter to which we shall have to return BEFORE WE HAVE DONE WITH THAT SPECULATING SCOTSMAN. b
In 1828 McCulloch published Smith's Wealth of Nations? and the 4th volume of this edition contains his own NOTES and DISSERTATIONS in which, to pad out the volume, he reprints in part some mediocre essays which he had published previously, e.g., on "ENTAIL", etc., and which have absolutely nothing to do with the matter, and in part, his lectures on the history of political economy repeated almost verbotenusd; he himself says that he "LARGELYDRAWS UPON THEM"; in part, however, he tries in his own way to assimilate the new ideas advanced in the interim by Mill and by Ricardo's opponents.
In his Principles of Political Economy,[104] Mr. McCulloch presents us with nothing more than a copy of his "NOTES" and "DISSERTATIONS" which he had already copied from his earlier "scattered manuscripts". But things turned out slightly worse in the Principles, for inconsistencies are of less importance in "NOTES" than in an allegedly methodical treatment. Thus the passages quoted above, though they are, in part, taken verbatim from the "NOTES", etc., look rather less inconsistent in these "NOTES" than they do in the Principles. II In addition the Principles contain plagiarisms of Mill amplified by absurd ILLUSTRATIONS, and REPRINTS of articles on CORN TRADE, etc., which he has repeatedly published, maybe verbotenus, u n d e r 20 different titles in different periodicals, often even in the same periodical AT DIFFERENT PERIODS. //
In the above-mentioned VOLUME IV of his EDITION of Adam Smith (London, 1828), Mac says (he repeats the same thing word for word in his Principles of Political Economy but without making the distinctions which he still felt to be necessary in the "NOTES"):
or rather the quantity which would be required for the production or appropriation of a similar commodity at the time when the investigation is made" (I.e., [pp.] 85-86).
"A commodity produced by a certain quantity of labour will" //when the supply of commodities is equal to the effectual demand// "uniformly exchange for, or buy any other commodity produced by the same quantity of labour. It will never, however, exchange for, or buy exactly the same quantity of labour that produced it; but though it will not do this, it will always exchange for, or buy the same quantity of labour as any other commodity produced under the same circumstances, or by means of the same quantity of labour, as itself" (I.e., [pp.] 96-97).
"In point of fact"* (this phrase is repeated literally in the Principles, since, IN POINT OF FACT, this "IN POINT OF FACT" constitutes the whole of his deduction,[2]) * "it" (the commodity) "will always exchange for more" //viz., [for] more labour than that by which it was produced//; "and it is this excess that constitutes profits. No capitalist would have any motive"* (as if the "MOTIVES" of the buyer was the point in question when dealing with the exchange of commodities and the investigation of their value) * "to exchange the produce of a given quantity of labour already performed [XIV-843] for the produce of the same quantity of labour to be performed. This would be to lend" //"to exchange" would be to "lend"// "without receiving any interest on the loan"* (I.e., p. 96).
