Note to the second edition. In March 1866, 18 years after the publication of the work of Robert Somers quoted above, Professor Leone Levi gave a lecture before the Society of Arts 2 e 9 on the transformation of sheep-walks into deer-forest, in which he depicts the advance in the devastation of the Scottish Highlands. He says, with other things: "Depopulation and transformation into sheep-walks were the most convenient means for getting an income without expenditure.... A deer-forest in place of a sheep-walk was a common change in the Highlands. The landowners turned out the sheep as they once turned out the men from their estates, and welcomed the new tenants — the wild beasts and the feathered birds.... One can walk from the Earl of Dalhousie's estates in Forfarshire to John o'Groats, without ever leaving forest land.... In many of these" (woods) "the fox, the wild cat, the marten, the polecat, the weasel and the Alpine hare are common; whilst the rabbit, the squirrel and the rat have lately made their way into the country. Immense tracts of land, much of which is described in the statistical account of Scotland as having a pasturage in richness and extent of very superior description, are thus shut out from all cultivation and improvement, and are solely devoted to the sport of a few persons for a very brief period of the year." [62] ' The London Economist of June 2, 1866, [pp. 645-46] says, "Amongst the items of news in a Scotch paper of last week, we read.... 'One of the finest sheep farms in Sutherlandshire, for which a rent of £ 1,200 a year was recently offered, on the expiry of the existing lease this year, is to be converted into a deer-forest.' Here we see the modern instincts of feudalism ... operating pretty much as they did when the Norman Conqueror ... destroyed 36 villages to create the New Forest.... Two millions of acres ... totally laid waste, embracing within their area some of the most fertile lands of Scotland. The natural grass of Glen Tilt was among the most nutritive in the country of Perth. The deer-forest of Ben Aulder was by far the best grazing ground in the wide district of Badenoch; a part of the Black Mount forest was the best pasture for black-faced sheep in Scotland. Some idea of the ground laid waste for purely sporting purposes in Scotland may be formed from the fact that it embraced an area larger than the whole county of Perth. The resources of the forest of Ben Aulder might give some idea of the loss sustained from the forced desolations. The ground would pasture 15,000 sheep, and as it was not more than one-thirtieth part of The spoliation of the church's property, the fraudulent alienation of the State domains, the robbery of the common lands, the usurpation of feudal and clan property, and its transformation into modern private property under circumstances of reckless terrorism, were just so many idyllic methods of primitive accumulation. They conquered the field for capitalistic agriculture, made the soil part and parcel of capital, and created for the town industries the necessary supply of a "free" and outlawed proletariat.
The proletariat created by the breaking up of the bands of feudal retainers and by the forcible expropriation of the people from the soil, this "free" proletariat could not possibly be absorbed by the nascent manufactures as fast as it was thrown upon the world. On the other hand, these men, suddenly dragged from their wonted mode of life, could not as suddenly adapt themselves to the discipline of their new condition. They were turned en masse into beggars, robbers, vagabonds, partly from inclination, in most cases from stress of circumstances. Hence at the end of the 15th and during the whole of the 16th century, throughout Western Europe a bloody legislation against vagabondage. The fathers of the present working class were chastised for their enforced transformation into vagabonds and paupers. Legislation treated them as "voluntary" criminals, and assumed that it depended on their own good will to go on working under the old conditions that no longer existed.
In England this legislation began under Henry VII. Henry VIII. 1530 [622]: Beggars old and unable to work receive a beggar's licence. On the other hand, whipping and imprisonment for sturdy vagabonds. They are to be tied to the cart-tail and whipped until the blood streams from their bodies, then to swear an oath
the old forest ground in Scotland ... it might, &c... All that forest land is as totally unproductive.... It might thus as well have been submerged under the waters of the German Ocean.... Such extemporised wildernesses or deserts ought to be put down by the decided interference of the Legislature."
to go back to their birthplace or to where they have lived the last three years and to "put themselves to labour". What grim irony? In 27 Henry VIII the former statute [6 2 3] is repeated, but strengthened with new clauses. For the second arrest for vagabondage the whip-ping is to be repeated and half the ear sliced off; but for the third re-lapse the offender is to be executed as a hardened criminal and enemy of the common weal.
