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diff --git a/content/marx/economic-and-philosophic-manuscripts/_index.md b/content/marx/economic-and-philosophic-manuscripts/_index.md index 969512e..b330bf7 100644 --- a/content/marx/economic-and-philosophic-manuscripts/_index.md +++ b/content/marx/economic-and-philosophic-manuscripts/_index.md @@ -267,7 +267,7 @@ Other fortuitous causes which can raise the profit on capital: > The acquisition of new territories, or of new branches of trade, often increases the profit on capital even in a wealthy country, because they withdraw some capital from the old branches of trade, reduce competition, and cause the market to be supplied with fewer commodities, the prices of which then rise: those who deal in these commodities can then afford to borrow at a higher rate of interest. (Adam Smith, [op. cit., Vol. I, p. 83](https://marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-adam/works/wealth-of-nations/book01/ch09.htm)) -The more a commodity comes to be manufactured – the more it becomes an object of manufacture – the greater becomes that part of the price which resolves itself into wages and profit in proportion to that which resolves itself into rent. In the progress of the manufacture of a commodity, not only the number of profits increases, but every subsequent profit is greater than the foregoing; because the capital from which <!-- context --> *||IV, 2|* it is derived must always be greater. The capital which employs the weavers, for example, must always be greater than that which employs the spinners; because it not only replaces that capital with its profits, but pays, besides, the wages of weavers; and the profits must always bear some proportion to the capital. ([op. cit., Vol. I, p. 45](https://marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-adam/works/wealth-of-nations/book01/ch06.htm)) +The more a commodity comes to be manufactured – the more it becomes an object of manufacture – the greater becomes that part of the price which resolves itself into wages and profit in proportion to that which resolves itself into rent. In the progress of the manufacture of a commodity, not only the number of profits increases, but every subsequent profit is greater than the foregoing; because the capital from which *||IV, 2|* it is derived must always be greater. The capital which employs the weavers, for example, must always be greater than that which employs the spinners; because it not only replaces that capital with its profits, but pays, besides, the wages of weavers; and the profits must always bear some proportion to the capital. ([op. cit., Vol. I, p. 45](https://marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-adam/works/wealth-of-nations/book01/ch06.htm)) Thus the advance made by human labour in converting the product of nature into the manufactured product of nature increases, not the wages of labour, but in part the number of profitable capital investments, and in part the size of every subsequent capital in comparison with the foregoing. @@ -315,7 +315,7 @@ This is the situation most dear to the heart of political economy. What about the employment of capital, then, in this condition of increased competition? -> “As stock increases, the quantity of stock to be lent at interest grows gradually greater and greater. As the quantity of stock to be lent at interest increases, the interest ... diminishes (i) because the market price of things commonly diminishes as their quantity increases. ... and (ii) because with *the increase of capitals* in any country, “it becomes gradually more and more difficult to find within the country a profitable method of employing any new capital. There arises in consequence a competition between different capitals, the owner of one endeavouring to get possession of that employment which is occupied by another. But upon most occasions he can hope to jostle that other out of this employment by no other means but by dealing upon more reasonable terms. He must not only sell what he deals in somewhat cheaper, but in order to get it to sell, he must sometimes, too, buy it dearer. The demand for productive labour, by the increase of the funds which are destined for maintaining it, grows every day greater and greater. Labourers easily find employment, <!-- context --> *|IX, 2|* but the owners of capitals find it difficult to get labourers to employ. Their competition raises the wages of labour and sinks the profits of stock.” (Adam Smith, [op. cit., Vol. I, p. 316](https://marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-adam/works/wealth-of-nations/book02/ch04.htm).) +> “As stock increases, the quantity of stock to be lent at interest grows gradually greater and greater. As the quantity of stock to be lent at interest increases, the interest ... diminishes (i) because the market price of things commonly diminishes as their quantity increases. ... and (ii) because with *the increase of capitals* in any country, “it becomes gradually more and more difficult to find within the country a profitable method of employing any new capital. There arises in consequence a competition between different capitals, the owner of one endeavouring to get possession of that employment which is occupied by another. But upon most occasions he can hope to jostle that other out of this employment by no other means but by dealing upon more reasonable terms. He must not only sell what he deals in somewhat cheaper, but in order to get it to sell, he must sometimes, too, buy it dearer. The demand for productive labour, by the increase of the funds which are destined for maintaining it, grows every day greater and greater. Labourers easily find employment, *|IX, 2|* but the owners of capitals find it difficult to get labourers to employ. Their competition raises the wages of labour and sinks the profits of stock.” (Adam Smith, [op. cit., Vol. I, p. 316](https://marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-adam/works/wealth-of-nations/book02/ch04.htm).) Thus the small capitalist has the choice: (1) either to consume his capital, since he can no longer live on the interest – and thus cease to be a capitalist; or (2) to set up a business himself, sell his commodity cheaper, buy dearer than the wealthier capitalist, and pay higher wages – thus ruining himself, the market price being already very low as a result of the intense competition presupposed. If, however, the big capitalist wants to squeeze out the smaller capitalist, he has all the advantages over him which the capitalist has as a capitalist over the worker. The larger size of his capital compensates him for the smaller profits, and he can even bear temporary losses until the smaller capitalist is ruined and he finds himself freed from this competition. In this way, he accumulates the small capitalist's profits. @@ -355,7 +355,7 @@ It is generally true that the accumulation of large capital is also *accompanied “The human law has given owners the right to use and to abuse – that is to say, the right to do what they will with the materials of labour.... They are in no way obliged by law to provide work for the propertyless when required and at all times, or to pay them always an adequate wage, etc. (*loc. cit.*, p. 413.) “Complete freedom concerning the nature, the quantity, the quality and the expediency of production; concerning the use and the disposal of wealth; and full command over the materials of all labour. Everyone is free to exchange what belongs to him as he thinks fit, without considering anything other than his own interest as an individual” (*op. cit.