Let us start at the end. If the capitalist did not get back more labour than the amount he advances in WAGES, HE WOULD "LEND" WITHOUT "PROFIT". What has to be explained is how profit is possible if commodities (LABOUR OR OTHER COMMODITIES) are exchanged at their value. And the answer is that n o profit would be possible if equivalents were exchanged. It is assumed, first of all, that capitalist and worker "exchange". And then, in order to explain profit, it is assumed that they do "not" exchange, but that one of the parties lends (i.e. gives commodities) and the other borrows, that is, pays only after he has received the commodities. In other words, in order to explain profit, it is said that the capitalist secures " n o interest" if h e makes no profit. This is putting the thing wrongly. T h e commodities in which the capitalist pays WAGES a n d the commodities which he gets back as a result of the labour, are different use values. H e does not therefore receive back what he advanced, any more than he does when he exchanges one commodity for another. Whether he buys another commodity, or whether h e buys the specific labour which produces the other commodity for him, amounts to the same. For the use value he advances h e receives back another use value, as happens in all exchanges of commodities. If, on the other hand, one pays attention only to the value of the commodity, then it is no longer a contradiction TO EXCHANGE "A GIVEN QUANTITY OF LABOUR ALREADY PERFORMED" AGAINST "THE SAME QUANTITY TO BE PERFORMED" (although the capitalist IN FACT pays only after the LABOUR has been PERFORMED), NOR fis it a contradiction] TO EXCHANGE A QUANTITY OF LABOUR PERFORMED AGAINST THE SAME QUANTITY OF LABOUR PERFORMED. This latter is an insipid tautology. The first part of the passage implies that "THE LABOUR TO BE
PERFORMED" IS MATERIALISED IN ANOTHER VALUE OF USE AS THE LABOUR PERFORMED. In this case there is thus a difference [between the objects to be exchanged] and, consequendy, a motive for exchange arising out of the relationship itself, but this is not so in the other case, since A only exchanges for A in so far as in this EXCHANGE it is a matter of the QUANTITY OF LABOUR. This is why Mr. Mac has recourse to the motive. T h e motive of the capitalist is to receive back a greater "QUANTITY OF LABOUR" than he advances. Profit is here explained by the fact that the capitalist has the motive to make "profit". But the same thing can be said about the sale of goods by the merchant and about every sale of commodities not for consumption but for gain: * He has no motive to exchange the same quantity of performed labour against the same quantity of performed labour. His motive is to get in return more performed labour than he gives away. Hence he must get more performed labour in the form of money or commodities than he gives away in the form of a commodity or of money. He must, therefore, buy cheaper than he sells, and sell dearer than he has bought.* Profit UPON ALIENATION is thus explained, not by the fact that it corresponds to the law of value, but by declaring that buyers and sellers have no "motive" for buying and selling in accordance with the law of value. This is Mac's first "sublime" discovery, it fits beautifully into the Ricardian system, which seeks to show how THE LAW OF VALUE asserts itself DESPITE THE "MOTIVES" OF SELLER AND BUYER. [XIV-844] For the rest, Mac's presentation in the "NOTES" differs from the one in the Principles only in the following:
In the Principles he makes a distinction between "REAL VALUE" and "RELATIVE VALUE" and says that both are equal "UNDER ORDINARY CIRCUMSTANCES" but "IN POINT OF FACT" they cannot be equal if there is to be a profit. H e therefore says merely that the "FACT" contradicts the "principle".
In the "NOTES" he distinguishes three sorts of VALUE: "REAL VALUE", the "RELATIVE VALUE" OF A COMMODITY IN ITS EXCHANGE with OTHER COMMODITIES, and the RELATIVE VALUE OF A COMMODITY EXCHANGED WITH LABOUR. The equivalent. If it were exchanged for an EQUIVALENT IN LABOUR, then there would be n o profit. T h e value of a commodity IN ITS EXCHANGE WITH LABOUR is a greater value.
Problem: T h e Ricardian definition of value conflicts with the
EXCHANGE OF A COMMODITY WITH LABOUR.
Mac's solution: IN THE EXCHANGE OF A COMMODITY WITH LABOUR THE LAW OF VALUE DOES NOT EXIST, BUT ITS CONTRARY. Otherwise profit could not be explained. Profit for him, the RICARDIAN, is to be explained by the law of value.
Solution: The law of value (IN THIS CASE) is profit. " I N POINT OF FACT" Mac only reiterates what the opponents of the Ricardian theory say, namely, that there would be no profit if the law of value applied to exchange between capital a n d LABOUR. Consequently, they say, the Ricardian law of value is invalid. H e says that in this case, which he must explain by the Ricardian law, the law does not exist and that in this case "VALUE" "MEANS" SOMETHING ELSE.
From this it is obvious how litde he understands of the Ricardian law. Otherwise he would have had to say that profit arising in exchange between commodities which are exchanged in proportion to the labour time, is due to the fact that "unpaid" labour is contained in the commodities. In other words, the unequal exchange between capital a n d labour explains the exchange of commodities at their value and the profit which is realised in the course of this exchange. Instead of this h e says: Commodities which contain the same amount of labour time command the same amount OF SURPLUS labour, which is not contained in them. H e believes that in this way he has reconciled Ricardo's propositions with those of Malthus, by establishing an identity between the determination of the value of commodities by labour time and the determination of the value of commodities by the LABOUR they COMMAND. But what does it mean when he says that commodities which contain the same amount of labour time command the same amount of surplus labour in addition to the labour contained in them? It means nothing more than that a commodity in which a definite amount of labour time is embodied commands a definite quantity of surplus labour [that is, more labour] than it itself contains. That this applies not only to commodity A, in which x hours of labour time are embodied, but also to commodity B, in which x hours of labour time are also embodied, follows by definition from the Malthusian formula itself.
