[Marx-Engels Collection 01] • Theories of Surplus-Value by Marx, Karl -- Read -- Imperial Library of Trantor

Index

Title Page Table of Contents Foreword to the Marx-Engels Collection Foreword Preface PART I

[Chapter I] Sir James Steuart

[Distinction Between “Profit Upon Alienation” and the Positive Increase of Wealth] Author’s Footnotes

[Chapter II] The Physiocrats

[1. Transfer of the Inquiry into the Origin of Surplus-Value from the Sphere of Circulation into the Sphere of Direct Production. Conception of Rent as the Sole Form of Surplus-Value] [2. Contradictions in the System of the Physiocrats: the Feudal Shell of the System and Its Bourgeois Essence; the Twofold Treatment of Surplus-Value] [3. Quesnay on the Three Classes in Society. Further Development of Physiocratic Theory with Turgot: Elements of a Deeper Analysis of Capitalist Relations] [4. Confusion of Value with Material Substance (Paoletti)] [5. Elements of Physiocratic Theory in Adam Smith] [6. The Physiocrats as Partisans of Large-Scale Capitalist Agriculture] [7. Contradictions in the Political Views of the Physiocrats. The Physiocrats and the French Revolution] [8. Vulgarisation of the Physiocratic Doctrine by the Prussian Reactionary Schmalz] [9. An Early Critique of the Superstition of the Physiocrats in the Question of Agriculture (Verri)] Editors’ Footnotes

[Chapter III] Adam Smith

[1. Smith’s Two Different Definitions of Value; the Determination of Value by the Quantity of Labour Expended Which Is Contained in a Commodity, and Its Determination by the Quantity of Living Labour Which Can Be Bought in Exchange for This Commodity] [2. Smith’s General Conception of Surplus-Value. The Notion of Profit, Rent and Interest as Deductions from the Product of the Worker’s Labour] [3. Adam Smith’s Extension of the Idea of Surplus-Value to All Spheres of Social Labour] [4. Smith’s Failure to Grasp the Specific Way in Which the Law of Value Operates in the Exchange between Capital and Wage-Labour] [5. Smith’s Identification of Surplus-Value with Profit. The Vulgar Element in Smith’s Theory] [6. Smith’s Erroneous View of Profit, Rent of Land and Wages as Sources of Value] [7. Smith’s Dual View of the Relationship between Value and Revenue. The Vicious Circle of Smith’s Conception of “‘Natural Price” as the Sum of Wages, Profit and Rent] [8. Smith’s Error in Resolving the Total Value of the Social Product into Revenue. Contradictions in His Views on Gross and Net Revenue] [9. Say as Vulgariser of Smith’s Theory. Say’s Identification of the Social Gross Product with the Social Revenue. Attempts to Draw a Distinction between Them by Storch and Ramsay] [10. Inquiry into How It Is Possible for the Annual Profit and Wages to Buy the Annual Commodities, Which Besides Profit and Wages Also Contain Constant Capital] [11. Additional Points: Smith’s Confusion on the Question of the Measure of Value. General Character of the Contradictions in Smith] Footnotes