* p. 413.) -> “Competition is merely the expression of the freedom to exchange, which itself is the immediate and logical consequence of the individual’s right to use and abuse all the instruments of production. The right to use and abuse, freedom of exchange, and arbitrary competition – these three economic moments, which form one unit, entail the following consequences; each produces what he wishes, as he wishes, when he wishes, where he wishes, produces well or produces badly, produces too much or not enough, too soon or too late, at too high a price or too low a price; none knows whether he will sell, to whom he will sell, how he will sell, when he will sell, where he will sell. And it is the same with regard to purchases. <!-- context --> *||XIII, 2|* The producer is ignorant of needs and resources, of demand and supply. He sells when he wishes, when he can, where he wishes, to whom he wishes, at the price he wishes. And he buys in the same way. In all this he is ever the plaything of chance, the slave of the law of the strongest, of the least harassed, of the richest.... Whilst at one place there is scarcity, at another there is glut and waste. Whilst one producer sells a lot or at a very high price, and at an enormous profit, the other sells nothing or sells at a loss.... The supply does not know the demand, and the demand does not know the supply. You produce, trusting to a taste, a fashion, which prevails amongst the consuming public. But by the time you are ready to deliver the commodity, the whim has already passed and has settled on some other kind of product.... The inevitable consequences: bankruptcies occurring constantly and universally; miscalculations, sudden ruin and unexpected fortunes, commercial crises, stoppages, periodic gluts or shortages; instability and depreciation of wages and profits, the loss or enormous waste of wealth, time and effort in the arena of fierce competition.” (*op. cit.*, pp. 414-16.) +> “Competition is merely the expression of the freedom to exchange, which itself is the immediate and logical consequence of the individual’s right to use and abuse all the instruments of production. The right to use and abuse, freedom of exchange, and arbitrary competition – these three economic moments, which form one unit, entail the following consequences; each produces what he wishes, as he wishes, when he wishes, where he wishes, produces well or produces badly, produces too much or not enough, too soon or too late, at too high a price or too low a price; none knows whether he will sell, to whom he will sell, how he will sell, when he will sell, where he will sell. And it is the same with regard to purchases. *||XIII, 2|* The producer is ignorant of needs and resources, of demand and supply. He sells when he wishes, when he can, where he wishes, to whom he wishes, at the price he wishes. And he buys in the same way. In all this he is ever the plaything of chance, the slave of the law of the strongest, of the least harassed, of the richest.... Whilst at one place there is scarcity, at another there is glut and waste. Whilst one producer sells a lot or at a very high price, and at an enormous profit, the other sells nothing or sells at a loss.... The supply does not know the demand, and the demand does not know the supply. You produce, trusting to a taste, a fashion, which prevails amongst the consuming public. But by the time you are ready to deliver the commodity, the whim has already passed and has settled on some other kind of product.... The inevitable consequences: bankruptcies occurring constantly and universally; miscalculations, sudden ruin and unexpected fortunes, commercial crises, stoppages, periodic gluts or shortages; instability and depreciation of wages and profits, the loss or enormous waste of wealth, time and effort in the arena of fierce competition.” (*op. cit.*, pp. 414-16.) *[Ricardo](https://marxists.org/glossary/people/r/i.htm#ricardo-david)* in his book [**On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation**] (rent of land): Nations are merely production-shops; man is a machine for consuming and producing; human life is a kind of capital; economic laws blindly rule the world. For Ricardo men are nothing, the product everything. In the 26th chapter of the French translation it says: @@ -363,17 +363,17 @@ It is generally true that the accumulation of large capital is also *accompanied > “The master who buys the worker's labour at such a low price that it scarcely suffices for the worker's most pressing needs is responsible neither for the inadequacy of the wage nor for the excessive duration of the labour: he himself has to submit to the law which he imposes.... Poverty is not so much caused by men as by the power of things.” (Buret, *op. cit.*, p. 82.) -> “The inhabitants of many different parts of Great Britain have not capital sufficient to improve and cultivate all their lands. The wool of the southern counties of Scotland is, a great part of it, after a long land carriage through very bad roads, manufactured in Yorkshire, for want of capital to manufacture it at home. There are many little manufacturing towns in Great Britain, of which the inhabitants have not capital sufficient to transport the produce of their own industry to those distant markets where there is demand and consumption for it. If there are any merchants among them, <!-- context --> *||XIV, 2|* they are properly only the agents of wealthier merchants who reside in some of the greater commercial cities.” (Adam Smith, [Wealth of Nations, Vol. I, pp. 326-27](https://marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-adam/works/wealth-of-nations/book02/ch05.htm).) +> “The inhabitants of many different parts of Great Britain have not capital sufficient to improve and cultivate all their lands. The wool of the southern counties of Scotland is, a great part of it, after a long land carriage through very bad roads, manufactured in Yorkshire, for want of capital to manufacture it at home. There are many little manufacturing towns in Great Britain, of which the inhabitants have not capital sufficient to transport the produce of their own industry to those distant markets where there is demand and consumption for it. If there are any merchants among them, *||XIV, 2|* they are properly only the agents of wealthier merchants who reside in some of the greater commercial cities.” (Adam Smith, [Wealth of Nations, Vol. I, pp. 326-27](https://marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-adam/works/wealth-of-nations/book02/ch05.htm).) > “The annual produce of the land and labour of any nation can be increased in its value by no other means but by increasing either *the number of its productive labourers*, or the *productive power of those labourers* who had before been employed.... In either case an additional capital is almost always required.” (Adam Smith, [op. cit., Vol. I, pp. 306-07](https://marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-adam/works/wealth-of-nations/book02/ch03.htm).) > “As the *accumulation* of stock must, in the nature of things, be previous to the division of labour, so labour can be more and more subdivided in proportion only as stock is previously more and more accumulated. The quantity of materials which the same number of people can work up, increases in a great proportion as labour comes to be more and more subdivided; and as the operations of each workman are gradually reduced to a greater degree of simplicity, a variety of new machines come to be invented for facilitating and abridging those operations. As the division of labour advances, therefore, in order to give constant employment to an equal number of workmen, an equal stock of provisions, and a greater stock of materials and tools than what would have been necessary in a ruder state of things, must be accumulated beforehand. But the number of workmen in every branch of business generally increases with the division of labour in that branch, or rather it is the increase of their number which enables them to class and subdivide themselves in this manner.” (Adam Smith, [op. cit., Vol. I, pp. 241-42](https://marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-adam/works/wealth-of-nations/book02/intro.htm).) -> “As the accumulation of stock is previously necessary for carrying on this great improvement in the productive powers of labour, so that accumulation naturally leads to this improvement. The person who employs his stock in maintaining labour, necessarily wishes to employ it in such a manner as to produce as great a quantity of work as possible. He endeavours, therefore, both to make among his workmen the most proper distribution of employment, and to furnish them with the best machines which he can either invent or afford to purchase [...]