Edward VI: A statute of the first year of his reign, 1547,[624] ordains that if anyone refuses to work, he shall be condemned as a slave to the person who has denounced him as an idler. The master shall feed his slave on bread and water, weak broth and such refuse meat as he thinks fit. He has the right to force him to do any work, no matter how disgusting, with whip and chains. If the slave is absent a fortnight he is condemned to slavery for life and is to be branded on fore-head or back with the letter S; if he runs away thrice, he is to be executed as a felon. The master can sell him, bequeath him, let him out on hire as a slave, just as any other personal chattel or cattle. If the slaves attempt anything against the masters, they are also to be executed. Justices of the peace, on information, are to hunt the rascals down. If it happens that a vagabond has been idling about for three days, he is to be taken to his birthplace, branded with a redhot iron with the letter V on the breast and be set to work, in chains, in the streets or at some other labour. If the vagabond gives a false birthplace, he is then to become the slave for life of this place, of its inhabitants, or its corporation, and to be branded with an S. All persons have the right to take away the children of the vagabonds and to keep them as apprentices, the young men until the 24th year, the girls until the 20th. If they run away, they are to become up to this age the slaves of their masters, who can put them in irons, whip them, &c, if they like. Every master may put an iron ring round the neck, arms or legs of his slave, by which to know him more easily and to be more certain of him.[1]' The last part of this statute provides, that certain poor people may be employed by a place or by persons, who are willing to give them food and drink and to find them work. This kind of parish-slaves was kept up in England until far into the 19th century under the name of "roundsmen".
" The author of the Essay on Trade, etc., [J. Cunningham,] 1770, says, "In the reign of Edward VI indeed the English seem to have set, in good earnest, about encouraging manufactures and employing the poor. This we learn from a remarkable statute which runs thus: 'That all vagrants shall be branded, &c.,' " 1. c, p. 5.
Elizabeth, 1572 [625]: Unlicensed beggars above 14 years of age are to be severely flogged and branded on the left ear unless some one will take them into service for two years; in case of a repetition of the offence, if they are over 18, they are to be executed, unless some one will take them into service for two years; but for the third offence they are to be executed without mercy as felons. Similar statutes: 18 Elizabeth, c. 13, and another of 1597." [628]
James I: Any one wandering about and begging is declared a rogue and a vagabond. Justices of the peace in petty sessions [629] are authorised to have them publicly whipped and for the first offence to im-prison them for 6 months, for the second for 2 years. Whilst in prison they are to be whipped as much and as often as the justices of the peace think fit.... Incorrigible and dangerous rogues are to be branded with an R on the left shoulder and set to hard labour, and if they are
[11] Thomas More says in his Utopia [London, 1869, pp. 41-42]: "Therfore that on covetous and unsatiable cormaraunte and very plage of his native countrey maye corn-passe aboute and inclose many thousand akers of grounde together within one pale or hedge, the husbandmen be thrust owte of their owne, or els either by coneyne and fraude, or by violent oppression they be put besydes it, or by wrongs and iniuries thei be so weried that they be compelled to sell all: by one meanes, therfore, or by other, either by hooke or crooke they muste needes départe awaye, poore, selye, wretched soules, men, women, husbands, wiues, fatherlesse children, widowes, wofull mothers with their yonge babes, and their whole householde smal in substance, and muche in num-bre, as husbandrye requireth many handes. Awaye thei trudge, I say, owte of their knowen accustomed houses, fyndynge no place to reste in. All their housholde stufFe, which is very little woorthe, thoughe it might well abide the sale: yet beeynge sodainely thruste owte, they be constrayned to sell it for a thing of nought. And when they haue wandered abrode tyll that be spent, what cant they then els doe but steale, and then iustly pardy be hanged, or els go about beggyng. And yet then also they be caste in prison as vagaboundes, because they go aboute and worke not: whom no man wyl set a worke though thei neuer so willyngly profre themselues therto." Of these poor fugi-tives of whom Thomas More says that they were forced to thieve, "72,000 great and petty thieves were put to death", in the reign of Henry VIII (Holinshed, Description