T h e contradiction is therefore solved by Mac in this way: If the Ricardian law of value were really a valid one, then profit, and hence capital a n d capitalist production, would be impossible. This is exacdy what Ricardo's opponents assert. And this is what Mac answers them, how h e refutes them. And in so doing, he does not notice the beauty of an explanation of EXCHANGEABLE VALUE IN [exchange with] LABOUR which amounts to saying that value is exchange for something which has no value. [XIV-845] After Mr. Mac has thus abandoned the basis of Ricardian political economy, he proceeds even further and destroys the basis of this basis.
The first difficulty in the Ricardian system was the EXCHANGE OF
CAPITAL AND LABOUR SO AS TO BE CORRESPONDING TO THE " L A W OF VALUE". The second difficulty was that capitals of equal magnitude, no matter what their organic composition, yield equal profits or the GENERAL RATE OF PROFIT. This is indeed the unrecognised problem of how VALUES are converted into COST PRICES.
The difficulty arose because capitals of equal magnitude, but of unequal composition — WHETHER UNEQUAL PROPORTIONS OF CONSTANT AN:O
VARIABLE CAPITAL, WHETHER OF FIXED AND CIRCULATED CAPITAL, WHETHER OF UNEQUAL TIMES OF CIRCULATION — set in motion unequal quantities of immediate labour, a n d therefore unequal quantities of unpaid labour; consequently they cannot appropriate equal quantities of SURPLUS VALUE or SURPLUS PRODUCE in the process of production. Hence they cannot yield equal profit if profit is nothing b u t the SURPLUS VALUE
CALCULATED IN REGARD TO THE VALUE OF THE WHOLE CAPITAL ADVANCED. I f , however, the SURPLUS VALUE were something different from (unpaid) labour, then labour could, after all not be the "FOUNDATION AND MEASURE" OF THE VALUE OF COMMODITIES.3
T h e difficulties arising in this context were discovered by Ricardo himself (although not in their general form) and set forth by him as exceptions to the RULE OF VALUE.1" Malthus used these exceptions to throw the whole rule overboard on the grounds that the exceptions constituted the rule.0 Torrens, who also criticised Ricardo, indicated the problem at any rate when he said that capitals of equal size set unequal quantities of labour in motion, and nevertheless produce commodities of equal "values", HENCE value cannot be determined by labour.*[1] Ditto Bailey,' etc. Mill for his part accepted the exceptions noted by Ricardo as exceptions,
a See this volume, p. 325.— Ed. h See present edition, Vol. 31, pp. 401-03, and also this volume, pp. 261-62.— Ed. c See present edition, Vol. 31, p. 416, and also this volume, pp. 225, 261-62.— Ed. d See this volume, pp. 262-64.— Ed. e Ibid., pp. 349-50.— Ed.
24* and he had no scruples about them except with regard to one single form.[3] One particular cause of the equalisation of the profits of the capitalists he found incompatible with the RULE. It was the following. Certain commodities remain in the process of production (for example, wine in the cellar) without any labour being applied to them; there is a period during which they are subject to certain natural processes (for example, prolonged breaks in labour occur in agriculture and in tanning before certain new chemicals are applied — these cases are not mentioned by Mill). These periods are nevertheless considered as profit-yielding. The period of time during which the commodity is not being worked on by labour [is regarded] as labour time (the same thing in general applies where a longer period of circulation time is involved). Mill "lied" his way — so to speak — out of the difficulty by saying that one can consider the time in which the wine, for example, is in the cellar as a period when it is soaking up labour, although according to the assumption this is, IN POINT OF FACT, not the case.(2) Otherwise one would have to say that "time" creates profit and time as such is "sound and fury".(3) McCulloch uses this balderdash of Mill as a starting-point, or rather he reproduces it in his customary affected, plagiarist manner in a general form in which the latent nonsense becomes apparent and the last vestiges of the Ricardian system, as of all economic thinking whatsoever, are happily discarded.