. His abilities in both these respects <!-- context --> *|XV, 2|* are generally in proportion to the extent of his stock, or to the number of people whom it can employ. The quantity of industry, therefore, not only increases in every country with the increase *of the stock* which employs it, but, in consequence of that increase, the same quantity of industry produces a much greater quantity of work.” (Adam Smith, [op. cit., Vol. I, p. 242](https://marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-adam/works/wealth-of-nations/book02/intro.htm).) +> “As the accumulation of stock is previously necessary for carrying on this great improvement in the productive powers of labour, so that accumulation naturally leads to this improvement. The person who employs his stock in maintaining labour, necessarily wishes to employ it in such a manner as to produce as great a quantity of work as possible. He endeavours, therefore, both to make among his workmen the most proper distribution of employment, and to furnish them with the best machines which he can either invent or afford to purchase [...]. His abilities in both these respects *|XV, 2|* are generally in proportion to the extent of his stock, or to the number of people whom it can employ. The quantity of industry, therefore, not only increases in every country with the increase *of the stock* which employs it, but, in consequence of that increase, the same quantity of industry produces a much greater quantity of work.” (Adam Smith, [op. cit., Vol. I, p. 242](https://marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-adam/works/wealth-of-nations/book02/intro.htm).) Hence *over-production*. -> “More comprehensive combinations of productive forces ... in industry and trade by uniting more numerous and more diverse human and natural powers in larger-scale enterprises. Already here and there, closer association of the chief branches of production. Thus, big manufacturers will try to acquire also large estates in order to become independent of others for at least a part of the raw materials required for their industry; or they will go into trade in conjunction with their industrial enterprises, not only to sell their own manufactures, but also to purchase other kinds of products and to sell these to their workers. In England, where a single factory owner sometimes employs ten to twelve thousand workers ... it is already not uncommon to find such combinations of various branches of production controlled by one brain, such smaller states or provinces within the state. Thus, the mine owners in the Birmingham area have recently taken over the *whole* process of iron production, which was previously distributed among various entrepreneurs and owners, (See “*Der bergmännische Distrikt bei Birmingham*,” *Deutsche Vierteljahr-Schrift* No. 3, 1838.) Finally in the large joint-stock enterprises which have become so numerous, we see far-reaching combinations of the financial resources of many participants with the scientific and technical knowledge and skills of others to whom the carrying-out of the work is handed over. The capitalists are thereby enabled to apply their savings in more diverse ways and perhaps even to employ them simultaneously in agriculture, industry and commerce. As a consequence their interest becomes more comprehensive, <!-- context --> *||XVI, 2|* and the contradictions between agricultural, industrial, and commercial interests are reduced and disappear. But this increased possibility of applying capital profitably in the most diverse ways cannot but intensify the antagonism between the propertied and the non-propertied classes.” (Schulz, *op. cit.*, pp. 40-4l.) +> “More comprehensive combinations of productive forces ... in industry and trade by uniting more numerous and more diverse human and natural powers in larger-scale enterprises. Already here and there, closer association of the chief branches of production. Thus, big manufacturers will try to acquire also large estates in order to become independent of others for at least a part of the raw materials required for their industry; or they will go into trade in conjunction with their industrial enterprises, not only to sell their own manufactures, but also to purchase other kinds of products and to sell these to their workers. In England, where a single factory owner sometimes employs ten to twelve thousand workers ... it is already not uncommon to find such combinations of various branches of production controlled by one brain, such smaller states or provinces within the state. Thus, the mine owners in the Birmingham area have recently taken over the *whole* process of iron production, which was previously distributed among various entrepreneurs and owners, (See “*Der bergmännische Distrikt bei Birmingham*,” *Deutsche Vierteljahr-Schrift* No. 3, 1838.) Finally in the large joint-stock enterprises which have become so numerous, we see far-reaching combinations of the financial resources of many participants with the scientific and technical knowledge and skills of others to whom the carrying-out of the work is handed over. The capitalists are thereby enabled to apply their savings in more diverse ways and perhaps even to employ them simultaneously in agriculture, industry and commerce. As a consequence their interest becomes more comprehensive, *||XVI, 2|* and the contradictions between agricultural, industrial, and commercial interests are reduced and disappear. But this increased possibility of applying capital profitably in the most diverse ways cannot but intensify the antagonism between the propertied and the non-propertied classes.” (Schulz, *op. cit.*, pp. 40-4l.) The enormous profit which the landlords of houses make out of poverty. House rent stands in inverse proportion to industrial poverty. @@ -385,6 +385,163 @@ Indifference towards men. Smith's twenty lottery-tickets. [^capital14] Say's net and gross revenue. *|XVI||* +## Rent of Land + +> *||I, 3|* *Landlords’ right* has its origin in robbery. (Say, t. 1, p. 136, footnote.) The landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for the natural produce of the earth. (Adam Smith, *op. cit.