Marx and Engels on the British Ruling Class and Colonialism Part 2
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Transcript of Marx and Engels on the British Ruling Class and Colonialism Part 2
several steam engines in the Burdwan coal districts, and by other instances. Mr. Campbell himself,
greatly influenced as he is by the prejudices of the East India Company, is obliged to avow
“that the great mass of the Indian people possesses a great industrial energy, is well fitted to
accumulate capital, and remarkable for a mathematical clearness of head and talent for figures and
exact sciences.” “Their intellects,” he says, “are excellent.”
Modern industry, resulting from the railway system, will dissolve the hereditary divisions of labor, upon
which rest the Indian castes, those decisive impediments to Indian progress and Indian power.
All the English bourgeoisie may be forced to do will neither emancipate nor materially mend the social
condition of the mass of the people, depending not only on the development of the productive powers,
but on their appropriation by the people. But what they will not fail to do is to lay down the material
premises for both. Has the bourgeoisie ever done more? Has it ever effected a progress without
dragging individuals and people through blood and dirt, through misery and degradation?
The Indians will not reap the fruits of the new elements of society scattered among them by the British
bourgeoisie, till in Great Britain itself the now ruling classes shall have been supplanted by the industrial
proletariat, or till the Hindoos themselves shall have grown strong enough to throw off the English yoke
altogether. At all events, we may safely expect to see, at a more or less remote period, the regeneration
of that great and interesting country, whose gentle natives are, to use the expression of Prince Soltykov,
even in the most inferior classes, “plus fins et plus adroits que les Italiens” [more subtle and adroit than
the Italians], a whose submission even is counterbalanced by a certain calm nobility, who,
notwithstanding their natural langor, have astonished the British officers by their bravery, whose
country has been the source of our languages, our religions, and who represent the type of the ancient
German in the Jat, and the type of the ancient Greek in the Brahmin.
I cannot part with the subject of India without some concluding remarks.
The profound hypocrisy and inherent barbarism of bourgeois civilization lies unveiled before our eyes,
turning from its home, where it assumes respectable forms, to the colonies, where it goes naked. They
are the defenders of property, but did any revolutionary party ever originate agrarian revolutions like
those in Bengal, in Madras, and in Bombay? Did they not, in India, to borrow an expression of. that great
robber, Lord Clive himself, resort to atrocious extortion, when simple corruption could not keep pace
with their rapacity? While they prated in Europe about the inviolable sanctity of the national debt, did
they not confiscate in India the dividends of the rajahs, 171 who had invested their private savings in the
Company’s own funds? While they combatted the French revolution under the pretext of defending
“our holy religion,” did they not forbid, at the same time, Christianity to be propagated in India, and did
they not, in order to make money out of the pilgrims streaming to the temples of Orissa and Bengal,
take up the trade in the murder and prostitution perpetrated in the temple of juggernaut? These are the
men of “Property, Order, Family, and Religion.”
The devastating effects of English industry, when contemplated with regard to India, a country as vast as
Europe, and containing 150 millions of acres, are palpable and confounding. But we must not forget that
they are only the organic results of the whole system of production as it is now constituted. That
production rests on the supreme rule of capital. The centralization of capital is essential to the existence
of capital as an independent power. The destructive influence of that centralization upon the markets of
the world does but reveal, in the most gigantic dimensions, the inherent organic laws of political
economy now at work in every civilized town. The bourgeois period of history has to create the material
basis of the new world — on the one hand universal intercourse founded upon the mutual dependency
of mankind, and the means of that intercourse; on the other hand the development of the productive
powers of man and the transformation of material production into a scientific domination of natural
agencies. Bourgeois industry and commerce create these material conditions of a new world in the same
way as geological revolutions have created the surface of the earth. When a great social revolution shall
have mastered the results of the bourgeois epoch, the market of the world and the modern powers of
production, and subjected them to the common control of the most advanced peoples, then only will
human progress cease to resemble that hideous, pagan idol, who would not drink the nectar but from
the skulls of the slain.
Karl Marx in The New-York Tribune 1853
The East India Question
Source: the New-York Daily Tribune, July 25, 1853;
Transcribed: by Tony Brown.
Abstract
London, Tuesday, July 12, 1853
The clauses of the India Bill are passing one by one, the debate scarcely offering any remarkable
features, except the inconsistency of the so-called India Reformers. There is, for instance, my Lord
Jocelyn, M. P. who has made a kind of political livelihood by his periodical denunciation of Indian
wrongs, and of the maladministration of the East India Company. What do you think his amendment
amounted to? To give the East India Company a lease for 10 years. Happily, it compromised no one but
himself. There is another professional “Reformer,” Mr. Jos. Hume, who, during his long Parliamentary
life, has succeeded in transforming opposition itself into a particular manner of supporting the ministry.
He proposed not to reduce the number of East India Directors from 24 to 18. The only amendment of
common sense, yet agreed to, was that of Mr. Bright, exempting Directors nominated by the
Government from the qualification in East India Stock, imposed by the Directors elected by the Court of
Proprietors. Go through the pamphlets published by the East Indian Reform Association, and you will
feel a similar sensation as when, hearing of one great act of accusation against Bonaparte, devised in
common by Legitimists, Orleanists, Blue and Red Republicans, and even disappointed Bonapartists. Their
only merit until now has been to draw public attention to Indian affairs in general, and further they
cannot go in their present form of eclectic opposition. For instance, while they attack the doings of the
English aristocracy in India, they protest against the destruction of the Indian aristocracy of native
princes.
After the British intruders had once put their feet on India, and made up their mind to hold it, there
remained no alternative but to break the power of the native princes by force or by intrigue. Placed with
regard to them in similar circumstances as the ancient Romans with regard to their allies, they followed
in the track of Roman politics. “It was,” says an English writer, “a system of fattening allies, as we fatten
oxen, till they were worthy of being devoured.” After having won over their allies in the way of ancient
Rome, the East India Company executed them in the modern manner of Change-Alley. In order to
discharge the engagements they had entered into with the Company, the native princes were forced to
borrow enormous sums from Englishmen at usurious interest. When their embarrassment had reached
the highest pitch, the creditor got inexorable, “the screw was turned” and the princes were compelled
either to concede their territories amicably to the Company, or to begin war; to become pensioners on
their usurpers in one case, or to be deposed as traitors in the other. At this moment the native States
occupy an area of 699,961 square miles, with a population of 52,941,263 souls, being, however, no
longer the allies, but only the dependents of the British Government, upon multifarious conditions, and
under the various forms of the subsidiary and of the protective systems. These systems have in common
the relinquishment, by the native States of the right of self-defense, of maintaining diplomatic relations,
and of settling the disputes among themselves without the interference of the Governor-General. All of
them have to pay a tribute, either in hard cash, or in a contingent of armed forces commanded by British
officers. The final absorption or annexation of these native States is at present eagerly controverted
between the Reformers who denounce it as a crime, and the men of business who excuse it as a
necessity.
In my opinion the question itself is altogether improperly put. As to the native States they virtually
ceased to exist from the moment they became subsidiary to or protected by the Company. If you divide
the revenue of a country between two governments, you are sure to cripple the resources of the one
and the administration of both. Under the present system the native States succumb under the double
incubus of their native Administration and the tributes and inordinate military establishments imposed
upon them by the Company. The conditions under which they are allowed to retain their apparent
independence are at the same time the conditions of a permanent decay, and of an utter inability of
improvement. Organic weakness is the constitutional law of their existence, as of all existences living
upon sufferance. It is, therefore, not the native States, but the native Princes and Courts about whose
maintenance the question revolves. Now, is it not a strange thing that the same men who denounce
“the barbarous splendors of the Crown and Aristocracy of England” are shedding tears at the downfall of
Indian Nabobs, Rajahs, and Jagheerdars, the great majority of whom possess not even the prestige of
antiquity, being generally usurpers of very recent date, set up by English intrigue! There exists in the
whole world no despotism more ridiculous, absurd and childish than that of
those Schazenans and Schariars of the Arabian Nights. The Duke of Wellington, Sir J. Malcolm, Sir Henry
Russell, Lord Ellenborough, General Briggs, and other authorities, have pronounced in favor of the status
quo; but on what grounds? Because the native troops under English rule want employment in the petty
warfares with their own countrymen, in order to prevent them from turning their strength against their
own European masters. Because the existence of independent States gives occasional employment to
the English troops. Because the hereditary princes are the most servile tools of English despotism, and
check the rise of those bold military adventurers with whom India has and ever will abound. Because the
independent territories afford a refuge to all discontented and enterprising native spirits. Leaving aside
all these arguments, which state in so many words that the native princes are the strongholds of the
present abominable English system and the greatest obstacles to Indian progress, I come to Sir Thomas
Munro and Lord Elphinstone, who were at least men of superior genius, and of real sympathy for the
Indian people. They think that without a native aristocracy there can be no energy in any other class of
the community, and that the subversion of that aristocracy will not raise but debase a whole people.
They may be right as long as the natives, under direct English rule, are systematically excluded from all
superior offices, military and civil. Where there can be no great men by their own exertion, there must
be great men by birth, to leave to a conquered people some greatness of their own. That exclusion,
however, of the native people from the English territory, has been effected only by the maintenance of
the hereditary princes in the so-called independent territories. And one of these two concessions had to
be made to the native army, on whose strength all British rule in India depends. I think we may trust the
assertion of Mr. Campbell, that the native Indian Aristocracy are the least enabled to fill higher offices;
that for all fresh requirements it is necessary to create a fresh class; and that
“from the acuteness and aptness to learn of the inferior classes, this can be done in India as it can be
done in no other country.”
The native princes themselves are fast disappearing by, the extinction of their houses; but, since the
commencement of this century, the British Government has observed the policy of allowing them to
make heirs by adoption,or of filling up their vacant seats with puppets of English creation. The great
Governor-General, Lord Dalhousie, was the first to protest openly, against this system. Were not the
natural course of things artificially resisted, there would be wanted neither wars nor expenses to do
away with the native princes.
As to the pensioned princes, the £2,468,969 assigned to them by the British Government on the Indian
revenue is a most heavy charge upon a people living on rice, and deprived of the first necessaries of life.
If they are good for anything, it is for exhibiting Royalty in its lowest stage of degradation and ridicule.
Take, for instance, the Great Mogul, the descendant of Timour Tamerlane: He is allowed £120,000 a
year. His authority does not extend beyond the walls of his palace, within which the Royal idiotic race,
left to itself, propagates as freely as rabbits. Even the police of Delhi is held by Englishmen above his
control. There he sits on his throne, a little shriveled yellow old man, trimmed in a theatrical dress,
embroidered with gold, much like that of the dancing girls of Hindostan. On certain State occasions, the
tinsel-covered puppet issues forth to gladden the hearts of the loyal. On his days of reception strangers
have to pay a fee, in the form of guineas, as to any other saltimbanque exhibiting himself in public; while
he, in his turn, presents them with turbans, diamonds, etc. On looking nearer at them, they find that the
Royal diamonds are, like so many pieces of ordinary glass, grossly painted and imitating as roughly as
possible the precious stones, and jointed so wretchedly, that they break in the hand like gingerbread.
The English money-lenders, combined with the English Aristocracy, understand, we must own, the art of
degrading Royalty, reducing it to the nullity of constitutionalism at home, and to the seclusion of
etiquette abroad. And now, here are the Radicals, exasperated at this spectacle!
Karl Marx
Karl Marx in The New-York Tribune 1853
India
Source: the New-York Daily Tribune, August 5, 1853;
Transcribed: by Tony Brown.
Abstract
London, Tuesday, July 19, 1853
The progress of the India bill through the Committee has little interest. It is significant, that all
amendments are thrown out now by the Coalition coalescing with the Tories against their own allies of
the Manchester School.
The actual state of India may be illustrated by a few facts. The Home Establishment absorbs 3 per cent.
of the net revenue, and the annual interest for Home Debt and Dividends 14 per cent-together 17 per
cent. If we deduct these annual remittances from India to England, the military charges amount to
about two-thirds of the whole expenditure available for India, or to 66 per cent., while the charges for
Public Works do not amount to more than 2 3/4 per cent. of the general revenue, or for Bengal 1 per
cent., Agra 7 3/4, Punjab 1/8, Madras 1/2, and Bombay 1 per cent. of their respective revenues. These
figures are the official ones of the Company itself.
On the other hand nearly three-fifths of the whole net revenue are derived from the land, about one-
seventh from opium, and upward of one-ninth from salt. These resources together yield 85 per cent. of
the whole receipts.
As to minor items of receipts and charges, it may suffice to state that the Moturpha revenue maintained
in the Presidency of Madras, and levied on shops, looms, sheep, cattle, sundry professions, &c., yields
somewhat about £50,000, while the yearly dinners of the East India House cost about the same sum.
The great bulk of the revenue is derived from the land. As the various kinds of Indian land-tenure have
recently been described in so many places, and in popular style, too, I propose to limit my observations
on the subject to a few general remarks on the Zemindari and Ryotwar systems.
The Zemindari and the Ryotwar were both of them agrarian revolutions, effected by British ukases, and
opposed to each other, the one aristocratic, the other democratic; the one a caricature of English
landlordism, the other of French peasant-proprietorship; but pernicious, both combining the most
contradictory character — both made not for the people, who cultivate the soil, nor for the holder, who
owns it, but for the Government that taxes it.
By the Zemindari system, the people of the Presidency of Bengal were depossessed at once of their
hereditary claims to the soil, in favor of the native tax gatherers called Zemindars. By the Ryotwar
system introduced into the Presidencies of Madras and Bombay, the native nobility, with their territorial
claims, meras sees, jagheers, &c., were reduced with the common people to the holding of minute
fields, cultivated by themselves in favor of the Collector of the East India Company."’ But a curious sort
of English landlord was the Zemindar, receiving only one-tenth of the rent, while he had to make over
nine-tenths of it to the Government. A curious sort of French peasant was the Ryot, without any
permanent title in the soil, and with the taxation changing every year in proportion to his harvest. The
original class of Zemindars, notwithstanding their unmitigated and uncontrolled rapacity against the
depossessed mass of the ex-hereditary landholders, soon melted away under the pressure of the
Company, in order to be replaced by mercantile speculators who now hold all the land of Bengal, with
exception of the estates returned under the direct management of the Government. These speculators
have introduced a variety of the Zemindari tenure called patnee. Not content to be placed with regard
to the British Government in the situation of’ middlemen, they have created in their turn a class of
“hereditary” middlemen called patnetas, who created again their sub-patnetas, &c., so that a perfect
scale of hierarchy of middlemen has sprung up, which presses with its entire weight on the unfortunate
cultivator. As to the Ryots in Madras and Bombay, the system soon degenerated into one of forced
cultivation, and the land lost all its value.
“The land,” says Mr. Campbell, “would be sold for balances by the Collector, as in Bengal, but generally
is not, for a very good reason, viz.: that nobody will buy it.”
Thus, in Bengal, we have a combination of English landlordism, of the Irish middlemen system, of the
Austrian system, transforming the landlord into the tax-gatherer, and of the Asiatic system making the
State the real landlord. In Madras and Bombay we have a French peasant proprietor who is at the same
time a serf, and a métayer of the State. The drawbacks of all these various systems accumulate upon
him without his enjoying any of their redeeming features. The Ryot is subject, like the French peasant, to
the extortion of the private usurer; but he has no hereditary, no permanent title in his land, like the
French peasant. Like the serf’ he is forced to cultivation, but he is not secured against want like the serf.
Like the métayer he has to divide his produce with the State, but the State is not obliged, with regard to
him, to advance the funds and the stock, as it is obliged to do with regard to themétayer. In Bengal, as in
Madras and Bombay, under the Zemindari as under the Ryotwar, the Ryots-and they form 11-12ths of
the whole Indian population — have been wretchedly pauperized; and if they are, morally speaking, not
sunk as low as the Irish cottiers, they owe it to their climate, the men of the South being possessed of
less wants, and of more imagination than the men of the North.
Conjointly with the land-tax we have to consider the salt-tax. Notoriously the Company retain the
monopoly of that article which they sell at three times its mercantile value — and this in a country
where it is furnished by the sea, by the lakes, by the mountains and the earth itself. The practical
working of this monopoly was described by the Earl of Albemarle in the following words:
“A great proportion of the salt for inland consumption throughout the country is purchased from the
Company by large wholesale merchants at less than 4 rupees per maund; these mix a fixed proportion of
sand, chiefly got a few miles to the south-east of Dacca, and send the mixture to a second, or, counting
the Government as the first, to a third monopolist at about 5 or 6 rupees. This dealer adds more earth or
ashes, and thus passing through more bands, from the large towns to villages, the price is still raised
from 8 to 10 rupees and the proportion of adulteration from 25 to 40 per cent. *...+ It appears the ‘ n
that the people [...] pay from £21, 17s. 2d. to £27, 6s. 2d. for their salt, or in other words, from 30 to 36
times as much as the wealthy people of Great Britain.”
As an in stance of English bourgeois morals, I may allege, that Mr. Campbell defends the Opium
monopoly because it prevents the Chinese from consuming too much of the drug, and that he defends
the Brandy monopoly (licenses for spirit-selling in India) because it has wonderfully increased the
consumption of Brandy in India.
The Zemindar tenure, the Ryotwar, and the salt tax, combined with the Indian climate, were the hotbeds
of the cholera — India’s ravages upon the Western World — a striking and severe example of the
solidarity of human woes and wrongs.
Karl Marx
Karl Marx in The New-York Tribune 1853
In the House of Commons
Source: the New-York Daily Tribune, August 16, 1853;
Transcribed: by Tony Brown.
Abstract
London, Tuesday, Aug. 2, 1853
The India bill has passed on Friday through its last stage, after the Ministerial propositions for raising the
Directors’ and Chairmen’s salaries had been rejected, and the latter reduced to £900 and £1,000
respectively. The Special Court of East India Proprietors which met on Friday last, offered a most
lugubrious spectacle, the desponding cries and speeches clearly betraying the apprehensions of the
worthy proprietors, that the Indian Empire might have been their property for the better time. One right
honorable gentleman gave notice of his intention to move resolutions in the House of Commons
rejecting the present bill, and on the part of the Proprietors and Directors declining to accept the part
assigned to them by the Ministerial measure. A strike of the honorable East India Proprietors and
Directors. Very striking, indeed! The Abolition of the Company’s Salt-monopoly by the British House of
Commons was the first step to bringing the finances of India under its direct management.
Karl Marx in Neue Oder-Zeitung 1855
News from India
Source: the Neue Oder-Zeitung,, February 20, 1855;
Transcribed: by Andy Blunden.
Abstract
London, February 16.
The latest news from India is important because it describes the deplorable state of business in Calcutta
and Bombay. In the manufacturing districts the crisis is slowly but surely advancing. The owners of
spinning-mills of fine yarn in Manchester decided at a meeting held the day before yesterday only to
open their factories four days a week from February 26 and in the meantime to call on the
manufacturers in the surrounding area to follow their example. In the factories in Blackburn, Preston
and Bolton notice has already been given to the workers that there will henceforth only be “short time.”
The fact that in the past year many manufacturers have tried to force the markets by circumventing the
commission-houses and taking their export business into their own hands means that bankruptcies will
be all the larger in number and in size. The Manchester Guardian admitted last Wednesday that there
was overproduction not only of manufactured goods but also of factories.
Marked with the sign ×
END OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY AND BRITISH
EXPLOITATION, JULY 1853-AUGUST 1853
The Crimean War 1853 – 1855
Karl Marx and Frederick Engels 1853
Extracts from the New York Tribune on the Crimean War
From Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The Russian Menace to Europe, edited by Paul Blackstock and Bert
Hoselitz, and published by George Allen and Unwin, London, 1953, pp 121-202. Scanned and prepared
for the Marxist Internet Archive by Paul Flewers.
I
Originally published in New York Tribune, 7 April 1853.
Prince Mentschikoff, after reviewing the Russian forces stationed in the Danubian Principalities, and
after an inspection of the army and fleet at Sebastopol, where he caused manoeuvres of embarking and
disembarking troops to be executed under his own eyes, entered Constantinople in the most theatrical
style on 28 February, attended by a suite of twelve persons, including the Admiral of the Russian
squadron in the Black Sea, a General of Division, and several staff officers, with Count Nesselrode,
junior, as Secretary of the Embassy. He met with such a reception from the Greek and Russian
inhabitants as if he were the orthodox Tsar himself entering Tsarigrad to restore it to the true faith. An
enormous sensation was created here and at Paris by the news that Prince Mentschikoff, not satisfied
with the dismissal of Fuad Effendi, had demanded that the Sultan should abandon to the Emperor of
Russia not only the protection of all the Christians in Turkey, but also the right of nominating the Greek
Patriarch; that the Sultan had appealed to the protection of England and France; that Colonel Rose, the
British Envoy, had despatched the steamer Wasp in haste to Malta to request the immediate presence
of the English fleet in the Archipelago, and that Russian vessels had anchored at Kili, near the Bosphorus.
The Paris Moniteur informs us that the French Squadron at Toulon has been ordered to the Grecian
waters. Admiral Dundas, however, is still at Malta. From all this it is evident that the Eastern Question is
once more on the European ‘ordre du jour’, a fact not astonishing for those who are acquainted with
history.
Whenever the revolutionary hurricane has subsided for a moment, one ever-recurring question is sure
to turn up: the eternal ‘Eastern Question’. Thus, when the storms of the first French Revolution had
passed, and Napoleon and Alexander of Russia had divided, after the peace of Tilsit, the whole of
Continental Europe between themselves, Alexander profited by the momentary calm to march an army
into Turkey, and to ‘give a lift’ to the forces that were breaking up, from within, that decaying empire.
Again, no sooner had the revolutionary movements of Western Europe been quelled by the Congresses
of Laibach and Verona, than Alexander’s successor, Nicholas, made another dash at Turkey. When, a few
years later, the revolution of July, with its concomitant insurrections in Poland, Italy, Belgium, had had
its turn, and Europe, as remodelled in 1831, seemed out of reach of domestic squalls, the Eastern
Question in 1840 appeared on the point of embroiling the ‘Great Powers’ in a general war. And now,
when the short-sightedness of the ruling pigmies prides itself on having successfully freed Europe from
the dangers of anarchy and revolution, up starts again the everlasting topic, the never-failing difficulty:
What shall we do with Turkey?
Turkey is the living sore of European legitimacy. The impotency of legitimate, monarchical government,
ever since the first French Revolution, has resumed itself in the one axiom: Keep up the status
quo. A testimonium paupertatis, an acknowledgment of the universal incompetence of the ruling
powers, for any purpose of progress or civilisation, is seen in this universal agreement to stick to things
as by chance or accident they happen to be. Napoleon could dispose of a whole continent at a
moment’s notice; aye, and dispose of it, too, in a manner that showed both genius and fixedness of
purpose. The entire ‘collective wisdom’ of European legitimacy, assembled in Congress at Vienna, took a
couple of years to do the same job; got at loggerheads over it, made a very sad mess indeed of it, and
found it such a dreadful bore that ever since they have had enough of it, and have never tried their
hands again at parcelling out Europe. Myrmidons of mediocrity, as Beranger calls them; without
historical knowledge or insight into facts, without ideas, without initiative, they adore the status
quo they themselves have bungled together, knowing what a bungling and blundering piece of
workmanship it is.
But Turkey no more than the rest of the world remains stationary; and just when the reactionary party
has succeeded in restoring in civilised Europe what they consider to be the status quo ante, it is
perceived that in the meantime the status quo in Turkey has been very much altered; that new
questions, new relations, new interests have sprung up, and that the poor diplomatists have to begin
again where they were interrupted by a general earthquake some eight or ten years before. Keep up
the status quo in Turkey! Why, you might as well try to keep up the precise degree of putridity into
which the carcass of a dead horse has passed at a given time, before dissolution is complete. Turkey
goes on decaying, and will go on decaying as long as the present system of ‘balance of power’ and
maintenance of the status quo goes on; and in spite of congresses, protocols and ultimatums it will
produce its yearly quota of diplomatic difficulties and international squabbles quite as every other putrid
body will supply the neighbourhood with a due allowance of carburetted hydrogen and other well-
scented gaseous matter.
Let us look at the question at once. Turkey consists of three entirely distinct portions: the vassal
principalities of Africa, viz, Egypt and Tunis; Asiatic Turkey; and European Turkey. The African
possessions, of which Egypt alone may be considered as really subject to the Sultan, may be left for the
moment out of the question. Egypt belongs more to the English than to anybody else, and will and must
necessarily form their share in any future partition of Turkey. Asiatic Turkey is the real seat of whatever
strength there is in the empire; Asia Minor and Armenia, for four hundred years the chief abode of the
Turks, form the reserved ground from which the Turkish armies have been drawn, from those that
threatened the ramparts of Vienna, to those that dispersed before Diebitsch’s not very skilful
manoeuvres at Kulewtscha. Turkey in Asia, although thickly populated, yet forms too compact a mass of
Mussulman fanaticism and Turkish nationality to invite at present any attempts at conquest; and, in fact,
whenever the ‘Eastern Question’ is mooted, the only portions of this territory taken into consideration
are Palestine and the Christian valleys of the Lebanon.
The real point at issue always is Turkey in Europe – the great peninsula to the south of the Save and
Danube. This splendid territory has the misfortune to be inhabited by a conglomerate of different races
and nationalities, of which it is hard to say which is the least fit for progress and civilisation. Slavonians,
Greeks, Wallachians, Arnauts, twelve millions of men, are all held in submission by one million of Turks,
and up to a recent period, it appeared doubtful whether, of all these different races, the Turks were not
the most competent to hold the supremacy which, in such a mixed population, could not but accrue to
one of these nationalities. But when we see how lamentably have failed all attempts at civilisation by
Turkish authority – how the fanaticism of Islam, supported principally by the Turkish mob in a few great
cities, has availed itself of the assistance of Austria and Russia invariably to regain power and to overturn
any progress that might have been made; when we see the central, that is, Turkish, authority weakened
year after year by insurrections in the Christian provinces, none of which, thanks to the weakness of the
Porte and to the intervention of neighbouring states, is ever completely fruitless; when we see Greece
acquire her independence, parts of Armenia conquered by Russia – Moldavia, Wallachia, Serbia,
successively placed under the protectorate of the latter power – we shall be obliged to admit that the
presence of the Turks in Europe is a real obstacle to the development of the resources of the Thraco-
Illyrian Peninsula.
We can hardly describe the Turks as the ruling class of Turkey, because the relations of the different
classes of society there are as mixed up as those of the various races. The Turk is, according to localities
and circumstances, workman, farmer, small free-holder, trader, feudal landlord in the lowest and most
barbaric stage of feudalism, civil officer or soldier; but in all these different social positions he belongs to
the privileged creed and nation – he alone has the right to carry arms, and the highest Christian has to
give up the footpath to the lowest Moslem he meets. In Bosnia and the Herzegovina, the nobility, of
Slavonian descent, have passed over to Islam, while the mass of the people remain Rayahs, that is,
Christians. In this province then, the ruling creed and the ruling class are identified, as of course the
Moslem Bosnian is upon a level with his co-religionist of Turkish descent.
The principal power of the Turkish population in Europe, independently of the reserve always ready to
be drawn from Asia, lies in the mob of Constantinople and a few other large towns. It is essentially
Turkish, and though it finds its principal livelihood by doing jobs for Christian capitalists, it maintains
with great jealousy the imaginary superiority and real impunity for excesses which the privileges of Islam
confer upon it as compared with Christians. It is well known that this mob in every important coup
d'état has to be won over by bribes and flattery. It is this mob alone, with the exception of a few
colonised districts, which offers a compact and imposing mass of Turkish population in Europe. And
certainly there will be, sooner or later, an absolute necessity for freeing one of the finest parts of this
continent from the rule of a mob, compared with which the mob of Imperial Rome was an assemblage
of sages and heroes.
Among the other nationalities, we may dispose in a very few words of the Arnauts, a hardy aboriginal
mountain people, inhabiting the country sloping towards the Adriatic, speaking a language of their own,
which, however, appears to belong to the great Indo-European stock. They are partly Greek Christians,
partly Moslems, and, according to all we know of them, as yet very unprepared for civilisation. Their
predatory habits will force any neighbouring government to hold them in close military subjection, until
industrial progress in the surrounding districts shall find them employment as hewers of wood and
drawers of water; the same as has been the case with the Gallegas in Spain, and the inhabitants of
mountainous districts generally.
The Wallachians or Daco-Romans, the chief inhabitants of the district between the Lower Danube and
the Dniester, are a greatly mixed population, belonging to the Greek Church and speaking a language
derived from the Latin, and in many respects not unlike the Italian. Those of Transylvania and the
Bukowina belong to the Austrian, those of Bessarabia to the Russian Empire; those of Moldavia and
Wallachia, the only two principalities where the Daco-Roman race has acquired a political existence,
have princes of their own, under the nominal suzerainty of the Porte and the real dominion of Russia. Of
the Transylvanian Wallachians we heard much during the Hungarian War; hitherto oppressed by the
feudalism of Hungarian landlords who were, according to the Austrian system, made at the same time
the instruments of all government exactions, this brutalised mass was, in like manner as the Ruthenian
serfs of Galicia in 1846, won over by Austrian promises and bribes, and began that war of devastation
which has made a desert of Transylvania. The Daco-Romans of the Turkish Principalities have at least a
native nobility and political institutions; and in spite of all the efforts of Russia, the revolutionary spirit
has penetrated among them, as the insurrection of 1848 well proved. There can hardly be a doubt that
the exactions and hardships inflicted upon them during the Russian occupation since 1848 must have
raised this spirit still higher, in spite of the bond of common religion and Tsaro-Popish superstition which
has hitherto led them to look upon the Imperial chief of the Greek Church as their natural protector.
And if this is the case, the Wallachian nationality may yet play an important part in the ultimate disposal
of the territories in question.
The Greeks of Turkey are mostly of Slavonic descent, but have adopted the modern Hellenic language; in
fact, with the exception of a few noble families of Constantinople and Trebizond, it is now generally
admitted that very little pure Hellenic blood is to be found even in Greece. The Greeks, along with the
Jews, are the principal traders in the seaports and many inland towns. They are also tillers of the soil in
some districts. In all cases, neither their number, compactness, nor spirit of nationality, gives them any
political weight as a nation, except in Thessaly and perhaps Epirus. The influence held by a few noble
Greek families as dragomans (interpreters) in Constantinople is fast declining, since Turks have been
educated in Europe, and European legations have been provided with attachés who speak Turkish.
We now come to the race that forms the great mass of the population and whose blood is preponderant
wherever a mixture of races has occurred. In fact, it may be said to form the principal stock of the
Christian population from the Morea to the Danube, and from the Black Sea to the Arnaut Mountains.
This race is the Slavonic race, and more particularly that branch of it which is resumed under the name
of Illyrian (Ilirski), or South Slavonian (Yugoslavyanski). After the Western Slavonian (Polish and
Bohemian), and Eastern Slavonian (Russian), it forms the third branch of that numerous Slavonic family
which for the last twelve hundred years has occupied the East of Europe. These southern Slavonians
occupy not only the greater part of Turkey, but also Dalmatia, Croatia, Slavonia and the South of
Hungary. They all speak the same language, which is much akin to the Russian, and by far, to the
Western ears, the most musical of all Slavonic tongues. The Croatians and part of the Dalmatians are
Roman Catholics; all the remainder belong to the Greek Church. The Roman Catholics use the Latin
alphabet, but the followers of the Greek Church write their language in the Cyrillian character, which is
also used in the Russian and old Slavonic or Church language. This circumstance, combined with the
difference of religion, has contributed to retard any national development embracing the whole South
Slavonic territory. A man in Belgrade may not be able to read a book printed in his own language at
Agram or Petch, he may object even to take it up, on account of the ‘heterodox’ alphabet and
orthography used therein; while he will have little difficulty in reading and understanding a book printed
at Moscow in the Russian language, because the two idioms, particularly in the old Slavonic etymological
system of orthography, look very much alike, and because the book is printed in the ‘orthodox’
(pravoslavni) alphabet. The mass of the Greek Slavonians will not even have their Bible, liturgies and
prayer-books printed in their own country, because they are convinced that there is a peculiar
correctness and orthodoxy and odour of sanctity about anything printed in holy Moscow or in the
imperial printing establishment of St Petersburg. In spite of all the Panslavistic efforts of Agram and
Prague enthusiasts, the Servian, the Bulgarian, the Bosnian Rayah, the Slavonian peasant of Macedonia
and Thracia, has more national sympathy, more points of contact, more means of intellectual
intercourse with the Russian than with the Roman Catholic South Slavonian who speaks the same
language. Whatever may happen, he looks to St Petersburg for the advent of the Messiah who is to
deliver him from all evil; and if he calls Constantinople his Tsarigrad, or Imperial City, it is as much in
anticipation of the orthodox Tsar coming from the north and entering it to restore the true faith, as in
recollection of the orthodox Tsar who held it before the Turks overran the city.
Subjected in the greater part of Turkey to the direct rule of the Turk, but under local authorities of their
own choice, partly (in Bosnia) converted to the faith of the conqueror, the Slavonian race has, in that
country, maintained or conquered political existence in two localities. The one is Servia, the valley of the
Morava, a province with well-defined natural lines of frontier, which played an important part in the
history of these regions six hundred years ago. Subdued for a while by the Turks, the Russian War of
1809 gave it a chance of obtaining a separate existence, though under the Turkish supremacy. It has
remained ever since under the immediate protection of Russia. But, as in Moldavia and Wallachia,
political existence has brought new wants, and forced upon Servia an increased intercourse with
Western Europe. Civilisation began to take root, trade extended, new ideas sprang up, and thus we find
in the very heart and stronghold of Russian influence, in Slavonic or orthodox Servia, an anti-Russian
Progressive party (of course very modest in its demands of reform), headed by the ex-Minister of
Finances, Garaschanin.
There is no doubt that, should the Greco-Slavonian population ever obtain the mastery in the land which
it inhabits, and where it forms three-fourths of the whole population (seven millions), the same
necessities would by-and-by give birth to an anti-Russian Progressive party, the existence of which has
been hitherto the inevitable consequence of any portion of it having become semi-detached from
Turkey.
In Montenegro we have not a fertile valley with comparatively large cities, but a barren mountain
country difficult of access. Here a set of robbers have fixed themselves, scouring the plains, and storing
their plunder in their mountain fastnesses. These romantic but rather uncouth gentlemen have long
been a nuisance in Europe, and it is but in keeping with the policy of Russia and Austria that they should
stick up for the rights of the Black Mountain people (Tserno-Gorgi) to burn down villages, burn the
inhabitants, and carry off the cattle.
II
Originally published in New York Tribune, 11 April 1853.
In ancient Greece an orator who was paid to remain silent was said to have an ox on his
tongue. The ox, be it remarked, was a silver coin imported from Egypt. With regard to The Times, we
may say that, during the whole period of the revived Eastern Question, it also had an ox on its tongue, if
not for remaining silent, at least for speaking.
There is no doubt that the Russian bear will not draw in his paws until he is assured of a
momentary entente cordiale between England and France. Now mark the following wonderful
coincidence. On the very day when The Times was trying to persuade my lords Aberdeen and Clarendon
that the Turkish affair was a mere squabble between France and Russia, the roi des drôles, as Guizot
used to call him, M Granier de Cassagnac, happened to discover in the Constitutionnel that it was
nothing but a quarrel between Lord Palmerston and the Tsar. Truly, when we read these papers, we
understand the Greek orators with Macedonian oxen on their tongues at the times when Demosthenes
fulminated his Phillipics.
As for the British aristocracy, represented by the Coalition Ministry, they would, if need be, sacrifice the
national English interests to their particular class interests, and permit the consolidation of a juvenile
despotism in the East in the hopes of finding a support for their valetudinarian oligarchy in the West. As
to Louis Napoleon, he is hesitating. All his predilections are on the side of the autocrat whose system of
governing he has introduced into France; and all his antipathies are against England, whose
parliamentary system he has destroyed there. Besides, if he permits the Tsar’s plundering in the East,
the Tsar will perhaps permit him to plunder in the West. On the other hand, he is quite sure of the
feelings of the Holy Alliance with regard to the ‘parvenu Khan’. Accordingly he observes an ambiguous
policy, striving to dupe the great powers of Europe as he duped the parliamentary parties of the French
National Assembly. While fraternising ostentatiously with the English Ambassador for Turkey, Lord
Stratford de Redcliffe, he simultaneously cajoles the Russian Princess de Lieven with the most flattering
promises, and sends to the court of the Sultan M De la Cour, a warm advocate of an Austro-French
alliance, in contradistinction to an Anglo-French one. He orders the Toulon fleet to sail to the Grecian
waters, and then announces the day afterward, in the Moniteur, that this had been done without any
previous communication with England. While he orders one of his organs, the Pays, to treat the Eastern
Question as most important to France, he allows the statement of his other organ,
the Constitutionnel, that Russian, Austrian and English interests are at stake in this question, but that
France has only a very remote interest in it, and is therefore in a wholly independent position. Which
will outbid the other, Russia or England? That is the question with him.
III
Originally published in New York Tribune, 12 April 1853.
We are astonished that in the current discussion of the Oriental question the English journals have not
more boldly demonstrated the vital interests which should render Great Britain the earnest and
unyielding opponent of the Russian projects of annexation and aggrandisement. England cannot afford
to allow Russia to become the possessor of the Dardanelles and Bosphorus. Both commercially and
politically such an event would be a deep if not a deadly blow at British power. This will appear from a
simple statement of facts as to her trade with Turkey.
Before the discovery of the direct route to India, Constantinople was the mart of an extensive
commerce; and even now, though the products of India find their way into Europe by the overland route
through Persia, Teheran and Turkey, yet the Turkish ports carry a very important and rapidly increasing
traffic both with Europe and the interior of Asia. To understand this it is only necessary to look at the
map. From the Black Forest to the sandy heights of Novgorod Veliki, the whole inland country is drained
by rivers flowing into the Black or Caspian Seas. The Danube and the Volga, the two giant rivers of
Europe, the Dniester, Dnieper and Don, all form so many natural channels for the carriage of inland
produce to the Black Sea – for the Caspian itself is only accessible through the Black Sea. Two-thirds of
Europe – that is, a part of Germany and Poland, all Hungary, and the most fertile parts of Russia, besides
Turkey in Europe – are thus naturally referred to the Euxine for the export and exchange of their
produce; and the more so as all these countries are essentially agricultural, and the great bulk of their
products must always make water carriage the predominant means of transport. The corn of Hungary,
Poland, Southern Russia, the wool and the hides of the same countries, appear in yearly increasing
quantities in our Western markets, and they are all shipped at Galatz, Odessa, Taganrog and other
Euxine ports. Then there is another important branch of trade carried on in the Black Sea.
Constantinople and particularly Trebizond in Asiatic Turkey are the chief marts of the caravan trade to
the interior of Asia, to the valley of the Euphrates and Tigris, to Persia and Turkestan. This trade, too, is
rapidly increasing. The Greek and Armenian merchants of the two towns just named import large
quantities of English manufactured goods, the low price of which is rapidly superseding the domestic
industry of the Asiatic harems. Trebizond is better situated for such trade than any other point. It has in
its rear the hills of Armenia, which are far less impassable than the Syrian desert, and it lies at a
convenient proximity to Bagdad, Schiraz and Teheran, which latter place serves as an intermediate mart
for the caravans from Khiva and Bokhara. How important this trade, and the Black Sea trade generally, is
becoming may be seen at the Manchester Exchange, where dark-complexioned Greek buyers are
increasing in numbers and importance, and where Greek and South Slavonian dialects are heard along
with German and English.
The trade of Trebizond is also becoming a matter of most serious political consideration, as it has been
the means of bringing the interests of Russia and England anew into conflict in inner Asia. The Russians
had, up to 1840, an almost exclusive monopoly of the trade in foreign manufactured goods to that
region. Russian goods were found to have made their way, and, in some instances, even to be preferred
to English goods, as far down as the Indus. Up to the time of the Afghan War, the conquest of Sindh and
the Punjab, it may be safely asserted that the trade of England with inner Asia was nearly nil. The fact is
now different. The supreme necessity of a never-ceasing expansion of trade – the fatum which spectre-
like haunts modern England, and, if not appeased at once, brings on these terrible revulsions which
vibrate from New York to Canton, and from St Petersburg to Sidney – this inflexible necessity has caused
the interior of Asia to be attacked from two sides by English trade: from the Indus and from the Black
Sea; and although we know very little of the exports of Russia to that part of the world, we may safely
conclude from the increase of English exports to that quarter that the Russian trade in that direction
must have sensibly fallen off. The commercial battlefield between England and Russia has been removed
from the Indus to Trebizond, and the Russian trade, formerly venturing out as far as the limits of
England’s Eastern Empire, is now reduced to the defensive on the very verge of its own line of custom-
houses. The importance of this fact with regard to any future solution of the Eastern Question, and to
the part which both England and Russia may take in it, is evident. They are, and always must be,
antagonists in the East.
But let us come to a more definite estimate of the Black Sea trade. According to The London
Economist, the British exports to the Turkish dominions, including Egypt and the Danubian Principalities,
were:
In 1840 – £1,440,592
In 1842 – £2,068,342
In 1844 – £3,271,333
In 1846 – £2,707,571
In 1848 – £3,626,241
In 1850 – £3,762,480
In 1851 – £3,548,595
Of these amounts, at least, two-thirds must have gone to ports in the Black Sea, including
Constantinople. And all this rapidly increasing trade depends upon the confidence that may be placed in
the power which rules the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus, the keys to the Black Sea. Whoever holds
these can open and shut at his pleasure the passage into this last recess of the Mediterranean. Let
Russia once come into possession of Constantinople, who will expect her to keep open the door by
which England has invaded her commercial domain?
So much for the commercial importance of Turkey, and especially the Dardanelles. It is evident that not
only a very large trade, but the principal intercourse of Europe with Central Asia, and, consequently, the
principal means of re-civilising that vast region, depends upon the uninterrupted liberty of trading
through these gates to the Black Sea.
Now for the military considerations. The commercial importance of the Dardanelles and Bosphorus at
once makes them first-rate military positions; that is, positions of decisive influence in any war. Such a
point is Gibraltar, and such is Helsingor on the Sound. But the Dardanelles are, from the nature of their
locality, even more important. The cannons of Gibraltar or Helsingor cannot command the whole of the
strait on which they are situated, and they require the assistance of a fleet in order to close it; while the
narrowness of the strait at the Dardanelles and of the Bosphorus is such that a few properly erected and
well-armed fortifications, such as Russia, once in possession, would not tarry an hour to erect, might
defy the combined fleets of the world if they attempted a passage. In that case, the Black Sea would be
more properly a Russian Lake than even the Lake of Ladoga, situated in its very heart. The resistance of
the Caucasians would be starved out at once; Trebizond would be a Russian port; the Danube a Russian
river. Besides, when Constantinople is taken, the Turkish Empire is cut in two. Asiatic and European
Turkey have no means of communicating with or supporting each other; and while the strength of the
Turkish army, repulsed into Asia, is utterly harmless, Macedonia, Thessaly, Albania, outflanked and cut
off from the main body, will not put the conqueror to the trouble of subduing them; they will have
nothing left but to beg for mercy and for an army to maintain internal order.
But having come thus far on the way to universal empire, is it probable that this gigantic and swollen
power will pause in its career? Circumstances, if not her own will, forbid it. With the annexation of
Turkey and Greece she has excellent seaports, while the Greeks furnish skilful sailors for her navy. With
Constantinople, she stands on the threshold of the Mediterranean; with Durazzo and the Albanian coast
from Antivari to Arta, she is in the very centre of the Adriatic; within sight of the British Ionian Islands,
and within thirty-six hours’ steaming of Malta. Flanking the Austrian dominions on the north, east and
south, Russia will already count the Hapsburgs among her vassals. And then, another question is
possible, is even probable. The broken and undulating western frontier of the Empire, ill-defined in
respect of natural boundaries, would call for rectification; and it would appear that the natural frontier
of Russia runs from Dantsic, or perhaps Stettin, to Trieste. And as sure as conquest follows conquest,
and annexation follows annexation, so sure would the conquest of Turkey by Russia be only the prelude
for the annexation of Hungary, Prussia, Galicia, and for the ultimate realisation of the Slavonic Empire
which certain fanatical Panslavistic philosophers have dreamed of.
Russia is decidedly a conquering nation, and was so for a century, until the great movement of 1789
called into potent activity an antagonist of formidable nature. We mean the European Revolution, the
explosive force of democratic ideas and man’s native thirst for freedom. Since that epoch there have
been in reality but two powers on the continent of Europe – Russia and Absolutism, the Revolution and
Democracy. For the moment the Revolution seems to be suppressed, but it lives and is feared as deeply
as ever. Witness the terror of the reaction at the news of the late rising at Milan. But let Russia get
possession of Turkey, and her strength is increased nearly half, and she becomes superior to all the rest
of Europe put together. Such an event would be an unspeakable calamity to the revolutionary cause.
The maintenance of Turkish independence, or, in case of a possible dissolution of the Ottoman Empire,
the arrest of the Russian scheme of annexation, is a matter of the highest moment. In this instance the
interests of the revolutionary Democracy and of England go hand in hand. Neither can permit the Tsar to
make Constantinople one of his capitals, and we shall find that when driven to the wall, the one will
resist him as determinedly as the other.
IV
Originally published in New York Tribune, 19 April 1853.
It is only of late that people in the west of Europe and in America have been enabled to form anything
like a correct judgement of Turkish affairs. Up to the Greek insurrection Turkey was, to all intents and
purposes, a terra incognita, and the common notions floating about among the public were based more
upon the Arabian Nights’ Entertainment than upon any historical facts. Official diplomatic functionaries,
having been on the spot, boasted amore accurate knowledge; but this, too, amounted to nothing, as
none of these officials ever troubled himself to learn Turkish, South Slavonian or modern Greek, and
they were one and all dependent upon the interested accounts of Greek interpreters and Frank
merchants. Besides, intrigues of every sort were always on hand to occupy the time of these lounging
diplomatists, among whom Joseph von Hammer, the German historian of Turkey, forms the only
honourable exception. The business of these gentlemen was not with the people, the institutions, the
social state of the country: it was exclusively with the court, and especially with the Fanariote Greeks,
wily mediators between two parties, either of which was equally ignorant of the real condition, power
and resources of the other. The traditional notions and opinions, founded upon such paltry information,
formed for a long while and, strange to say, form to a great extent, even now, the groundwork for all the
action of Western diplomacy with regard to Turkey.
But while England, France and, for a long time, even Austria, were groping in the dark for a defined
Eastern policy, another power outwitted them all. Russia, herself semi-Asiatic, in her condition,
manners, traditions and institutions, found men enough who could comprehend the real state and
character of Turkey. Her religion was the same as that of nine-tenths of the inhabitants of Turkey in
Europe; her language almost identical with that of seven millions of Turkish subjects; and the well-
known facility with which a Russian learns to converse in, if not fully to appropriate, a foreign tongue
made it an easy matter for her agents, well paid for the task, to acquaint themselves completely with
Turkish affairs. Thus at a very early period the Russian government availed itself of its exceedingly
favourable position in the south-east of Europe. Hundreds of Russian agents perambulated Turkey,
pointing out to the Greek Christians the orthodox Emperor as the head, the natural protector and the
ultimate liberator of the oppressed Eastern Church, and to the South Slavonians especially, pointing out
that same emperor as the almighty Tsar, who was sooner or later to unite all the branches of the great
Slav race under one sceptre, and to make them the ruling race of Europe. The clergy of the Greek
Church very soon formed themselves into a vast conspiracy for the spread of these ideas. The Servian
insurrection of 1809, the Greek rising in 1821, were more or less directly urged on by Russian gold and
Russian influence; and wherever among the Turkish pashas the standard of revolt was raised against the
Central government Russian intrigues and Russian funds were never wanting; and when thus internal
Turkish questions had entirely perplexed the understanding of Western diplomatists, who knew
no more about the real subject than about the man in the moon, then war was declared, Russian armies
marched towards the Balkans, and portion by portion the Ottoman Empire was dismembered.
It is true that during the last thirty years much has been done towards general enlightenment
concerning the state of Turkey. German philologists and critics have made us acquainted with its history
and literature; English residents and English trade have collected a great deal of information as to the
social condition of the Empire. But the diplomatic wiseacres seem to scorn all this, and to cling as
obstinately as possible to the traditions engendered by the study of Eastern fairy-tales, improved upon
by the no less wonderful accounts given by the most corrupt set of Greek mercenaries that ever existed.
And what has been the natural result? That in all essential points Russia has steadily, one after another,
gained her ends, thanks to the ignorance, dullness and consequent inconsistency and cowardice of
Western governments. From the battle of Navarino to the present Eastern crisis, the action of the
Western powers has either been annihilated by squabbles among themselves – mostly arising from their
common ignorance of Eastern matters, and from petty jealousies which must have been entirely
incomprehensible to any Eastern understanding – or that action has been in the direct interest of Russia
alone. And not only do the Greeks, both of Greece and Turkey, and the Slavonians, look to Russia as
their natural protector; nay, even the government at Constantinople, despairing, time after time, to
make its actual wants and real position understood by these Western ambassadors, who pride
themselves upon their own utter incompetency to judge by their own eyes of Turkish matters, this very
Turkish government has, in every instance, been obliged to throw itself upon the mercy of Russia, and to
seek protection from that power which openly avows its firm intention to drive every Turk across the
Bosphorus, and plant the cross of St Andrew upon the minarets of the Aya-Sofiyah.
In spite of diplomatic tradition, these constant and successful encroachments of Russia have at last
roused in the Western cabinets of Europe a very dim and distant apprehension of the approaching
danger. This apprehension has resulted in the great diplomatic nostrum, that the maintenance of
the status quo in Turkey is a necessary condition of the peace of the world. The magniloquent incapacity
of certain modern statesmen could not have confessed its ignorance and helplessness more plainly than
in this axiom which, from always having remained a dead letter, has, during the short period of twenty
years, been hallowed by tradition, and become as hoary and indisputable as King John’s Magna Carta.
Maintain the status quo! Why, it was precisely to maintain the status quo that Russia stirred up Servia to
revolt, made Greece independent, appropriated to herself the protectorate of Moldavia and Wallachia,
and retained part of Armenia! England and France never stirred an inch when all this was done, and the
only time they did move was to protect, in 1849, not Turkey, but the Hungarian refugees. In the eyes of
European diplomacy, and even of the European press, the whole Eastern Question resolves itself into
this dilemma; either the Russians at Constantinople, or the maintenance of the status quo – anything
besides this alternative never enters their thoughts.
Look at the London press for illustration. We find The Times advocating the dismemberment of Turkey,
and proclaiming the unfitness of the Turkish race to govern any longer in that beautiful corner of
Europe. Skilful, as usual,The Times boldly attacks the old diplomatic tradition of the status quo, and
declares its continuance impossible. The whole of the talent at the disposal of that paper is exerted to
show this impossibility under different aspects, and to enlist British sympathies for a new crusade
against the remnant of the Saracens. The merit of such an unscrupulous attack upon a time-hallowed
and unmeaning phrase which two months ago was as yet sacred to The Timesis undeniable. But
whoever knows that paper knows also that this unwonted boldness is applied directly in the interest of
Russia and Austria. The correct premises put forth in its columns as to the utter impossibility of
maintaining Turkey in its present state serve no other purpose than to prepare the British public and the
world for the moment when the principal paragraph of the will of Peter the Great – the conquest of the
Bosphorus – will have become an accomplished fact.
The opposite opinion is represented by The Daily News, the organ of the Liberals. The Times, at least,
seizes a new and correct feature of the question, in order afterwards to pervert it to an interested
purpose. In the columns of the Liberal journal, on the other hand, reigns the plainest sense, but merely a
sort of household sense. Indeed, it does not see farther than the very threshold of its own house. It
clearly perceives that a dismemberment of Turkey under the present circumstances must bring the
Russians to Constantinople, and that this would be a great misfortune for England; that it would
threaten the peace of the world, ruin the Black Sea trade, and necessitate new armaments in the British
stations and fleets of the Mediterranean. And in consequence The Daily News exerts itself to arouse the
indignation and fear of the British public. Is not the partition of Turkey a crime equal to the partition of
Poland? Have not the Christians more religious liberty in Turkey than in Austria and Russia? Is not the
Turkish government a mild, paternal government, which allows the different nations and creeds and
local corporations to regulate their own affairs? Is not Turkey a paradise compared with Austria and
Russia? Are not life and property safe there? And is not British trade with Turkey larger than that with
Austria and Russia put together, and does it not increase every year? And then goes on in dithyrambic
strain, so far as The Daily News can be dithyrambic, with an apotheosis of Turkey, the Turks and
everything Turkish, which must appear quite incomprehensible to most of its readers.
The key to this strange enthusiasm for the Turks is to be found in the works of David Urquhart, Esq, MP.
This gentleman, of Scotch birth, with mediaeval and patriarchal recollections of home, and with a
modem British civilised education, after having fought three years in Greece against the Turks, passed
into their country and was the first thus to enamour himself of them. The romantic Highlander found
himself at home again in the mountain ravines of the Pindus and Balkans, and his works on Turkey,
although full of valuable information, may be summed up in the following three paradoxes, which are
laid down almost literally thus: If Mr Urquhart were not a British subject, he would decidedly prefer
being a Turk; if he were not a Presbyterian Calvinist, he would not belong to any other religion than
Islamism; and thirdly, Britain and Turkey are the only two countries in the world which enjoy self-
government and civil and religious liberty. This same Urquhart has since become the great Eastern
authority for all English Liberals who object to Palmerston, and it is he who supplies The Daily News with
the materials for these panegyrics upon Turkey.
The only argument which deserves a moment’s notice upon this side of the question is this: ‘It is said
that Turkey is decaying; but where is the decay? Is not civilisation rapidly spreading in Turkey and trade
extending? Where you see nothing but decay our statistics prove nothing but progress.’ Now it would be
a great fallacy to put down the increasing Black Sea trade to the credit of Turkey alone; and yet this is
done here, exactly as if the industrial and commercial capabilities of Holland, the high road to the
greater part of Germany, were to be measured by her gross exports and imports, nine-tenths of which
represent a mere transit. And yet, what every statistician would immediately, in the case of Holland,
treat as a clumsy concoction, the whole of the Liberal press of England, including the learned Economist,
tries, in the case of Turkey, to impose upon public credulity. And then, who are the traders in Turkey?
Certainly not the Turks. Their way of promoting trade, when they were yet in their original nomadic
state, consisted in robbing caravans; and now that they are a little more civilised it consists in all sorts of
arbitrary and oppressive exactions. Remove all the Turks out of Europe, and trade will have no reason to
suffer. And as to progress in general civilisation, who are they that carry out that progress in all parts of
European Turkey? Not the Turks, for they are few and far between, and can hardly be said to be settled
anywhere except in Constantinople and two or three small country districts. It is the Greek and Slavonic
middle class in all the towns and trading posts who are the real support of whatever civilisation is
effectually imported into the country. That part of the population is constantly rising in wealth and
influence, and the Turks are more and more driven into the background. Were it not for their monopoly
of civil and military power they would soon disappear. But that monopoly has become impossible for
the future, and their power is turned into impotence except for obstructions in the way of progress. The
fact is, they must be got rid of. To say that they cannot be got rid of except by putting Russians and
Austrians in their place means as much as to say that the present political constitution of Europe will last
for ever. Who will make such an assertion?
V
Originally published in New York Tribune, 9 June 1853.
On Saturday last dispatches were received by telegraph from Brussels and Paris with news from
Constantinople to 13 May. Immediately after their arrival a Cabinet Council was held at the Foreign
Office, which sat three hours and a half. On the same day orders were sent by telegraph to the
Admiralty at Portsmouth, directing the departure of two steam-frigates – the London, 90,
and Sanspareil, 71 – from Spithead for the Mediterranean. The High-flyer steam-frigate, 21,
and Oden steam-frigate, 16, are also under orders for sea.
What were the contents of these dispatches which threw the ministers into so sudden an activity, and
interrupted the quiet dullness of England?
You know that the question of the Holy Shrines had been settled to the satisfaction of Russia; and,
according to the assurances of the Russian Embassy at Paris and London, Russia asked for no other
satisfaction than a priority share in those Holy Places. The objects of Russian diplomacy were merely of
such a chivalric character as were those of Frederic Barbarossa and Richard Coeur de Lion. This, at least,
we were told by The Times.
But [says the Journal des Débats] on 5 May the Russian steam-frigate Bessarabia arrived from Odessa,
having on board a Russian colonel with dispatches from Prince Mentschikoff; and on Saturday, 7th inst,
the Prince handed to the Ministers of the Porte the draft of a convention or special treaty in which the
new demands and pretensions were set forth. This is the document called the ultimatum, since it was
accompanied by a very brief note, fixing Tuesday, 10 May, as the last day on which the refusal or
acceptance of the Divan could be received. The note terminated in nearly the following words: ‘If the
Sublime Porte should think proper to respond by refusal, the Emperor would be compelled to see in that
act a complete want of respect for his person, and for Russia, and would receive intelligence of it
with profound regret.’
The principal object of this treaty was to secure to the Emperor of Russia the Protectorate of all Greek
Christians subject to the Porte. By the Treaty of Kutchuk-Kainardji, concluded at the close of the
eighteenth century, a Greek chapel was allowed to be erected at Constantinople, and the privilege was
granted to the Russian Embassy of interfering in cases of collision between the priests of that chapel and
the Turks. This privilege was confirmed again in the Treaty of Adrianople. What Prince Mentschikoff now
demands is the conversion of the exceptional privilege into the general Protectorate of the whole Greek
Church in Turkey, that is, of the vast majority of the population of Turkey in Europe. Besides, he asks
that the Patriarchs of Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria and Jerusalem, as well as the Metropolitan
Archbishops, shall be immovable, unless proved guilty of high treason (against the Russians), and then
only upon the consent of the Tsar; in other words, he demands the resignation of the Sultan’s
sovereignty into the hands of Russia.
This was the news brought by the telegraph on Saturday; firstly, that Prince Mentschikoff had granted a
further delay – until 14th inst – for the answer to his ultimatum; that then a change in the Turkish
Ministry ensued, Reschid Pasha, the antagonist of Russia, being appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs,
and Fuad Effendi reinstated in his office; lastly, that the Russian ultimatum had been rejected.
It would have been impossible for Russia to make more extensive demands upon Turkey after a series of
signal victories. This is the best proof of the obstinacy with which she clings to her inveterate notion –
that every interregnum of the counter-revolution in Europe constitutes a right for her to exact
concessions from the Ottoman Empire. And, indeed, since the first French Revolution Continental
retrogression has ever been identical with Russian progress in the East. But Russia is mistaken in
confounding the present state of Europe with its condition after the congresses of Laibach and Verona,
or even after the peace of Tilsit. Russia herself is more afraid of the revolution that must follow any
general war on the Continent than the Sultan is afraid of the aggression of the Tsar. If the other powers
hold firm, Russia is sure to retire in a very decent manner. Yet, be this as it may, her late manoeuvres
have, at all events, imparted a mighty impetus to the elements engaged in disorganising Turkey from
within. The only question is this: does Russia act on her own free impulse, or is she but the unconscious
and reluctant slave of the modern fatum, Revolution? I believe the latter alternative.
VI
Originally published in New York Tribune, 14 June 1853.
Admiral Corry’s fleet has been seen in the Bay of Biscay on the way to Malta, where it is to reinforce the
squadron of Admiral Dundas. The Morning Herald justly observes: ‘Had Admiral Dundas been permitted
to join the French squadron at Salamis, several weeks ago, the present state of affairs would be quite
different.’
Should Russia attempt, were it only for the salvation of appearances to back up the ridiculous
demonstrations of Mentschikoff by actual manoeuvres of war, her first two steps would probably
consist in the reoccupation of the Danubian Principalities, and in the invasion of the Armenian province
of Kars and the port of Batum, territories which she made every effort to secure by the Treaty of
Adrianople. The port of Batum being the only safe refuge for ships in the eastern part of the Black Sea,
its possession would deprive Turkey of her last naval station in the Pontus and make the latter an
exclusively Russian Sea. This port added to the possession of Kars, the richest and best cultivated
portion of Armenia, would enable Russia to cut off the commerce of England with Persia by way of
Trebizond, and afford a basis of operations against the latter power, as well as against Asia Minor. If,
however, England and France hold firm, Nicholas will no more carry out his projects in that quarter, than
the Empress Catherine carried out hers against Aga Mahmed, when he commanded his slaves to drive
the Russian Ambassador Voinovitch and his companions with scourges to their ships, away from
Asterabad.
In no quarter did the latest news create greater consternation than in Printing-House Square. The first
attempt made by The Times to lift up its head under the terrible blow was a desperate diatribe against
the electric telegraph, that ‘most extraordinary’ instrument. ‘No correct conclusions could be drawn’, it
exclaimed, ‘from that mendacious wire.’ Having thus laid its own incorrect conclusions to the fault of the
electric wire, The Times, after the statement of Ministers in Parliament, endeavours now also to get rid
of its ancient ‘correct’ promises. It says:
Whatever may be the ultimate fate of the Ottoman Empire, or rather of that Mohammedan power
which has ruled it for four centuries, there can be no difference of opinion between all parties in this
country and in Europe, that the gradual progress of the indigenous Christian population towards
civilisation and independent government is the interest of the world, and that these races of men ought
never to be suffered to fall under the yoke of Russia and to swell her gigantic dominions. On that point
we confidently hope, that the resistance offered to these pretensions of Russia, would be not only that
of Turkey, but of all Europe; and this spirit of annexation and aggrandisement needs but to display itself
in its true shape to excite universal antipathy and an insurmountable opposition, in which the Greek and
Slavonian subjects of Turkey are themselves prepared to take a great part.
How did it happen that the poor Times believed in the ‘good faith’ of Russia towards Turkey, and her
‘antipathy’ against all aggrandisement? The good will of Russia towards Turkey! Peter I proposed to
raise himself on the ruins of Turkey. Catherine persuaded Austria, and called upon France, to participate
in the proposed dismemberment of Turkey, and the establishment of a Greek Empire at Constantinople,
under her grandson who had been educated and even named with a view to this result. Nicholas, more
moderate, only demands the exclusive Protectorate of Turkey. Mankind will not forget that Russia was
the protector of Poland, the protector of the Crimea, the protector of Courland, the protector of Georgia,
Mingrelia, the Circassian and Caucasian tribes. And now Russia, the protector of Turkey! As to Russia’s
antipathy against aggrandisement, I allege the following facts from a mass of the acquisitions of Russia
since Peter the Great.
The Russian frontier has advanced:
Towards Berlin, Dresden and Vienna – about 700 miles.
Towards Constantinople – 500 miles.
Towards Stockholm – 630 miles.
Towards Teheran – 1000 miles.
Russia’s acquisitions from Sweden are greater than what remains of that kingdom; from Poland, nearly
equal to the Austrian Empire; from Turkey in Europe, greater than Prussia (exclusive of the Rhenish
Provinces); from Turkey in Asia, as large as the whole dominion of Germany proper; from Persia, equal
to England; from Tartary, to an extent as large as European Turkey, Greece, Italy and Spain, taken
together. The total acquisitions of Russia during the last sixty years are equal in extent and importance
to the whole Empire she had in Europe before that time.
VII
Originally published in New York Tribune, 22 June 1853.
All the Russian Generals and other Russians residing at Paris have received orders to return to Russia
without delay. The language adopted by M de Kisseleff, the Russian envoy at Paris, is rather menacing;
and letters from Petersburg are ostentatiously shown by him, in which the Turkish question is
treated assez cavalièrement. A rumour has issued from the same quarter, reporting that Russia
demands from Persia the cession of the territory of Asterabad, at the south-eastern extremity of the
Caspian Sea. Russian merchants, at the same time, despatch, or are reported to have despatched, orders
to their London agents ‘not to press any sales of grain at the present juncture, as prices were expected
to rise in the imminent eventuality of a war’. Lastly, confidential hints are being communicated to every
newspaper that the Russian troops are marching to the frontier; that the inhabitants of Jassy are
preparing for their reception; that the Russian Consul at Galatz has brought up an immense number of
trees for the throwing of several bridges across the Danube, and other canards, the breeding of which
has been so successfully carried on by the Augsburger Zeitung and other Austro-Russian journals.
These, and a lot of similar reports, communications, etc, are nothing but so many ridiculous attempts on
the part of the Russian agents to strike a wholesome terror into the Western world, and to push it to the
continuance of that policy of extension, under the cover of which Russia hopes, as heretofore, to carry
out her projects upon the East...
Notwithstanding all these soporifics, administered by Russian diplomacy to the press and people of
England, ‘that old and obstinate’ Aberdeen has been compelled to order Admiral Dundas to join the
French fleet on the coast of Turkey; and even The Times, which, during the last few months, knew only
how to write Russian, seems to have received a more English inspiration. It talks now very big...
VIII
Originally published in New York Tribune, 8 July 1853.
In the year 1828, when Russia was permitted to overrun Turkey with war, and to terminate that war by
the Treaty of Adrianople, which surrendered to her the whole of the eastern coast of the Black Sea, from
Anapa in the north to Poti in the south (except Circassia), and delivered into her possession the islands
at the mouth of the Danube, virtually separated Moldavia and Wallachia from Turkey, and placed them
under Russian supremacy – at that epoch Lord Aberdeen happened to be Minister of Foreign Affairs
in Great Britain. In 1853 we find the very same Aberdeen as the chief of the ‘Composite Ministry’ in the
same country. This simple fact goes far to explain the overbearing attitude assumed by Russia in her
present conflict with Turkey and with Europe.
I told you in my last letter that the storm aroused by the revelations of The Press, respecting the secret
transactions between Aberdeen, Clarendon and Baron Brunnow, was not likely to subside under the
hair-splitting, tortuous and disingenuous pleading of Thursday’s Times. The Times was even then forced
to admit, in a semi-official article, that Lord Clarendon had indeed given his assent to the demands
about to be made by Russia on the Porte, but said that the demands as represented in London, and
those actually proposed at Constantinople, had turned out to be of quite a different tenor, although the
papers communicated by Baron Brunnow to the British Minister purported to be ‘literal extracts’ from
the instructions forwarded to Prince Mentschikoff. On the following Saturday, however, The
Times retracted its assertions – undoubtedly in consequence of remonstrances made on the part of the
Russian Embassy – and gave Baron Brunnow a testimonial of ‘perfect candour and faith’. The Morning
Herald of yesterday puts the question ‘whether Russia had not perhaps given false instructions to Baron
Brunnow himself, in order to deceive the British Minister’. In the meantime, fresh disclosures, studiously
concealed from the public by a corrupt daily press, have been made, which exclude any such
interpretation, throwing the whole blame on the shoulders of the ‘Composite Ministry’, and quite
sufficient to warrant the impeachment of Lords Aberdeen and Clarendon before any other parliament
than the present, which is but a paralytic product of dead constituencies artificially stimulated into life
by unexampled bribery and intimidation.