of England, Vol. 1, p. 186 6 2 s ) . In Elizabeth's time, "rogues were trussed up apace, and that there was not two years commonly wherein three or four hundred were not devoured and eaten up by the gallowes" (Strype's Annals of the Reformation and Establishment of Religion and other Various Occurrences in the Church of England during Queen Elizabeth's Reign. Second ed., 1725, Vol. 2). According to this same Strype, in Somersetshire, in one year, 40 persons were executed, 35 robbers burnt in the hand, 37 whipped, and 183 discharged as "incorrigible vagabonds". Nevertheless, he is of opinion that this large number of prisoners does not comprise even a fifth of the actual criminals, thanks to the negligence of the justices and the foolish compassion of the people; and the other counties of England were not better off in this respect than Somersetshire, while some were even worse.[627] caught begging again, to be executed without mercy. These statutes, legally binding until the beginning of the 18th century, were only repealed by 12 Anne, c. 23. [6 3 0]
Similar laws in France, where by the middle of the 17th century a kingdom of vagabonds (truands) was established in Paris. Even at the beginning of Louis XVI's reign (Ordinance of July 13th, 1777) every man in good health from 16 to 60 years of age, if without means of subsistence and not practising a trade, is to be sent to the galleys. Of the same nature are the statute of Charles V for the Netherlands (October, 1531), the first edict of the States and Towns of Holland (March 19, 1614), the "Plakaat" of the United Provinces (June 25, 1649), &c.
Thus were the agricultural people, first forcibly expropriated from the soil, driven from their homes, turned into vagabonds, and then whipped, branded, tortured by laws grotesquely terrible, into the discipline necessary for the wage system.[631]
It is not enough that the conditions of labour are concentrated in a mass, in the shape of capital, at the one pole of society, while at the other are grouped masses of men, who have nothing to sell but their labour power. Neither is it enough that they are compelled to sell it voluntarily. The advance of capitalist production develops a working class, which by education, tradition, habit, looks upon the conditions ofthat mode of production as self-evident laws of Nature. The organisation of the capitalist process of production, once fully developed, breaks down all resistance. The constant generation of a relative surplus population keeps the law of supply and demand of labour, and therefore keeps wages, in a rut that corresponds with the wants of capital. The dull compulsion of economic relations completes the subjection of the labourer to the capitalist. Direct force, outside economic conditions, is of course still used, but only exceptionally. In the ordinary run of things, the labourer can be left to the "natural laws of production", i. e., to his dependence on capital, a dependence springing from, and guaranteed in perpetuity by, the conditions of production themselves. It is otherwise during the historic genesis of capitalist production. The bourgeoisie, at its rise, wants and uses the power of the state to "regulate" wages, i. e., to force them within the limits suitable for surplus value making, to lengthen the working day and to keep the labourer himself in the normal degree of dependence. This is an essential element of the so-called primitive accumulation.
The class of wage labourers, which arose in the latter half of the 14th century, formed then and in the following century only a very small part of the population, well protected in its position by the independent peasant proprietary in the country and the guild organisation in the town. In country and town master and workmen stood close together socially. The subordination of labour to capital was only formal — i. e., the mode of production itself had as yet no specific capitalistic character. Variable capital preponderated greatly over constant. The demand for wage labour grew, therefore, rapidly with every accumulation of capital, whilst the supply of wage labour followed but slowly. A large part of the national product, changed later into a fund of capitalist accumulation, then still entered into the consumption fund of the labourer.
Legislation on wage labour (from the first, aimed at the exploitation of the labourer and, as it advanced, always equally hostile to him)," is started in England by the Statute of Labourers,(1) of Edward III, 1349. The ordinance of 1350 in France, issued in the name of King John, corresponds with it. English and French legislation run parallel and are identical in purport. So far as the labour statutes aim at compulsory extension of the working day, I do not return to them, as this point was treated earlier (Chap. X., Section 5).