*, Vol. I, p. 44.) + +> “The rent of land, it may be thought, is frequently no more than a reasonable profit or interest for the stock laid out by the landlord upon its improvement. This, no doubt, may be partly the case upon some occasions.... The landlord demands” (1) “a rent even for unimproved land, and the supposed interest or profit upon the expense of improvement is generally an addition to this original rent.” (2) “Those improvements, besides, are not always made by the stock of the landlord, but sometimes by that of the tenant. When the lease comes to be renewed, however, the landlord commonly demands the same augmentation of rent as if they had been all made by his own.” (3) “He sometimes demands rent for what is altogether incapable of human improvement.” (Adam Smith, [op. cit., Vol. I, p. 131](https://marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-adam/works/wealth-of-nations/book01/ch11.htm)) + +Smith cites as an instance of the last case kelp, + +> “a species of seaweed, which, when burnt, yields an alkaline salt, useful for making glass, soap, etc. It grows in several parts of Great Britain, particularly in Scotland, upon such rocks only as lie within the high-water mark, which are twice every day covered with the sea, and of which the produce, therefore, was never augmented by human industry. The landlord, however, whose estate is bounded by a kelp shore of this kind, demands a rent for it as much as for his corn fields. The sea in the neighborhood of the Islands of Shetland is more than commonly abundant in fish, which make a great part of the subsistence of their inhabitants. *||II, 3|* But in order to profit by the produce of the water they must have a habitation upon the neighboring land. The rent of the landlord is in proportion, not to what the farmer can make by the land, but to what he can make both by the land and by the water.” (Adam Smith, [op. cit., Vol. I, p. 131](https://marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-adam/works/wealth-of-nations/book01/ch11.htm)) + +> “This rent may be considered as the produce of those *powers of nature*, the use of which the landlord lends to the farmer. It is greater or smaller according to the supposed extent of those powers, or in other words, according to the supposed natural or improved fertility of the land. It is the work of nature which remains after deducting or compensating everything which can be regarded as the work of man.” (Adam Smith, [op. cit., Vol. I, pp. 324-25](https://marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-adam/works/wealth-of-nations/book02/ch05.htm)) + +> “The *rent of land*, therefore, considered as the price paid for the use of the land, is naturally a *monopoly price*. It is not at all proportioned to what the landlord may have laid out upon the improvement of the land, or to what he can afford to take; but to what the farmer can afford to give.” (Adam Smith, [op. cit., p. 131](https://marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-adam/works/wealth-of-nations/book01/ch11.htm)) + +Of the three original classes, that of the landlords is the one “whose revenue costs them neither labour nor care, but comes to them, as it were, of its own accord, and independent of any plan or project of their own.” (Adam Smith, [op. cit., Vol. I, p. 230](https://marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-adam/works/wealth-of-nations/book01/ch11c-3.htm)) + +We have already learnt that the size of the rent depends on the degree of *fertility* of the land. + +Another factor in its determination is *situation*. + +> “The rent of land not only varies with its *fertility*, whatever be its produce, but with its *situation* whatever be its fertility.” (Adam Smith, [op. cit., Vol. I, p. 133](https://marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-adam/works/wealth-of-nations/book01/ch11.htm).) + +> “The produce of land, mines, and fisheries, when their natural fertility is equal, is in proportion to the extent and proper *||III, 3|* application of the capitals employed about them. When the capitals are equal and equally well applied, it is in proportion to their natural fertility.” ([op. cit., Vol. I, p. 249](https://marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-adam/works/wealth-of-nations/book01/ch11c-3.htm).) + +These propositions of Smith are important, because, given equal costs of production and capital of equal size, they reduce the rent of land to the greater or lesser fertility of the soil. Thereby showing clearly the perversion of concepts in political economy, which turns the fertility of the land into an attribute of the landlord. + +Now, however, let us consider the rent of land as it is formed in real life. + +The rent of land is established as a result of *the struggle between tenant and landlord*. We find that the hostile antagonism of interests, the struggle, the war is recognized throughout political economy as the basis of social organization. + +Let us see now what the relations are between landlord and tenant. + +> “In adjusting the terms of the lease, the landlord endeavors to leave him no greater share of the produce than what is sufficient to keep up the stock from which he furnishes the seed, pays the labour, and purchases and maintains the cattle and other instruments of husbandry, together with the ordinary profits of farming stock in the neighbourhood. This is evidently the smallest share with which the tenant can content himself without being a loser, and the landlord seldom means to leave him any more. Whatever part of the produce, or, what is the same thing, whatever part of its price is over and above this share, he naturally endeavors to reserve to himself as the rent of his land, which is evidently the highest the tenant can afford to pay in the actual circumstances of the land. *||IV, 3|* [...] This portion, however, may still be considered as the natural rent of land, or the rent for which it is naturally meant that land should for the most part be let.” (Adam Smith, [op. cit., Vol. I, pp. 130-31](https://marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-adam/works/wealth-of-nations/book01/ch11.htm).) + +> “The landlords,” says Say, “operate a certain kind of monopoly against the tenants. The demand for their commodity, site and soil, can go on expanding indefinitely; but there is only a given, limited amount of their commodity.... The bargain struck between landlord and tenant is always advantageous to the former in the greatest possible degree.... Besides the advantage he derives from the nature of the case, he derives a further advantage from his position, his larger fortune and greater credit and standing. But the first by itself suffices to enable him and him *alone* to profit from the favorable circumstances of the land. The opening of a canal, or a road; the increase of population and of the prosperity of a district, always raises the rent.... Indeed, the tenant himself may improve the ground at his own expense; but he only derives the profit from this capital for the duration of his lease, with the expiry of which it remains with the proprietor of the land; henceforth it is the latter who reaps the interest thereon, without having made the outlay, for there is now a proportionate increase in the rent.” (Say, t. II., pp. 142-43.) + +> “Rent, considered as the price paid for the use of land, is naturally the highest which the tenant can afford to pay in the actual circumstances of the land.” (Adam Smith, [op. cit., Vol. I, p. 130](https://marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-adam/works/wealth-of-nations/book01/ch11.htm)) + +> “The rent of an estate above ground commonly amounts to what is supposed to be a third of the gross produce; and it is generally a rent certain and independent of the occasional variations *||V, 3|* in the crop.” (Adam Smith, *op. cit.*, Vol. I, p. 153.) This rent “is seldom less than a fourth ... of the whole produce.” ([op. cit., Vol. I, p. 325](https://marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-adam/works/wealth-of-nations/book02/ch05.htm).) + +*Rent* cannot be paid on all commodities. For instance, in many districts no rent is paid for stones. + +> “Such parts only of the produce of land can commonly be brought to market of which the ordinary price is sufficient to replace the stock which must be employed in bringing them thither, together with its ordinary profits. If the ordinary price is more than this, the surplus part of it will naturally go to the rent of the land. If it is not more, though the commodity may be brought to market, it can afford no rent to the landlord. Whether the price is or is not more depends upon the demand.” (Adam Smith, *op. cit.