It is stated that a communication was made to Lord Clarendon, wherein he was informed that the affair
of the Shrines was not the sole object of the Russian Prince. In that communication the general question
was entered into, the question of the Greek Christians of Turkey and of the position of the Emperor of
Russia with respect to them under certain treaties. All these points were canvassed, and the course
about to be adopted by Russia explicitly stated – the same as detailed in the projected Convention of 6
May. Lord Clarendon, with the assent of Lord Aberdeen, in no wise either disapproved or discouraged
that course. While matters stood thus in London, Bonaparte sent his fleet to Salamis, public opinion
pressed from without, Ministers were interpellated in both Houses, Russell pledged himself to the
maintenance of the integrity and independence of Turkey, and Prince Mentschikoff threw off the mask
at Constantinople. It now became necessary for Lords Aberdeen and Clarendon to initiate the other
Ministers into what had been done, and the Coalition was on the eve of being broken up, as Lord
Palmerston, forced by his antecedents, urged a directly opposite line of policy. In order to prevent the
dissolution of his Cabinet, Lord Aberdeen finally yielded to Lord Palmerston, and consented to the
combined action of the English and French fleets in the Dardanelles. But at the same time, in order to
fulfil his engagements towards Russia, Lord Aberdeen intimated through a private despatch to St
Petersburg that he would not look upon the occupation of the Danubian Principalities by the Russians as
a casus belli and The Times received orders to prepare public opinion for this new interpretation of
international treaties...
The dissension in the camp of the Coalition Ministry has thus been betrayed to the public by the
clamorous dissension in their organs. Palmerston urged upon the Cabinet to hold the occupation of
Moldavia and Wallachia as a declaration of war, and he was backed up by the Whig and sham-Radical
members of the Composite Ministry. Lord Aberdeen, having only consented to the common action of
the French and English fleets upon the understanding that Russia would not act at the Dardanelles, but
in the Danubian Provinces, was now quite ‘outwitted’. The existence of the government was again at
stake. At last, at the pressing instances of Lord Aberdeen, Palmerston was prepared to give a sullen
assent to the unchallenged occupation of the Principalities by Russia, when suddenly a despatch arrived
from Paris announcing that Bonaparte had resolved to view the same act as a casus belli. The confusion
has now reached its highest point.
Now, if this statement be correct – and from our knowledge of Lord Aberdeen’s past there is every
reason to consider it as such – the whole mystery of the Russo-Turkish tragi-comedy that has occupied
Europe for months together is laid bare. We understand at once why Lord Aberdeen would not move
the British fleet from Malta. We understand the rebuke given to Colonel Rose for his resolute conduct at
Constantinople, the bullying behaviour of Prince Mentschikoff, and the heroic firmness of the Tsar, who,
conceiving the warlike movements of England as a mere farce, would have been glad to be allowed, by
the uncontroverted occupation of Moldavia and Wallachia, not only to withdraw from the stage as the
‘master’, but to hold his annual grand manoeuvres at the cost and expense of the subjects of the Sultan.
We believe that, if war should break out, it will be because Russia has gone too far to withdraw with
impunity to her honour; and above all, we believe her courage to be up to this notch simply because she
has all the while counted on England’s connivance...
IX
Originally published in New York Tribune, 25 July 1853.
A despatch from Constantinople, dated 26th ult [June], states:
The Sultan, in consequence of the rumours that the whole Russian fleet has left Sebastopol and is
directing its course towards the Bosphorus, has inquired of the Ambassadors of England and France
whether, in the event of the Russians making a demonstration before the Bosphorus, the combined
fleets are ready to pass the Dardanelles. Both answered in the affirmative. A Turkish steamer, with
French and English officers on board, has just been sent from the Bosphorus to the Black Sea in order
to reconnoitre.
The first thing the Russians did, after their entry into the Principalities, was to prohibit the publication of
the Sultan’s firman, confirming the privileges of all kinds of Christians, and to suppress a German paper,
edited at Bucharest, which had dared to publish an article on the Eastern question. At the same time,
they pressed from the Turkish government the first annuity stipulated for in their former occupation of
Moldavia and Wallachia, in 1848-49. Since 1828 the Protectorate of Russia has cost the Principalities
150,000,000 piastres, besides the immense losses caused through pillage and devastation. England
defrayed the expenses of Russia’s wars against France, France that of her war against Persia, Persia that
of her war against Poland; Hungary and the Principalities have now to pay for her war against Turkey.
The most important event of the day is the new Circular Note of Count Nesselrode, dated St Petersburg,
20 June 1853. It declares that the Russian armies will not evacuate the Principalities until the Sultan shall
have yielded to all the demands of the Tsar, and the French and English fleets shall have left the Turkish
waters. The Note in question reads like direct scorn of England and France. Thus it says: ‘The position
taken by the two maritime powers is a maritime occupation which gives us a reason for re-establishing
the equilibrium of the reciprocal situations by taking up a military position.’
Be it remarked that Besika Bay is at a distance of 150 miles from Constantinople. The Tsar claims for
himself the right of occupying Turkish territory, while he defies England and France to occupy neutral
waters without his special permission. He extols his own magnanimous forbearance in having left the
Porte complete mistress of choosing under what form she will abdicate her sovereignty – whether
‘convention’, sened or other synallagmatic act, or even under the form of signing a simple note. He is
persuaded that ‘impartial Europe’ must understand that the treaty of Kainardji, which gives Russia the
right of protecting a single Greek chapel at Stamboul, proclaims her eo ipsothe Rome of the Orient. He
regrets that the West is ignorant of the inoffensive character of a Russian religious Protectorate in
foreign countries. He proves his solicitude for the integrity of the Turkish Empire by historical facts – ‘the
very moderate use he made in 1829 of his victory at Adrianople’, when he was only prevented from
being immoderate by the miserable condition of his army, and by the threat of the English admiral, that,
authorised or not authorised, he would bombard every coast-place along the Black Sea; when all he
obtained was due to the ‘forbearance’ of the Western Cabinets, and the perfidious destruction of the
Turkish fleets at Navarino. ‘In 1833 he alone in Europe saved Turkey from inevitable dismemberment.’ In
1833 the Tsar concluded, through the famous treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi, a defensive alliance with Turkey,
by which foreign fleets were forbidden to approach Constantinople, by which Turkey was saved only
from dismemberment in order to be saved entire for Russia. ‘In 1839, he took the initiative with the
other powers in the propositions which, executed in common, prevented the Sultan from seeing his
throne give place to a new Arabian Empire.’ That is to say, in 1839 he made the other powers take the
initiative in the destruction of the Egyptian fleet, and in the reduction to impotence of the only man who
might have converted Turkey into a vital danger to Russia, and replaced a ‘dressed-up turban’ by a real
head. ‘The fundamental principle of the policy of our august master has always been to maintain, as
long as possible, thestatus quo of the East.’ Just so. He has carefully preserved the decomposition of the
Turkish state, under the exclusive guardianship of Russia.
It is granted that a more ironical document the East has never dared to throw in the face of the West.
But its author is Nesselrode – a nettle, at once and a rod. It is a document, indeed, of Europe’s
degradation under the rod of counter-revolution. Revolutionists may congratulate the Tsar on this
masterpiece. If Europe withdraws, she withdraws not with a simple defeat, but passes, as it were,
under furcae Caudinae.
X
Originally published in New York Tribune, 5 August 1853.
The Tsar has not only commenced war, he has already terminated his first campaign. The line of
operations is no longer behind the Pruth, but along the Danube. Meanwhile, what are the Western
powers about? They counsel, that is, compel, the Sultan to consider the war as peace. Their answers to
the acts of the Autocrat are not cannons, but notes. The Emperor is assailed, not by the two fleets, but
by no less than four projects of negotiation: one emanating from the English Cabinet, the other from the
French, the third presented by Austria, and the fourth improvised by the ‘brother-in-law’ of Potsdam.
The Tsar, it is hoped, will consent to select from this embarras de richesses that which is most suitable to
his purposes. The (second) reply of M Drouyn de l'Huys to the (second) note of Count Nesselrode takes
infinite pains to prove that ‘it was not England and France who made the first demonstration’. Russia
only throws out so many notes to the Western diplomats, like bones to dogs, in order to set them at an
innocent amusement, while she reaps the advantage of further gaining time. England and France, of
course, catch the bait...
The English press has lost all countenance. ‘The Tsar cannot comprehend the courtesy which the
Western powers have shown to him... He is incapable of courteous demeanour in his transactions with
other powers.’ So saysThe Morning Advertiser. The Morning Post is exasperated because the Tsar takes
so little note of the internal embarras of his opponents:
To have put forward, in the mere wantonness of insolence, a claim that possessed no character of
immediate urgency, and to have done so without any reference to the inflammable state of Europe, was
an indiscretion almost incredible.
The writer of the Money Market article in The Economist finds out ‘that men discover now to their cost
how inconvenient it is that all the most secret interests of the world [that is, of the Exchange] are
dependent upon the vagaries of one man’.
Yet in 1848 and 1849 you could see the bust of the Emperor of Russia side by side with the golden calf
itself.
Meanwhile the position of the Sultan is becoming every hour more difficult and complicated. His
financial embarrassments increase the more, as he bears all burdens, without reaping any of the good
chances, of war. Popular enthusiasm turns round upon him for want of being directed against the Tsar.
The fanaticism of the Mussulman threatens him with palace revolutions, while the fanaticism of the
Greek menaces him with popular insurrections. The papers of today contain reports of a conspiracy
directed against the Sultan’s life by Mussulman students belonging to the old Turkish party, who wanted
to place Abdul-Aziz on the throne.
To sum up the Eastern Question in a few words. The Tsar, vexed and dissatisfied at seeing his immense
empire confined to one sole port of export, and that even situated in a sea unnavigable through one half
of the year, and assailable by Englishmen through the other half, is pushing the design of his ancestors,
to get access to the Mediterranean; he is separating, one after the other, the remotest members of the
Ottoman Empire from its main body, till at last Constantinople, the heart, must cease to beat. He
repeats his periodical invasions as often as he thinks his designs on Turkey endangered by the apparent
consolidation of the Turkish government, or by the more dangerous symptoms of self-emancipation
manifest amongst the Slavonians. Counting on the cowardice and apprehensions of the Western
powers, he bullies Europe, and pushes his demands as far as possible, in order to appear magnanimous
afterwards, by contenting himself with what he immediately wanted.
The Western powers, on the other hand, inconsistent, pusillanimous, suspecting each other, commence
by encouraging the Sultan to resist the Tsar, from fear of the encroachments of Russia, and terminate by
compelling the former to yield, from fear of a general war giving rise to a general revolution. Too
impotent and too timid to undertake the reconstruction of the Ottoman Empire by the establishment of
a Greek Empire, or of a Federal Republic of Slavonic States, all they aim at is to maintain the status quo,
that is, the state of putrefaction which forbids the Sultan to emancipate himself from the Tsar, and the
Slavonians to emancipate themselves from the Sultan.
The revolutionary party can only congratulate itself on this state of things. The humiliation of the
reactionary Western governments, and their manifest impotency to guard the interests of European
civilisation against Russian encroachment, cannot fail to work out a wholesome indignation in the
people who have suffered themselves, since 1849, to be subjected to the rule of counter-revolution. The
approaching industrial crisis, also, is affected, and accelerated quite as much by this semi-Eastern
complication as by the completely Eastern complication of China. While the prices of corn are rising,
business in general is suspended, at the same time that the rate of exchange is setting against England,
and gold is beginning to flow to the Continent. The stock of bullion in the Bank of France has fallen off
between 9 June and 14 July to the extent of £2,200,000, which is more than the entire augmentation
which had taken place during the preceding three months.
XI
Originally published in New York Tribune, 5 August 1853.
The Kölnische Zeitung, in a letter dated Vienna, 11 July, contains the following report on the Smyrna
affair:
Shekib Effendi has been sent to Smyrna in order to commence an instruction against the authors of the
sedition in which Baron Hackelberg perished. Shekib has also received orders to deliver to Austria the
refugees of Austrian or Tuscan origin. Mr Brown, chargé d'affaires of the United States, has had
communications on this subject with Reschid Pasha, the result of which is not yet known. I hear at this
moment that the assassin of Baron Hackelberg has received from the American Consul at Smyrna a
passport that places him out of the reach of the Turkish authorities. This fact proves that the United
States intend intervening in European affairs. It is also certain that three American men-of-war are with
the Turkish fleet in the Bosphorus, and further, that the American frigate Cumberland has brought
80,000,000 of piastres to the Turkish government.
Whatever truth there be in this and like reports, they prove one thing; viz, that American intervention is
expected everywhere, and is even looked upon with favour by portions of the English public. The
behaviour of the American Captain and Consul are loudly praised in popular meetings, and an
‘Englishman’ in The Advertiser of yesterday called upon the Stars and Stripes to appear in the
Mediterranean, and to shame the ‘muddy old Union Jack’ into activity.
XII
Originally published in New York Tribune, 12 August 1853.
It is our policy to see that nothing new happens during the next four months, and I hope we shall
accomplish it, because men in general prefer waiting; but the fifth must be fruitful in events.
Thus wrote Count Pozzo di Borgo on 28 November 1828, to Count Nesselrode, and Count Nesselrode is
now acting on the same maxim. While the military assumption of the Principalities was completed by
the assumption of their civil government by the Russians, while troops after troops are pouring into
Bessarabia and the Crimea, a hint has been given to Austria that her mediation might be accepted, and
another to Bonaparte that his proposals were likely to meet with a favourable reception from the Tsar.
The Ministers at Paris and London were comforted with the prospect that Nicholas would condescend
definitely to accept their excuses. All the Courts of Europe, transformed into so many Sultanas, were
anxiously awaiting which of them the magnanimous Commander of the Faithful would throw his
handkerchief to. Having kept them in this manner for weeks, many for months, in suspense, Nicholas
suddenly makes the declaration that neither England, nor France, nor Austria, nor Prussia, has any
business in his quarrel with Turkey, and that with Turkey alone he could negotiate. It was probably in
order to facilitate his negotiations with Turkey that he recalled his Embassy from Constantinople. But
while he declares that the powers are not to meddle in Russia’s concerns, we are informed, on the other
hand, that the representatives of France, England, Austria and Prussia kill their time by meeting in
conference at Vienna, and in hatching projects for the arrangement of the Eastern Question, neither the
Turkish nor Russian Ambassador participating in these mock conferences. The Sultan had appointed, on
the 8th inst, a warlike Ministry, in order to escape from his armed suspension, but was compelled by
Lord Redcliffe to dismiss it on the same evening. He has now been so much confused that he intends to
send an Austrian courier to St Petersburg with the mission of asking whether the Tsar would re-enter
into direct negotiations. On the return of that courier and the answer he brings will depend whether
Reschid Pasha is himself to go to St Petersburg. From St Petersburg he is to send new draft notes to
Constantinople; the new draft notes are to be returned to St Petersburg, and nothing will be settled
before the last answer is again returned from St Petersburg to Constantinople – and then the fifth
month will have arrived, and no fleets can enter the Black Sea; and then the Tsar will quietly remain
during the winter in the Principalities, where he pays with the same promises that still circulate there
from his former occupations, and as far back as 1820.
You know that the Servian Minister Garaschanin has been removed at the instance of Russia. Russia
insists now, following up that first triumph, on all anti-Russian officers being expelled from the service.
This measure, in its turn, was intended to be followed by the reigning Prince Alexander being replaced
by Prince Michael Obrenowich, the absolute tool of Russia and Russian interest. Prince Alexander, to
escape from this calamity, and likewise under the pressure of Austria, has struck against the Sultan, and
declared his intention of observing a strict neutrality. The Russian intrigues in Servia are thus described
in the Presse of Paris:
Everybody knows that the Russian Consulate at Orsova – a miserable village where not a single Russian
subject is to be found, but situated in the midst of a Servian population – is only a poor establishment,
yet it is made the hotbed of Muscovite propaganda. The hand of Russia was judiciarily seized and
established in the affair of Braila in 1840, and of John Lutzo in 1850, in the affair of the recent arrest of
fourteen Russian officers, which arrest became the cause of the resignation of Garaschanin’s Ministry. It
is likewise known that Prince Mentschikoff, during his stay at Constantinople, fomented similar intrigues
through his agents at Broussa and Smyrna, to those in Thessalonia, Albania and Greece.
There is no more striking feature in the politics of Russia than the traditional identity, not only of her
objects, but of her manner of pursuing them. There is no complication of the present Eastern Question,
no transaction, no official note, which does not bear the stamp of quotation from known pages of
history.
Russia has now no other pretext to urge against the Sultan except the treaty of Kainardji, although that
treaty gave her, instead of a Protectorate over her co-religionists, only the right to build a chapel at
Stamboul, and to implore the Sultan’s clemency for his Christian subjects, as Reschid Pasha justly urged
against the Tsar in his note of the 14th inst. But already in 1774, when that treaty was signed, Russia
intended to interpret it one day or the other in the sense of 1853. The then Austrian Internuncio at the
Ottoman Porte, Baron Thugut, wrote in the year 1774 to his Court:
Henceforth Russia will always be in a situation to effect, whenever she may deem the opportunity
favourable, and without much preliminary arrangement, a descent upon Constantinople from her ports
on the Black Sea. In that case a conspiracy concerted in advance with the chiefs of the Greek religion
would no doubt burst forth, and it would only remain for the Sultan to quit his palace at the first
intelligence of this movement of the Russians, to fly into the depth of Asia, and abandon the throne of
European Turkey to a more experienced possessor. When the capital shall have been conquered,
terrorism and the faithful assistance of the Greek Christians will indubitably and easily reduce beneath
the sceptre of Russia, the whole of the Archipelago, the coast of Asia Minor and all Greece, as far as the
shore of the Adriatic. Then the possession of these countries, so much favoured by nature, with which
no other part of the world can be compared in respect to the fertility and richness of the soil, will
elevate Russia to a degree of superiority surpassing all the fabulous wonders which history relates of the
grandeurs of the monarchies of ancient times.
In 1774, as now, Russia was tempting the ambition of Austria with the prospect of Bosnia, Servia and
Albania being incorporated with her. The same Baron Thugut writes thus on this subject:
Such aggrandisement of the Austrian territory would not excite the jealousy of Russia. The reason is that
the requisition which Austria would make of Bosnia, Servia, etc, although of great importance under
other circumstances, would not be of the least utility to Russia, the moment the remainder of the
Ottoman Empire should have fallen into her hands. For these provinces are inhabited almost entirely by
Mohammedans and Greek Christians: the former would not be tolerated as residents there; the latter,
considering the close vicinity of the Oriental Russian Empire, would not hesitate to emigrate thither; or if
they remained their faithlessness to Austria would occasion continuous troubles; and thus an extension
of territory, without intrinsic strength, so far from augmenting the power of the Emperor of Austria
would only serve to weaken it.
Politicians are wont to refer to the Testament of Peter I, in order to show the traditional policy of Russia
in general, and particularly with regard to her views on Constantinople. They might have gone back still
further. More than eight centuries ago, Sviataslaff, the yet Pagan Grand Duke of Russia, declared in an
assembly of his Boyards, that ‘not only Bulgaria, but the Greek Empire in Europe, together with Bohemia
and Hungary, ought to undergo the rule of Russia’. Sviataslaff conquered Silistria and threatened
Constantinople, AD 769, as Nicholas did in 1828. The Rurik dynasty transferred, soon after the
foundation of the Russian Empire, their capital from Novgorod to Kiev, in order to be nearer to
Byzantium. In the eleventh century Kiev imitated in all things Constantinople, and was called the second
Constantinople, thus expressing the everlasting aspirations of Russia. The religion and civilisation of
Russia are of Byzantine off-spring, and that she should have aimed at subduing the Byzantine Empire,
then in the same decay as the Ottoman Empire is in now, was more natural than that the German
Emperors should have aimed at the conquest of Rome and Italy. The unity, then, in the objects of
Russian policy, is given by her historical past, by her geographical conditions, and by her necessity of
gaining open seaports in the Archipelago as in the Baltic, if she wants to maintain her supremacy in
Europe. But the traditional manner in which Russia pursues those objects is far from meriting that
tribute of admiration paid to it by European politicians. If the success of her hereditary policy proves the
weakness of the Western powers, the stereotyped mannerism of that policy proves the intrinsic
barbarism of Russia herself. Who would not laugh at the idea of French politics being conducted on the
Testament of Richelieu, or the Capitularies of Charlemagne? Go through the most celebrated documents
of Russian diplomacy, and you will find that shrewd, judicious, cunning, subtle as it is in discovering the
weak points of European kings, ministers and courts, its wisdom is at a complete deadlock as often as
the historical movements of the Western peoples themselves are concerned. Prince Lieven judged very
accurately of the character of the good Aberdeen when he speculated on his connivance with the Tsar,
but he was grossly mistaken in his judgement of the English people when he predicted the continuance
of Tory rule on the eve of the Reform movement in 1831. Count Pozzo di Borgo judged very correctly of
Charles X, but he made the greatest blunder with regard to the French people when he induced his
‘august master’ to treat with that king about the partition of Europe on the eve of his expulsion from
France. Russian policy, with its traditional craft, cheats and subterfuges, may impose upon the European
Courts which are themselves but traditional things, but it will prove utterly powerless with the
revolutionised peoples.
At Beirut the Americans have abstracted another Hungarian refugee from the claws of the Austrian
eagle. It is cheering to see the American intervention in Europe beginning just with the Eastern
Question. Besides the commercial and military importance resulting from the situation of
Constantinople, there are other important considerations, making its possession the hotly controverted
and permanent subject of dispute between the East and the West – and America is the youngest and
most vigorous representative of the West.
Constantinople is the eternal city – the Rome of the East. Under the ancient Greek Emperors, Eastern
civilisation amalgamated there so far with Western civilisation, as to make this centre of a theoretical
Empire the effectual bar against European progress. When the Greek Emperors were turned out by the
Sultans of Iconium, the genius of the ancient Byzantine Empire survived this change of dynasties, and if
the Sultan were to be supplanted by the Tsar, the Bas-Empire would be restored to life with more
demoralising influences than under the ancient Emperors, and with more aggressive power than under
the Sultan. The Tsar would be for Byzantine civilisation what Russian adventurers were for centuries to
the Emperors of the Lower Empire – the Corps de garde of their soldiers. The struggle between Western
Europe and Russia about the possession of Constantinople involves the question whether Byzantinism is
to fall before Western civilisation, or whether its antagonism shall revive in a more terrible and
conquering form than ever before. Constantinople is the golden bridge thrown between the West and
the East, and Western civilisation cannot, like the sun, go round the world without passing that bridge;
and it cannot pass it without a struggle with Russia. The Sultan holds Constantinople only in trust for the
Revolution, and the present nominal dignitaries of Western Europe, themselves finding the last
stronghold of their ‘order’ on the shores of the Neva, can do nothing but keep the question in suspense
until Russia has to meet her real antagonist, the Revolution. The Revolution which will break the Rome
of the West will also overpower the demoniac influences of the Rome of the East.
XIII
Originally published in New York Tribune, 19 August 1853. One of the Austrian revolutionary leaders of
1848, Martin Koszta, Hungarian by birth but an Austrian subject, had settled in Turkey and announced
his intention – the goal of so many refugees then as now – of becoming an American citizen. At Smyrna,
a Turkish port on the Aegean, the Austrian consul-general, exercising the right of extra-territorial
jurisdiction, had Koszta arrested and imprisoned aboard an Austrian brig-of-war lying in the harbour
near an American sloop, the St Louis. With the authorisation of Mr Brown, American chargé d'affaires at
Constantinople, Commander Ingraham of the St Louis demanded the release of Koszta, claiming that he
was an American citizen, and when the Austrian commander refused to give him up, prepared to open
fire. Hostilities were avoided only through an arrangement whereby Koszta was placed in the custody of
the French consul-general at Smyrna pending settlement of the dispute.
The great event of the day is the appearance of American policy on the European horizon. Saluted by
one party, detested by the other, the fact is admitted by all.
Austria must look to the dismemberment of the Turkish Empire for indemnification for the loss of her
Italian provinces – a contingency not rendered less likely by the quarrel she has had the folly to bring on
her with Uncle Sam. An American squadron in the Adriatic would be a very pretty complication of an
Italian insurrection, and we may all live to see it, for the Anglo-Saxon spirit is not yet dead in the West.
Thus speaks The Morning Herald, the old organ of the English aristocracy.
The Koszta affair [says the Paris Presse] is far from being terminated. We are informed that the Vienna
Cabinet has asked from the Washington Cabinet a reparation, which it may be quite sure it will not
receive. Meanwhile, Koszta remains under the safeguard of the French Consul.
‘We must get out of the way of the Yankee, who is half a buccaneer, and half a backwoodsman, and no
gentleman at all’, whispers the Vienna Presse.
The German papers grumble about the secret treaty pretended to have been concluded between the
United States and Turkey, according to which the latter would receive money and maritime support, and
the former the harbour of Enos in Roumelia, which would afford a sure and convenient place for a
commercial and military station of the American Republic of the Mediterranean.
In due course of time [says the Brussels Emancipation] the conflict at Smyrna between the American
government and the Austrian one, caused by the capture of the refugee Koszta, will be placed in the first
line of events of 1853. Compared with this fact, the occupation of the Danubian Principalities and the
movements of the combined navies at Constantinople, may be considered as of second-rate
importance. The event of Smyrna is the beginning of a new history, while the accident at Constantinople
is only the unravelling of an old question about to expire.
An Italian paper, II Parlamento, has a leader under the title ‘La Politico Americana in Europa’, from which
I translate the following passages literally:
It is well known that a long time has elapsed since the United States have tried to get a maritime station
in the Mediterranean and in Italy, and more particularly at such epochs when complications arose in the
Orient. Thus for instance in 1840, when the great Egyptian question was agitated, and when St Jean
d'Acre was assailed, the government of the United States asked in vain from the King of the Two Sicilies
to temporarily grant it the great harbour of Syracuse. Today the tendency of American policy for
intervening with European affairs cannot be but more lively and steadfast. There can be no doubt but
that the actual Democratic administration of the Union manifests the most clamorous sympathies with
the victims of the Italian and Hungarian revolution, that it cares nothing about an interruption of the
diplomatical intercourse with Austria, and that at Smyrna it has supported its system with the threat of
cannon. It would be unjust to grumble at this aspiration of the great transatlantic nation, or to call it
inconsistent or ridiculous. The Americans certainly do not intend conquering the Orient and going to
have a land war with Russia. But if England and France make the best of their maritime forces, why
should not the Americans do so, particularly as soon as they will have obtained a station, a point of
retreat and of ‘approvisionement’ in the Mediterranean? For them there are great interests at stake, the
republican element being diametrically opposed to the Cossack one. Commerce and navigation having
multiplied the legitimate relations and contacts between all peoples of the world, none can consider
itself a stranger to any sea of the Old or New Continent, or to any great question like that of the destiny
of the Ottoman Empire. The American commerce, and the residents who exercise it on the shores of our
seas, require the protection of the stars and stripes, and in order to make it valid in all seasons of the
year, they want a port for a military marine that ranks already in the third line among the maritime
powers of the world. If England and France interfere directly with all that regards the Isthmus of
Panama, if the former of those powers goes so far as to invent a King of the Mosquitoes, in order to
oppose territorial rights to the operations of the United States, if they have come to the final
understanding, that the passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific shall be open to all nations, and be
possessed by a neutral state, is it not evident then that the United States must pretend at exercising the
same vigilance with regard to the liberty and neutrality of the Isthmus of Suez, holding their eyes closely
fixed on the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, which will be likely to devolve Egypt and Syria, wholly or
partly to the dominion of some first-rate power. Suez and Panama are the two great doorways of the
Orient, which, shut till now, will hereafter compete with each other. The best way to assure their
ascendancy in the Transatlantic question is to cooperate in the Mediterranean question.
We are assured that the American men-of-war in the neighbourhood of the Dardanelles do not
renounce the pretention to enter them whenever they please, without being subjected to the
restrictions convened upon the Great Powers in 1841, and for this incontrovertible reason, that the
American government did not participate in that Convention. Europe is amazed at the boldness, because
it has been, since the peace of 1813, in the habit of considering the United States in the condition of the
Swiss Cantons after the Westphalian Treaty, viz, as peoples allowed a legitimate existence, but which it
would be too arduous to ask to enter into the aristocracy of the primitive powers, and to give their votes
on subjects of general policy. But on the other side of the Ocean the Anglo-Saxon race, sprung up to the
most exalted degree of wealth, civilisation and power, cannot any longer accept the humble position
assigned to it in the past. The pressure exercised by the American Union on the Council of Amphyctrions
of the Five Powers, till now the arbiters of the globe, is a new force that must contribute to the downfall
of the exclusive system established by the treaties of Vienna.
Till the Republic of the United States succeed in acquiring a positive right and an official seat in the
Congresses arbitrating on general political questions, it exercises with an immense grandeur, and with a
particular dignity the more humane actions of natural rights and of the jus gentium. Its banner covers
the victims of the civil wars without distinction of parties, and during the immense conflagration of
1848-49 the hospitality of the American Navy never submitted to any humiliation or disgrace.
XIV
Originally published in New York Tribune, 2 September 1853. In an editorial on the Koszta affair in
the Tribune of 6 August 1853, the editor had observed that: ‘We state an obvious fact in saying that
Captain Ingraham, had he sunk the Austrian corvette in Smyrna harbour, as it was but a chance he did
not, would almost inevitably have been the next President of the United States. Had the two ships been
cruising off the harbour, instead of at anchor within it, where action must have been a gross outrage on
neutral rights and resulted in a woeful destruction of life and property on shore, the collision could not
have been averted.’ The following excerpt from one of Marx’s ‘letters to the editor’ describes the
reaction in the European press to this editorial.
The Austrian Minister of Foreign Affairs has sent to all the European Courts a note relative to the
conduct of the American frigate St Louis in the Koszta affair, denouncing the American policy in general.
Austria contends that she has the right to kidnap foreigners from the territory of a neutral power, while
the United States have no right to commence hostilities in order to defend them.
XV
Originally published in New York Tribune, 24 September 1853.
A note issued from Washington could scarcely have produced a greater sensation in Europe than your
editorial remarks on Captain Ingraham. They have found their way, with and without commentaries,
into almost the whole weekly press of London, into many French papers, the Brussels Nation, the
Turin Parlemento, the Basel Gazette, and every liberal newspaper of Germany... The journals hold out
the prospect of an intervention on the part of the United States in favour of Switzerland, if it should be
threatened by an attack. Today we are informed that several powers have the intention of making a
collective declaration against the doctrine of international right put forth by the United States. If the
American intervention theories were not refuted in a peremptory manner, the extirpation of the
revolutionary spirit in Europe would meet with an insuperable obstacle. France is among the powers
ready to participate in this remonstrance. On this last point, the Constitutionnel of Tuesday last takes
good care not to leave any doubt, when it says:
It is necessary to be candid in all things. It is not as a citizen of the United States that Koszta is defended
against Austria by the agents of the American Republic, but as a revolutionist. But none of the European
powers will ever admit as a principle of public law that the government of the United States has the
right to protect revolution in Europe by force of arms. On no grounds would it be permitted to throw
obstacles in the way of the exercise of the jurisdiction of a government, under the ridiculous pretence
that the offenders have renounced their allegiance, and from the real motive that they are in revolt
against the political constitution of their country. The Navy of the American Union might not always
have such an easy triumph, and such headstrong conduct as that pursued by the Captain of the St
Louis might on another occasion be attended with very disastrous consequences.
XVI
Originally published in New York Tribune, 30 December 1853.
Those readers who have followed with any attention the expositions which from time to time The
Tribune has given of the Eastern Question, will not be surprised at the exhibit which our statement of
yesterday makes of the great lever of Russian aggrandisement. They will have learned before that the
idea of Russian diplomatic supremacy owes its efficacy to the imbecility and the timidity of the Western
nations, and that the belief in Russia’s superior military power is hardly less a delusion. But they were,
perhaps, scarcely prepared for the strong and sudden light in which our informant held up this
phantasm as an element relied upon in the calculations of the Imperial government. Bully Turkey and
her supporters – France and England – we are told, was relied on to the last by the Tsar as sufficient to
bend them to his demands. Accordingly, instead of sending into the Principalities a force of 120,000
men, as we were first informed had been done, or of 70,000, which we afterwards assured was the
whole number, we now learn that he sent only 50,000, or the army corps of General Dannenberg alone
– a fact there was reason to suspect before, since no other general commanding an army corps has been
heard of in any of the actions fought there, and it is well known that long after hostilities began neither
Luders nor Osten-Sacken had crossed the Pruth. The same state of facts has also been indicated by the
disgrace of Mentschikoff, reported from Sweden and Paris, and most conclusively confirmed by our
informant, and by the Prince’s setting off in a most inclement season of the year, as a courier, to convey
to the Tsar the news of Nachimoff’s victory over the squadron of Omer Pasha. When a man of seventy
years of age voluntarily undertakes such a journey, riding night and day, there can be no doubt that he
has some most imperative reason for propitiating the favour of the monarch.
But the great point is that Nicholas has perfectly relied upon bullying Turkey and her allies. This has been
manifest throughout the affair, though never before avowed by any authority claiming to express the
feeling of the Russian Court itself. It has been a bullying business all along. The appearance and conduct
of Mentschikoff at Constantinople were simply those of a bully; the manifestoes of Nesselrode were the
menaces of a bully; and the entry of Gortschakoff into the Principalities with a single army corps was
nothing but the bold presumption of a bully. It has all justified by the result. England, especially, has
been imposed on. She has been bullied, and is so still. She has not dared to declare her soul to be her
own from the beginning to the present day. France, too, has been bullied, though not so seriously. But
both together have been frightened out of the only policy which could at once have guaranteed the
preservation of peace, while maintaining their own respectability. To the arrogance of the Autocrat they
have replied with symptoms of cowardice. They have encouraged the very assumptions they have
deprecated, just as poltroons always encourage bullies to be overbearing. If, at the outset, they had
used a manly style of language adequate to the position they hold, and the pretensions they set up
before the world; if they had proved that bluster and swagger could not impose on them, the Autocrat
would not only have refrained from attempting it, but would have entertained for them a very different
feeling from that contempt which must now animate his bosom. At that time, to show that they
seriously meant to preserve Turkey intact, and were ready to back up their intention with the last
reason of kings – fleets and armies, was the sure means of maintaining peace. There is only one way to
deal with a power like Russia, and that is the fearless way.
It is not to be denied that Turkey, the weak state, has shown more true courage, as well as more wise
statesmanship, than either of her powerful allies. She has risen to the height of the occasion; they have
cowered beneath it. She has rejected the demands of her hereditary foe, not with braggadocio, but with
grave and worthy earnestness and dignity; they have faltered and sought to evade the crisis. She has
acted with decision; they have prevented her from acting with effect. For we may justly attribute the
delays and hesitation shown in the manoeuvres of Omer Pasha to the paralysing and temporising
influence of Lord Redcliffe and M de la Cour, over the Divan. At the moment when he was opening the
campaign, they procured orders to be sent to him to delay the beginning of hostilities. Just when he was
surprising Europe by advantages gained over the enemy, they prepared new terms of mediation and
asked for an armistice. Thus at every step they have exhibited that dread of Russia on which we are
assured the Emperor and his advisers have continually placed their dependence. They have been bullied,
and have accordingly done their utmost to bring on the very evil they are so afraid of. If there be a
general war, it will not be the fault of Turkey, but next to Russia, of France and England. They might have
prevented it infallibly, but they did not.
As matters now stand we incline to follow our wishes and predict peace. The decision rests with the
Tsar, and peace is his interest. The prestige of his diplomacy and the renown of his arms can be
maintained in peace much more easily and safely than in war. The naval success of Nachimoff enables
him to cease fighting with more than an equal share of victory on his side. A general breaking up of
Europe has its possibility of loss and even of destruction for him as well as for Turkey, while even if he
triumphs, it must be at a far heavier cost than that of his recent vast acquisitions of power and
influence. The bullying system is much less expensive than actual warfare, as we see illustrated in the
small army under Gortschakoff. There is, then, a considerable chance that some one of the schemes of
mediation already on foot, or to be generated during the winter, may be fixed on. Then the work of
Russian encroachments in Europe will once again be confined to the slower but surer processes of
diplomacy and intrigue, animated by unscrupulous arrogance on one side, and aided by weakness and
pusillanimity on the other. In view of such a possibility it is impossible not to agree with Mr Douglas
when he assigns to Russia the attributes of the future, and to Western Europe those of the past. There is
an energy and vigour in that despotic government and that barbarous race which we seek in vain among
the monarchies of the older states. But if we look a little deeper into the cause of this relative weakness,
we find it full of encouragement. Western Europe is feeble and timid because her governments feel that
they are outgrown and no longer believed in by their people. The nations are beyond their rulers, and
trust in them no more. It is not that they are really imbecile, but that there is new wine working in the
old bottles. With a worthier and more equal social state, with the abolition of caste and privilege, with
free political constitutions, unfettered industry and emancipated thought, the people of the West will
rise again to power and unity of purpose, while the Russian Colossus itself will be shattered by the
progress of the masses and the explosive force of ideas. There is no good reason to fear the conquest of
Europe by the Cossacks. The very divisions and apparent weakness which would seem to render such an
event easy are the sure pledge of its impossibility.
XVII
Originally published in New York Tribune, 2 February 1854.
At last the long-pending question of Turkey appears to have reached a stage where diplomacy will not
much longer be able to monopolise the ground for its ever-shifting, ever-cowardly and ever-resultless
movements. The French and the British fleets have entered the Black Sea in order to prevent the
Russian navy from doing harm either to the Turkish fleet or the Turkish coast. The Tsar Nicholas long
since declared that such a step would be, forhim, the signal for a declaration of war. Will he now stand it
quietly?
It is not to be expected that the combined fleets will at once attack and destroy either the Russian
squadron or the fortifications and navy-yards of Sebastopol. On the contrary, we may rest assured that
the instructions which diplomacy has provided for the two admirals are so contrived as to evade, as
much as possible, the chance of a collision. But naval and military movements once ordered, are subject
not to the desires and plans of diplomacy, but to laws of their own which cannot be violated, without
endangering the safety of the whole expedition. Diplomacy never intended the Russians to be beaten at
Oltenitza; but a little latitude once given to Omer Pasha, and military movements once begun, the action
of the two hostile commanders was carried on in a sphere which was to a great extent uncontrollable by
the Ambassadors at Constantinople. Thus, the fleets once removed from their moorings in the Beicos
Roads, there is no telling how soon they may find themselves in a position from which Lord Aberdeen’s
prayers for peace, or Lord Palmerston’s collusion with Russia, cannot draw them, and where they will
have to choose between an infamous retreat or a resolute struggle. A narrow land-locked sea like the
Euxine, where the opposing navies can hardly contrive to get out of sight of each other, is precisely the
locality in which conflicts under such circumstances may become necessary almost daily. And it is not to
be expected that the Tsar will allow, without opposition, his fleet to be blockaded in Sebastopol.
If, then, a European war is to follow from this step, it will be, in all likelihood, a war between Russia on
the one hand, and England, France and Turkey on the other. The event is probable enough to warrant us
in comparing the chances of success and striking the balance of active strength on each side, so far as
we can do so.
But will Russia stand alone? What part will Austria, Prussia and the German and Italian states, their
dependents, take in a general war? It is reported that Louis Bonaparte has notified the Austrian
government that if, in case of conflict with Russia, Austria should side with that power, the French
government would avail itself of the elements of insurrection which in Italy and Hungary only require a
spark to be kindled into a raging fire, and that then the restoration of Italian and Hungarian nationality
would be attempted by France. Such a threat may have its effect upon Austria; it may contribute to keep
her neutral as long as possible, but it is not to be expected that Austria will long be enabled to keep
aloof from such a struggle, should it come to pass. The very fact of the threat having been uttered may
call forth partial insurrectionary movements in Italy, which could not but make Austria a still more
dependent and still more subservient vassal of Russia. And then, after all, has not this Napoleonic game
been played once already? Is it to be expected that the man who restored the Pope to his temporal
throne, and who has a candidate cut and dried for the Neapolitan monarchy, will give to the Italians
what they want as much as independence from Austria – unity? Is it to be expected that the Italian
people will rush headlong into such a snare? No doubt they are sorely oppressed by Austrian rule, but
they will not be very anxious to contribute to the glory of an Empire which is already tottering in its
native soil of France, and of a man who was the first to combat their revolution. The Austrian
government knows all this, and therefore we may assume that it will be more influenced by its own
financial embarrassments than by these Bonapartistic threats; we may also be certain that, at the
decisive moment, the influence of the Tsar will be paramount at Vienna, and will entangle Austria on the
side of Russia.
Prussia is attempting the same game which she played in 1780, 1800 and 1805. Her plan is to form a
league of neutral Baltic, or North German, states, at the head of which she can play a part of some
importance, and turn to whichever side offers her the greatest advantages. The almost comical
uniformity with which all these attempts have ended by throwing the greedy, vacillating and
pusillanimous Prussian government into the arms of Russia, belongs to history. It is not to be expected
that Prussia will now escape her habitual fate. She will put out feelers in every direction, offer herself at
public auction, intrigue in both camps, swallow camels and strain at gnats, lose whatever character may
perchance yet be left to her, get beaten, and at last be knocked down to the lowest bidder, who in this
and every other instance will be Russia. She will not be an ally, but an incumbrance to Russia, for she will
take care to have her army destroyed beforehand, for her own account and gratification.
Until at least one of the German powers is involved in a European war, the conflict can only rage in
Turkey, on the Black Sea, and in the Baltic. The naval struggle must, during this period, be the most
important. That the allied fleets can destroy Sebastopol and the Russian Black Sea fleet; that they can
take and hold the Crimea, occupy Odessa, close the Sea of Azof, and let loose the mountaineers of the
Caucasus, there is no doubt. With rapid and energetic action nothing is more easy. Supposing this to
occupy the first month of active operations, another month might bring the steamers of the combined
fleets to the British Channel, leaving the sailing vessels to follow; for the Turkish fleet would then be
capable of doing all the work which might be required in the Black Sea. To coal in the Channel and make
other preparations might take another fortnight; and then, united to the Atlantic and Channel fleets of
France and Britain, they might appear before the end of May in the roads of Cronstadt in such a force as
to ensure the success of an attack. The measures to be taken in the Baltic are as self-evident as those in
the Black Sea. They consist in an alliance, at any price, with Sweden; an act of intimidation against
Denmark, if necessary; an insurrection in Finland, which would break out upon landing a sufficient
number of troops, and a guarantee that no peace would be concluded except upon the condition of this
province being reunited to Sweden. The troops landed in Finland would menace Petersburg, while the
fleets would bombard Cronstadt. This place is certainly very strong by its position. The channel of deep
water leading up to the roads will hardly admit of two men-of-war abreast presenting their broadsides
to the batteries, which are established not only on the main island, but on smaller rocks, banks and
islands about it. A certain sacrifice, not only of men, but of ships, is unavoidable. But if this be taken into
account in the very plan of the attack, if it be once resolved that such and such a ship must be sacrificed,
and if the plan be carried out vigorously and unflinchingly, Cronstadt must fall. The masonry of its
battlements cannot for any length of time withstand the concentrated fire of heavy Paixhan guns, that
most destructive of all arms when employed against stone walls. Large screw-steamers, with a full
complement of such guns amidships, would very soon produce an irresistible effect, though of course
they would in the attempt risk their own existence. But what are three or four screw-ships of the line in
comparison with Cronstadt, the key of the Russian Empire, whose possession would leave St Petersburg
without defence?
Without Odessa, Cronstadt, Riga, Sebastopol, with Finland emancipated, and a hostile army at the gates
of the capital, with all her rivers and harbours closed up, what would Russia be? A giant without arms,
without eyes, with no other recourse than trying to crush her opponents under the weight of her clumsy
torso, thrown here and there at random, wherever a hostile battle-cry was heard. If the maritime
powers of Europe should act thus resolutely and vigorously, then Prussia and Austria might so far be
relieved from the control of Russia that they might even join the allies. For both the German powers, if
secure at home, would be ready to profit by the embarrassments of Russia. But it is not to be expected
that Lord Aberdeen and M Drouyn de l'Huys should attempt such energetic steps. The powers that be
are not for striking their blows home, and if a general war breaks out, the energy of the commanders
will be shackled so as to render them innocuous. If nevertheless, decisive victories occur, care will be
taken that it is by mere chance, and that their consequences are as harmless as possible for the enemy.
The war on the Asiatic shore of the Black Sea might at once be put an end to by the fleets; that on the
European side would go on comparatively uninterrupted. The Russians, beaten out of the Black Sea,
deprived of Odessa and Sebastopol, could not cross the Danube without great risk (except in the
direction of Servia, for insurrectionary purposes), but they might very well hold the Principalities, until
superior forces and the risk of large bodies of troops being landed on their flank and rear, should drive
them out of Wallachia. Moldavia they need not evacuate without a general action, for flank and rear
demonstrations would there be of little importance so long as Chotin and Kishineff offered them a safe
communication with Russia.
But as long as the war is confined to the Western powers and Turkey on the one hand, and Russia on the
other, it will not be a European war such as we have seen since 1792. However, let it once commence,
and the indolence of the Western powers and the activity of Russia will soon compel Austria and Prussia
to decide for the Autocrat. Prussia will probably be of no great account, as it is more than likely that her
army, whatever its capacities may be, will be wasted by presumption at some second Jena. Austria,
notwithstanding her bankrupt condition, notwithstanding the insurrections that may occur in Italy and
Hungary, will be no contemptible opponent. Russia herself, obliged to keep up her army in the
Principalities and on the Caucasian frontier, to occupy Poland, to have an army for the defence of the
Baltic coast, and especially of St Petersburg and Finland, will have very few troops to spare for offensive
operations. If Austria, Russia and Prussia (always supposing the latter not yet put to rout) can muster
five or six hundred thousand men on the Rhine and the Alps, it will be more than can be reasonably
expected. And for five hundred thousand allies the French alone are a match, supposing them to be led
by generals not inferior to those of their opponents, among whom the Austrians alone possess
commanders worthy of the name. The Russian generals are not formidable, and as to the Prussians, they
have no generals at all; their officers are hereditary subalterns.
But we must not forget that there is a sixth power in Europe, which at given moments asserts its
supremacy over the whole of the five so-called ‘great’ powers, and makes them tremble, every one of
them. That power is the Revolution. Long silent and retired, it is now again called to action by the
commercial crisis and by the scarcity of food. From Manchester to Rome, from Paris to Warsaw and
Pesth, it is omnipresent, lifting up its head and awakening from its slumbers. Manifold are the symptoms
of its returning life, everywhere visible in the agitation and disquietude which have seized the
proletarian class. A signal only is wanted, and the sixth and greatest European power will come forward,
in shining armour and sword in hand, like Minerva from the head of the Olympian. This signal the
impending European war will give, and then all calculations as to the balance of power will be upset by
the addition of a new element which, ever buoyant and youthful, will as much baffle the plans of the old
European powers, and their generals, as it did from 1792 to 1800.
XVIII
Originally published in New York Tribune, 13 March 1854. With respect to the question, ‘Could
privateers be fitted out in neutral ports to interfere with British shipping?’, Marx notes that the problem
was brought up in Parliament and that a direct answer was evaded by Lord Palmerston. Marx
continues...
The Palmerston organ [The Morning Post+ declares the ‘difficult topic’ to form the subject of pending
negotiations, and, on the other, the necessity of leaving it to the ‘spontaneous sense of justice’ of the
interested powers. If the much-boasted treaty of neutrality with Denmark and Sweden was not dictated
by the St Petersburg Cabinet, it must, of course, have forbidden privateers being fitted out in their ports;
but in fact, the whole question can only be understood to refer to the United States of America, as the
Baltic is to be occupied by English line-of-battle ships, and Holland, Belgium, Spain, Portugal and the
Italian ports on the Mediterranean are completely in the hands of England and France. Now, what is the
opinion of the St Petersburg Cabinet as to the part to be performed by the United States in case the
Turkish war should lead to a war between England and Russia? We may answer this question
authentically from a dispatch addressed by Pozzo di Borgo to Count Nesselrode in the autumn of 1825.
At that time Russia had resolved upon invading Turkey. As now she proposed to begin by a pacific
occupation of the Principalities:
In supposing the adoption of this plan [says Pozzo di Borgo], it would be requisite to enter into
explanations with the Porte in the most measured terms, and to assure it that if it did not wish to
precipitate itself into a war, the Emperor was willing to terminate these differences by conciliation.
After having enumerated all the steps they would be obliged to take, Pozzo di Borgo continues as
follows:
It would be advisable to communicate all these acts to the United States of America as an evidence of
the regard of the Imperial Cabinet, and of the importance which it attaches to enlightening its opinion,
and even obtaining its suffrage.
In case of England’s siding with Turkey and undertaking a war with Russia, Pozzo di Borgo remarks that:
... in blockading our ports they [England] would exercise their pretended maritime rights in respect to
neutrals. This the United States would not suffer! Thence would arise bitter dissensions and dangerous
situations.
Now, as the Russian historian Karamsin justly remarks that ‘nothing changes in our [Russian] external
policy’, we are justified in presuming that, at the present moment, and perhaps as long ago as February
1853, Russia has ‘communicated all her acts to the United States’, and done her best to cajole the
Washington cabinet into at least a neutral attitude. At the same time, in the case of a war with England,
she bases her hopes upon eventual quarrels about the ‘maritime rights of the neutrals’ producing ‘bitter
dissensions and dangerous situations’, and involving the United States in a more or less avowed alliance
with St Petersburg.
XIX
Originally published in New York Tribune, 15 April 1854.
In order to understand both the nature of the relations between the Turkish government and the
spiritual authorities of Turkey, and the difficulties in which the former is at present involved with respect
to the question of a protectorate over the Christian subjects of the Porte, that question which ostensibly
lies at the bottom of all the actual complications in the East, it is necessary to cast a retrospective glance
at its past history and development.
The Koran and the Mussulman legislation emanating from it reduce the geography and ethnography of
the various peoples to the simple and convenient distinction of two nations and of two countries; those
of the Faithful and of the Infidels. The Infidel is ‘harby’, that is, the enemy. Islamism proscribes the
nation of the Infidels, constituting a state of permanent hostility between the Mussulman and the
unbeliever. In that sense the corsair ships of the Berber states were the holy fleet of Islam. How, then, is
the existence of Christian subjects of the Porte to be reconciled with the Koran?
If a town [says the Mussulman legislation] surrenders by capitulation, and its inhabitants consent to
become rayahs, that is, subjects of a Mussulman prince without abandoning their creed, they have to
pay the kharatch (capitation tax), when they obtain a truce with the faithful, and it is not permitted any
more to confiscate their estates than to take away their houses... In this case their old churches form
part of their property, with permission to worship therein. But they are not allowed to erect new ones.
They have only authority for repairing them, and to reconstruct their decayed portions. At certain
epochs commissaries designated by the provincial governors are to visit the churches and sanctuaries of
the Christians, in order to ascertain that no new buildings have been added under guise of repairs. If a
town is conquered by force, the inhabitants retain their churches, but only as places of abode or refuge,
without permission to worship.
Constantinople having surrendered by capitulation, as in like manner the greater portion of European
Turkey, the Christians there enjoy the privileges they have, exclusively by virtue of their agreeing to
accept the Mussulman protection. It is, therefore, owing to this circumstance alone that the Christians
submit to be governed by the Mussulmans, according to Mussulman law, and that the Patriarch of
Constantinople, their spiritual chief, is at the same time their political representative, representative and
their chief justice. Wherever, in the Ottoman Empire, we find an agglomeration of Greek rayahs, the
Archbishops and Bishops are by law members of the Municipal Councils, and, under the direction of the
Patriarch, rule over the repartition of the taxes imposed upon the Greeks. The Patriarch is responsible to
the Porte as to the conduct of his co-religionists. Invested with the right of judging the rayahs of his
Church, he delegates this right to the Metropolitans and Bishops within the limits of their dioceses, their
sentences being obligatory for the executive officers, cadis, etc, of the Porte to carry out. The
punishments which they have the right to pronounce are fines, imprisonment, bastonado and exile.
Besides, their own Church gives them the power of excommunication. Independent of the produce of
the fines, they receive variable taxes on the civil and commercial law-suits. Every hierarchic scale among
the clergy has its moneyed price. The Patriarch pays to the Divan a heavy tribute in order to obtain his
investiture, but he sells, in his turn, the archbishoprics and bishoprics to the clergy of his worship. The
latter indemnify themselves by the sale of subaltern dignities, and the tribute exacted from the popes.
These again sell by retail the powers they have bought from their superiors, and traffic in all acts of their
ministry, such as baptisms, marriages, divorces and testaments.
It is evident from this exposé that this fabric of theocracy over the Greek Christians of Turkey, and the
whole structure of their society, has its keystone in the subjection of the rayahs under the Koran, which,
in its turn, by treating them as infidels – that is, as a nation only in a religious sense – sanctions the
combined spiritual and temporal power of their priests. Then, if you abolish their subjection under the
Koran, by a civil emancipation, you cancel at the same time their subjection to the clergy, and provoke a
revolution in their social, political and religious relations, which, in the first instance, must inevitably
hand them over to Russia. If you supplant the Koran by a code civil,you must occidentalise the entire
structure of Byzantine society.
Having described the relations between the Mussulman and his Christian subject, the question arises:
what are the relations between the Mussulman and the unbelieving foreigner?
As the Koran treats all foreigners as foes, nobody will dare to present himself in a Mussulman country
without having taken his precautions. The first European merchants, therefore, who risked the chances
of commerce with such a people, contrived to secure themselves an exceptional treatment and
privileges originally personal, but afterwards extended to their whole nation. Hence the origin of
capitulations. Capitulations are imperial diplomas, letters of privilege, granted by the Porte to different
European nations, and authorising their subjects freely to enter Mohammedan countries, and there to
pursue in tranquillity their affairs, and to practice their worship. They differ from treaties in this essential
point, that they are not reciprocal acts, contradictorily debated between the contracting parties, and
accepted by them on the condition of mutual advantages and concessions. On the contrary, the
capitulations are one-sided concessions on the part of the government granting them, in consequence
of which they may be revoked at its pleasure. The Porte has, indeed, at different times nullified the
privileges granted to one nation by extending them to others, or repealed them altogether by refusing
to continue their application. This precarious character of the capitulations made them an eternal
source of disputes, of complaints on the part of Ambassadors, and of a prodigious exchange of
contradictory notes and firmans revived at the commencement of every new reign.
It was from these capitulations that arose the right of a protectorate of foreign powers, not over the
Christian subjects of the Porte – the rayahs – but over their co-religionists visiting Turkey, or residing
there as foreigners. The first power that obtained such a protectorate was France. The capitulations
between France and the Ottoman Porte made in 1535 under Soliman the Great and Francis I, in 1604
under Ahmet I and Henry IV, and in 1673 under Mustapha II and Louis XIV, were renewed, confirmed,
recapitulated and augmented in the compilation of 1740, called ‘ancient and recent capitulations and
treaties between the Court of France and the Ottoman Porte’.
Article 32 of this agreement constitutes the right of France to a protectorate over all monasteries
professing the French religion, to whatever nation they may belong, and over the Frank visitors to the
Holy Places.
Russia was the first power that, in 1774, inserted the capitulation, imitated after the example of France,
into a treaty, the Treaty of Kainardji. Thus, in 1802, Napoleon thought fit to make the existence and
maintenance of the capitulation the subject of an article of treaty, and to give it the character of
synallagmatic contract.
In what relation, then, does the question of the Holy Places stand to the Protectorate?
The question of the Holy Shrines is the question of a protectorate over the religious Greek Christian
communities settled at Jerusalem, and over the buildings possessed by them on the holy ground, and
especially over the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. It is to be understood that possession here does not
mean proprietorship, which is denied to the Christians by the Koran, but only the right of usufruct. This
right of usufruct excludes by no means the other communities having no other privilege besides that of
keeping the keys, of repairing and entering the edifices, of kindling the holy lamp, of cleaning the rooms
with the broom, and of spreading the carpets, which is an Oriental symbol of possession. In the same
manner now in which Christianity culminates at the Holy Place, the question of the Protectorate is there
found to have its highest ascension.
Parts of the Holy Places and of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre are possessed by the Latins, the Greeks,
the Armenians, the Abyssinians, the Syrians and the Copts. Between all these diverse pretendants there
originated a conflict. The sovereigns of Europe, who saw in this religious quarrel a question of their
respective influences in the Orient, addressed themselves in the first instance to the masters of the soil,
to fanatic and greedy pashas, who abused their position. The Ottoman Porte and its agents adopting a
most troublesome système de bascule, gave judgement in turn favourable to the Latins, Greeks and
Armenians, asking and receiving gold from all hands, and laughing at each of them. Hardly had the Turks
granted a firman, acknowledging the right of the Latins to the possession of a contested place, than the
Armenians presented themselves with a heavier purse, and instantly obtained a contradictory firman.
The same tactics with respect to the Greeks, who knew, besides, as officially recorded in different
firmans of the Porte and ‘hudgets’ (judgements) of its agents, how to procure false and apocryphal
titles. On other occasions the decisions of the Sultan’s government were frustrated by the cupidity and
ill-will of the pashas and subaltern agents in Syria. Then it became necessary to resume negotiations, to
appoint fresh commissaries, and to make new sacrifices of money. What the Porte formerly did from
pecuniary considerations, in our days it has done from fear, with a view to obtain protection and favour.
Having done justice to the reclamations of France and the Latins, it hastened to grant the same
conditions to Russia and the Greeks, thus attempting to escape from a storm which it felt powerless to
encounter. There is no sanctuary, no chapel, no stone of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, that has
been left unturned for the purpose of constituting a quarrel between the different Christian
communities.
Around the Holy Sepulchre we find an assemblage of all the various sects of Christianity, behind the
religious pretensions of whom are concealed as many political and national rivalries.
Jerusalem and the Holy Places are inhabited by nations professing different religions: the Latins, the
Greeks, the Armenians, Copts, Abyssinians and Syrians. There are 2000 Greeks, 1000 Latins, 350
Armenians, 100 Copts, 20 Syrians, and 20 Armenians – 3490. In the Ottoman Empire we find 13,730,000
Greeks, 2,400,000 Armenians, and 900,000 Latins. Each of these is again subdivided. The Greek Church,
of which I treated above, the one acknowledging the Patriarch of Constantinople, essentially differs
from the Greco-Russian, whose chief spiritual authority is the Tsar, and from the Hellenes, of whom the
King and the Synod of Athens are the chief authorities. Similarly, the Latins are subdivided into the
Roman Catholics, United Greeks and Maronites; and the Armenians into Gregorian and Latin Armenians
– the same distinction holding good with the Copts and Abyssinians. The three prevailing religious
nationalities at the Holy Places are the Greeks, the Latins and the Armenians. The Latin Church may be
said to represent principally Latin races; the Greek Church, Slav, Turko-Slav and Hellenic races; and the
other Churches, Asiatic and African races.
Imagine all these conflicting peoples beleaguering the Holy Sepulchre, the battle conducted by the
monks, and the ostensible object of their rivalry being a star from the grotto of Bethlehem, a tapestry, a
key of a sanctuary, an altar, a shrine, a chair, a cushion – any ridiculous precedence! In order to
understand such a monastical crusade, it is indispensable to consider, firstly, the manner of their living,
and, secondly the mode of their habitation:
All the religious rubbish of the different nations [says a recent traveller] live at Jerusalem separated from
each other, hostile and jealous, a nomad population, incessantly recruited by pilgrimage or decimated
by the plague and oppressions. The European dies or returns to Europe after some years; the Pashas
and their guards go to Damascus or Constantinople; and the Arabs fly to the desert. Jerusalem is but a
place where everyone arrives to pitch his tent and where nobody remains. Everybody in the holy city
gets his livelihood from his religion – the Greeks or Armenians from the 12,000 to 13,000 pilgrims who
yearly visit Jerusalem, and the Latins from the subsidies and alms of their co-religionists of France, Italy,
etc.
Besides their monasteries and sanctuaries, the Christian nations possess at Jerusalem small habitations
or cells, annexed to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and occupied by the monks who have to watch
day and night that holy abode. At certain periods these monks are relieved in their duty by their
brethren. These cells have but one door, opening into the interior of the Temple, while the monk
guardians receive their food from without, through some wicket. The doors of the church are closed,
and guarded by Turks, who do not open them except for money, and close them according to their
caprice or cupidity.
The quarrels between Churchmen are the most venomous, said Mazarin. Now fancy these Churchmen,
who not only have to live upon, but live in, these sanctuaries together!
To finish the picture, be it remembered that the fathers of the Latin Church, almost exclusively
composed of Romans, Sardinians, Neapolitans, Spaniards and Austrians, are all of them jealous of the
French Protectorate, and would like to substitute that of Austria, Sardinia or Naples, the kings of the two
latter countries both assuming the tide of King of Jerusalem, and that the sedentary population of
Jerusalem numbers about 15,500 souls, of whom 4000 are Mussulmans and 8000 Jews. The
Mussulmans, forming about a fourth part of the whole, and consisting of Turks, Arabs and Moors, are, of
course, the masters in every respect, as they are in no way affected by the weakness of their
government at Constantinople. Nothing equals the misery and the sufferings of the Jews at Jerusalem,
inhabiting the most filthy quarter of the town, called hareth-el-yahoud, in the quarter of dirt between
the Zion and the Moriah, where their synagogues are situated – the constant objects of Mussulman
oppression and intolerance, insulted by the Greeks, persecuted by the Latins, and living only upon the
scanty alms transmitted by their European brethren. The Jews, however, are not natives, but from
different and distant countries, and are only attracted to Jerusalem by the desire of inhabiting the valley
of Jehoshaphat, and dying on the very place where the redemption is to be expected.
To make these Jews more miserable, England and Prussia appointed, in 1840, an Anglican bishop at
Jerusalem, whose avowed object is their conversion. He was dreadfully thrashed in 1845, and sneered at
alike by Jews, Christians and Turks. He may, in fact, be stated to have been the first and only cause of a
union between all the religions at Jerusalem.
It will now be understood that the common worship of the Christians at the Holy Places resolves itself
into a continuance of desperate Irish rows between the diverse sections of the faithful; that, on the
other hand, these sacred rows merely conceal a profane battle, not only of nations but of races; and
that the protectorate of the Holy Places, which appears ridiculous to the Occident, but all important to
the Orientals, is one of the phases of the Oriental question incessantly reproduced, constantly stifled,
but never solved.
XX
Originally published in New York Tribune, 11 July 1854.
A certain class of writers have been wont to attribute to the Emperor of Russia the possession of
extraordinary powers of mind, and especially of that far-reaching, comprehensive judgement which
marks the really great statesman. It is difficult to see how such illusions could be derived from any
truthful view of his character, or from any part of his history; but the most obstinate of his admirers
must, we think, now question the justice of their conclusions. Russia is now in a difficult and most
humiliating position. Her armies are defeated in Turkey, and, after immense losses of men and means,
are retreating within her own frontiers; her possessions in Asia, the fruit of many years’ effort and vast
expenditure, are partly lost and wholly imperilled; her foreign commerce is destroyed, and her home
industry injured by turning the national attention and the people’s energies to a useless and disastrous
war; her navy is imprisoned, and her fortresses menaced; and she must even regard as an advantage an
intervention which, whatever its other benefits, interposes an effectual barrier to the realisation of her
ambitious dreams, and renders impossible a renewal of her attack on Turkey, because that would
involve a direct collision with Germany, as well as with the Western powers. And all this is the work of
this great statesman and wise ruler Nicholas I. Praise of this headstrong imperial blunderer’s mental gifts
must hereafter be considerably qualified, if indulged in at all.
The defeat at Silistria is not enough to destroy the reputation of the Tsar, or of his army, any more than
the defeat at Oltenitza, Tchetalea or Karakul, for a defeat is something that the wisest foresight and the
most complete preparations cannot always prevent. But apart from this there is a fact which stands out
with greater prominence than any other in the whole course of the late remarkable siege and the
Russian retreat which followed it. It is this – that the Russian army, with its enormous numbers and its
whole swarms of officers, cannot afford leaders to take the place of Paskevitch, Gortschakoff, being
each over seventy, and Luders, the youngest, being over sixty – and likely as they were to die a natural
death any day; such is the narrowness and imbecility of the system on which the Tsar has managed his
vast military establishment that we can affirm it as a positive and undeniable fact, that there is hardly a
single officer who could step into the vacated place of either of these generals, and carry with him
confidence of the army and the nation. For years the Emperor, with an unaccountable blindness which
seemed, indeed, to fall little short of stupidity, has directed his efforts to the real injury and depression
of the service for whose improvement and perfection he fancied he was doing the utmost. Thus he has
limited promotion to mere parade martinets, whose principal merit consists in stolid obedience and
ready servility, added to accuracy of eyesight in detecting a fault in the buttons and button-holes of the
uniform – constantly preferring such sticks to men of real military ability and intellectual superiority.
Years of the dullest service, such as garrison duty and daily parade, and not youth, activity and the study
and acquirement of military science, have been the exclusive titles to the Tsar’s favour and to
advancement. Thus the army is commanded on the average by old valetudinarians, or by ignorant
corporals, who might manage a platoon, but have not brains and knowledge enough to direct the
extensive and complicated movements of a campaign.
The same narrow-mindedness and presumption appear throughout the Tsar’s whole management of
this Eastern Question. Everyone can now see that he began the war in an unwise and inadequate
manner. Indeed, his very first military demonstration was totally absurd and unequal to the purpose in
hand. He ought to have known that Europe would not allow the destruction of Turkey, and should,
therefore, either have kept quiet, biding his time, or have crossed the Pruth, not with between forty and
fifty thousand men, as he did last year, when during the whole winter he had only one army corps in the
Principalities, but should have pounced at once with his most powerful masses upon Turkey, reaching
across the Balkans before the Turks could have gathered together their scattered forces, and before the
Western powers could have combined in their opposition and sent fleets of troops. To strike by surprise
and terror ought to have been his aim, instead of engaging in such an imbecile manner his nation in a
gigantic struggle. But Nicholas is growing old, and has all the faults of decrepit age. One of the reasons
which prevented him from putting all his resources into action at once was that he feared the cost of
such an effort. Now he will lose a hundred times as much money, and without results. Penny-wisdom in
such an affair is no wisdom at all.
When the Russian forces first crossed the Pruth, the Tsar had no doubt – as we happened to know and
took occasion to state at the time – that he could bully all Europe, and reap laurels at small expense. His
diplomatic agents, too, encouraged him in this foolish opinion. The most mischievous of these
accessories to the Great Russian blunder has proved to be the Russian Minister at Paris, Kisseleff, whose
dispatches were full of the most satisfactory accounts concerning the friendly and pacific intentions of
Louis Napoleon. Kisseleff having resided for more than twenty-eight years in the French capital, very
naturally dreaded the idea of being recalled from the position where he led an epicurean life. The Tsar,
accordingly, who delights to read adulatory and flattering reports from his agents, caught at the first
bait, and any dispatch smelling of a disagreeable truth from any quarter was discredited, treated with
contempt, and did nothing but injury with the Autocrat to the faithful and able diplomatist sending it.
Thus nearly all the Russian diplomatic reports were full of encomiums on the Imperial sagacity, to which
Europe bowed, as they assured his Majesty, with respect and admiration. In one word we are able to
affirm that, since 1851, Nicholas has never had laid before him a truthful account of the state of Europe,
and of the feelings of the other governments towards him and Russia; and if his numerous agents misled
him in such a manner, the reason was that this was the most, nay the only, palatable dish for his political
appetite. He craved universal adulation; now he tastes its bitter and poisonous fruits.
We do not put any faith in the rumour of his abdication, a thing totally impossible and unwarranted; but,
on the other hand, only a miracle can extricate him from the difficulties now heaped on him and Russia
by his pride, shallowness and imbecility.
XXI
Originally published in New York Tribune, 17 August 1854.