On closer consideration, all the difficulties mentioned above resolve themselves into the following difficulty.
That part of capital which enters into the production process in the form of commodities, as raw materials or tools, does not add more value to the product than it possessed before production. For it only has value in so far as it is embodied labour and the labour contained in it is IN NO WAY ALTERED by its entry into the production process. It is to such an extent independent of the production process into which it enters and dependent on the socially determined labour REQUIRED FOR ITS OWN PRODUCTION that its own value changes when more labour time or less labour time than it itself contains is required for its reproduction. As value, this part of capital therefore enters unchanged into the production process and emerges from it unchanged. In so far as it really enters into the production process and is changed, this change affects only its use value, i.e. it undergoes a change as use value. And all operations undergone by the raw material or carried out by the instrument of labour are merely processes to which they are submitted as specific kinds of raw material, etc., and particular tools (spindles, etc.), processes which affect their use value, but which, as processes, have nothing to do with their exchange value. Exchange value is maintained in this [XIV-846] CHANGE. Voilà tout'
It is different with that part of capital which is exchanged against labour capacity. The use value of labour capacity is labour, the element which produces exchange value. Since the labour provided by labour capacity in industrial consumption is greater than the labour which is required for its own reproduction, which provides an equivalent of its wages, the value which the capitalist receives from the worker in exchange is greater than the price he pays for this labour. It follows from this that, if equal rates of exploitation are assumed, of 2 capitals of equal size, that which sets less living labour in motion — whether this is due to the fact that the proportion of variable to constant capital is less from the start, or to the fact that it has a [longer] period of circulation or period of production during which it is not exchanged against labour, does not come into contact with it, does not absorb it — will produce less surplus value, and, in general, commodities of less value. How then can the values created be equal and the surplus values proportional to the capital advanced? Ricardo was unable to answer this question because, put in this way, it is absurd since, in fact, neither equal values nor [equal] surplus values are produced. Ricardo, however, did not understand the genesis of the general rate of profit nor, consequendy, the transformation of VALUES into COST PRICES which differ specifically from them.
Mac, however, eliminates the difficulty by basing himself on Mill's insipid "evasion". One gets round the inconvenience by talking out of existence by means of a phrase the' characteristic difference out of which it arose. This is the characteristic difference: The use value of labour capacity is labour; it consequendy produces exchange value. The use value of the other commodities is use value as distinct from exchange value, therefore no CHANGE which this use value undergoes can change the predetermined exchange value. One gets round the inconvenience by calling the use values of commodities — exchange value, and the operations in which they are involved as use values, the services they render as use values in production—labour. For after all, in ordinary life we speak of working animals, working machines, and even say poetically that the iron works in the furnace, or works under the blows of the hammer. It even screams. And nothing is easier than to prove that every "operation" is labour, for labour is — an operation. In the same way one can prove that everything material experiences sensation, for everything which experiences sensation is — material.
* "Labour may properly be defined to be any sort of action or operation, whether performed by man, the lower animals, machinery, or natural agents, that tends to bring about a desirable result" * (I.e., [MacCulloch, Supplemental Notes and Dissertations to Smith's "Wealth of Nations", Vol. IV,] p. 75).