[Chapter IV] Theories of Productive and Unproductive Labour

[1. Productive Labour from the Standpoint of Capitalist Production: Labour Which Produces Surplus-Value] [2. Views of the Physiocrats and Mercantilists on Productive Labour] [3. The Duality in Smith’s Conception of Productive Labour. His First Explanation: the View of Productive Labour as Labour Exchanged for Capital] [4. Adam Smith’s Second Explanation: the View of Productive Labour as Labour Which Is Realised in a Commodity] [5. Vulgarisation of Bourgeois Political Economy in the Definition of Productive Labour] [6. Advocates of Smith’s Views on Productive Labour. On the History of the Subject] [7.] Germain Garnier [Vulgarisation of the Theories Put Forward by Smith and the Physiocrats] [8.] Charles Ganilh [Mercantilist Conception of Exchange and Exchange-Value. Inclusion of All Paid Labour in the Concept of Productive Labour] [9. Ganilh and Ricardo on Net Revenue. Ganilh as Advocate of a Diminution of the Productive Population; Ricardo as Advocate of the Accumulation of Capital and the Growth of Productive Forces] [10.] Exchange of Revenue and Capital [Replacement of the Total Amount of the Annual Product: (a) Exchange of Revenue for Revenue; (b) Exchange of Revenue for Capital; (c) Exchange of Capital for Capital] [11.] Ferrier [Protectionist Character of Ferrier’s Polemics against Smith’s Theory of Productive Labour and the Accumulation of Capital, Smith’s Confusion on the Question of Accumulation, The Vulgar Element in Smith’s View of “Productive Labourers”] [12.] Earl of Lauderdale [Apologetic Conception of the Ruling Classes as Representatives of the Most Important Kinds of Productive Labour] [14.] Count Destutt de Tracy [Vulgar Conception of the Origin of Profit. Proclamation of the Industrial Capitalist” as the Sole Productive Labourer] [15. General Nature of the Polemics against Smith’s Distinction between Productive and Unproductive Labour. Apologetic Conception of Unproductive Consumption as a Necessary Spur to Production] [16.] Henri Storch [Unhistorical Approach to the Problem of the Interaction between Material and Spiritual Production. Conception of “Immaterial Labour” Performed by the Ruling Class] [17.] Nassau Senior [Proclamation of All Functions Useful to the Bourgeoisie as Productive. Toadyism to the Bourgeoisie and the Bourgeois State] [18.] Pellegrino Rossi [Disregard of the Social Form of Economic Phenomena. Vulgar Conception of “Labour-saving” by Unproductive Labourers] [19. Apologia for the Prodigality of the Rich by the Malthusian Chalmers] [20. Concluding Observations on Adam Smith and His Views on Productive and Unproductive Labour] Footnotes

[Chapter V] Necker

[Attempt to Present the Antagonism of Classes in Capitalism as the Antithesis Between Poverty and Wealth]

[Chapter VI] Quesnay’s Tableau Économique

[1. Quesnay’s Attempt to Show the Process of Reproduction and Circulation of the Total Capital] [2. Circulation between Farmers and Landowners. The Return Circuit of Money to the Farmers, Which Does Not Express Reproduction] [3. On the Circulation of Money between Capitalist and Labourer] [4. Circulation between Farmer and Manufacturer According to the Tableau Économique] [5. Circulation of Commodities and Circulation of Money in the Tableau Économique. Different Cases in Which the Money Flows Back to Its Starting-Point] [6. Significance of the Tableau Économique in the History of Political Economy]

[Chapter VII] Linguet

[Early Critique of the Bourgeois-Liberal View of the “Freedom” of the Labourer]

Addenda to PART I

[1. Hobbes on Labour, on Value and on the Economic Role of Science] [2.] Historical: Petty [3.] Petty, Sir Dudley North, Locke [4.] Locke [5.] North [Money as Capital. The Growth of Trade as the Cause of the Fall in the Rate of Interest] [6. Berkeley on Industry as the Source of Wealth] [7.] Hume and Massie [8. Addendum to the Chapters on the Physiocrats] [9. Glorification of the Landed Aristocracy by Buat, an Epigone of the Physiocrats] [10. Polemics Against the Landed Aristocracy from the Standpoint of the Physiocrats (An Anonymous English Author)] [11. Apologist Conception of the Productivity of All Professions] [12.] Productivity of Capital. Productive and Unproductive Labour [13. Draft Plans for parts I and III of Capital]

PART II

[Chapter VIII] Herr Rodbertus. New Theory of Rent.