It is now very nearly twelve months since a small Turkish corps, two battalions, succeeded in crossing
the Danube near Turtukai, opposite Oltenitza, threw up entrenchments there, and being attacked by the
Russians, repulsed them in a very spirited little affair, which, being the first engagement in the war, took
the style and title of the Battle of Oltenitza. There the Turks alone were opposed to the Russians; they
had no British or French troops behind them as a reserve, and could not even expect any support from
the allied fleets. And yet they held their ground on the Wallachian side of the river, for a fortnight at
Oltenitza, and for the whole winter at Kalafat.
Since then, England and France have declared war against Russia; sundry exploits, of a doubtful nature it
is true, have been achieved. Black Sea fleets, Baltic fleets, and an army of now nearly a hundred
thousand English and French soldiers are there to assist the Turks or to make diversions in their favour.
And the upshot of all this is nothing but a repetition of the Oltenitza business on a larger scale, but
rather less successfully than last year.
The Russians laid siege to Silistria. They went about it stupidly but bravely. They were defeated day after
day, night after night; not by superior science, not by Captain Butler or Lieutenant Nasmyth, the two
British officers present, who, according to The Times, saved Silistria. They were defeated by the
ignorance of the Turks, an ignorance extending so far as not to know when a fort or rampart ceases to
be tenable, and to sticking doggedly to every inch of ground, every molehill which the enemy appears to
covet. They were defeated besides by the stupidity of their own generals, by fever and cholera; finally,
by the moral effect of an allied army menacing their left, and an Austrian army menacing their right
wing. When the war began, we stated that the Russian army had never been able to lay a regular siege,
and the ill-managed operations before Silistria show that they have not improved since. Well, they were
defeated; they had to decamp in the most discreditable way imaginable; they had to raise the siege of
an incomplete fortress in the midst of a fine season, and without any troops coming to relieve the
garrison. Such an event occurs not more than once in a century; and whatever the Russians may try to
do in the autumn, the campaign is lost, disgracefully lost, for them.
But now for the reverse of the medal. Silistria is free. The Russians retreat to the left bank of the
Danube. They even prepare for and gradually execute the evacuation of the Dobrudscha. Hirsova and
Marschin are dismantled. The Sereth seems to be the line to which the Russians trust for the defence,
not of their conquests, but of their own territory. Omer Pasha, the wily old Croat, who can hold his
tongue or tell a lie as well as anybody, ‘in the execution of his duty’, at once sends a corps to the
Dobrudscha, and another to Rustchuk, thus engaging the two wings of the Russians at once. There were
far better manoeuvres possible at the time, but poor old Omer appears to know the Turks and the Allies
better than we do. The correct military move to be made would have been to march through the
Dobrudscha or by Kalarash upon the communications of the enemy; but, after what we have seen, we
cannot even accuse Omer of having missed a good opportunity. We know that his army is very badly
cared for – provided with almost nothing – and cannot therefore execute rapid movements which would
remove it to a distance from its base, or open up fresh lines of operation. These movements, decisive as
they are in their effect when undertaken by a sufficient force, are not within the reach of an army which
lives from hand to mouth, and has to pass through a barren country. We know that Omer Pasha went to
Varna, imploring the aid of the allied generals, who at that time had 75,000 capital soldiers there, within
four days’ march of the Danube, but neither St Arnaud nor Raglan thought proper to come up to where
they could meet the enemy. Thus Omer could do no more than he has done. He sent 25,000 men
towards the Dobrudscha, and marched with the rest of his army to Rustchuk. Here his troops passed
from island to island until the Danube was crossed, and then by a sudden march to the left took
Giurgevo in the rear, and forced the Russians to quit it. On the next day the Russians were drawn up on
some heights to the north of Giurgevo, where the Turks attacked them. A sanguinary battle ensued,
remarkable for the number of English officers who, with rare success, competed for the honour of being
shot first. They all got their bullets, but with no benefit to anybody, for it would be preposterous to think
that the sight of a British officer being shot could inflame a Turkish soldier to invincibility. However, the
Russians having a mere advanced guard on the spot – a brigade, the two regiments of Kolyvan and
Tomsk – got beaten, and the Turks made good their footing on the Wallachian bank of the Danube. They
at once set about fortifying the place, and as they had British sappers, and, as at Kalafat, they did very
well for themselves, there is no doubt that they were making a formidable position of it. But thus far
they were allowed to go and no farther. That Emperor of Austria who now for eight months has been
trying hard to act the part of an independent man, steps in at once. The Principalities have been
promised to his troops as a feeding ground, and he intends to have them. What business have the Turks
there? Let them go back to Bulgaria. So down comes the order from Constantinople to withdraw the
Turkish troops from the left bank, and to leave ‘all that plot of land’ to the tender mercies of the
Austrian soldiers. Diplomacy is above strategy. Whatever may come of it, the Austrians will save their
own frontiers by occupying a few yards of ground beyond; and to this important end even the
necessities of the war must give way. Besides, is not Omer Pasha an Austrian deserter? And Austria
never forgets. In Montenegro she interrupted his victorious career; and she repeats the process again,
to make the renegade feel that he is not yet out of the allegiance to his lawful sovereign.
It is entirely useless to enter into the military details of this present stage of the campaign. The actions
possess little tactical interest, being plain, straightforward front attacks; the movements of troops on
either side are ruled more by diplomatic than strategical motives. Most likely we shall see the campaign
closing without any great enterprise, for on the Danube there is nothing prepared for a grand offensive,
and as to the taking of Sebastopol, of which we hear so much, the beginning will probably be delayed
until the season is so far advanced that it must be postponed till next year.
It would seem that whoever may have had any conservative leanings in Europe must lose them when he
looks at this everlasting Eastern Question. There is all Europe, incapable, convicted for the last sixty
years of incapability, to settle this puny little strife. There they are, France, England, Russia, going
actually to war. They carry on their war for six months, and unless by mistake, or on a very shabby scale,
they have not even come to blows. There they are, eighty or ninety thousand English and French
soldiers, at Varna, commanded by old Wellington’s late military secretary and by a Marshal of France
(whose greatest exploits, it is true, were performed in London pawnshops) – there they are, the French
doing nothing and the British helping them as fast as they can; and as they may think this sort of
business not exactly honourable, the fleets are come up to Baltchik Roads to have a look at them and to
see which of the two armies can enjoy the dolce far niente with the greater decorum. And, although the
Allies have hitherto only been eating up the provisions upon which the Turkish army had calculated,
idling away day after day at Varna, for the last two months, they are not yet fit for duty. They would
have relieved Silistria if required by about the middle of May next year. The troops that have conquered
Algeria had learned the theory and practice of war on one of the most difficult theatres in existence, the
soldiers who fought the Sikhs on the sands of the Indus, and the Kaffirs in the thorny bush of South
Africa, in countries far more savage than Bulgaria – there they are, helpless and useless, fit for nothing in
a country which even exports corn!
But if the Allies are miserable in their performances, so are the Russians. They have had plenty of time
to prepare. They have done whatever they could, for they knew from the beginning what resistance
they would find. And yet, what have they been able to do? Nothing. They could not take a yard of
contested ground from the Turks; they could not take Kalafat; they could not beat the Turks in one
single engagement. And yet they are the same Russians who, under Muennich and Suvaroff, conquered
the Black Sea coast from the Don to the Dniester. But Schilders is not Muennich, Paskevitch is not
Suvaroff, and though the Russian soldier can bear flogging with the cane beyond all others, yet when it
comes to habitual retreating he loses his steadiness as well as anybody else.
The fact is, that conservative Europe – the Europe of ‘order, property, family, religion’ – the Europe of
monarchs, feudal lords, moneyed men, however they may be differently assorted in different countries
– is once more exhibiting its extreme impotency. Europe may be rotten, but a war should have roused
the sound elements, a war should have brought forth some latent energies; and assuredly there should
be that much pluck among two hundred and fifty millions of men, that at least one decent struggle
might be got up wherein both parties could reap some honour, such as force and spirit can carry off
even from the field of battle. But no, not only is the England of the middle classes, the France of the
Bonapartes, incapable of a decent, hearty, hard-fought war; but even Russia, the country of Europe least
infected by infidel and unnerving civilisation, cannot bring about anything of the kind. The Turks are fit
for sudden starts of offensive action, and stubborn resistance on the defensive, but seem not to be fit
for large combined manoeuvres with great armies. Thus everything is reduced to a degree of
impuissance and a reciprocal confession of weakness, which appears to be as reciprocally expected by
all parties, With governments such as they are at present, this Eastern war may be carried on for thirty
years, and yet come to no conclusion.
XXII
Originally published in New York Tribune, 24 October 1854.
The days in which religious considerations were a governing element in the wars of Western Europe are,
it seems, long gone by. The Treaty of Westphalia, in 1648, which wound up the Thirty Years’ War in
Germany, marks the epoch when such questions lost their force and disappeared as a moving cause of
international strife. The attitude of the two great powers of Western Europe in the present war against
Russia is a striking illustration of this truth. We there see England, professedly Protestant, allied with
France, professedly Catholic ('damnably heretical’ as they naturally are in each other’s eyes, according to
the orthodox phraseology of both), for the purpose of defending Turkey, a Mohammedan power,
against the aggressions of ‘holy’ Russia, a power Christian like themselves; and though the position of
Austria and Prussia is more equivocal than that of England and France, the maintenance of the
Mussulman Empire in its integrity against the assaults of its Christian neighbour of the North is an object
that has been avowed and guaranteed equally with France and England, by the two great powers of
Christian Germany. Religious considerations are certainly not the influences which restrain these from
action against Russia.
To appreciate this state of things perfectly we must call to mind the period of the Crusades, when
Western Europe, so late as the thirteenth century, undertook a ‘holy war’ against the ‘infidel’ Turks for
the possession of the Holy Sepulchre. Western Europe now not only acquiesces in the Mussulman
jurisdiction over the Sepulchre, but goes so far as to laugh at the contests and rivalries of the Greek and
Latin monks to obtain undivided possession of a shrine once so much coveted by all Christendom; and
when Christian Russia steps forward to ‘protect’ the Christian subjects of the Porte, Western Europe of
today arrays itself in arms against the Tsar to thwart a design which it would once have deemed highly
laudable and righteous. To drive the Moslems out of Europe would once have roused the zeal of England
and France; to prevent the Turks from being driven out of Europe is now the most cherished resolve of
those nations. So broad a gulf stands between Europe of the nineteenth and Europe of the thirteenth
century! So fallen away since the latter epoch is the political influence of religious dogma.
We have carefully watched for any expression of the purely ecclesiastical view of the European crisis,
and have only found one pamphlet by a Cambridge DD, and one North British Reviewer for England, and
the Paris Universfor France, which have dogmatically represented the defence of a Mohammedan
power by Christendom as absolutely sinful; and these pronunciamentos have remained without an echo
in either country. Whence is this?
From the period of the Protestant Reformation, the upper classes in every European nation, whether it
remained Catholic or adopted Protestantism, and especially the statesmen, legists and diplomatists,
began to unfasten themselves individually from all religious relief, and become free-thinkers so-called.
This intellectual movement in the higher circles manifested itself without reserve in France from the
time of Louis XIV, resulting in the universal predilection for what was denominated Philosophy during
the eighteenth century. But when Voltaire found residence in France no longer safe, not because of his
opinions, nor because he has given oral expression to them, but because he had communicated them by
his writings to the whole reading public, he betook himself to England and testified that he found
the salons of high life in London still ‘freer’ than those of Paris. Indeed, the men and women of the court
of Charles II, Bolingbroke, the Walpoles, Hume, Gibbon and Charles Fox are names which all suggest a
prevalent unbelief in religious dogmas, and a general adhesion to the philosophy of that age on the part
of the upper classes, statesmen and politicians of England. This may be called, by way of distinction, the
era of aristocratic revolt against ecclesiastical authority. Comte, in one short sentence, has characterised
this situation:
From the opening of the revolutionary period in the sixteenth century this system of hypocrisy has been
more and more elaborated in practice, permitting the emancipation of all minds of a certain bearing, on
a tacit condition that they should aid in protracting the submission of the masses. This was eminently
the policy of the Jesuits.
This brings us down to the period of the French Revolution, when the masses, firstly of France, and
afterwards of all Western Europe, along with a desire for political and social freedom, began to entertain
an ever-growing aversion from religious dogma. The total abolition of Christianity, as a recognised
institution of state by the French Republican Convention of 1793, and since then the gradual repeal in
Western Europe, wherever the popular voice has had power, of religious tests and political and civil
disabilities of the same character, together with the Italian movement of 1848, sufficiently announce the
well-known direction of the popular mind in Europe. We are still witnesses of this epoch, which may be
characterised as the era of democratic revolt against ecclesiastical authority.
But this very movement among the masses since the French Revolution, bound up as it was with the
movement for social equality, brought about a violent reaction in favour of church authority in high
quarters. Nobility and clergy, lords temporal and lords spiritual, found themselves equally threatened by
the popular movement, and it naturally came to pass that the upper classes of Europe threw aside their
scepticism in public life and made an outward alliance with the state churches and their systems. This
reaction was most apparent in France, first under Bonaparte, and during the Restoration under the elder
branch of the Bourbons, but it was not less the case with the rest of Western Europe. In our own day we
have seen renewed on a smaller scale this patching up of an alliance offensive and defensive between
the upper classes and the ecclesiastical interest. Since the epoch of 1830 the statesmen had begun to
manifest anew a spirit of independence towards ecclesiastical control, but the events of 1848 threw
them back into the arms of Mother Church. Again France gave the clearest exemplification of this
phenomenon. In 1849, when the terror of the Democratic deluge was at its height, Messrs Thiers, De
Hauranne and the Universitarians (who had passed for Atheists with the clergy), together with the so-
called Liberal Opposition, were unanimous in supporting that admirably qualified ‘saviour of religion’, M
Bonaparte, in his project for the violent restoration of the Pope of Rome, while the Whig Ministry of
Protestant England, at whose head was a member of the ultra-Protestant family of Russell, were warm
in their approval of the same expedition. This religious restoration by such processes was indeed only
redeemed from universal ridicule by the extremely critical posture of affairs which, for the moment, in
the interest of ‘order’ did not allow the public men of Europe to indulge in the sense of the ludicrous.
But the submission of the classes of leading social influence to ecclesiastical control, which was hollow
and hypocritical at the beginning of this century after the Revolution of 1792, has been far more
precarious and superficial since 1848, and is only acknowledged by those classes so far as it suits their
immediate political interest. The humiliating position of utter dependence which the ecclesiastical
power sustains towards the temporal arm of government has been made fully manifest since 1848. The
Pope indebted to the French government for his present tenure of the chair of St Peter; the French
clergy, for the sake of their salaries, blessing trees of liberty and proclaiming the sovereignty of the
people, and afterwards canonising the present Emperor of France as the chosen instrument of God and
the Saviour of religion, their old proper doctrines of legitimacy, and the divine right of kings being in
each case laid aside with the downfall of the corresponding political régime; the Anglican clergy,
whose ex officio head is a temporal Queen, dependent for promotion on the recommendation of the
Prime Minister, now generally a Liberal, and looking for favours and support against popular
encroachment to Parliament in which the Liberal element is ever on the increase – constitute
an ensemble from which it would be absurd to expect acts of pure ecclesiastical independence, except in
the normally impossible case of an overwhelming popular support to fall back upon.
Such was the position of affairs in 1853, when the governing classes of England and France deemed it
necessary and politic to espouse the cause of the Ottoman Porte against the Christian Tsar; and that
policy was not only sanctioned, but in a measure forced upon them by the popular sentiment of the two
nations. Then the governments of France and England entered upon a policy totally inconsistent with
religious considerations, and threw off unhesitatingly their feigned ecclesiastical alliances. Then at
length the upper-class current of revolt (which had been so long dissembled) formed a juncture with the
broad popular current, and the two together, like the Missouri and the Mississippi, rolled onwards a tide
of opinion which the ecclesiastical power saw it would be madness to encounter. Beneath this twofold
assault the pure ecclesiastical point of view has not dared to manifest itself; while, on the contrary, the
state clergy of England, on the appointed day of the national fast and humiliation, had to pray and
preach patriotic sermons on behalf of the success of the Crescent and its allies. These considerations
seem to afford a rational explanation of two apparent anomalies with which we started; namely, the
defence of the Crescent by allied Catholic and Protestant Europe against the assaults of the Cross, as
represented by Christian Russia, and the fact that no voice of any influence has been lifted up to
denounce to Christendom the novel position in which it is placed.
This coalition between the politicians of Western Europe and the popular opinion in behalf of a purely
secular policy, is likely to generate ulterior consequences and to subject ecclesiastical influence to
further shocks from its old accomplices, the politicians. It is doubtless owing to the ripeness of the public
mind in this respect, that Lord Palmerston ventured to refuse the request of the Edinburgh Presbytery
for a day of public fast and humiliation to avert the divine scourge of cholera, the Home Secretary
audaciously averring that prayers would be of no consequence unless they cleansed their streets and
habitations, and that cholera was generated by natural causes, such as deleterious gases from
decomposed vegetable matter. The vain and unscrupulous Palmerston knew that buffeting the clergy
would be a cheap and easy way of acquiring popularity, otherwise he would not have ventured on the
experiment.
A further evidence of the extreme incompetence of ecclesiastical policy to answer the exigencies of the
European situation is found in the consideration that the ecclesiastical view, if logically carried out,
would condemn Catholic Europe to entire indifference in the present European crisis; for though it
might be permissible for Anglican orthodoxy to side with the Greek Cross against the Turkish Crescent,
Catholic Europe could not unite with so impious a denier of the authority of the successor of St Peter,
and so unhallowed a pretender to the highest spiritual functions, as the Tsar of Russia, and would
apparently have no other opinion to utter than that both the belligerent parties were inspired by Satan!
To complete the disparagement which ecclesiastical authority has undergone in the present European
crisis, it is patent to the world that while the advance communities of Western Europe are in a forward
stage of ecclesiastical decay, in barbarian Russia, on the other hand, the State Church retains a powerful
and undiminished vigour. While Western Europe, discarding religious biases, has advanced in defence of
‘right against might’ and ‘for the independence of Europe’, ‘holy’ Russia has claimed for its war of might
against right a religious sanction as a war of the vicegerent of God against the infidel Turks. It is true that
Nesselrode, in his state papers, has never had the assurance in the face of Europe to appeal to the
ecclesiastical aspect of the question, and this is in itself a remarkable symptom of the decline of the
ecclesiastical sentiment; this method of treatment is reserved by the Russian Court for internal use
among the ignorant and credulous Muscovites, and the miracle-pictures, the relics, the crusading
proclamations of the Russian generals show how much stress is there laid upon the religious phase of
the struggle for inflaming the zeal of the Russian people and army. Even the St Petersburg journals do
not omit to cast in the teeth of France and England the reproach that they are fighting on behalf of the
abhorred Crescent, against the religion of the Cross. Such a contrast between religious Russia and
secular France and England is worthy of a profound and thorough examination, which we cannot
undertake to give it, our object being simply to call to these large, impressive and novel facts a degree of
attention they have not hitherto received. They are facts which perhaps the philosophic and religious
historians of the future will alone be able to appreciate at their exact value. They appear, however, to
constitute an important step in the great movement of the world towards abrogating absolute authority
and establishing the independence of the individual judgement and conscience in the religious as well as
the political sphere of life. To defend or attack that movement is not our purpose; our duty is discharged
in the simple attestation of its progress.
XXIII
Originally published in New York Tribune, 1 January 1855.
The sun of Austerlitz has melted in water. A great battle, as was confidently announced and believed in
Paris, was to be fought before Sebastopol in celebration of the second of December, but from a dispatch
of General Canrobert, of the third of December, it appears that ‘rain was falling in torrents, the roads
were cut up, the trenches filled with water, and the siege operations – as well as all the works – put in a
state of suspense’.
The Russians hitherto had the offensive, the Allies the defensive, superiority on the Chernaya; at the
walls of Sebastopol it was the reverse. In other words the Russians were strong enough on the Chernaya
to hold the field, but the Allies were not, though able to keep their position; while at Sebastopol the
Allies, strong enough to carry on the siege, were so nearly matched by the garrison that the operations,
though not stopped from without, yet proceeded with hardly any visible effect. The proportions of force
seem about to change, and the Allies appear on the point of becoming strong enough to repulse the
Russians from the Chernaya. In that case, the Russians can act two ways, after having lost their position
above Inkerman. Either they can go round and take up the entrenched camp about the North Fort, or
they can with their main body retreat into the interior, where the Allies cannot follow them far. The
Allies can hardly be strong enough before February either to invest the northern camp or follow a
retreating army much further than Baktchiserai. They could scarcely fight a second battle against an
army entrenched somewhere about Simpheropol. In either case they would have to fall back on the
Chernaya, and thus this game of alternate advance and retreat is likely to be played all the winter over,
unless, indeed, Sebastopol, on the south side, succumbs to an assault. But as the news which we receive
respecting the siege is very meagre, we cannot say any more on this point than that it is not at all likely.
We are, indeed, aware that, according to a dispatch of 7 December, published in the Paris Moniteur, and
reprinted in the London papers, the allied armies had all of a sudden got the upper hand, and only two
days after the deluge ‘almost completed the investment of the town’. This spurious dispatch was
evidently concocted with a view to make amends for the baffled second of December prophecy.
If, in 1812, the Continental force launched against Russia was far weaker than that which she may
perhaps see on her frontiers in April or May – if then England was her ally instead of her foe, Russia may
console herself with the reflection that the more numerous the armies are which penetrate her interior,
the more chance is there of their speedy destruction, and that, on the other hand, she has now three
times the troops under arms which she had then.
Not that we think ‘Holy Russia’ unassailable. On the contrary, Austria and Prussia united are quite able,
if merely military chances are taken into account, to force her to an ignominious peace. Any forty
millions of men, concentrated upon a country of the size of Germany proper, will be able to cope
successfully with the scattered sixty millions of Russian subjects. The strategy of an attack upon Russia
from the west has been clearly enough defined by Napoleon, and had he not been forced by
circumstances of a non-strategic nature to deviate from his plan, Russia’s integrity would have been
seriously menaced in 1812. That plan was to advance to the Dvina and the Dnieper, to organise a
defensive position, both as to fortifications, depots and communications, to take her fortresses on the
Dvina, and to delay the march to Moscow until the spring of 1813. He was induced to abandon this plan,
late in the season, from political reasons, from the outcry of his officers against winter quarters in
Lithuania, and from a blind faith in his invincibility. He marched to Moscow, and the result is known. The
disaster was immensely aggravated by the maladministration of the French Commissariat, and by the
want of warm clothing for the soldiers. Had these things been better attended to, Napoleon, on his
retreat, might have found himself at Vilna at the head of an army twice in numbers that which Russia
could oppose to him. His errors are before us; they are none of them of a nature irremediable; the fact
of his penetrating to Moscow, the march of Charles XII to Poltava, prove that the country is accessible,
though difficult of access; and as to maintaining a victorious army in its heart, that all depends upon the
length of the line of operations from the Rhine to Eylau and Friedland, if we consider long lines of
operations in their capacity of drawbacks upon the active force of an army, will be about equal to a line
of operations from Brest-Litovsk (supposing the Polish fortresses to be taken in the first year) to
Moscow. And in this supposition no account is taken of the circumstance that the immediate base of
operations would have been advanced to Vitebsk, Mogilev and Smolensk, without which preparatory act
a march on Moscow would certainly be hazardous.
Russia is certainly thinly populated; but we must not forget that the central provinces – the very heart of
Russian nationality and strength – have a population equal to that of central Europe. In Poland – that is,
the five governments constituting the Russian kingdom of Poland – the average is about the same. The
most populous districts of Russia – Moscow, Tula, Riazan, Nijni-Novgorod, Kaluga, Yaroslavl, Smolensk,
etc – are the very heart of Great Russia, and form a compact body; they are continued, on the south, by
the equally populous Little Russian provinces of Kiev, Poltava, Tehernigov, Voronezh, etc. There are, in
all, twenty-nine provinces or governments, in which the population is quite half as dense as that of
Germany. It is only the eastern and northern provinces, and the steppes of the south, where population
is very thin; partly also the formerly Polish provinces of the west – Minsk, Mogilev and Grodno – on
account of extensive swamps between the (Polish) Bug and Dniester. But an advancing army, having in
its rear the corn-producing plains of Poland, Volhynia and Podolia, and in front, and for its theatre of
operations, those of Central Russia, need not be afraid of its subsistence, if it manages the matter
anything like well, and if it learns from the Russians themselves how to employ the means of transport
of the country. As for a devastation of all resources by the retreating army, as in 1812, such a thing is
only possible on one line of operations, and in its immediate vicinity; and if Napoleon had not, by his
hurried advance from Smolensk, tied himself down to a very short time in which to complete his
campaign, he would have found plenty of resources around him. But being in a hurry, he could not
forage out the country at a short distance from his line of march, and his foraging parties, at that time,
appear actually to have been afraid of penetrating far into the immense pine forests which separate
village from village. An army which can detach strong cavalry parties to hunt up provisions, and the
numerous carts and wagons of the country, can easily provide itself with everything necessary in the
shape of food; and it is not likely that Moscow will burn down a second time. But even in that case, a
retreat to Smolensk cannot be prevented, and there the army would find its well-prepared base of
operation provided with every necessary.
XXIV
Originally published in New York Tribune, 22 January 1855.
The entire British public, starting from the recent vehement leaders of the London Times, seems to be in
a state of great anxiety and excitement respecting the condition of the forces in the Crimea. Indeed, it is
impossible longer to deny or palliate the fact that, through unparalleled mismanagement in every
branch of the service, the British army is rapidly approaching a state of dissolution. Exposed to the
hardships of a winter campaign, suffering cold and wet, with the most harassing and uninterrupted field
duty, without clothing, food, tents or housing, the veterans who braved the burning sun of India and the
furious charges of the Beloochee and Afghan die away by hundreds daily, and as fast as reinforcements
arrive they are eaten up by the ravages of disease. To the question who is to blame for this state of
things, the reply just now most popular in England is that it is Lord Raglan; but this is not just. We are no
admirers of his Lordship’s military conduct, and have criticised his blunders with freedom, but truth
requires us to say that the terrible evils amid which the soldiers in the Crimea are perishing are not his
fault, but that of the system on which the British war establishment is administered.
The British army has a Commander-in-Chief, a person dispensed with in almost all other civilised armies.
But it would be a mistake to suppose that this Commander-in-Chief really commands anything. If he has
some control over the infantry and cavalry, the artillery, engineers, sappers and miners are entirely
beyond his sphere. If he has any authority over trousers, coatees and stocks, all great-coats are exempt
from his influence. If he can make every foot-soldier carry two cartridge pouches, he cannot find him a
single musket. If he can have all his men tried by court-martial and well flogged, he cannot make them
stir a single inch. Marching is beyond his competence, and as to feeding his troops, that is a thing which
does not concern him at all. Then there is the Master-General of the Ordnance. This person is a
lamentable relic of the times when science was considered unsoldier-like, and when all scientific corps,
artillery and engineers were not soldiers, but a sort of nondescript body, half savants, half
handicraftsmen, and united in a separate guild or corporation, under the command of such a Master-
General. This Master-General of the Ordnance, besides artillery and engineers, has under him all the
great-coats and small arms of the army. To any military operation, of whatever nature, he must,
therefore, be a party. Next comes the Secretary at War. If the two preceding characters were already of
comparative nullity, he is beyond nullity. The Secretary at War can give no order to any part of the army,
but he can prevent any portion of the army from doing anything. As he is the chief of the military
finances, and as every military act costs money, his refusal to grant funds is equivalent to an absolute
veto upon all operations. But, willing as he may be to grant the funds, he is still a nullity, for he cannot
feed the army; that is beyond his sphere. In addition to all this, the Commissariat, which really feeds the
army, and, in case of any movement, is supposed to find it in means of transport, is placed under the
control of the Treasury. Thus the Prime Minister, the First Lord of the Treasury, has a direct hand in the
getting up of every military operation, and can at his pleasure either push it, retard it, or stop it.
Everybody knows that the Commissariat is almost a more important portion of the army than the
soldiers themselves; and for this very reason the collective wisdom of Great Britain has thought proper
to make it quite independent of the army, and to place it under control of an essentially different
department. Finally, the army, formerly put in motion by the Colonial Secretary, is now subject to the
orders of the new War Minister. He dislocates the troops, from England to China, and from India to
Canada. But, as we have seen, his authority, taken singly, is as ineffectual as that of any of the four
preceding military powers, the cooperation of all the five being required in order to bring about the
least movement.
It was under the auspices of this wonderful system that the present war began. The British troops, well
fed and well cared for at home, in consequence of a forty years’ peace, went out in high condition,
persuaded that, whatever the enemy might do, England would not let her gallant lads want for anything.
But scarcely had they landed at their first stage, at Gallipoli, when the comparison with the French army
showed the ludicrous inferiority of all British arrangements, and the pitiable helplessness of every British
official. Although it was here comparatively easy to provide for everything, although sufficient notice
had been given, and a very small body of troops only was sent out, everything went wrong. Everybody
made himself very busy, and yet nobody would perform duties that had not fallen to his lot at home in
time of peace; so that not a man was to be found to do that business which was created by the very war
itself. Thus shiploads of stuff were left to rot on the shore where they were first landed, and troops had
to be sent on to Scutari for want of room. Chaotic disorder announced itself in unmistakable signs; but
as it was the beginning of the war, an improvement was expected from growing experience.
The troops went to Varna. Their distance from home increased, their number increased, the disorder in
the administration increased. The independent working of the five departments composing the
administration, each of them responsible to a different minister at home, here first resulted in open and
unmistakable clashing. Want reigned in the camp, while the garrison of Varna had the best of comforts.
The Commissariat, lazily indeed, got together some means of transport from the country; but as the
General-in-Chief did not appoint any escort wagons, the Bulgarian drivers disappeared again as fast as
they had been brought together. A central depot was formed at Constantinople – a sort of first base of
operations; but it served no purpose, except to create a fresh centre of difficulties, delays, questions of
competency, quarrels between the army, the Ordnance, the paying staff, the Commissariat and the War
Office. Wherever anything was to be done, everybody tried to shove it off his own shoulders upon those
of somebody else. The avoiding of all responsibility was the general aim. The consequence was that
everything went wrong, and that nothing whatever was done. Disgust at these proceedings, and the
certainty of seeing his army rot in inactivity, may have had some influence in determining Lord Raglan to
risk the expedition to the Crimea.
This expedition crowned the success of John Bull’s military organisation. There in the Crimea came the
‘palpable hit’. So long as the army was, in point of fact, in a state of peace, as at Gallipoli, Scutari and
Varna, the magnitude of the disorder, the complexity of the confusion, could hardly be expected fully to
develop itself. But now, in face of the enemy, during the course of an actual siege, the case was
different. The resistance of the Russians gave full scope to the British officials for the exercise of their
business-like habits. And it must be confessed never was the business of destroying an army done more
effectually than by these gentlemen. Of more than 60,000 men sent to the East since February last, not
more than 17,000 are now fit for duty; and of these some 60 or 80 die daily, and about 200 or 250 are
every day disabled by sickness, while of those that fall sick hardly any recover. And out of the 43,000
dead or sick, not 7000 have been disabled by the direct action of the army.
When it first was reported in England that the army in the Crimea wanted food, clothing, housing,
everything; that neither medical nor surgical stores were on the spot; that the sick and wounded had
either to lie on the cold, wet ground, exposed to the weather, or to be crowded on board ships moored
in an open roadstead, without attendance or the simplest requisites for medical treatment; when it was
reported that hundreds were dying for want of the first necessaries – everybody believed that the
government had neglected to send proper supplies to the scene of action. But soon enough it became
known that, if this had been partially the case in the beginning, it was not so now. Everything had been
sent there, even in profusion; but, unfortunately, nothing ever happened to be where it was wanted.
The medical stores were at Varna, while the sick and wounded were either in the Crimea or at Scutari;
the clothing and provisions arrived in sight of the Crimea, but there was nobody to land them. Whatever
by chance got landed was left to rot on the beach. The necessary cooperation of the naval force brought
a fresh element of dissension to bear upon the already distracted councils of the department whose
conflicts were to insure triumph to the British army. Incapacity, sheltered by regulations made for
peace, reigned supreme; in one of the richest countries of Europe, on the sheltered coast of which
hundreds of transports laden with stores lay at anchor, the British army lived upon half rations;
surrounded by numberless herds of cattle, they had to suffer from scurvy in consequence of being
restricted to salt meat; with plenty of wood and coal on board ship, they had so little of it on shore that
they had to eat their meat raw, and could never dry the clothes which the rain had drenched. Think of
serving out the coffee not only unground but even unroasted. There were stores of food, of drink, of
clothing, of tents, of ammunition by tons and hundreds of tons, stowed away on board the ships, whose
masts almost touched the tops of the cliffs where the camp was placed; and yet, Tantalus-like, the
British troops could not get at them. Everybody felt the evil, everybody ran about, cursing and blaming
everybody else for neglect of duty, but nobody knew, to use the vernacular expression, ‘which was
which’, for everybody had his own set of regulations, carefully drawn up, sanctioned by the authorities,
and showing that the very thing wanted was no part of his duty, and that he, for one, had no power to
set the matter right.
Now, add to this state of things the increasing inclemency of the season, the heavy rains setting in and
transforming the whole Heracleatic Chersonesus into one uninterrupted pool of mud and slush, knee-
deep if not more; imagine the soldiers two nights at least out of four in the trenches, the other two
sleeping, drenched and dirty in the slush, without boards under them, and with hardly any tents over
them; the constant alarms completing the impossibility of anything like proper rest and adequate sleep;
the cramps, diarrhoea and other maladies arising from constant wet and cold; the dispersion of the
medical staff, weak though it was from the beginning, over the camp; the hospital tents with 3000 sick
almost in the open air, and lying on the wet earth; and it will be easily believed that the British army in
the Crimea is in a state of complete disorganisation – reduced to ‘a mob of brave men’, as the
London Times says – and that the soldiers may well welcome the Russian bullet which frees them from
all their miseries.
But what is to be done? Why, unless you prefer waiting until half a dozen Acts of Parliament are, after
due consideration by the Crown lawyers, discussed, amended, voted on and enacted; until by this
means the whole business connected with the army is concentrated in the hands of a real War Minister;
until this new Minister, supposing him to be the right man, has organised the service of his office, and
issued fresh regulations; in other words, unless you wait until the last vestige of the Crimean army has
disappeared, there is only one remedy. This is the assumption by the General-in-Chief of the expedition,
upon his own authority and his own responsibility, of that dictatorship over all the conflicting and
contending departments of the military administration which every other General-in-Chief possesses,
and without which he cannot bring the enterprise to any end but ruin. That would soon make matters
smooth; but where is the British general who would be prepared to act in this Roman manner, and on
his trial defend himself, like the Roman, with the words, ‘Yes, I plead guilty to having saved my country'?
Finally we must inquire who is the founder and preserver of this beautiful system of administration.
Nobody but the old Duke of Wellington. He stuck to every detail of it as if he was personally interested
in making it as difficult as possible for his successors to rival him in war-like glory. Wellington, a man of
eminent common sense, but of no genius whatever, was the more sensible of his own deficiencies in
this respect from being the contemporary and opponent of the eminent genius of Napoleon.
Wellington, therefore, was full of envy of the success of others. His meanness in disparaging the merits
of his auxiliaries and allies is well known; he never forgave Blucher for saving him at Waterloo.
Wellington knew full well that had not his brother been minister during the Spanish War he never could
have brought it to a successful close. Was Wellington afraid that future exploits would place him in the
shade? And did he therefore preserve to its full extent this machinery so well adapted to fetter generals
and to ruin armies?
XXV
Originally published in New York Tribune, 28 March 1855.
The death of the Emperor Nicholas, with its immediate and prospective consequences, overtops all
other news. As The Tribune informed its readers would be the case, contrary to the opinion of nearly all
the journals, Alexander II quietly assumed the inheritance of his father. Europeans speculate upon the
course which the new Emperor will pursue in the ominous conflict now pending. Until yet, however, the
few public acts of Alexander show that he intends to pursue the same course as his predecessor. The
manifesto to the nation, of which only the most interesting part is published in the European journals,
declares that the new Tsar will do all in his power to maintain Russia in the high position which she
holds, and that he will continue the policy of Peter, Catherine, Alexander and his deceased father. Such a
declaration is very natural in the mouth of a new sovereign, but it would be preposterous to draw
conclusions therefrom as to his future acts. Such words are neither for war nor for peace, and other
indications are required in order to judge of his intentions. One of these is that he has no liking for the
English; and another is the nomination of Count Rudiger as War Minister, instead of Prince Dolgoroucki,
who filled this post under the deceased Tsar, and was his favourite. These are the only changes yet
known to be made among the higher dignitaries of the Empire, and they followed almost immediately
on the death of Nicholas. We perceive in them a demonstration that the new Emperor is preparing for
extremities, and for an energetic prosecution of the war, should the Conference of Vienna prove a
failure.
As we long ago stated, it was the practice of Nicholas to direct personally all the movements of his
armies and the destination and location of his troops. In a word, he was his own War Minister. Prince
Dolgoroucki, a man of secondary capacity, without any military experience, was a good Secretary –
laborious and exact in the execution of orders, but unable alone to conceive any plans, or combine or
energetically organise new resources. The present Emperor himself, inexperienced in military matters,
and never having really devoted to them much of his time, has, in appointing Count Rudiger Minister of
War, compensated for his own deficiencies. This Minister is one of oldest generals of Russia, having
served with distinction in interior grades during the French campaigns, as general against the Turks in
1828-49, as the commander of a corps in the Polish campaign of 1831, and having finally contributed
chiefly to bring to an end the Hungarian invasion, Georgey surrendering to him. He is beyond seventy
years, but active, very energetic, and a military man to the marrow, enjoying great consideration in the
army as well as at St Petersburg. He was highly esteemed by Nicholas, and was always a favourite with
the present Emperor. Personally he is on rather unfriendly terms with Prince Paskevitch and Prince
Gortschakoff, the late commander on the Danube, and now in the Crimea. Count Rudiger has
represented the German party, but that must not be confounded with a peace party. The Germans in
the military service of Russia are more warlike than the Russians themselves. War is for them the only
way of acquiring distinction and rising to elevated positions. Rudiger is descended from an ancient
family in the Baltic provinces, as are nearly all the Germans in the Russian service. These ancient noble
descendants of the ancient Teutonic knights have preserved all the warlike traditions and the
aristocratic character of their ancestors, and all of them prefer to enter the army, war being for them an
object of ambition as well as an attraction. The elevation, therefore, of Rudiger, though a German,
would give a new and powerful impulse to the preparations for war.
XXVI
Originally published in New York Tribune, 27 April 1855.
With the middle classes both of France and England this war is decidedly unpopular. With the French
bourgeoisie it was so from the beginning, because this class has been ever since 2 December in full
opposition against the government of the ‘saviour of society’. In England the middle class was divided.
The great bulk had transferred their national hatred from the French to the Russians, and although John
Bull can do a little annexation business himself now and then in India, he has no idea of allowing other
people to do the same in other neighbourhoods in an uncomfortable proximity to himself or his
possessions. Russia was the country which in this respect had long since attracted his anxious notice.
The enormously increasing British trade to the Levant, and through Trebizond to Inner Asia, makes the
free navigation of the Dardanelles a point of the highest importance to England. The growing value of
the Danubian countries as granaries forbids England to allow their gradual absorption into Russia, and
the closing of the navigation of the Danube by the same power. Russian grains form already a too
important item in British consumption, and an annexation of the corn-producing frontier countries by
Russia would make Great Britain entirely dependent upon her and the United States, while it would
establish these two countries as the regulators of the corn-market of the world. Besides, there are
always some vague and alarming rumours afloat about Russian progress in Central Asia, got up by
interested Indian politicians or terrified visionaries, and credited by the general geographical ignorance
of the British public. Thus, when Russia began her aggression upon Turkey, the national hatred broke
forth in a blaze, and never, perhaps, was a war so popular as this. The peace party was for a moment
interdicted from speaking; even the mass of its own members went along with the popular current.
Whoever knew the character of the English must have felt certain that this warlike enthusiasm could be
of but short duration, at least so far as the middle class was concerned; as soon as the effects of the war
should become taxable upon their pockets, mercantile sense was sure to overcome national pride, and
the loss of immediate individual profits was sure to outweigh the certainty of losing gradually great
national advantages. The Peelites, adverse to the war, not so much out of real love of peace as from a
narrowness and timidity of mind which holds in horror all great crises and all decisive action, did their
best to hasten the great moment when every British merchant and manufacturer could calculate to a
farthing what the war would cost him, individually, per annum. Mr Gladstone, scorning the vulgar idea
of a loan, at once doubled the income tax, and stopped financial reform. The result came to light at
once. The peace party raised their heads again. John Bright dared popular feeling with his own well-
known spirit and tenacity until he succeeded in bringing the manufacturing districts round to him. In
London the feeling is still more in favour of the war, but the progress of the peace party is visible even
here; besides, it must be recollected that the peace society never at any time commanded any
mentionable influence in the capital. Its agitation, however, is increasing in all parts of the country, and
another year of doubled taxation, with a loan – for this is now considered to be unavoidable – will break
down whatever is left of warlike spirit among the manufacturing and trading classes.
With the mass of the people in both countries, the case is entirely different. The peasantry in France
have ever since 1789 been the great supporters of war and warlike glory. They are sure this time not to
feel much of the pressure of the war; for the conscription, in a country where the land is infinitesimally
subdivided among small proprietors, not only frees the agricultural districts from surplus labour, but also
gives to some 20,000 young men every year the opportunity of earning a round sum of money by
engaging to serve as substitutes. A protracted war only would be felt. As to war taxes, the Emperor
cannot impose them upon the peasantry without risking his crown and his life. His only means of
maintaining Bonapartism among them is to buy them up by freedom from war taxation, and thus for
some years to come they may be exempted from this sort of pressure. In England the case is similar.
Agricultural labour is generally oversupplied, and furnishes the mass of soldiery, which only at a later
period of the war receives a strong admixture of the rowdy class from the town. Trade being tolerably
good, and a good many agricultural improvements being carried out when the war began, the quota of
agricultural recruits was, in this instance, supplied more sparingly than before, and the town element is
decidedly preponderant in the present militia. But even what has been withdrawn had kept wages up,
and the sympathy of the villagers is always accompanying soldiers who come from among them, and
who are now transformed into heroes. Taxation, in its direct shape, does not touch the small farmers
and labourers, and until an increase of indirect imposts can reach them sensibly, several years of war
must have passed. Among these people the war enthusiasm is as strong as ever, and there is not a
village where is not to be found some new beer-shop with the sign of ‘The Heroes of the Alma’, or some
such motto, and where are not in almost every house wonderful prints of Alma, Inkerman, the charge at
Balaklava, portraits of Lord Raglan and others, to adorn the walls. But if in France the great
preponderance of the small farmers (four-fifths of the population), and their peculiar relation to Louis
Napoleon, give to their opinions a great deal of importance, in England that one-third of the population
forming the country people has scarcely any influence except as a tail and chorus to the aristocratic
landed proprietors.
The industrial working population has in both countries almost the same peculiar position with regard to
this war. Both British and French proletarians are filled with an honourable national spirit, though they
are more or less free from the antiquated national prejudices common in both countries to the
peasantry. They have little immediate interest in the war, save that if the victories of their countrymen
flatter their national pride, the conduct of the war, foolhardy and presumptuous as regards France,
timid and stupid as regards England, offers them a fair opportunity of agitating against the existing
governments and governing classes. But the main point with them is this: that this war, coinciding with a
commercial crisis, only the first developments of which have, as yet, been seen, conducted by hands and
heads unequal to the task, gaining at the same time European dimensions, will and must bring about
events which will enable the proletarian class to resume that position which they lost to France by the
battle of June 1848, and that not only as far as France is concerned, but for all Central Europe, England
included.
In France, indeed, there can be no doubt that every fresh revolutionary storm must bring sooner or later
the working class to power; in England things are fast approaching a similar state. There is an aristocracy
willing to carry on the war, but unfit to do so, and completely put to the blush by last winter’s
mismanagement. There is a middle class unwilling to carry on that war which cannot be put a stop to,
sacrificing everything to peace, and thereby proclaiming their own incapacity to govern England. If
events turn out the one, with its different fractions, and do not admit the other, there remain but two
classes upon which power can devolve – the petty bourgeoisie, the small trading class, whose want of
energy and decision has shown itself on every occasion when it was called upon to come from words to
deeds – and the working class, which has been constantly reproached with showing far too much energy
and decision when proceeding to action as a class.
Which of these classes will be the one to carry England through the present struggle, and the
complications about to arise from it?
Frederick Engels 1855
Panslavism and the Crimean War – I
Originally published in Neue Oder-Zeitung, 21 April 1855. From Karl
Marx and Frederick Engels, The Russian Menace to Europe, edited by
Paul Blackstock and Bert Hoselitz, and published by George Allen and
Unwin, London, 1953, pp 84-86. Scanned and prepared for the Marxist
Internet Archive by Paul Flewers.
We have been assured by the best sources that the present Russian Tsar has sent a telegram to certain
Courts wherein, among other things, it is stated that:
The moment Austria shall irrevocably ally herself to the West, or commit any overt act of hostility
against Russia, Alexander II will place himself at the head of the Panslavist movement, and change his
title of Emperor of all the Russians into that of Emperor of all the Slavs.
This declaration of Alexander’s if authentic is the first plain-spoken word since the war began; it is the
first step towards giving the war, frankly and openly, that European character which has hitherto been
lurking behind all sorts of pretexts and pretences, protocols and treaties, Vatel phrases and Puffendorf
quotations. Turkey’s independence and existence is thrown into the background. Who is to rule in
Constantinople is no longer the question, but who is to command all Europe. The Slavic race long
divided by internal contests, repelled towards the East by Germans, subjugated, in part, by Turks,
Germans, Hungarians, quietly reuniting its branches, after 1815, by the gradual rise of Panslavism, for
the first time asserts its unity, and, in doing so, declares war to the knife against the Romano-Celtic and
Germanic races which have hitherto ruled Europe. Panslavism is not a movement which merely strives
after national independence; it is a movement which aims to undo what a thousand years of history
have created; which cannot realise itself without sweeping from the map of Europe Hungary, Turkey and
a large part of Germany. Moreover, it must subjugate Europe in order to secure the stability of these
results, if they are ever obtained. Panslavism is now, from a creed, turned into a political programme,
with 800,000 bayonets to support it.
It leaves Europe only one alternative: submission to the Slavic yoke or destruction forever of the centre
of its offensive strength – Russia. The next question to be answered is: ‘How will Austria be affected by
Russian-equipped Panslavism?’
Of the seventy million Slavs living east of the Bohemian forest and the Carinthian Alps, about fifteen
million are subject to the Austrian Emperor, comprising representatives of almost every variety of Slavic
speech. The Bohemian or Czech branch (six million) falls exclusively within the Austrian dominions; the
Polish branch is represented by about three million Galicians; the Russian by three million Malo-Russians
(Red Russians, Ruthenes) in Galicia and North-eastern Hungary – the only Russian tribe outside the pale
of the Russian Empire; the South Slavic branch by about three million Slovenes (Carinthians and Croats)
and Serbians, including some scattered Bulgarians. These Austrian Slavs are of two different kinds. One
part of them consists of the remnants of tribes whose history belongs to the past, and whose present
historical development is attached to that of nations of different race and speech; and to complete their
unfortunate position, these hapless relics of former greatness have not even a national organisation
within Austria, but, on the contrary, are divided among different provinces. Thus the Slovenes, although
scarcely 1,500,000 in number, are scattered over the different provinces of Carniola, Carinthia, Styria,
Croatia and South-western Hungary. The Bohemians, though the most numerous group of Austrian
Slavs, are settled partly in Bohemia, partly in Moravia, and partly (the Slovak branch) in North-western
Hungary. These peoples, therefore, though living exclusively on Austrian soil, are far from being
recognised as constituting separate nations. They are considered as appendages, either to the German
or the Hungarian nations, and in reality they are nothing else.
The second portion of Austrian Slavs is composed of fragments of different tribes, which in the course of
history have become separated from the great body of their nation, and which, therefore, have their
centre of gravity outside of Austria. Thus, the Austrian Poles have their natural centre of gravity in
Russian Poland; the Ruthenes in the other Malo-Russian provinces united with Russia; the Serbs in the
Serbian Principality under Turkish rule. That these fragments, torn from their respective nationalities,
will continue to gravitate, each towards its natural centre, is a matter of course, and becomes more and
more evident as civilisation, and with it the want of historical, national, activity is spread among them. In
either case, the Austrian Slavs are only disjecta membra, seeking their reunion either among each other,
or with the main body of their separate nationalities.
This is the reason why Panslavism is not a Russian but an Austrian discovery. In order to secure the
restoration of each Slavic nationality, the different Slavic tribes in Austria are beginning to work for a
union of all the Slavic tribes in Europe.
Russia was strong in itself; Poland proved itself in the sense of the indestructible toughness of its
national life and at the same time in its open enmity towards Slavic Russia. Both these nations were
obviously not called upon to invent Panslavism. The Serbs and Bulgarians in Turkey were, however, too
barbaric to conceive such an idea. The Bulgarians quietly subordinated themselves to the Turks; the
Serbs had enough to do with the fight for their own independence.
Frederick Engels 1855
Panslavism and the Crimean War – II
Originally published in Neue Oder-Zeitung, 24 April 1855. From Karl
Marx and Frederick Engels, The Russian Menace to Europe, edited by
Paul Blackstock and Bert Hoselitz, and published by George Allen and
Unwin, London, 1953, pp 86-90. Scanned and prepared for the Marxist
Internet Archive by Paul Flewers.
The first form of Austrian Panslavism was literary. Dobrovsky, a Bohemian, the founder of the scientific
philology of the Slavic dialects, and Kolar, a Slovak poet from the Hungarian Carpathians, were its
originators. With Dobrovsky it was the enthusiasm of a scientific discoverer; with Kolar, political ideas
soon became predominant. But, as yet, Panslavism was satisfied to wallow only in elegiac moods; the
greatness of the past, the disgrace, the misfortune and foreign oppression of the present, were the
themes of this poetry. ‘Is there, oh God, no man on earth, who will render the Slavs their due?’ The
dream of a Panslavic empire dictating laws to Europe was at that time hardly hinted at.
But the lamenting period soon passed away, and with it the cry merely for ‘Justice for the Slavs!’.
Historical research on the political, literary and linguistic development of the Slavonic race made great
progress in Austria. Schafarik, Kopitar and Miklosich as linguists, Palacky as an historian, took the lead,
followed by a host of men with little or no scientific talent like Hanka and Gaj and others. The glorious
epochs of Bohemian and Serbian history were depicted in glowing colours in contrast to the present
degraded and broken state of those nations. Just as in Germany ‘philosophy’ formed the pretext under
the protection of which politics or theology were subjected to critical analysis, in Austria, and under the
very nose of Metternich, philological science was used by the Panslavists as a cloak to preach the
doctrine of Slavic unity, and to create a political party with the unmistakable aim of upsetting the
relations of all nationalities in Austria, and instituting a vast Slavic empire in its place.
The linguistic confusion which reigns east of Bohemia and Carinthia to the Black Sea is truly astonishing.
The process of denationalisation among the Slavs bordering on Germany, the slow but uninterrupted
advance of the Germans, the invasion of the Magyars, which separated the North Slavs from the South
Slavs by a compact mass of seven million people of Finnish race, the intermixing of Turks, Tatars,
Wallachians among the Slavic tribes, produced a linguistic Babel. The language varies from village to
village, almost from estate to estate. Out of five million inhabitants, Bohemia alone numbers two million
Germans alongside three million Slavs, surrounded, moreover, on three sides by Germans. The same is
the case with all Austrian-Slavic tribes. To restore all originally Slavic soil and territory to the Slavs, to
convert Austria, with the exception of the Tirol and Lombardy, into a Slavic Empire – the goal of the
Panslavists – is to declare null and void the historical development of the last thousand years, is to cut
off a third of Germany and all of Hungary, and to change Vienna and Budapest into Slavic cities – a
process with which the Germans and Hungarians who own these districts cannot exactly sympathise.
Moreover, the difference between the Slavic dialects is so great that, with few exceptions, they are
mutually unintelligible. This was demonstrated in a comical fashion at the Slavic Congress in Prague in
1848, where, after various vain attempts to find a language intelligible to all members, they were finally
obliged to use the tongue most hated by all of them – the German.
Thus we see that Austrian Panslavism was lacking the most essential elements of success: mass support
and unity. It wanted mass support because the Panslavic party consisted only of a portion of the
educated classes, and had no hold upon the masses, and hence no strength capable of resisting both the
Austrian government and the German and Hungarian nationalities against which it entered the lists. It
lacked unity, because its uniting principle was a mere ideal one, which, at the very first attempt at
realisation, was broken up by the fact of diversity of language.
In fact, so long as Panslavism was a movement limited to Austria it offered no great danger, but that
very centre of unity and mass support which it wanted was very soon found for it. The national uprising
of the Turkish Serbs, in the beginning of this century, had called the attention of the Russian
government to the fact that there were some seven million Slavs in Turkey, whose speech, of all other
Slavic dialects, most resembled the Russian. Their religion too, and their sacred language – old Slavonic
or Church Slavonic – were exactly the same as in Russia. It was among these Serbs and Bulgarians that
the Tsar for the first time began a Panslavist agitation supported by appeals to his position as the head
and protector of the Greek Orthodox Church. It was, therefore, only natural that as soon as this
Panslavist movement in Austria had gained consistency, Russia should extend thither on the soil of its
ally the ramifications of its agencies. Where Roman Catholic Slavs were met with, the religious side of
the question was dropped; Russia was merely held up as the centre of gravity of the Slavic race, as the
core around which the regenerated Slavic tribes would range themselves, as the strong and united
people which was to realise the great Slavic empire from the Elbe to China, and from the Adriatic to the
Polar sea. Precisely here the lacking power and unity were found. Panslavism fell into the trap
immediately. It thus pronounced its own judgement on itself. In order newly to restore imaginary
nationalities, the Panslavists declared themselves ready to sacrifice 800 years of actual participation in
civilisation to Russian-Mongolian barbarism. Was not this the natural result of a movement which began
as a decided reaction against the main stream of European civilisation and continued by seeking to
reverse the course of world history?
Metternich, in the years of his greatest power, very well recognised the danger and saw through the
Russian intrigues. He opposed the movement with all the means in his power. But all the means known
to him can be summarised in one word: suppression. But the only proper means – general freedom, of
expansion of the German and Hungarian spirit, more than sufficient to scare away the Slavic spectre –
did not fit in to his system of petty policy. Accordingly, on Metternich’s downfall in 1848, the Slavic
movement broke out stronger than ever, and embraced a larger proportion of the population than ever
before. But here its thoroughly reactionary character at once came to light. While the German and
Hungarian movements in Austria were decidedly progressive, the Slavs saved the old system from
destruction, enabled Radetzky to advance on the Mincio, and Windischgraetz to conquer Vienna. And to
complete the drama, and the dependence of Austria on the Slavic race, the Russian army, that great
Slavic reserve, had to descend into Hungary in 1849 and settle the war for Austria there by a dictated
peace.
But if the adherence of the Panslavic movement to Russia was its own self-condemnation, Austria
acknowledged its lack of vitality no less through the acceptance, even the provocation, of this Slavic
assistance against the only three nations within its dominions which do possess and show historic
vitality – the Germans, Italians and Hungarians. Since 1848 this debt to Panslavism has always held
Austria down, and the awareness of it has been the mainspring of Austrian policy. Austria’s first move
was to react against the Slavs in its own territory but this required the adoption of an at least partially
progressive policy. The special privileges of all provinces were abolished; a centralised administration
took the place of a federal one; and, instead of all the different nationalities, an artificial Austrian
nationality was alone to be acknowledged. Though these changes were directed in some degree also
against the German, Italian and Hungarian nationalities, they yet fell with far greater weight on the less
compact Slavic tribes, and gave the German element a considerable preponderance.
The dependence on the Slavs within the realm having been removed, there remained the dependence
on Russia; and with it the necessity, at least for a moment and to a certain degree, to break this direct
and humiliating dependence. That was the real reason for the wavering, but at least openly professed
anti-Russian policy of Austria with respect to the Eastern Question. On the other hand, Panslavism has
not disappeared; it has been deeply wounded, it grumbles, pauses, and since the intervention in
Hungary looks to the Russian Tsar as its predestined Messiah. It is not our province to determine
whether Austria can reply with concessions in Hungary and Poland without endangering its existence if
Russia should openly step forward as the head of Panslavism. This much is certain; it is no longer Russia
alone, but the Panslavist conspiracy which threatens to build its realm on the ruins of Europe. Through
the undeniable strength it possesses and can maintain, the union of all Slavs will soon compel the side
which opposes it to appear in a totally different form than theretofore. On this occasion we have spoken
neither of Poland (to her honour usually an enemy of Panslavism) nor of the so-called democratic or
socialist form of Panslavism, which differs basically only in its phraseology and hypocrisy from the
ordinary genuine openly Russian variety. We have said equally little of abstract German speculation,
which in sublime ignorance has sunk to becoming an organ of the Russian conspiracy. We shall return in
detail to these and other questions relating to Panslavism.
Frederick Engels in Der Volkstaat 1874
The English Elections
Source: Marx Engels On Britain, Progress Publishers 1953;
Written: in German by Engels, February 22,1874;
First Published: unsigned in the Der Volksstaat of March 4, 1874;
Transcribed: by Andy Blunden.
London, February 22, 1874
The English Parliamentary elections are now over. The brilliant Gladstone, who could not govern with a
majority of sixty-six, suddenly dissolved Parliament, ordered elections within eight to fourteen days, and
the result was — a majority of fifty against him. The second Parliament elected under the Reform Bill of
1867 and the first by secret ballot has yielded a strong conservative majority. And it is particularly the
big industrial cities and factory districts, where the workers are now absolutely in the majority, that send
Conservatives to Parliament. How is this?
This is primarily the result of Gladstone’s attempt to effect a coup d'état by means of the elections. The
election writs were issued so soon after the dissolution that many towns had hardly five days, most of
them hardly eight, and the Irish, Scotch and rural electoral districts at most fourteen days for reflection.
Gladstone wanted to stampede the voters, but coup d'état simply won’t work in England and attempts
to stampede rebound upon those who engineer them. In consequence, the entire mass of apathetic and
wavering voters voted solidly against Gladstone.
Moreover, Gladstone had ruled in a way that directly flouted John Bull’s traditional usage. There is no
denying that John Bull is dull-witted enough to consider his government to be not his lord and master,
but his servant, and at that the only one of his servants whom he can discharge forthwith without giving
any notice. Now, if the party in office time and again allows its ministry, for very practical reasons, to
spring a big surprise with theatrical effect on occasions when taxes are reduced or other financial
measures instituted, it permits this sort of thing only by way of exception in case of important legislative
measures. But Gladstone had made these legislative stage tricks the rule. His major measures were
mostly as much of a surprise to his own party as to his opponents. These measures were practically
foisted upon the Liberals, because if they did not vote for them they would immediately put the
opposition party in power. And if the contents of many of these measures, e.g., the Irish Church Bill and
the Irish Land Bill, were for all their wretchedness an abomination to many old liberal-conservative
Whigs, so to the whole of the party was the manner in which these bills were forced upon it. But this
was not enough for Gladstone. He had secured the abolition of the purchase of army commissions by
appealing without the slightest need to the authority of the Crown instead of Parliament, thereby
offending his own party. In addition he had surrounded himself with a number of importunate
mediocrities who possessed no other talent than the ability to make themselves needlessly obnoxious.
Particular mention must be made here of Bruce, Minister of Home Affairs, and Ayrton, the real head of
the London local government. The former was distinguished for his rudeness and arrogance towards
workers’ deputations; the latter ruled London in a wholly Prussian manner, for instance, in the case of
the attempt to suppress the right to hold public meetings in the parks. But since such things simply can’t
be done here, as is shown by the fact that the Irish immediately held a huge mass meeting in Hyde Park
right under Mr. Ayrton’s nose in spite of the Park ordinance, the Government suffered a number of
minor defeats and increasing unpopularity in consequence.
Finally, the secret ballot has enabled a large number of workers who usually were politically passive to
vote with impunity against their exploiters and against the party in which they rightly see that of the big
barons of industry, namely, the Liberal Party. This is true even where most of these barons, following
the prevailing fashion, have gone over to the Conservatives. If the Liberal Party in England does not
represent large-scale industry as opposed to big landed property and high finance, it represents nothing
at all.
Already the previous Parliament ranked below the average in its general intellectual level. It consisted
mainly of the rural gentry and the sons of big landed proprietors, on the one hand, and of bankers,
railway directors, brewers, manufacturers and sundry other rich upstarts, on the other; in between, a
few statesmen, jurists and professors. Quite a number of the last-named representatives of the
“intelligentsia” failed to get elected this time, so that the new Parliament represents big landed property
and the money-bags even more exclusively than the preceding one. It differs, however, from the
preceding one in comprising two new elements: two workers and about fifty Irish Home Rulers.
As regards the workers it must be stated, to begin with, that no separate political working-class party
has existed in England since the downfall of the Chartist Party in the fifties. This is understandable in a
country in which the working-class has shared more than anywhere else in the advantages of the
immense expansion of its large-scale industry. Nor could it have been otherwise in an England that ruled
the world market; and certainly not in a country where the ruling classes have set themselves the task of
carrying out, parallel with other concessions, one point of the Chartists’ programme, the People’s
Charter, after another. Of the six points of the Charter two have already become law: the secret ballot
and the abolition of property qualifications for the suffrage. The third, universal suffrage, has been
introduced, at least approximately; the last three points are still entirely unfulfilled: annual parliaments,
payment of members, and, most important, equal electoral areas.
Whenever the workers lately took part in general politics in particular organisations they did so almost
exclusively as the extreme left wing of the “great Liberal Party” and — in this role they were duped at
each election according to all the rules of the game by the great Liberal Party. Then all of a sudden came
the Reform Bill which at one blow changed the political status of the workers. In all the big cities they
now form the majority of the voters and in England the Government as well as the candidates for
Parliament are accustomed to court the electorate. The chairmen and secretaries of Trade Unions and
political working-men’s societies, as well as other well-known labour spokesmen who might be expected
to be influential in their class, had overnight become important people. They were visited by Members
of Parliament, by lords and other well-born rabble, and sympathetic enquiry was suddenly made into
the wishes and needs of the working-class. Questions were discussed with these “labour leaders” which
formerly evoked a supercilious smile or the mere posture of which used to be condemned; and one
contributed to collections for working-class purposes. It ,thereupon quite naturally occurred to the
“labour leaders” that they should get themselves elected to Parliament, to which their high-class friends
gladly agreed in general, but of course only for the purpose of frustrating as far as possible the election
of workers in each particular case. Thus the matter got no further.
Nobody holds it against the “labour leaders” that they would have liked to get into Parliament. The
shortest way would have been to proceed at once to form anew a strong workers’ party with a definite
programme, and the best political programme they could wish for was the People’s Charter. But the
Chartists’ name was in bad odour with the bourgeoisie precisely because theirs had been an
outspokenly proletarian party, and so, rather than continue the glorious tradition of the Chartists, the
“labour leaders” preferred to deal with their aristocratic friends and be .'respectable,” which in England
means acting like a bourgeois. Whereas under the old franchise the workers had to a certain extent
been compelled to figure as the tail of the radical bourgeoisie, it was inexcusable to make them go on
playing that part after the Reform Bill had opened the door of Parliament to at least sixty working-class
candidates.
This was the turning point. In order to get into Parliament the “labour leaders” had recourse, in the first
place, to the votes and money of the bourgeoisie and only in the second place to the votes of the
workers themselves. But by doing so they ceased to be workers’ candidates and turned themselves into
bourgeois candidates. They did not appeal to a working-class party that still had to be formed but to the
bourgeois “great Liberal Party.” Among themselves they organised a mutual election assurance society,
the Labour Representation League,[1] whose very slender means were derived in the main from
bourgeois sources. But this was not all. The radical bourgeois has sense enough to realise that the
election of workers to Parliament is becoming more and more inevitable; it is therefore in their interest
to keep the prospective working-class candidates under their control and thus postpone their actual
election as long, as possible. For that purpose they have their Mr. Samuel Morley, a London millionaire,
who does not mind spending a couple of thousand pounds in order, on the one hand, to be able to act
as the commanding general of this sham labour general staff and, on the other, with its assistance to let
himself be hailed by the masses as a friend of labour, out of gratitude for his duping the workers. And
then, about a year ago, when it became ever more likely that Parliament would be dissolved, Morley
called his faithful together in the London Tavern. They all appeared, the Potters, Howells, Odgers,
Haleses, Mottersheads, Cremers, Eccariuses and the rest of them — a conclave of people everyone of
whom had served, or at least had offered to serve, during the previous Parliamentary elections, in the
pay of the bourgeoisie, as an agitator for the “great Liberal Party.” Under Morley’s chairmanship this
conclave drew up a “labour programme” to which any bourgeois could subscribe and which was to form
the foundation of a mighty movement to chain the workers politically still more firmly to the bourgeoise
and, as these gentry thought, to get the “founders” into Parliament. Besides, dangling before their
lustful eyes these “founders” already saw a goodly number of Morley’s five-pound notes with which
they expected to line their pockets before the election campaign was over. But the whole movement fell
through before it had fairly started. Mr. Morley locked his safe and the founders once more disappeared
from the scene.
Four weeks ago Gladstone suddenly dissolved Parliament. The inevitable “labour leaders” began to
breathe again: either they would get themselves elected or they would again become well-paid itinerant
preachers of the cause of the “great Liberal Party.” But alas! the day appointed for the elections was so
close that they were cheated out of both chances. True enough, a few did stand for Parliament; but
since in England every candidate, before he can be voted upon, must contribute two hundred pounds
(1,240 thaler) towards the election expenses and the workers had almost nowhere been organised for
this purpose, only such of them could stand as candidates seriously as obtained this sum from the
bourgeoisie, i.e., as acted with its gracious permission. With this the bourgeoisie had done its duty and
in the elections themselves allowed them all to suffer a complete fiasco.
Only two workers got in, both miners from coal pits. This trade is very strongly organised in three big
unions, has considerable means at its disposal, controls an undisputed majority of the voters in some
constituencies and has worked systematically for direct representation in Parliament ever since the
Reform Acts were passed. The candidates put up were the secretaries of the three Trade Unions. The
one, Halliday, lost out in Wales; the other two came out on
top: MacDonald in Stafford and Burt in Morpeth. Burt is little known outside of his constituency.
MacDonald, however, betrayed the workers of his trade when, during the negotiations on the last
mining law, which he attended as the representative of his trade, he sanctioned an amendment which
was so grossly in the interests of the capitalists that even the government had not dared to include it in
the draft.
At any rate, the ice has been broken and two workers now have seats in the most fashionable debating
club of Europe, among those who have declared themselves the first gentlemen of Europe.