And this does not by any means apply [solely] to instruments of labour. It is in the nature of things that this applies equally to raw materials. Wool undergoes A PHYSICAL ACTION OR OPERATION when it is dyed. In general, nothing can be acted upon physically, mechani-cally, chemically, etc., in order "TO BRING ABOUT A DESIRABLE RESULT" without the thing itself reacting. It cannot therefore be worked upon without itself working. Thus all commodities which enter into the production process bring about an increase in value not only by retaining their own value, but by creating new value, because they "work" and are not merely objectified labour. In this way, all the difficulties are naturally eliminated. In reality, this is merely a paraphrase, a new name for Say's "productive services of capital", "productive services of land", etc., which Ricardo attacked continuously(4) and against which Mac—mirabile dictu(5)— himself polemicises in the same "dissertation" or "note" where he pompously presents his discovery, borrowed from Mill and embellished still further.(6) In criticising Say, McCulloch makes lavish use of recollected passages from Ricardo and remembers that these "productive services" are in fact only the attributes displayed by things as use values in the production process. But naturally, all this is changed when he calls these "productive services" by the sacramental name of "labour". [XIV-847] After Mac has happily transformed commodities into workers, it goes without saying that these workers also draw wages and that, in addition to the value they possess as "ACCUMULATED LABOUR", they must be paid wages for their "operations" or "action". These WAGES of the commodities are pocketed by the capitalists [per] procurationem; they are "WAGES OF ACCUMULATED LABOUR"—alias profit* And this is proof that equal profit on equal capitals, whether they set large or small amounts of labour in motion, follows directly from the determination of value by labour time.
The most extraordinary thing about all this, as we have already noted, is the way Mac, at the very moment when he is basing himself on Mill and appropriating Say, hurls Ricardian phrases against Say. How literally he copies Say — except that where Say speaks of ACTION, he calls this ACTION LABOUR*—can best be seen from the following passages from Ricardo where the latter polemicises against Say:
* "M. Say ... imputes to him" (Adam Smith), "as an error, that 'he attributes to the labour of man alone, the power of producing value. A more correct analysis shows us that value is owing to the action of labour, or rather the industry of man, combined with the action of those agents which nature supplies, and with that of capital. His ignorance of this principle prevented him from establishing the true theory of the influence of machinery in the production of wealth.'c In contradiction to the opinion of Adam Smith, M. Say ... speaks of the value which is given to commodities by natural agents, etc. But these natural agents, though they add greatly to value in use, never add exchangeable value, of which M. Say is speaking" (Principles, 3rd ed., [pp.] 334-36).d "Machines and natural agents might very gready add to the riches of a country, ... not ... any thing to the value of those riches" ([p.] 335, note).*
Like all economists WORTH NAMING, [including] Adam Smith (although in a fit of humour he once called the ox A PRODUCTIVE LABOURER*), Ricardo emphasises that labour as human activity, even more, as socially determined human activity, is the sole source of value. It is precisely through the consistency with which he treats the value of commodities as a mere "REPRESENTATION" of socially determined labour, that Ricardo differs from the other economists. All these economists understand more or less clearly, but Ricardo more clearly than the others, that the exchange value of things is a mere expression, a specific social form, of the productive activity of men, something toto genere1 different from things and their USE as things, whether in industrial or in non-industrial consumption. For them, value is, in fact, simply an objectively expressed relation of the productive activity of men, of the different types of labour to one another. When he argues against Say, Ricardo explicitly quotes the words of Destutt de Tracy,(7) as expressing his own views:
* "As it is certain that our physical and moral faculties are alone our original riches, the employment of those faculties"* (the faculties of men), *"labour of some kind"* (that is, LABOUR as the realisation of the faculties of men), *"is our only original treasure, and it is always from this employment, that all those things are created which we call riches... It is certain too, that all those t h i n g s only represent the labour which has created them, and if they have a value, or even two distinct values, they can only derive them from ... the labour from which they emanate"* (Ricardo, I.e., [p.] 334).
Thus commodities, things in general, have value only because they represent human [XIV-848] labour, not in so far as they are things in themselves, but in so far as they are incarnations of social labour.
And yet some persons have had the temerity to say that the miserable Mac has taken Ricardo to extremes, he who, in his incogitant efforts to "utilise" the Ricardian theory eclectically along with those opposed to it, identifies its principle and that of all political economy—labour itself as human activity and as socially determined human activity — with the physical, etc., action, which commodities possess as use values, as things. He who abandons the very concept of labour itself!