*, Vol. I, p. 132.) + +> “Rent, it is to be observed, therefore, enters into the composition of the *price of commodities* in a *different way* from wages and profit. *High or low wages and profit* are the *causes* of high or low price; high or low rent is the *effect* of it.” (Adam Smith, [loc. cit., Vol. I, p. 132](https://marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-adam/works/wealth-of-nations/book01/ch11.htm)) + +*Food* belongs to the *products* which always yield a *rent*. + +> “As men, like all other animals, naturally multiply in proportion to the means of their subsistence, food is always., more or less, in demand. It can always purchase or command a greater or smaller *||VI, 3|* quantity of labour, and somebody can always be found who is willing to do something in order to obtain it. The quantity of labour, indeed, which it can purchase is not always *equal* to what it could maintain, if managed in the most economical manner, on account of the high wages which are sometimes given to labour. But it can always purchase such a quantity of labour as it can maintain, according to the rate at which the sort of labour is commonly maintained in the neighborhood. + +> “But land, in almost any situation, produces a greater quantity of food than what is sufficient to maintain all the labour necessary for bringing it to market in the most liberal way in which that labour is ever maintained. [...] The surplus, too, is always more than sufficient to replace the stock which employed that labour, together with its profits. Something, therefore, always remains for a rent to the landlord.” (Adam Smith, [op. cit., Vol. I, pp. 132-33](https://marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-adam/works/wealth-of-nations/book01/ch11.htm).) + +> “Food is in this manner not only the original source of rent, but every other part of the produce of land which afterwards affords rent derives that part of its value from the improvement of the powers of labour in producing food by means of the improvement and cultivation of land.” (Adam Smith, [op. cit., Vol. I, p. 150](https://marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-adam/works/wealth-of-nations/book01/ch11b.htm).) + +> “Human food seems to be the only produce of land which always and necessarily affords some rent to the landlord.” ([op. cit., Vol. I, p. 147](https://marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-adam/works/wealth-of-nations/book01/ch11b.htm).) + +> “Countries are populous not in proportion to the number of people whom their produce can clothe and lodge, but in proportion to that of those whom it can feed.” (Adam Smith, [op. cit., Vol. I, p. 149](https://marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-adam/works/wealth-of-nations/book01/ch11b.htm).)*|VI||* + +> “After food, clothing and lodging are the two great wants of mankind.” They usually yield a rent, but not inevitably. ([op. cit., Vol. I, p. 147](https://marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-adam/works/wealth-of-nations/book01/ch11b.htm).) + +*||VIII, 3|* [^rent15] Let us now see how the landlord exploits everything from which society benefits. + +1. The rent of land increases with population. (Adam Smith, [op. cit., Vol. I, p. 146](https://marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-adam/works/wealth-of-nations/book01/ch11b.htm).) + +2. We have already learnt from Say how the rent of land increases with railways, etc., with the improvement, safety, and multiplication of the means of communication. + +3. + > “Every improvement in the circumstances of the society tends either *directly or indirectly* to raise the real rent of land, to increase the real wealth of the landlord, his power of purchasing the labour, or the produce of the labour of other people. + + > “The extension of improvement and cultivation tends to raise it directly. The landlord’s share of the produce necessarily increases with the increase of the produce. + + > “That rise in the real price of those parts of the rude produce of land [...] the rise in the price of cattle, for example, tends too to raise the rent of land directly, and in a still greater proportion. The real value of the landlord’s share, his real command of the labour of other people, not only rises with the real value of the produce, but the proportion of his share to the whole produce rises with it. That produce, after the rise in its real price, requires no more labour to collect it than before. A smaller proportion of it will, therefore, be sufficient to replace, with the ordinary profit, the stock which employs that labour. A greater proportion of it must, consequently, belong to the landlord.” (Adam Smith, [op. cit., Vol. I, pp. 228-29](https://marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-adam/works/wealth-of-nations/book01/ch11c-3.htm).) + + *||IX, 3|* The greater demand for raw produce, and therefore the rise in value, may in part result from the increase of population and from the increase of their needs. But every new invention, every new application in manufacture of a previously unused or little-used raw material, augments rent. Thus, for example, there was a tremendous rise in the rent of coal mines with the advent of the railways, steamships, etc. + + Besides this advantage which the landlord derives from manufacture, discoveries, and labour, there is yet another, as we shall presently see. + +4. > “All those improvements in the productive powers of labour, which tend directly to reduce the real price of manufactures, tend indirectly to raise the real rent of land. The landlord exchanges that part of his rude produce, which is over and above his own consumption, or what comes to the same thing, the price of that part of it, for manufactured produce. Whatever reduces the real price of the latter, raises that of the former. An equal quantity of the former becomes thereby equivalent to a greater quantity of the latter; and the landlord is enabled to purchase a greater quantity of the conveniences, ornaments, or luxuries, which he has occasion for.” (Adam Smith, [op. cit., Vol. I, p. 229](https://marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-adam/works/wealth-of-nations/book01/ch11c-3.htm).) + +But it is silly to conclude, as Smith does, that since the landlord exploits every benefit which comes to society *||X, 3|* the interest of the landlord is always identical with that of society. (*op. cit.*, Vol. I, p. 230.) In the economic system, under the rule of private property, the interest which an individual has in society is in precisely inverse proportion to the interest society has in him – just as the interest of the usurer in the spendthrift is by no means identical with the interest of the spendthrift. + +We shall mention only in passing the landlord’s obsession with monopoly directed against the landed property of foreign countries, from which the Corn Laws [^rent16], for instance, originate. Likewise, we shall here pass over medieval serfdom, the slavery in the colonies, and the miserable condition of the country folk, the day-labourers, in Great Britain. Let us confine ourselves to the propositions of political economy itself. + +1. The landlord being interested in the welfare of society means, according to the principles of political economy, that he is interested in the growth of its population and manufacture, in the expansion of its needs – in short, in the increase of wealth; and this increase of wealth is, as we have already seen, identical with the increase of poverty and slavery. The relation between increasing house rent and increasing