Alongside of them sit at least fifty Irish Home Rulers. When the Fenian (Irish-republican) rebellion of
1867 had been quelled and the military leaders of the Fenians had either gradually been caught or
driven to emigrate to America, the remnants of the Fenian conspiracy soon lost all importance. Violent
insurrection :had no prospect of success for many years, at least until such time as England would again
be involved in serious difficulties abroad. Hence a legal movement remained the only possibility, and
such a movement was undertaken under the banner of the Home Rulers, who wanted the Irish to be
“masters in their own house.” They made the definite demand that the Imperial Parliament in London
should cede to a special Irish Parliament in Dublin the right to legislate on all purely Irish questions; very
wisely nothing was said meanwhile about what was to be understood as a purely Irish question. This
movement, at first scoffed at by the English press, has become so powerful that Irish M.P.’s of the most
diverse party complexions- Conservatives and Liberals, Protestants and Catholics (Butt, who leads the
movement, is himself a Protestant) and even a native-born Englishman sitting for Golway — have had to
join it. For the first time since the days of O'Connell, whose repeal movement collapsed in the general
reaction about the same time as the Chartist movement, as a result of the events of 1848 — he had died
in 1847 — a well-knit Irish party once again has entered Parliament, but under circumstances that hardly
permit it constantly to compromise A la O'Connell with the Liberals or to have individual members of it
sell themselves retail to Liberal governments, as after him has become the fashion.
Thus both motive forces of English political development have now entered Parliament: on the one side
the workers, on the other the Irish as a compact national party. And even if they may hardly be expected
to play a big role in this Parliament — the workers will certainly not — the elections of 1874 have
indisputably ushered in a new phase in English political development.
Notes
1. Labour Representation League: Founded in November 1869 by the London trade-union leaders who
stood on the platform of “liberal labour politics.” It stopped functioning at the end of the seventies.
END OF THE CRIMEAN WAR 1853 - 1855
Excerpts
Karl Marx
The German Ideology
Part I: Feuerbach.
Opposition of the Materialist and Idealist Outlook
B. The Illusion of the Epoch
Civil Society and the Conception of History
The form of intercourse determined by the existing productive forces at all previous historical stages,
and in its turn determining these, is civil society. The latter, as is clear from what we have said above,
has as its premises and basis the simple family and the multiple, the so-called tribe, the more precise
determinants of this society are enumerated in our remarks above. Already here we see how this civil
society is the true source and theatre of all history, and how absurd is the conception of history held
hitherto, which neglects the real relationships and confines itself to high-sounding dramas of princes
and states.
Civil society embraces the whole material intercourse of individuals within a definite stage of the
development of productive forces. It embraces the whole commercial and industrial life of a given stage
and, insofar, transcends the State and the nation, though, on the other hand again, it must assert itself
in its foreign relations as nationality, and inwardly must organise itself as State. The word “civil society”
[bürgerliche Gesellschaft] emerged in the eighteenth century, when property relationships had already
extricated themselves from the ancient and medieval communal society. Civil society as such only
develops with the bourgeoisie; the social organisation evolving directly out of production and
commerce, which in all ages forms the basis of the State and of the rest of the idealistic superstructure,
has, however, always been designated by the same name.
Conclusions from the Materialist Conception of History
History is nothing but the succession of the separate generations, each of which exploits the materials,
the capital funds, the productive forces handed down to it by all preceding generations, and thus, on the
one hand, continues the traditional activity in completely changed circumstances and, on the other,
modifies the old circumstances with a completely changed activity. This can be speculatively distorted so
that later history is made the goal of earlier history, e.g. the goal ascribed to the discovery of America is
to further the eruption of the French Revolution. Thereby history receives its own special aims and
becomes “a person rating with other persons” (to wit: “Self-Consciousness, Criticism, the Unique,” etc.),
while what is designated with the words “destiny,” “goal,” “germ,” or “idea” of earlier history is nothing
more than an abstraction formed from later history, from the active influence which earlier history
exercises on later history.
The further the separate spheres, which interact on one another, extend in the course of this
development, the more the original isolation of the separate nationalities is destroyed by the developed
mode of production and intercourse and the division of labour between various nations naturally
brought forth by these, the more history becomes world history. Thus, for instance, if in England a
machine is invented, which deprives countless workers of bread in India and China, and overturns the
whole form of existence of these empires, this invention becomes a world-historical fact. Or again, take
the case of sugar and coffee which have proved their world-historical importance in the nineteenth
century by the fact that the lack of these products, occasioned by the Napoleonic Continental System,
caused the Germans to rise against Napoleon, and thus became the real basis of the glorious Wars of
liberation of 1813. From this it follows that this transformation of history into world history is not indeed
a mere abstract act on the part of the “self-consciousness,” the world spirit, or of any other
metaphysical spectre, but a quite material, empirically verifiable act, an act the proof of which every
individual furnishes as he comes and goes, eats, drinks and clothes himself.
[7. Summary of the Materialist Conception of History]
This conception of history depends on our ability to expound the real process of production, starting out
from the material production of life itself, and to comprehend the form of intercourse connected with
this and created by this mode of production (i.e. civil society in its various stages), as the basis of all
history; and to show it in its action as State, to explain all the different theoretical products and forms of
consciousness, religion, philosophy, ethics, etc. etc. and trace their origins and growth from that basis;
by which means, of course, the whole thing can be depicted in its totality (and therefore, too, the
reciprocal action of these various sides on one another). It has not, like the idealistic view of history, in
every period to look for a category, but remains constantly on the real ground of history; it does not
explain practice from the idea but explains the formation of ideas from material practice; and
accordingly it comes to the conclusion that all forms and products of consciousness cannot be dissolved
by mental criticism, by resolution into “self-consciousness” or transformation into “apparitions,”
“spectres,” “fancies,” etc. but only by the practical overthrow of the actual social relations which gave
rise to this idealistic humbug; that not criticism but revolution is the driving force of history, also of
religion, of philosophy and all other types of theory. It shows that history does not end by being resolved
into “self-consciousness as spirit of the spirit,” but that in it at each stage there is found a material
result: a sum of productive forces, an historically created relation of individuals to nature and to one
another, which is handed down to each generation from its predecessor; a mass of productive forces,
capital funds and conditions, which, on the one hand, is indeed modified by the new generation, but
also on the other prescribes for it its conditions of life and gives it a definite development, a special
character. It shows that circumstances make men just as much as men make circumstances.
This sum of productive forces, capital funds and social forms of intercourse, which every individual and
generation finds in existence as something given, is the real basis of what the philosophers have
conceived as “substance” and “essence of man,” and what they have deified and attacked; a real basis
which is not in the least disturbed, in its effect and influence on the development of men, by the fact
that these philosophers revolt against it as “self-consciousness” and the “Unique.” These conditions of
life, which different generations find in existence, decide also whether or not the periodically recurring
revolutionary convulsion will be strong enough to overthrow the basis of the entire existing system. And
if these material elements of a complete revolution are not present (namely, on the one hand the
existing productive forces, on the other the formation of a revolutionary mass, which revolts not only
against separate conditions of society up till then, but against the very “production of life” till then, the
“total activity” on which it was based), then, as far as practical development is concerned, it is absolutely
immaterial whether the idea of this revolution has been expressed a hundred times already, as the
history of communism proves.
[8. The Inconsistency of the Idealist Conception of History in General, and of German Post-Hegelian
Philosophy in Particular]
In the whole conception of history up to the present this real basis of history has either been totally
neglected or else considered as a minor matter quite irrelevant to the course of history. History must,
therefore, always be written according to an extraneous standard; the real production of life seems to
be primeval history, while the truly historical appears to be separated from ordinary life, something
extra-superterrestrial. With this the relation of man to nature is excluded from history and hence the
antithesis of nature and history is created. The exponents of this conception of history have
consequently only been able to see in history the political actions of princes and States, religious and all
sorts of theoretical struggles, and in particular in each historical epoch have had to share the illusion of
that epoch. For instance, if an epoch imagines itself to be actuated by purely “political” or “religious”
motives, although “religion” and “politics” are only forms of its true motives, the historian accepts this
opinion. The “idea,” the “conception” of the people in question about their real practice, is transformed
into the sole determining, active force, which controls and determines their practice. When the crude
form in which the division of labour appears with the Indians and Egyptians calls forth the caste-system
in their State and religion, the historian believes that the caste-system is the power which has produced
this crude social form.
While the French and the English at least hold by the political illusion, which is moderately close to
reality, the Germans move in the realm of the “pure spirit,” and make religious illusion the driving force
of history. The Hegelian philosophy of history is the last consequence, reduced to its “finest expression,”
of all this German historiography, for which it is not a question of real, nor even of political, interests,
but of pure thoughts, which consequently must appear to Saint Bruno as a series of “thoughts” that
devour one another and are finally swallowed up in “self-consciousness.” —
Marginal note by Marx: So-called objective historiography [23] consisted precisely, in treating the
historical relations separately from activity. Reactionary character.
— and even more consistently the course of history must appear to Saint Max Stirner, who knows not a
thing about real history, as a mere “tale of knights, robbers and ghosts,”[24] from whose visions he can,
of course, only save himself by “unholiness”. This conception is truly religious: it postulates religious
man as the primitive man, the starting-point of history, and in its imagination puts the religious
production of fancies in the place of the real production of the means of subsistence and of life itself.
This whole conception of history, together with its dissolution and the scruples and qualms resulting
from it, is a purely national affair of the Germans and has merely local interest for Germany, as for
instance the important question which has been under discussion in recent times: how exactly one
“passes from the realm of God to the realm of Man” [Ludwig Feuerbach, Ueber das Wesen des
Christenthums] – as if this “realm of God” had ever existed anywhere save in the imagination, and the
learned gentlemen, without being aware of it, were not constantly living in the “realm of Man” to which
they are now seeking the way; and as if the learned pastime (for it is nothing more) of explaining the
mystery of this theoretical bubble-blowing did not on the contrary lie in demonstrating its origin in
actual earthly relations. For these Germans, it is altogether simply a matter of resolving the ready-made
nonsense they find into some other freak, i.e., of presupposing that all this nonsense has a
special sense which can be discovered; while really it is only a question of explaining these theoretical
phrases from the actual existing relations. The real, practical dissolution of these phrases, the removal of
these notions from the consciousness of men, will, as we have already said, be effected by altered
circumstances, not by theoretical deductions. For the mass of men, i.e., the proletariat, these theoretical
notions do not exist and hence do not require to be dissolved, and if this mass ever had any theoretical
notions, e.g., religion, these have now long been dissolved by circumstances.
The purely national character of these questions and solutions is moreover shown by the fact that these
theorists believe in all seriousness that chimeras like “the God-Man,” “Man,” etc., have presided over
individual epochs of history (Saint Bruno even goes so far as to assert that only “criticism and critics have
made history,” [Bruno Bauer, Charakteristik Ludwig Feuerbachs] and when they themselves construct
historical systems, they skip over all earlier periods in the greatest haste and pass immediately from
“Mongolism” [Max Stirner, Der Einzige und sein Eigenthum] to history “with meaningful content,” that is
to say, to the history, of the Hallische and Deutsche Jahrbücher and the dissolution of the Hegelian
school into a general squabble. They forget all other nations, all real events, and the theatrum mundi is
confined to the Leipzig book fair and the mutual quarrels of “criticism,”*Bruno Bauer+ “man,” [Ludwig
Feuerbach] and “the unique”. [Max Stirner] If for once these theorists treat really historical subjects, as
for instance the eighteenth century, they merely give a history of ideas, separated from the facts and
the practical development underlying them; and even that merely in order to represent that period as
an imperfect preliminary stage, the as yet limited predecessor of the truly historical age, i.e., the period
of the German philosophic struggle from 1840 to 1844. As might be expected when the history of an
earlier period is written with the aim of accentuating the brilliance of an unhistoric person and his
fantasies, all the really historic events, even the really historic interventions of politics in history, receive
no mention. Instead we get a narrative based not on research but on arbitrary constructions and literary
gossip, such as Saint Bruno provided in his now forgotten history of the eighteenth century. [Bruno
Bauer, Geschichte der Politik, Cultur und Aufklärung des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts] These pompous and
arrogant hucksters of ideas, who imagine themselves infinitely exalted above all national prejudices, are
thus in practice far more national than the beer-swilling philistines who dream of a united Germany.
They do not recognise the deeds of other nations as historical; they live in Germany, within Germany
1281 and for Germany; they turn the Rhine-song [25] into a religious hymn and conquer Alsace and
Lorraine by robbing French philosophy instead of the French state, by Germanising French ideas instead
of French provinces. Herr Venedey is a cosmopolitan compared with the Saints Bruno and Max, who, in
the universal dominance of theory, proclaim the universal dominance of Germany.
Feuerbach: Philosophic, and Real, Liberation
[...] It is also clear from these arguments how grossly Feuerbach is deceiving himself when
(Wigand’s Vierteljahrsschrift, 1845, Band 2) by virtue of the qualification “common man” he declares
himself a communist,[26]transforms the latter into a predicate of “man,” and thereby thinks it possible to
change the word “communist,” which in the real world means the follower of a definite revolutionary
party, into a mere category. Feuerbach’s whole deduction with regard to the relation of men to one
another goes only so far as to prove that men need and always have needed each other. He wants to
establish consciousness of this fact, that is to say, like the other theorists, merely to produce a correct
consciousness about an existing fact; whereas for the real communist it is a question of overthrowing
the existing state of things. We thoroughly appreciate, moreover, that Feuerbach, in endeavouring to
produce consciousness of just this fact, is going as far as a theorist possibly can, without ceasing to be a
theorist and philosopher...
As an example of Feuerbach’s acceptance and at the same time misunderstanding of existing reality,
which he still shares with our opponents, we recall the passage in the Philosophie der Zukunft where he
develops the view that the existence of a thing or a man is at the same time its or his essence, that the
conditions of existence, the mode of life and activity of an animal or human individual are those in which
its “essence” feels itself satisfied. Here every exception is expressly conceived as an unhappy chance, as
an abnormality which cannot be altered. Thus if millions of proletarians feel by no means contented
with their living conditions, if their “existence” does not in the least correspond to their “essence,” then,
according to the passage quoted, this is an unavoidable misfortune, which must be borne quietly. The
millions of proletarians and communists, however, think differently and will prove this in time, when
they bring their “existence” into harmony with their “essence” in a practical way, by means of a
revolution. Feuerbach, therefore, never speaks of the world of man in such cases, but always takes
refuge in external nature, and moreover in nature which has not yet been subdued by men. But every
new invention, every advance made by industry, detaches another piece from this domain, so that the
ground which produces examples illustrating such Feuerbachian propositions is steadily shrinking.
The “essence” of the fish is its “being,” water – to go no further than this one proposition. The “essence”
of the freshwater fish is the water of a river. But the latter ceases to be the “essence” of the fish and is
no longer a suitable medium of existence as soon as the river is made to serve industry, as soon as it is
polluted by dyes and other waste products and navigated by steamboats, or as soon as its water is
diverted into canals where simple drainage can deprive the fish of its medium of existence. The
explanation that all such contradictions are inevitable abnormalities does not essentially differ from the
consolation which Saint Max Stirner offers to the discontented, saving that this contradiction is their
own contradiction and this predicament their own predicament, whereupon then, should either set
their minds at ease, keep their disgust to themselves, or revolt against it in some fantastic way. It differs
just as little from Saint Bruno’s allegation that these unfortunate circumstances are due to the fact that
those concerned are stuck in the muck of “substance,” have not advanced to “absolute self-
consciousness and do not realise that these adverse conditions are spirit of their spirit.
[II. 1. Preconditions of the Real Liberation of Man]
[...] We shall, of course, not take the trouble to enlighten our wise philosophers by explaining to them
that the “liberation” of man is not advanced a single step by reducing philosophy, theology, substance
and all the trash to “self-consciousness” and by liberating man from the domination of these phrases,
which have never held him in thrall. Nor will we explain to them that it is only possible to achieve real
liberation in the real world and by employing real means, that slavery cannot be abolished without the
steam-engine and the mule and spinning-jenny, serfdom cannot be abolished without improved
agriculture, and that, in general, people cannot be liberated as long as they are unable to obtain food
and drink, housing and clothing in adequate quality and quantity. “Liberation” is an historical and not a
mental act, and it is brought about by historical conditions, the development of industry, commerce,
agriculture, the conditions of intercourse...[There is here a gap in the manuscript]
In Germany, a country where only a trivial historical development is taking place, these mental
developments, these glorified and ineffective trivialities, naturally serve as a substitute for the lack of
historical development, and they take root and have to be combated. But this fight is of local
importance.
[2. Feuerbach’s Contemplative and Inconsistent Materialism]
In reality and for the practical materialist, i.e. the communist, it is a question of revolutionising the
existing world, of practically attacking and changing existing things. When occasionally we find such
views with Feuerbach, they are never more than isolated surmises and have much too little influence on
his general outlook to be considered here as anything else than embryos capable of development.
Feuerbach’s conception of the sensuous world is confined on the one hand to mere contemplation of it,
and on the other to mere feeling; he says “Man” instead of “real historical man.” “Man” is really “the
German.” In the first case, the contemplation of the sensuous world, he necessarily lights on things
which contradict his consciousness and feeling, which disturb the harmony he presupposes, the
harmony of all parts of the sensuous world and especially of man and nature. To remove this
disturbance, he must take refuge in a double perception, a profane one which only perceives the “flatly
obvious” and a higher, philosophical, one which perceives the “true essence” of things. He does not see
how the sensuous world around him is, not a thing given direct from all eternity, remaining ever the
same, but the product of industry and of the state of society; and, indeed, in the sense that it is an
historical product, the result of the activity of a whole succession of generations, each standing on the
shoulders of the preceding one, developing its industry and its intercourse, modifying its social system
according to the changed needs. Even the objects of the simplest “sensuous certainty” are only given
him through social development, industry and commercial intercourse. The cherry-tree, like almost all
fruit-trees, was, as is well known, only a few centuries ago transplanted by commerce into our zone, and
therefore only by this action of a definite society in a definite age it has become “sensuous certainty” for
Feuerbach.
Incidentally, when we conceive things thus, as they really are and happened, every profound
philosophical problem is resolved, as will be seen even more clearly later, quite simply into an empirical
fact. For instance, the important question of the relation of man to nature (Bruno [Bauer] goes so far as
to speak of “the antitheses in nature and history” (p. 110), as though these were two separate “things”
and man did not always have before him an historical nature and a natural history) out of which all the
“unfathomably lofty works” on “substance” and “self-consciousness” were born, crumbles of itself when
we understand that the celebrated “unity of man with nature” has always existed in industry and has
existed in varying forms in every epoch according to the lesser or greater development of industry, just
like the “struggle” of man with nature, right up to the development of his productive powers on a
corresponding basis. Industry and commerce, production and the exchange of the necessities of life,
themselves determine distribution, the structure of the different social classes and are, in turn,
determined by it as to the mode in which they are carried on; and so it happens that in Manchester, for
instance, Feuerbach sees only factories and machines, where a hundred years ago only spinning-wheels
and weaving-rooms were to be seen, or in the Campagna of Rome he finds only pasture lands and
swamps, where in the time of Augustus he would have found nothing but the vineyards and villas of
Roman capitalists. Feuerbach speaks in particular of the perception of natural science; he mentions
secrets which are disclosed only to the eye of the physicist and chemist; but where would natural
science be without industry and commerce? Even this pure natural science is provided with an aim, as
with its material, only through trade and industry, through the sensuous activity of men. So much is this
activity, this unceasing sensuous labour and creation, this production, the basis of the whole sensuous
world as it now exists, that, were it interrupted only for a year, Feuerbach would not only find an
enormous change in the natural world, but would very soon find that the whole world of men and his
own perceptive faculty, nay his own existence, were missing. Of course, in all this the priority of external
nature remains unassailed, and all this has no application to the original men produced by generatio
aequivoca [spontaneous generation]; but this differentiation has meaning only insofar as man is
considered to be distinct from nature. For that matter, nature, the nature that preceded human history,
is not by any means the nature in which Feuerbach lives, it is nature which today no longer exists
anywhere (except perhaps on a few Australian coral-islands of recent origin) and which, therefore, does
not exist for Feuerbach.
Certainly Feuerbach has a great advantage over the “pure” materialists in that he realises how man too
is an “object of the senses.” But apart from the fact that he only conceives him as an “object of the
senses, not as sensuous activity,” because he still remains in the realm of theory and conceives of men
not in their given social connection, not under their existing conditions of life, which have made
them what they are, he never arrives at the really existing active men, but stops at the abstraction
“man,” and gets no further than recognising “the true, individual, corporeal man,” emotionally, i.e. he
knows no other “human relationships” “of man to man” than love and friendship, and even then
idealised. He gives no criticism of the present conditions of life. Thus he never manages to conceive the
sensuous world as the total living sensuous activity of the individuals composing it; and therefore when,
for example, he sees instead of healthy men a crowd of scrofulous, overworked and consumptive
starvelings, he is compelled to take refuge in the “higher perception” and in the ideal “compensation in
the species,” and thus to relapse into idealism at the very point where the communist materialist sees
the necessity, and at the same time the condition, of a transformation both of industry and of the social
structure.
As far as Feuerbach is a materialist he does not deal with history, and as far as he considers history he is
not a materialist. With him materialism and history diverge completely, a fact which incidentally is
already obvious from what has been said.
Ruling Class and Ruling Ideas
The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material
force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of
material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production,
so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are
subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material
relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas; hence of the relationships which
make the one class the ruling one, therefore, the ideas of its dominance. The individuals composing the
ruling class possess among other things consciousness, and therefore think. Insofar, therefore, as they
rule as a class and determine the extent and compass of an epoch, it is self-evident that they do this in
its whole range, hence among other things rule also as thinkers, as producers of ideas, and regulate the
production and distribution of the ideas of their age: thus their ideas are the ruling ideas of the epoch.
For instance, in an age and in a country where royal power, aristocracy, and bourgeoisie are contending
for mastery and where, therefore, mastery is shared, the doctrine of the separation of powers proves to
be the dominant idea and is expressed as an “eternal law.”
The division of labour, which we already saw above as one of the chief forces of history up till now,
manifests itself also in the ruling class as the division of mental and material labour, so that inside this
class one part appears as the thinkers of the class (its active, conceptive ideologists, who make the
perfecting of the illusion of the class about itself their chief source of livelihood), while the others’
attitude to these ideas and illusions is more passive and receptive, because they are in reality the active
members of this class and have less time to make up illusions and ideas about themselves. Within this
class this cleavage can even develop into a certain opposition and hostility between the two parts,
which, however, in the case of a practical collision, in which the class itself is endangered, automatically
comes to nothing, in which case there also vanishes the semblance that the ruling ideas were not the
ideas of the ruling class and had a power distinct from the power of this class. The existence of
revolutionary ideas in a particular period presupposes the existence of a revolutionary class; about the
premises for the latter sufficient has already been said above.
If now in considering the course of history we detach the ideas of the ruling class from the ruling class
itself and attribute to them an independent existence, if we confine ourselves to saying that these or
those ideas were dominant at a given time, without bothering ourselves about the conditions of
production and the producers of these ideas, if we thus ignore the individuals and world conditions
which are the source of the ideas, we can say, for instance, that during the time that the aristocracy was
dominant, the concepts honour, loyalty, etc. were dominant, during the dominance of the bourgeoisie
the concepts freedom, equality, etc. The ruling class itself on the whole imagines this to be so. This
conception of history, which is common to all historians, particularly since the eighteenth century, will
necessarily come up against the phenomenon that increasingly abstract ideas hold sway, i.e. ideas which
increasingly take on the form of universality. For each new class which puts itself in the place of one
ruling before it, is compelled, merely in order to carry through its aim, to represent its interest as the
common interest of all the members of society, that is, expressed in ideal form: it has to give its ideas
the form of universality, and represent them as the only rational, universally valid ones. The class
making a revolution appears from the very start, if only because it is opposed to a class, not as a class
but as the representative of the whole of society; it appears as the whole mass of society confronting
the one ruling class. ” —
Marginal note by Marx: Universality corresponds to (1) the class versus the estate, (2) the competition,
world-wide intercourse, etc., (3) the great numerical strength of the ruling class, (4) the illusion of the
common interests (in the beginning this illusion is true), (5) the delusion of the ideologists and the
division of labour.
— It can do this because, to start with, its interest really is more connected with the common interest of
all other non-ruling classes, because under the pressure of hitherto existing conditions its interest has
not yet been able to develop as the particular interest of a particular class. Its victory, therefore,
benefits also many individuals of the other classes which are not winning a dominant position, but only
insofar as it now puts these individuals in a position to raise themselves into the ruling class. When the
French bourgeoisie overthrew the power of the aristocracy, it thereby made it possible for many
proletarians to raise themselves above the proletariat, but only insofar as they become bourgeois. Every
new class, therefore, achieves its hegemony only on a broader basis than that of the class ruling
previously, whereas the opposition of the non-ruling class against the new ruling class later develops all
the more sharply and profoundly. Both these things determine the fact that the struggle to be waged
against this new ruling class, in its turn, aims at a more decided and radical negation of the previous
conditions of society than could all previous classes which sought to rule.
This whole semblance, that the rule of a certain class is only the rule of certain ideas, comes to a natural
end, of course, as soon as class rule in general ceases to be the form in which society is organised, that is
to say, as soon as it is no longer necessary to represent a particular interest as general or the “general
interest” as ruling.
Once the ruling ideas have been separated from the ruling individuals and, above all, from the
relationships which result from a given stage of the mode of production, and in this way the conclusion
has been reached that history is always under the sway of ideas, it is very easy to abstract from these
various ideas “the idea,” the notion, etc. as the dominant force in history, and thus to understand all
these separate ideas and concepts as “forms of self-determination” on the part of the concept
developing in history. It follows then naturally, too, that all the relationships of men can be derived from
the concept of man, man as conceived, the essence of man, Man. This has been done by the speculative
philosophers. Hegel himself confesses at the end of the Geschichtsphilosophie that he “has considered
the progress of the concept only” and has represented in history the “true theodicy.” (p.446.) Now one
can go back again to the producers of the “concept,” to the theorists, ideologists and philosophers, and
one comes then to the conclusion that the philosophers, the thinkers as such, have at all times been
dominant in history: a conclusion, as we see[27], already expressed by Hegel. The whole trick of proving
the hegemony of the spirit in history (hierarchy Stirner calls it) is thus confined to the following three
efforts.
No. 1. One must separate the ideas of those ruling for empirical reasons, under empirical conditions and
as empirical individuals, from these actual rulers, and thus recognise the rule of ideas or illusions in
history.
No. 2. One must bring an order into this rule of ideas, prove a mystical connection among the successive
ruling ideas, which is managed by understanding them as “acts of self-determination on the part of the
concept” (this is possible because by virtue of their empirical basis these ideas are really connected with
one another and because, conceived as mere ideas, they become self-distinctions, distinctions made by
thought).
No. 3. To remove the mystical appearance of this “self-determining concept” it is changed into a person
– “Self-Consciousness” – or, to appear thoroughly materialistic, into a series of persons, who represent
the “concept” in history, into the “thinkers,” the “philosophers,” the ideologists, who again are
understood as the manufacturers of history, as the “council of guardians,” as the rulers. Thus the whole
body of materialistic elements has been removed from history and now full rein can be given to the
speculative steed.
Whilst in ordinary life every shopkeeper is very well able to distinguish between what somebody
professes to be and what he really is, our historians have not yet won even this trivial insight. They take
every epoch at its word and believe that everything it says and imagines about itself is true.
This historical method which reigned in Germany, and especially the reason why, must be understood
from its connection with the illusion of ideologists in general, e.g. the illusions of the jurist, politicians (of
the practical statesmen among them, too), from the dogmatic dreamings and distortions of these
fellows; this is explained perfectly easily from their practical position in life, their job, and the division of
labour.
Works of Karl Marx 1848
Speech to the Democratic Association of Brussels at its public meeting
of January 9, 1848 [246]
On the Question of Free Trade
Source, MECW Volume 6, p. 450;
Written: 9 January 1848;
First published: as a pamphlet in Brussels, February 1848.
Gentlemen,
The Repeal of the Corn Laws in England is the greatest triumph of free trade in the 19th century. In
every country where manufacturers talk of free trade, they have in mind chiefly free trade in corn and
raw materials in general. To impose protective duties on foreign corn is infamous, it is to speculate on
the famine of peoples.
Cheap food, high wages, this is the sole aim for which English free-traders have spent millions, and their
enthusiasm has already spread to their brethren on the Continent. Generally speaking, those who wish
for free trade desire it in order to alleviate the condition of the working class.
But, strange to say, the people for whom cheap food is to be procured at all costs are very ungrateful.
Cheap food is as ill-esteemed in England as cheap government is in France. The people see in these self-
sacrificing gentlemen, in Bowring, Bright and Co., their worst enemies and the most shameless
hypocrites.
Everyone knows that in England the struggle between Liberals and Democrats takes the name of the
struggle between Free-Traders and Chartists.
Let us now see how the English free-traders have proved to the people the good intentions that animate
them.
This is what they said to the factory workers:
"The duty levied on corn is a tax upon wages; this tax you pay to the landlords, those medieval
aristocrats; if your position is wretched one, it is on account of the dearness of the immediate
necessities of life."
The workers in turn asked the manufacturers:
"How is it that in the course of the last 30 years, while our industry has undergone the greatest
development, our wages have fallen far more rapidly, in proportion, than the price of corn has gone up?
"The tax which you say we pay the landlords is about 3 pence a week per worker. And yet the wages of
the hand-loom weaver fell, between 1815 and 1843, from 28s. per week to 5s., and the wages of the
power-loom weavers, between 1823 and 1843, from 20s. per week to 8s.
"And during the whole of this period that portion of the tax which we paid to the landlord has never
exceeded 3 pence. And, then in the year 1834, when bread was very cheap and business going on very
well, what did you tell us? You said, 'If you are unfortunate, it is because you have too many children,
and your marriages are more productive than your labor!'
"These are the very words you spoke to us, and you set about making new Poor Laws, and building
work-houses, the Bastilles of the proletariat."
To this the manufacturer replied:
"You are right, worthy laborers; it is not the price of corn alone, but competition of the hands among
themselves as well, which determined wages.
"But ponder well one thing, namely, that our soil consists only of rocks and sandbanks. You surely do not
imagine that corn can be grown in flower-pots. So if, instead of lavishing our capital and our labor upon
a thoroughly sterile soil, we were to give up agriculture, and devote ourselves exclusively to industry, all
Europe would abandon its factories, and England would form one huge factory town, with the whole of
the rest of Europe for its countryside."
While thus haranguing his own workingmen, the manufacturer is interrogated by the small trader, who
says to him:
"If we repeal the Corn Laws, we shall indeed ruin agriculture; but for all that, we shall not compel other
nations to give up their own factories and buy from ours.
"What will the consequence be? I shall lose the customers that I have at present in the country, and the
home trade will lose its market."
The manufacturer, turning his back upon the workers, replies to the shopkeeper:
"As to that, you leave it to us! Once rid of the duty on corn, we shall import cheaper corn from abroad.
Then we shall reduce wages at the very time when they rise in the countries where we get out corn.
"Thus in addition to the advantages which we already enjoy we shall also have that of lower wages and,
with all these advantage, we shall easily force the Continent to buy from us."
But now the farmers and agricultural laborers join in the discussion.
"And what, pray, is to become of us?
"Are we going to pass a sentence of death upon agriculture, from which we get our living? Are we to
allow the soil to be torn from beneath our feet?"
As its whole answer, the Anti-Corn Law League has contented itself with offering prizes for the three
best essays upon the wholesome influence of the repeal of the Corn Laws on English agriculture.
These prizes were carried off by Messrs. Hope, Morse, and Greg, whose essays were distributed in
thousands of copies throughout the countryside.
The first of the prize-winners devotes himself to proving that neither the tenant farmer nor the
agricultural laborer will lose by the free importation of foreign corn, but only the landlord.
"The English tenant farmer," he exclaims, "need not fear the repeal of the Corn Laws, because no other
country can produce such good corn so cheaply as England.
"Thus, even if the price of corn fell, it would not hurt you, because this fall would only affect rent, which
would go down, and not at all industrial profit and wages, which would remain stationary."
The second prize-winner, Mr. Morse, maintains, on the contrary, that the price of corn will rise in
consequence of repeal. He takes infinite pains to prove that protective duties nave never been able to
secure a remunerative price for corn.
In support for his assertion, he cites the fact that, whenever foreign corn has been imported, the price of
corn in England has gone up considerably, and then when little corn has been imported, the price has
fallen extremely. This prize-winner forgets that the importation was not the cause of the high price, but
that the high price was the cause of the importation.
And in direct contradiction to his co-prize-winner, he asserts that every rise in the price of corn is
profitable to both the tenant farmer and the laborer, but not to the landlord.
The third prize-winner, Mr. Greg, who is a big manufacturer and whose work is addressed to the large
tenant farmers, could not hold with such stupidities. His language is more scientific.
He admits that the Corn Laws can raise rent only by raising the price of corn, and that they can raise the
price of corn only by compelling capital to apply itself to land of inferior quality, and this is explained
quite simply.
In proportion as population increases, if foreign corn cannot be imported, less fertile soil has to be used,
the cultivation of which involves more expense and the product of this soil is consequently dearer.
There being a forced sale for corn, the price will of necessity be determined by the price of the product
of the most costly soil. The difference between this price and the cost of production upon soil of better
quality constitutes the rent.
If, therefore, as a result of the repeal of the Corn Laws, the price of corn, and consequently the rent,
falls, it is because inferior soil will no longer be cultivated. Thus, the reduction of rent must inevitably
ruin a part of the tenant farmers.
These remarks were necessary in order to make Mr. Greg's language comprehensible.
"The small farmers," he says, "who cannot support themselves by agriculture will find a resource in
industry. As to the large tenant farmers, they cannot fail to profit. Either the landlords will be obliged to
sell them land very cheap, or leases will be made out for very long periods. This will enable tenant
farmers to apply large sums of capital to the land, to use agricultural machinery on a larger scale, and to
save manual labor, which will, moreover, be cheaper, on account of the general fall in wages, the
immediate consequences of the repeal of the Corn Laws."
Dr. Browning conferred upon all these arguments the consecration of religion, by exclaiming at a public
meeting,
"Jesus Christ is Free Trade, and Free Trade is Jesus Christ."
One can understand that all this hypocrisy was not calculated to make cheap bread attractive to the
workers.
Besides, how could the workingman understand the sudden philanthropy of the manufacturers, the very
men still busy fighting against the Ten Hours' Bill, which was to reduce the working day of the mill hands
from 12 hours to 10?
To give you an idea of the philanthropy of these manufacturers I would remind you, gentlemen, of the
factory regulations in force in all the mills.
Every manufacturer has for his own private use a regular penal code in which fines are laid down for
every voluntary or involuntary offence. For instance, the worker pays so much if he has the misfortune
to sit down on a chair; if he whispers, or speaks, or laughs; if he arrives a few moments too late; if any
part of the machine breaks, or he does not turn out work of the quality desired, etc., etc. The fines are
always greater than the damage really done by the worker. And to give the worker every opportunity for
incurring fines, the factory clock is set forward, and he is given bad raw material to make into good
pieces of stuff. An overseer not sufficiently skillful in multiplying cases of infractions or rules is
discharged.
You see, gentlemen, this private legislation is enacted for the especial purpose of creating such
infractions, and infractions are manufactured for the purpose of making money. Thus the manufacturer
uses every means of reducing the nominal wage, and of profiting even by accidents over which the
worker has no control.
These manufacturers are the same philanthropists who have tried to make the workers believe that
they were capable of going to immense expense for the sole purpose of ameliorating their lot. Thus, on
the one hand, they nibble at the wages of the worker in the pettiest way, by means of factory
regulations, and, on the other, they are undertaking the greatest sacrifices to raise those wages again by
means of the Anti-Corn Law League.
They build great palaces at immense expense, in which the League takes up, in some respects, its official
residence; they send an army of missionaries to all corners of England to preach the gospel of free trade;
they have printed and distributed gratis thousands of pamphlets to enlighten the worker upon his own
interests, they spend enormous sums to make the press favorable to their cause; they organize a vast
administrative system for the conduct of the free trade movement, and they display all their wealth of
eloquence at public meetings. It was at one of these meetings that a worker cried out:
"If the landlords were to sell our bones, you manufacturers would be the first to buy them in order to
put them through a steam-mill and make flour of them."
The English workers have very well understood the significance of the struggle between the landlords
and the industrial capitalists. They know very well that the price of bread was to be reduced in order to
reduce wages, and that industrial profit would rise by as much as rent fell.
Ricardo, the apostle of the English free-traders, the most eminent economist of our century, entirely
agrees with the workers upon this point. In his celebrated work on political economy, he says:
"If instead of growing our own corn... we discover a new market from which we can supply ourselves...
at a cheaper price, wages will fall and profits rise. The fall in the price of agricultural produce reduces
the wages, not only of the laborer employed in cultivating the soil, but also of all those employed in
commerce or manufacture."
[David Ricardo, Des principes de l'economie politique et de l'impot.
Traduit de l'anglais par F. S. Constancio, avec des notes explicatives et critiques par J.-B.- Say. T. I., Paris
1835, p.178-79]
And do not believe, gentlemen, that is is a matter of indifference to the worker whether he receives only
four francs on account of corn being cheaper, when he had been receiving five francs before.
Have not his wages always fallen in comparison with profit, and is it not clear that his social position has
grown worse as compared with that of the capitalist? Besides which he loses more as a matter of fact.
So long as the price of corn was higher and wages were also higher, a small saving in the consumption of
bread sufficed to procure him other enjoyments. But as soon as bread is very cheap, and wages are
therefore very cheap, he can save almost nothing on bread for the purchase of other articles.
The English workers have made the English free-traders realize that they are not the dupes of their
illusions or of their lies; and if, in spite of this, the workers made common cause with them against the
landlords, it was for the purpose of destroying the last remnants of feudalism and in order to have only
one enemy left to deal with. The workers have not miscalculated, for the landlords, in order to revenge
themselves upon the manufacturers, made common cause with the workers to carry the Ten Hours' Bill,
which the latter had been vainly demanding for 30 years, and which was passed immediately after the
repeal of the Corn Laws.
When Dr. Bowring, at the Congress of Economists [September 16-18, 1848; the following, among others,
were present: Dr. Bowring, M.P., Colonel Thompson, Mr. Ewart, Mr. Brown, and James Wilson, editor of
theEconomist], drew from his pocket a long list to show how many head of cattle, how much ham,
bacon, poultry, etc., was imported into England, to be consumed, as he asserted, by the workers, he
unfortunately forgot to tell you that all the time the workers of Manchester and other factory towns
were finding themselves thrown into the streets by the crisis which was beginning.
As a matter of principle in political economy, the figures of a single year must never be taken as the
basis for formulating general laws. One must always take the average period of from six to seven years --
a period of time during which modern industry passes through the various phases of prosperity,
overproduction, stagnation, crisis, and completes its inevitable cycle.
Doubtless, if the price of all commodities falls -- and this is the necessary consequence of free trade -- I
can buy far more for a franc than before. And the worker's france is as good as any other man's.
Therefore, free trade will be very advantageous to the worker. There is only little difficulty in this,
namely, that the worker, before he exchanges his franc for other commodities, has first exchanged his
labor with the capitalist. If in this exchange he always received the said franc for the same labor and the
price of all other commodities fell, he would always be the gainer by such a bargain. The difficult point
does not lie in proving that, if the price of all commodities falls, I will get more commodities for the same
money.
Economists always take the price of labor at the moment of its exchange with other commodities. But
they altogether ignore the moment at which labor accomplishes its own exchange with capital.
When less expense is required to set in motion the machine which produces commodities, the things
necessary for the maintenance of this machine, called a worker, will also cost less. If all commodities are
cheaper, labor, which is a commodity too, will also fall in price, and, as we shall see later, this
commodity, labor, will fall far lower in proportion than the other commodities. If the worker still pins his
faith to the arguments of the economists, he will find that the franc has melted away in his pocket, and
that he has only 5 sous left.
Thereupon the economists will tell you:
"Well, we admit that competition among the workers, which will certainly not have diminished under
free trade, will very soon bring wages into harm,only with the low price of commodities. But, on the
other hand, the low price of commodities will increase consumption, the larger consumption will require
increased production, which will be followed by a larger demand for hands, and this larger demand for
hands will be followed by a rise in wages."
The whole line of argument amounts to this: Free trade increases productive forces. If industry keeps
growing, if wealth, if the productive power, if, in a word, productive capital increases, the demand for
labor,the price of labor, and consequently the rate of wages, rise also.
The most favorable condition for the worker is the growth of capital. This must be admitted. If capital
remains stationary, industry will not merely remain stationary but will decline, and in this case the
worker will be the first victim. He goes to the wall before the capitalist. And in the case where capital
keeps growing, in the circumstance which we have said are the best for the worker, what will be his lot?
He will go to the wall just the same. The growth of productive capital implies the accumulation and the
concentration of capital. The centralization of capital involves a greater division of labor and a greater
use of machinery. The greater division of labor destroys the especial skill of the laborer; and by putting
in the place of this skilled work labor which anybody can perform, it increase competition among the
workers.
This competition becomes fiercer as the division of labor enables a single worker to do the work of
three. Machinery accomplishes the same result on a much larger scale. The growth of productive capital,
which forces the industrial capitalists to work with constantly increasing means, ruins the small
industrialist and throws them into the proletariat. Then, the rate of interest falling in proportion as
capital accumulates, the small rentiers, who can no longer live on their dividends, are forced to go into
industry and thus swell the number of proletarians.
Finally, the more productive capital increases, the more it is compelled to produce for a market whose
requirements it does not know, the more production precedes consumption, the more supply tries to
force demand, and consumption crises increase in frequency and in intensity. But every crisis in turn
hastens the centralization of capital and adds to the proletariat.
Thus, as productive capital grows, competition among the workers grows in a far greater proportion.
The reward of labor diminishes for all, and the burden of labor increases for some.
In 1829, there were in Manchester 1,088 cotton spinners employed in 36 factories. In 1841, there were
no more than 448, and they tended 53,353 more spindles than the 1,088 spinners did in 1829. In manual
labor had increased in the same proportion as the productive power, the number of spinners ought to
have reaches the figure of 1,848; improved machinery had, therefore, deprived 1,100 workers of
employment.
We know beforehand the reply of the economists. The men thus deprived of work, they say, will find
other kinds of employment. Dr. Bowring did not fail to reproduce this argument at the Congress of
Economists, but neither did he fail to supply his own refutation.
In 1835, Dr. Bowring made a speech in the House of Commons upon the 50,000 hand-loom weavers of
London who for a very long time had been starving without being able to find that new kind of
employment which the free-traders hold out to them in the distance.
We will give the most striking passages of this speech of Dr. Bowring:
"This distress of the weavers... is an incredible condition of a species of labor easily learned -- and
constantly intruded on and superseded by cheaper means of production. A very short cessation of
demand, where the competition for work is so great... produces a crisis. The hand-loom weavers are on
the verge of that state beyond which human existence can hardly be sustained, and a very trifling check
hurls them into the regions of starvation.... The improvements of machinery, ...by superseding manual
labor more and more, infallibly bring with them in the transition much of temporary suffering.... The
national good cannot be purchased but at the expense of some individual evil. No advance was ever
made in manufactures but at some cost to those who are in the rear; and of all discoveries, the power-
loom is that which most directly bears on the condition of the hand-loom weaver. He is already beaten
out of the field in many articles; he will infallibly be compelled to surrender many more."
Further on he says:
"I hold in my hand the correspondence which has taken place between the Governor-General of India
and the East-India Company, on the subject of the Dacca hand-loom weavers.... Some years ago the
East-India Company annually received of the produce of the looms of India to the amount of from
6,000,000 to 8,000,000 of pieces of cotton goods. The demand gradually fell to somewhat more than
1,000,000, and has now nearly ceased altogether. In 1800, the United States took from India nearly
800,000 pieces of cotton; in 1830, not 4,000. In 1800, 1,000,000 pieces were shipped to Portugal; in
1830, only 20,000. Terrible were the accounts of the wretchedness of the poor Indian weavers, reduced
to absolute starvation. And what was the sole cause? The presence of the cheaper English
manufacture.... Numbers of them dies of hunger, the remainder were, for the most part, transferred to
other occupations, principally agricultural. Not to have changed their trade was inevitable starvation.
And at this moment that Dacca district is supplied with yarn and cotton cloth from the power-looms of
England.... The Dacca muslins, celebrated over the whole world for their beauty and fineness, are also
annihilated from the same cause. And the present suffering, to numerous classes in India, is scarcely to
be paralleled in the history of commerce."
[ Speech in the House of Commons, July 28, 1835. (Hansard, Vol.XXIX, London 1835, pp.1168-70) ]
Dr. Bowring's speech is the more remarkable because the facts quoted by him are exact, and the
phrases with which he seeks to palliate them are wholly characterized by the hypocrisy common to all
free trade sermons. He represents the workers as means of production which must be superseded by
less expensive means of production. He pretends to see in the labor of which he speaks a wholly
exceptional kind of labor, and in the machine which has crushed out the weavers an equally exceptional
machine. He forgets that there is no kind of manual labor which may not any day be subjected to the
fate of the hand-loom weavers.
"It is, in fact, the constant aim and tendency of every improvement in machine to supersede human
labor altogether, or to diminish its cost by substituting the industry of women and children for that of
men; or that of ordinary laborers for trained artisans. In most of the water-twist, or throstle cotton-
mills, the spinning is entirely managed by females of 16 years and upwards. The effect of substituting
the self-acting mule for the common mule, is to discharge the greater part of the men spinners, and to
retain adolescents and children."
[Dr. Andrew Ure, The Philosophy of Manufactures
London 1835. Book I, Chap.I, p.23]
These words of the most enthusiastic free-trader, Dr. Ure, serve to complement the confessions of Dr.
Bowring. Dr. Bowring speaks of certain individual evils, and, at the same time, says that these individual
evils destroy whole classes; he speaks of the temporary sufferings during the transition period, and at
the very time of speaking of them, he does not deny that these temporary evils have implied for the
majority the transition from life to death, and for the rest a transition from a better to a worse
condition. If he asserts, farther on, that the sufferings of these workers are inseparable from the
progress of industry, and are necessary to the prosperity of the nation, he simply says that the
prosperity of the bourgeois class presupposed as necessary the suffering of the laboring class.
All the consolation which Dr. Bowring offers the workers who perish, and, indeed, the whole doctrine of
compensation which the free-traders propound, amounts to this:
You thousands of workers who are perishing, do not despair! You can die with an easy conscience. Your
class will not perish. It will always be numerous enough for the capitalist class to decimate it without
fear of annihilating it. Besides, how could capital be usefully applied if it did not take care always to keep
up its exploitable material, i.e., the workers, to exploit them over and over again?
But, besides, why propound as a problem still to be solved the question: What influence will the
adoption of free trade have upon the condition of the working class? All the laws formulated by the
political economists from Quesnay to Ricardo have been based upon the hypothesis that the trammels
which still interfere with commercial freedom have disappeared. These laws are confirmed in proportion
as free trade is adopted. The first of these laws is that competition reduces the price of every
commodity to the minimum cost of production. Thus the minimum of wages is the natural price of labor.
And what is the minimum of wages? Just so much as is required for production of the articles
indispensable for the maintenance of the worker, for putting him in a position to sustain himself,
however badly, and to propagate his race, however slightly.
But do not imagine that the worker receives only this minimum wage, and still less that he always
receives it.
No, according to this law, the working class will sometimes be more fortunate. It will sometimes receive
something above the minimum, but this surplus will merely make up for the deficit which it will have
received below the minimum in times of industrial stagnation. That is to say that, within a given time
which recurs periodically, in the cycle which industry passes through while undergoing the vicissitudes of
prosperity, overproduction, stagnation and crisis, when reckoning all that the working class will have
had above and below necessaries, we shall see that, in all, it will have received neither more nor less
than the minimum; i.e., the working class will have maintained itself as a class after enduring any
amount of misery and misfortune, and after leaving many corpses upon the industrial battlefield. But
what of that? The class will still exist; nay, more, it will have increased.
But this is not all. The progress of industry creates less expensive means of subsistence. Thus spirits have
taken the place of beer, cotton that of wool and linen, and potatoes that of bread.
Thus, as means are constantly being found for the maintenance of labor on cheaper and more wretched
food, the minimum of wages is constantly sinking. If these wages began by making the man work to live,
they end by making him live the life of a machine. His existence has not other value than that of a simple
productive force, and the capitalist treats him accordingly.
This law of commodity labor, of the minimum of wages, will be confirmed in proportion as the
supposition of the economists, free-trade, becomes an actual fact. Thus, of two things one: either we
must reject all political economy based on the assumption of free trade, or we must admit that under
this free trade the whole severity of the economic laws will fall upon the workers.
To sum up, what is free trade, what is free trade under the present condition of society? It is freedom of
capital. When you have overthrown the few national barriers which still restrict the progress of capital,
you will merely have given it complete freedom of action. So long as you let the relation of wage labor
to capital exist, it does not matter how favorable the conditions under which the exchange of
commodities takes place, there will always be a class which will exploit and a class which will be
exploited. It is really difficult to understand the claim of the free-traders who imagine that the more
advantageous application of capital will abolish the antagonism between industrial capitalists and wage
workers. On the contrary, the only result will be that the antagonism of these two classes will stand out
still more clearly.
Let us assume for a moment that there are no more Corn Laws or national or local custom duties; in fact
that all the accidental circumstances which today the worker may take to be the cause of his miserable
condition have entirely vanished, and you will have removed so many curtains that hide from his eyes
his true enemy.
He will see that capital become free will make him no less a slave than capital trammeled by customs
duties.
Gentlemen! Do not allow yourselves to be deluded by the abstract word freedom. Whose freedom? It is
not the freedom of one individual in relation to another, but the freedom of capital to crush the worker.
Why should you desire to go on sanctioning free competition with this idea of freedom, when this
freedom is only the product of a state of things based upon free competition?
We have shown what sort of brotherhood free trade begets between the different classes of one and
the same nation. The brotherhood which free trade would establish between the nations of the Earth
would hardly be more fraternal. To call cosmopolitan exploitation universal brotherhood is an idea that
could only be engendered in the brain of the bourgeoisie. All the destructive phenomena which
unlimited competition gives rise to within one country are reproduced in more gigantic proportions on
the world market. We need not dwell any longer upon free trade sophisms on this subject, which are
worth just as much as the arguments of our prize-winners Messrs. Hope, Morse, and Greg.
For instance, we are told that free trade would create an international division of labor, and thereby give
to each country the production which is most in harmony with its natural advantage.
You believe, perhaps, gentlemen, that the production of coffee and sugar is the natural destiny of the
West Indies.
Two centuries ago, nature, which does not trouble herself about commerce, had planted neither sugar-
cane nor coffee trees there.
And it may be that in less than half a century you will find there neither coffee nor sugar, for the East
Indies, by means of cheaper production, have already successfully combatted his alleged natural destiny
of the West Indies. And the West Indies, with their natural wealth, are already as heavy a burden for
England as the weavers of Dacca, who also were destined from the beginning of time to weave by hand.
One other thing must never be forgotten, namely, that, just as everything has become a monopoly,
there are also nowadays some branches of industry which dominate all others, and secure to the
nations which most largely cultivate them the command of the world market. Thus in international
commerce cotton alone has much greater commercial than all the other raw materials used in the
manufacture of clothing put together. It is truly ridiculous to see the free-traders stress the few
specialities in each branch of industry,throwing them into the balance against the products used in
everyday consumption and produced most cheaply in those countries in which manufacture is most
highly developed.
If the free-traders cannot understand how one nation can grow rich at the expense of another, we need
not wonder, since these same gentlemen also refuse to understand how within one country one class
can enrich itself at the expense of another.
Do not imagine, gentlemen, that in criticizing freedom of trade we have the least intention of defending
the system of protection.
One may declare oneself an enemy of the constitutional regime without declaring oneself a friend of the
ancient regime.
Moreover, the protectionist system is nothing but a means of establishing large-scale industry in any
given country, that is to say, of making it dependent upon the world market, and from the moment that
dependence upon the world market is established, there is already more or less dependence upon free
trade. Besides this, the protective system helps to develop free trade competition within a country.
Hence we see that in countries where the bourgeoisie is beginning to make itself felt as a class, in
Germany for example, it makes great efforts to obtain protective duties. They serve the bourgeoisie as
weapons against feudalism and absolute government, as a means for the concentration of its own
powers and for the realization of free trade within the same country.
But, in general, the protective system of our day is conservative, while the free trade system is
destructive. It breaks up old nationalities and pushes the antagonism of the proletariat and the
bourgeoisie to the extreme point. In a word, the free trade system hastens the social revolution. It is in
this revolutionary sense alone, gentlemen, that I vote in favor of free trade.
Frederick Engels
Afghanistan [40]
Source: MECW Volume 18, p. 40;
Written: in July and the first 10 days of August 1857;
First published: in The New American Cyclopaedia, Vol. I, 1858;
Transcribed: Andy Blunden, 2001;
Proofread: and corrected by Andy Blunden in February 2005.
Review of J W Kaye’s The Afghan War, by Engels
Afghanistan, an extensive country of Asia, north-west of India. It lies between Persia and the Indies, and
in the other direction between the Hindu Kush and the Indian Ocean. It formerly included the Persian
provinces of Khorassan and Kohistan, together with Herat, Beluchistan, Cashmere, and Sinde, and a
considerable part of the Punjab. In its present limits there are probably not more than 4,000,000
inhabitants. The surface of Afghanistan is very irregular, – lofty table lands, vast mountains, deep
valleys, and ravines. Like all mountainous tropical countries it presents every variety of climate. In the
Hindu Kush, the snow lies all the year on the lofty summits, while in the valleys the thermometer ranges
up to 130°. The heat is greater in the eastern than in the western parts, but the climate is generally
cooler than that of India; and although the alternations of temperature between summer and winter, or
day and night, are very great, the country is generally healthy. The principal diseases are fevers,
catarrhs, and ophthalmia. Occasionally the small-pox is destructive. The soil is of exuberant fertility.
Date palms flourish in the oases of the sandy wastes; the sugar cane and cotton in the warm valleys; and
European fruits and vegetables grow luxuriantly on the hill-side terraces up to a level of 6,000 or 7,000
feet. The mountains are clothed with noble forests, which are frequented by bears, wolves, and foxes,
while the lion, the leopard, and the tiger, are found in districts congenial to their habits. The animals
useful to mankind are not wanting. There is a fine variety of sheep of the Persian or large-tailed breed.
The horses are of good size and blood. The camel and ass are used as beasts of burden, and goats, dogs,
and cats, are to be found in great numbers. Beside the Hindu Kush, which is a continuation of the
Himalayas, there is a mountain chain called the Solyman mountain, on the south-west; and between
Afghanistan and Balkh, there is a chain known as the Paropamisan range, very little information
concerning which has, however, reached Europe. The rivers are few in number; the Helmund and the
Kabul are the most important. These take their rise in the Hindu Kush, the Kabul flowing cast and falling
into the Indus near Attock; the Helmund flowing west through the district of Seiestan and falling into the
lake of Zurrah. The Helmund has the peculiarity of overflowing its banks annually like the Nile, bringing
fertility to the soil, which, beyond the limit of the inundation, is sandy desert. The principal cities of
Afghanistan are Kabul, the capital, Ghuznee, Peshawer, and Kandahar. Kabul is a fine town, lat. 34° 10'
N. long. 60° 43' E., on the river of the same name. The buildings are of wood, neat and commodious, and
the town being surrounded with fine gardens, has a very pleasing aspect. It is environed with villages,
and is in the midst of a large plain encircled with low hills. The tomb of the emperor Baber is its chief
monument. Peshawer is a large city, with a population estimated at 100,000. Ghuznee, a city of ancient
renown, once the capital of the great sultan Mahmoud, has fallen from its great estate and is now a
poor place. Near it is Mahmoud’s tomb. Kandahar was founded as recently as 1754. It is on the site of an
ancient city. It was for a few years the capital; but in 1774 the seat of government was removed to
Kabul. It is believed to contain 100,000 inhabitants. Near the city is the tomb of Shah Ahmed, the
founder of the city, an asylum so sacred
that even the king may not remove a
criminal who has taken refuge within its
walls.
The geographical position of Afghanistan,
and the peculiar character of the people,
invest the country with a political
importance that can scarcely be over-
estimated in the affairs of Central Asia.
The government is a monarchy, but the
king’s authority over his high-spirited and
turbulent subjects, is personal and very
uncertain. The kingdom is divided into
provinces, each superintended by a
representative of the sovereign, who
collects the revenue and remits it to the
capital.
The Afghans are a brave, hardy, and
independent race; they follow pastoral or
agricultural occupations only, eschewing
trade and commerce, which they contemptuously resign to Hindus, and to other inhabitants of towns.
With them, war is an excitement and relief from the monotonous occupation of industrial pursuits.
The Afghans are divided into clans[41], over which the various chiefs exercise a sort of feudal supremacy.
Their indomitable hatred of rule, and their love of individual independence, alone prevents their
becoming a powerful nation; but this very irregularity and uncertainty of action makes them dangerous
neighbours, liable to be blown about by the wind of caprice, or to be stirred up by political intriguers,
who artfully excite their passions. The two principal tribes are the Dooranees and Ghilgies, who are
always at feud with each other. The Dooranee is the more powerful; and in virtue of their supremacy
their ameer or khan made himself king of Afghanistan. He has a revenue of about £10,000,000. His
authority is supreme only in his tribe. The military contingents are chiefly furnished by the Dooranees;
the rest of the army is supplied either by the other clans, or by military adventurers who enlist into the
service in hopes of pay or plunder. Justice in the towns is administered by cadis, but the Afghans rarely
resort to law. Their khans have the right of punishment even to the extent of life or death. Avenging of
blood is a family duty; nevertheless, they are said to be a liberal and generous people when unprovoked,
and the rights of hospitality are so sacred that a deadly enemy who eats bread and salt, obtained even
by stratagem, is sacred from revenge, and may even claim the protection of his host against all other
danger. In religion they are Mohammedans, and of the Soonee sect; but they are not bigoted, and
alliances between Sheeahs and Soonees[42]are by no means uncommon.
Afghanistan has been subjected alternately to Mogul[43] and Persian dominion. Previous to the advent of
the British on the shores of India the foreign invasions which swept the plains of Hindostan always
proceeded from Afghanistan. Sultan Mahmoud the Great, Genghis Khan, Tameriane, and Nadir Shah, all
took this road. In 1747 after the death of Nadir, Shah Ahmed, who had learned the art of war under that
military adventurer, determined to shake off the Persian yoke. Under him Afghanistan reached its
highest point of greatness and prosperity in modern times. He belonged to the family of the Suddosis,
and his first act was to seize upon the booty which his late chief had gathered in India. In 1748 he
succeeded in expelling the Mogul governor from Kabul and Peshawer, and crossing the Indus he rapidly
overran the Punjab. His kingdom extended from Khorassan to Delhi, and he even measured swords with
the Mahratta powers.[44] These great enterprises did not, however, prevent him from cultivating some of
the arts of peace, and he was favourably known as a poet and historian. He died in 1772, and left his
crown to his son Timour, who, however, was unequal to the weighty charge. He abandoned the city of
Kandahar, which had been founded by his father, and had, in a few years, become a wealthy and
populous town, and removed the seat of government back to Kabul. During his reign the internal
dissensions of the tribes, which had been repressed by the firm hand of Shah Ahmed, were revived. In
1793 Timour died, and Siman succeeded him. This prince conceived the idea of consolidating the
Mohammedan power of India, and this plan, which might have seriously endangered the British
possessions, was thought so important that Sir John Malcolm was sent to the frontier to keep the
Afghans in check, in case of their making any movement, and at the same time negotiations were
opened with Persia, by whose assistance the Afghans might be placed between two fires. These
precautions were, however, unnecessary; Siman Shah was more than sufficiently occupied by
conspiracies, and disturbances at home, and his great plans were nipped in the bud. The king’s brother,
Mahmud, threw himself into Herat with the design of erecting an independent principality, but failing in
his attempt he fled into Persia. Siman Shah had been assisted in attaining the throne by the Bairukshee
family, at the head of which was Sheir Afras Khan. Siman’s appointment of an unpopular vizier excited
the hatred of his old supporters, who organized a conspiracy which was discovered, and Sheir Afras was
put to death. Mahmud was now recalled by the conspirators, Siman was taken prisoner and his eyes put
out. In opposition to Mahmud, who was supported by the Dooranees, Shah Soojah was put forward by
the Ghilgies, and held the throne for some time; but he was at last defeated, chiefly through the
treachery of his own supporters, and was forced to take refuge amongst the Sikhs. [45]
In 1809 Napoleon had sent Gen. Gardane to Persia in the hope of inducing the shah [Fath Ali] to invade
India, and the Indian government sent a representative [Mountstuart Elphinstone] to the court of Shah
Soojah to create an opposition to Persia. At this epoch, Runjeet Singh rose into power and fame. He was
a Sikh chieftain, and by his genius made his country independent of the Afghans, and erected a kingdom
in the Punjab, earning for himself the title of Maharajah (chief rajah), and the respect of the Anglo-
Indian government. The usurper Mahmud was, however, not destined to enjoy his triumph long. Futteh
Khan, his vizier, who had alternately fluctuated between Mahmud and Shah Soojah, as ambition or
temporary interest prompted, was seized by the king’s son Kamran, his eyes put out, and afterward
cruelly put to death. The powerful family of the murdered vizier swore to avenge his death. The puppet
Shah Soojah was again brought forward and Mahmud expelled. Shah Soojah having given offence,
however, was presently deposed, and another brother crowned in his stead. Mahmud fled to Herat, of
which he continued in possession, and in 1829 on his death his son Kamran succeeded him in the
government of that district. The Bairukshee family, having now attained chief power, divided the
territory among themselves, but following the national usage quarrelled, and were only united in
presence of a common enemy. One of the brothers, Mohammed Khan, held the city of Peshawer, for
which he paid tribute to Runjeet Singh; another held Ghuznee; a third Kandahar; while in Kabul, Dost
Mohammed, the most powerful of the family, held sway.
To this prince, Capt. Alexander Burnes was sent as ambassador in 1835, when Russia and England were
intriguing against each other in Persia and Central Asia. He offered an alliance which the Dost was but
too eager to accept; but the Anglo-Indian government demanded every thing from him, while it offered
absolutely nothing in return. In the mean time, in 1838, the Persians, with Russian aid and advice, laid
siege to Herat, the key of Afghanistan and India[46]; a Persian and a Russian agent arrived at Kabul, and
the Dost, by the constant refusal of any positive engagement on the part of the British, was, at last,
actually compelled to receive overtures from the other parties. Burnes left, and Lord Auckland, then
governor-general of India, influenced by his secretary W. McNaghten, determined to punish Dost
Mohammed, for what he himself had compelled him to do. He resolved to dethrone him, and to set up
Shah Soojah, now a pensioner of the Indian government. A treaty was concluded with Shah Soojah, and
with the Sikhs; the shah began collecting an army, paid and officered by the British, and an Anglo-Indian
force was concentrated on the Sutlej. McNaghten, seconded by Burnes, was to accompany the
expedition in the quality of envoy in Afghanistan. In the mean time the Persians had raised the siege of
Herat, and thus the only valid reason for interference in Afghanistan was removed, but, nevertheless, in
December 1838, the army marched toward Sinde, which country was coerced into submission, and the
payment of a contribution for the benefit of the Sikhs and Shah Soojah.[47] Feb. 20, 1839, the British
army passed the Indus. It consisted of about 12,000 men, with above 40,000 camp-followers, beside the
new levies of the shah. The Bolan Pass was traversed in March; want of provisions and forage began to
be felt; the camels dropped by hundreds, and a great part of the baggage was lost. April 7, the army
entered the Khojak Pass, traversed it without resistance, and on April 25 entered Kandahar, which the
Afghan princes, brothers of Dost Mohammed, had abandoned. After a rest of two months, Sir John
Keane, the commander, advanced with the main body of the army toward the north, leaving a brigade,
under Nott, in Kandahar. Ghuznee, the impregnable stronghold of Afghanistan, was taken, July 22, a
deserter having brought information that the Kabul gate was the only one which had not been walled
up; it was accordingly blown down, and the place was then stormed. After this disaster, the army which
Dost Mohammed had collected, at once disbanded, and Kabul too opened its gates, Aug. 6. Shah Soojah
was installed in due form, but the real direction of government remained in the hands of McNaghten,
who also paid all Shah Soojah’s expenses out of the Indian treasury.
The conquest of Afghanistan seemed accomplished, and a considerable portion of the troops was sent
back. But the Afghans were noways content to be ruled by the Feringhee Kaffirs (European infidels), and
during the whole of 1840 and ’41, insurrection followed on insurrection in every part of the country. The
Anglo-Indian troops had to be constantly on the move. Yet, McNaghten declared this to be the normal
state of Afghan society, and wrote home that every thing went on well, and Shah Soojah’s power was
taking root. In vain were the warnings of the military officers and the other political agents. Dost
Mohammed had surrendered to the British in October, 1840, and was sent to India; every insurrection
during the summer of ’41 was successfully repressed, and toward October, McNaghten, nominated
governor of Bombay, intended leaving with another body of troops for India. But then the storm broke
out. The occupation of Afghanistan cost the Indian treasury £1,250,000 per annum: 16,000 troops,
Anglo-Indian, and Shah Soojah’s, had to be paid in Afghanistan; 3,000 more lay in Sinde, and the Bolan
Pass; Shah Soojah’s regal splendours, the salaries of his functionaries, and all expenses of his court and
government, were paid by the Indian treasury, and finally, the Afghan chiefs were subsidized, or rather
bribed, from the same source, in order to keep them out of mischief. McNaghten was informed of the
impossibility of going on at this rate of spending money. He attempted retrenchment, but the only
possible way to enforce it was to cut down the allowances of the chiefs. The very day he attempted this,
the chiefs formed a conspiracy for the extermination of the British, and thus McNaghten himself was the
means of bringing about the concentration of those insurrectionary forces, which hitherto had struggled
against the invaders singly, and without unity or concert; though it is certain, too, that by this time the
hatred of British dominion among the Afghans had reached the highest point.
The English in Kabul were commanded by Gen. Elphinstone, a gouty, irresolute, completely helpless old
man, whose orders constantly contradicted each other. The troops occupied a sort of fortified camp,
which was so extensive that the garrison was scarcely sufficient to man the ramparts, much less to
detach bodies to act in the field. The works were so imperfect that ditch and parapet could be ridden
over on horseback. As if this was not enough, the camp was commanded almost within musket range by
the neighbouring heights, and to crown the absurdity of the arrangements, all provisions, and medical
stores, were in two detached forts at some distance from camp, separated from it, moreover, by walled
gardens and another small fort not occupied by the English. The citadel or Bala Hissar of Kabul would
have offered strong and splendid winter quarters for the whole army, but to please Shah Soojah, it was
not occupied. Nov. 2, 1841, the insurrection broke out. The house of Alexander Burnes, in the city, was
attacked and he himself murdered. The British general did nothing, and the insurrection grew strong by
impunity. Elphinstone, utterly helpless, at the mercy of all sorts of contradictory advice, very soon got
every thing into that confusion which Napoleon [Bonaparte] described by the three words, ordre,
contre-ordre, disordre . The Bala Hissar was, even now, not occupied. A few companies were sent
against the thousands of insurgents, and of course were beaten. This still more emboldened the
Afghans. Nov. 3, the forts close to the camp were occupied. On the 9th, the commissariat fort
(garrisoned by only 80 men) was taken by the Afghans, and the British were thus reduced to starvation.
On the 5th, Elphinstone already talked of buying a free passage out of the country. In fact, by the middle
of November, his irresolution and incapacity had so demoralised the troops that neither Europeans nor
Sepoys[48] were any longer fit to meet the Afghans in the open field. Then the negotiations began. During
these, McNaghten was murdered in a conference with Afghan chiefs. Snow began to cover the ground,
provisions were scarce. At last, Jan. 1, a capitulation was concluded. All the money, £190,000, was to be
handed over to the Afghans, and bills signed for £140,000 more. All the artillery and ammunition, except
6 six-pounders and 3 mountain guns, were to remain. All Afghanistan was to be evacuated. The chiefs,
on the other hand, promised a safe conduct, provisions, and baggage cattle.