The Statute of Labourers was passed at the urgent instance of the House of Commons. A Tory says naively:
"Formerly the poor demanded such high wages as to threaten industry and wealth. Next, their wages are so low as to threaten industry and wealth equally and perhaps more, but in another way."'[21]
A tariff of wages was fixed by law for town and country, for piece work and day work. The agricultural labourers were to hire themselves out by the year, the town ones "in open market". It was forbidden, under pain of imprisonment, to pay higher wages than those fixed by the statute, but the taking of higher wages was more severely punished than the giving them. //So also in Sections 18 and 19 of the
[11] "Whenever the legislature attempts to regulate the différences between masters and their workmen, its counsellors are always the masters," says A. Smith.[632] "L'esprit des lois, c'est la propriété," says Linguet.[508]
[21] [J. B. Byles,] Sophisms of Free Trade. By a Barrister. Lond., 1850, p. 206. He adds maliciously: "We were ready enough to interfere for the employer, can nothing now be done for the employed?"
Statute of Apprentices of Elizabeth,[2] ' ' ten days' imprisonment is de-creed for him that pays the higher wages, but twenty-one days for him that receives them.// A statute of 1360 [633] increased the penalties and authorised the masters to extort labour at the legal rate of wages by corporal punishment. All combinations, contracts, oaths, &c, by which masons and carpenters reciprocally bound themselves, were declared null and void. Coalition of the labourers is treated as a heinous crime from the 14th century to 1825, the year of the repeal of the laws against Trades' Unions.[381] The spirit of the Statute of Labourers of 1349 and of its offshoots, comes out clearly in the fact, that indeed a maximum of wages is dictated by the State, but on no account a minimum.[634]
In the 16th century, the condition of the labourers had, as we know, become much worse. The money wage rose, but not in proportion to the depreciation of money and the corresponding rise in the prices of commodities. Wages, therefore, in reality fell. Nevertheless, the laws for keeping them down remained in force, together with the ear-clipping and branding of those "whom no one was willing to take into service". By the Statute of Apprentices 5 Elizabeth, c. 4, the justices of the peace were empowered to fix certain wages and to modify them according to the time of the year and the price of commodities. James I extended these regulations of labour also to weavers, spinners, and all possible categories of workers.[1]'[636] George II extended the laws against coalitions of labourers to manufacturers.[637] In the man-
' From a clause of Statute 1 James I, c. 6,[635] we see that certain clothmakers took upon themselves to dictate, in their capacity of justices of the peace, the official tariff of wages in their own shops. In Germany, especially after the Thirty Years' War,[540]
statutes for keeping down wages were general. "The want of servants and labourers was very troublesome to the landed proprietors in the depopulated districts. All villag-ers were forbidden to let rooms to single men and women; all the latter were to be reported to the authorities and cast into prison if they were unwilling to become servants, even if they were employed at any other work, such as sowing seeds for the peasants at a daily wage, or even buying and selling corn (Imperial privileges and sanctions for Silesia, I., 125). For a whole century in the decrees of the small German potentates a bitter cry goes up again and again about the wicked and impertinent rabble that will not reconcile itself to its hard lot, will not be content with the legal wage; the individual landed proprietors are forbidden to pay more than the State had fixed by a tariff. And yet the conditions of service were at times better after the war than 100 years later; the farm servants of Silesia had, in 1652, meat twice a week, whilst even in our century, districts are known where they have it only three times a year. Further, wages after the war were higher than in the following century" (G. Freytag, [Neue Bilder aus dem Leben..., Leipzig, 1862, pp. 35-36]).
