[ Addenda]
[XHI-front cover][148] Hopkins (passage to be looked up)[149]
naively (describes) RENT OF LAND as the original form of SURPLUS VALUE, and profit as derived from this.
He writes:
* "When the ... producers were both agriculturists and manufacturers, the landowner received, as rent of land, a value of £10. Suppose this rent to have been paid V2 i n raw produce, and the other V2 m manufactures;—on the division of the producers into the two classes of agriculturists and manufacturers(1) this could be continued. * In practice, however, it would be found more convenient for the cultivators of the land, to pay the rent, and to charge it on their produce, when exchanging it against the produce of the labour of the manufacturers; so as to divide the payment into two equitable proportions between the two classes, and to leave wages and profits equal in each department" * (Th. Hopkins, [Economical] Enquiries relative to the Laws which Regulate Rent, Profit, etc., London, 1822, [p.] 26).
[XIII-670a][150] Decrease in the Rate of Profit. Calculated on the total capital the [rate of] profit of the larger capital, which employs more constant capital (machinery, raw material) and relatively less living labour, will be lower than that of the smaller [amount of] profit yielded by the smaller capital employing more living labour in proportion to the total capital. The [relative] decrease in variable capital and the relative increase in constant capital, although both parts are growing, is only another expression for the increased productivity of labour.
constitutes Wealth, which makes even Land and silver to be Wealth, neither of which would have any value, but as means and motives to Industry?" (The Querist By Dr. George Berkeley, London, 1750, Query 38).
"A diminishing surface suffices to supply man with food as population multiplies" (The Natural and Artificial Right of Property Contrasted etc. By Hodgskin, anonymously. London, 1832, [p.] 69).*
(Similar ideas were expressed by Anderson even earlier).(2)
* "At present, all the wealth of society goes first into the possession of the capitalist, and even most of the land has been purchased by him; he pays the landowner his rent, the labourer his wages, the tax and the tithe gatherer their claims, and keeps a large, indeed the largest and a continually increasing share of the annual produce of labour for himself. The capitalist may now be said to be the first owner of all the wealth of the community; though no law has conferred on him the right to this property"* (I.e., [p.] 98).
* "This change has been effected by the taking of interest on capital, and by the process of compound interest; and it is not a little curious, that all the lawgivers of Europe endeavoured to prevent this by statutes, viz., statutes against usury" * (I.e., [p.] 98, note).
* "The power of the capitalist over all the wealth of the country, is a complete change in the right of property, and by what law, or series of laws, was it effected?" * (I.e., [p.] 99).
[XV-862a]lsl Because SURPLUS VALUE and surplus labour are identical, a qualitative limit is set to the accumulation of capital, the total working day (the period in the 24 hours during which labour capacity can be active), the given stage of development of the productive forces and the population, which limits the number of working days that can be utilised simultaneously. If, on the contrary, surplus profit is understood in the abstract form of interest, that is, as the proportion in which capital increases by means of a mystical SLEIGHT OF HAND, then the limit is purely quantitative and there is absolutely no reason why capital cannot add to itself interest as capital every morning, thus creating interest on interest in infinite progression.
NOTES
AND INDEXES
Endnotes
[148] The outside front cover (unnumbered) of the notebook is labelled "XIII" and carries the inscription "A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy" together with a remark on Hopkins which was written at a later date and appears below.—542
[149] Marx is referring to notebook XII of his excerpts which he compiled in London in 1851. The excerpt from T. Hopkins' book which Marx gives below is to be found on p. 14 of this notebook. See also present edition, Vol. 31, p. 289.-542
[150] The page numbered by Marx as 670a is the inside front cover of notebook XIII which was written in the autumn of 1862. This page carries the heading "5) Theories of Surplus Value etc.", beside it the note "Roscher: Interest, Profit, p. 693" and the table of contents of notebook XIII (see this volume, p. 7). The passage headed "Decrease in the Rate of Profit" was written later. The quotations given on this page were written down not earlier than May 1863 since they are taken from the additional notebooks of excerpts A and B which were not compiled until this time.—542