Jan. 5, the British marched out, 4,500 combatants and 12,000 camp-followers. One march sufficed to
dissolve the last remnant of order, and to mix up soldiers and camp-followers in one hopeless confusion,
rendering all resistance impossible. The cold and snow and the want of provisions acted as in
Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow [in 1812]. But instead of Cossacks keeping a respectful distance, the
British were harassed by infuriated Afghan marksmen, armed with long-range matchlocks, occupying
every height. The chiefs who signed the capitulation neither could nor would restrain the mountain
tribes. The Koord-Kabul Pass became the grave of nearly all the army, and the small remnant, less than
200 Europeans, fell at the entrance of the Jugduluk Pass. Only one man, Dr. Brydon, reached Jelalabad
to tell the tale. Many officers, however, had been seized by the Afghans, and kept in captivity, Jelalabad
was held by Sale’s brigade. Capitulation was demanded of him, but he refused to evacuate the town, so
did Nott at Kandahar. Ghuznee had fallen; there was not a single man in the place that understood any
thing about artillery, and the Sepoys of the garrison had succumbed to the climate.
In the mean time, the British authorities on the frontier at the first news of the disaster of Kabul, had
concentrated at Peshawer the troops destined for the relief of the regiments in Afghanistan. But
transportation was wanting and the Sepoys fell sick in great numbers. Gen. Pollock, in February, took
the command, and by the end of March, 1842, received further reinforcements. He then forced the
Khyber Pass, and advanced to the relief of Sale at Jelalabad; here Sale had a few days before completely
defeated the investing Afghan army. Lord Ellenborough, now governor-general of India, ordered the
troops to fall back; but both Nott and Pollock found a welcome excuse in the want of transportation. At
last, by the beginning of July, public opinion in India forced Lord Ellenborough to do something for the
recovery of the national honour and the prestige of the British army; accordingly, he authorised an
advance on Kabul, both from Kandahar and Jelalabad. By the middle of August, Pollock and Nott had
come to an understanding respecting their movements, and Aug. 20, Pollock moved towards Kabul,
reached Gundamuck, and beat a body of Afghans on the 23rd, carried the Jugduluk Pass Sept. 8,
defeated the assembled strength of the enemy on the 13th at Tezeen, and encamped on the 15th under
the walls of Kabul. Nott, in the mean time, had, Aug. 7, evacuated Kandahar, and marched with all his
forces toward Ghuznee. After some minor engagements, he defeated a large body of Afghans, Aug. 30,
took possession of Ghuznee, which had been abandoned by the enemy, Sept. 6, destroyed the works
and town, again defeated the Afghans in the strong position of Alydan, and, Sept. 17, arrived near Kabul,
where Pollock at once established his communication with him. Shah Soojah had, long before, been
murdered by some of the chiefs, and since then no regular government had existed in Afghanistan;
nominally, Futteh Jung, his son, was king. Pollock despatched a body of cavalry after the Kabul prisoners,
but these had succeeded in bribing their guard, and met him on the road. As a mark of vengeance, the
bazaar of Kabul was destroyed, on which occasion the soldiers plundered part of the town and
massacred many inhabitants. Oct. 12, the British left Kabul and marched by Jelalabad and Peshawer to
India. Futteh Jung, despairing of his position, followed them. Dost Mohammed was now dismissed from
captivity, and returned to his kingdom. Thus ended the attempt of the British to set up a prince of their
own making in Afghanistan.
Footnotes
40. That Engels wanted to write an article on Afghanistan (with emphasis on the Anglo-Afghan war of
1838-42) is evident from the fact that he included this topic in the provisional list of articles for The New
American Cyclopaedia in his letter to Marx of May 28, 1857. On July 11, 1857, however, Engels informed
Marx that the article would not be ready by July 14, as agreed. The work on it apparently took longer
than expected. Marx had received it by August 11 and, as can be seen from the entry in his notebook for
this date, sent it off to New York, In a letter to Marx of September 2, 1857 Charles Dana acknowledged
receipt of “Invasion of Afghanistan”.
When working on this article Engels used J. W. Kaye’s History of the War in Afghanistan Vols. I-II,
London, 1851 (see this volume, pp. 379-90).
41. Engels uses the term “clan”, widespread in Western Europe, to designate heli (tribal groups) into
which Afghan tribes were divided.
42. Soonees (Sunnites) and Sheeahs (Shiites) – members of the two main Mohammedan sects which
appeared in the seventh century as the result of conflicts between the successors of Mohammed,
founder of Islam.
43. The Moguls – invaders of Turkish descent, who came to India from the cast of Central Asia in the
early sixteenth century and in 1526 founded the Empire of the Great Moguls (named after the ruling
dynasty of the Empire) in Northern India. Contemporaries regarded them as the direct descendants of
the Mongol warriors of Genghis Khan, hence the name “Moguls”. In the mid-seventeenth century the
Mogul Empire included most of India and part of Afghanistan. Later on, however, the Empire began to
decline due to peasant rebellions, the growing resistance of the Indian people to the Mohammedan
conquerors, and increasing separatist tendencies. In the early half of the eighteenth century the Empire
of the Great Moguls virtually ceased to exist.
44. The Mahrattas (Marathas) – an ethnic group who lived in Northwestern Deccan. In the mid-
seventeenth century they began an armed struggle against the Empire of the Great Moguls, thus
contributing to its decline. In the course of the struggle the Mahrattas formed an independent state of
their own, whose rulers soon embarked on wars of conquest. At the close of the seventeenth century
their state was weakened by internal feudal strife, but early in the eighteenth century a powerful
confederation of Mahratta principalities was formed under a supreme governor, the Peshwa. In 1761
they suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of the Afghans in the struggle for supremacy in India.
Weakened by this struggle and internal feudal strife, the Mabratta principalities fell a prey to the East
India Company and were subjugated by it as a result of the Anglo-Mahratta war of 1803-05.
45. The Sikhs – a religious sect which appeared in the Punjab (Northwestern India) in the sixteenth
century. Their belief in equality became the ideology of the peasants and lower urban strata in their
struggle against the Empire of the Great Moguls and the Afghan invaders at the end of the seventeenth
century. Subsequently a local aristocracy emerged among the Sikhs and its representatives headed the
Sikh principalities. In the early nineteenth century these principalities united under Ranjit Singh whose
Sikh state included the Punjab and some neighbouring regions. The British authorities in India provoked
an armed conflict with the Sikhs in 1845 and in 1846 succeeded in turning the Sikh state into a vassal.
The Sikhs revolted in 1848, but were subjugated in 1849.
46. The siege of Herat by the Persians lasted from November 1837 to August 1838. Intent on increasing
Britain’s influence in Afghanistan and weakening Russia’s in Persia, the British Government declared the
Shah’s actions to be hostile to Britain and demanded that he should lift the siege. Threatening him with
war, it sent a squadron into the Persian Gulf in 1838. The Shah was forced to submit and to agree to a
one-sided trade treaty with Britain. Marx described the siege of Herat in his article “The War against
Persia.”
47. During the Anglo-Afghan war the East India Company resorted to threats and violence to obtain the
consent of the feudal rulers of Sind, a region in the northwest of India (now in Pakistan) bordering on
Afghanistan, to the passage of British troops across their territory. Taking advantage of this, the British
demanded in 1843 that the local feudal princes proclaim themselves vassals of the Company. After
crushing the rebel Baluchi tribes (natives of Sind), they declared the annexation of the entire region to
British India.
48. Sepoys – mercenary troops in the British-Indian army recruited from the Indian population and
serving under British officers. They were used by the British to subjugate India and to fight the wars of
conquest against Afghanistan, Burma and other neighbouring states. However, the Sepoys shared the
general discontent of the Indian people with the colonial regime and took part in the national liberation
insurrection in India in 1857-59.
Karl Marx: Critique of Political Economy
Review by Frederick Engels
Karl Marx, “A Contribution to the Critique of Political economy”
First Published: Das Volk, Nos. 14 & 16, August 6 & 20, 1859;
Written: between August 3 and 15, 1859.
I
The Germans have long since shown that in all spheres of science they are equal, and in most of them
superior, to other civilised nations. Only one branch of science, political economy, had no German name
among its foremost scholars. The reason is obvious. Political economy is the theoretical analysis of
modern bourgeois society and therefore presupposes developed bourgeois conditions, conditions which
for centuries, following the wars in the wake of the Reformation and the peasant wars and especially
the Thirty Years’ War, could not establish themselves in Germany. The separation of the Netherlands
from the Empire removed Germany from the international trade routes and restricted her industrial
development from the very beginning to the pettiest scale. While the Germans painfully and slowly
recovered from the devastations of the civil wars, while they used up their store of civic energy, which
had never been very large, in futile struggle against the customs barriers and absurd commercial
regulations which every petty princeling and imperial baron inflicted upon the industry of his subjects,
while the imperial cities with their craft-guild practices and patrician spirit went to ruin — Holland,
England and France meanwhile conquered the leading positions in international trade, established one
colony after another and brought manufactory production to the height of its development, until finally
England, with the aid of steam power, which made her coal and iron deposits valuable, headed modern
bourgeois development. But political economy could not arise in Germany so long as a struggle had still
to be waged against so preposterously antiquated remnants of the Middle Ages as those which
hampered the bourgeois development of her material forces until 1830. Only the establishment of the
Customs Union enabled the Germans to comprehend political economy at all. It was indeed at this time
that English and French economic works began to be imported for the benefit of the German middle
class. Men of learning and bureaucrats soon got hold of the imported material and treated it in a way
which does little credit to the “German intellect.” The literary efforts of a hotchpotch of chevaliers
d’industrie, traders, schoolmasters and bureaucrats produced a bunch of German economic publications
which as regards triteness, banality, frivolity, verbosity and plagiarism are equalled only by the German
novel. Among people pursuing practical objectives there arose first the protectionist school of the
industrialists, whose chief spokesman, List, is still the best that German bourgeois political economy has
produced although his celebrated work is entirely copied from the Frenchman Ferrier, the theoretical
creator of the Continental System. In opposition to this trend the free-trade school was formed in the
forties by merchants from the Baltic provinces, who fumblingly repeated the arguments of the English
Free Traders with childlike, but not disinterested, faith. Finally, among the schoolmasters and
bureaucrats who had to handle the theoretical aspects there were uncritical and desiccated collectors of
herbaria, like Herr Rau, pseudo-clever speculators who translated foreign propositions into undigested
Hegelian language like Herr Stein, or gleaners with literary pretensions in the field of so-called history of
civilisation, like Herr Riehl. The upshot of all this was cameralistics, an eclectic economic sauce covering
a hotchpotch of sundry trivialities, of the sort a junior civil servant might find useful to remember during
his final examination.
While in this way in Germany the bourgeoisie, the schoolmasters and the bureaucrats were still making
great exertions to learn by rote, and in some measure to understand, the first elements of Anglo-French
political economy, which they regarded as incontestable dogmas, the German proletarian party
appeared on the scene. Its theoretical aspect was wholly based on a study of political economy,
and German political economy as an independent science dates also from the emergence of this party.
The essential foundation of this German political economy is the materialist conception of history whose
principal features are briefly outlined in the “Preface” to the above-named work. Since the “Preface” has
in the main already been published in Das Volk, we refer to it. The proposition that “the process of
social, political and intellectual life is altogether necessitated by the mode of production of material
life"; that all social and political relations, all religious and legal systems, all theoretical conceptions
which arise in the course of history can only be understood if the material conditions of life obtaining
during the relevant epoch have been understood and the former are traced back to these material
conditions, was a revolutionary discovery not only for economics but also for all historical sciences —
and all branches of science which are not natural sciences are historical. “It is not the consciousness of
men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness.”
This proposition is so simple that it should be self-evident to anyone not bogged down in idealist
humbug. But it leads to highly revolutionary consequences not only in the theoretical sphere but also in
the practical sphere. “At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come
into conflict with the existing relations of production or — this merely expresses the same thing in legal
terms — with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From
forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era
of social revolution. The changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation
of the whole immense superstructure.... The bourgeois mode of production is the last antagonistic form
of the social process of production — antagonistic not in the sense of individual antagonism but of an
antagonism that emanates from the individuals’ social conditions of existence — but the productive
forces developing within bourgeois society create also the material conditions for a solution of this
antagonism.” The prospect of a gigantic revolution, the most gigantic revolution that has ever taken
place, accordingly presents itself to us as soon as we pursue our materialist thesis further and apply it to
the present time.
Closer consideration shows immediately that already the first consequences of the apparently simple
proposition, that the consciousness of men is determined by their existence and not the other way
round, spurn all forms of idealism, even the most concealed ones, rejecting all conventional and
customary views of historical matters. The entire traditional manner of political reasoning is upset;
patriotic magnanimity indignantly objects to such an unprincipled interpretation. It was thus inevitable
that the new point of view should shock not only the exponents of the bourgeoisie but also the mass of
French socialists who intended to revolutionise the world by virtue of the magic words, liberté, égalité,
fraternite. But it utterly enraged the vociferous German vulgar democrats. They nevertheless have a
partiality for attempting to plagiarise the new ideas in their own interest, although with an exceptional
lack of understanding.
The demonstration of the materialist conception even upon a single historical example was a scientific
task requiring years of quiet research, for it is evident that mere empty talk can achieve nothing in this
context and that only an abundance of critically examined historical material which has been completely
mastered can make it possible to solve such a problem. Our party was propelled on to the political stage
by the February Revolution and thus prevented from pursuing purely scientific aims. The fundamental
conception, nevertheless, runs like an unbroken thread through all literary productions of the party.
Every one of them shows that the actions in each particular case were invariably initiated by material
causes and not by the accompanying phrases, that on the contrary the political and legal phrases, like
the political actions and their results, originated in material causes.
After the defeat of the Revolution of 1848-49, at a time when it became increasingly impossible to exert
any influence on Germany from abroad, our party relinquished the field of emigrant squabbles — for
that was the only feasible action left — to the vulgar democrats. While these were chasing about to
their heart’s content, scuffling today, fraternising tomorrow and the day after once more washing their
dirty linen in public, while they went begging throughout America and immediately afterwards started
another row over the division of the few coins they had collected — our party was glad to find once
more some quiet time for research work. It had the great advantage that its theoretical foundation
was a new scientific conception the elaboration of which provided adequate work; even for this reason
alone it could never become so demoralised as the “great men” of the emigration.
The book under consideration is the first result of these studies.
II
[Das Volk, No. 16, August 20,1859]
The purpose of a work like the one under review cannot simply be desultory criticism of separate
sections of political economy or the discussion of one or another economic issue in isolation. On the
contrary, it is from the beginning designed to give a systematic résumé of the whole complex of political
economy and a coherent elaboration of the laws governing bourgeois production and bourgeois
exchange. This elaboration is at the same time a comprehensive critique of economic literature, for
economists are nothing but interpreters of and apologists for these laws.
Hardly any attempt has been made since Hegel’s death to set forth any branch of science in its specific
inner coherence. The official Hegelian school had assimilated only the most simple devices of the
master’s dialectics and applied them to everything and anything, often moreover with ridiculous
incompetence. Hegel’s whole heritage was, so far as they were concerned, confined exclusively to a
template, by means of which any subject could be knocked into shape, and a set of words and phrases
whose only remaining purpose was to turn up conveniently whenever they experienced a lack of ideas
and of concrete knowledge. Thus it happened, as a professor at Bonn has said, that these Hegelians
knew nothing but could write about everything. The results were, of course, accordingly. For all their
conceit these gentlemen were, however, sufficiently conscious of their failings to avoid major problems
as far as possible. The superannuated fossilised type of learning held its ground because of its superior
factual knowledge, and after Feuerbach’s renunciation of the speculative method, Hegelianism gradually
died away, and it seemed that science was once more dominated by antiquated metaphysics with its
rigid categories.
For this there were quite natural reasons. The rule of the Hegelian Diadochi, which ended in empty
phrases, was naturally followed by a period in which the concrete content of science predominated once
more over the formal aspect. Moreover, Germany at the same time applied itself with quite
extraordinary energy to the natural sciences, in accordance with the immense bourgeois development
setting in after 1848; with the coming into fashion of these sciences, in which the speculative trend had
never achieved any real importance, the old metaphysical mode of thinking, even down to the extreme
triviality of Wolff, gained ground rapidly. Hegel was forgotten and a new materialism arose in the
natural sciences; it differed in principle very little from the materialism of the eighteenth century and its
main advantage was merely a greater stock of data relating to the natural sciences, especially chemistry
and physiology. The narrow-minded mode of thinking of the pre-Kantian period in its most banal form is
reproduced by Büchner and Vogt, and even Moleschott, who swears by Feuerbach, frequently flounders
in a highly diverting manner through the most simple categories. The jaded cart-horse of the
commonplace bourgeois mind falters of course in confusion in front of the ditch separating substance
from appearance, and cause from effect; but one should not ride carthorses if one intends to go
coursing over the very rough ground of abstract reasoning.
In this context, therefore, a question had to be solved which was not connected with political economy
as such. Which scientific method should be used? There was, on the one hand, the Hegelian dialectics in
the quite abstract “speculative” form in which Hegel had left it, and on the other hand the ordinary,
mainly Wolffian, metaphysical method, which had come again into vogue, and which was also employed
by the bourgeois economists to write their bulky rambling volumes. The second method had been
theoretically demolished by Kant and particularly by Hegel so that its continued use in practice could
only be rendered possible by inertia and the absence of an alternative simple method. The Hegelian
method, on the other hand, was in its existing form quite inapplicable. It was essentially idealist and the
main point in this case was the elaboration of a world outlook that was more materialist than any
previous one. Hegel’s method took as its point of departure pure thought, whereas here the starting
point was to be inexorable facts. A method which, according to its own avowal, “came from nothing
through nothing to nothing” was in this shape by no means suitable. It was, nevertheless, the only
element in the entire available logical material which could at least serve as a point of origin. It had not
been subjected to criticism, not been overthrown; none of the opponents of the great dialectician had
been able to make a breach in the proud edifice. It had been forgotten because the Hegelian school did
not know how to apply it. Hence, it was first of all essential to carry through a thorough critique of the
Hegelian method.
It was the exceptional historical sense underlying Hegel’s manner of reasoning which distinguished it
from that of all other philosophers. However abstract and idealist the form employed, yet his evolution
of ideas runs always parallel with the evolution of universal history, and the latter was indeed supposed
to be only the proof of the former. Although this reversed the actual relation and stood it on its head,
yet the real content was invariably incorporated in his philosophy, especially since Hegel — unlike his
followers — did not rely on ignorance, but was one of the most erudite thinkers of all time. He was the
first to try to demonstrate that there is an evolution, an intrinsic coherence in history, and however
strange some things in his philosophy of history may seem to us now, the grandeur of the basic
conception is still admirable today, compared both with his predecessors and with those who following
him ventured to advance general historical observations. This monumental conception of history
pervades the Phänomenologies, Asthetik and Geschichte der Philosophie, and the material is everywhere
set forth historically, in a definite historical context, even if in an abstract distorted manner.
This epoch-making conception of history was a direct theoretical pre-condition of the new materialist
outlook, and already this constituted a connecting link with the logical method as well. Since, even from
the standpoint of “pure reasoning,” this forgotten dialectics had led to such results, and had moreover
with the greatest ease coped with the whole of the former logic and metaphysics, it must at all events
comprise more than sophistry and hairsplitting. But the critique of this method, which the entire official
philosophy had evaded and still evades, was no small matter.
Marx was and is the only one who could undertake the work of extracting from the Hegelian logic the
nucleus containing Hegel’s real discoveries in this field, and of establishing the dialectical method,
divested of its idealist wrappings, in the simple form in which it becomes the only correct mode of
conceptual evolution. The working out of the method which underlies Marx’s critique of political
economy is, we think, a result hardly less significant than the basic materialist conception.
Even after the determination of the method, the critique of economics could still be arranged in two
ways — historically or logically. Since in the course of history, as in its literary reflection, the evolution
proceeds by and large from the simplest to the more complex relations, the historical development of
political economy constituted a natural clue, which the critique could take as a point of departure, and
then the economic categories would appear on the whole in the same order as in the logical exposition.
This form seems to have the advantage of greater lucidity, for it traces the actual development, but in
fact it would thus become, at most, more popular. History moves often in leaps and bounds and in a
zigzag line, and as this would have to be followed throughout, it would mean not only that a
considerable amount of material of slight importance would have to be included, but also that the train
of thought would frequently have to be interrupted; it would, moreover, be impossible to write the
history of economy without that of bourgeois society, and the task would thus become immense,
because of the absence of all preliminary studies. The logical method of approach was therefore the
only suitable one. This, however, is indeed nothing but the historical method, only stripped of the
historical form and diverting chance occurrences. The point where this history begins must also be the
starting point of the train of thought, and its further progress will be simply the reflection, in abstract
and theoretically consistent form, of the historical course. Though the reflection is corrected, it is
corrected in accordance with laws provided by the actual historical course, since each factor can be
examined at the stage of development where it reaches its full maturity, its classical form.
With this method we begin with the first and simplest relation which is historically, actually available,
thus in this context with the first economic relation to be found. We analyse this relation. The fact that it
is a relation already implies that it has two aspects which are related to each other. Each of these
aspects is examined separately; this reveals the nature of their mutual behaviour, their reciprocal action.
Contradictions will emerge demanding a solution. But since we are not examining an abstract mental
process that takes place solely in our mind, but an actual event which really took place at some time or
other, or which is still taking place, these contradictions will have arisen in practice and have probably
been solved. We shall trace the mode of this solution and find that it has been effected by establishing a
new relation, whose two contradictory aspects we shall then have to set forth, and so on.
Political economy begins with commodities, with the moment when products are exchanged, either by
individuals or by primitive communities. The product being exchanged is a commodity. But it is a
commodity merely by virtue of the thing, the product being linked with a relation between two persons
or communities, the relation between producer and consumer, who at this stage are no longer united in
the same person. Here is at once an example of a peculiar fact, which pervades the whole economy and
has produced serious confusion in the minds of bourgeois economists — economics is not concerned
with things but with relations between persons, and in the final analysis between classes; these relations
however are always bound to things and appear as things. Although a few economists had an inkling of
this connection in isolated instances, Marx was the first to reveal its significance for the entire economy
thus making the most difficult problems so simple and clear that even bourgeois economists will now be
able to grasp them.
If we examine the various aspects of the commodity, that is of the fully evolved commodity and not as it
at first slowly emerges in the spontaneous barter of two primitive communities, it presents itself to us
from two angles, that of use-value and of exchange-value, and thus we come immediately to the
province of economic debate. Anyone wishing to find a striking instance of the fact that the German
dialectic method at its present stage of development is at least as superior to the old superficially glib
metaphysical method as railways are to the mediaeval means of transport, should look up Adam Smith
or any other authoritative economist of repute to see how much distress exchange-value and use-value
caused these gentlemen, the difficulty they had in distinguishing the two properly and in expressing
the determinate form peculiar to each, and then compare the clear, simple exposition given by Marx.
After use-value and exchange-value have been expounded, the commodity as a direct unity of the two is
described as it enters the exchange process. The contradictions arising here may be found on pp. 20 and
21. We merely note that these contradictions are not only of interest for theoretical, abstract reasons,
but that they also reflect the difficulties originating from the nature of direct interchange, i.e., simple
barter, and the impossibilities inevitably confronting this first crude form of exchange. The solution of
these impossibilities is achieved by investing a specific commodity — money — with the attribute of
representing the exchange-value of all other commodities. Money or simple circulation is then analysed
in the second chapter, namely (1) money as a measure of value, and, at the same time, value measured
in terms of money, i.e., price, is more closely defined; (2) money as means of circulationand (3) the unity
of the two aspects, real money which represents bourgeois material wealth as a whole. This concludes
the first part, the conversion of money into capital is left for the second part.
One can see that with this method, the logical exposition need by no means be confined to the purely
abstract sphere. On the contrary, it requires historical illustration and continuous contact with reality. A
great variety of such evidence is therefore inserted, comprising references both to different stages in
the actual historical course of social development and to economic works, in which the working out of
lucid definitions of economic relations is traced from the outset. The critique of particular, more or less
one-sided or confused interpretations is thus substantially given already in the logical exposition and can
be kept quite short.
The economic content of the book will be discussed in a third article.
The International Workingmen’s Association 1864
Inaugural Address
of the International Working Men’s Association
“The First International”
Written: October 21-27, 1864;
First Published: Printed as a pamphlet in Inaugural Address and
Provisional Rules of the International Working Men’s Association, along
with the “General Rules”. London.
Source: Original pamphlet;
Transcription/Markup: Zodiac/Brian Baggins;
Online Version: Marx & Engels Internet Archive (marxists.org) 2000.
Workingmen:
It is a great fact that the misery of the working masses has not diminished from 1848 to 1864, and yet
this period is unrivaled for the development of its industry and the growth of its commerce. In 1850 a
moderate organ of the British middle class, of more than average information, predicted that if the
exports and imports of England were to rise 50 per cent, English pauperism would sink to zero. Alas! On
April 7, 1864, the Chancellor of the Exchequer delighted his parliamentary audience by the statement
that the total import and export of England had grown in 1863 “to 443,955,000 pounds! That
astonishing sum about three times the trade of the comparatively recent epoch of 1843! “With all that,
he was eloquent upon “poverty”. “Think,” he exclaimed, “of those who are on the border of that
region,” upon “wages... not increased”; upon “human life... in nine cases out of ten but a struggle of
existence! “He did not speak of the people of Ireland, gradually replaced by machinery in the north and
by sheepwalks in the south, though even the sheep in that unhappy country are decreasing, it is true,
not at so rapid a rate as the men. He did not repeat what then had been just betrayed by the highest
representation of the upper ten thousand in a sudden fit of terror. When garrote panic had reached a
certain height the House of Lords caused an inquiry to be made into, and a report to be published upon,
transportation and penal servitude. Out came the murder in the bulky Blue Book of 1863 and proved it
was, by official facts and figures, that the worst of the convicted criminals, the penal serfs of England
and Scotland, toiled much less and fared far better than the agricultural laborers of England and
Scotland. But this was not all. When, consequent upon the Civil War in America, the operatives of
Lancashire and Cheshire were thrown upon the streets, the same House of Lords sent to the
manufacturing districts a physician commissioned to investigate into the smallest possible amount of
carbon and nitrogen, to be administered in the cheapest and plainest form, which on an average might
just suffice to “avert starvation diseases”. Dr. Smith, the medical deputy, ascertained that 28,000 grains
of carbon and 1,330 grains of nitrogen were the weekly allowance that would keep an average adult...
just over the level of starvation diseases, and he found furthermore that quantity pretty nearly to agree
with the scanty nourishment to which the pressure of extreme distress had actually reduced the cotton
operatives (1). But now mark! The same learned doctor was later on again deputed by the medical officer
of the Privy Council to enquire into the nourishment of the poorer laboring classes. The results of his
research are embodied in the “Sixth Report on Public Health”, published by order of Parliament in the
course of the present year. What did the doctor discover? That the silk weavers, the needlewomen, the
kid glovers, the stock weavers, and so forth, received on an average, not even the distress pittance of
the cotton operatives, not even the amount of carbon and nitrogen “just sufficient to avert starvation
diseases”.
“Moreover: — we quote from the report — “as regards the examined families of the agricultural
population, it appeared that more than a fifth were with less than the estimated sufficiency of
carbonaceous food, that more than one-third were with less than the estimated sufficiency of
nitrogeneous food, and that in three counties (Berkshire, Oxfordshire, and Somersetshire) insufficiency
of nitrogeneous food was the average diet.”
“It must be remembered,” adds the official report, “that privation of food is very reluctantly borne, and
that, as a rule, great poorness of diet will only come when other privations have preceded it.... Even
cleanliness will have been found costly or difficult, and if there still be self-respectful endeavors to
maintain it, every such endeavor will represent additional pangs of hunger.”
“These are painful reflections, especially when it is remembered that the poverty to which they advert is
not the deserved poverty of idleness; in all cases it is the poverty of working populations. Indeed the
work which obtains the scanty pittance of food is for the most part excessively prolonged.”
The report brings out the strange and rather unexpected fact:
“That of the division of the United Kingdom,” England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, “the agricultural
population of England,” the richest division, “is considerably the worst fed”; but that even the
agricultural laborers of Berkshire, Oxfordshire, and Somersetshire fare better than great numbers of
skilled indoor operatives of the East of London.
Such are the official statements published by order of Parliament in 1864, during the millennium of free
trade, at a time when the Chancellor of the Exchequer told the House of Commons that
“the average condition of the British laborer has improved in a degree we know to be extraordinary and
unexampled in the history of any country or any age.”
Upon these official congratulations jars the dry remark of the official Public Health Report:
“The public health of a country means the health of its masses, and the masses will scarcely be healthy
unless, to their very base, they be at least moderately prosperous.”
Dazzled by the “Progress of the Nation” statistics dancing before his eyes, the Chancellor of the
Exchequer exclaims in wild ecstasy:
“From 1842 to 1852, the taxable income of the country increased by 6 per cent; in the eight years from
1853 to 1861, it has increased from the basis taken in 1853, 20 per cent! The fact is so astonishing to be
almost incredible! ... This intoxicating augmentation of wealth and power,” adds Mr. Gladstone, “is
entirely confined to classes of property.”
If you want to know under what conditions of broken health, tainted morals, and mental ruin that
“intoxicating augmentation of wealth and power... entirely confined to classes of property” was, and is,
being produced by the classes of labor, look to the picture hung up in the last Public Health Report of
the workshops of tailors, printers, and dressmakers! Compare the “Report of the Children’s Employment
Commission” of 1863, where it states, for instance, that
“the potters as a class, both men and women, represent a much degenerated population, both
physically and mentally”, that “the unhealthy child is an unhealthy parent in his turn”, that “a
progressive deterioration of the race must go on”, and that “the degenerescence of the population of
Staffordshire would be even greater were it not for the constant recruiting from the adjacent country,
and the intermarriage with more healthy races.”
Glance at Mr. Tremenheere’s Blue Book of the “Grievances Complained of by the Journeymen Bakers”!
And who has not shuddered at the paradoxic made by the inspectors of factories, and illustrated by the
Registrar General, that the Lancashire operatives, while put upon the distress pittance of food, were
actually improving in health, because of their temporary exclusion by the cotton famine from the cotton
factory, and the mortality of the children was decreasing, because their mothers were now at last
allowed to give them, instead of Godrey’s cordial, their own breasts.
Again, reverse the medal! The income and property tax returns laid before the House of Commons on
July 20, 1864, teach us that the persons with yearly incomes valued by the tax gatherer of 50,000
pounds and upwards had, from April 5, 1862, to April 5, 1863, been joined by a dozen and one, their
number having increased in that single year from 67 to 80. The same returns disclose the fact that about
3,000 persons divide among themselves a yearly income of about 25,000,000 pounds sterling, rather
more than the total revenue doled out annually to the whole mass of the agricultural laborers of
England and Wales. Open the census of 1861 and you will find that the number of male landed
proprietors of England and Wales has decreased from 16,934 in 1851 to 15,066 in 1861, so that the
concentration of land had grown in 10 years 11 per cent. If the concentration of the soil of the country
in a few hands proceeds at the same rate, the land question will become singularly simplified, as it had
become in the Roman Empire when Nero grinned at the discovery that half of the province of Africa was
owned by six gentlemen.
We have dwelt so long upon these facts “so astonishing to be almost incredible” because England heads
the Europe of commerce and industry. It will be remembered that some months ago one of the refugee
sons of Louis Philippe publicly congratulated the English agricultural laborer on the superiority of his lot
over that of his less florid comrade on the other side of the Channel. Indeed, with local colors changed,
and on a scale somewhat contracted, the English facts reproduce themselves in all the industrious and
progressive countries of the Continent. In all of them there has taken place, since 1848, an unheard-of
development of industry, and an unheard-of expansion of imports and exports. In all of them, as in
England, a minority of the working classes got their real wages somewhat advanced; while in most cases
the monetary rise of wages denoted no more a real access of comforts than the inmate of the
metropolitan poorhouse or orphan asylum, for instance, was in the least benefited by his first
necessaries costing £9 15s. 8d. in 1861 against £7 7s. 4d. in 1852. Everywhere the great mass of the
working classes were sinking down to a lower depth, at the same rate at least that those above them
were rising in the social scale. In all countries of Europe it has now become a truth demonstrable to
every unprejudiced mind, and only decried by those whose interest it is to hedge other people in a fool’s
paradise, that no improvement of machinery, no appliance of science to production, no contrivances of
communication, no new colonies, no emigration, no opening of markets, no free trade, not all these
things put together, will do away with the miseries of the industrious masses; but that, on the present
false base, every fresh development of the productive powers of labor must tend to deepen social
contrasts and point social antagonisms. Death of starvation rose almost to the rank of an institution,
during this intoxicating epoch of economical progress, in the metropolis of the British empire. That
epoch is marked in the annals of the world by the quickened return, the widening compass, and the
deadlier effects of the social pest called a commercial and industrial crisis.
After the failure of the Revolution of 1848, all party organizations and party journals of the working
classes were, on the Continent, crushed by the iron hand of force, the most advanced sons of labor fled
in despair to the transatlantic republic, and the short-lived dreams of emancipation vanished before an
epoch of industrial fever, moral marasm, and political reaction. The defeat of the continental working
classes, partly owed to the diplomacy of the English government, acting then as now in fraternal
solidarity with the Cabinet of St. Petersburg, soon spread its contagious effects to this side of the
Channel. While the rout of their continental brethren unmanned the English working classes, and broke
their faith in their own cause, it restored to the landlord and the money lord their somewhat shaken
confidence. They insolently withdrew concessions already advertised. The discoveries of new gold lands
led to an immense exodus, leaving an irreparable void in the ranks of the British proletariat. Others of its
formerly active members were caught by the temporary bribe of greater work and wages, and turned
into “political blacks”. All the efforts made at keeping up, of remodeling, the Chartist movement failed
signally; the press organs of the working class died one by one of the apathy of the masses, and in point
of fact never before seemed the English working class so thoroughly reconciled to a state of political
nullity. If, then, there had been no solidarity of action between the British and the continental working
classes, there was, at all events, a solidarity of defeat.
And yet the period passed since the Revolutions of 1848 has not been without its compensating
features. We shall here only point to two great factors.
After a 30 years’ struggle, fought with almost admirable perseverance, the English working classes,
improving a momentaneous split between the landlords and money lords, succeeded in carrying the Ten
Hours’ Bill. The immense physical, moral, and intellectual benefits hence accruing to the factory
operatives, half-yearly chronicled in the reports of the inspectors of factories, are now acknowledged on
all sides. Most of the continental governments had to accept the English Factory Act in more or less
modified forms, and the English Parliament itself is every year compelled to enlarge its sphere of action.
But besides its practical import, there was something else to exalt the marvelous success of this
workingmen’s measure. Through their most notorious organs of science, such as Dr. Ure, Professor
Senior, and other sages of that stamp, the middle class had predicted, and to their heart’s content
proved, that any legal restriction of the hours of labor must sound the death knell of British industry,
which, vampirelike, could but live by sucking blood, and children’s blood, too. In olden times, child
murder was a mysterious rite of the religion of Moloch, but it was practiced on some very solemn
occassions only, once a year perhaps, and then Moloch had no exclusive bias for the children of the
poor. This struggle about the legal restriction of the hours of labor raged the more fiercely since, apart
from frightened avarice, it told indeed upon the great contest between the blind rule of the supply and
demand laws which form the political economy of the middle class, and social production controlled by
social foresight, which forms the political economy of the working class. Hence the Ten Hours’ Bill was
not only a great practical success; it was the victory of a principle; it was the first time that in broad
daylight the political economy of the middle class succumbed to the political economy of the working
class.
But there was in store a still greater victory of the political economy of labor over the political economy
of property. We speak of the co-operative movement, especially the co-operative factories raised by the
unassisted efforts of a few bold “hands”. The value of these great social experiments cannot be
overrated. By deed instead of by argument, they have shown that production on a large scale, and in
accord with the behests of modern science, may be carried on without the existence of a class of
masters employing a class of hands; that to bear fruit, the means of labor need not be monopolized as a
means of dominion over, and of extortion against, the laboring man himself; and that, like slave labor,
like serf labor, hired labor is but a transitory and inferior form, destined to disappear before associated
labor plying its toil with a willing hand, a ready mind, and a joyous heart. In England, the seeds of the co-
operative system were sown by Robert Owen; the workingmen’s experiments tried on the Continent
were, in fact, the practical upshot of the theories, not invented, but loudly proclaimed, in 1848.
At the same time the experience of the period from 1848 to 1864 has proved beyond doubt that,
however, excellent in principle and however useful in practice, co-operative labor, if kept within the
narrow circle of the casual efforts of private workmen, will never be able to arrest the growth in
geometrical progression of monopoly, to free the masses, nor even to perceptibly lighten the burden of
their miseries. It is perhaps for this very reason that plausible noblemen, philanthropic middle-class
spouters, and even keep political economists have all at once turned nauseously complimentary to the
very co-operative labor system they had vainly tried to nip in the bud by deriding it as the utopia of the
dreamer, or stigmatizing it as the sacrilege of the socialist. To save the industrious masses, co-operative
labor ought to be developed to national dimensions, and, consequently, to be fostered by national
means. Yet the lords of the land and the lords of capital will always use their political privileges for the
defense and perpetuation of their economic monopolies. So far from promoting, they will continue to
lay every possible impediment in the way of the emancipation of labor. Remember the sneer with
which, last session, Lord Palmerston put down the advocated of the Irish Tenants’ Right Bill. The House
of Commons, cried he, is a house of landed proprietors. To conquer political power has, therefore,
become the great duty of the working classes. They seem to have comprehended this, for in England,
Germany, Italy, and France, there have taken place simultaneous revivals, and simultaneous efforts are
being made at the political organization of the workingmen’s party.
One element of success they possess — numbers; but numbers weigh in the balance only if united by
combination and led by knowledge. Past experience has shown how disregard of that bond of
brotherhood which ought to exist between the workmen of different countries, and incite them to stand
firmly by each other in all their struggles for emancipation, will be chastised by the common
discomfiture of their incoherent efforts. This thought prompted the workingmen of different countries
assembled on September 28, 1864, in public meeting at St. Martin’s Hall, to found the International
Association.
Another conviction swayed that meeting.
If the emancipation of the working classes requires their fraternal concurrence, how are they to fulfill
that great mission with a foreign policy in pursuit of criminal designs, playing upon national prejudices,
and squandering in piratical wars the people’s blood and treasure? It was not the wisdom of the ruling
classes, but the heroic resistance to their criminal folly by the working classes of England, that saved the
west of Europe from plunging headlong into an infamous crusade for the perpetuation and propagation
of slavery on the other side of the Atlantic. The shameless approval, mock sympathy, or idiotic
indifference with which the upper classes of Europe have witnessed the mountain fortress of the
Caucasus falling a prey to, and heroic Poland being assassinated by, Russia: the immense and unresisted
encroachments of that barbarous power, whose head is in St. Petersburg, and whose hands are in every
cabinet of Europe, have taught the working classes the duty to master themselves the mysteries of
international politics; to watch the diplomatic acts of their respective governments; to counteract them,
if necessary, by all means in their power; when unable to prevent, to combine in simultaneous
denunciations, and to vindicate the simple laws or morals and justice, which ought to govern the
relations of private individuals, as the rules paramount of the intercourse of nations.
The fight for such a foreign policy forms part of the general struggle for the emancipation of the working
classes.
Proletarians of all countries, unite!
1. We need hardly remind the reader that, apart from the elements of water and certain inorganic
substances, carbon and nitrogen form the raw materials of human food. However, to nourish the human
system, these simple chemical constituents must be supplied in the form of vegetable or animal
substances. Potatoes, for instance, contain mainly carbon, while wheaten bread contains carbonaceous
and nitrogenous substances in a due proportion. — K.M.
Karl Marx. Capital Volume One
Chapter Thirty-One: Genesis of the Industrial Capitalist
The genesis of the industrial [1] capitalist did not proceed in such a gradual way as that of the farmer.
Doubtless many small guild-masters, and yet more independent small artisans, or even wage labourers,
transformed themselves into small capitalists, and (by gradually extending exploitation of wage labour
and corresponding accumulation) into full-blown capitalists. In the infancy of capitalist production,
things often happened as in the infancy of medieval towns, where the question, which of the escaped
serfs should be master and which servant, was in great part decided by the earlier or later date of their
flight. The snail’s pace of this method corresponded in no wise with the commercial requirements of the
new world market that the great discoveries of the end of the 15th century created. But the middle ages
had handed down two distinct forms of capital, which mature in the most different economic social
formations, and which before the era of the capitalist mode of production, are considered as capital
quand même [all the same] — usurer’s capital and merchant’s capital.
“At present, all the wealth of society goes first into the possession of the capitalist ... he pays the
landowner his rent, the labourer his wages, the tax and tithe gatherer their claims, and keeps a large,
indeed the largest, and a continually augmenting share, of the annual produce of labour for himself. The
capitalist may now be said to be the first owner of all the wealth of the community, though no law has
conferred on him the right to this property... this change has been effected by the taking of interest on
capital ... and it is not a little curious that all the law-givers of Europe endeavoured to prevent this by
statutes, viz., statutes against usury.... The power of the capitalist over all the wealth of the country is a
complete change in the right of property, and by what law, or series of laws, was it effected?” [2]
The author should have remembered that revolutions are not made by laws.
The money capital formed by means of usury and commerce was prevented from turning into industrial
capital, in the country by the feudal constitution, in the towns by the guild organisation. [3] These fetters
vanished with the dissolution of feudal society, with the expropriation and partial eviction of the country
population. The new manufactures were established at sea-ports, or at inland points beyond the control
of the old municipalities and their guilds. Hence in England an embittered struggle of the corporate
towns against these new industrial nurseries.
The discovery of gold and silver in America, the extirpation, enslavement and entombment in mines of
the aboriginal population, the beginning of the conquest and looting of the East Indies, the turning of
Africa into a warren for the commercial hunting of black-skins, signalised the rosy dawn of the era of
capitalist production. These idyllic proceedings are the chief momenta of primitive accumulation. On
their heels treads the commercial war of the European nations, with the globe for a theatre. It begins
with the revolt of the Netherlands from Spain, assumes giant dimensions in England’s Anti-Jacobin War,
and is still going on in the opium wars against China, &c.
The different momenta of primitive accumulation distribute themselves now, more or less in
chronological order, particularly over Spain, Portugal, Holland, France, and England. In England at the
end of the 17th century, they arrive at a systematical combination, embracing the colonies, the national
debt, the modern mode of taxation, and the protectionist system. These methods depend in part on
brute force, e.g., the colonial system. But, they all employ the power of the State, the concentrated and
organised force of society, to hasten, hot-house fashion, the process of transformation of the feudal
mode of production into the capitalist mode, and to shorten the transition. Force is the midwife of every
old society pregnant with a new one. It is itself an economic power.
Of the Christian colonial system, W. Howitt, a man who makes a speciality of Christianity, says:
“The barbarities and desperate outrages of the so-called Christian race, throughout every region of the
world, and upon every people they have been able to subdue, are not to be paralleled by those of any
other race, however fierce, however untaught, and however reckless of mercy and of shame, in any age
of the earth.” [4]
The history of the colonial administration of Holland — and Holland was the head capitalistic nation of
the 17th century —
“is one of the most extraordinary relations of treachery, bribery, massacre, and meanness” [5]
Nothing is more characteristic than their system of stealing men, to get slaves for Java. The men stealers
were trained for this purpose. The thief, the interpreter, and the seller, were the chief agents in this
trade, native princes the chief sellers. The young people stolen, were thrown into the secret dungeons
of Celebes, until they were ready for sending to the slave-ships. An official report says:
“This one town of Macassar, e.g., is full of secret prisons, one more horrible than the other, crammed
with unfortunates, victims of greed and tyranny fettered in chains, forcibly torn from their families.”
To secure Malacca, the Dutch corrupted the Portuguese governor. He let them into the town in 1641.
They hurried at once to his house and assassinated him, to “abstain” from the payment of £21,875, the
price of his treason. Wherever they set foot, devastation and depopulation followed. Banjuwangi, a
province of Java, in 1750 numbered over 80,000 inhabitants, in 1811 only 18,000. Sweet commerce!
The English East India Company, as is well known, obtained, besides the political rule in India, the
exclusive monopoly of the tea-trade, as well as of the Chinese trade in general, and of the transport of
goods to and from Europe. But the coasting trade of India and between the islands, as well as the
internal trade of India, were the monopoly of the higher employés of the company. The monopolies of
salt, opium, betel and other commodities, were inexhaustible mines of wealth. The employés
themselves fixed the price and plundered at will the unhappy Hindus. The Governor-General took part in
this private traffic. His favourites received contracts under conditions whereby they, cleverer than the
alchemists, made gold out of nothing. Great fortunes sprang up like mushrooms in a day; primitive
accumulation went on without the advance of a shilling. The trial of Warren Hastings swarms with such
cases. Here is an instance. A contract for opium was given to a certain Sullivan at the moment of his
departure on an official mission to a part of India far removed from the opium district. Sullivan sold his
contract to one Binn for £40,000; Binn sold it the same day for £60,000, and the ultimate purchaser who
carried out the contract declared that after all he realised an enormous gain. According to one of the
lists laid before Parliament, the Company and its employés from 1757-1766 got £6,000,000 from the
Indians as gifts. Between 1769 and 1770, the English manufactured a famine by buying up all the rice
and refusing to sell it again, except at fabulous prices. [6]
The treatment of the aborigines was, naturally, most frightful in plantation-colonies destined for export
trade only, such as the West Indies, and in rich and well-populated countries, such as Mexico and India,
that were given over to plunder. But even in the colonies properly so called, the Christian character of
primitive accumulation did not belie itself. Those sober virtuosi of Protestantism, the Puritans of New
England, in 1703, by decrees of their assembly set a premium of £40 on every Indian scalp and every
captured red-skin: in 1720 a premium of £100 on every scalp; in 1744, after Massachusetts-Bay had
proclaimed a certain tribe as rebels, the following prices: for a male scalp of 12 years and upwards £100
(new currency), for a male prisoner £105, for women and children prisoners £50, for scalps of women
and children £50. Some decades later, the colonial system took its revenge on the descendants of the
pious pilgrim fathers, who had grown seditious in the meantime. At English instigation and for English
pay they were tomahawked by red-skins. The British Parliament proclaimed bloodhounds and scalping
as “means that God and Nature had given into its hand.”
The colonial system ripened, like a hot-house, trade and navigation. The “societies Monopolia” of Luther
were powerful levers for concentration of capital. The colonies secured a market for the budding
manufactures, and, through the monopoly of the market, an increased accumulation. The treasures
captured outside Europe by undisguised looting, enslavement, and murder, floated back to the mother-
country and were there turned into capital. Holland, which first fully developed the colonial system, in
1648 stood already in the acme of its commercial greatness. It was
“in almost exclusive possession of the East Indian trade and the commerce between the south-east and
north-west of Europe. Its fisheries, marine, manufactures, surpassed those of any other country. The
total capital of the Republic was probably more important than that of all the rest of Europe put
together.” Gülich forgets to add that by 1648, the people of Holland were more over-worked, poorer
and more brutally oppressed than those of all the rest of Europe put together.
Today industrial supremacy implies commercial supremacy. In the period of manufacture properly so
called, it is, on the other hand, the commercial supremacy that gives industrial predominance. Hence
the preponderant rôle that the colonial system plays at that time. It was “the strange God” who perched
himself on the altar cheek by jowl with the old Gods of Europe, and one fine day with a shove and a kick
chucked them all of a heap. It proclaimed surplus-value making as the sole end and aim of humanity.
The system of public credit, i.e., of national debts, whose origin we discover in Genoa and Venice as
early as the Middle Ages, took possession of Europe generally during the manufacturing period. The
colonial system with its maritime trade and commercial wars served as a forcing-house for it. Thus it first
took root in Holland. National debts, i.e., the alienation of the state – whether despotic, constitutional
or republican – marked with its stamp the capitalistic era. The only part of the so-called national wealth
that actually enters into the collective possessions of modern peoples is their national debt. [7] Hence, as
a necessary consequence, the modern doctrine that a nation becomes the richer the more deeply it is in
debt. Public credit becomes the credo of capital. And with the rise of national debt-making, want of faith
in the national debt takes the place of the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, which may not be
forgiven.
The public debt becomes one of the most powerful levers of primitive accumulation. As with the stroke
of an enchanter’s wand, it endows barren money with the power of breeding and thus turns it into
capital, without the necessity of its exposing itself to the troubles and risks inseparable from its
employment in industry or even in usury. The state creditors actually give nothing away, for the sum
lent is transformed into public bonds, easily negotiable, which go on functioning in their hands just as so
much hard cash would. But further, apart from the class of lazy annuitants thus created, and from the
improvised wealth of the financiers, middlemen between the government and the nation – as also apart
from the tax-farmers, merchants, private manufacturers, to whom a good part of every national loan
renders the service of a capital fallen from heaven – the national debt has given rise to joint-stock
companies, to dealings in negotiable effects of all kinds, and to agiotage, in a word to stock-exchange
gambling and the modern bankocracy.
At their birth the great banks, decorated with national titles, were only associations of private
speculators, who placed themselves by the side of governments, and, thanks to the privileges they
received, were in a position to advance money to the State. Hence the accumulation of the national
debt has no more infallible measure than the successive rise in the stock of these banks, whose full
development dates from the founding of the Bank of England in 1694. The Bank of England began with
lending its money to the Government at 8%; at the same time it was empowered by Parliament to coin
money out of the same capital, by lending it again to the public in the form of banknotes. It was allowed
to use these notes for discounting bills, making advances on commodities, and for buying the precious
metals. It was not long ere this credit-money, made by the bank itself, became. the coin in which
theBank of England made its loans to the State, and paid, on account of the State, the interest on the
public debt. It was not enough that the bank gave with one hand and took back more with the other; it
remained, even whilst receiving, the eternal creditor of the nation down to the last shilling advanced.
Gradually it became inevitably the receptacle of the metallic hoard of the country, and the centre of
gravity of all commercial credit. What effect was produced on their contemporaries by the sudden
uprising of this brood of bankocrats, financiers, rentiers, brokers, stock-jobbers, &c., is proved by the
writings of that time, e.g., by Bolingbroke’s. [8]
With the national debt arose an international credit system, which often conceals one of the sources of
primitive accumulation in this or that people. Thus the villainies of the Venetian thieving system formed
one of the secret bases of the capital-wealth of Holland to whom Venice in her decadence lent large
sums of money. So also was it with Holland and England. By the beginning of the 18th century the Dutch
manufactures were far outstripped. Holland had ceased to be the nation preponderant in commerce
and industry. One of its main lines of business, therefore, from 1701-1776, is the lending out of
enormous amounts of capital, especially to its great rival England. The same thing is going on today
between England and the United States. A great deal of capital, which appears today in the United
States without any certificate of birth, was yesterday, in England, the capitalised blood of children.
As the national debt finds its support in the public revenue, which must cover the yearly payments for
interest, &c., the modern system of taxation was the necessary complement of the system of national
loans. The loans enable the government to meet extraordinary expenses, without the tax-payers feeling
it immediately, but they necessitate, as a consequence, increased taxes. On the other hand, the raising
of taxation caused by the accumulation of debts contracted one after another, compels the government
always to have recourse to new loans for new extraordinary expenses. Modern fiscality, whose pivot is
formed by taxes on the most necessary means of subsistence (thereby increasing their price), thus
contains within itself the germ of automatic progression. Overtaxation is not an incident, but rather a
principle. In Holland, therefore, where this system was first inaugurated, the great patriot, DeWitt, has
in his “Maxims” extolled it as the best system for making the wage labourer submissive, frugal,
industrious, and overburdened with labour. The destructive influence that it exercises on the condition
of the wage labourer concerns us less however, here, than the forcible expropriation, resulting from it,
of peasants, artisans, and in a word, all elements of the lower middle class. On this there are not two
opinions, even among the bourgeois economists. Its expropriating efficacy is still further heightened by
the system of protection, which forms one of its integral parts.
The great part that the public debt, and the fiscal system corresponding with it, has played in the
capitalisation of wealth and the expropriation of the masses, has led many writers, like Cobbett,
Doubleday and others, to seek in this, incorrectly, the fundamental cause of the misery of the modern
peoples.
The system of protection was an artificial means of manufacturing manufacturers, of expropriating
independent labourers, of capitalising the national means of production and subsistence, of forcibly
abbreviating the transition from the medieval to the modern mode of production. The European states
tore one another to pieces about the patent of this invention, and, once entered into the service of the
surplus-value makers, did not merely lay under contribution in the pursuit of this purpose their own
people, indirectly through protective duties, directly through export premiums. They also forcibly rooted
out, in their dependent countries, all industry, as, e.g., England did. with the Irish woollen manufacture.
On the continent of Europe, after Colbert’s example, the process was much simplified. The primitive
industrial capital, here, came in part directly out of the state treasury. “Why,” cries Mirabeau, “why go
so far to seek the cause of the manufacturing glory of Saxony before the war? 180,000,000 of debts
contracted by the sovereigns!” [9]
Colonial system, public debts, heavy taxes, protection, commercial wars, &c., these children of the true
manufacturing period, increase gigantically during the infancy of Modem Industry. The birth of the latter
is heralded by a great slaughter of the innocents. Like the royal navy, the factories were recruited by
means of the press-gang. Blasé as Sir F. M. Eden is as to the horrors of the expropriation of the
agricultural population from the soil, from the last third of the 15th century to his own time; with all the
self-satisfaction with which he rejoices in this process, “essential” for establishing capitalistic agriculture
and “the due proportion between arable and pasture land” — he does not show, however, the same
economic insight in respect to the necessity of child-stealing and child-slavery for the transformation of
manufacturing exploitation into factory exploitation, and the establishment of the “true relation”
between capital and labour-power. He says:
“It may, perhaps, be worthy the attention of the public to consider, whether any manufacture, which, in
order to be carried on successfully, requires that cottages and workhouses should be ransacked for poor
children; that they should be employed by turns during the greater part of the night and robbed of that
rest which, though indispensable to all, is most required by the young; and that numbers of both sexes,
of different ages and dispositions, should be collected together in such a manner that the contagion of
example cannot but lead to profligacy and debauchery; will add to the sum of individual or national
felicity?” [10]
“In the counties of Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, and more particularly in Lancashire,” says Fielden, “the
newly-invented machinery was used in large factories built on the sides of streams capable of turning
the water-wheel. Thousands of hands were suddenly required in these places, remote from towns; and
Lancashire, in particular, being, till then, comparatively thinly populated and barren, a population was all
that she now wanted. The small and nimble fingers of little children being by very far the most in
request, the custom instantly sprang up of procuring apprentices from the different parish workhouses
of London, Birmingham, and elsewhere. Many, many thousands of these little, hapless creatures were
sent down into the north, being from the age of 7 to the age of 13 or 14 years old. The custom was for
the master to clothe his apprentices and to feed and lodge them in an “apprentice house” near the
factory; overseers were appointed to see to the works, whose interest it was to work the children to the
utmost, because their pay was in proportion to the quantity of work that they could exact. Cruelty was,
of course, the consequence. ... In many of the manufacturing districts, but particularly, I am afraid, in the
guilty county to which I belong [Lancashire], cruelties the most heart-rending were practised upon the
unoffending and friendless creatures who were thus consigned to the charge of master-manufacturers;
they were harassed to the brink of death by excess of labour ... were flogged, fettered and tortured in
the most exquisite refinement of cruelty; ... they were in many cases starved to the bone while flogged
to their work and ... even in some instances ... were driven to commit suicide.... The beautiful and
romantic valleys of Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Lancashire, secluded from the public eye, became
the dismal solitudes of torture, and of many a murder. The profits of manufacturers were enormous; but
this only whetted the appetite that it should have satisfied, and therefore the manufacturers had
recourse to an expedient that seemed to secure to them those profits without any possibility of limit;
they began the practice of what is termed “night-working,” that is, having tired one set of hands, by
working them throughout the day, they had another set ready to go on working throughout the night;
the day-set getting into the beds that the night-set had just quitted, and in their turn again, the night-set
getting into the beds that the day-set quitted in the morning. It is a common tradition in Lancashire, that
the beds never get cold.”
With the development of capitalist production during the manufacturing period, the public opinion of
Europe had lost the last remnant of shame and conscience. The nations bragged cynically of every
infamy that served them as a means to capitalistic accumulation. Read, e.g., the naïve Annals of
Commerce of the worthy A. Anderson. Here it is trumpeted forth as a triumph of English statecraft that
at the Peace of Utrecht, England extorted from the Spaniards by the Asiento Treaty the privilege of
being allowed to ply the negro trade, until then only carried on between Africa and the English West
Indies, between Africa and Spanish America as well. England thereby acquired the right of supplying
Spanish America until 1743 with 4,800 negroes yearly. This threw, at the same time, an official cloak
over British smuggling. Liverpool waxed fat on the slave trade. This was its method of primitive
accumulation. And, even to the present day, Liverpool “respectability” is the Pindar of the slave trade
which — compare the work of Aikin [1795] already quoted — “has coincided with that spirit of bold
adventure which has characterised the trade of Liverpool and rapidly carried it to its present state of
prosperity; has occasioned vast employment for shipping and sailors, and greatly augmented the
demand for the manufactures of the country” (p. 339). Liverpool employed in the slave-trade, in 1730,
15 ships; in 1751, 53; in 1760, 74; in 1770, 96; and in 1792, 132.[12]
Whilst the cotton industry introduced child-slavery in England, it gave in the United States a stimulus to
the transformation of the earlier, more or less patriarchal slavery, into a system of commercial
exploitation. In fact, the veiled slavery of the wage workers in Europe needed, for its pedestal, slavery
pure and simple in the new world.
Tantae molis erat, to establish the “eternal laws of Nature” of the capitalist mode of production, to
complete the process of separation between labourers and conditions of labour, to transform, at one
pole, the social means of production and subsistence into capital, at the opposite pole, the mass of the
population into wage labourers, into “free labouring poor,” that artificial product of modern
society. [13] If money, according to Augier, [14] “comes into the world with a congenital blood-stain on one
cheek,” capital comes dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and dirt. [15]
Footnotes
1. Industrial here in contradistinction to agricultural. In the “categoric” sense the farmer is an industrial
capitalist as much as the manufacturer.
2. “The Natural and Artificial Rights of Property Contrasted.” Lond., 1832, pp. 98-99. Author of the
anonymous work: “Th. Hodgskin.”
3. Even as late as 1794, the small cloth-makers of Leeds sent a deputation to Parliament, with a petition
for a law to forbid any merchant from becoming a manufacturer. (Dr. Aikin, l. c.)
4. William Howitt: “Colonisation and Christianity: A Popular History of the Treatment of the Natives by
the Europeans in all their Colonies.” London, 1838, p. 9. On the treatment of the slaves there is a good
compilation in Charles Comte, “Traité de la Législation.” 3me éd. Bruxelles, 1837. This subject one must
study in detail, to see what the bourgeoisie makes of itself and of the labourer, wherever it can, without
restraint, model the world after its own image.
5. Thomas Stamford Raffles, late Lieut-Gov. of that island: “The History of Java,” Lond., 1817.
6. In the year 1866 more than a million Hindus died of hunger in the province of Orissa alone.
Nevertheless, the attempt was made to enrich the Indian treasury by the price at which the necessaries
of life were sold to the starving people.
7. William Cobbett remarks that in England all public institutions are designated “royal”; as
compensation for this, however, there is the “national” debt.
8. “Si les Tartares inondaient l’Europe aujourd’hui, il faudrait bien des affaires pour leur faire entendre
ce que c’est qu’un financier parmi nous.” [if the Tartars were to flood into Europe today, it would be a
difficult job to make them understand what a financier is with us] Montesquieu, “Esprit des lois,” t. iv.,
p. 33, ed. Londres, 1769.
9. Mirabeau, l. c., t. vi., p. 101.
10. Eden, l. c., Vol. I., Book II., Ch. 1., p. 421.
11. John Fielden, l. c., pp. 5, 6. On the earlier infamies of the factory system, cf. Dr. Aikin (I 795), l. c., p.
219. and Gisbome: “Enquiry into the Duties of Men,” 1795 Vol. II. When the steam-engine transplanted
the factories from the country waterfalls to the middle of towns, the “abstemious” surplus-value maker
found the child-material ready to his hand, without being forced to seek slaves from the workhouses.
When Sir R. Peel (father of the “minister of plausibility"), brought in his bill for the protection of
children, in 1815, Francis Homer, lumen of the Billion Committee and intimate friend of Ricardo, said in
the House of Commons: “It is notorious, that with a bankrupt’s effects, a gang, if he might use the word,
of these children had been put up to sale, and were advertised publicly as part of the property. A most
atrocious instance had been brought before the Court of King’s Bench two years before, in which a
number of these boys, apprenticed by a parish in London to one manufacturer, had been transferred to
another, and had been found by some benevolent persons in a state of absolute famine. Another case
more horrible had come to his knowledge while on a [Parliamentary] Committee ... that not many years
ago, an agreement had been made between a London parish and a Lancashire manufacturer, by which it
was stipulated, that with every 20 sound children one idiot should be taken.”
12. In 1790, there were in the English West Indies ten slaves for one free man, in the French fourteen for
one, in the Dutch twenty-three for one. (Henry Brougham: “An Inquiry into the Colonial Policy of the
European Powers.” Edin. 1803, vol. II., p. 74.)
13. The phrase, “labouring poor,” is found in English legislation from the moment when the class of
wage labourers becomes noticeable. This term is used in opposition, on the one hand, to the “idle
poor,” beggars, etc., on the other to those labourers, who, pigeons not yet plucked, are still possessors
of their own means of labour. From the Statute Book it passed into Political Economy, and was handed
down by Culpeper, J. Child, etc., to Adam Smith and Eden. After this, one can judge of the good faith of
the “execrable political cant-monger,” Edmund Burke, when he called the expression, “labouring poor,”
— “execrable political cant.” This sycophant who, in the pay of the English oligarchy, played the
romantic laudator temporis acti against the French Revolution, just as, in the pay of the North American
Colonies, at the beginning of the American troubles, he had played the Liberal against the English
oligarchy, was an out and out vulgar bourgeois. “The laws of commerce are the laws of Nature, and
therefore the laws of God.” (E. Burke, l. c., pp. 31, 32.) No wonder that, true to the laws of God and of
Nature, he always sold himself in the best market. A very good portrait of this Edmund Burke, during his
liberal time, is to be found in the writings of the Rev. Mr. Tucker. Tucker was a parson and a Tory, but,
for the rest, an honourable man and a competent political economist. In face of the infamous cowardice
of character that reigns today, and believes most devoutly in “the laws of commerce,” it is our bounden
duty again and again to brand the Burkes, who only differ from their successors in one thing — talent.
14. Marie Angier: “Du Crédit Public.” Paris, 1842.
15. “Capital is said by a Quarterly Reviewer to fly turbulence and strife, and to be timid, which is very
true; but this is very incompletely stating the question. Capital eschews no profit, or very small profit,
just as Nature was formerly said to abhor a vacuum. With adequate profit, capital is very bold. A certain
10 per cent. will ensure its employment anywhere; 20 per cent. certain will produce eagerness; 50 per
cent., positive audacity; 100 per cent. will make it ready to trample on all human laws; 300 per cent.,
and there is not a crime at which it will scruple, nor a risk it will not run, even to the chance of its owner
being hanged. If turbulence and strife will bring a profit, it will freely encourage both. Smuggling and the
slave-trade have amply proved all that is here stated.” (T. J. Dunning, l. c., pp. 35, 36.)
Theories of Surplus Value, Marx 1861-3
[CHAPTER VIII] Herr Rodbertus. New Theory of Rent.
(Digression)
[1. Excess Surplus-Value in Agriculture. Agriculture Develops
Slower Than Industry under Conditions of Capitalism]
||X-445| Herr Rodbertus. Dritter Brief an von Kirchmann von Rodbertus. Widerlegung der Ricardoschen
Lehre von der Grundrente und Begründung einer neuen Rententheorie, Berlin, 1851.
The following remark has to be made beforehand: supposing the necessary wage is equal to 10 hours,
then this is most easily explained in the following manner. If 10 hours’ labour (i.e., a sum of money
equal to 10 hours) enabled the agricultural labourer, on an average, to purchase all the necessary means
of subsistence, agricultural, industrial products, etc., then this is the average wage for unskilled
labour. We are thus concerned here with the value of his daily product which must fall to his share. In
the first place this value exists in the form of the commodity which he produces, i.e., [in] a
certain quantity of this commodity, in exchange for which, after deducting what he himself consumes of
the commodity (if he [does consume any of it]), he can procure for himself the necessary means of
subsistence. Not only the use-value which he himself produces, but industry, agriculture, etc., thus
come into the estimation of his necessary “income. But this is inherent in the concept
of commodity. He produces a commodity, not merely a product. We need therefore waste no words
about this.
Herr Rodbertus first investigates the situation in a country where there is no separation between land
ownership and owner-ship of capital. And here he comes to the important conclusion that rent (by
which he means the entiresurplus-value) is simply equal to the unpaid labour or the quantity of products
which it represents.
In the first instance it is noteworthy that Rodbertus only takes into account the growth
of relative surplus-value, i.e., the growth of surplus-value in so far as it arises out of the growing
productivity of labour and not the growth of surplus-value derived from the prolongation of the
working-day itself. All absolute surplus-value is of course relative in one respect. Labour must be
sufficiently productive for the worker not to require all his time to keep himself alive. But from this
point the distinction comes into force. Incidentally, if originally labour is but little productive, the needs
are also extremely simple (as with slaves) and the masters themselves do not live much better than the
servants. The relative productivity of labour necessary before a profit-monger, a parasite, can come,
into being is very small. If we find a high rate of profit though labour is as yet very unproductive, and
machinery, division of labour etc., are not used, then this is the case only under the following
circumstances; either as in India, partly because the requirements of the worker are extremely small and
he is depressed even below his modest needs, but partly also because low productivity of labour is
identical with a relatively small fixed capital in proportion to the share of capital which is spent on wages
or, and this comes to the same thing, with a relatively high proportion of capital laid out in wages in
relation to the total capital; or finally, because labour-time is excessively long, The latter is the case in
countries (such as Austria etc.) where the capitalist mode of production is already in existence but which
have to compete with far more developed countries. Wages can be low here partly because the
requirements of the worker are less developed, partly because agricultural products are cheaper or—
this amounts to the same thing as far as the capitalist is concerned—because they have less value in
terms of money. Hence the quantity of the product of, say, 10 hours’ labour, which must go to the
worker as necessary wages, is small. If, however, he works 17 hours instead of 12 then this can make up
(for the low productivity of labour]. In any case because in a given country the value of labour is falling
relatively to its productivity, it must not be imagined that wages in different countries are inversely
proportional to the productivity of labour. In fact exactly the opposite is the case. The more productive
one country is relative to another in the world market, the higher will be its wages as compared with the
other. In England, not only nominal wages but [also] real wages are higher than on the continent. The
worker eats more meat; he satisfies more needs. This, however, only applies to the industrial worker
and not the agricultural labourer. But in proportion to the productivity of the English workers their
wages are not higher (than the wages paid in other countries].