ufacturing period par excellence, the capitalist mode of production had become sufficiently strong to render legal regulation of wages as impracticable as it was unnecessary; but the ruling classes were unwilling in case of necessity to be without the weapons of the old ar-senal. Still, 7 George III forbade a higher day's wage than 2s. 7 y d . for journeymen tailors in and around London, except in cases of general mourning; still, 13 George III, c. 68, gave the regulation of the wages of silk weavers to the justices of the peace[638]; still, in 1796, it required two judgments of the higher courts to decide, whether the mandates of justices of the peace as to wages held good also for non-agricultural labourers; still, in 1799, an act of Parliament ordered that the wages of the Scotch miners should continue to be regulated by a statute of Elizabeth(2) and two Scotch acts of 1661 and 1617. How completely in the meantime circumstances had changed, is proved by an occurrence unheard-of before in the English Lower House. In that place, where for more than 400 years laws had been made for the maximum, beyond which wages absolutely must not rise, Whitbread in 1796 proposed a legal minimum wage for agricultural labourers. Pitt opposed this, but confessed that the "condition of the poor was cruel". Finally, in 1813, the laws for the regulation of wages were repealed.[639] They were an absurd anomaly, since the capitalist regulated his factory by his private legislation, and could by the poor-rates make up the wages of the agricultural labourer to the indispensable minimum. The provisions of the labour statutes as to contracts between master and workman, as to giving notice and the like, which only allow of a civil action against the contract-breaking master, but on the contrary permit a criminal action against the contract-breaking workman, are to this hour (1873) in full force. The barbarous laws against Trades' Unions[381] fell in 1825 before the threatening bearing of the proletariat. Despite this, they fell only in part. Certain beautiful fragments of the old statute vanished only in 1859.[640] Finally, the act of Parliament of June 29, 1871,[641] made a pretence of removing the last traces of this class of legislation by legal recognition of Trades' Unions. But an act of Parliament of the same date [642] (an act to amend the criminal law relating to violence, threats, and molestation), re-established, in point of fact, the former state of things in a new shape. By this Parliamentary escamotage the means which the labourers could use in a strike or lock-out were withdrawn from the laws common to all citizens, and placed under exceptional penal legislation, the interpretation of which fell to the masters themselves in their capacity as justices of the peace. Two years earlier, the same House of Commons and the same Mr. Gladstone in the wellknown straightforward fashion brought in a bill for the abolition of all exceptional penal legislation against the working class. But this was never allowed to go beyond the second reading,[643] and the matter was thus protracted until at last the "great Liberal party",[644] by an alliance with the Tories, found courage to turn against the very proletariat that had carried it into power. Not content with this treachery, the "great Liberal party" allowed the English judges, ever complaisant in the service of the ruling classes, to dig up again the earlier laws against "conspiracy",[645] and to apply them to coalitions of labourers. We see that only against its will and under the pressure of the masses did the English Parliament give up the laws against Strikes and Trades' Unions, after it had itself, for 500 years, held, with shameless egoism, the position of a permanent Trades' Union of the capitalists against the labourers.
During the very first storms of the revolution, the French bourgeoisie dared to take away from the workers the right of association but just acquired. By a decree ofjune 14, 1791,[646] they declared all coalition of the workers as "an attempt against liberty and the declaration of the rights of man", punishable by a fine of 500 livres, together with deprivation of the rights of an active citizen for one year." This law which, by means of State compulsion, confined the struggle between capital and labour within limits comfortable for capital, has outlived revolutions and changes of dynasties. Even the Reign of Terror [6 4 7]
left it untouched. It was but quite recently struck out of the Penal Code.[155] Nothing is more characteristic than the pretext for this bourgeois coup d'état. "Granting," says Chapelier, the reporter of the Select Committee on this law, "that wages ought to be a little higher
'' Article I of this law runs: "As the abolition of any form of association between citizens of the same estate and profession is one of the foundations of the French constitution, it is forbidden to re-establish them under any pretext and in any form, whatever this might be." Article IV declares, that if "citizens belonging to the same profession, craft, or trade have joint discussions and make joint decisions with the intention of re-fusing together to perform their trade or insisting together on providing the services of their trade or their labours only at a particular price, then the said deliberations and agreements ... shall be declared unconstitutional, derogatory to liberty and the declaration of their rights of man, etc.": felony, therefore, as in the old labour statutes (Revolutions de Paris, 1791, t. Ill, p. 523).
than they are, ... that they ought to be high enough for him that receives them, to be free from that state of absolute dependence due to the want of the necessaries of life, and which is almost that of slavery", yet the workers must not be allowed to come to any understanding about their own interests, nor to act in common and thereby lessen their "absolute dependence, which is almost that of slavery"; because, forsooth, in doing this they injure "the freedom of their cide-vant masters, the present entrepreneurs", and because a coalition against the despotism of the quondam masters of the corporations is — guess what! — is a restoration of the corporations abolished by the French constitution."