[1. Excess Surplus-Value in Agriculture. Agriculture Develops Slower Than Industry under Conditions of Capitalism] [2. The Relationship of the Rate of Profit to the Rate of Surplus-Value. The Value of Agricultural Raw Material as an Element of Constant Capital in Agriculture] [3. Value and Average Price in Agriculture. Absolute Rent] [4. Rodbertus’s Thesis that in Agriculture Raw Materials Lack Value Is Fallacious] [6. Rodbertus’s Lack of Understanding of the Relationship Between Average Price and Value in Industry and Agriculture. The Law of Average Prices] [7. Rodbertus’s Erroneous Views Regarding the Factors Which Determine the Rate of Profit and the Rate of Rent] [8. The Kernel of Truth in the Law Distorted by Rodbertus] [9. Differential Rent and Absolute Rent in Their Reciprocal Relationship. Rent as an Historical Category. Smith’s and Ricardo’s Method of Research] [10. Rate of Rent and Rate of Profit. Relation Between Productivity in Agriculture and in Industry in the Different Stages of Historical Development]

[Chapter IX] Notes on the History of the Discovery of the So-Called Ricardian Law of Rent.

[1. The Discovery of the Law of Differential Rent by Anderson. Distortion of Anderson’s Views by His Plagiarist, Malthus, in the Interests of the Landowners] [2. Ricardo’s Fundamental Principle in Assessing Economic Phenomena Is the Development of the Productive Forces. Malthus Defends the Most Reactionary Elements of the Ruling Classes. Virtual Refutation of Malthus’s Theory of Population by Darwin] [3. Roscher’s Falsification of the History of Views on Ground-Rent. Examples of Ricardo’s Scientific Impartiality. Rent from Capital Investment in Land and Rent from the Exploitation of Other Elements of Nature. The Twofold Influence of Competition] [4. Rodbertus’s Error Regarding the Relation Between Value and Surplus-Value When the Costs of Production Rise] [5. Ricardo’s Denial of Absolute Rent—a Result of His Error in the Theory of Value] [6. Ricardo’s Thesis on the Constant Rise in Corn Prices. Table of Annual Average Prices of Corn from 1641 to 1859] [7. Hopkins’s Conjecture about the Difference Between Absolute Rent and Differential Rent; Explanation of Rent by the Private Ownership of Land] [8. The Costs of Bringing Land into Cultivation. Periods of Rising and Periods of Falling Corn Prices (1641-1859)] [9. Anderson versus Malthus. Anderson’s Definition of Rent. His Thesis of the Rising Productivity of Agriculture and Its Influence on Differential Rent] [10. The Untenability of the Rodbertian Critique Rodbertus’s of Ricardo’s Theory of Rent. Lack of Understanding of the Peculiarities of Capitalist Agriculture]

[Chapter X] Ricardo’s and Adam Smith’s Theory of Cost-price (Refutation)

[A. Ricardo’s Theory of Cost-price] [1. Collapse of the Theory of the Physiocrats and the Further Development of the Theories of Rent] [2. The Determination of Value by Labour-Time—the Basis of Ricardo’s Theory. Despite Certain Deficiencies the Ricardian Mode of Investigation Is a Necessary Stage in the Development of Political Economy] [3. Ricardo’s Confusion about the Question of “Absolute” and “Relative” Value. His Lack of Understanding of the Forms of Value] [4.] Ricardo’s Description of Profit, Rate of Profit, Average Prices etc. [5.] Average or Cost-Prices and Market-Prices [c) Ricardo’s Two Different Definitions of “Natural Price”. Changes in Cost-Price Caused by Changes in the Productivity of Labour] [B. Adam Smith’s Theory of Cost-price] [1. Smith’s False Assumptions in the Theory of Cost-Prices. Ricardo’s Inconsistency Owing to His Retention of the Smithian Identification of Value and Cost-Price] [2. Adam Smith’s Theory of the “Natural Rate” of Wages, Profit and Rent]

[Chapter XI] Ricardo’s Theory of Rent.