Quite apart from the variation in rent according to the fertility of the land, the very existence of rent—
i.e., the modern form of landed property—is feasible because the average wage of the agricultural
labourer is below that of the industrial worker. Since, to start with, by tradition (as the farmer turns
capitalist before capitalists turn farmers) the capitalist passed on part of his gain to the landlord, he
compensated himself by forcing wages down below their level. With the labourers’ desertion of the
land, wages had to rise and they did rise. But hardly has this pressure become evident, when machinery
etc. is introduced and the land once more boasts a (relative) surplus population. (Vide England.)
Surplus-value can be increased, without the extension of labour-time or the development of the
productive power of labour, by forcing wages below their traditional level. And indeed this is the case
wherever agricultural production is carried on by capitalist methods. Where it cannot be achieved by
means of machinery, it is done by turning the land over to sheep grazing. Here then we already have
a potential basis of ||446| rent since,in fact, the agricultural labourer’s wage does not equal the
average wage. This rent would be feasible quite independent of the price of the product, which is equal
to its value.
Ricardo is also aware of the second type of rent increase, which arises from a greater product sold at the
same price, but he does not take it into account, since he measures rent per quarter and not per
acre. He would not say that rent has risen (and in this way rent can rise with falling prices) because 20
quarters [at] 2s, is more than 10 [quarters at] 2s, or 10 quarters [at] 3s.
Incidentally, however the phenomenon of rent may be explained, the significant difference between
agriculture and industry remains, in that in the latter, excess surplus-value is created by cheaper
production, in the former, by dearer production. If the average price of 1 lb. of yarn is 2s. and I can
produce it for 1s. then, in order to gain an increased market for it, I will necessarily sell [it] for 1s. 6d. [or]
at any rate below 2s. And what is more, this is absolutely necessary, for cheaper production
presupposes production on a larger scale. So, compared with before, I am now glutting the market, I
must sell more than before. Although 1 lb. of yarn costs only 1s. this is only the case if I now produce,
say, 10,000 lbs. as against my previous 8,000 lbs. The low cost is only achieved because fixed capital is
spread over 10,000 lbs. If I were to sell only 8,000 lbs., the depreciation of the machines alone would
raise the price per lb. by one-fifth, i.e., 20 per cent. So I sell at below 2s. in order to be able to sell
10,000 lbs. In doing so, I am still making an excess profit of 6d., i.e., of 50 per cent on the value of my
product which is 1s. and already includes the normal profit. In any case, I am hereby forcing down the
market-price with the result that the consumer gets the product more cheaply. But in agriculture I sell
at 2s. since, if I had sufficient fertile land, the less fertile would not be cultivated. If the area of fertile
land were enlarged, or the fertility [of the] poorer soil so improved that I could satisfy demand, then this
game would end, Not only does Ricardo not deny this, but he expressly calls attention to it.
Thus if we admit that the varying fertility of the land accounts not for rent itself, but only for the
differences in rent, there remains the law that while in industry, on an average, excess profit arises from
the lowering of the price of the product, in agriculture the relative size of rent is determined not only by
the relative raising of the price (raising the price of the product of fertile land above its value) but by
selling the cheaper product at he cost of the dearer. This is, however, as I have already demonstrated
(Proudhon), merely the law of competition, which does not emanate from the “soil” but from “capitalist
production” itself.
Furthermore, Ricardo would be right in another respect, except that, in the manner of the economists,
he turns a historical phenomenon into an eternal law. This historical phenomenon is the relatively
faster development of manufacture (in fact the truly bourgeois branch of industry) as against
agriculture. The latter has become more productive but not in the same ratio as industry. Whereas in
manufacture productivity has increased tenfold, in agriculture it has, perhaps, doubled. Agriculture has
therefore become relatively less productive, although absolutely more productive. This only proves the
very queer development of bourgeois production and its inherent contradictions. It does not, however,
invalidate the proposition that agriculture becomes relatively less productive and hence, compared with
the value of the industrial product, the value of the agricultural product rises and with it also rent. That
in the course of development of capitalist production, agricultural labour has become relatively less
productive than industrial labour only means that the productivity of agriculture has not developed with
the same speed and to the same degree.
Suppose the relation of industry A to industry B is as 1:1. Originally agriculture [was] more productive
because not only natural forces but also a machine created by nature play a part in agriculture; right
from the start, the individual worker is working with a machine. Hence, in ancient times and in the
Middle Ages agricultural products were relatively much cheaper than industrial products, which is
obvious (see Wade) from the ratio of the two within the average wage.
At the same time let 1°: 1° indicate the fertility of the two [branches of production]. Now if industry A
becomes 10°, [i.e.] its fertility increases tenfold while industry B merely increases threefold, becomes 3°,
then whereas the industries were previously as 1:1 they are now as 10:3 or as 1 : 3/10. The fertility of
industry B has decreased relatively by 7/10 although absolutely it has increased threefold. For the
highest rent [it is] the same—relatively to industry—as if it had risen because the poorest land had
become 7/10 less fertile.
Now it does not by any means follow, as Ricardo supposes, that the rate of profit has fallen because
wages have risen as a result of the relative increase in the price of agricultural products ||447|. For the
average wage is not determined by the relative but by the absolute value of the products which enter
into it. It does however follow that the rate of profit (really the rate of surplus-value) has not risen in
the same ratio as the productive power of manufacturing industry, and this is due to agriculture (not the
land) being relatively less productive. This is absolutely certain. The reduction in the necessary labour-
time seems small compared with the progress in industry. This is evident from the fact that the
agricultural products of countries like Russia etc. can beat those of England. The lower value of money
in the wealthier countries (i.e., the low relative production costs of money in the wealthier countries)
does not enter into it at all. For the question is, why it does not affect their industrial products in
competition with poorer countries when it does affect their agricultural products. (Incidentally, this
does not prove that poor countries produce more cheaply, that their agricultural labour is more
productive. Even in the United States, the volume of corn at a given price has increased, as has recently
been proved by statistical information, not however because the yield per acre has risen, but because
more acres have come under cultivation. It cannot be said that the land is more productive where there
is a great land mass and where large areas, superficially cultivated, yield a greater absolute product with
the same amount of labour than much smaller areas in the more advanced country.)
The fact that less productive land is brought under cultivation does not necessarily prove that agriculture
has become less productive. On the contrary, it may prove that it has become more productive; that the
inferior land is being cultivated, not [only] because the price of the agricultural product has sufficiently
risen to compensate for the capital investment, but also the converse, that the means of production
have developed to such an extent that the unproductive land has become “productive” and capable of
yielding not only the normal profit but also rent. Land which is fertile at a [given] stage of development
of productive power may be unfertile for a lower developmental stage.
In agriculture, the extension of labour-time—i.e., the augmentation of absolute surplus-value—is only
possible to a limited degree. One cannot work by gaslight on the land and so on. True, one can rise
early in spring and summer. But this is offset by the shorter winter days when, in any case, only a
relatively small amount of work can be accomplished. So in this respect absolute surplus-value is
greater in industry so long as the normal working-day is not regulated by force of law. A second reason
for a smaller amount of surplus-value being created in agriculture is the long period during which the
product remains in the process of production without any labour being expended on it. With the
exception of certain branches of agriculture such as stock-raising, sheep farming, etc., where the
population is positively ousted from the land, the number of people employed relatively to the constant
capital used, is still far greater—even in the most advanced large-scale agriculture—than in industry, or
at least in the dominating branches of industry. Hence in this respect even if, for the above-mentioned
reasons, the mass of surplus-value is relatively smaller than it [would be] with the employment of the
same number of people in industry—this latter condition is partly offset again by the wage falling below
its average level—the rate of profit can be greater than in industry, But if there are, in agriculture, any
causes (we only indicate the above) which raise the rate of profit (not temporarily but on an average as
compared with industry) then the mere existence of the landlord would cause this extra profit to
consolidate itself and accrue to the landlord rather than enter into the formation of the general rate of
profit.
[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]
In general terms the question to be answered with regard to Rodbertus is as follows:
The general form of capital advanced is:
Constant capital Variable capital
Machinery—Raw materials Labour-power
In general the two elements of constant capital are the instruments of labour and the subject of
labour. The latter is not necessarily a commodity, a product of labour. It may therefore not exist as
an element of capital, although it is invariably an element in the labour-process. Soil is the
husbandman’s raw material, the mine that of the miner, the water that of the fisherman and even the
forest is that of the hunter. In the most complete form of capital, however, these three elements of the
labour-process also exist as three elements of capital, i.e., they are all commodities, use-values which
have an exchange-value and are products of labour. In this case all three elements enter into the
process of creating value, although machinery [enters into it] not to the extent to which it enters into
the labour-process but only in so far as it is consumed.
The following question now arises: Can the absence of one of these elements in a particular branch of
industry enhance the rate of profit (not the rate of surplus-value) in that industry? In general terms, the
formula itself provides the answer:
The rate of profit equals the ratio of surplus-value to the total capital advanced.
Throughout this investigation it is assumed that the rate of surplus-value, i.e., the division of the value of
the product between the capitalist and the worker, remains constant.
||448| The rate of surplus-value is s/v; the rate of profit is s/c+v. Since s’, the rate of surplus-value, is
given, v is given and s/v is assumed to be a constant value. Therefore the magnitude of s/c+v can only
alter when c + vchanges and since v is given, this can only increase or decrease because c decreases or
increases.
And further, s/c+v will increase or decrease not in the ratio of c : v but according to c’s relation to the
sum of c + v, If c equals nought, then s/c+v = s/v. The rate of profit [would] in this case equal the rate of
surplus-value and this is its highest possible amount, since no sort of calculation can alter the magnitude
of s and v. Suppose v = 100 and s = 50, then s/v = 50/100 = 1/2 = 50 per cent. If a constant capital of 100
were added, then the rate of profit [would be] 50/150+100 = 50/200 =1/4 = 25 per cent. The rate of profit
would have decreased by half. If 150 c were added to 100 v then the rate of profit would be 50/100+150
= 50/250 = 1/5 = 20 per cent. In the first instance, total capital equals v, i.e., equals variable capital, hence
the rate of profit equals the rate of surplus-value. In the second instance, total capital equals 2 × v,
hence the rate of profit is only half the rate of surplus-value. In the third instance total capital is 2 1/2 ×
100, that is 2 1/2 × v, that is 5/2 × v; v is now only 2/5 of total capital. Surplus-value equals half of v, i.e.,
half of 100, hence is only half of 2/5 of total capital, or 2/10 of total capital. 250/10 = 25 and 2/10 of 250 =
50. But 2/10 = 20 per cent.
Hence to start with this much has been established. Provided v remains constant and s/v too, then it is
of no consequence how c is composed. If c has a certain magnitude, say 100, then it makes no
difference whether it consists of 50 units of raw material and 50 of machinery or 10 of raw material and
90 of machinery, or no raw material and 100 machinery or the other way about. For the rate of profit is
determined by the relationship s/c+v; the relative value of the various production elements contained
in c is of no consequence here. For instance, in the production of coal the raw materials (after
deducting coal itself which is used as an auxiliary material) may be reckoned as nought and the entire
constant capital can be assumed to consist of machinery (including buildings and tools). On the other
hand, with a tailor, machinery can be considered as nought and here the whole of constant capital
resolves into raw materials (particularly where tailors running a large business do not as yet use sewing-
machines and, on the other hand, even save buildings, as sometimes occurs nowadays in London, by
employing their workers as outworkers, This is a new phenomenon, where the second division of labour
reappears in the form of the first).
If the colliery owner employs 1,000 units of machinery and 1,000 units of labour and the tailor 1,000 of
raw materials and 1,000 of labour, then with an equal rate of surplus-value, the rate of profit in both
instances is the same. If [we] assume that surplus-value is 20 per cent, then the rate of profit would in
both cases be 10 per cent, namely: 200/2000 = 2/20 = 1/10 = 10 per cent. Hence there are only two instances
in which the ratio between the component parts of c, i.e., raw materials and machinery, can affect the
rate of profit: 1. If a change in this ratio modifies the absolute magnitude of c. 2. If the ratio between
the component parts of c modifies the size of v. This would imply organic changes in production itself
and not merely the tautologous statement that if a particular part of c accounts for a smaller portion,
then the other must make up a larger portion of the total amount.
In the real bill of an English farmer, wages amount to £ 1,690, manure to £ 686, seeds to £ 150, fodder
for cows to £ 100. Thus “raw material” comes to £ 936, which is more than half the amount spent on
wages. (See F. W. Newman, Lectures on Political Economy, London, 1851, p. 166.)
“In Flanders” (in the Belgian areas) “dung and hay are in these parts imported from Holland” (for flax-
growing, etc. In turn they export flax, linseed, etc.).” The refuse of the towns has therefore become[a] a
matter of trade, and is regularly sold at high prices to Belgium… At about twenty miles from Antwerp,
up the Schelde, the reservoirs may be seen for the manure that is brought from Holland. The trade is
managed by a company of capitalists and the[b] Dutch boats” etc. (Banfield).
And so even manure, plain muck, has become merchandise, not to speak of bone-meal, guano, pottash
etc. That the elements of production are estimated in terms of money is not merely due to the formal
change in production. New materials are introduced into the soil and its old ones are sold for reasons
of production. This is not merely a formal difference between the capitalist and the previous mode of
production. The seed trade has risen in importance to the extent to which the importance of seed
rotation has become recognised. Hence it would be ridiculous to say that no “raw material”—i.e., raw
material as a commodity— enters into agriculture whether it be reproduced by agriculture itself or
bought as a commodity, acquired from outside. It would be equally absurd to say that the machine
employed by the engineer ||449| who constructs machines does not figure as an element of value in his
capital.
A German peasant who year after year produces his own elements of production, seeds, manure etc.,
and, with his family, consumes part of his crops needs to spend money (as far as production itself is
concerned) only on the purchase of a few tools for cultivating the land, and on wages. Let us assume
that the value of all his expenses is 100 [half of this having to be paid out in money]. He consumes half
[of the product] in kind (production costs [are also included here]). The other half he sells and he
receives, say, 100, His gross income is thus 100 and if he relates this to his capital of 50 then it amounts
to 100 per cent [profit]. If one-third of the 50 is deducted for rent and one-third for taxes (33 1/3 in all)
then he retains 16 2/3, calculated on 50 this is 33 1/3 per cent. But in fact he has only received 16 2/3 per
cent [of the 100 he laid out originally]. The peasant has merely miscalculated and has cheated
himself. The capitalist farmer does not make such errors.
Mathieu de Dombasle says in his Annales agricoles etc. 4 ième livraison, Paris 1828 that under the
métairie contract (in [the province of] Berry, for example) :
“the landlord supplies the land, the buildings and usually all or part of the livestock and the tools
required for cultivation; the tenant for his part supplies his labour and nothing, or almost nothing
else. The products of the land are shared in equal parts” (l.c., p. 301). “The tenants are as a rule
submerged in dire poverty” (l.c., p. 302). “If the metayer, having laid out 1,000 francs, increases his
gross product by 1,500 francs” (i.e., a gross gain of 500 francs) “he must pass half of it on to the
landowner, retaining merely 750 and so loses 250 francs of his expenses” (l.c., p. 304). “Under the
previous system of cultivation the expenses or costs of production were almost exclusively drawn in
kind, from the products themselves, for the consumption of the animals and of the cultivator of the land
and his family; hardly any cash was paid out. Only these particular circumstances could give rise to the
belief that landowner and tenant could divide amongst themselves the whole of the harvest which had
not been consumed during production. But this process is only applicable to this type of agriculture,
namely, low-level agriculture. But when it is desired to raise that level, it is realised that this is only
possible by making certain advances which have to be deducted from the gross product in order to be
able to utilise them again in the following year. Hence this kind of division of the gross product becomes
an insurmountable obstacle to any sort of improvement” (l.c., p. 307).
[3. Value and Average Price in Agriculture. Absolute Rent]
[a) Equalisation of the Rate of Profit in Industry]
Herr Rodbertus seems to think that competition brings about a normal profit, or average profit or
general rate of profit by reducing the commodities to their real value; i.e., that it regulates their price
relationships in such a manner that the correlative quantities of labour-time contained in the various
commodities are expressed in money or whatever else happens to be the measure of value. This is of
course not brought about by the price of a commodity at any given moment being equal to its value nor
does it have to be equal to its value. [According to Rodbertus, this is what happens:] For example the
price of commodity A rises above its value and for a time remains, moreover, at this high level, or even
continues to rise. The profit of [the capitalist who produces] A thus rises above the average profit in
that he appropriates not only his own “unpaid” labour-time, but also a part of the unpaid labour-time
which other capitalists have “produced”. This has to be compensated by a fall in profit in one or other
sphere of production provided the price of the other commodities in terms of money remains
constant. If the commodity is a means of subsistence generally consumed by the worker, then it will
depress the rate of profit in all other branches; if it enters as a constituent part into the constant capital,
then it will force down the rate of profit in all those spheres of production where it forms an element in
constant capital.
Finally, the commodity may neither be an element in any constant capital, nor form a necessary item in
the workers’ means of subsistence (for those commodities which the worker can choose to buy or
abstain from buying, he consumes as a consumer in general and not as a worker) but it may be one of
the consumer goods, an article for individual consumption in general. If, as such, it is consumed by the
industrial capitalist himself, then the rise in its price in no way affects the amount of surplus-value or the
rate of surplus-value. Now if the capitalist wanted to maintain his previous standard of consumption,
then that part of profit (surplus-value) which he uses for individual consumption would rise in relation to
that which he sinks into industrial reproduction. The latter would decrease. As a result of the price rise,
or the rise in profit above its average rate, in A, the volume of profit in B, C, etc. would diminish within a
certain space of time (which is also determined by reproduction). If article A was exclusively consumed
by other than industrial capitalists, then they would consume more than before of commodity A as
compared with commodities B, C, etc. The demand for commodities B, C, etc. would fall; their price
would fall and, in this case, the price rise in A, or the rise in profit in A above the average rate, would
have brought about a fall in the profit in B, C, etc. below the average rate by forcing down the money
prices of B, C, etc. (in contrast to the previous instances where the money price of B, C,
etc. ||450| remained constant). Capitals would migrate from B, C, etc., where the rate of profit has
sunk below the *average+ level, to A’s sphere of production. This would apply particularly to a portion of
the new capital which is continually entering the market and which would naturally tend to penetrate
into the more profitable sphere A. Consequently, after some time, the price of article A would fall below
its value and would continue to do so for a longer or shorter period, until the reverse movement set in
again. The opposite process would take place in the spheres B, C, etc., partly as a result of the reduced
supplies of articles B, C, etc., because of the exodus of capital, i.e., because of the organic changes taking
place in these spheres of production themselves, and partly as a result of the changes which have
occurred in A and which in turn are affecting B, C, etc. in the opposite direction.
Incidentally, it may well be that in this process—assuming the value of money to be constant—the
money prices of B, C, etc., never regain their original level, although they may rise above the value of
commodities B, C, etc. and hence the rate of profit in B, C, etc. may also rise above the general rate of
profit. Improvements, inventions, greater economy in the means of production, etc. are introduced not
at times when prices rise above their average level, but when they fall below it, i.e., when profit falls
below its normal rate. Hence during the period of failing prices of B, C, etc., their real value may fall, in
other words the minimum labour-time required for the production of these commodities may
decrease. In this case, the commodity can only regain its former money price if the rise in its price over
its value equals the margin, i.e., the difference between the price which expresses its new value and the
price which expressed its higher former value. Here the price of the commodity would have changed
the value of the commodity by affecting supply, and the costs of production.
The result of the above-mentioned movement: If we take the average of the increases and decreases in
the price of the commodity above or below its value, or the period of equalisation of rises and fails—
periods which are constantly repeated—then the average price is equal to the value of the
commodity. The average profit in a particular sphere is therefore also equal to the general rate of
profit; for although, in this sphere, profit rose above or fell below its old rate with the rise or fall in
prices—or with the increase or decrease in costs of production while the price remained constant—on
an average, over the period, the commodity was sold at its value. Hence the profit yielded is equal to
the general rate of profit. This is Adam Smith’s conception and, even more so, Ricardo’s, since the latter
adheres more firmly to the real concept of value. Herr Rodbertus acquires it from them. And yet this
conception is wrong.
What is the effect of the competition between capitals? The average price of the commodities during a
period of equalisation is such that these prices yield the same profits to the producers of commodities in
every sphere, for instance, 10 per cent. What else does this mean? That the price of each commodity
stands at one-tenth above the price of the production costs, which the capitalist has incurred, i.e., the
amount he has spent in order to produce the commodity. In general terms this just means that capitals
of equal size yield equal profits, that the price of each commodity is one-tenth higher than the price of
the capital advanced, consumed or represented in the commodity. It is however quite incorrect to say
that capitals in the various spheres of production produce the same surplus-value in relation to their
size, even if we assume that the absolute working-day is equally long in all spheres, i.e., if we assume a
set rate of surplus-value. <We leave aside here the possibility of one capitalist enforcing longer working
hours than another, and we assume a fixed absolute working-day for all spheres. The variation in
absolute working-days is partly offset by the varying intensity of labour etc., and partly these differences
only signify arbitrary excess profits, exceptional cases, etc.)
Bearing in mind the above assumption, the amount of surplus-value produced by capitals of equal size
varies firstly according to the correlation of their organic components, i.e., of variable and constant
capital; secondlyaccording to their period of circulation in so far as this is determined by the ratio of
fixed capital to circulating capital and also [by] the various periods of reproduction of the different sorts
of fixed capital; thirdly according to the duration of the actual period of production as distinct from the
duration of labour-time itself, which again may lead to substantial differences between the length of the
production period and circulation period. (The first of these correlations, namely, that between
constant and variable capital, can itself spring from a great divergency of causes; it may, for example, be
purely formal so that the raw material worked up in one sphere is dearer than that worked up in
another, or it may result from the varying productivity of labour, etc.)
Thus, if the commodities were sold at their values or if the average prices of the commodities were
equal to their values, then the rate of profit in the various spheres would have to vary a great deal. In
one case it would be 50, in others 40, 30, 20, 10, etc. Taking the total volume of commodities for a year
in sphere A, for instance, their value would be equal to the capital advanced in them plus the
unremunerated labour they contain. Ditto in spheres B and C. But since A, B and C contain different
amounts of unpaid labour, for instance, A more than B and B more than C, the commodities A might
perhaps yield 3 S (S = surplus-value) to their producers, B = 2 S and C = S. Since the rate of profit is
determined by the ratio of surplus-value to capital advanced, and as on our assumption this is the same
in A, B, C, etc., then ||451| if C is the capital advanced, the various rates of profit will be 3S/C, 2S/C,
S/C. Competition of capitals can therefore only equalise the rates of profit, for instance in our example,
by making the rates of profit, equal to 2S/C, 2S/C, 2SC, in the spheres A, B, C. A would sell his
commodity at 1 S less and C at 1 S more than its value. The average price in sphere A would be below,
and in sphere C would be above, the value of the commodities A and C.
As the example of B shows, it can in fact happen that the average price and the value of a commodity
coincide. This occurs when the surplus-value created in sphere B itself equals the average profit; in
other words, when the relationship of the various components of the capital in sphere B is the same as
that which exists when the total sum of capitals, the capital of the capitalist class, is regarded as
one magnitude on which the whole of surplus-value [is] calculated, irrespective of the sphere in which it
has been created. In this aggregate capital the periods of turnover, etc. are equalised; one can, for
instance, consider that the whole of this capital is turned over during one year. In that case every
section of the aggregate capital would in accordance with its magnitude participate in the aggregate
surplus-value and draw a corresponding part of it. And since every individual capital is to be regarded as
shareholder in this aggregate capital, it would be correct to say first that its rate of profit is the same as
that of all the others [because] capitals of the same size yield the same amount of profit; secondly, and
this arises automatically from the first point, that the volume of profit depends on the size of the capital,
on the number of shares the capitalist owns in that aggregate capital. Competition among capitals thus
seeks to treat every capital as a share of the aggregate capital and correspondingly to regulate its
participation in surplus-value and hence also in profit. Competition more or less succeeds in this by
means of its equalisations (we shall not examine here the reason why it encounters particular obstacles
in certain spheres). But in plain language this just means that the capitalists strive (and this striving is
competition) to divide among themselves the quantity of unpaid labour—or the products of this
quantity of labour—which they squeeze out of the working class, not according to the surplus-labour
produced directly by a particular capital, but corresponding firstly to the relative portion of the
aggregate capital which a particular capital represents and secondly according to the amount of surplus-
labour produced by the aggregate capital. The capitalists, like hostile brothers, divide among
themselves the loot of other people’s labour which they have appropriated so that on an average one
receives the same amount of unpaid labour as another.
Competition achieves this equalisation by regulating average prices. These average prices themselves,
however, are either above or below the value of the commodity so that no commodity yields a higher
rate of profit than any other. It is therefore wrong to say that competition among capitals brings about
a general rate of profit by equalising the prices of commodities to their values. On the contrary it does
so by converting the values of the commodities into average prices, in which a part of surplus-value is
transferred from one commodity to another, etc. The value of a commodity equals the quantity of paid
and unpaid labour contained in it. Theaverage price of a commodity equals the quantity of paid labour
it contains (materialised or living) plus a average quota of unpaid labour. The latter does not depend on
whether this amount was contained in the commodity itself or on whether more or less of it was
embodied in the value of the commodity.
[b) Formulation of the Problem of Rent]
It is possible—I leave this over for a later inquiry which does not belong to the subject-matter of this
book—that certain spheres of production function under circumstances which work against a reduction
in their values to average prices in the above sense, and do not permit competition to achieve this
victory. If this were the case for instance with agricultural rent or rent from mines (there are rents
which are altogether only explicable by monopoly conditions, for instance the water rent in Lombardy,
and in parts of Asia, also house rent in so far as it represents rent from landed property) then it would
follow that while the product of all industrial capitals is raised or lowered to the average price, the
product of agriculture [would] equal its value, which would be above the average price. Might there be
obstacles here, which cause more of the surplus-value created in this sphere of production to be
appropriated as property of the sphere itself, than should be the case according to the laws of
competition, more than it should receive according to the quota of capital invested in this branch of
industry?
Supposing industrial capitals which are producing 10 or 20 or 30 per cent more surplus-
value ||452| than industrial capitals of equal size in other spheres of production, not just temporarily,
but because of the very nature of theirspheres of production as opposed to others; supposing I say, they
were able to hang on to this excess surplus-value in the face of competition and to prevent it from being
included in the general accounts (distribution) which determine the general rate of profit, then, in this
case, one could distinguish between two recipients in the spheres of production of these capitals, the
one who would get the general rate of profit, and the other who would get the surplus exclusively
inherent in this sphere. Every capitalist could pay, hand over, this excess to the privileged one, in order
to invest his capital here, and he would retain for himself the general rate of profit, like every other
capitalist, working under the same conditions. If this were the case in agriculture etc., then the splitting
of surplus-value into profit and rent would by no means indicate that labour as such is actually more
“productive” (*in the sense of production+ of surplus-value) here than in manufacture. Hence [it would
not be necessary] to ascribe any magic powers to the soil; this, moreover, is in any case absurd,
since value equals labour, therefore surplus-value cannot possibly equal soil (although relative surplus-
value may be due to the natural fertility of the soil, but under no circumstances could this result in
a higher price for the products of the soil. Rather the opposite). Nor would it be necessary to have
recourse to Ricardo’s theory, which is disagreeably linked with the Malthusian trash, has repulsive
consequences and, though in theory it is not especially opposed to my views on relative surplus-value, it
deprives them of much of their practical significance.
Ricardo’s point is this: Rent (for instance, in agriculture) can be nothing other than an excess above
general profit where—as he presupposes—agriculture is run on capitalist lines, where [there] is
[a] farmer. Whether that which the landlord receives is actually equal to this rent in the bourgeois-
economic sense is quite irrelevant. It may be purely a deduction from wages (vide Ireland) or it may be
partly derived from the reduction of the farmer’s profit below the average level of profits. Which of
these possible factors happens to be operative is of no consequence whatsoever. Rent, in the bourgeois
system, only exists as a special, characteristic form of surplus-value in so far as it is an excess over and
above (general) profit.
But how is this possible? The commodity wheat, like every other commodity, is [according to Ricardo]
sold at its value, i.e., it is exchanged for other commodities in relation to the labour-time embodied in
it. (This is the first erroneous assumption which complicates the problem by posing it artificially. Only in
exceptional circumstances are commodities exchanged at their value. Their average prices are
determined in a different way. See above.> The farmer who grows wheat makes the same profit as all
the other capitalists. This proves that, like all the others, he appropriates that portion of labour-time for
which he has not paid his workers. Where, on top of this, does the rent come from? It must represent
labour-time. Why should surplus-labour in agriculture resolve into profit and rent while in industry it is
just profit? And, how is this possible at all, if the profit in agriculture equals the profit in every other
sphere of production? <Ricardo’s faulty conception of profit and the way in which he confuses it with
surplus-value have also a detrimental effect here. They make the whole thing more difficult for him.>
Ricardo solves this difficulty by assuming that in principle it is non-existent. <This indeed is in
principle the only possibility of overcoming any difficulty. But there are two ways of doing this. Either
one shows that the contradiction to the principle is an illusion which arises from the development of the
thing itself, or one denies the existence of the difficulty at one point, as Ricardo does, and then takes this
as a starting-point from which one can proceed to explain its existence at some other stage.>
He assumes a point at which the farmer’s capital, like everyone else’s, only yields profit. <This capital
may be invested in a non-rent paying or individual farm, or in a non-rent paying part of the land of a
farm. In fact it can be any capital which is employed in the cultivation of land that does not pay rent.>
This, moreover, is the starting-point, and it can also be expressed as follows: Originally the farmer’s
capital only pays profit, no rent <although thispseudo-historical form is of no consequence and in other
“laws” is common to all bourgeois economists>. It is no different from any other industrial capital. Rent
only enters into it because the demand for grain rises and now, in contrast to other branches of
industry, it becomes necessary to resort to “less” fertile ground. The farmer (the supposed original
farmer) suffers, like any other industrial capitalist, in so far as he has to pay his workers more because of
the rise in [the price of] food. But he gains because of the rise in price of his commodity above its value,
firstly, to the extent to which the value of other commodities which enter into his constant capital falls
relatively to his commodity and so he buys them more cheaply, and secondly, in so far as he owns the
surplus-value in the form of his dearer commodity. Thus this farmer’s profit rises above the average
rate of profit, which has, however, fallen. Hence another capitalist moves onto the less fertile land, No.
II which, with this lower rate of profit, can supply produce at the price of I or perhaps even a little more
cheaply. Be that as it may, we now have, once more, ||453| the normal situation on II, that surplus-
value merely resolves itself into profit. But we have explained the rent for I by the existence of a
twofold price of production: the production price of II [which] is simultaneously the market price of I. A
temporary surplus gain has been [achieved], just as with the factory-made commodity which is
produced under more favourable conditions. The price of corn, which in addition to profit comprises
rent, in fact consists only of materialised labour, and is equal to its value; it is however equal not to the
value embodied in itself, but to the value of II. It is impossible to have two market prices [side by
side] <While Ricardo introduces farmer No, II because of the fall in the rate of profit, Stirling introduces
him because wages [have] fallen not risen following upon the price of corn. This fall in wages allows No.
II to cultivate a piece [of land] No. II at the old rate of profit, although the soil is less fertile.> Once the
existence of rent has been established in this way, the rest follows easily. The difference between
rents according to varying fertility, etc., of course remains correct. This does not necessarily imply that
less and less fertile land has to come under cultivation.
So here we have Ricardo’s theory. The higher price of corn, which yields an excess profit to I, does not
yield even as much as the earlier rate of profit for II. It is thus clear that product II contains more value
than product I, i.e., it is the product of more labour-time, it embodies a greater quantity of
labour. Therefore more labour-time must be supplied to manufacture the same product—say, for
instance, a quarter of wheat. And the rise in rent will be relative to this decreasing fertility of the land,
or the growth in the quantity of labour which must be employed to produce, say, a quarter of wheat. Of
course Ricardo would not talk of a rise in rent if there were just an increase in the number of quarters
from which rent is paid, but only if the price of the individual quarter rose from say 30s. to 60s. True, he
does sometimes forget that the absolute volume of rent can grow with a reduced rate of rent, just as the
absolute amount of profit can increase with a decreasing rate of profit.
Others seek to by-pass this difficulty (Carey for instance) by directly denying its existence. Rent [they
say] is only interest on the capital which, at an earlier stage, was incorporated in the land. Therefore,
again only a form of profit. Here then the very existence of rent is denied and so indeed explained away.
Others, for instance Buchanan, regard it just as a consequence of monopoly. See also Hopkins. With
them it is merely a surcharge above the value.
For Mr. Opdyke, a typical Yankee,* landed property or rent becomes “the legalised reflection of the
capital”.[c]
With Ricardo the examination is rendered more difficult by the two false assumptions. <Ricardo it is
true was not the inventor of the theory of rent. West and Malthus had put it into print before him. The
source, however, isAnderson. But what distinguished Ricardo is the way in which he links rent with his
theory of value (although West did not entirely miss the real interconnection either). As his later
polemic about rent with Ricardo shows, Malthus himself did not understand the theory he had adopted
from Anderson.> If we start from the correct principle that the value of commodities is determined by
the labour-time necessary for their production (and that value in general is nothing other than
materialised social labour-time) then it follows that the average price of commodities is determined by
the labour-time required for their production. This conclusion would be the right one if it had been
proved that average price equals value. But I show that just because the value of the commodity is
determined by labour-time, the average price of the commodities (except in the unique case in which
the so-called individual rate of profit in a particular sphere of production, i.e., the profit determined by
the surplus-value yielded in this sphere of production itself, [is] equal to the average rate of profit on
total capital) can never be equal to their value although this determination of the average price is only
derived from the value which is based on labour-time.
In the first place, then, it follows that even commodities whose average price (if we disregard the value
of constant capital) resolves only into wages and profit, in such a way that these stand at their normal
rate, i.e., are average wages and average profit, can be sold above or below their own value, The fact
that the commodity yields rent on top of profit ||454| does not prove that the commodity is
sold above its intrinsic value, any more than the circumstance of the surplus-value of a commodity only
expressing itself in the category of normal profit proves that the commodity is sold at its value. If a
commodity can yield an average rate of profit or general rate of profit on capital which is below its own
rate of profit determined by its real surplus-value, then it follows that if on top of this average rate of
profit commodities in a particular sphere of production yield a second amount of surplus-value which
carries a separate name, for instance, rent, then the sum of profit plus rent need not be higher than
the surplus-value contained in the commodity. Since profit can be less than the intrinsic surplus-value of
the commodity, or the quantity of unpaid labour it embodies, profit plus rent need not be larger than
the intrinsic surplus-value of the commodity.
Why this occurs in a particular sphere of production as opposed to other spheres has of course still to be
explained. But the problem has been simplified. This commodity (the commodity yielding rent] differs
from the others in the following way: In a number of these other commodities average price
is above their intrinsic value, but only in order to raise their rate of profit to the level of the general
rate. In another section of these other commodities the average price stands at a level below their
intrinsic value, but only to the extent required to reduce their rate of profit to concur with the general
rate. Finally in a third section of these other commodities, average price equals their intrinsic value, but
only because if sold at their intrinsic value they yield the general rate of profit. But the commodity
which yields rent differs from all these three instances. Whatever the circumstances, it is sold at a price
which will yield more than average profit—as determined by the general rate of profit on capital.
Now the question arises, which, or how many, of these three instances can occur. Supposing the whole
of the surplus-value the commodity contains is realised in its price. In that case, it excludes the third
instance, namely, those commodities whose entire surplus-value is realised in their average price,
because they only yield ordinary profit. We may, therefore, dismiss this one. Similarly,
on this presupposition, we can exclude the first instance, where the surplus-value realised in the price of
the commodity is above its intrinsic surplus-value. For it is assumed, that “the surplus-value contained
in it is realised” in its price. This instance is thus analogous with case 2 of those commodities whose
intrinsic surplus-value is higher than the surplus-value realised in their average price. As with these
commodities the profit represents a form of this surplus-value—in this case profit on the capital
employed—which has been reduced to the level of the general rate of profit. The excess intrinsic
surplus-value of the commodity over and above this profit is, however, in contrast to commodity 2, also
realised in these exceptional commodities, but accrues not to the owner of the capital, but to the owner
of the land, the natural agent, the mine, etc.
Or [what happens if we assume that] the price is forced up to such a degree that it carries more than
the average rate of profit? This is, for instance, the case with actual monopoly prices. This assumption—
applied to every sphere of production where capital and labour may be freely employed [and] whose
production, so far as the volume of capital employed is concerned, is subject to the general laws—would
not only be a petitio principii, but would directly contradict the foundations of [economic] science and of
capitalist production—the former being merely the theoretical expression of the latter. For such an
assumption presupposes the very phenomenon which is to be explained, namely, that in a particular
sphere of production, the price of a commodity must carry more than the general rate of profit, more
than the average rate of profit, and to this end must be sold above its value. It presupposes that
agricultural products are excluded from the general laws of value of commodities and of capitalist
production. It, moreover, presupposes this, because the peculiar presence of rent side by side with
profit prima facie makes it appear so. Hence this is absurd.
So there is nothing left but to assume that special circumstances exist in this particular sphere of
production, which influence the situation and cause the prices of the commodities to realise [the whole]
of their intrinsic surplus-value, This in contrast to [case] 2 of the other commodities, where only as much
of their intrinsic surplus-value is realised by their prices as is yielded by the general rate of profit, where
their average prices fall so far below their surplus-value that they only yield the general rate of profit, or
in other words their average profit is no greater than that in all other spheres of production of capital.
In this way the problem has already become much simpler. It is no longer a question of explaining how
it comes about that the price of a commodity yields rent as well as profit, thus apparently evading the
general law of value and by raising its price above its intrinsic surplus-value, carrying more than the
general rate of profit for a given capital. The question is why, in the process of equalisation of
commodities at average prices, this particular commodity does not have to pass on to other
commodities so much of its intrinsic surplus-value that it only yields the average profit, but is able to
realise a portion of its own surplus-value which forms an excess over and above average profit; so that it
is possible for a farmer, who invests capital in this sphere of production, to sell the commodity at prices
which yield him the ordinary profit and at the same time enable him to pay the excess in surplus-value
realised over and above this profit to a third person, the landlord.
||455| Put in this way, the very formulation of the problem carries its own solution.
[c) Private Ownership of the Land as a Necessary Condition for the Existence of Absolute
Rent. Surplus-Value in Agriculture Resolves into Profit and Rent]
It is quite simply the private ownership of land, mines, water, etc. by certain people, which enables them
to snatch, intercept and seize the excess surplus-value over and above profit (average profit, the rate of
profit determined by the general rate of profit) contained in the commodities of these particular spheres
of production, these particular fields of capital investment, and so to prevent it from entering into the
general process by which the general rate of profit is formed. Moreover, some of this surplus-value is
actually collected in every industrial enterprise, since rent for the land used (by factory buildings,
workhouses etc.) figures in every instance, for even where the land is available free, no factories are
built, except in the more or less populated areas with good means of communication.
Supposing the commodities produced by the poorest cultivated land belonged to category 3, i.e., those
commodities whose average price equals their value, in other words, the whole of their inherent
surplus-value is realised in their price because only thus do they yield the ordinary profit; in this case the
land would pay no rent and land ownership would be purely nominal. If a payment were made for the
use of the land, then it would only prove that small capitalists, as is partly the case in England
(see Newman), are satisfied with making a profit below the average. The same applies whenever the
rate of rent is higher than the difference between the inherent surplus-value of a commodity and
the average profit. There is even land whose cultivation at most suffices to pay wages, for, although
here the labourer works for himself the whole of his working-day, his labour-time is longer than the
sociallynecessary labour-time. It is so unproductive—relative to the generally prevailing productivity
in this branch of work—that, although the man works for himself for 12 hours, he hardly produces as
much as a worker under more favourable conditions of production does in 8 hours. This is the same
relationship as that of the hand-loom weaver who competes with the power-loom. Although the
product of this hand-loom weaver was equal to 12 hours of labour, it was only equal to 8 or less hours of
socially necessary labour and his product therefore only [had] the value of 8 necessary labour hours. If
in such an instance the cottager pays a rent then this is purely a deduction from his necessary wage and
does not represent surplus-value, let alone an excess over and above average profit.
Assume that in a country like the United States, the number of competing farmers is as yet so small and
the appropriation of land so much just a matter of form that everyone has the opportunity to invest his
capital in land and the cultivation of the soil, without the permission of hitherto-existing owner-
cultivators or farmers. In these circumstances it is possible over a considerable period—with the
exception of that landed property which by its very situation in populated areas carries a monopoly—
that the surplus-value which the farmer produces on top of average profit is not realised in the price of
his product, but that lie may have to share it with his brother capitalists in the same way as this is done
with the surplus-value of all commodities which would give an excess profit, i.e., raise the rate of profit
above the general rate, if their surplus-value were realised in their price. In this case the general rate of
profit would rise, because wheat, etc., like other manufactured commodities, would be sold below its
value. This selling below its value would not constitute an exception, but rather would prevent wheat
from forming an exception to other commodities in the same category.
Secondly, assume that in a given country the land is all of a particular quality, so that if the whole of the
surplus-value from the commodity were realised in its price, it would yield the usual profit on capital. In
this case no rent would be paid. The absence of rent would in no way affect the general rate of profit, it
would neither raise it nor lower it, just as it is not influenced by the fact that other non-agricultural
products are to be found in this category. Since the commodities belong to this category just because
their inherent surplus-value equals the average profit [they] cannot alter the level of this profit, on the
contrary they conform with it and do not influence it at all, although it influences them.
Thirdly, assume that all the land consists of a particular type of soil, but this is so poor that the capital
employed in it is so unproductive that its product belongs to that kind of commodity whose surplus-
value [lies] below average profit. Since wages would rise everywhere as a result of the
unproductiveness of agriculture, surplus-value could in this case of course only be higher where
absolute labour-time can be prolonged, where the raw material, such as iron, etc., is not the product of
agriculture or, further, where it [is] like cotton, silk etc., an imported article and a product of more fertile
soil. In this case, the price of the [agricultural] commodity would include a surplus-value higher than
that inherent in it, to enable it to yield the usual profit. The general rate of profit would consequently
fall, despite the absence of rent.
Or assume in case 2, that the soil is very unproductive. Then surplus-value of this agricultural product,
by its very equality with average profit would show that the latter is altogether low since in agriculture
perhaps 11 of the 12 working hours are required to produce just the wages, and the surplus-value only
equals 1 hour or less.
||456| These various examples illustrate the following:
In the first case, the absence or lack of rent is bound up with, or concurs with, an increased rate of
profit—as compared with other countries where the phenomenon of rent has developed.
In the second case the lack or absence of rent does not affect the rate of profit at all.
In the third case, compared with other countries where rent exists, it is bound up with and indicative of
a low, a relatively low, general rate of profit.
It follows from this that the development of a particular rent in itself has nothing to do with
the productivity of agricultural labour, since the absence or lack of rent can be associated with a rising,
falling or constant rate of profit.
The question here is not: Why is the excess surplus-value above average profit retained in agriculture
etc.? On the contrary, we should rather ask: Why should the opposite take place here?
Surplus-value is nothing other than unpaid labour; the average or normal profit is nothing other than the
quantity of unpaid labour which each capital of a given magnitude of value is supposed to realise. If we
say that average profit is 10 per cent then this means nothing other than that a capital of 100 commands
10 units of unpaid labour; or 100 units of materialised labour command a tenth of their amount
in unpaid labour. Thus excess of surplus-value over average profit implies that a commodity ( its price or
that part of its price which consists of surplus-value) contains a quantity of unpaid labour [hich is]
greater than the quantity of unpaid labour that forms average profit, which therefore in the average
price of the commodities forms the excess of their price over the costs of their production. In each
individual commodity the costs of production represent the capital advanced, and the excess over these
production costs represents the unpaid labour which the advanced capital commands; hence the
relationship of this excess in price over the costs of production shows the rate at which a given capital—
employed in the production process of commodities—commands unpaid labour, irrespective of whether
the unpaid labour contained in the commodity of the particular sphere of production is equal to
this rate or not.
Now what forces the individual capitalist, for instance, to sell his commodity at an average price, which
yields him only the average profit and makes him realise less unpaid labour than is in fact worked into
his own commodity? This average price is thrust upon him; it is by no means the result of his own free
will; he would prefer to sell the commodity above its value. It is forced upon him by the competition of
other capitals. For every capital of the same size could also be rushed into A, the branch of production
in which the relationship of unpaid labour to the invested capital, for instance, £100, is greater than in
production spheres B, C, etc. whose products also satisfy a social need just as much as the commodities
of production sphere A.
When there are spheres of production in which certain natural conditions of production, such as, for
example, arable land, coal seams, iron mines, water falls, etc.—without which the production process
cannot be carried out, without which commodities cannot be produced in this sphere—are in the hands
of others than the proprietors or owners of the materialised labour, the capitalists, then this second
type of proprietor of the conditions of production will say:
If I let you have this condition of production for your use, then you will make your average profit; you
will appropriate the normal quantity of unpaid labour. But your production yields an excess of surplus-
value, of unpaid labour, above the rate of profit. This excess you will not throw into the common
account, as is usual with you capitalists, but I am going to appropriate it myself. It belongs to me. This
transaction should suit you, because your capital yields you just the same in this sphere of production as
in any other and besides, this is a very solid branch of production. Apart from the 10 per cent unpaid
labour which constitutes the average profit, your capital will also provide a further 20 per cent
of additional unpaid labour here. This you will pay over to me and in order to do so, you add 20 per cent
unpaid labour to the price of the commodity, and this you simply do not account for with the other
capitalists. Just as your ownership of one condition of production—capital, materialised labour—
enables you to appropriate a certain quantity of unpaid labour from the workers, so my ownership of
the other condition of production, the land, etc., enables me to intercept and divert away from you and
the entire capitalist class, that part of unpaid labour which is excessive to your average profit. Your law
will have it that under normal circumstances, capitals of equal size appropriate equal quantities of
unpaid labour and you capitalists can force each other ||457| into this position by competition among
yourselves. Well, I happen to be applying this law to you. You are not to appropriate any more of the
unpaid labour of your workers than you could with the same capital in any other sphere of
production. But the law has nothing to do with the excess of unpaid labour which you have “produced”
over the normal quota. Who is going to prevent me from appropriating this “excess”? Why should I act
according to your custom and throw it into the common pot of capital to be shared out among the
capitalist class, so that everyone should draw out a part of it in accordance with his share in the
aggregate capital? I am not a capitalist. The condition of production which I allow you to utilise is not
materialised labour but a natural phenomenon. Can you manufacture land or water or mines or coal
pits? Certainly not. The means of compulsion which can be applied to you in order to make you release
again a part of the surplus-labour you have managed to get hold of does not exist for me. So out with
it! The only thing your brother capitalists can do is to compete against you, not against me. If you pay
me less excess profit than the difference between the surplus-time you have made and the quota of
surplus-labour due to you according to the rule of capital, your brother capitalists will appear on the
scene and by their competition will force you to pay me fairly the full amount I have the power to
squeeze out of you.
The following problems should now be set forth: 1. The transition from feudal landownership to a
different form, commercial land rent, regulated by capitalist production, or, on the other hand, the
conversion of this feudal landed property into free peasant property. 2. How rent comes into existence
in countries such as the United States, where originally land has not been appropriated and where, at
any rate in a formal sense, the bourgeois mode of production prevails from the beginning. 3. The
Asiatic forms of landownership still in existence. But all this does not belong here.
According to this theory then, the private ownership of objects of nature such as the land, water, mines
etc., the ownership of these conditions of production, this essential ingredient of production emanating
from nature, is not a source from which flows value, since value is only materialised labour. Neither is it
the source from which excess surplus-value flows, i.e., an excess of unpaid labour over and above the
unpaid labour contained in profit. This ownership is, however, a source of revenue. It is a claim, a
means, which in the sphere of production that the property enters as a condition of production enables
the owner to appropriate that part of the unpaid labour squeezed out by the capitalist which would
otherwise be tossed into the general capital fund as excess over normal profit. This ownership is a
means of obstructing the process which takes place in the rest of the capitalist spheres of production,
and of holding on to the surplus-value created in this particular sphere, so that it is divided between the
capitalist and the landowner in that sphere of production itself. In this way landed property, like capital,
constitutes a claim to unpaid labour, gratis labour. And just as with capital, the worker’s materialised
labour appears as a power over him, so with landed property, the circumstance which enables the
landowners to take part of the unpaid labour away from the capitalists, makes landownership appear as
a source of value.
This then explains the existence of modern ground-rent. With a given capital investment, the variation
in the amount of rent is only to be explained by the varying fertility of the land. The variation in the
amount of rent, given equal fertility, can only be case, rent rises because its rate increases in proportion
to the explained by the varying amount of capital invested, In the first capital employed(also according
to the area of the land). In the second case, it rise’s because with the same or even with a different rate
(if the second dose of capital is not equally productive) the amount of rent increases.
For this theory it is immaterial whether the least fertile land yields a rent or not. Further, it is by no
means necessary for the fertility of agriculture to decline, although the diversity in productivity, if not
artificially overcome (which is possible), is much greater than in similar spheres of industrial
production. When we speak of greater or lesser fertility, we are still concerned with the
same product. The relationship of the various products, one to another, is another question.
Rent as calculated on the land itself is the rental, the amount of rent. It can rise without an increase in
the rate of rent. If the value of money remains unchanged, then the relative value of agricultural
product’s can rise, not because agriculture is becoming less productive, but because, although its
productivity is rising, it is rising slower than in industry. On the other hand, a rise in the money price of
agricultural products, while the value of money remains the same, is only possible if their value rises,
i.e., if agriculture becomes less productive (provided it is not caused by temporary pressure of demand
upon supply as with other commodities).
In the cotton industry, the price of the raw material fell continuously with the development of the
industry itself; the same applies to iron, etc., coal, etc. The growth of rent here was possible, not
because its rate rose, but only because more capital was employed.
Ricardo is of the following opinion: The powers of nature, such as air, light, electricity, steam, water are
gratis; the land is not, because it is limited. So already for this reason alone, agriculture is less
productive than other industries. If the land were just as common, unappropriated, available in any
quantities, as the other element’s and powers of nature, then it would be much more productive.
||458| In the first place, if the land were so easily available, at everyone’s free disposal, then a principal
element for the formation of capital would be missing. A most important condition of production and—
apart from man himself and his labour—the only original condition of production could not be disposed
of, could not be appropriated. It could not thus confront the worker as someone else’s property and
make him into a wage-labourer. The productivity of labour in Ricardo’s sense, i.e., in the capitalist
sense, the “producing” of someone else’s unpaid labour would thus become impossible. And this would
put an end to capitalist production altogether.
So far as the powers of nature indicated by Ricardo are concerned, it is true that these are partly to be
had for nothing and do not cost the capitalist anything. Coal costs him something, but steam costs him
nothing so long as he gets water gratis. But now, for example, let us take steam. The properties of
steam always exist. Its industrial usefulness is a new scientific discovery which the capitalist has
appropriated. As a consequence of this scientific discovery, the productivity of labour and with it
relative surplus-value rose. In other words, the quantity of unpaid labour which the capitalist
appropriated from a day’s labour grew with the aid of steam. The difference between the productive
power of steam and that of the soil is thus only that the one yields unpaid labour to the capitalist and
the other to the landowner, who does not take it away from the worker, but from the capitalist. The
capitalist is therefore so enthusiastic about this element “belonging to no one.
Only this much is correct: Assuming the capitalist mode of production, then the capitalist is not only a
necessary functionary, but the dominating functionary in production. The landowner, on the other
hand, is quite superfluous in this mode of production. Its only requirement is that land should not be
common property, that it should confront the working class as a condition of production, not belonging
to it, and the purpose is completely fulfilled if it becomes state-property, i.e., if the state draws the
rent. The landowner, such an important functionary in production in the ancient world and in the
Middle Ages, is a useless superfetation in the industrial world. The radical bourgeois (with an eye
moreover to the suppression of all other taxes) therefore goes forward theoretically to a refutation of
the private ownership of the land, which, in the form of state property, he would like to turn into the
common property of the bourgeois class, of capital. But in practice he lacks the courage, since an attack
on one form of property—a form of the private ownership of a condition of labour—might cast
considerable doubts on the other form. Besides, the bourgeois has himself become an owner of land.
[4. Rodbertus’s Thesis that in Agriculture Raw Materials Lack Value Is Fallacious]
Now to Herr Rodbertus.
According to Rodbertus, no raw material enters into agricultural calculations, because, so Rodbertus
assures us, the German peasant does not reckon that seeds, feeding stuffs, etc. cost him anything. He
does not count these as costs of production; in fact he miscalculates. In England, where the farmer has
been doing his accounts correctly for more than 150 years, there should accordingly be no ground-
rent. The conclusion therefore should not be the one drawn by Rodbertus, that the farmer pays a rent
because his rate of profit is higher than in manufacture, but that he pays it because, as a result of a
miscalculation, he is satisfied with a lower rate of profit. Dr. Quesnay, himself the son of a tenant
farmer and closely acquainted with French farming, would not have received this idea kindly. [In his
Tableau Economique], Quesnay includes the raw material which the tenant farmer needs, as one of the
items in the annual outlay of 1,000 million, although the farmer reproduces it in kind.
Although hardly any fixed capital or machinery is to be found in one section of manufacture, in another
section—the entire transport industry, the industry which produces change of location, [using] wagons,
railways, ships, etc.—there is no raw material but only tools of production. Do such branches of
industry yield a rent apart from profit? How does this branch of industry differ from, say, the mining
industry? In both of them only machinery and auxiliary materials are used, such as coal for steamships
and locomotives and mines, fodder for horses, etc. Why should the rate of profit be calculated
differently in one sector than in the other? [Supposing] the advances to production which the peasant
makes in kind are a fifth of the total capital he advances, to which we would then have to add four-fifths
in advances for the purchase of machinery and labour-power, the total expenditure amounting to 150
quarters. If he then makes 10 per cent profit [this would be] equal to 15 quarters, i.e., the gross product
would be 165 quarters. If he now deducted a fifth, equal to 30 quarters and calculated the 15 quarters
only on 120, then he would have made a profit of 12 1/2 per cent.
Alternatively, we could put it in this way: The value of his product, or his product, is equal to 165
quarters (£ 330). He reckons his advances to be 120 quarters (£ 240), 10 percent on this equals 12
quarters (£ 24). But his gross product amounts to 165 quarters; from which thus 132 quarters are to be
deducted, which leaves 33 quarters. But from these, 30 quarters are deducted in kind. This leaves an
extra profit of 3 quarters (£ 6). His total profit is 15 quarters (£ 30) instead of 12 quarters (£ 24). So he
can pay a rent of 3 quarters or £ 6 and fancy that he has made a profit of 10 per cent like every other
capitalist. But this 10 per cent exists only in his imagination. In fact, he has made advances of 150
quarters, not of 120 quarters and on these, 10 per cent amounts to 15 quarters or £ 30. In fact he
received 3 quarters too few, i.e., a quarter of the 12 quarters which he actually received ||459| , or a
fifth of the total profit which he should have received, because he did not consider a fifth of his
advances to be advances. Therefore, as soon as he learnt to calculate according to capitalist methods,
he would cease to pay rent, which would merely amount to the difference between his rate of profit and
the normal rate of profit.
In other words, the product of unpaid labour embodied in the 165 quarters amounts to 15 quarters,
which equals £ 30, representing 30 labour weeks. Now if these 30 labour weeks or 15 quarters or £ 30
were calculated on the total advances of 150 quarters, then they would only form 10 per cent; if they
were calculated only on 120 quarters, then they would represent a higher percentage, because 10 per
cent on 120 quarters would be 12 quarters and 15 quarters are not 10 per cent of 120 quarters but
12 1/2 per cent. In other words: Since the peasant did not include some of his advances in the account as
a capitalist would have done, he calculates the accumulated surplus-labour on too small a portion of his
advances. Hence it represents a higher rate of profit than in other branches of industry and can
therefore yield a rent which is based solely on a miscalculation. The game would be over if the peasant
realised that it is by no means necessary first to convert his advances into real money, i.e., to sell them,
in order to assess them in money, and hence to regard them as commodities.
Without this mathematical error (which may be committed by a large number of German peasants but
never by a capitalist farmer) Rodbertus’s rent would be an impossibility. It only becomes
possible where raw material enters into costs of production, but not where it does not. It only becomes
feasible where the raw material enters [into production] without entering into the accounts, But it is not
possible where it does not enter [into production], although Herr Rodbertus wants to derive his
explanation of the existence of rent not from a miscalculation, but from the absence of a real item of
expenditure.
Take the mining industry or the fisheries. Raw material does not figure in these, except as auxiliary
material, which we can omit, since the use of machinery always implies (with very few exceptions) the
consumption of auxiliary material, the food of the machine. Assuming that the general rate of profit is
10 per cent and £ 100 are laid out in machinery and wages; why should the profit on £ 100 amount to
more than £ 10, because the £ 100 have not been expended on raw material, machinery and wages, but
have been expended on raw material and wages only? If there is to be any sort of difference, this could
only arise because in the various instances, the ratio of the values of constant capital and variable capital
is in fact different. This varying ratio would result in varying surplus-value, even if the rate of surplus-
value is taken to be constant. And if varying surplus-values are related to capitals of equal size, they
must of course yield unequal profits. But on the other hand the general rate of profit means nothing
other than the equalisation of these inequalities, abstraction from the organic components of capital
and redistribution of surplus-value, so that capitals of equal size yield equal profits.
That the amount of surplus-value depends on the size of the capital employed does not hold good—
according to the general laws of surplus-value—for capitals in different spheres of production, but
for different capitalsin the same sphere of production, in which it is assumed that
the organic component parts of capital are in the same proportion. If one says for example: The volume
of profit in spinning corresponds to the size of the capitals employed (which is also not quite correct,
unless one adds that productivity is assumed to be constant), this in fact merely means that, given the
rate of exploitation of the spinners, the total amount of exploitation depends on the number of
exploited spinners. If, on the other hand, one says that the volume of profit in different branches of
production corresponds to the size of the capitals employed, then this means that the rate of profit is
the same for each capital of a given size, i.e., the volume of profit can only change with the size of this
capital. In other words, the rate of profit is independent of the organic relationship of the components
of a capital in a particular sphere of production; it is altogether independent of the amount of surplus-
value which is realised in these particular spheres of production.
Mining production ought to be considered right from the start as belonging to industry and not to
agriculture. Why? Because no product of the mine is used, in kind, as an element of production; no
product of the mine enters in kind, straight from the mine, into the constant capital of the mining
industry (the same applies to fishing and hunting, where the outlay consists to a still higher degree of
the instruments of labour and wages or labour itself ||460|). In other words, because every production
element in the mine—even if its raw material originates in the mine— not only alters its form, but
becomes a commodity, i.e., it must be bought, before it can re-enter mining as an element of
production. Coal forms the only exception to this, But it only appears as a means of production at a
stage of development when the exploiter of the mine has graduated as a capitalist, who uses double
entry book-keeping, in which he not only owes himself his advances, i.e., is a debtor against his own
funds, but his own funds are debtors against themselves, Thus just here, where in fact no raw material
figures in expenditure, capitalist accounting must prevail from the outset, making the illusion of the
peasant impossible .
Now let us take manufacture itself, and in particular that section where all the elements of the labour-
process are also elements in the process of the creation of value; i.e., where all the production elements
enter into the production of the new commodity as items of expenditure, as use-values that have a
value, as commodities. There is a considerable difference between the manufacturer who produces the
first intermediate product and the second and all those that follow in the process towards the finished
product. The raw material of the latter type of manufacturers enters the production process not only as
a commodity, but is already a commodity of the second degree; it has already taken on a different form
from the first commodity, which was a raw product in its natural form, it has already passed through a
second phase of the production process. For example, the spinner: His raw material is cotton, a raw
product which is already a commodity. The raw material of the weaver however is the yarn produced by
the spinner; that of the printer or dyer is the woven fabric, the product of the weaver; and all these
products, which reappear as raw materials in further phases of the process are at the same time
commodities. |460||
||461| We seem to have returned here to the question with which we have already been concerned on
two other occasions, once when discussing John Stuart Mill, and again during the general analysis of the
relationship between constant capital and revenue. The continual recurrence of this question shows
that there is still a hitch somewhere. Really this belongs into Chapter III on profit. But it fits in better
here.
For example:
4,000 lbs. cotton equals £100;
4,000 lbs. yarn equals £200;
4,000 yards calico equals £400.
On the basis of this assumption, 1 lb. cotton = 6d., yarn = 1s., 1 yard [calico] = 2s.
Given a rate of profit of 10 per cent, then
A in £100, the outlay = £90 10/11 and the profit = £9 1/11
B in £200, the outlay = £181 9/11 and the profit = £18 2/11
C in £400, the outlay = £363 7/11 and the profit = £36 4/11
A = cotton [the product of the] peasant (I); B = yarn [the product of the] spinner (II), C = woven
fabric [the product of the] weaver (III).
Under this assumption it does not matter whether A’s £ 90 10/11 itself includes a profit or not. It will not
do so if it constitutes self-replacing constant capital. It is equally irrelevant for B, whether the £ 100 [the
value of product A] includes profit or not, and ditto with C in relation to B.
The relationship of C (the cotton-grower) or I, of S (spinner) or II and of W (weaver) or III is as follows:
I) Outlay = £9010/11 Profit =£ 9 1/11 Total = £100
II) Outlay = £100 (I) + £819/11 Profit = £18 2/11 Total = £200
III) Outlay = £200 (II) + £1637/11 Profit = £36 4/11 Total = £400
The grand total equals 700.
Profit equals £9 1/11 + £18 2/11 + £36 4/11 [=£637/11]
Capital advanced in all three sections: £90 10/11 + £181 9/11 + £363 7/11 = £636 4/11
Excess of 700 over 636 4/11 = 63 7/11. But [the ratio of] 63 7/11 : 636 4/11 is as 10 : 100.
Continuing to analyse this rubbish, we obtain the following:
I) Outlay = £90 10/11 Profit =£ 9 1/11 Total = £100
II) Outlay = £100 (I) + £81 9/11 Profit = 10+£8 2/11 Total = £200
III) Outlay = £200 (II) + £163 7/11 Profit = 20+£16 4/11 Total = £400
I does not have to repay any profit, because it is assumed that his constant capital of £9010/11 does not
include any profit, but represents purely constant capital. The entire product of I figures as constant
capital in II’s outlay. That part of constant capital which equals 100 yields a profit of £ 9 1/11 to I. The
entire product *of+ II which amounts to 200, enters into III’s outlay, and thus yields a profit of £
18 2/11. However, this does not in any way alter the fact that I’s profit is not one iota larger than II’s or
III’s, because the capital which he has to replace is smaller to the same degree and the profit
corresponds to the volume of the capital, irrespective of the composition of the capital.
Now let us assume that III produces everything himself. Then the position seems to change, because his
outlay now appears as follows:
90 10/11 in the production of cotton; 181 9/11 in the production of yarn and 363 7/11 in the production of
the woven fabric. He buys all three branches of production and must therefore continually employ a
definite amount of constant capital in all three. If we now total this up we get: 90 10/11 + 181 9/11 +
363 7/11 = 636 4/11. 10 per cent of this is exactly 63 7/11, as above, only that one individual pockets the
lot, whereas previously the 63 7/11 were shared among I, II and III.
||462| How did the wrong impression arise a little while ago?
But first, one other comment.
If from the 400, we deduct the profit of the weaver, which is included in it and which amounts to 36 4/11,
then we are left with 400–364/11 = 3637/11, his outlay. This outlay includes 200 paid out for yarn, Of
these 200, 18 2/11are the profit of the spinner. If we now deduct these 18 2/11 from the outlay of
363 7/11, we are left with 345 5/11. But the 200 which are returnable to the spinner, also contain
9 1/11 profit for the cotton-grower. If we deduct these from the 345 5/11, we are left with 336 4/11. And if
we deduct these 336 4/11 from the 400—the total value of the woven fabric—then it becomes evident
that it contains a profit of 63 7/11.
But a profit of 63 7/11 on 336 4/11 is equal to 18 34/37 per cent.
Previously we calculated these 63 7/11 on 636 4/11, and obtained a profit of 10 per cent. The excess of
the total value of 700 over 636 4/11 was in fact 63 7/11.
According to the present calculation, therefore, 18 34/37 per cent would be made on 100 of this same
capital, whereas according to the previous calculation only 10 per cent.
How does this tally?
Supposing I, II and III are one and the same person, but that this individual does not employ three
capitals simultaneously, one in cotton-growing, one in spinning and one in weaving. Rather, as soon as
he ceases to grow cotton, he begins to spin it and as soon as he has spun, he finishes with this and
begins to weave.
Then his accounting would look like this:
He invests £ 90 10/11 in cotton-growing. From this he obtains 4,000 lbs. of cotton, In order to spin these
he needs to lay out a further £ 81 9/11 in machinery, auxiliary materials and wages. With this he makes
the 4,000 lbs. of yarn. Finally he weaves these into 4,000 yards which involves him in a further outlay of
£ 163 7/11. If he now adds up his expenditure, the capital which he has advanced amounts to £ 90 10/11 +
£ 81 9/11 + £ 163 7/11, i.e., £ 3364/11. 10 per cent on this would be 33 7/11, because 336 4/11 : 33 7/11 is as
100 : 10. But £ 336 4/11 + £ 33 7/11 = £ 370. He would thus sell the 4,000 yards at £ 370 instead of at £
400, i.e., at £ 30 less, i.e., at a price which is 71/2 per cent lower than before. If the value indeed were £
400, he could thus sell at the usual profit of 10 per cent and in addition pay a rent of £ 30, because his
rate of profit would not be 33 7/11 but 63 7/11 on his advances of 336 4/11, i.e., 18 34/37 per cent, as we saw
earlier on. And this in fact appears to be the manner in which Herr Rodbertus makes out his calculation
of rent.
What does the fallacy consist of? First of all it is evident that if spinning and weaving are combined, they
should [according to Rodbertus] yield a rent, just as if spinning is combined with cultivation or if
agriculture is carried on independently.
Evidently two different problems are involved here.
Firstly we are calculating the £ 63 7/11 only on one capital of £ 336 4/11, whereas we should be calculating
it on three capitals of a total value of £ 636 4/11.
Secondly in the last capital, that of III, we are reckoning his outlay to be £ 336 4/11, instead of £ 363 7/11.
Let us go into these points separately.
Firstly: If III, II and I are united in one person, and if he spins up the entire product of his cotton harvest,
then he does not use any part of this harvest at all to replace his agricultural capital. He does not
employ part of his capital in ||463| cotton-growing—in expenditure on cotton-growing, seeds, wages,
machinery—and another part in spinning, but he first puts a part of his capital into cotton-growing, then
this part plus a second into spinning, and then the whole of these two first parts, now existing in the
form of yarn, plus a third part, into weaving. Now when the fabric of 4,000 yards has been woven, how
is he to replace its elements? While he was weaving he wasn’t spinning, and he had no material from
which to spin; while he was spinning he did not grow any cotton. Therefore his elements of production
cannot be replaced. To help ourselves along, let us say: Well, the fellow sells the 4,000 yards and then
“buys” yarn and the elements of cotton out of the £ 400. Where does this get us? To a position where
we are in fact assuming that three capitals are simultaneously employed and engaged and laid out in
production. But yarn cannot be bought unless it is available and in order to buy cotton it must be
available as well. And so that they are available to replace the woven yarn and the spun cotton,
simultaneously with the capital employed in weaving, capitals must be invested which are turned into
cotton and yarn at the same time as the yarn is turned into woven fabric.