poverty is an example of the landlord’s interest in society, for the ground rent, the interest obtained from the land on which the house stands, goes up with the rent of the house. + +2. According to the political economists themselves, the landlord’s interest is inimically opposed to the interest of the tenant farmer – and thus already to a significant section of society. + +3. *||XI, 3|* As the landlord can demand all the more rent from the tenant farmer the less wages the farmer pays, and as the farmer forces down wages all the lower the more rent the landlord demands, it follows that the interest of the landlord is just as hostile to that of the farm workers as is that of the manufacturers to their workers. He likewise forces down wages to the minimum. + +4. Since a real reduction in the price of manufactured products raises the rent of land, the landowner has a direct interest in lowering the wages of industrial workers, in competition amongst the capitalists, in over-production, in all the misery associated with industrial production. + +5. While, thus, the landlord’s interest, far from being identical with the interest of society, stands inimically opposed to the interest of tenant farmers, farm labourers, factory workers and capitalists, on the other hand, the interest of one landlord is not even identical with that of another, on account of the competition which we will now consider. + +In general the relationship of large and small landed property is like that of big and small capital. But in addition, there are special circumstances which lead inevitably to the accumulation of large landed property and to the absorption of small property by it. + +1. *||XII, 3|* Nowhere does the relative number of workers and implements decrease more with increases in the size of the stock than in landed property. Likewise, the possibility of all-round exploitation, of economizing production costs, and of effective division of labour, increases nowhere more with the size of the stock than in landed property. However small a field may be, it requires for its working a certain irreducible minimum of implements (plough, saw, etc.), whilst the size of a piece of landed property can be reduced far below this minimum. + +2. Big landed property accumulates to itself the interest on the capital which the tenant farmer has employed to improve the land. Small landed property has to employ its own capital, and therefore does not get this profit at all. + +3. While every social improvement benefits the big estate, it harms small property, because it increases its need for ready cash. + +4. Two important laws concerning this competition remain to be considered: + + 1. + > The rent of the cultivated land, of which the produce is human food, regulates the rent of the greater part of other cultivated land. (Adam Smith, *op. cit.*, Vol. I, p. 144.) + + Ultimately, only the big estate can produce such food as cattle, etc. Therefore it regulates the rent of other land and can force it down to a minimum. + + The small landed proprietor working on his own land stands then to the big landowner in the same relation as an artisan possessing his *own* tool to the factory owner. Small property in land has become a mere instrument of labour. *||XVI, 1|* [^rent17] Rent entirely disappears for the small proprietor; there remains to him at the most the interest on his capital, and his wages. For rent can be driven down by competition till it is nothing more than the interest on capital not invested by the proprietor. + + 2. In addition, we have already learnt that with equal fertility and equally efficient exploitation of lands, mines and fisheries, the produce is proportionate to the size of the capital. Hence the victory of the big landowner. Similarly, where equal capitals are employed the product is proportionate to the fertility. Hence, where capitals are equal, victory goes to the proprietor of the more fertile soil. + + 1. + “A mine of any kind may be said to be either fertile or barren, according as the quantity of mineral which can be brought from it by a certain quantity of labour is greater or less than what can be brought by an equal quantity from the greater part of other mines of the same kind.” (Adam Smith, [op. cit., Vol. I, p. 151](https://marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-adam/works/wealth-of-nations/book01/ch11b.htm).) + + > “The most fertile coal-mine, too, regulates the price of coal at all the other mines in its neighborhood. Both the proprietor and the undertaker of the work find, the one that he can get a greater rent, the other that he can get a greater profit, by somewhat underselling all their neighbors. Their neighbors are soon obliged to sell at the same price, though they cannot so well afford it, and though it always diminishes, and sometimes takes away altogether both their rent and their profit. Some works are abandoned altogether; others can afford no rent, and can be wrought only by the proprietor.” (Adam Smith, [op. cit., Vol. I, pp. 152-53](https://marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-adam/works/wealth-of-nations/book01/ch11b.htm).) + + “After the discovery of the mines of Peru, the silver mines of Europe were, the greater part of them, abandoned.... This was the case, too, with the mines of Cuba and St. Domingo, and even with the ancient mines of Peru, after the discovery of those of Potosi.” (*op. cit.*, Vol. I, p. 154.) + + What Smith here says of mines applies more or less to landed property generally: + + 2. “The ordinary market price of land, it is to be observed, depends everywhere upon the ordinary market rate of interest.... If the rent of land should fall short of the interest of money by a greater difference, nobody would buy land, which would soon reduce its ordinary price. On the contrary, if the advantages should much more than compensate the difference, everybody would buy land, which again would soon raise its ordinary price.” ([op. cit., Vol. I, p. 320](https://marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-adam/works/wealth-of-nations/book02/ch04.htm).) + +From this relation of rent of land to interest on money it follows that rent must fall more and more, so that eventually only the wealthiest people can live on rent. Hence the ever greater competition between landowners who do not lease their land to tenants. Ruin of some of these; further accumulation of large landed property. + +*||XVII, 2|* This competition has the further consequence that a large part of landed property falls into the hands of the capitalists and that capitalists thus become simultaneously landowners, just as the smaller landowners are on the whole already nothing more than capitalists. Similarly, a section of large landowners become at the same time industrialists. + +The final consequence is thus the abolition of the distinction between capitalist and landowner, so that there remain altogether only two classes of the population – the working class and the class of capitalists. This huckstering with landed property, the transformation of landed property into a commodity, constitutes the final overthrow of the old and the final establishment of the money aristocracy. + +1. + We will not join in the sentimental tears wept over this by romanticism. Romanticism always confuses the shamefulness of *huckstering the land* with the perfectly rational consequence, inevitable and desirable within the realm of private property, of the *huckstering of private property* in land. In the first place, feudal landed property is already by its very nature huckstered land – the earth which is estranged from man and hence confronts him in the shape of a few great lords. + + The domination of the land as an alien power over men is already inherent in