Endnotes
[62] Marx is referring to H. D. MacLeod's book The Theory and Practice of Banking... In two volumes. Second edition. London, 1866. The first volume of the first edition came out in 1855. Lombard Street — a street in the City of London where a number of big banks are situated, a synonym for the London money market.— 71
[622] An Act Directing How Aged, Poor, and Impotent Persons... [1530], The data quoted by Marx below, at pp. 723-25 of this volume, come from F. M. Eden, The State of the Poor..., Vol. I, London, 1797, pp. 82, 83-87, 100-03, 127-28, 139-40.—723
[623] An Act for the Punishment of Sturdy Vagabonds and Beggars [1535].— 724
[624] An Act for the Punishment of Vagabonds... [1547],— 724
[625] An Act for the Punishment of Vagabonds, and for Relief of the Poor and Impotent [1572]. — 725
[628] An Act for the Setting of the Poor on Work... [1576]; An Act for the Punishment of Rogues, Vagabonds, and Sturdy Beggars [1597],— 725
[629] Petty Sessions — a court of the Justices of the Peace in England; it tries minor of-fences according to a simplified legal procedure.— 725
[627] J. Strype, Brief Annals of the Church and State.... The data come from F. M. Eden's The State of the Poor..., Vol. I, London, 1797, pp. 111-12.—725
[630] An Act for Reducing the Laws Relating to Rogues, Vagabonds, Sturdy Beggars and Vagrants... [1713].—726
[631] The factual data adduced by Marx above are borrowed from E. Buret's "De la misère des classes...", Paris, 1840, in: Cours d'économie politique, Bruxelles, 1843, pp. 490-91; and Q. Cunningham,] An Essay on Trade and Commerce..., London, 1770, pp. 220, 222, 224.-726
[632] A. Smith, An Inquiry into the Mature..., Vol. I, Edinburgh, London, 1814, p. 237. — 727
[508] [S. N. H. Linguet,] Théorie des loix civiles, ou Principes fondamentaux de la société, t. I, Londres, 1767, p. 236.—611, 727
[2] Marx is referring to the sections "Historical Notes on the Analysis of Commodities" and "Theories of the Medium of Circulation and of Money" in A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. Part One (present edition, Vol. 29, pp. 292-302, 389-417), which he later abandoned as he intended to prepare a special historico-critical concluding volume of Capital (see Note 1).— 7, 532
[6 3 3] The Statute of Labourers Confirmed, Altered, and Enforced... [1360].— 728
[634] The data are borrowed from F. M. Eden's The State of the Poor..., Vol. I, London, 1797, pp. 125-26, 36-37, 40-42.—728
[636] The data must have been borrowed from F M. Eden's The State of the Poor..., Vol.1, London, 1797, pp. 123-25, 140, 142.—728
[637] Marx may have borrowed these data from On Combinations of Trades..., London, 1831, p. 12.—728
[6 3 5] An Act Made for the Explanation of the Statute Made in the Fifth Tear of the Late Queen Elizabeth's Reign, Concerning Labourers [ 1603].— 728
[540] Cf. Public Health. Eighth Report..., pp. 50, 110. The Thirty Years' War (1618-1648) — a European war, in which the Pope, the Spanish and Austrian Hapsburgs and the Catholic German Princes, rallied under the banner of Catholicism, fought the Protestant countries: Bohemia, Denmark, Sweden, the Republic of the Netherlands and a number of Protestant German States. Germany was the main battle arena for this struggle, the object of plunder and territorial claims. The Treaty of Westphalia (1648) sealed the political dis-memberment of Germany. All this underlies the comparison made in the text. — 655, 695, 721, 728
[638] An Act to Impower the Magistrates Therein Mentioned to Settle and Regulate the Wages... [1773].—729
[639] The data are probably borrowed from J. Wade, History of the Middle and Working Classes..., 3rd ed., London, 1835, pp. 84-85, 13, 90-91.—729
[640] Cf. An Act to Amend and Explain an Act of the Sixth Year of the Reign of King George the Fourth to Repeal the Laws Relating to the Combination of Workmen and to Make Other Provisions in Lieu Thereof {22. Victoria, c. 34).— 729
[641] An Act to Amend the Law Relating to Trade Unions [29 June 1871].— 729
[642] An Act to Amend the Criminal Law Relating to Violence, Threats and Molestation [29 June 1871].—729
[643] Cf. The Times, No. 26484, July 8, 1869, pp. 6, 8.— 730
[644] Great Liberal Party — one of the two political parties which emerged after the first parliamentary reform of 1832. It consisted of the New Whigs and Left-wing Tories and expressed the interests of commercial and industrial circles.— 730