[1. Historical Conditions for the Development of the Theory of Rent by Anderson and Ricardo] [2. The Connection Between Ricardo’s Theory of Rent and His Explanation of Cost-Prices] [3. The Inadequacy of the Ricardian Definition of Rent]

[Chapter XII] Tables of Differential Rent and Comment

[1. Changes in the Amount and Rate of Rent] [2. Various Combinations of Differential and Absolute Rent. Tables A, B, C, D, E] [3. Analysis of the Tables]

[Chapter XIII] Ricardo’s Theory of Rent (Conclusion)

[1. Ricardo’s Assumption of the Non-Existence of Landed Property. Transition to New Land Is Contingent on Its Situation and Fertility] [2. The Ricardian Assertion that Rent Cannot Possibly Influence the Price of Corn. Absolute Rent Causes the Prices of Agricultural Products to Rise] [3. Smith’s and Ricardo’s Conception of the “Natural Price” of the Agricultural Product] [4. Ricardo’s Views on Improvements in Agriculture. His Failure to Understand the Economic Consequences of Changes in the Organic Composition of Agricultural Capital] [5. Ricardo’s Criticism of Adam Smith’s and Malthus’s Views on Rent]

[Chapter XIV] Adam Smith’s Theory of Rent

[1. Contradictions in Smith’s Formulation of the Problem of Rent] [2. Adam Smith’s Hypothesis Regarding the Special Character of the Demand for Agricultural Produce. Physiocratic Elements in Smith’s Theory of Rent] [3. Adam Smith’s Explanation of How the Relation Between Supply and Demand Affects the Various Types of Products from the Land. Smith’s Conclusions Regarding the Theory of Rent] [4. Adam Smith’s Analysis of the Variations in the Prices of Products of the Land] [5. Adam Smith’s Views on the Movements of Rent and His Estimation of the Interests of the Various Social Classes]

[Chapter XV] Ricardo’s Theory of Surplus-Value

[1. Ricardo’s Confusion of the Laws of Surplus-Value with the Laws of Profit] [2. Changes in the Rate of Profit Caused by Various Factors] [3. The Value of Constant Capital Decreases While That of Variable Capital Increases and Vice Versa, and the Effect of These Changes on the Rate of Profit] [4. Confusion of Cost-Prices with Value in the Ricardian Theory of Profit] [5. The General Rate of Profit and the Rate of Absolute Rent in Their Relation to Each Other. The Influence on Cost-Prices of a Reduction in Wages] 1. Quantity of Labour and Value of Labour. [As Presented by Ricardo the Problem of the Exchange of Labour for Capital Cannot Be Solved] 2. Value of Labour-Power. Value of Labour. [Ricardo’s Confusion of Labour with Labour-Power. Concept of the “Natural Price of Labour”] 3. Surplus-Value. [An Analysis of the Source of Surplus-Value Is Lacking in Ricardo’s Work. His Concept of Working-Day as a Fixed Magnitude] 4. Relative Surplus-Value. [The Analysis of Relative Wages Is One of Ricardo’s Scientific Achievements]

[Chapter XVI] RICARDO’S THEORY OF PROFIT

[1. Individual Instances in Which Ricardo Distinguishes Between Surplus-Value and Profit] [2.] Formation of the General Rate of Profit. (Average Profit or “Usual Profit”) [3.] Law of the Diminishing Rate of Profit Author’s Footnotes Editors’ Footnotes

[Chapter XVII] Ricardo’s Theory of Accumulation and a Critique of it. (The Very Nature of Capital Leads to Crises)