feudal landed property. The serf is the adjunct of the land. Likewise, the lord of an entailed estate, the first-born son, belongs to the land. It inherits him. Indeed, the dominion of private property begins with property in land – that is its basis. But in feudal landed property the lord at least *appears* as the king of the estate. Similarly, there still exists the semblance of a more intimate connection between the proprietor and the land than that of mere *material* wealth. The estate is individualized with its lord: it has his rank, is baronial or ducal with him, has his privileges, his jurisdiction, his political position, etc. It appears as the inorganic body of its lord. Hence the proverb *nulle terre sans maître* *[There is no land without its master. - Ed]*, which expresses the fusion of nobility and landed property. Similarly, the rule of landed property does not appear directly as the rule of mere capital. For those belonging to it, the estate is more like their fatherland. It is a constricted sort of nationality. + + *||XVIII, 2|* In the same way, feudal landed property gives its name to its lord, as does a kingdom to its king. His family history, the history of his house, etc. – all this individualizes the estate for him and makes it literally his house, personifies it. Similarly those working on the estate have not the position *of day-labourers*; but they are in part themselves his property, as are serfs; and in part they are bound to him by ties of respect, allegiance, and duty. His relation to them is therefore directly political, and has likewise a human, intimate side. Customs, character, etc., vary from one estate to another and seem to be one with the land to which they belong; whereas later, it is only his purse and not his character, his individuality, which connects a man with an estate. Finally, the feudal lord does not try to extract the utmost advantage from his land. Rather, he consumes what is there and calmly leaves the worry of producing to the serfs and the tenants. Such is *nobility’s* relationship to landed property, which casts a romantic glory on its lords. + + It is necessary that this appearance be abolished – that landed property, the root of private property, be dragged completely into the movement of private property and that it become a commodity; that the rule of the proprietor appear as the undisguised rule of private property, of capital, freed of all political tincture; that the relationship between proprietor and worker be reduced to the economic relationship of exploiter and exploited; that all *[...]* personal relationship between the proprietor and his property cease, property becoming merely *objective*, material wealth; that the marriage of convenience should take the place of the marriage of honor with the land; and that the land should likewise sink to the status of a commercial value, like man. It is essential that that which is the root of landed property – filthy self-interest – make its appearance, too, in its cynical form. It is essential that the immovable monopoly turn into the mobile and restless monopoly, into competition; and that the idle enjoyment of the products of other people’s blood and sweat turn into a bustling commerce in the same commodity. Lastly, it is essential that in this competition landed property, in the form of capital, manifest its dominion over both the working class and the proprietors themselves who are either being ruined or raised by the laws governing the movement of capital. The medieval proverb *nulle terre sans seigneur* *[There is no land without its lord. - Ed]* is thereby replaced by that other proverb, *l’argent n’a pas de maître*, *[Money knows no master. - Ed]* wherein is expressed the complete domination of dead matter over man. + +2. + *||XIX, 2|* Concerning the argument of division or non-division of landed property, the following is to be observed. + + The *division of landed property* negates the *large-scale monopoly* of property in land – abolishes it; but only by *generalizing* this monopoly. It does not abolish the source of monopoly, private property. It attacks the existing form, but not the essence, of monopoly. The consequence is that it falls victim to the laws of private property. For the division of landed property corresponds to the movement of competition in the sphere of industry. In addition to the economic disadvantages of such a dividing-up of the instruments of labour, and the dispersal of labour (to be clearly distinguished from the division of labour: in separated labour the work is not shared out amongst many, but each carries on the same work by himself, it is a multiplication of the same work), this division [of land], like that competition [in industry], necessarily turns again into accumulation. + + Therefore, where the division of landed property takes place, there remains nothing for it but to return to monopoly in a still more malignant form, or to negate, to abolish the division of landed property itself. To do that, however, is not to return to feudal ownership, but to abolish private property in the soil altogether. The first abolition of monopoly is always its generalization, the broadening of its existence. The abolition of monopoly, once it has come to exist in its utmost breadth and inclusiveness, is its total annihilation. Association, applied to land, shares the economic advantage of large-scale landed property, and first brings to realization the original tendency inherent in [land] division, namely, equality. In the same way association also re-establishes, now on a rational basis, no longer mediated by serfdom, overlordship and the silly mysticism of property, the intimate ties of man with the earth, since the earth ceases to be an object of huckstering, and through free labour and free enjoyment becomes once more a true personal property of man. A great advantage of the division of landed property is that the masses, which can no longer resign themselves to servitude, perish through property in a different way than in industry. + +As for large landed property, its defenders have always, sophistically, identified the economic advantages offered by large-scale agriculture with large-scale landed property, as if it were not precisely as a result of the abolition of property that this advantage, for one thing, would receive its *||XX, 2|* greatest possible extension, and, for another, only then would be of social benefit. In the same way, they have attacked the huckstering spirit of small landed property, as if large landed property did not contain huckstering latent within it, even in its feudal form – not to speak of the modern English form, which combines the landlord’s feudalism with the tenant farmer’s huckstering and industry. + +Just as large landed property can return the reproach of monopoly leveled against it by partitioned land, since partitioned land is also based on the monopoly of private property, so can partitioned landed property likewise return to large landed property the reproach of partition, since partition also prevails there, though in a rigid and frozen form. Indeed, private property rests altogether on partitioning. Moreover, just as division of the land leads back to large landed property as a form of capital wealth, so must feudal landed property necessarily lead to partitioning or at least fall into the hands of the capitalists, turn and twist as it may. + +For large landed property, as in England, drives the overwhelming majority of the population into the arms of industry and reduces its own workers to utter wretchedness. Thus, it engenders and enlarges the power of its enemy, capital, industry, by throwing poor people and an entire activity of the country on to the other side. It makes the majority of