[6 4 5] Laws against conspiracy: these existed in England already in the Middle Ages and banned all sorts of conspiratorial actions even if they had a lawful cause. On the basis of this law, workers' organisations and class struggle were suppressed both before the passing of the laws against coalitions (see Note 381) and after their repeal.— 730
[646] Décret relatif aux assemblées d'ouvriers et artisans de même état et profession, 14-17 juin 1791. — 730
[647] The Reign of Terror—the period from May 31, 1793 to July 26, 1794, was one of the Jacobin dictatorship in France, when the Jacobins used revolutionary terror in response to the counter-revolutionary terror of the Girondists and the Royalists. — 730
[155] The Penal Code {Codepénal), adopted in France in 1810, was notable for its highly detailed definition of legal relations. In the figurative sense, a detailed instruction.—207, 730
[1] Capital—Marx's major work to which he devoted four decades (from the early 1840s till the end of his life). Marx started studying political economy at the end of 1843 in Paris. His aim was to write a treatise containing a critical analysis of political economy. As a result of his research in this field appeared such works as the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, The German Ideology, The Poverty of Philosophy, Wage Labour and Capital, Manifesto of the Communist Party and others. After an interval caused by the 1848-49 revolution, Marx continued his economic studies in London, where he lived as a refugee from August 1849. Here he studied the works of different economists, the history of economic development and the economics of his time in various countries, especially in England which was then a classic example of a capitalist country. He investigated theories of money, credit and the causes of economic crises, the history of landownership and the theory of ground rent, the socio-economic condition of the working class and questions of population, the history of technology and other problems. -By 1857 he had completed his enormous preparatory work and then proceeded to the final stage — the systématisation and generalisation of the collected material. From January 1857 to June 1858, Marx wrote a manuscript containing 50 signatures, which was, in fact, the first rough draft of Capital. In the present edition it was published in vols 28 and 29. At first Marx intended to publish his work in separate instalments, and the first instalment, as he wrote, "should form a relative whole" (see present edition, Vol. 40, p. 287), which embraces only the first section of Book I — the section consisting of 3 chapters: 1) The Commodity; 2) Money or Simple Circulation and 3) Capital. However, the final variant of the first instalment — A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy — does not contain the third chapter. Marx wrote the chapter on commodity especially. He wrote the chapter on money for "the first instalment" on the basis of the manuscript of 1857-58. A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. Part One was published in 1859 (present edition, Vol. 29). It was to be followed by "the second instalment", i. e. by the chapter on capital. However, soon afterwards, Marx had to postpone this work for a year and a half as he was occupied in writing the pamphlet Herr Vogt (present edition, Vol. 17) and in other urgent matters. Only in August 1861, did he begin work on "the second instalment". By the middle of 1863, he had written a new rough draft which was considerably longer than the manuscript of 1857-58 — 23 notebooks, having a total volume of about 200 signatures. The complete manuscript of 1861-63, which is considered to be the second rough draft of Capital, is reproduced in vols 30-34 of the present edition. Later on Marx decided to divide the theoretical part of the work on capital into 3 parts. The historico-critical section was to be the fourth and concluding part, and was to be based on the part of the 1861-63 manuscript entitled "Theories of Surplus Value". In his letter to Kugelmann dated October 13, 1866, Marx writes, "The whole work is thus divided into the following parts: Book I. The Process of Production of Capital. Book II. The Process of Circulation of Capital. Book III. Structure of the Process as a Whole. Book IV. On the History of the Theory" (see present edition, Vol. 42, p. 328). Marx also gave up his plan to publish the work in separate instalments