Thus, whether III combines all three branches of production or whether three producers share them,
three capitals must be available simultaneously. If he wants to produce on the same scale, he cannot
carry on spinning and cotton-growing with the same capital which he used for weaving. Every one of
these capitals is engaged and their reciprocal replacement does not affect the problem under
discussion. The replacement capitals are the constant capital which must be invested and operating in
each of the three branches simultaneously. If the £ 400 contain a profit of £ 6 37/11, then this is only
because besides his own profit of £ 36 4/11, we allow III to gather in the profit which he has to pay to II
and I and which, according to the assumption, is realised in his commodity. But the profit was not made
on his £ 363 7/11. The peasant made it on his additional £ 90 10/11 and the spinner on his £
1819/11. When he pockets the whole amount himself, he likewise has not made it on the £ 363 7/11 that
he invested in weaving, but on this capital and on his two other capitals invested in spinning and cotton-
growing.
Secondly: If we reckon III’s outlay to be £ 3364/11 instead of £3637/11, then this arises from the following:
We take his outlay on cotton-growing to be only £ 90 10/11 instead of 100, But he needs the whole
product and this equals £ 100 and not 90 10/11. It contains the profit of 9 1/11. Or else he would be
employing a capital of £ 90 10/11 which would bring him no profit. His cotton-growing would yield him no
profit but would just replace his expenditure of £ 90 10/11. In the same way, spinning would not bring
him any profit, but the whole of the product would only replace his outlay.
In this case, his expenditure would indeed be reduced to 90 10/11 + 81 9/11 + 163 7/11 = 336 4/11. This
would be the capital he has advanced. 10 per cent on this would be £ 33 7/11. And the value of the
product would be £ 370. The value would not be one farthing higher because, according to the
supposition, portions I and II have not brought in any profit. Accordingly III would have done much
better to leave I and II well alone and to keep to the old method of production. For instead of the £
63 7/11 which were previously at the disposal of I, II and III, III now has only £ 33 7/11 for himself whereas
previously, when his fellows were alongside of him, he had £ 36 4/11. He would indeed be a very bad
hand at business. He would only have saved an outlay of £ 9 1/11 in II because he had made no profit in I,
and he would have saved an outlay of £ 182/11 in III, by not making a profit in II. The £9010/11 in cotton-
growing and the 81 9/11 + 90 10/11 in spinning would both have only replaced themselves. Only the third
capital of 90 10/11 + 81 9/11 + 163 7/11 invested in weaving, would have yielded a profit of 10 per
cent. This would mean that [£] 100 would yield 10 per cent profit in weaving, but not one farthing in
spinning and cotton-growing. This would be very pleasant for III, so long as I and II are persons other
than himself, but by no means so, if, in order to save these petty profits and pocket them himself, he has
united these three branches of business in one and the same person, namely, his worthy self. The
saving of advances for profit (or that component part of the ||464| constant capital of one capitalist
which is profit for the others) arose therefore from the fact that [the products of] I and II contained no
profits and that I and II performed no surplus-labour but regarded themselves merely as wage-labourers
who only had to replace their costs of production, i.e., the outlay in constant capital and wages. Thus, in
these circumstances—provided I and II were not prepared to work for III, since if they did, profit would
go to his account—less labour would have been done in any case, and it would not matter to III whether
the work for which he has to pay is only laid out in wages, or in wages and profit. This is all the same to
him, in so far as he buys and pays for the product, the commodity.
Whether constant capital is wholly or partially replaced in kind, in other words, whether it is replaced by
the producers of the commodity for which it serves as constant capital, is of no consequence. First of
all, all constant capital must in the end be replaced in kind: machinery by machinery, raw material by
raw material, auxiliary material by auxiliary material. In agriculture, constant capital may also enter as
a commodity, i.e., be mediated directly by purchase and sale. In so far as organic substances enter into
reproduction, the constant capital must of course be replaced by products of the same sphere of
production. But it need not be replaced by the individual producers within this sphere of
production. The more agriculture develops, the more all its elements enter into it as commodities, not
just formally, but in actual fact. In other words, they come from outside, for instance, seeds, fertilisers,
cattle, animal substances, etc., are the products of other producers. In industry, for example, the
continual movement to and fro of iron into the machine shop and machines into the iron mines, is just
as constant as is the movement of wheat from the granary to the land and from the land to the granary
of the farmer. The products in agriculture are replaced directly. Iron cannot replace machines, But iron,
to the value of the machine, replaces the machine for one [producer], and [the machine replaces] the
iron for the other, in so far as the value of his machine is replaced by iron.
It is difficult to see what difference it is supposed to make to the rate of profit if the peasant, who lays
out the £ 90 10/11 on a product of £ 100, were to compute that, for instance, he spends £ 20 on seeds
etc., £ 20 on machinery etc., and £ 50 10/11 on wages. What he wants is a profit of 10 per cent on the
total sum. The £ 20 of the product which he sets against seeds do not include any profit. Nevertheless,
this is just as much £ 20 as the £ 20 in machinery, in which there may be a profit of 10 per cent, although
this may be only formal. In actual fact the £ 20 in machinery, like the £ 20 in seeds, may not contain a
single farthing of profit. This is the case if these £ 20 are merely a replacement for components of the
machine builder’s constant capital, which he draws from agriculture, for instance.
Just as it would be wrong to say that all machinery goes into agriculture as its constant capital, so it is
incorrect to say that all raw material goes into manufacture. A very large part of it remains fixed in
agriculture and only represents a reproduction of constant capital. Another part of it goes directly into
revenue in the form of food and some of it, like fruit, fish, cattle etc., does not undergo a
“manufacturing process” at all. It would therefore be incorrect to burden industry with the entire bill
for all the raw materials “manufactured” by agriculture. Of course in those branches of manufacture
where the raw material features as an advance, alongside wages and machinery, the capital advanced
must be greater than in those branches of agriculture which supply the raw material used. It could also
be assumed that if these branches of manufacture had their own rate of profit (different from the
general rate) it would be smaller here than in agriculture because less labour is employed. For, with a
given rate of surplus-value, more constant capital and less variable capital necessarily bring in a lower
rate of profit. This, however, applies equally to certain branches of manufacture as against others and
to certain branches of agriculture (in the economic sense) as against others. It is in fact least likely to
occur in agriculture proper, because, although it supplies raw material to industry, it differentiates
between raw materials, machinery and wages in its own expenditure account, but industry by no means
pays agriculture for the raw material, i.e., for that part of constant capital which it replaces from within
itself and not by exchange with industrial products.
[5. Wrong Assumptions in Rodbertus’s Theory of Rent]
||465| Now to a brief resumé of Herr Rodbertus.
First he describes the situation as he imagines it, where the owner of the land is at the same time the
capitalist and slave-owner. Then there comes a separation. That part of the “product of labour” which
has been taken from the workers—the “one natural rent”—is now split up into “rent of land and capital
gain” (*Rodbertus, Sociale Briefe an von Kirchmann. Dritter Brief, Berlin, 1851,] pp. 81–
82). (Mr. Hopkins—see notebook—explains this in even more simple and blunt terms.)
Then Herr Rodbertus divides the “raw product” and “manufactured product” (p.89) between the
landowner and the capitalist—petitio principii. One capitalist produces raw products and the other
manufactured products. The landowner produces nothing, neither is he the “owner of raw
products”. That *i.e., that the landowner is the “owner of raw products”+ is the conception of a German
“landed proprietor” such as Herr Rodbertus is. In England, capitalist production began simultaneously in
manufacture and in agriculture.
How a “rate of capital gain” (rate of profit) comes about, is explained by Herr Rodbertus purely from the
fact that money now provides a “measure” of gain, making it possible to “express the relationship of
gain to capital” (p. 94) and thus “supplying a standard gauge for the equalisation of capital gains” (p.
94). He has not even a remote idea that this uniformity of profit is in contradiction to the equality of
rent and unpaid labour in each branch of production, and that therefore the values of commodities and
the average prices must differ. This rate of profit also becomes the norm in agriculture because the
“return on property cannot be calculated upon anything other than capital” (p. 95) and by far the “larger
part of the national capital is employed” (p. 95) in manufacture. Not a word about the fact that with the
advent of capitalist production, agriculture itself is revolutionised, not only in a formal sense but really,
and the landowner is reduced to a mere receptacle, ceasing to fulfil any function in
production. According to Rodbertus
“in manufacture, the value of the entire product of agriculture is included in the capital as raw material,
whereas this cannot be the case in primary production” (p. 95).
The entire bit is incorrect.
Rodbertus now asks himself whether apart from the industrial profit, the profit on capital, there remains
“a rent” for the raw product, and if so “for what reasons” (p. 96).
He even assumes
“that the raw product like the manufactured product exchanges according to its labour costs, that the
value of the raw product is only equal to its labour cost” (p. 96).
True, as Rodbertus says, Ricardo also assumes this. But it is wrong, at least prima facie, since
commodities do not exchange according to their values, but at average prices, which differ from their
values, and this, moreover, is a consequence of the apparently contradictory law, the determination of
the value of commodities by “labour-time”. If the raw product carried a rent apart from and distinct
from average profit, this would only be possible if the raw product were not sold at the average price
and why this happens would then have to be explained. But let us see how Rodbertus operates.
“I have assumed that the rent” (the surplus-value, the unpaid labour-time) “is distributed according to
the v a l u e of the raw product and the manufactured product, and that this value is determined
by labour costs” (labour-time) (pp. 96–97).
To begin with we must examine this first assumption. In fact this just means that the surplus-
values contained in the commodities are in the same proportion as their values, or, in other words,
the unpaid labour contained in the commodities is proportionate to the total quantities
of labour they contain. If the quantity of labour contained in the commodities A and B is as 3 : 1, then
the unpaid labour—or surplus-values—contained in them is as 3 : 1. Nothing could be further from the
truth. Given the necessary labour-time, for instance 10 hours, one commodity may be the product of 30
workers while the other is the product of 10. If the 30 workers only work 12 hours, then the surplus-
value created by them [amounts to] 60 hours, which is 5 days (5×12), and if the 10 [others] work 16
hours a day, then the surplus-value created by them is also 60 hours. According to this, the value of
product A would be 30×12 = 120×3 = 360 [working hours] which is 30 working days <12 hours are 1
working day>. And the value of commodity B would be equal to 160 working hours which is
13 1/3 working days. The values of commodities A and B [are as] 360 : 160, as 36 : 16, as 9 : 4, as 3 :
1 1/3. The surplus-values contained in the commodities, however, are as 60 : 60 = 1 : 1. They are equal,
although the values are as 3 : 1 1/3.
||466| [Firstly] therefore, the surplus-values of the commodities are not proportionate to their values, if
the absolute surplus-values, the extension of labour-time beyond the necessary labour, i.e., the rates of
surplus-value, are different.
Secondly, assuming the rates of surplus-value to be the same, and leaving aside other factors connected
with circulation and the reproductive process, then the surplus-values are not dependent on the relative
quantities of labour contained in the two commodities, but on the proportion of the part of capital laid
out in wages to the part which is laid out in constant capital, raw material and machinery. And this
proportion can be entirely different with commodities of equal values, whether they be “agricultural
products” or “products of manufacture”, which in any case has nothing to do with this business, at least
not on the face of it.
Rodbertus’s first assumption, that, if the values of commodities are determined by labour-time, it
follows that the quantities of unpaid labour contained in various commodities—or their surplus-values—
are directly related to their values is therefore fundamentally wrong. It is therefore also incorrect to say
that
“rent is distributed according to the value of the raw product and the manufactured product”, if “this
value is determined by labour costs”(pp. 96–97).
“Of course it follows from this that the size of these portions of rent is not determined by the size of the
capital on which the gain is calculated, but by the direct labour, whether it be agricultural or
manufacturing + that amount of labour which must be added on account of the wear and tear of tools
and machines” (p. 97).
Wrong again. The volume of surplus-value (and in this case surplus-value is the rent, since rent is here
regarded as the general term, as opposed to profit and ground-rent) depends only on the immediate
labour involved and not on the depreciation of fixed capital. Just as it does not depend on the value of
the raw material or indeed on any part of the constant capital.
The wear and tear does, of course, determine the rate at which fixed capital must be reproduced. (At
the same time, its production depends on the formation of new capital, on the accumulation of
capital.) But the surplus-labour which is performed in the production of fixed capital does not affect the
sphere of production into which this fixed capital enters as such, any more than does the surplus-labour
which goes into the production of, say, the raw materials. It is rather equally valid for all of them,
agriculture, production of machines and manufacture, that their surplus-value is determined only by the
amount of labour employed, if the rate of surplus-value is given, and, by the rate of surplus-value, if the
amount of labour employed is given. Herr Rodbertus seeks to “drag in” wear and tear in order to chuck
out “raw materials”.
On the other hand, Herr Rodbertus maintains that the size of the rent can never he influenced by “that
part of capital which consists of material value”, since “for instance, the labour cost of wool as a raw
material cannot affect the labour cost of a particular product such as yarn or fabric” (p. 97).
The labour-time which is required for spinning and weaving is as much, or rather as little, dependent on
the labour-time— i.e., the value—of the machine, as it is on the labour-time which the raw material
costs. Both machine and raw material enter into the labour process; neither of them enters into the
process of creating surplus-value.
“On the other hand, the value of the primary product, or the material value, does figure as capital
outlay in the capital upon which the owner has to calculate his gain, the part of the rent falling on the
manufactured product. But in agricultural capital this part of capital is missing. Agriculture does not
require any material which is the product of a previous production, in fact it actually begins the
production, and in agriculture, that part of the property which is analogous with material, would be the
land itself, which is however assumed to be without cost” (pp. 97–98).
This is the conception of the German peasant. In agriculture (excluding mining, fishing, hunting but by
no means stock-raising) seeds, feeding stuffs, cattle, mineral fertilisers etc. form the material for
manufacturing and this material ||467| is the product of labour. This “outlay” grows proportionately to
the development of industrialised agriculture. All production—once we are no longer dealing with mere
taking and appropriating—is reproduction and hence requires “the product of a previous production as
material”. Everything which is the result of production is at the same time a prerequisite of
production. And the more large-scale agriculture develops the more it buys products of “a previous
production” and sells its own. In agriculture these expenses feature as commodities in a formal sense—
converted into commodities by being reckoned in money—as soon as the farmer becomes at all
dependent on the sale of his product; as soon as the prices of various agricultural products (like hay for
example) have established themselves, for division of the spheres of production takes place in
agriculture as well. Queer things must be happening in the mind of a peasant if lie reckons the quarter
of wheat which he sells as income, but does not reckon the quarter which he puts into the soil
as expenditure. Incidentally, Herr Rodbertus ought to try somewhere to “begin the production”, for
instance of flax or silk, without “products of a previous production”. This is absolute nonsense.
And therefore also the rest of Rodbertus’s conclusions:
“The two parts of capital that influence the size of the rent are thus common to agriculture and
industry. The part of capital, however, that does not influence the size of the rent—but on which gain,
i.e., the rent determined by those parts of capital, is also calculated—is to be found in industrial capital
alone. According to the assumption, the value of the raw product like that of the manufactured product
is dependent on labour cost and since rent accrues to the owners of the primary product and of the
manufactured product proportionately to this value. Therefore the rent yielded in raw material
production and industrial production is relative to the quantities of labour which the respective product
has cost, but the capitals employed in agriculture and in industry, on which the rent is distributed as
gain—namely in manufacture entirely, in agriculture according to the rate of gain prevailing in
manufacture—are not in the same proportion as those quantities of labour and the rent determined by
them. Although an equal amount of rent accrues to the primary product and to the industrial product,
industrial capital is larger than agricultural capital by the entire value of the raw material it
contains. Since the value of this raw material augments the industrial capital on which the available rent
is calculated as gain, but not the gain itself, and thus simultaneously helps to lower the rate of capital
gain, which also prevails in agriculture, there must necessarily be left over in agriculture a part of the
rent accruing there which is not absorbed by the calculation of gain based on this rate of gain” (pp. 98–
99).
First wrong proposition: If industrial products and agricultural products exchange according to
their values (i.e., in relation to the labour-time required for their production), then they yield to their
owners equal amounts ofsurplus-value or quantities of unpaid labour. Surplus-values are
not proportional to values.
Second wrong proposition: Since Rodbertus presupposes a rate of profit (which he calls rate of capital
gain) the supposition that commodities exchange in the proportion of t h e i r v a l u e s is
incorrect. One proposition excludes the other. For a (general) rate of profit to exist, the values of the
commodities must have been transformed into average prices or must be in the process of
transformation. The particular rates of profit which are formed in every sphere of production on the
basis of the ratio of surplus-value to capital advanced, are equalised in this general rate. Why then not
in agriculture? That is the question. But Rodbertus does not even formulate this question correctly,
because firstly he presupposes that there is a general rate of profit and secondly he assumes that
the particular rates of profit (hence also their differences) are not equalised and thus that commodities
exchange at their values.
Third wrong proposition: The value of the raw material does not enter into agriculture. Rather here, the
advances of seeds etc. are component parts of constant capital and are calculated as such by the
farmer. To the same degree that agriculture becomes a mere branch of industry—i.e., that capitalist
production is established on the land— ||468| to the degree to which agriculture produces for the
market, produces commodities, articles for sale and not for its own consumption—to the same degree it
calculates its outlay and regards each item of expenditure as a commodity, whether it buys it from itself
(i.e., from production) or from a third person. The elements of production naturally become
commodities to the same extent as the products do, because, after all, these elements are those very
same products. Since wheat, hay, cattle, seeds of all kinds etc. are thus sold as commodities—and, since
this sale is the essential thing, not their use as a means of subsistence—they also enter into production
as commodities and the farmer would have to be a real blockhead not to be able to use money as the
unit of account. This is, however, only the formal aspect of the calculation. But simultaneously [the
position] develops [in such a way] that the farmer buys his outlay, seeds, cattle, fertilisers, mineral
substances etc. while he sells hisreceipts, so that for the individual farmer these advances are also
advances in the formal sense in that they are bought commodities. (They have always been
commodities for him, component parts of his capital. And when he has returned them, in kind, to
production, he has regarded them as sold to himself in his capacity as producer.) Moreover, this takes
place to the same extent as agriculture develops and the final product is produced increasingly by
industrial methods and according to the capitalist mode of production.
It is therefore wrong to say that there is a part of capital which enters into industry but not into
agriculture.
Suppose then, according to Rodbertus’s (false) proposition, that the “portions of rent” (i.e., shares of
surplus-value) yielded by the agricultural product and the industrial product are given, and that they are
proportionate to the values of the agricultural product and the industrial product. Supposing, in other
words, industrial products and agricultural products of equal values yield equal surplus-values to their
owners, i.e., contain equal quantities of unpaid labour, then no disparity arises owing to a part of capital
entering into industry (for raw material) which does not enter into agriculture, so that, for instance, the
same surplus-value would be calculated in industry on a capital augmented by this amount and hence
result in a smaller rate of profit. For the same item of capital goes into agriculture. There only remains
the question of whether it does so in the same proportion. But this brings us to mere quantitative
differences whereas Herr Rodbertus wants a “qualitative” difference. These same quantitative
differences occur between different industrial spheres of production. They compensate one another in
the general rate of profit. Why not as between industry and agriculture (if there are such
differences)? Since Herr Rodbertus allows agriculture to participate in the general rate of profit, why
not in the process of its formation? But of course that would mean the end of his argument.
Fourth wrong proposition: It is wrong and arbitrary of Rodbertus to include wear and tear of
machinery etc., that is an element of Constant capital, in variable capital, that is, in the part of capital
which creates surplus-value and in particular determines the rate of surplus-value, and at the same
time, not to include raw material. He makes this accounting error in order to arrive at the result he
wanted from the outset.
Fifth wrong proposition: If Herr Rodbertus wants to differentiate between agriculture and industry, then
that element of capital which consists of fixed capital such as machinery and tools belongs entirely
to industry. This element of capital, in so far as it becomes part of any capital, can only enter
into constant capital; and can never increase surplus-value by a single farthing.
On the other hand, as a product of industry, it is the result of a particular sphere of production. Its price,
or the value which it forms within the whole of social capital, at the same time represents a certain
quantity of surplus-value (just as is the case with raw material). Now it does enter into the agricultural
product, but it stems from industry. If Herr Rodbertus reckons raw material to be an element of capital
in industry which comes from outside, then he must charge machines, tools, vessels, buildings etc. as an
element of capital in agriculture, which comes from outside. He [must] therefore say that industry
comprises only wages and raw materials (because fixed capital, in so far as it is not raw materials, is a
product of industry, its own product) whereas agriculture comprises only wages ||469| and machinery
etc., i.e., fixed capital, because raw material, in so far as it is not embodied in tools etc., is the product of
agriculture. It would then be necessary to examine how the absence of this “item” affects the account
in industry.
Sixthly: It is quite true that mining, fishing, hunting, forestry (in so far as the trees have not been planted
by man) etc., in short, the extractive industries—concerned with the extraction of raw material that is
not reproduced in kind—use no raw materials, except auxiliary materials. This does not apply to
agriculture.
But it is equally [true] that the same does hold good for a very large part of industry, namely
the transport industry, in which outlay consists only of machinery, auxiliary materials and wages.
Finally, there are certainly other branches of industry, such as tailoring etc., which, relatively speaking,
only absorb raw materials and wages, but no machinery, fixed capital etc.
In all these instances, the size of the profit, i.e., the ratio of surplus-value to capital advanced, would not
depend on whether the advanced capital—after deduction of variable capital, or the part of capital
spent on wages—consists of machinery or raw material or both, but it would depend on the magnitude
of the capital advanced relative to the part of the capital spent on wages. Different rates of profit (apart
from the modifications brought about by circulation) would thus exist in the different spheres of
production, the result of their equalisation being the general rate of profit.
Rodbertus surmises that there is a difference between surplus-value and its special forms, in particular
profit. But he misses the point because, right from the beginning, he is concerned with the explanation
of a particularphenomenon (ground rent) and not [with] the establishment of a general law.
Reproduction occurs in all branches of production; but only in agriculture does this industrial
reproduction coincide with natural reproduction. It does not do so in extractive industry. That is why, in
the latter, the product does not in its natural form become an element in its own reproduction (except
in the form of auxiliary material).
What distinguishes agriculture, stock-raising, etc. from other industries is, firstly, not the fact that a
product becomes a means of production, since that happens to all industrial products which have not
the definite form of individual means of subsistence. And even as such they become means of
production of the producer who reproduces himself or maintains his labour-power by consuming them.
Secondly, the difference is not the fact that agricultural products enter into production as commodities,
i.e., as component parts of capital; they go into production just as they come out of it. They emerge
from it as commodities and they re-enter it as commodities. The commodity is both the prerequisite
and the result of capitalist production.
Hence thirdly, there only [remains] the fact that they enter as their own means of production into the
production process whose product they are. This is also the case with machinery. Machine builds
machine. Coal helps to raise coal from the shaft. Coal transports coal etc. In agriculture this appears as
a natural process, guided by man, although he also causes it to some extent. In the other industries it
appears to be a direct effect of industry.
But Herr Rodbertus is on the wrong track altogether if he thinks that he must not allow agricultural
products to enter into reproduction as “commodities” because of the peculiar way in which they enter it
as “use-values” (technologically). He is evidently thinking of the time when agriculture was not as yet a
trade, when only the excess of its production over what was consumed by the producer became
a commodity and when even those products, in so far as they entered into production, were not
regarded as commodities. This is a fundamental misunderstanding of the application of the capitalist
mode of production to industry. For the capitalist mode of production, every product which has value—
and is therefore in itself a commodity—also figures as a commodity in the accounts.
[6. Rodbertus’s Lack of Understanding of the Relationship Between Average Price and Value in
Industry and Agriculture. The Law of Average Prices]
Supposing, for example, that in the mining industry, the constant capital, which consists purely of
machinery, amounts to £ 500 and that the capital laid out in wages also amounts to £ 500. Then, if the
surplus-value is 40 per cent, i.e., £ 200, the profit [would be] 20 per cent. Thus:
constant capital variable capital surplus-value
Machinery
500 500 200
If the same variable capital were laid out in those branches of manufacture (or of agriculture) in which
raw materials play a part, and furthermore, if the utilisation of this variable capital (i.e, the employment
of this particular number of workers) required machinery etc., to the value of £ 500, then indeed a third
element, the value of the raw materials, would have to be added, say again, £ 500. Hence in this case:
constant capital
variable capital surplus-value
Machinery
Raw materials
500 + 500 = 1,000 500 200
The £ 200 would now have to be reckoned on £ 1,500 and would only be 13 1/3 per cent. This example
would still apply, if in the first case the transport industry had been quoted as an illustration. On the
other hand, the rate of profit would remain the same in the second case if machinery cost 100 and raw
materials 400.
||470| What, therefore, Herr Rodbertus imagines is that in industry 100 are laid out in machinery, 100
in wages and x in raw materials, whereas in agriculture 100 are laid out in wages and 100 in
machinery. The scheme would be like this:
I. Agriculture
Constant
capital
Variable
capital
Surplus-
value Rate of profit
Machinery
100 100 50 50/200 = 1/4
II. Industry
Constant capital
Variable
capital
Surplus-
value
Rate of
profit
Raw materials Machinery
x 100 [=x+100] 100 50 50/200 + x
It must therefore be, at any rate, less than 1/4, Hence the rent in I.
Firstly then, this difference between agriculture and manufacture is imaginary, non-existent: it has no
bearing on that form of rent which determines all others.
Secondly, Herr Rodbertus could find this difference between the rates of profit in any two individual
branches of industry. The difference is dependent on the proportion of constant capital to variable
capital and the proportion in turn may or may not be determined by the addition of raw materials. In
those branches of industry which use raw materials as well as machinery, the value of the raw materials,
i.e., the relative share which they form of the total capital, is of course very important, as I have shown
earlier. This has nothing to do with ground-rent.
“Only when the value of the raw product falls below the cost of labour is it possible that in agriculture
too the whole portion of rent accruing to the raw product is absorbed in the gain calculated on
capital. For then this portion of rent may be so reduced that although agricultural capital does not
comprise the value of raw material, the ratio between these two is similar to that existing between the
portion of rent accruing to the manufactured product and the manufacturing capital, although the latter
contains the value of material, Hence only in those circumstances is it possible that in agriculture too, no
rent is left over besides capital gain, But in so far as, in practice, as a rule, conditions gravitate towards
the law that value equals labour cast, so, as a rule, ground-rent is also present. The absence of rent and
the existence of nothing but capital gain, is not the original state of’ affairs, as Ricardo maintains, but
only an exception” (p. 100).
Thus, continuing with the above example; but taking raw materials as £ 100, to have something tangible,
we get:
I. Agriculture
Constant capital Variable
capital
Surplus-
value Value Price Profit
Machinery
100 100 50 250 233 1/3
[331/3=] 162/3 per
cent
II. Industry
Constant capital Variable
capital
Surplus-
value Value Price Profit
Raw
materials Machinery
100 100 100 50 350 350 50 = 162/3 per cent
Here the rate of profit in agriculture and industry would be the same, therefore nothing would be left
over for rent, because the agricultural product is sold at £ 16 2/3 below its value. Even if the example
were as correct as it is false for agriculture, then the circumstance that the value of the raw product falls
“below the cost of labour” would in any case only correspond to the law of average prices. Rather it
needs to be explained why “as an exception” this is to a certain extent not the case in agriculture and
why here the total surplus-value (or at least to a larger extent than in the other branches of industry,
a surplus above the average rate of profit) remains in the price of the product of this particular branch of
production and does not participate in. the formation of the general rate of profit. It becomes evident
here that Rodbertus does not understand what the (general) rate of profit and the average price are.
In order to make this law quite clear, and this is far more important than Rodbertus, we shall take five
examples. We assume the rate of surplus-value to be the same throughout.
It is not at all necessary to compare commodities of equal value; they are to be compared only at their
value. To simplify matters, the commodities compared here are taken as produced by capitals of equal
size.
||471|
Constant Capital Variable
Capital
Surplus-
value Rate of
surplus-Profit
Rate of
profit
Value of
product
(wages) value
Machinery
Raw
materials
I 100 700 200 100 50 per cent 100 10 per
cent 1,100
II 500 100 400 200 50 per cent 200 20 per
cent 1,200
III 50 350 600 300 50 per cent 300 30 per
cent 1,300
IV 700 none 300 150 50 per cent 150 15 per
cent 1,150
V none 500 500 250 50 per cent 250 25 per
cent 1,250
We have here, in the categories I, II, III, IV and V (five different spheres of production), commodities
whose respective values are £ 1,100, £ 1,200, £ 1,300, £ 1,150 and £ 1,250. These are the money prices
at which these commodities would exchange if they were exchanged according to their values. In all of
them the capital advanced is of the same size, namely £ 1,000. If these commodities were exchanged at
their values, then the rate of profit in I would be only 10 per cent; in II, twice as great, 20 per cent; in III,
30 per cent; in IV, 15 per cent; in V, 25 per cent. If we add up these particular rates of profit they come
to 10 per cent+20 per cent+30 per cent+15 per cent+25 per cent, which is 100 per cent.
If we consider the entire capital advanced in all five spheres of production, then one portion of this (I)
yields 10 per cent, another (II) 20 per cent etc. The average yielded by the total capital equals the
average yielded by the five portions, and this is:
100 (the total sum of the rates of profit)/5 (the number of different rates of profit)
i.e., 20 per cent.
In fact we find that the £ 5,000 capital advanced in the five spheres yield a profit of
100+200+300+150+250=1,000; 1,000 on 5,000 is 1/5 which is 20 per cent. Similarly: if we work out
the value of the total product, it comes to £ 6,000 and the excess on the £ 5,000 capital advanced is £
1,000, which is 20 per cent in relation to the capital advanced, that is 1/6 or 16 2/3 per cent of the total
product. (This again is another calculation.) However, so that in fact each of the capitals advanced, i.e.,
I, II, III etc.—or what comes to the same thing, that capitals of equal size—should receive a part of the
surplus-value yielded by the aggregate capital only in proportion to their magnitude, i.e., only in
proportion to the share they represent in the aggregate capital advanced, each of them should get only
20 per cent profit and each must get this amount. ||472| But to make this possible, the products of the
various spheres must in some cases be sold above their value and in other cases more or
less below their value. In other words, the total surplus-value must be distributed among them not in
the proportion in which it is made in the particular sphere of production, but in proportion to
the magnitude of the capitals advanced. All must sell their product at £ 1,200, so that the excess of the
value of the product over the capital advanced is 1/5 of the latter, i.e., 20 per cent.
According to this apportionment:
Value of
Product
Surplus-
value
Average
price
[Relation of
average price to
value]
Relation of profit to
surplus-value in per cent
Calculated
Profit
I 1,100 100 1,200
Excess of
average price
over value 100
Excess of profit over
surplus-value 100 per cent 200
II 1,200 200 1,200 Value equal to
price 0 0 200
III 1,300 300 1,200
Decrease in
average price
below value
100
Decrease in profit below
surplus-value 331/3 per
cent
200
IV 1,150 150 1,200 Excess of price
over value 50
Excess of profit over
surplus-value 331/3 per
cent
200
V 1,250 250 1,200 Excess of value
over price 50
Excess of surplus-value
over profit 25 per cent.
Decrease in profit below
surplus-value 20 per cent
200
This shows that only in one instance (II) the average price equals the value of the commodity, because
by coincidence, the surplus-value equals the normal average profit of 200. In all other instances a
greater or a lesser amount of surplus-value is taken away from one [sphere] and given to another, etc.
What Herr Rodbertus had to explain was, why this [is] not the case in agriculture, hence [why] its
commodities should be sold at their value and not their average price.
Competition brings about the equalisation of profits, i.e., the reduction of the values of the commodities
to average prices. The individual capitalist, according to Mr. Malthus, expects an equal profit from every
part of hiscapital—which, in other words, means only that he regards each part of his capital (apart from
its organic function) as an independent source of profit, that is how it seems to him. Similarly, in
relation to the class of capitalists, every capitalist regards his capital as a source of profit equal in
volume to that which is being made by every other capital of equal size. This means that each capital in
a particular sphere of production is only regarded as part of the aggregate capital which has been
advanced to production as a whole and demands its share in the total surplus-value, in the total amount
of unpaid labour or labour products—in proportion to its size, its stock—in accordance to the proportion
of the aggregate capital it constitutes. This illusion confirms for the capitalist—to whom everything in
competition appears in reverse—and not only for him, but for some of his most devoted pharisees and
scribes, that capital is a source of income independent of labour, since in fact the profit on capital in
each particular sphere of production is by no means solely determined by the quantity of unpaid labour
which it itself “produces” and throws into the pot of aggregate profits, from which the individual
capitalists draw their quota in proportion to their shares in the total capital.
Hence Rodbertus’s nonsense. Incidentally, in some branches of agriculture—such as stock-raising—the
variable capital, i.e., that which is laid out in wages, is extraordinarily small compared with the constant
part of capital.
“Rent, by its very nature, is always ground-rent” (p. 113).
Wrong. Rent is always paid to the landlord; that’s all. However, if, as so often occurs in practice, it is
partially or wholly a deduction from normal profit or a deduction from normal wages (true surplus-
value, i.e., profit plus rent, is never a deduction f r o m wages, but is that part of the product of the
worker which remains after deduction of the wage from this product) then from an economic point of
view, it is not rent of land. In practice this is proved as soon as ||473| competition restores the normal
Wage and the normal profit.
Average prices, to which competition constantly tends to reduce the values of commodities, are thus
achieved by constant additions to the value of the product of one sphere of production and deductions
from the value of the product of another sphere—except in the case of II in the above table—in order to
arrive at the general rate of profit. With the commodities of the particular sphere of production where
the ratio of variable capital to the total sum of capital advanced (assuming the rate of surplus-labour to
be given) corresponds to the average ratio of social capital—value equals average price; neither
an addition to nor a deduction from value is therefore made. If, however, owing to special
circumstances which we will not go into here, in certain spheres of production a deduction is not made
from the value of the commodities (although it stands above the average price, not just temporarily but
on an average) then this retention of the entire surplus-value in a particular sphere of production—
although the value of the commodity is above the average price and therefore yields a rate of profit
higher than the average—is to be regarded as a privilege of that sphere of production. What we are
concerned with here and have to explain as a peculiar feature, as an exception, is not that the average
price of commodities is reducedbelow their value—this [would be] a general phenomenon and a
necessary prerequisite for equalisation—but why, in contrast to other commodities, certain
commodities are sold at their value, above the average price.
The average price of a commodity equals its cost of production (the capital advanced in it, be it in wages,
raw material, machinery or whatever else) plus average profit. Hence if, as in the above example,
average profit is 20 per cent which is 1/5, then the average price of each commodity is C (the capital
advance) +P/C (the average rate of profit). If C+P/C equals the value of this commodity, i.e., if S, the
surplus-value created in this sphere of production, equals P, then the value of the commodity equals its
average price. If C+P/C is smaller than the value of the commodity, i.e., if the surplus-value S, created in
this sphere, is larger than P, then the value of the commodity is reduced to its average price and part of
its surplus-value is added on to the value of other commodities. Finally, if C+P/C is greater than
the value of the commodity, i.e., S is smaller than P, then the value of the commodity is raised to its
average price and surplus-value created in other spheres of production is added to it.
Finally, should there be commodities which are sold at their value, although their value is greater
than C+P/C, or whose value is at any rate not reduced to such an extent as to bring it down to the level
of the normal average price C+P/C, then certain conditions must be operative, which put these
commodities into an exceptional position. In this case the profit realised in these spheres of production
stands above the general rate of profit. If the capitalist receives the general rate of profit here,
the landlord can get the excess profit in the form of rent.
[7. Rodbertus’s Erroneous Views Regarding the Factors Which Determine the Rate of Profit and the
Rate of Rent]
What I call rate of profit and rate of interest or rate of rent, Rodbertus calls
“Level of Profit on Capital and Interest” (p. 113).
This level “depends on their ratio to capital… In all civilised nations a capital of 100 is taken as a unit,
which provides the standard measurement for the level to be calculated. Thus, the larger the figure that
expresses the relation between the gain or interest falling to the capital of 100, in other words, the
‘more per cent’ a capital yields, the higher are profit and interest” (pp. 113–14).
“The level of ground-rent and of rental follows from their proportion to a particular piece of land” (p.
114).
This is bad. The rate of rent is, in the first place, to be calculated on the capital, i.e., as the excess of
the price of a commodity over its costs of production and over that part of the price which forms
the profit. Because it helps him to understand certain phenomena Herr Rodbertus makes the caculation
with an acre or a morgen, the apparent form of the thing, ||474| in which the intrinsic connection is
lost. The rent yielded by an acre is the rental, the absolute amount of rent. It may rise if the rate of rent
remains the same or is even lowered.
“The level of the value of land follows from the capitalisation of the rent of a particular piece of land,
The greater the amount of capital derived from the capitalisation of the rent of a piece of land of a given
area, the higher is the value of the land” (p. 114).
The word “level” is nonsense here. For to what does it express a relationship? That 10 per cent yields
more than 20 is obvious; but the unit of measurement here is 100. Altogether the “level of the value of
land” is the same general phrase as the high or low level of commodity prices in general.
Herr Rodbertus now wants to investigate:
“What then determines the level of capital profit and of ground-rent?” (p. 115)
[a) Rodbertus’s First Thesis]
First of all he examines: What determines “the level of rent in general”, i.e., what regulates the rate of
surplus-value?
“I) With a given value of a product, or a product of a given quantity of labour or, which again amounts to
the same thing, with a given national product, the level of rent in general bears an inverse relationship
to the level of wages and a direct relationship to the level of productivity of labour in general. The lower
the wages, the higher the rent; the higher the productivity of labour in general, the lower the wages and
the higher the rent” (pp. 115–16).
The “level” of rent—the rate of surplus-value—says Rodbertus, depends upon the “size of this portion
left over for rent” (p. 117), i.e., after deducting wages from the total product, in which “that part of the
value of the product which serves as replacement of capital…can be disregarded” (p. 117).
This is good (I mean that in this consideration of surplus-value the constant part of capital is
“disregarded”).
The following is a somewhat peculiar notion:
“when wages fall, i.e., from now on form a smaller share of the total value of the product,
the aggregate capital on which the other part of rent” <i.e., the industrial profit> “is to be calculated as
profit, becomes smaller. Now it is, however, solely the ratio between the value that becomes capital
profit or ground-rent, and the capital, or the land area on which it has to he calculated as such, which
determines the level of profit and rent. Thus if wages allow a greater value to be left over for rent, a
greater value is to be reckoned as profit and ground-rent, even with a diminished capital and the same
area of land. The resulting ratio of both increases and, therefore, the two together, or rent in general,
has risen… It is assumed that the value of the product remains the same… Because the wage, which the
labour costs, diminishes, the labour, which the product costs, does not necessarily diminish” (pp. 117–
18).
The last bit is good. But it is incorrect to say that when the variable capital that is laid out in wages
decreases, the constant capital must diminish. In other words, it is not true that the rate of profit <the
quite inappropriate reference to area of land etc. is omitted here) must rise because the rate of surplus-
value rises. For instance, wages fall because labour becomes more productive and in all cases this
expresses itself in more raw material being worked up by the same worker in the same period of time;
this part of constant capital therefore grows, ditto machinery and its value. Hence the rate of profit can
fall with the reduction in wages. The rate of profit is dependent on the amount of surplus-value, which
is determined not only by the rate of surplus-value, but also (by] the number of workers employed.
Rodbertus correctly defines the necessary wage as equal to
“the amount of necessary subsistence, that is to a fairly stable definite quantity of material products for
a particular country and a particular period” (p. 118).
||475| Herr Rodbertus then puts forward in a most intricately confused, complicated and clumsy
fashion, the propositions set up by Ricardo on the inverse relationship of profit and wages and the
determination of this relationship by the productivity of labour. The confusion arises partly because,
instead of taking labour-time as his measure, he foolishly takes quantities of product and makes non-
sensical differentiations between “level of the value of the product” and “magnitude of the value of the
product”.
By “level of the value of the product” this stripling means nothing other than the relation of the product
to the labour-time. If the same amount of labour-time yields many products then the value of the
product, i.e., the value of separate portions of the product is low, if the reverse, then the reverse. If one
working-day yielded 100 lbs. yarn and later 200 lbs. then in the second case the value of the yarn would
be half what it was in the first. In the first case its value is 1/100 of a working-day; in the second, the value
of the lb. of yarn is 1/200 of a working-day. Since the worker receives the same amount of product,
whether its value be high or low, i.e., whether it contains more or less labour, wages and profit move
inversely, and wages take more or less of the total product, according to the productivity of labour. He
expresses this in the following intricate sentences:
“…if the wage, as necessary subsistence, is a definite quantity of material products, then, if the value of
the product is high, the wage must have a high value, if it is low, it must constitute a low value and, since
the value of the product available for distribution is assumed as constant, the wage will absorb a large
part if the value of the product is high, a small part of it, if its value is low and finally, it will therefore
leave either a large or a small share of the value of the product for rent. But if one accepts the rule that
the value of the product equals the quantity of labour which it cost, then the level of the value of the
product is again determined purely by the productivity of labour or the relationship between the amount
of product and the quantity of labour which is used for its production…if the same quantity of labour
brings forth more product, in other words, if productivity increases, then the same quantity of product
contains less labour and conversely, if the same quantity of labour brings forth less product, in other
words, if productivity decreases, then the same quantity of product contains more labour. But
the quantity of labour determines the value of the product and the relative value of a particular quantity
of product determines the level of the value of the product… Hence “the higher the productivity of
labour in general, the higher” must “be rent in general” (pp. 119–20).
But this is only correct if the product, for whose production the worker is employed, belongs to that
species which—according to tradition or necessity—figures in his consumption as a means of
subsistence. If this is not the case, then the productivity of this labour has no effect on the relative
height of wages and of profit, or on the amount of surplus-value in general. The same share in the
value of the total product falls to the worker as wages, irrespective of the number of products or the
quantity of the product in which this share is expressed. The division of the value of the product in this
case is not altered by any change in the productivity of labour.
[b) Rodbertus’s Second Thesis]
“II) If with a given value of the product, the level of rent in general is given, then the level of ground-rent
and of capital profit, bear an inverse relationship to one another, and also to the productivity of
extractive labour and manufacturing labour respectively. The higher or lower the rent, the lower or
higher the capital profit and vice versa; the higher or lower the productivity of extractive labour or of
manufacturing labour, the lower or higher the rent or capital profit, and alternately also the higher or
lower is the capital profit or rent” (p. 116).
First ([in thesis] I) we had the Ricardian (law] that wages and profit are related inversely.
Now the second Ricardian [law]—differently evolved or, rather, “made involved”— that profit and rent
have an inverse relation.
It is obvious, that when a given surplus-value is divided between capitalist and landowner, then the
larger the share of one, the smaller will be that of the other and vice versa. But Herr Rodbertus adds
something of his own which requires closer examination.
In the first place, Herr Rodbertus regards it as a new discovery that surplus-value in
general (“the value of the product of labour which is in fact available for sharing out as rent”>, the
entire surplus-value filched by the capitalist, “consists of the value of the raw product+the value of the
manufactured product” (p. 120).
Herr Rodbertus first reiterates his “discovery” of the absence of “the value of the material”
in ||476| agriculture. This time in the following flood of words:
“That portion of rent which accrues to the manufactured product and determines the rate of capital
profit is reckoned as profit not only on the capital which is actually used for the production of this
product but also on the whole of the raw product value which figures as value of the material in the
capital fund of the manufacturer. On the other hand, as regards that portion of rent which accrues to
the raw product and from which the profit on the capital used in raw material production is
calculated according to the given rate of profit in manufacture” (yes! given rate of profit!) “leaving a
remainder for ground-rent, such a material value is missing” (p. 121).
We repeat: quod non!
Assume that a ground-rent exists—which Herr Rodbertus has not proved and cannot prove by his
method—that is to say, a certain portion of the surplus-value of the raw product falls to the landlord.
Further assume that: “the level of rent in general” (the rate of surplus-value) “in a particular value of the
product is also given” (p. 121). This amounts to the following: For instance, in a commodity of £ 100, say
half, £ 50, is unpaid labour; this then forms the fund from which all categories of surplus-value, rent,
profit etc. are paid. Then it is quite evident that one shareholder in the £ 50 will draw the more, the less
is drawn by the other and vice versa, or that profit and rent are inversely proportional. Now the
question is, what determines the apportionment between the two?
In any case it remains true that the revenue of the manufacturer (be he agriculturist or industrialist)
equals the surplus-value which he draws from the sale of his manufactured product (which he has
pilfered from the workers in his sphere of production), and that rent of land (where it does not, as with
the waterfall which is sold to the industrialist, stem directly from the manufactured product, which is
also the case with rent for houses etc., since houses can hardly be termed raw product) only arises from
the excess profit (that part of surplus-value which does not enter into the general rate of profit) which is
contained in the raw products and which the farmer pays over to the landlord.
It is quite true that when the value of the raw product rises [or falls], the rate of profit in those branches
of industry which use raw material will rise or fall inversely to the value of the raw product. As I showed
in a previous example, if the value of cotton doubles, then with a given wage and a given rate of surplus-
value, the rate of profit will fall. The same applies however to agriculture. If the harvest is poor and
production is to be continued on the same scale (we assume here that the commodities are sold at
their value) then a greater part of the total product or of its value would have to be returned to the soil
and after deducting wages, if these remain stationary, the farmer’s surplus-value would consist of a
smaller quantity of product, hence also a smaller quantity of value would be available for sharing out
between him and the landlord. Although the individual product would have a higher value than before,
not only the amount of product, but also the remaining portion of value would be smaller. It would be a
different matter if, as a result of demand, the product rose above its value, and to such an extent that a
smaller quantity of product had a higher price than a larger quantity of product did before. But this
would be contrary to our stipulation that the products are sold at their value.
Let us assume the opposite. Supposing he cotton harvest is twice as rich and that that part of it which is
returned direct to the soil, for instance as fertiliser and seed, costs less than before. In this case the
portion of value which is left for the cotton-grower after deduction of wages is greater than before. The
rate of profit would rise here just as in the cotton industry. True, in one yard of calico, the proportion of
value formed by the raw product would now be smaller than before and [that] formed by the
manufacturing process would be larger. Assume that calico costs 2s. a yard when the value of the
cotton it contains is 1s. Now if cotton goes down from 1s. to 6d., (which, on the assumption that
its value equals its price, is only possible because its cultivation has become more productive) then the
value of a yard of calico is 18d. It has decreased by a quarter which is 25 per cent. But where the
cotton-grower previously sold 100 lbs. at is., he is now supposed to sell 200 at 6d. Previously the value
[was] 100s.; now too it is 100s. Although previously cotton formed a greater proportion of the value of
the product—and the rate of surplus-value in cotton growing itself decreased simultaneously—the
cotton-grower obtained only 50 yds. of calico for his 100s. cotton at 1s. per lb.; now that the lb. [is sold]
at 6d., he receives 66 2/3 yds, for his 100s.
On the assumption that the commodities are sold at their value, it is wrong to say that the revenue of
the producers who take part in the production of the product is necessarily dependent on the portion of
value ||477|represented by their products in the total value of the product.
Let the value of the total product of all manufactured commodities, including machinery, be £ 300 in
one branch, 900 in another and 1,800 in a third.
If it is true to say that the proportion in which the value of the whole product is divided between the
value of the raw product and the value of the manufactured product determines the proportion in
which the surplus-value—the rent, as Rodbertus says—is divided into profit and ground-rent, then this
must also be true of different products in different spheres of production where raw material and
manufactured products participate in varying proportions.
Suppose out of a value of £ 900, manufactured product accounts for £ 300 and raw material for £ 600,
and that £ 1 equals 1 working-day. Furthermore, the rate of surplus-value is given as, say, 2 hours on 10,
with a normal working-day of 12 hours, then the £ 300 [manufactured product] embodies 300 working-
days, and the £ 600 [raw product] twice as much, i.e., 2×300. The amount of surplus-value in the one is
600 hours, in the other 1,200. This only means that, given the rate of surplus-value, its volume depends
on the number of workers or the number of workers employed simultaneously. Furthermore, since it
has been assumed (not proved) that of the surplus-value which enters into the value of the agricultural
product a portion falls to the landlord as rent, it would follow that in fact the amount of ground-
rent grows in the same proportion as the value of the agricultural product compared with the
“manufactured product” .
In the above example the ratio of the agricultural product to the manufactured product is as 2:1, i.e.,
600:300. Suppose [in another case] it is as 300:600. Since the rent depends on the surplus-value
contained in the agricultural product, it is clear that if this [amounts to] 1,200 hours in the first case as
against 600 in the second, and if the rent constitutes a certain part of this surplus-value, it must be
greater in the first case than in the second. Or—thelarger the portion of value which the agricultural
product forms in the value of the total product, the larger will be its share in the surplus-value of the
whole product, for every portion of the value of the product contains a certain portion of surplus-value
and the larger the share in the surplus-value of the whole product which falls to the agricultural product,
the larger will be the rent, since rent represents a definite proportion of the surplus-value of the
agricultural product.
Let the rent be one-tenth of the agricultural surplus-value, then it is 120 [hours] if the value of the
agricultural product is £ 600 out of the £ 900 and only 60 [hours] if it is £ 300. According to this,
the volume of rent would in fact alter with the amount of the value of the agricultural product, hence
also with the relative value of the agricultural product in relation to the manufactured product. But the
“level” of the rent and of the profit— their rates—would have absolutely nothing to do with it
whatsoever. In the first case the value of the product is £ 900 of which £ 300 is manufactured product
and £ 600 agricultural product. Of this, 600 hours surplus-value accrue to the manufactured product
and 1,200 to the agricultural product. Altogether 1,800 hours. Of these, 120 go to rent and 1,680 to
profit. In the second case the value of the product is £ 900, of which £ 600 is manufactured product and
£ 300 agricultural product. Thus 1,200 [hours] surplus-value for manufacture and 600 for
agriculture. Altogether 1,800. Of this 60 go to rent and 1,200 to profit for manufacture and 540 for
agriculture. Altogether 1,740. In the second case, the manufactured product is twice as great as the
agricultural product (in terms of value). In the first case the position is reversed. In the second case the
rent is 60, in the first it is 120. It has simply grown in the same proportion as the value of the
agricultural product. As the volume of the latter increased so the volume of the rent increased. If we
consider the total surplus-value, 1,800, then in the first case the rent is 1/15 and in the second it is 1/30.
If here with the increased portion of value that falls to agricultural product the volume of rent also rises
and with this, its volume, increases its proportional share in the total surplus-value—i.e., the rate at
which surplus-value accrues to rent also rises compared to that at which it accrues to profit—then this is
only so, because Rodbertus assumes that rent participates in the surplus-value of the agricultural
product in a d e f i n i t e p r o p o r t i o n. Indeed this must be so, if this fact
is given or presupposed. But the fact itself by no means follows from the rubbish which Rodbertus pours
forth about the “value of the material” and which I have already cited above at the beginning of
page 476.
But the level of the rent does not rise in proportion to the [surplus-value in the] product in which it
participates, because now, as before, this [proportion is] one-tenth; its volume grows because
the product grows, and because it grows in volume, without a rise in its “level”, its “level” rises in
comparison with the quantity of profit or the share of profit in the ||4781 value of the total
product. Because it is presupposed that a greater part of the value of the total product yields rent, i.e., a
greater part of surplus-value is turned into rent, that part of surplus-value which is converted into rent is
of course greater. This has absolutely nothing to do with the “value of the material”, But that a
“greater rent” at the same time represents a “higher rent”, “because the area or number of acres on
which it is calculated remains the same and hence a greater amount of value falls to the individual acre”
(p. 122)
is ridiculous. It amounts to measuring the “level” of rent by a “standard of measurement” that obviates
the difficulties of the problem itself.
Since we do not know as yet what rent is, had we put the above example differently and had left the
same rate of profit for the agricultural product as for the manufactured product, only adding on one-
tenth for rent, which is really necessary since the same rate of profit is assumed, then the whole
business would look different and become clearer.
Manufactured
product
Agricultural
product
I £600 [7,200
hours]
£300 [3,600
hours]
1,200 [hours] surplus-value for manufacture, 600 for
agriculture and 60 for rent. Altogether 1,860 [hours;
of these] 1,800 for profit.
II £300 [3,600
hours]
£600 [7,200
hours]
600 [hours] surplus-value for manufacture, 1,200 for
agriculture and 120 for rent. Altogether 1,920 [hours;
of these] 1,800 for profit.
In case II the rent is twice that in I because the agricultural product, the share of the value of the product
on which it sponges, has grown in proportion to the industrial product. The volume of profit remains
the same in both cases, i.e., 1,800. In the first case (the rent] is 1/31 of the total surplus-value, in the
second case it is 1/16
If Rodbertus wants to charge the “value of the material” exclusively to industry, then above all, it should
have been his duty to burden agriculture alone with that part of constant capital which consists of
machinery, etc. This part of capital enters into agriculture as a product supplied to it by industry— as a
“manufactured product”, which forms the means of production for the “raw product”.
Since we are dealing here with an account between two firms, so far as industry is concerned, that part
of the value of the machinery which consists of “raw material” is already debited to it under the heading
of “raw material” or “value of the material”. We cannot therefore book this twice over. The
other portion of value of the machinery used in manufacture, consists of added “manufacturing labour”
(past and present) and this resolves into wages and profit (paid and unpaid labour). That part of capital
which has been advanced here (apart from that contained in the raw material of the machines)
therefore consists only of wages. Hence it increases not only the amount of capital advanced, but also
the profit, the volume of surplus-value to be calculated upon this capital.
(The error usually made in such calculations is that, for instance, the wear and tear of the machinery or
of the tools used is embodied in the machine itself, in its value and although, in the last analysis, this
wear and tear can be reduced to labour— either labour contained in the raw material or that which
transformed the raw material into machine, etc.—this past labour never again enters into profit or
wages, but only acts as a produced condition of production (in so far as the necessary labour-time for
reproduction does not alter) which, whatever its use-value in the labour-process, only figures as value of
constant capital, in the process of creating surplus-value. This is of great importance and has already
been explained in the course of my examination of the exchange of constant capital and revenue. But
apart from this, it needs to be further developed in the section on the accumulation of capital.)
So far as agriculture is concerned—that is, purely the production of raw products or so-called primary
production—in balancing the accounts between the firms “primary production” and “manufacture” that
part of the value of constant capital which represents machinery, tools, etc., can on no account be
regarded in any other way than as an item which enters into agricultural capital without increasing
its surplus-value. If, as a result of the employment of machinery etc., agricultural labour becomes more
productive, the higher the price of this machinery etc., the smaller will be the increase in productivity. It
is the use-value of the machinery and not its value which increases the productivity of agricultural
labour or of any other sort of labour. Otherwise one might also say that the productivity of industrial
labour is, in the first place, due to the presence of raw material and its properties. But again it is the
use-value of the raw material, not its value, which constitutes a condition of production for industry. Its
value, on the contrary, is a drawback. Thus what Herr Rodbertus says about the “value of the material”
in respect to the industrial capital, is literally, ||479| mutatis mutandis valid for machinery etc.
“For instance the labour costs of a particular product, such as w h e a t or cotton, cannot be affected by
the labour costs of t h e p l o u g h o r g i n a s m a c h i n e s” (or the labour costs of a drainage canal
or stable buildings). “On the other hand, the value of the m a c h i n e or the m a c h i n e v a l u
e does figure in the amount of capital on which the owner has to calculate his gain, the rent that falls to
the r a w p r o d u c t.” (Cf. Rodbertus, p. 97.)
In other words: That portion of the value of wheat and cotton representing the value of the wear and
tear of the plough or gin, is not the result of the work of ploughing or of separating the cotton fibre from
its seed, but the result of the labour which manufactured the plough and the gin. This component part
of value goes into the agricultural product without being produced in agriculture. It only passes through
agriculture, which uses it merely to replace ploughs and gins by buying new ones from the maker of
machines.
The machines, tools, buildings and other manufactured products required in agriculture consist of two
component parts : 1. the raw materials of these manufactured products [2. the labour added to the
raw materials.] Although these raw materials are the product of agriculture, they are a part of its
product which never enters into wages or into profit. Even if there were no capitalist, the farmer still
could not chalk up this part of his product as wages for himself. He would in fact have to hand it
over gratis to the machine manufacturer so that the latter would make him a machine from it and
besides he would have to pay for the labour which is added to this raw material (equal to wages plus
profit). This happens in reality. The machine maker buys the raw material but in purchasing the
machine, agricultural producer must buy back the raw material. It is just as if he had not sold it at all,
but had lent it to the machine maker to give it the form of the machine. Thus that portion of the value
of the machinery employed in agriculture which resolves into raw material, although it is the product of
agricultural labour and forms part of its value, belongs to production and not to the producer, it
therefore figures in his expenses, like seed. The other part, however, represents the manufacturing
labour embodied in the machinery and is a “product of manufacture” which enters into agriculture as a
means of production, just as raw material enters as a means of production into industry.
Thus, if it is true that the firm “primary production” supplies the firm “manufacturing industry” with the
“value of the material” which enters as an item into the capital of the industrialist, then it is no less true
that the firm “manufacturing industry” supplies the firm “primary production” with the value of the
machinery which enters wholly (including that part which consists of raw material) into the farmer’s
capital without this “component part of value” yielding him any surplus-value. This circumstance is a
reason why the rate of profit appears to be smaller in “high agriculture”, as the English call it, than in
primitive agriculture, although the rate of surplus-value is greater.
At the same time this supplies Herr Rodbertus with striking proof of how irrelevant it is to the nature of
a capital advance, whether that portion of the product which is laid out in constant capital is replaced in
kind and therefore only accounted for as a commodity—as money value—or whether it has really been
alienated and has gone through the process of purchase and sale. Supposing the producer of raw
materials handed over gratis to the machine builder the iron, copper, wood etc., embodied in his
machine, so that the machine builder in selling him the machine would charge him for the added labour
and the wear and tear of his own machine, then this machine would cost the agriculturist just as much
as it costs him now and the same component part of value would figure as constant capital, as an
advance, in his production. Just as it amounts to the same thing whether a farmer sells the whole of his
harvest and buys seed from elsewhere with that portion of its value which rep-resents seed (raw
material) perhaps to effect a desirable change in the type of seed and to prevent degeneration by
inbreeding— or whether he deducts this component part of value directly from his product and returns
it to the soil.
But in order to arrive at his results, Herr Rodbertus misinterprets that part of constant capital which
consists of machinery.
A second aspect that has to be examined in connection with [case] II of Herr Rodbertus is this: He speaks
of the manufactured and agricultural products which make up the revenue, which is something quite
different from those manufactured and agricultural products which make up the total annual
product. Now supposing it were correct to say of the latter that after deducting the whole of that part
of the agricultural capital which consists of machinery etc. ||480| and that part of the agricultural
product which is returned direct to agricultural production, the proportion in which the surplus-value is
distributed between farmer and manufacturer—and therefore also the proportion in which the surplus-
value accruing to the farmer is distributed between himself and the landlord—must be determined by
the share of manufacture and of agriculture in the total value of the products; then it is still highly
questionable whether this is correct if we are speaking of those products which form the common fund
of revenue. Revenue (we exclude here that part which is reconverted into new capital) consists of
products which go into individual consumption and the question is, how much do the capitalists, farmers
and landlords draw out of this pot. Is this quota determined by the share of manufacture and raw
production in the value of the product that constitutes revenue? Or by the quotas in which the value of
the total revenue is divisible into agricultural labour and manufacturing labour?
The mass of products which make up revenue, as I have demonstrated earlier, does not contain any
products that enter into production as instruments of labour (machinery), auxiliary material, semi-
finished goods and the raw material of semi-finished goods, which form a part of the annual product of
labour. Not only the constant capital of primary production is excluded but also the constant capital of
the machine makers and the entire constant capital of the farmer and the capitalist which
does not enter into the process of the creation of value though it enters into the labour-
process. Furthermore, it excludes not only constant capital, but also the part of the unconsumable
products that represents the revenue of their producers and enters into the capital of the producers of
products consumable as revenue, for the replacement of their used up constant capital.
The mass of products on which the revenue is spent and which in fact represents that part of wealth
which constitutes revenue, in terms of both use-value and exchange-value—this mass of products can,
as I have demonstrated earlier, be regarded as consisting only of newly-added (during the
year) labour. Hence it can be resolved only into revenue, i.e., wages and profit (which again splits up
into profit, rent, taxes, etc.), since not a single particle of it contains any of the value of the raw material
which goes into production or of the wear and tear of the machinery which goes into production, in a
word, it contains none of the value of the means of production. Leaving aside the derivative forms of
revenue because they merely show that the owner of the revenue relinquishes his proportional share of
the said products to another, be it for services etc. or debt etc.—let us consider this revenue and
assume that wages form a third of it, profit a third and rent a third and that the value of the product is £
90. Then each will be able to draw the equivalent of £ 30 worth of products from the whole amount.
Since the amount of products which forms the revenue consists only of newly-added (i.e., added during
the year) labour, it seems very simple that if the product contains two-thirds agricultural labour and
one-third manufacturing labour, then manufacturers and agriculturists will share the value in this
proportion. One-third of the value would fall to the manufacturers and two-thirds to the agriculturists
and the proportional amount of the surplus-value realised in manufacture and agriculture (the same
rate of surplus-value is assumed in both) would correspond to these shares of manufacture and
agriculture in the value of the total product. But rent again *would+ grow in proportion to the farmer’s
volume of profit since it sits on it like a parasite. And yet this is wrong. Because a part of the value
which consists of agricultural labour forms the revenue of the manufacturers of that fixed capital etc.,
which replaces the fixed capital worn out in agriculture. Thus the ratio between agricultural labour and
manufacturing labour in the component parts of value of those products which constitute the revenue, in
no way indicates the ratio in which the value of this mass of products or this mass of products itself is
distributed between the manufacturers and the farmers, neither does it indicate the ratio in which
manufacture and agriculture participate in total production.
Rodbertus goes on to say:
“But again it is only the productivity of labour in primary production or manufacture, which determines
the relative level of the value of the primary product and manufactured product or their respective
shares in the value of the total product. The value of the primary product will be the higher, the lower
the productivity of labour in primary production and vice versa. In the same way, the value of the
manufactured product will be the higher, the lower the productivity in manufacture and vice
versa. Since a high value of the raw product effects a high ground-rent and low capital gain, and a high
value of the manufactured product effects a high capital gain and low ground-rent, if the level of rent in
general is given, the level of ground-rent and of capital gain must not only bear an inverse relationship
to one another, but also to the productivity of their respective labour, that in primary production and
that in manufacture” (p. 123).
If the productivity of two different spheres of production is to be compared, this can only be done
relatively. In other words, one starts at any arbitrary point, for instance, when the values of hemp and
linen, i.e., the correlative quantities of labour-time embodied in them, are as 1:3. If this ratio alters,
then it is correct to say that the’ productivity of these different types of labour has altered. But it is
wrong to say that because the labour-time required for the production of an ounce of
gold ||481| equals three and that for a ton of iron also equals three, gold production is “less
productive” than iron production.
The relative value of two commodities shows that the one costs more labour-time than the other; but
one cannot say that because of this one branch is “more productive” than the other. This would only be
correct if the labour-time were used for the production of the same use-values in both instances.
It would be entirely wrong to say that manufacture is three times as productive as agriculture if the
value of the raw product is to that of the manufactured product as 3:1. Only if the ratio changes say to
4:1 or 3:2 or 2:1, i.e., when it rises or falls, could one say that the relative productivity in the two
branches has altered.
[c) Rodbertus’s Third Thesis]
III) “The level of capital gain is solely determined by the level of the value of the product in general and
by the level of the value of the raw product and the manufactured product in particular; or by the
productivity of labour in general and by the productivity of labour employed in the production of raw
materials and of manufactured goods in particular. The level of ground-rent is, apart from this, also
dependent on the magnitude of the value of the product or the quantity of labour, or productive power,
which, with a given state of productivity, is used for production” (pp. 116–17).
In other words: The rate of profit depends solely on the rate of surplus-value and this is determined
solely by the productivity of labour. On the other hand, given the productivity of labour, the rate of
ground-rent also depends on the amount of labour (the number of workers) employed.
This assertion contains almost as many falsehoods as words. Firstly the rate of profit is by no means
solely determined by the rate of surplus-value. But more about this shortly. First of all, it is wrong to
say that the rate of surplus-value depends solely on the productivity of labour. Given the productivity of
labour, the rate of surplus-value alters according to the length of the surplus labour-time. Hence the
rate of surplus-value depends not only on the productivity of labour but also on the quantity of labour
employed because the quantity of unpaid labour can grow (while productivity remains constant)
without the quantity of paid labour, i.e., that part of capital laid out in wages, growing. Surplus-value—
absolute or relative (and Rodbertus only knows the latter from Ricardo)—cannot exist unless labour is at
least sufficiently productive to leave over some sur-plus labour-time apart from that required for the
worker s own reproduction. But assuming this to be the case, with a given minimum productivity, then
the rate of surplus-value alters according to the length of surplus labour-time.
Firstly, therefore, it is wrong to say that because the rate of surplus-value is solely determined by the
productivity of the labour exploited by capital, the rate of profit or the “level of capital gain” is so
determined. Secondly:The rate of surplus-value—which, if the productivity of labour is given, alters with
the length of the working-day and, with a given normal working-day, alters with the productivity of
labour—is assumed to be given. Surplus-value itself will then vary according to the number of workers
from whose every working-day a certain quantity of surplus-value is extorted, or according to
the volume of variable capital expended on wages. The rate of profit, on the other hand, depends on
the ratio of this surplus-value [to] the variable capital plus the constant capital. If the rate of surplus-
value is given, the amount of surplus-value does indeed depend on the amount of variable capital, but
the level of profit, the rate of profit, depends on the ratio of this surplus-value to the total capital
advanced. In this case the rate of profit will thus be determined by the price of the raw material (if such
exists in this branch of industry) and the value of machinery of a particular efficiency.
Hence what Rodbertus says is fundamentally wrong:
“Thus, as the amount of capital gain increases consequent upon the increase in product value, so also in
the same proportion increases the amount of capital value on which the gain has to be reckoned, and
the hitherto existing ratio between gain and capital is not altered at all by this increase in capital gain”
(p. 125).
This is only valid if it [signifies] the tautology that: given the rate of profit <very different from the rate of
surplus-value and surplus-value itself.>, the amount of capital employed is immaterial, precisely because
the rate of profit is assumed to be constant. But as a rule the rate of profit can increase although
the productivity of labour remains constant, or it can fall even though the productivity of labour rises
and rises moreover in every department.
And now again the silly remark <pp. 125–26> about ground-rent, the assertion that the mere increase of
rent raises its rate, because in every country’ it is calculated on the basis of an “unalterable number of
acres” (p. 126). If the volume of profit grows (given the rate of profit), then the amount of capital from
which it is drawn, grows. On the other hand, if rent increases, then [according to Rodbertus] only one
factor changes, namely rent itself, while its standard of measurement, “the number of acres”, remains
unalterably fixed.
||482| “Hence rent can rise for a reason which enters into the economic development of society
everywhere, namely the increase in labour used for production, in other words, the
increasing population. This does not necessarily have to he followed by a rise in the raw product value
since the drawing of rent from a greater quantity of primary product must already have this effect” (p.