the people of the country industrial and thus opponents of large landed property. Where industry has attained to great power, as in England at the present time, it progressively forces from large landed property its monopoly against foreign countries and throws it into competition with landed property abroad. For under the sway of industry landed property could keep its feudal grandeur secure only by means of monopolies against foreign countries, thereby protecting itself against the general laws of trade, which are incompatible with its feudal character. Once thrown into competition, landed property obeys the laws of competition, like every other commodity subjected to competition. It begins thus to fluctuate, to decrease and to increase, to fly from one hand to another; and no law can keep it any longer in a few predestined hands. *||XXI, 2|* The immediate consequence is the splitting up of the land amongst many hands, and in any case subjection to the power of industrial capitals. + +Finally, large landed property which has been forcibly preserved in this way and which has begotten by its side a tremendous industry leads to crisis even more quickly than the partitioning of land, in comparison with which the power of industry remains constantly of second rank. + +Large landed property, as we see in England, has already cast off its feudal character and adopted an industrial character insofar as it is aiming to make as much money as possible. To the owner it yields the utmost possible rent, to the tenant farmer the utmost possible profit on his capital. The workers on the land, in consequence, have already been reduced to the minimum, and the class of tenant farmers already represents within landed property the power of industry and capital. As a result of foreign competition, rent in most cases can no longer form an independent income. A large number of landowners are forced to displace tenant farmers, some of whom in this way [...] sink into the proletariat. On the other hand, many tenant farmers will take over landed property; for the big proprietors, who with their comfortable incomes have mostly given themselves over to extravagance and for the most part are not competent to conduct large-scale agriculture, often possess neither the capital nor the ability for the exploitation of the land. Hence a section of this class, too, is completely ruined. Eventually wages, which have already been reduced to a minimum, must be reduced yet further, to meet the new competition. This then necessarily leads to revolution. + +Landed property had to develop in each of these two ways so as to experience in both its necessary downfall, just as industry both in the form of monopoly and in that of competition had to ruin itself so as to learn to believe in man. *|XXI||* + [^preface1]: The *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844* is the first work in which Marx tried to systematically elaborate problems of political economy from the standpoint of his maturing dialectical-materialist and communist views and also to synthesise the results of his critical review of prevailing philosophic and economic theories. Apparently, Marx began to write it in order to clarify the problems for himself. But in the process of working on it he conceived the idea of publishing a work analysing the economic system of bourgeois society in his time and its ideological trends. Towards the end of his stay in Paris, on February 1, 1845, Marx signed a contract with Carl Leske, a Darmstadt publisher, concerning the publication of his work entitled *A Critique of Politics and of Political Economy.* It was to be based on his *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844* and perhaps also on his earlier manuscript *Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law.* This plan did not materialise in the 1840s because Marx was busy writing other works and, to some extent, because the contract with the publisher was cancelled in September 1846, the latter being afraid to have transactions with such a revolutionary-minded author. However, in the early 1850s Marx returned to the idea of writing a book on economics. Thus, the manuscripts of 1844 are connected with the conception of a plan which led many years later to the writing of *Capital*. @@ -432,18 +589,16 @@ Say's net and gross revenue. *|XVI||* [^capital14]: The allusion is to the following passage: “In a perfectly fair lottery, those who draw the prizes ought to gain all that is lost by those who draw the blanks. In a profession where twenty fail for one that succeeds, that one ought to gain all that should have been gained by the unsuccessful twenty.” (Smith, *Wealth of Nations,* Vol. 1, Bk. 1, p. 94.) -<!-- class: fst --> -<span class="term">15.</span> See Note 12. +[^rent15]: See Note 12. -<!-- class: fst --> -<span class="term">16.</span> *The Corn Laws* - a series of laws in England (the first of which dated back to the 15th century) which imposed high duties on imported corn with the aim of maintaining high prices on it on the home market. In the first third of the 19th century several laws were passed (in 1815, 1822 and so on) changing the conditions of corn imports, and in 1828 a sliding scale was introduced, which raised import duties on corn while lowering prices on the home market and, on the contrary, lowered import duties while raising prices. +[^rent16]: + *The Corn Laws* - a series of laws in England (the first of which dated back to the 15th century) which imposed high duties on imported corn with the aim of maintaining high prices on it on the home market. In the first third of the 19th century several laws were passed (in 1815, 1822 and so on) changing the conditions of corn imports, and in 1828 a sliding scale was introduced, which raised import duties on corn while lowering prices on the home market and, on the contrary, lowered import duties while raising prices. -In 1838 the Manchester factory owners Cobden and Bright founded the Anti-Corn Law League, which widely exploited the popular discontent at rising corn prices. While agitating for the abolition of the corn duties and demanding complete freedom of trade, the League strove to weaken the economic and political positions of the landed aristocracy and to lower workers’ wages. + In 1838 the Manchester factory owners Cobden and Bright founded the Anti-Corn Law League, which widely exploited the popular discontent at rising corn prices. While agitating for the abolition of the corn duties and demanding complete freedom of trade, the League strove to weaken the economic and political positions of the landed aristocracy and to lower workers’ wages. -The struggle between the industrial bourgeoisie and the landed aristocracy over the Corn Laws ended in their repeal in 1846. + The struggle between the industrial bourgeoisie and the landed aristocracy over the Corn Laws ended in their repeal in 1846. -<!-- class: fst --> -<span class="term">17.</span> Pages XIII to XV are divided into two columns and not three like the other pages of the first manuscript; they contain no text relating to the section “Rent of Land.” On page XVI, which also has two columns, this text is in the first column, while on the following pages it is in the second. +[^rent17]: Pages XIII to XV are divided into two columns and not three like the other pages of the first manuscript; they contain no text relating to the section “Rent of Land.” On page XVI, which also has two columns, this text is in the first column, while on the following pages it is in the second. <!-- class: fst --> <span class="term">18.</span> Marx, still using Hegel’s terminology and his approach to the unity of the opposites, counterposes the term “Verwirklichung” (realisation) to “Entwirklichung” (loss of realisation). |