Rendered insolent by Mill's "evasion", he plagiarises Say while arguing against him, and copies precisely those phrases of Say which Ricardo in Chapter 20 [of his book], entitled "Value and Riches", attacks as being fundamentally opposed to his own ideas and those of Smith. (Roscher naturally repeats that Mac has carried Ricardo to extremes.(8)) Mac, however, is sillier than Say, who does not call the "action" of fire, machinery, etc., labour. And more inconsistent. While Say attributes the creation of "value" to wind, fire, etc., Mac considers that only those use values, things, which can be monopolised create value, as if it were possible to utilise the wind, or steam, or water as motive power without the possession of windmills, steam-driven machinery or waterwheels! As if those who own, monopolise, the things whose possession alone enables them to employ the natural AGENTS did not also monopolise the NATURAL AGENTS. I can have as much air, water, etc., as I like. But I possess them as productive agents only if I have the commodities, the things, by the use of which these agents will operate as such. Thus Mac is even lower than Say.
This vulgarisation of Ricardo represents the most complete and most frivolous decline of Ricardo's theory.
* "In so far, however, as that result" (the result produced by the action or operation of any thing) "is effected by the labour or operation of natural agents, that can neither be monopolised nor appropriated by a greater or smaller number of individuals to the exclusion of others, it has no value. What is done by these agents is done gratuitously" * (Mac[Culloch, Supplemental Notes and Dissertations to Smith's "Wealth of Nations", Vol. IV], I.e., p. 75).
A s if WHAT IS DONE BY COTTON, WOOL, IRON OR MACHINERY, WERE NOT ALSO DONE "GRATUITOUSLY". The machine costs money, but the operation of the machine is not paid for. No use value of any kind of commodity costs anything after its exchange value has been paid.
* "The man who sells oil makes no charge for its natural qualities. In estimating its cost he puts down the value of the labour employed in its pursuit, and such is its value"* (Carey, Principles of Political Economy, PART I, Philadelphia, 1837, [p.] 47).
In arguing against Say, Ricardo emphasises precisely that the action of the machine, for example, costs just as little as that of wind and water.
* "The services which ... natural agents and machinery perform for us ... are serviceable to us ... by adding to value in use; but as they perform their work gratuitously ... the assistance which they afford us, adds nothing to value in exchange"* (Ricardo, [I.e.,] pp. 336-37).
Thus Mac has not understood the most elementary propositions of Ricardo. But the sly dog thinks: if the use value of cotton, machinery, etc., costs nothing, is not paid for apart from its exchange value, then, on the other hand, this use value is sold by those who use cotton, machinery, etc. They sell what costs them nothing.
[XIV-849] The brutal thoughtlessness of this fellow is evident, for after accepting Say's "principle", he sets forth rent with great emphasis, plagiarising extensively from Ricardo.
Land is A example of Mac's way of vulgarising Ricardo. O n the o n e hand, h e copies Ricardo's arguments, which only make sense if they are based o n the Ricardian assumptions, a n d o n the other hand, he takes from others the direct negation of these assumptions (with the reservation that h e uses his "nomenclature" or makes some small changes in the propositions). H e should have said: "RENT IS
THE WAGES OF LAND" POCKETED BY THE LANDOWNER.
* "If a capitalist expends the same sum in paying the wages of labourers, in maintaining horses, or in hiring a machine, and if the men, the horses, and the machine can all perform the same piece of work, its value will obviously be the same by whichever of them it may be performed" * ([MacCulloch,] I.e., p. 77).
In other words: the value of the product depends on the value of the capital laid out. This is the problem to be solved. T h e formulation of the problem is, according to Mac, "OBVIOUSLY" the solution of it. But since the machine, for example, performs A GREATER PIECE OF WORK than THE MEN DISPLACED BY IT, it is even more "OBVIOUS" that the product of the machine will not fall but rise in value compared with [the value of the product of] the MEN WHO "PERFORM THE SAME WORK". Since the machine can produce 10,000 PIECES OF WORK where a MAN can only produce 1, and every PIECE has the same value, the product of the machine should be 10,000 times as dear as that "OF MAN".
Moreover, in his anxiety to distinguish himself from Say by stating that value is produced not by the action of NATURAL AGENTS but only by the action of MONOPOLISED agents, or AGENTS produced by labour, Mac gets into difficulties a n d falls back on Ricardian phrases. For example,
The * labour of [the] wind produces the desired effect * on the * ship (produces a change in it). "But the value of that change is not increased by, and is in no degree dependent on, the operation or labour of the natural agents concerned, but on the amount of capital, or the produce of previous labour, that co-operated in the production of the effect; just as the cost of grinding corn does not depend on the action of the wind or water that turns the mill, but on the amount of capital wasted in that operation" * ([p.] 79).