and decided first to complete the whole work and then to publish it. Marx continued his work, concentrating mainly on those parts that were not sufficiently elaborated in the 1861-63 manuscript. He studied an enormous quantity of economic and technical literature, including books on agriculture, on credit and money and turnover. He also studied statistical material, various parliamentary documents, official reports on child labour in industry, on housing conditions of the British working class, etc. Marx then wrote a new manuscript (from August 1863 to the end of 1865), which constituted a more detailed variant of the three theoretical volumes of Capital. Only after the whole work was completed (January 1866), did Marx begin preparing it for the press, having decided, on Engels' advice, not to prepare the whole work but only Volume I of Capital. The final touches were made by Marx with great thoroughness and, in fact, became yet another recasting of Volume I of Capital as a whole. To ensure the integrity, completeness and clarity of the exposition, Marx thought it necessary to reproduce in a comparatively short form the major problems dealt with in A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (published in 1859) at the beginning of Volume I of Capital—they now constitute the whole of the first part "Commodities and Money" (in the first edition which was not yet subdivided into parts the first chapter bore this title). After the publication of Volume I of Capital (September 1867), Marx continued work on it in preparation for publication in German and translation into foreign lan-guages. For the second edition (1872) he made more subdivisions and also a lot of changes in the text (see this volume, pp. 12-13), gave important instructions for the Russian edition, published in Petersburg in 1872 and the first foreign translation of Capital, once more changed the book's structure and thoroughly edited the French edition (1872-75). Marx intended to take into consideration most of the changes made in the French edition when preparing the third German edition of Volume I. At the same time, after the publication of Volume I of Capital Marx continued his work on the subsequent volumes, intending to finish the whole edition as soon as possible. However, he was unable to do so. A lot of time was taken up by his activities in the General Council of the First International, and his work was increasingly hampered by poor health. After Marx's death, Engels finished preparing the third (1883) German edition of Volume I of Capital for press, which was taken as the basis for the translation into English made by Samuel Moore and Eduard Aveling and edited by Engels (1887).— 1,311
[11] 1 ' The plan outlined here was not realised by Marx. The work referred to here as Book II, was published by Engels as Volume II of Capital (1885) after Marx's death, and Book III as Volume III of Capital (1894). Book IV was not published in Marx's or Engels' lifetime. See also Note 2.— 11, 565
[21] The Anti-Corn Law League was founded in 1838 by the Manchester factory owners Cobden and Bright. Defending the interests of manufacturers, the League secured the repeal of the Corn Laws which provided for the limitation and prohibition of grain imports, which served the interests of the landed aristocracy. The Corn Law adopted in 1815 prohibited the import of corn while the price of bread in England itself remained less than 80 sh. per quarter. In 1822 this law was slightly altered, and in 1828 a sliding scale was introduced, according to which there was a rise in import duties on corn when its price fell on the home market and vice versa. Trying to achieve the repeal of corn laws and to establish trade in corn, the League aimed at reducing domestic prices for corn and thus at reducing wages for wage-workers.The slogan of free trade was widely used by the League in its advocacy of the unity of interests of workers and manufacturers. The Corn Laws were repealed in 1846.'— 15, 296, 458, 462, 667, 703
[381] In 1799 and 1800, the British Parliament passed laws against trades unions which banned the setting up and activities of all workers' organisations. In 1824, under mass pressure, Parliament repealed the ban. However, in 1825 it passed a Bill on workers' combinations, which, while confirming the repeal of the ban on the trades unions, at the same time greatly restricted their activity.— 458, 728, 729