[1. Adam Smith’s and Ricardo’s Error in Failing to Take into Consideration Constant Capital. Reproduction of the Different Parts of Constant Capital] [2. Value of the Constant Capital and Value of the Product] [3. Necessary Conditions for the Accumulation of Capital. Amortisation of Fixed Capital and Its Role in the Process of Accumulation] [4. The Connection Between Different Branches of Production in the Process of Accumulation. The Direct Transformation of a Part of Surplus-Value into Constant Capital—a Characteristic Peculiar to Accumulation in Agriculture and the Machine-building Industry] [5. The Transformation of Capitalised Surplus-Value into Constant and Variable Capital] [6. Crises (Introductory Remarks)] [7. Absurd Denial of the Over-production of Commodities, Accompanied by a Recognition of the Over-abundance of Capital] [8. Ricardo’s Denial of General Over-production. Possibility of a Crisis Inherent in the Inner Contradictions of Commodity and Money] [9. Ricardo’s Wrong Conception of the Relation Between Production and Consumption under the Conditions of Capitalism] [10. Crisis, Which Was a Contingency, Becomes a Certainty. The Crisis as the Manifestation of All the Contradictions of Bourgeois Economy] [11. On the Forms of Crisis] [12. Contradictions Between Production and Consumption under Conditions of Capitalism. Over-production of the Principal Consumer Goods Becomes General Over-production] [13. The Expansion of the Market Does Not Keep in Step with the Expansion of Production. The Ricardian Conception That an Unlimited Expansion of Consumption and of the Internal Market Is Possible] [14. The Contradiction Between the Impetuous Development of the Productive Powers and the Limitations of Consumption Leads to Over-production. The Theory of the Impossibility of General Over-production Is Essentially Apologetic in Tendency] [15. Ricardo’s Views on the Different Types of Accumulation of Capital and on the Economic Consequences of Accumulation]

[Chapter XVIII] Ricardo’s Miscellanea. John Barton

[A.] Gross and Net Income [B.] Machinery [Ricardo and Barton on the Influence of Machines on the Conditions of the Working Class] Footnotes

Addenda to PART II

[1. Early Formulation of the Thesis That the Supply of Agricultural Products Always Corresponds to Demand. Rodbertus and the Practicians among the Economists of the Eighteenth Century] [2. Nathaniel Forster on the Hostility Between Landowners and Traders] [3. Hopkins’s Views on the Relationship Between Rent and Profit] [4. Carey, Malthus and James Deacon Hume on Improvements in Agriculture] [5. Hodgskin and Anderson on the Growth of Productivity in Agricultural Labour] [6. Decrease in the Rate of Profit]

PART III

[Chapter XIX] Thomas Robert Malthus

[1. Malthus’s Confusion of the Categories Commodity and Capital] [2. Malthus’s Vulgarised View of Surplus-Value] [3. The Row Between the Supporters of Malthus and Ricardo in the Twenties of the 19th Century. Common Features in Their Attitude to the Working Class] [4. Malthus’s One-sided Interpretation of Smith’s Theory of Value. His Use of Smith’s Mistaken Theses in His Polemic Against Ricardo] [5. Smith’s Thesis of the Invariable Value of Labour as Interpreted by Malthus] [6. Malthus’s Use of the Ricardian Theses of the Modification of the Law of Value in His Struggle Against the Labour Theory of Value] [7. Malthus’s Vulgarised Definition of Value. His View of Profit as Something Added to the Price. His Polemic Against Ricardo’s Conception of the Relative Wages of Labour] [8. Malthus on Productive Labour and Accumulation] [9.] Constant and Variable Capital [According to Malthus] [10.] Malthus’s Theory of Value [Supplementary Remarks] [11.] Over-Production, “Unproductive Consumers”, etc. [12. The Social Essence of Malthus’s Polemic Against Ricardo. Malthus’s Distortion of Sismondi’s Views on the Contradictions in Bourgeois Production] [13. Critique of Malthus’s Conception of “Unproductive Consumers” by Supporters of Ricardo] [14. The Reactionary Role of Malthus’s Writings and Their Plagiaristic Character. Malthus’s Apologia for the Existence of “Upper” and “Lower” Classes] [15. Malthus’s Principles Expounded in the Anonymous “Outlines of Political Economy”]

[Chapter XX] Disintegration of the Ricardian School

1. [Robert Torrens] 2. James Mill [Futile Attempts to Resolve the Contradictions of the Ricardian System] 3. Polemical Writings 4. McCulloch 5. Wakefield [Some Objections to Ricardo’s Theory Regarding the “Value of Labour” and Rent] 6. Stirling [Vulgarised Explanation of Profit by the Interrelation of Supply and Demand] 7. John Stuart Mill [Unsuccessful Attempts to Deduce the Ricardian Theory of the Inverse Proportionality Between the Rate of Profit and the Level of Wages Directly from the Law of Value] [8. Conclusion]