Here, all of a sudden, grinding is viewed as adding value to the corn in so far only as capital—"THE PRODUCE OF PREVIOUS LABOUR"—is "WASTED" IN THE ACT OF GRINDING. That is, it is not d u e to the millstone "working", but to the fact that along with the "WASTE" of the millstone, the value contained in it, the labour embodied in it, is also "WASTED".
After these pretty arguments, Mac sums u p the wisdom (borrowed from Mill and Say) in which he brings the concept of value into harmony with all kinds of contradictory phenomena, in the following way:
* "The word labour means ... in all discussions respecting value ... either the immediate labour of man, or the labour of the capital produced by man, or both" * (I.e., [p.] 84).
Hence LABOUR [XIV-850] is to be understood as meaning the labour of man, then his ACCUMULATED LABOUR, and finally, the practical application, that is, the physical, etc., properties of use values evolved in (industrial) consumption. Apart from these properties, use value means nothing at all. Use value operates only in consumption. Consequendy, by the exchange value of the products of labour, we understand the use value of these products, for this use value consists only in its action, or, as Mac calls it, "labour", in consumption, regardless of whether this is industrial consumption or not. However, the types of "operation", "action", or "labour" of use values, as well as their physical measures, are as varied as the use values themselves. But what is the unity, the measure by means of which we compare them? This is established by the general word "labour" which is substituted for these quite different applications of use values, after labour itself has been reduced to the words "operation" or "action". Thus, with the identification of use value and exchange value ends this vulgarisation of Ricardo, which we must therefore consider as the last and most sordid expression of the disintegration of the Ricardian school as such.
* "The profits of capital are only another name for the wages of accumulated labour"* (Mac[Culloch], Principles etc., 1825,[100] p. 291),
that is, for the wages paid to commodities for the services they render as use values in production.
In addition, these WAGES OF ACCUMULATED LABOUR have their own mysterious connotation as far as Mr. McCulloch is concerned. We have already mentioned" that, apart from his plagiarism of Ricardo, Mill, Malthus and Say, which constitutes the real basis of his writings, he himself continually REPRINTS and sells his "ACCUMULATED LABOUR" under various titles, always "LARGELY DRAWING" UPON WHAT HE HAD GOT PAID BEFORE. This method of drawing the "WAGES OF ACCUMULATED LABOUR" was discussed at great length as early as 1826 in a special work, and what has not McCulloch done since then — from 1826 to 1862 — with regard to DRAWING WAGES FOR ACCUMULATED LABOUR! (This miserable phrase has also been adopted by Roscher in his role of Thucydides.b 105)
T h e book referred to is called: Some Illustrations of Mr. McCulloch's Principles of Political Economy, Edinburgh, 1826, by Mordecai Mullion.[3] It traces how o u r chevalier d'industrieh made a name for himself. Nine-tenths of his work is copied from Adam Smith, Ricardo and others, the remaining tenth being culled repeatedly from his own ACCUMULATED LABOUR "MOST SHAMELESSLY AND DAMNABLY REITERATED" [p. 4]. Mullion shows, for example, not only that McCulloch sold the same articles to The Edinburgh Review and The Scotsman and the Encyclopaedia Britannica as his own "DISSERTATIONS" a n d as new works, but also that he published the same articles word for word and with only a few transpositions and u n d e r new titles in different issues of The Edinburgh Review over the years. In this respect Mullion says the following about "THIS MOST
INCREDIBLE COBBLER" [ p . 3 1 ] , "THIS MOST ECONOMICAL OF ALL THE ECONOMISTS" [p. 66]:
* "Mr. McCulloch's articles are as unlike as may be to the heavenly bodies — but, in one respect, they resemble such luminaries — they have stated times of return" * ([p.] 21).