[Chapter XXI] Opposition to the Economists (Based on the Ricardian Theory)

1. [The Pamphlet] “The Source and Remedy of the National Difficulties” 2. Ravenstone. [The View of Capital as the Surplus Product of the Worker. Confusion of the Antagonistic Form of Capitalist Development with Its Content. This Leads to a Negative Attitude Towards the Results of the Capitalist Development of the Productive Forces] 3. Hodgskin [4.] Bray as an Opponent of the Economists

[Chapter XXII] Ramsay

[1. The Attempt to Distinguish Between Constant and Variable Capital. The View that Capital Is Not an Essential Social Form] [2. Ramsay’s Views on Surplus-Value and on Value. Reduction of Surplus-Value to Profit. The Influence Which Changes in the Value of Constant and Variable Capital Exert on the Rate and Amount of Profit] [3. Ramsay on the Division of “Gross Profit” into “Net Profit” (Interest) and “Profit of Enterprise”. Apologetic Elements in His Views on the “Labour of superintendence”, “Insurance Covering the Risk Involved” and “Excess Profit”]

[Chapter XXIII] Cherbuliez

[1. Distinction Between Two Parts of Capital—the Part Consisting of Machinery and Raw Materials and the Part Consisting of “Means of Subsistence” for the Workers] [2. On the Progressive Decline in the Number of Workers in Relation to the Amount of Constant Capital] [3. Cherbuliez’s Inkling that the Organic Composition of Capital Is Decisive for the Rate of Profit. His Confusion on This Question. Cherbuliez on the “Law of Appropriation” in Capitalist Economy] [4. On Accumulation as Extended Reproduction] [5. Elements of Sismondism in Cherbuliez. On the Organic Composition of Capital Fixed and Circulating Capital] [6. Cherbuliez Eclectically Combines Mutually Exclusive Propositions of Ricardo and Sismondi]

[Chapter XXIV] Richard Jones

1. Reverend Richard Jones, “An Essay on the Distribution of Wealth, and on the Sources of Taxation,” London, 1831, Part I, Rent [Elements of a Historical Interpretation of Rent. Jones’s Superiority over Ricardo in particular Questions of the Theory of Rent and His Mistakes in This Field] 2. Richard Jones, “An Introductory Lecture on Political Economy etc.” [The Concept of the “Economical Structure of Nations”. Jones’s Confusion with regard to the “Labor Fund”] 3. Richard Jones, “Text-book of Lectures on the Political Economy of Nations”, Hertford, 1852

Addenda to PART III Revenue and its Sources. Vulgar Political Economy

[1.] The Development of Interest-Bearing Capital on the Basis of Capitalist Production. [Transformation of the Relations of the Capitalist Mode of Production into a Fetish. Interest-Bearing Capital as the Clearest Expression of This Fetish. The Vulgar Economists and the Vulgar Socialists Regarding Interest on Capital] [2.] Interest-Bearing Capital and Commercial Capital in Relation to Industrial Capital. Older Forms. Derived Forms [3. The Separation of Individual Parts of Surplus-Value in the Form of Different Revenues. The Relation of Interest to Industrial Profit. The Irrationality of the Fetishised Forms of Revenue] [4. The Process of Ossification of the Converted Forms of Surplus-Value and Their Ever Greater Separation from Their Inner Substance—Surplus Labour. Industrial Profit as “Wages for the Capitalist”] [5. Essential Difference Between Classical and Vulgar Economy. Interest and Rent as Constituent Elements of the Market Price of Commodities. Vulgar Economists Attempt to Give the Irrational Forms of Interest and Rent a Semblance of Rationality] [6. The Struggle of Vulgar Socialism Against Interest (Proudhon). Failure to Understand the Inner Connection Between Interest and the System of Wage-Labour] [7. Historical Background to the Problem of Interest. Luther’s Polemic Against Interest Is Superior to That of Proudhon. The Concept of Interest Changes as a Result of the Evolution of Capitalist Relations]

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