N o wonder he believes in the "WAGES OF ACCUMULATED LABOUR". Mr. Mac's fame illustrates the power of fraudulent baseness. [XIV-850a] In order to perceive how McCulloch exploits some of Ricardo's propositions to give himself airs, see, inter alia, The Edinburgh Review for March 1824, where this friend of the WAGES OF ACCUMULATED LABOUR gives vent to a veritable jeremiad about the fall in the rate of profit. (This claptrap is called "Considerations on the Accumulation of Capital".)
"The author ... expresses the fears inspired in him by the decline in profit as follows: 'The condition of England however prosperous in appearance, is bad and unsound at bottom; the plague of poverty is secretly creeping on the mass of her citizens, and the foundations of her power and greatness have been shaken... Where the rate of interest is low, as in England, the rate of profit is also low, and the prosperity of the nation has passed its culminating point.' These observations must surprise everybody acquainted with England's splendid situation" (Prévost, I.e., [Réflexions du traducteur sur le système de Ricardo,] p. 197).
T h e r e was n o need for Mr. Mac to distress himself over the fact that "LAND" GETS BETTER "WAGES" THAN "IRON, BRICKS, etc." THE CAUSE MUST BE THAT IT "LABOURS" HARDER.
Endnotes
[101] A hint at the words of one of Wallenstein's soldiers in Schiller's drama of the same name (Part I, Scene VI).—356
[102] From 1824 on MacCulloch gave lectures on political economy dedicated to the memory of Ricardo. When the University of London was founded, MacCulloch took the chair of political economy (1828-32).—356
[103] The reference is to the policy of the Whigs—an English political party in the 17-19th centuries which represented the interests of the gentry who had become bourgeois and the big trading and financial bourgeoisie. Following the parliamentary reform of 1832, the Whigs held office alternately with the Tories, pursuing an anti-working class policy and attempting to suppress the Chartist movement. In the mid-19th century, they merged with other political groupings to form the Liberal Party.—356
[104] Marx is evidently referring to the second edition of MacCulloch's book The Principles of Political Economy, which appeared in 1830, since the first edition of the book which Marx usually cites was published in 1825, i.e. before Smith's Wealth of Nations with "notes and dissertations" by MacCulloch.—357
[2] At the side of this line in the manuscript there is written in pencil, without any indication as to where it should be inserted: "(circulating and fixed capital, p. 643) in Ricardo".—7 36-733
[1] The Theories of Surplus Value on which Marx began work in March 1862 constitutes the fifth and final section of the first chapter of his study of capital, "The Production Process of Capital". His original intention was to examine absolute and relative surplus value in their combination. The Theories of Surplus Value was to form an historical survey pursuant to the chapter on surplus value, similar to that introducing the chapters on commodity and on money in A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. However, substantial changes occurred in the character of the Theories of Surplus Value during the course of Marx's work on the manuscript. It considerably exceeded the scope of the tasks set by the author, both in terms of volume (approx. 100 printed sheets) and content. The manuscript not only examined the views of bourgeois economists but also elaborated a number of important theoretical propositions of Marx's economic doctrine. The Theories of Surplus Value were first published in English in 1951 in an abridged form as: K. Marx, Theories of Surplus Value. A selection from the volumes published between 1905 and 1910 as Theorien über den Mehrwert, edited by K. Kautsky, taken from Marx's preliminary manuscript for the projected fourth volume of Capital. Translated from the German by G. A. Bonner and Emile Burns, Lawrence & Wishart, London, 1951. The work was published in full in 1963-71 as: K. Marx, Theories of Surplus Value (Vol. IV of Capital). Part I, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1963; Part II, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1968; Part III, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1971. The present volume contains the concluding part of Marx's Theories of Surplus Value. Volume 30 is given over to the first five notebooks of the Economic Manuscripts of 1861-63 and the beginning of the Theories of Surplus Value (notebook VI and part of notebook VII), whilst Volume 31 contains the continuation of the Theories of Surplus Value (the remainder of notebook VII, notebooks VIII to XI and part of notebook XII).—7
[100] Marx has "1830", i.e. the year when the second edition of MacCulloch's book appeared. Since the pages given accord with the first edition, an appropriate correction has been made here.—353, 369, 508
[3] The two final points were subsequently crossed out in pencil and instead of them Marx inserted the point "Theory of Cost Price".—7