127).
On p.128, Rodbertus makes the strange discovery that even if the value of the raw product fell below its
normal level, causing rent to disappear completely, it would be impossible
“for capital gain ever to amount to 100 per cent” (i.e., if the commodity is sold at its value) “however
high it may be, it must always amount to considerably less” (p. 128).
And why?
“Because it” (the capital gain) “is merely the result of the division of the value of the product. It must,
accordingly, always he a fraction of this unit” (pp. 127–28).
This, Herr Rodbertus, depends entirely upon the nature of your calculation.
Let the constant capital advanced be 100, the wages advanced 50 and let the product of labour over and
above this 50 be 150. We would then have the following calculation:
Constant capital Variable capital Surplus-value value cost of
production Profit Per cent
100 50 150 300 150 150 100
The only requirement to produce this situation is that the worker should work for his master three
quarters of his working-day, it is therefore assumed that one quarter of his labour-time suffices for his
own reproduction. Of course, if Herr Rodbertus takes the total value of the product, which equals 300,
and does not consider the excess it contains over the costs of production, but says that this product is to
be divided between the capitalist and the worker, then in fact the capitalist’s portion can only amount
to a part of this product, even if it came to 999/1,000. But the calculation is incorrect, or at least useless in
almost every respect. If a person lays out 150 and makes 300 he is not in the habit of saying that he has
made a profit of 50 per cent on the basis of reckoning the 150 on 300 instead of 150.
Assume, in the above example, that the worker has worked 12 hours, 3 for himself and 9 for the
capitalist. Now let him work 15 hours, i.e., 3 for himself and 12 for the capitalist. Then, according to the
former production ratio, an outlay of 25 on constant capital would have to be added (less in fact,
because the outlay on machinery would not grow to the same degree as the quantity of labour). Thus:
Constant capital Variable capital Surplus-value value cost of
production Profit Per cent
125 50 200 375 175 200 1142/7
Then Rodbertus comes up again with the growth of “rent to infinity”, firstly because he interprets its
mere increase in volume as a rise, and therefore speaks of its rise when the same rate of rent is paid on
a larger amount of product. Secondly because he calculates on “an acre” as his standard of
measurement. Two things which have nothing in common.
***
The following points can be dealt with quite briefly, since they have nothing to do with my purpose.
The “value of land” is the “capitalised ground-rent”. Hence this, its expression in terms of money,
depends on the level of the prevailing rate of interest. Capitalised at 4 per cent, it would have to be
multiplied by 25 (since 4 per cent is 1/25 of 100); at 5 per cent by 20 (since 5 per cent is 1/20 of 100). This
would amount to a difference in land value of 20 per cent (p. 131). Even with a fall in the value of
money, ground-rent and hence the value of land would rise nominally, since—unlike the increase in
interest or profit (expressed in money) —the monetary expression of capital does not rise evenly. The
rent, however, which has risen in terms of money has to be related “to the unchanged number of acres
of the piece of land” (p. 132).
Herr Rodbertus sums up his wisdom as applied to Europe in this way:
1. “…with the European nations, the productivity of labour in general—labour employed in primary
production and manufacturing—has risen…as a result of which, the part of the national product used for
wages has diminished, the part left over for rent has increased…so rent in general has risen” (pp. 138–
39).
2. “…the increase in productivity is relatively greater in manufacture than in primary production … an
equal value of national product will therefore at present yield a larger rent share to the raw product
than to the manufactured product. Therefore notwithstanding the rise in rent in general, in fact
only ground-rent has risen while capital gain has fallen” (p. 139).
Here Herr Rodbertus, just like Ricardo, explains the rise of rent and the fall of the rate of profit one by
the other; the fall of one is equal to the rise of the other and the rise of the latter is explained by
the relative unproductiveness ||483| of agriculture. Indeed, Ricardo says somewhere quite expressly
that it is not a matter of absolute but of “relative” unproductiveness. But even if he had said the
opposite, it would not comply with the principle he establishes since Anderson, the original author of
the Ricardian concept, expressly declares that every piece of land is capable of absolute improvement.
If “surplus-value” (profit and rent) in general has risen then it is not merely possible that the rate of the
total rent has fallen in proportion to constant capital, but it will have fallen because productivity has
risen. Although the number of workers employed has grown, as has the rate at which they are
exploited, the amount of capital expended on wages as a whole has fallen relatively, although it has
risen absolutely; because the capital which as an advance—a product of the past—is set in motion by
these workers and as a prerequisite of production forms an ever growing share of the total
capital. Hence the rate of profit and rent taken together has fallen, although not only its volume (its
absolute amount) has grown, but also the rate at which labour is being exploited has risen. This Herr
Rodbertus cannot see, because for him constant capital is an invention of industry of which agriculture is
ignorant.
But so far as the relative magnitude of profit and rent is concerned, it does not by any means follow
that, because agriculture is relatively less productive than industry, the rate of profit has fallen
absolutely. If, for instance, its relationship to rent was as 2:3 and is now as 1:3, then whereas previously
it formed two-thirds of rent, it now forms only one-third, or previously [profit] formed two-fifths of the
total surplus-value and now only a quarter, [or] previously 8/20 and now only 5/20; it would have fallen
by 3/20 or [by] 15 per cent.
Assume that the value of 1 lb. of cotton was 2s. It falls to 1s. 100 workers who previously span 100 lbs.
in one day, now spin 300.
Previously, the outlay for 300 lbs. amounted to 600s.; now it is only 300s. Further, assume that in both
cases machinery equals 1/10, or 60s. Finally, previously 300 lbs. cost 300s. as an outlay for 300 workers,
now only l00s. for 100 [workers]. Since the productivity of the workers “has increased”, and we must
suppose that they are paid here in their own product, assume that whereas previously the surplus-value
was 20 per cent of wages, it is now 40.
Thus the cost of the 300 lbs. is:
in the first case:
Raw material 600, machinery 60, wages 300, surplus-value 60, altogether 1,020s.
in the second case:
Raw material 300, machinery 60, wages 100, surplus-value 40, altogether 500s.
In the first case: The costs of production 960, profit 60, rate of profit 6 1/4 [per cent].
In the second case: [The costs of production] 460, profit 40, rate of profit 8 16/23 [per cent].
Suppose the rent is a third of 1 lb., then in the first case it equals 200s., i.e., £10; in the second it is 100s.
or £5. The rent has fallen here because the raw product has become cheaper by 50 per cent. But the
whole of the product has become cheaper by more than 50 per cent. The industrial labour added in I [is
to the value of the raw material] as 300 : 600 = 6 : 10 = 1 : 1 2/3; in II, as 140 : 300 = 1 : 2 1/7. Industrial
labour has become relatively more productive than agricultural labour; yet in the first case the rate of
profit is lower and the rent higher than in the second. In both cases rent amounts to one-third of raw
materials.
Assume that the amount of raw materials in II doubles so that 600 lbs. are spun and the ratio would be:
II. 600 lbs. [cotton] = 600s. raw material, 120s. machinery, 200s. wages, 80s. surplus-value. Altogether
920s. production costs, 80s. profit, rate of profit 8 16/23 per cent.
The rate of profit [has] risen compared with I. Rent would be just the same as in I. The 600 lbs. would
cost only 1,000, whereas before they cost 2,040.
||484| It does not by any means follow from the relative dearness of the agricultural product that it
yields a [higher] rent. However, if one assumes—as Rodbertus can be said to assume, since his so-called
proof is absurd—that rent clings as a percentage on to every particle of value of the agricultural product,
then indeed it follows that rent rises with the increasing dearness of agricultural produce.
“…as a result of the increased population, the value of the total national product has also grown to an
extraordinary extent … today, therefore, the nation draws more wages, more profit, more ground-rent …
furthermore, this increased amount of ground-rent has raised it, whereas the increased amount of
wages and profit could not have a similar effect” (p. 139).
[8. The Kernel of Truth in the Law Distorted by Rodbertus]
Let us strip Herr Rodbertus of all nonsense (not to speak of such defective conceptions as I have detailed
more fully above, for instance that the rate of surplus-value (“level of rent”) can only rise
when labour becomes more productive, i.e., the overlooking of absolute surplus-value, etc.);
namely the absurd conception that the “value of the material” does not form part of the expenditure in
(capitalist) agriculture in the strict sense.
The second piece of nonsense: that he does not regard the machinery etc., the second part of the
constant capital of agriculture and manufacture, as a “component part of value”, which—just as the
“value of the material”—does not arise from the labour of the sphere of production into which it enters
as machinery, and upon which the profit made in each sphere of production is also calculated, even
though the value of the machinery does not add a farthing to the profit, as little as the “value” of the
material although both are means of production and as such enter into the labour process.
The third piece of nonsense: that he does not charge to agriculture the entire “value” of the
“machinery” etc. which enters into it as an item of expenditure and that he does not regard that
element of it which does not consist of raw material as a debit of agriculture to industry, which does not
therefore belong to the expenditure of industry as a whole and in payment for which, a part of the raw
material of agriculture must be supplied gratis to industry.
The fourth piece of nonsense : his belief that in addition to machinery and its auxiliary materials the
“value of the material” enters into all branches of industry, whereas this is not the case in the entire
transport industry any more than it is in the extractive industry.
The fifth piece of nonsense: that he does not see that although, besides variable capital, “raw material”
does enter into many branches of manufacture (and this the more they supply finished produce for
consumption) the other component part of constant capital disappears almost completely or is very
small, incomparably smaller than in large-scale industry or agriculture.
The sixth piece of nonsense: that he confuses the average prices of commodities with their values.
Stripped of all this, which has allowed him to derive his explanation of rent from the farmer’s wrong
calculation and his own wrong calculation, so that rent would have to disappear to the extent to which
the farmer accurately calculates the outlay he makes, then only the following assertion remains as the
real kernel:
When the raw products are sold at their values, their value stands above the average prices of the other
commodities or above their own average price, this means their value is greater than the costs of
production plus average profit, thus leaving an excess profit which constitutes rent. Furthermore,
assuming the same rate of surplus-value, this means that the ratio of variable capital to constant capital
is greater in primary production than it is, on an average, in those spheres of production which belong to
industry (which does not prevent it from being higher in some branches of industry than it is in
agriculture). Or, putting it into even more general terms: agriculture belongs to that class of industries,
whose variable capital is greater proportionately to constant capital than in industry, on an
average. Hence its surplus-value, calculated on its costs of production, must be higher than the average
in the industrial spheres. Which means again, that its particular rate of profit stands above the average
rate of profit or the general rate of profit. Which means again: when the rate of surplus-value is the
same and the surplus-value itself is given, then the particular rate of profit in each sphere of production
depends on the proportion of variable capital to constant capital in that particular sphere.
This would therefore only be an application of the law developed by me in a general form to a particular
branch of industry.
||485| Consequently:
1. One has to prove that agriculture belongs to those particular spheres of production
whose commodity values are above their average prices, whose profit, so long as they appropriate it
themselves and do not hand it over for the equalisation of the general rate of profit, thus stands above
the average profit, yielding them, therefore, in addition to this, an excess profit. This point 1 appears
certain to apply to agriculture on an average, because manual labour is still relatively dominant in it and
it is characteristic of the bourgeois mode of production to develop manufacture more rapidly than
agriculture. This is, however, a historical difference which can disappear. At the same time this implies
that, on the whole, the means of production supplied by industry to agriculture fall in value, while the
raw material which agriculture supplies to industry generally rises in value, the constant capital in a large
part of manufacture has consequently a proportionately greater value than that in agriculture. In the
main, this will probably not apply to the extractive industry.
2. It is wrong to say, as Rodbertus does: If—according to the general law—the agricultural product is
sold on an average at its value then it must yield an excess profit, alias rent; as though this selling of the
commodity at itsvalue, above its average price, were the general law of capitalist production. On the
contrary, it must be shown why in primary production—by way of exception and in contrast to the class
of industrial products whose value similarly stands a b o v e their average price—the values
are not reduced to the average prices and therefore yield an excess profit, alias rent. This is to be
explained simply by property in land. The equalisation takes place only between capitals, because only
the action of capitals on one another has the force to assert the inherent laws of capital. In this respect,
those who derive rent from monopoly are right. Just as it is the monopoly of capital alone that enables
the capitalist to squeeze surplus-labour out of the worker, so the monopoly of land ownership enables
the landed proprietor to squeeze that part of surplus-labour from the capitalist, which would form a
constant excess profit. But those who derive rent from monopoly are mistaken when they imagine that
monopoly enables the landed proprietor to force the price of the commodity above its value. On the
contrary, it makes it possible to maintain the value of the commodity above its average price; to sell the
commodity not above, but at its value.
Modified in this way, the proposition is correct. It explains the existence of rent, whereas Ricardo only
explains the existence of differential rents and actually does not credit the ownership of land with
any economiceffect. Furthermore, it does away with the superstructure, which with Ricardo himself was
anyhow only arbitrary and not necessary for his presentation, namely, that the agricultural industry
becomes gradually less productive; it admits on the contrary that it becomes more productive. On the
bourgeois basis however agriculture is relatively less productive, or slower to develop the productive
power of labour, than industry, Ricardo is right when he derives his “excess surplus-value” not from
greater productivity but from smaller productivity.
[9. Differential Rent and Absolute Rent in Their Reciprocal Relationship. Rent as an Historical
Category. Smith’s and Ricardo’s Method of Research]
So far as the difference in rents is concerned, provided equal capital is invested in land areas of equal
size, it is due to the difference in natural fertility, in the first place, specifically with regard to those
products which supply bread, the chief nutriment; provided the lad is of equal size and fertility,
differences in rent arise from unequal capital investment. The first, natural, difference causes not only
the difference in the size but also in the level or rate of rent, relatively to the capital which has been laid
out. The second, industrial difference, only effects a greater rent in proportion to the volume of capital
which has been laid out. Successive capital investments on the same land may also have different
results. The existence of different excess profits or different rents on land of varying fertility does not
distinguish agriculture from industry. What does distinguish it is that those excess profits in agriculture
become permanent fixtures, because here they rest on a natural basis (which, it is true, can be to some
extent levelled out). In industry, on the other hand—given the same average profit—these excess
profits can only turn up fleetingly and they only appear because of a change-over to more productive
machines and combinations of labour. In industry it is always the most recently added, most
productive capital that yields an excess profit by reducing average prices. In agriculture excess
profit may be the result, and very often must be the result, not of the absolute increase in fertility of the
best fields, but the relative increase in their fertility, because less productive land is being cultivated. In
industry the higher relative productiveness, the excess profit (which disappears), must always be due to
the absolute increase in productiveness, or productivity, of the newly invested capital compared with
the old. No capital can yield an excess profit in industry (we are not concerned here with a momentary
rise in demand), because less productive capitals are newly entering into the branch of industry.
||486| It can, however, also happen in agriculture (and Ricardo admits this) that more fertile land—land
which is either naturally more fertile or which becomes more fertile under newly developed advances in
technique than the old land under the old [conditions]—comes into use at a later stage and even throws
a part of the old land out of cultivation (as in the mining industry and with colonial products), or forces it
to turn to another type of agriculture which supplies a different product.
The fact that the differences in rents (excess profits) become more or less fixed distinguishes agriculture
from industry. But the fact that the market-price is determined by the average conditions of production,
thus raising the price of the product which is below this average, above its price and even above
its value, this fact by no means arises from the land, but from competition, from capitalist
production. Hence this is not a law of nature, but a social law.
This theory neither demands the payment of rent for the worst land, nor the non-payment of
rent. Similarly, it is possible that a lease rent is paid where no rent is yielded, where only the ordinary
profit is made, or where not even this is made. Here the landowner draws a rent although economically
none is available.
Rent (excess profit) is paid only for the better (more fertile) land. Here rent “as such” does not exist. In
such cases excess profit—just as the excess profit in industry—rarely becomes fixed in the form of rent
(as in the West of the United States of North America). |486||
||486| This is the case where, on the one hand, relatively great areas of disposable land have not
become private property and, on the other, the natural fertility is so great that the values of the
agricultural products are equal to (sometimes below) their average prices, despite the scant
development of capitalist production and therefore the high proportion of variable capital to constant
capital. If their values were higher, competition would reduce them to this level. It is however absurd
to say, as for example Rodbertus does, that the state [appropriates the ground-rent because it] levies,
for instance, a dollar or so per acre, a low, almost nominal price. One could just as well say that the
state imposes a “trade tax” on the pursuit of every branch of industry. In this case Ricardo’s law
exists. Rent exists only for relatively fertile land—although mostly not in a fixed but in a fluid state, like
the excess profit in industry. The land that pays no rent does so, not because of its low fertility,
but because of its high fertility. The better kinds of land pay rent, because they possess more than
average fertility, as a result of their relatively higher fertility.
But in countries where landed property exists, the same situation, namely that the last cultivated land
pays no rent, may also occur for the reverse reasons. Supposing, for instance, that the value of the grain
crops was so low (and that its low value was in no way connected with the payment of rent), that owing
to the relatively low fertility of the last cultivated land the value of its crop were only equal to
the average price, this means that, if the same amount of labour were expended here as on the land
which carried a rent, the number of quarters would be so small (on the capital laid out), that with the
average value of bread products, only the average price of wheat would be obtained.
||487| Supposing for example, that the last land which carries rent (and the land which carries
the smallest rent represents pure rent; the others already differential rent) produces [with] a capital
investment of £100, [a product] equal to £120 or 360 quarters of wheat at £ 1/3. In this case 3 quarters
equal £ 1. Let £ 1 equal one week’s labour. £ 100 are 100 weeks’ labour and £ 120 are 120 weeks’
labour. 1 quarter is 1/3 of a week which is 2 days and of these 2 days or 24 hours (if the normal working-
day is 12 hours) 1/5, or 4 4/5 hours, are unpaid labour which is equal to the surplus-value embodied in the
quarter. 1 quarter equals £ 1/3 which is 6 2/3s. or 6 6/9s.
If the quarter is sold at its value and the average profit is 10 per cent then the average price of the 360
quarters would be £110 and the average price per quarter 6 1/9s. The value would be £10 above the
average price. And since the average profit is 10 per cent the rent would be equal to half the surplus-
value, i.e., £ 10 or 5/9s. per quarter. Better types of land, which would yield more quarters for the same
outlay of 120 labour weeks (of which, however, only 100 are paid labour, be it materialised or living),
would, at the price of 6 6/9s. per quarter, yield a higher rent. But the worst cultivated land would yield a
rent of £ 10 on a capital of £ 100 or of 5/9s. per quarter of wheat.
Assume that a new piece of land is cultivated, which only yields 330 quarters with 120 labour weeks. If
the value of 3 quarters is £ 1, then that of 330 quarters is £ 110. But 1 quarter would now be equal to 2
days and 2 2/11hours, while before it was equal to only two days. Previously, 1 quarter was equal to
6 6/9s. or 1 quarter was equal to 6s. 8d.; now, since £ 1 equals 6 days, it is equal to 7s. 3d.
1 1/11 farthing. To be sold at its value the quarter would now have to be sold at 7d. 1 1/11 farthing more,
at this price it would also yield the rent of 5/9s. per quarter. The value of the wheat produced on the
better land is here below the value of that produced on the worst land. If this worst land sells at the
price per quarter of the next best or rent yielding land then it sells below its value but at its average
price, i.e., the price at which it yields the normal profit of 10 per cent. It can therefore be cultivated and
yield the normal average profit to the capitalist.
There are two situations in which the worst land would here yield a rent apart from profit.
Firstly if the value of the quarter of wheat were above 6 6/9s. (its price could be above 6 6/9s., i.e., above
its value, as a result of demand; but this does not concern us here. The 6 6/9s., the price per quarter,
which yielded a rent of £ 10 on the worst land cultivated previously, was equal to the value of the wheat
grown on this land, which yields a non-differential rent), that is [if] the worst land previously cultivated
and all others, while yielding the samerent, were proportionately less fertile, so that their value were
higher above their average price and the average price of the other commodities. That the new worst
land does not yield a rent is thus not due to its low fertility but to the relatively high fertility of the other
land. As against the new type of land with the new capital investment, the worst, [previously]
cultivated, rent-yielding lad represents rent in general, the non-differential rent. And that its rent is not
higher is due to the [high] fertility of the rent-yielding land.
Assume that there are three other classes of land besides the last rent-yielding land. Class II (that above
I, the last rent-yielding land) carries a rent of one-fifth more because this land is one-fifth more fertile
than class I; class III again one-fifth more because it is one-fifth more fertile than class II, and the same
again in class IV because it is a fifth more fertile than class III. Since the rent in class I equals £ 10, it is 10
+ 1/5 = £ 12 in class II, 12 + 1/5 =£ 142/5 in class III and 14 2/5 + 1/5 = £17 7/25 in class IV.
If IV’s fertility were less, the rent of III-I inclusive ||488 | would be greater and that of IV also greater
absolutely (but would the proportion be the same?). This can be taken in two ways. If I were more
fertile then the rent of II, III, JV would be proportionately smaller. On the other hand, I is to II, II is to III
and III is to IV as the newly added, non-rent-yielding type of land is to I. The new type of land does not
carry a rent because thevalue of the wheat from I is not above the average price [of that] from the new
land. It would be above it if I were less fertile. Then the new land would likewise yield a rent. But the
same applies to I, If II were more fertile then I would yield no rent or a smaller rent. And it is the same
with II and III and with III and IV, Finally we have the reverse: The absolute fertility of IV determines the
rent of III. If IV were yet more fertile, III, II, I would yield a smaller rent or no rent at all. Thus the rent
yielded by I, the undifferentiated rent, is determined by the fertility of IV, just as the circumstance that
the new land yields no rent is determined by the fertility of I. Accordingly, Storch’s law is valid here,
namely, that the rent of the most fertile land determines the rent of the last land to yield any rent at all,
and therefore also the difference between the land which yields the undifferentiated rent and that
which yields no rent at all.
Hence the phenomenon that here the fifth class, the newly cultivated land I’ (as opposed to I) yields no
rent, is not to be ascribed to its own lack of fertility, but to its relative lack of fertility compared with I,
therefore, to the relative fertility of I as compared with I’.
[Secondly ] The value [of the product] of the rent-yielding types of land I, II, III, IV, that is 6s. 8d. per
quarter (to make it more realistic, one could say bushel instead of quarter), equals the average price of I’
and is below its own value. Now many intermediary stages are in fact possible. Supposing on a capital
investment of £ 100, I’ yielded any quantity of quarters between its real return of 330 bushels and the
return of I which is 360 bushels, say 333, 340, 350 up to 360—x bushels. Then the value of the quarter
at 6s. 8d. would be above the average price of I’ (per bushel) and the last cultivated land would yield a
rent. That it yields the average profit at all, it owes to the relatively low fertility of I, and therefore of I-
IV. That it yields no rent, is due to the relatively high fertility of I and to its own relatively low
fertility. The last cultivated land I’ could yield a rent if the value of the bushel wereabove 6s. 8d., that is,
if I, II, III, IV were less fertile, for then the value of the wheat would be greater. It could however also
yield a rent if the value were given at 6s. 8d., i.e., if the fertility of I, II, III and IV were the same. This
would be the case if it were more fertile itself, yielded more than 330 bushels and if the value of 6s. 8d.
per bushel were thus above its average price; in other words, its average price would then be below 6s.
8d., and thereforebelow the value of the wheat grown on I, II, III, IV. If the value is above the average
price, then there is an excess profit above the average profit, hence the possibility of a rent.
This shows: When comparing different spheres of production—for instance industry and agriculture—
the fact that value is above average price indicates lower productivity in the sphere of production that
yields the excess profit, the excess of value over the average price. In the same sphere, on the other
hand, [it indicates] greater productivity of one capital in comparison with other capitals in the same
sphere of production. In the above example, I yields a rent, only because in agriculture the proportion
of variable capital to constant capital is greater than in industry, i.e., more new labour has to be added
to the materialised labour—and because of the existence of landed property this excess of
value over average price is not levelled out by competition between capitals. But that I yields a rent at
all is due to the fact that the value of 6s. 8d. per bushel is not below its average price, and that its
fertility is not so low that its own value rises above 6s. 8d. per bushel. Its price moreover
is not determined by its own value but by the value of the wheat grown on II, III, IV or, to be precise, by
that grown on II. Whether the market-price is merely equal to its own average price or stands above it,
and whether its value is above its average price, depends on its own productivity.
Hence Rodbertus’s view that in agriculture every capital which yields the average profit must yield rent
is wrong. This false conclusion follows from his ||489| false basis. He reasons like this: The capital in
agriculture, for instance, yields £ 10. But because, in contrast to industry, raw materials do not enter
into it, the £ 10 are reckoned on a smaller sum. They represent therefore more than 10 per cent. But
the point is this: It is not the absence of raw materials (on the contrary, they do enter into agriculture
proper; it wouldn’t matter a straw if they didn’t enter into it, provided machinery etc. increased
proportionally) which raises the value of the agricultural products above the average price (their own
and that of other commodities). Rather is this due to the higher proportion of variable to constant
capital compared with that existing, not in particular spheres of industrial production, but on an
average in industry as a whole. The magnitude of this general difference determines the amount and
the existence of rent on No. I, the absolute, non-differential rent and hence the smallest rent. The price
of wheat from I’, the newly cultivated land which does not yield a rent, is, however, not determined by
the value of its own product, but by the value of I, and consequently by the average market-price of the
wheat supplied by I, II, III and IV.
The privilege of agriculture (resulting from landed property), that it sells its product not at the average
price but at its value if this value is above the average price, is by no means valid for products grown on
different types of land as against one another, for products of different values produced within the
same sphere of production. As against industrial products, they can only claim to be sold at their
value. As against the other products of the same sphere, they are determined by the market-price, and
it depends on the fertility of I whether the value—which equals the average market-price here—is
sufficiently high or low, i.e., whether the fertility of I is sufficiently high or low, for I’, if it is sold
at this value, to participate little, much or not at all in the general difference between the value and the
average price of wheat. But, since Herr Rodbertus makes no distinction at all between values and
average prices, and since he considers it to be a general law for all commodities, and not a privilege of
agricultural products, that they are sold at their values—he must of course believe that the product of
the least fertile land has also to be sold at its individual value. But it loses this privilege in competition
with products of the same type.
Now it is possible for the average price of I’ to be above 6s. 8d. per bushel, the value of I. It can be
assumed (although this is not quite correct), that for land I’ to be cultivated at all, demand must
increase. The price of wheat from I must therefore rise above its value, above 6s. 8d., and indeed
persistently so. In this case land I’ will be cultivated, If it can make the average profit at 6s. 8d. although
its value is above 6s. 8d. and if it can satisfy demand, then the price will be reduced to 6s. 8d., since
demand now again corresponds to supply, and so I must sell at 6s. 8d. again, ditto II, III, IV; hence also
I’. If, on the other hand, the average price in I’ amounted to 7s. 8d. so that it could make the usual profit
at this price only (which would be far below its individual value) and if the demand could not be
otherwise satisfied, then the value of the bushel would have to consolidate itself at 7s. 8d. and the
demand price of I would rise above its value. That of II, III, IV, which is already above their individual
value, would rise even higher. If, on the other hand, there were prospects of grain imports which would
by no means permit of such a stabilisation, then I’ could nevertheless be cultivated if small farmers were
prepared to be satisfied with less than the average profit. This is constantly happening in both
agriculture and industry. Rent could be paid in this case just as when I’ yields the average profit, but it
would merely be a deduction from the farmer’s profit. If this could not be done either, then the
landlord could lease the land to cottagers whose main concern, like that of the hand-loom weaver, is to
get their wages out of it and to pay the surplus, large or small, to the landlord in the form of rent. As in
the case of the hand-loom weaver, this surplus could even be a mere deduction, not from the product of
labour, but from the wages of labour. In all these instances rent could be paid. In one case it would be
a deduction from the capitalist’s profit. In the other case, the landlord would appropriate the surplus-
labour of the worker which would otherwise be appropriated by the capitalist. And in the final case he
would live off the worker’s wage as the capitalists are also often wont to do. But large-scale capitalist
production is only possible where the last cultivated land yields at least the average profit, that is where
the value of I enables I, to realise at least the average price.
One can see how the differentiation between value and average price surprisingly solves the question
and shows that Ricardo and his opponents are right.
||XI-490| If I, the land which yields absolute rent, were the only cultivated land, then it would sell the
bushel of wheat at its value, at 6s. 8d. or 6 6/9s. and not reduce it to the average price of 6 1/9s. or 6s.
1 1/3d. If all land were of the same type and if the cultivated area increased tenfold, because demand
grew, then since I yields a rent of £10 per £100, the rent would grow to £ 100, although only a single
type of land existed. But its rate or level would not grow, neither compared with the capital
advanced nor compared with the area of land cultivated. Ten times as many acres would be cultivated
and ten times as much capital advanced. This would therefore merely be an augmentation of the rental,
of the volume of rent, not of its level. The rate of profit would not fall; for the value and price of the
agricultural products would remain the same. A capital which is ten times as large can naturally hand
over a rent which is ten times larger than a capital which is one-tenth its size. On the other hand, if ten
times as much capital were employed on the same area of land with the same result, then the rate of
rent compared with the capital laid out would have remained the same; it would have risen in
proportion to the area of land, but would not have altered the rate of profit in any way.
Now supposing the cultivation of I became more productive, not because the land had altered but
because more constant capital and less variable capital is being laid out, that is more capital is being
spent on machinery, horses, mineral fertilisers etc. and less on wages; then the value of wheat would
approach its average price and the average price of the industrial products, because the excess in the
ratio of variable to constant capital would have decreased. In this case rent would fall and the rate of
profit would remain unaltered. If the mode of production changed in such a way that the ratio of
variable to constant capital became the same as the average ratio in industry, then the excess of value
over the average price of wheat would disappear and with it rent, excess profit. Category I would no
longer pay a rent, and landed property would have become nominal (in so far as the altered mode of
production is not in fact accompanied by additional capital being embodied in the land, so that, on the
termination of the lease, the owner might draw interest on a capital which he himself had not advanced;
this is indeed a principal means by which landowners enrich themselves, and the dispute about
tenantry-right in Ireland revolves around this very point). Now if, besides I, there also existed II, III, IV, in
all of which this mode of production were applied, then they would still yield rents because of their
greater natural fertility and the rent would be in proportion to the degree of their fertility. Category I
would in this case have ceased to yield a rent and the rents of II, III, IV would have fallen accordingly,
because the general ratio of productivity in agriculture had become equal to that prevailing in
industry. The rent of II, III, IV would correspond with the Ricardian law; it would merely be equivalent
to, and would exist only as an excess profit of more fertile compared to less fertile land, like similar
excess profits in industry, except in the latter they lack the natural basis for consolidation.
The Ricardian law would prevail just the same, even if landed property were non-existent. With the
abolition of landed property and the retention of capitalist production, this excess profit arising from the
difference in fertility would remain. If the state appropriated the land and capitalist production
continued, then rent from II, III, IV would be paid to the state, but rent as such would remain. If landed
property became people’s property then the whole basis of capitalist production would go, the
foundation on which rests the confrontation of the worker by the conditions of labour as an
independent force.
A question which is to be later examined in connection with rent: How is it possible for rent to rise
in value and in amount, with more intensive cultivation, although the rate of rent falls in relation to the
capital advanced? This is obviously only possible because the amount of capital advanced rises. If rent
is 1/5 and it becomes 1/10, then 20 × 1/5 = 4 and 50 × 1/10 = 5. That’s all. But if conditions of production in
intensive cultivation became the same as those prevailing on an average in industry, instead of
only approximating to them, then rent for the least fertile land would disappear and for the most fertile
it would be reduced merely to the difference in the land. Absolute rent would no longer exist.
Now let us assume that, following upon a rise in demand, new land, II, were cultivated in addition to
I. Category I pays the absolute rent, II would pay a differential rent, but the price of wheat (value for I,
excess value for II) remains the same. The rate of profit, too, [is supposed] not to be affected, And so on
till we come to IV. Thus the level, the rate of rent is also rising if we take the total capital laid out in I, II,
III, IV. But the average rate of profit from II, III, IV would remain the same as that from I, which equals
that in industry, the general rate of profit. Thus if ||491| we go on to more fertile land, the amount and
rate of rent can grow, although the rate of profit remains unchanged and the price of wheat
constant. The rise in level and amount of rent would be due to the growing productivity of the capital in
II, III, IV, not to the diminishing productivity in I. But the growing productivity would not cause a rise in
profits and a fall both in the price of the commodity and in wages, as happens necessarily in industry.
Supposing, however, the reverse process took place: from IV to III, II, I, Then the price would rise to 6s.
8d. at which it would still yield a rent of £ 10 on £ 100 on I. For the rent of wheat on IV [amounts to] £
17 7/25 on £ 100, of which, however, 7 7/25 are the excess of its price over the value of I. Category I gave
360 bushels at £ 100 (with a rent of £ 10 and the value of the bushel at 6s. 8d.) . II—432 bushels. III—
518 2/5 bushels and IV—622 2/25 bushels. But the price per bushel of 6s. 8d yielded IV an excess rent of
7 7/25 per 100. IV sells 3 bushels for £ 1 or 622 2/25 bushels at £ 207 9/25. But its value is only £ 120, as in
I; whatever is above this amount is excess of its price over its value. IV would sell the bushel at its value
or rather, [he would sell it at its value] if he sold it, at 3s. 10 8/27d. and at this price he would have a rent
of £ 10 on £ 100. The movement from IV to III, III to II and II to I, causes the price per bushel (and with it
the rent) to rise until it eventually reaches 6s. 8d. with I, where this price now yields the same rent that
it previously yielded with IV. The rate of profit would fall with the rise in price, partly owing to the rise in
value of the means of subsistence and raw materials. The transition from IV to III could happen like this:
Due to demand, the price of IV rises above its value, hence it yields not only rent but excess
rent. Consequently III is cultivated which, with the normal average profit, is not supposed to yield a rent
at this price, If the rate of profit has not fallen as a result of the rise in price of IV, but wages, have, then
III will yield the average profit. But due to the [additional] supply from III, wages should rise to their
normal level again; (then] the rate of profit in III falls etc.
Thus the rate of profit falls with this downward movement on the assumptions which we have made,
namely, that III cannot yield a rent at the price of IV and that III can only be cultivated at the old rate of
profit because wages have momentarily fallen below their [normal] level.
Under these conditions [it is again possible for] the Ricardian law [to apply]. But not necessarily, even
according to his interpretation. It is merely possible in certain circumstances. In reality the movements
are contradictory.
This has disposed of the essence of the theory of rent.
With Herr Rodbertus, rent arises from eternal nature, at least of capitalist production, because of his
“value of the material”. In our view rent arises from an historical difference in the organic component
parts of capital which may be partially ironed out and indeed disappear completely, with the
development of agriculture. True, the difference in so far as it is merely due to variation in actual
fertility of the land remains even if the absolute rent disappeared. But—quite apart from the possible
ironing out of natural variations—differential rent is linked with the regulation of the market-price and
therefore disappears along with the price and with capitalist production. There would remain only the
fact that land of varying fertility is cultivated by social labour and, despite the difference in the amount
of labour employed, labour can become more productive on all types of land. But the amount of labour
used on the worse land would by no means result in more labour being paid for [the product] of the
better land as now with the bourgeois. Rather would the labour saved on IV be used for the
improvement of III and that saved from III for the improvement of II and finally that saved on II would be
used to improve I. Thus the whole of the capital eaten up by the landowners would serve to equalise
the labour used for the cultivation of the soil and to reduce the amount of labour in agriculture as a
whole.
||492| {Adam Smith, as we saw above, first correctly interprets value and the relation existing between
profit, wages, etc. as component parts of this value, and then he proceeds the other way round, regards
the prices of wages, profit and rent as antecedent factors and seeks to determine them independently,
in order then to compose the price of the commodity out of them. The meaning of this change of
approach is that first he grasps the problem in its inner relationships, and then in the reverse form, as it
appears in competition. These two concepts of his run counter to one another in his work, naively,
without his being aware of the contradiction. Ricardo, on the other hand, consciously abstracts from
the form of competition, from the appearance of competition, in order to comprehend the laws as
such. On the one hand he must be reproached for not going far enough, for not carrying his abstraction
to completion, for instance, when he analyses the value of the commodity, he at once allows himself to
be influenced by consideration of all kinds of concrete conditions. On the other hand one must
reproach him for regarding the phenomenal form as immediate and direct proof or exposition of the
general laws, and for failing to interpret it. In regard to the first, his abstraction is too incomplete; in
regard to the second, it is formal abstraction which in itself is wrong.}
[10. Rate of Rent and Rate of Profit. Relation Between Productivity in Agriculture and in Industry in
the Different Stages of Historical Development]
Now to return briefly to the remainder of Rodbertus.
“The increase in wages, capital gain and ground-rent respectively, which arises from the increase in the
value of the national product can raise neither the wages nor the capital gain of the nation, since more
wages are now distributed among more workers and a greater amount of capital gain accrues to capital
increased in the same proportion; ground-rent, on the other hand, must rise since this always accrues to
land whose area has remained the same. It is thus possible to explain satisfactorily the great rise in land
value, which is nothing other than ground-rent capitalised at the normal rate of interest, without having
to resort to a fall in productivity of agricultural labour, which is diametrically opposed to the idea of the
perfectibility of human society and to all agricultural and statistical facts” (pp. 160–61).
First of all it should be noted that Ricardo [at whom this passage is aimed] nowhere seeks to explain the
“great rise in land value”. This is no problem at all for him. He says further, and Ricardo even noted this
explicitly (see later in connection with Ricardo), that—given the rate of rent—rent can increase with a
constant value of corn or agricultural produce. This increase again presents no problem for him. The
rise in the rental while the rate of rent remains the same, is no problem for him either. His problem lies
in the rise in the rate of rent, i.e., rent in proportion to the agricultural capital advanced, and hence the
rise in value not of the amount of agricultural produce, but the rise in the value, for example, of the
quarter of wheat, i.e., of the same quantity of agricultural produce; in consequence of this the excess of
its value over the average price increases and thereby also the excess of rent over the rate of
profit. Herr Rodbertus here begs the Ricardian problem (to say nothing of his erroneous “value of the
material”).
The rate of rent can indeed rise relatively to the capital advanced, in other words, the relative value of
the agricultural product can rise in proportion to the industrial product, even though agriculture is
constantly becoming more productive. And this can happen for two reasons.
Firstly take the above example, the transition from I to II, III, IV, i.e., to ever more fertile land (but where
the additional supply is not so great as to throw I out of cultivation or to reduce the difference between
value and average price to such an extent that IV, III, II pay relatively lower rents and I no rent at all). If
I’s rent amounts to 10, II’s to 20, III’s to 30 and IV’s to 40 and if £ 100 are invested in all four types of
land, then I’s rent would be1/10 or 10 per cent on the capital advanced, II’s would be 2/10 or 20 per cent,
III’s would be 3/10 or 30 per cent and IV’s rent would be 4/10 or 40 per cent. Altogether £ 100 on 400
capital advanced, which gives an average rate of rent of 100/4=25 per cent. Taking the entire capital
invested in agriculture, the rent amounts now to 25 per cent. Had only the cultivation of land I (the
unfertile land) been extended, then the rent would be 40 on 400, 10 per cent just as before, and it
would not have risen by 15 per cent. But in the first case (if 330 bushels resulted from an outlay of £
100 on I) only 1,320 bushels would have been produced at the price of 6s. 8d. per bushel. In the second
case [i.e., when all four classes of land are cultivated], 1,500 bushels have been produced at the same
price. The same capital has been advanced in both cases.
But the rise in the level of the rent here is only apparent. For if we calculate the capital outlay in relation
to the product, then 100 [would have been] needed in I to produce 330 and 400 to
produce 1,320 bushels. But now only 100+90+80+70, i.e., £ 340 are needed to produce 1,320 bushels. £
90 in II produce as much as 100 in I, 80 in III as much as 90 in II and 70 in IV as much as 80 in III. The rate
of rent [has] risen in II, III, IV, compared with I.
If we take society as a whole, it means that a capital of 340 [was] employed to raise the same product,
instead of a capital of 400, that is 85 per cent [of the previous] capital.
||493| The 1,320 bushels [would] only be distributed, in a different way from those in the first
case. The farmer must hand over as much on 90 as previously on 100, as much on 80 as previously on
90 and as much on 70 as previously on 80. But the capital outlay of 90, 80, 70, gives him just the same
amount of product as he previously obtained on 100. He hands over more, not because he must employ
more capital in order to supply the same product, but because he employs less capital; not because his
capital has become less productive, but because it has become more productive and he is still selling at
the price of I, as though he still required the same capital as before in order to produce the same
quantity of product.
[Secondly.] Apart from this rise in the rate of rent—which corresponds to the uneven rise in excess profit
in individual branches of industry, though here it does not become fixed— there is only one other
possibility of the rate of rent rising although the value of the product remains the same, that is, labour
does not become less productive. It occurs either when productivity in agriculture remains the same as
before but productivity in industry rises and this rise expresses itself in a fall in the rate of profit, in other
words when the ratio of variable to constant capital diminishes. Or, alternatively, when productivity is
rising in agriculture as well though not at the same rate as in industry but at a lower rate. If productivity
in agriculture rises as 1:2 and in industry as 1:4, then it is relatively the same as if it had remained at one
in agriculture and had doubled in industry, In this case the ratio of variable capital to constant capital
would be decreasing in industry twice as fast as in agriculture.
In both cases the rate of profit in industry would fall, and because it fell the rate of rent would rise. In
the other instances the rate of profit does not fall absolutely (rather it remains constant) but it falls
relatively to rent. It does so not because it itself is decreasing but because rent, the rate of rent in
relation to the capital advanced, is rising.
Ricardo does not differentiate between these cases. Except in these cases (that is where the rate of
profit, although constant, falls relatively because of the differential rents of the capital employed on the
more fertile types of land or where the general ratio of constant to variable capital alters as a result of
the increased productivity of industry and hence increases the excess of value of agricultural products
above their average price) the rate of rent can only rise if the rate of profit falls without industry
becoming more productive. This is, however, only possible if wages rise or if raw material rises in value
as a result of the lower productivity of agriculture. In this case both the fall in the rate of profit and the
rise in the level of rent are brought about by the same cause—the decrease in the productivity of
agriculture and of the capital employed in agriculture. This is how Ricardo sees it. With the value of
moneyremaining the same, this must then show itself in a rise in the prices of the raw products. If, as
above, the rise is relative, then no change in the price of money can raise the money prices of
agricultural products absolutely as compared with industrial products. If money fell by 50 per cent then
l quarter which was previously worth £ 3 would now be worth £ 6, but 1 lb. yarn which was previously
worth 1s. would now be worth 2s. The absolute rise in the money prices of agricultural products
compared with industrial products can therefore never be explained by changes in [the value of] money.
On the whole it can be assumed that under the cruder, pre-capitalist mode of production, agriculture
is more productive than industry, because nature assists here as a machine and an organism, whereas
in industry the powers of nature are still almost entirely replaced by human action (as in the craft type
of industry etc.). In the period of the stormy growth of capitalist production, productivity in industry
develops rapidly as compared with agriculture, although its development presupposes that a significant
change as between constant and variable capital has already taken place in agriculture, that is, a large
number of people have been driven off the land. Later, productivity advances in both, although at a
uneven pace. But when industry reaches a certain level the disproportion must diminish, in other
words, productivity in agriculture must increase relatively more rapidly than in industry. This requires:
1. The replacement of the easy-going farmer by the businessman, the fanning capitalist; transformation
of the husbandman into a pure wage-labourer; large-scale agriculture, i.e., with concentrated
capitals. 2. In particular however: Mechanics, the really scientific basis of large-scale industry, had
reached a certain degree of perfection during the eighteenth century. The development of chemistry,
geology and physiology, the sciences thatdirectly form the specific basis of agriculture rather than of
industry, ||494| does not take place till the nineteenth century and especially the later decades.
It is nonsense to talk of the greater or lesser productivity of two different branches of industry when
merely comparing the values of their commodities. If, [in] 1800, the pound of cotton was 2s. and of yarn
4s., and if, in 1830, the value of cotton was 2s. or 18d. and that of yarn 3s. or 1s. 8d. then one might
compare the proportion in which the productivity in both branches had grown—but only because the
rate of 1800 is taken as the starting-point. On the other hand, because the pound of cotton is 2s, and
that of yarn is 3, and hence the labour which produces the cotton is as great again as the [newly-added
labour] of spinning, it would be absurd to say that the one is twice as productive as the other. Just as
absurd as it would be to say that because canvas can be made more cheaply than the artist’s painting on
the canvas, the labour of the latter is less productive than that of the former.
Only the following is correct, even if it comprises the capitalist meaning of productive—productive of
surplus-value along with the relative amounts of the product:
If, on an average, according to the conditions of production, £ 500 is needed in the form of raw material
and machinery etc.<at given values> in order to employ 100 workers [whose wages] amount to £ 100 in
the cotton industry, and, on the other hand, £ 150 is needed for raw materials and machinery in order to
employ 100 workers [whose wages] amount to £ 100, in the cultivation of wheat, then the variable
capital in I would form 1/6 of the total capital of £ 600, and 1/5 of the constant capital; in II, the variable
capital would constitute 2/5 of the total capital of £ 250 and 2/3 of constant capital. Thus every £ 100
which is laid out in I can only contain £ 16 2/3 variable capital and must contain £ 83 1/3 constant capital;
whereas in II it comprises £ 40 of variable capital and £ 60 of constant, In I, variable capital forms 1/6 or
16 2/3 per cent and in II, 40 per cent. Clearly the histories of prices are at present quite wretched. And
they can be nothing but wretched until theory shows what needs to be examined. If the rate of surplus-
value were given at, say, 20 per cent then the surplus-value in I would amount to £ 3 1/3 (hence
profit 31/3 per cent). In II, however, £8 (hence profit 8 per cent). Labour in I would not be so productive
as in II because it would be more productive (in other words, not so productive of surplus-value,
because it is more productive of produce). Incidentally, it is cleary only possible to have a ratio of 1 :1/6,
for example, in the cotton industry, if a constant capital (this depends on the machines etc.) amounting
to say £ 10,000 has been laid out, hence wages amounting to 2,000, making a total capital of 12,000. If
only 6,000 were laid out, of which wages would be 1,000, then the machinery would be less productive
etc. At 100 it could not be done at all. On the other had it is possible that if £ 23,000 is laid out, the
resulting increase in the efficiency of the machinery and other economies etc. are so great that the £
19,166 2/3 is not entirely allocated to constant capital, but that more raw material and the same amount
of labour require less machinery etc. ([in terms of] value) which is assumed to cost £ 1,000 less than
before. Then the ratio of variable to constant capital grows again, but only because the absolute
[amount of] capital has grown. This is a check against the fall in the rate of profit. Two capitals of
12,000 would produce the same quantity of commodities as the one of 23,000, but firstly the
commodities would be dearer since they required an outlay of £ 1,000 more, and secondly the rate of
profit would be smaller because within the capital of £ 23,000, the variable capital is more than 1/6 of
the total capital, i.e., more than in the sum of the two capitals of £ 12,000. |494||
||494| (On the one hand, with the advance of industry, machinery becomes more effective and
cheaper; hence, if only the same quantify of machinery were employed as in the past, this part of
constant capital in agriculture would diminish; but the quantity of machinery grows faster than the
reduction in its price, since this element is as yet little developed in agriculture. On the other hand, with
the greater productivity of agriculture, the price of raw material—see cotton—falls, so that raw material
does not increase as a component part of the process of creating value to the same degree as it
increases as a component part of the labour-process.) |494||
* * *
||494| Already Petty tells us that the Landlord of his time feared improvements in agriculture because
they would cause the price of agricultural products and (the level of) rent to fall; ditto the extension of
the land and the cultivation of previously unused land which is equivalent to an extension of the
land. (In Holland this extension of the land is to be understood in an even more direct way.) He says:
“…that the draining of Fens, improving of Forestsa, inclosing of Commons, Sowing of St. Foyne and
Clovergrass, be grumbled against by Landlords, as the way to depress the Price ofVictuals([William
Petty+, “Political Arithmetick” *in: Several Essays in Political Arithmetick,] London, 1699, p. 230.)
(“…the Rent of all England *…+ Wales, and the Low-Lands of Scotland, be about Nine Millions per
Annum ) (Ibid., p. 231.)
Petty fights this view and D’Avenant goes ||495| even further and shows how the level of rent may
decrease while the amount of rent or the rental increases, He says:
“Rents may fall in some Places, and Counties, and yet the Land of the Nation” (he means value of the
land) “improve all the while: As for Example, when Parks are dispark’d, and Forests, and Commons are
taken in, and enclos’d; when Fen-Lands are drein’d, and when many Parts” (of the country) “are
meliorated by Industry, and manuring[e] it must certainly depretiate that Ground which has been
Improv’d to the full before, or[f] c was capable of no farther Improvement *…+ the Rental[g] of private
Men does thereby sink, yet the general Rental[h] of the Kingdom by such Improvements, at the same
time rises.” (Charles D’Avenant, Discourses on the Publick Revenues, and on the Trade of England, Part II,
London, 1698, pp. 26–27.)”… fall in private Rents from 1666 to 1688 *…+ but the Rise in the Kingdomes
general Rental was greater in Proportion during that time, than in the preceeding Years, because the
Improvements upon Land were greater and more universal, between those two Periods, than at any
time before (l.c. p. 28).
It is also evident here, that the Englishman always regards the levef of rent as rent related to capital and
never to the total land in the kingdom (or to the acre in general, like Herr Rodbertus).
[a] Instead of “of the towns has therefore become” in the manuscript: “In Dutch towns is”.—Ed.
[b] Instead of “and the” in the manuscript: “on”.—Ed
* ||486| <As Opdyke calls landed property “the legalised reflection of the capital”, so “capital is the
legalised reflection of other people’s labour”.> |486||
[c] Instead of “reflection of the capital” in the manuscript: “reflection of the value of capital”.—Ed.
[d] In the manuscript: “woods”.—Ed.
[e] In the manuscript: “manufacturing” instead of “manuring”.—Ed.
[f] In the manuscript: “and” instead of “or”.—Ed.
[g] In the manuscript: “income from rent” instead of “Rental”.—Ed.
[h] In the manuscript: “rent” instead of “Rental”.—Ed.
Theories of Surplus Value, Marx 1861-3
[Chapter XI] Ricardo’s Theory of Rent.
[1. Historical Conditions for the Development of the Theory of Rent
by Anderson and Ricardo]
The main points were dealt with when discussing Rodbertus. Just a few more gleanings here.
Firstly, some comments on the historical aspect:
Ricardo was first of all concerned with the period 1770-1815, which came approximately within his own
experience, and during which wheat prices were constantly rising. Anderson [on the other hand] was
concerned with the eighteenth century, at the close of which he was writing. During the first half of that
century wheat prices were falling and during the second half they were rising. Hence for Anderson, the
law he discovered was in no way connected with a diminishing productivity of agriculture or a normal
<for Anderson an unnatural> rise in the price of the product. For Ricardo however such a connection
existed. Anderson believed that the abolition of the corn laws (at that time export premiums) caused
the rise in prices during the second half of the eighteenth century. Ricardo knew that the introduction
of corn laws (1815) was intended to prevent the fall in prices, and to a certain degree was bound to do
so. With regard to the latter [it was] therefore necessary to point out that, if left to itself, the law of
rent—within a definite territory—was bound to result in recourse to less fertile land, thus leading to
dearer agricultural products and increased rent at the cost of industry and the mass of the
population. And here Ricardo was right, both historically and in practice. Anderson on the other hand
[maintained] that corn laws (and he also favours a duty on imports) must further the even development
of agriculture within a definite territory and that for this even development agriculture needs
security. Consequently he [maintained] that this progressive development in itself—through the law of
rent he discovered—would lead to increased productivity in agriculture and thereby to a fall in the
average prices of agricultural produce.
Both of them, however, start out from the viewpoint which, on the continent, seems so
strange: 1. That there is no Landed property to shackle any desired investment of capital in
land. 2. That expansion takes place from better land to worse (this process is absolute for Ricardo,
provided one leaves out of account the interruptions caused by the response of science and industry; for
Anderson the worse land is in turn transformed into better land and so it is relative). 3. That a sufficient
amount of capital is always available for investment in agriculture.
Now so far as 1. and 2. are concerned, it must seem very odd to the continentals, that in the country in
which, according to their conception, feudal landed property has maintained itself most stubbornly, the
economists, Anderson as well as Ricardo, start out from the conception that no landed property
exists. The explanation for this is:
firstly: the peculiarity of the English “law of enclosures”, which is in no way analogous with the
continental portioning out of common land;
secondly: nowhere in the world has capitalist production, since Henry VII, dealt so ruthlessly with the
traditional relations of agriculture, adapting and subordinating the conditions to its own
requirements. In this respect England is the most revolutionary country in the world. Wherever the
conditions handed down from history were at variance with, or did not correspond to, the requirements
of capitalist production on the land, they were ruthlessly swept away; this applies not only to the
position of the village communities but to the village communities themselves, not only to the habitats
of the agricultural population but to the agricultural population itself, not only to the original centres of
cultivation, but to cultivation itself. The German, for example, meets with economic relations that are
determined by traditional circumstances such as land boundaries, the position of the economic centres,
given conglomerations of the population. The Englishman meets with historical conditions of agriculture
which have been progressively created by capital since the end of the 15th century. “Clearing of
estates”, a technical term *well-known] in the United Kingdom, will not be found in any continental
country. But what is the meaning of this “clearing of estates”? It means that without any consideration
for the local inhabitants, who are driven away, for existing village communities, which are obliterated,
for agricultural buildings, which are torn down, for the type of agriculture, which is transformed in one
fell swoop, for instance arable land converted into grazing pasture—[in short] none of the conditions of
production are accepted as they have traditionally existed but are historically transformed in such a way
that under the circumstances, they will provide the most profitable investment for capital. To that
extent, therefore, no landed property exists; it gives capital—i.e., the farmer—full scope, since it is only
concerned with monetary income. A Pomeranian landowner, therefore, with his head full of ancestral
land boundaries, centres of economy and lectures on agriculture etc., may well be amazed by Ricardo’s
“unhistorical” view of the ||561| development of conditions in agriculture. This shows merely that he
naïvely confuses Pomeranian conditions with those prevailing in England. But it cannot be said that
Ricardo, who in this case starts from the conditions in England, is just as narrow-minded as the
Pomeranian landowner, who can think only in terms of Pomeranian conditions. English conditions are
the only ones in which modern landownership, i.e., landownership which has been modified by capitalist
production, has been adequately developed. For the modern—the capitalist—mode of production, the
English view is here the classical view. The Pomeranian, on the other hand, judges the developed
relations from a historically lower and as yet inadequate form.
Indeed, most of Ricardo’s continental critics even take as their starting-point conditions in which the
capitalist mode of production, adequate or inadequate, does not as yet exist at all. It is as if a guild-
master wanted, lock, stock and barrel, to apply Adam Smith’s laws—which presuppose free
competition—to his guild economy.
The presupposition of the movement from better to worse land—relatively to the particular stage in the
development of the productive power of labour as with Anderson, and not absolutely as with Ricardo—
could only arise in a country such as England, where within a relatively very small territory capital has
farmed so ruthlessly and has for centuries mercilessly sought to adapt to its own needs all traditional
relationships of agriculture. Thus it [the presupposition] could only arise where, unlike the continent,
capitalist production in agriculture does not date from yesterday and does not have to fight against old
traditions.
A second factor influencing the English was the knowledge they gained through their colonies. We have
seen that Adam Smith’s work—with direct reference to the colonies—already contains the basis for the
entire Ricardian viewpoint. In these colonies, and especially in those which produced only merchandise
such as tobacco, cotton, sugar etc. and not the usual foodstuffs, where, right from the start, the
colonists did not seek subsistence but set up a business, fertility was of course decisive, given the
situation [of the land], and given the fertility, the situation of the land was decisive. They did not act like
the Germans, who settled in Germany in order to make their home there, but like people who, driven by
motives of bourgeois production, wanted to produce commodities, and their point of view was, from the
outset, determined not by the product but by the sale of the product. That Ricardoand other English
writers transferred this point of view—which emanated from people who were themselves already the
product of the capitalist mode of production—from the colonies to the course of world history and that
they took the capitalist mode of production as a premise for agriculture in general, as it was
for their colonists, is due to the fact that they saw in these colonies, only in more obvious form, without
the fight against traditional relations, and therefore untarnished, the same domination of capitalist
production in agriculture as hits the eye everywhere in their own country. Hence, if a German professor
or landowner—belonging to a country which differs from all others in its complete lack of colonies—
considers such a view to be “false”, then this is quite understandable.
Finally the presupposition of a continuous flow of capital from one sphere of production into another,
this basic assumption of Ricardo’s amounts to nothing more than the assumption that developed
capitalist production predominates. Where this domination is not yet established, this presupposition
does not exist. For instance, a Pomeranian landowner will find it strange that neither Ricardo nor
indeed any English writer ever suspects that agriculture might lack capital. The Englishman does,
indeed, complain of lack of land in proportion to capital, but never of a lack of capital in proportion to
the land. Wakefield, Chalmers, etc. try to explain the fall in the rate of profit from the former
circumstance. The latter does not exist for any English writer; Corbet notes as a self-explanatory fact,
that capital is always redundant in all branches of production. On the other hand, bearing in mind the
situation in Germany, the landowner’s difficulties in borrowing money—because mostly it is the
landowner himself who cultivates the land and not a capitalist class which is quite independent of him—
it is understandable that Herr Rodbertus, for example, is surprised at “the Ricardian fiction, that
the supply of capital is regulated by the desire to invest it”. ([Sociale Briefe an v. Kirchmann. Dritter
Brief, Berlin, 1851] p. 211.) What the Englishman lacks is a “field of action”, opportunity for investment
of the available stock of capital. But a “desire for capital” to “invest”, on the part of the only class which
has capital to invest—the capitalist class—this does not exist in England.
||562| This “desire for capital” is Pomeranian.
The objection made by English writers against Ricardo was not that capital was not available in any
desired quantity for particular investments, but that the return flow of capital from agriculture
encountered specific technical etc. obstacles.
This kind of critical-continental censoriousness of Ricardo, therefore, only shows the lower stage in the
conditions of production from which these “sages” start out.
[2. The Connection Between Ricardo’s Theory of Rent and His Explanation of Cost-Prices]
Now to the matter in hand.
In the first place, in order to isolate the problem, we must leave aside entirely differential rent,
which alone exists for Ricardo. By differential rent I understand the difference in the magnitude of
rent—the greater or smaller rent which is due to the different fertility of the various types of
land. (Given equal fertility, differential rent can only arise from differences in the amounts of capital
invested. This case does not exist for our problem and does not affect it.) This differential rent merely
corresponds to the excess profits which, given the market-price or, more correctly, the market-value,
will be made in every branch of industry, for example cotton spinning, bythat capitalist whose
conditions of production are better than the average conditions of this particular trade. For the value of
the commodity of a particular sphere of production is determined, not by the quantity of labourwhich
the individual commodity costs, but by the quantity which the commodity costs that is produced under
the average conditions of the sphere. Manufacture and agriculture only differ from one another here in
that in the one, the excess profits fall into the pocket of the capitalist himself, whereas in the other they
are pocketed by the landowner, and furthermore, that in the former they are f l u i d, they are not
lasting, are made by this capitalist or that, and always disappear again, while in the latter they become
fixed because of their enduring (at least for a long period) natural basis in the variations in the land.
This differential rent must therefore be left out of account, but it should be noted that it may exist not
only when a movement from better to inferior land takes place but also from inferior to better land. In
both cases the only requirement is that the newly cultivated land is necessary but at the same time only
just sufficient to satisfy the additional demand. If the newly cultivated, better land were more than
sufficient to satisfy the additional demand then, according to the volume of the additional demand, part
or all of the inferior land would be thrown out of cultivation or, at any rate, out of cultivation of that
product which forms the basis of the agricultural rent, i.e., in England of wheat and in India of rice. Thus
differential rent does not presuppose a progressive deterioration of agriculture, but can equally well
spring from a progressive improvement in it. Even where it is based on the descent to worse types of
land, firstly this descent may be due to an improvement in the productive forces of agriculture, in that
the cultivation of the worse land, at the price which is set by demand, is only made possible by greater
productive power. Secondly, the worse land can be improved; the differences will nevertheless remain,
although they will become smaller, so that as a result there is only a relative, comparative decrease in
productivity— whereas absolute productivity increases. This was in fact the presupposition made by
Anderson, the original author of the Ricardian law.
Then, in the second instance, only the agricultural rent in the strict sense should be considered here, in
other words the rent of the land which supplies the chief vegetable foods. Smith has already explained
that the rents of land which supplies the other products, such as stock-raising etc., are determined
by that rent; that they are themselves derived, determined by the law of rent and not determining it. In
themselves therefore these rents do not furnish any useful material for the understanding of the law of
rent in its original, pure condition: There is nothing primary about them.
This settled, the question is reduced to the following: Does an absolute rent exist? That is, a rent which
arises from the fact that capital is invested in agriculture rather than manufacture; a rent which is quite
independent ofdifferential rent or excess profits which are yielded by capital invested in better land?
It is clear that Ricardo correctly answers this question in the negative, since he starts from the
false assumption that values and average prices of commodities are identical, If this were the case, it
would be a tautology to say that the price of agricultural products is above their cost-price—when
||563| the constant price of agricultural products yields, beyond the average profits, also an extra rent,
a constant surplus over and above the average profit—for this cost-price equals the advances plus the
average profit and nothing else. Were the prices of agricultural products to stand above their cost-
prices, and always to yield an excess profit, they would consequently standabove their value. There
would be no alternative but to assume that agricultural products are perpetually sold above their value,
which, however, equally presupposes that all other products are sold below their value, or that value in
general is something quite different from that which the theory requires it to be. Taking into account all
compensations which take place between the different capitals owing to differences arising from the
process of circulation,the same quantity of labour (immediate and accumulated) would produce
a higher value in agriculture than in manufacture. The value of the commodity would therefore not be
determined by the quantity of labour contained in it. The whole foundation of political economy would
thus be thrown overboard. Ergo, Ricardo rightly concludes: no absolute rents. Only differential rent is
possible; in other words the value of the agricultural product grown on the worst land equals the cost-
price of the product, as [with] every other commodity, [this is equal to its] value. The capital invested in
the worst land differs from capital invested in manufacture only by the type of investment, by its being a
particular species of investment. Here therefore the universal validity of the law of value becomes
apparent. Differential rent—and this is the sole rent on better land—is nothing but the excess profit
yielded by capitals employed in above-average conditions owing to the [establishment of] one identical
market-value in every sphere of production. This excess profit consolidates itself only in agriculture
because of its natural basis and, furthermore, the excess profit flows not into the pocket of the capitalist
but into that of the landowner since it is the landowner who represents this natural basis.
The entire argument collapses together with Ricardo’s assumption, that cost-
price equals value. The theoretical interest which forces him into a denial of absolute rent disappears. If
the value of the commodities differs from their cost-price, then they necessarily fall into three
categories. In the first category, cost-price is equal to the value of the commodity, in the second, the
value is below its cost-price and in the third it is above its cost-price. The fact, therefore, that
the price of the agricultural product yields a rent, only shows that the agricultural product belongs to
that group of commodities whose value is above their cost-price. The only remaining problem requiring
solution would be: why, in contrast to other commodities whose value is also above their cost-price,
competition between capitals does not reduce the value of agricultural products to their cost-price. The
question already contains the answer. Because, according to the presupposition, this can only happen
in so far as the competition between capitals is able to effect such an equalisation, and this in turn can
only occur to the extent that all the conditions of production are either directly created by capital or are
equally—elementally—at its disposal as if it had created them. With land this is not the case,
because landed property exists and capitalist production starts its career on the presupposition of landed
property, which is not its own creation, but which was already there before it. The mere existence of
landed property thus answers the question. All that capital can do is to subject agriculture to the
conditions of capitalist production. But it cannot deprive landed property of its hold on that part of the
agricultural product which capital could appropriate—not through its own action—but only on the
assumption of the non-existence of landed property. Since landed property exists, capital must however
leave the excess of value over cost-price to the landowner. But this difference [between value and cost-
price] itself only arises from a difference in the composition of the organic component parts of
capital. All commodities whose value, in accordance with this organic composition, is above the cost-
price, thereby show that the labour expended on them is relatively less productive than that expended
on the commodities whose value is equal to the cost-price and even less productive than that expended
on the commodities whose value is below the cost-price; for they require a greater quantity
of immediate labour in proportion to the past labour contained in the constant capital; they require
more labour in order to set in motion a definite capital. This is a historical difference and can therefore
disappear. The same chain of reasoning which demonstrates the possibility of the existence of absolute
rent, shows its reality, its existence, as a purely historical fact, which belongs to a certain stage of
development of agriculture and which may disappear at a higher stage.
Ricardo explained differential rent from an absolute decrease in productivity in agriculture. Differential
rent does not presuppose this, nor does Anderson make this assumption. On the other hand Ricardo
denies the existence of absolute rent because he ||564| assumes the organic composition of capital to
be the same in industry and agriculture and so denies the purely historical fact of the lower
development of the productive power of labour in agriculture as compared with manufacture. Hence lie
falls into a twofold historical error: On the one hand, he assumes that the productivity of labour in
agriculture is absolutely the same as in industry, thus denying a purely historical difference in their
actual stage of development. On the other hand, he assumes an absolute decrease in the productivity of
agriculture and regards this as its law of development. He does the one in order to make cost-price on
the worst land equal value and he does the other in order to explain the differences between the cost-
prices [of the products] of the better kinds of land and their values. The whole blunder originates in the
confusion of cost-price with value.
Thus the Ricardian theory is disposed of. The rest was dealt with earlier, in the chapter on Rodbertus.
[3. The Inadequacy of the Ricardian Definition of Rent]
I have already indicated that Ricardo opens the chapter by stating that it is necessary to examine
“whether the appropriation of land, and the consequent creation of rent” (*David Ricardo, On the
Principles of Political Economy, and Taxation, third edition, London, 1821], p. 53) do not interfere with
the determination of value by labour-time. And he says later:
“Adam Smith… cannot be correct in supposing that the original rule which regulated the exchangeable
value of commodities, namely, the comparative quantity of labour by which they were produced, can be
at all altered by the appropriation of land and the payment of rent” (l.c., p. 67).
This direct and conscious connection which Ricardo’s theory of rent has with the determination of
value is its theoretical merit. Apart from that this Chapter II “On Rent” is rather inferior to West’s
exposition. It contains much that is queer, petitio principii and unfair dealing with the problem.
Actual agricultural rent, which Ricardo justifiably here treats as rent proper, is that which is paid for the
permission to invest capital, to produce capitalistically, in the element land. Here land is the element of
production. This does not apply, for example, to rent for buildings, waterfalls etc. The powers of nature
which are paid for in these cases enter into production as a condition, be it as productive power or
as sine qua non, but they are not the element in which this particular branch of production is carried
on. Again, in rents for mines, coal-mines etc., the earth is the reservoir, from whose bowels the use-
values are to be torn. In this case payment is made for the land, not because it is the element in which
production is to take place, as in agriculture, not because it enters into production as one of the
conditions of production, as in the case of the waterfall or the building site, but because it is a reservoir
containing the use-values, which are to be got hold of through industry.
Ricardo’s explanation that:
“Rent is that portion of the produce of the earth, which is paid to the landlord for the use of
the original and indestructible powers of the soil” (l.c., p. 53)
is poor. Firstly, the soil has no “indestructible powers”. (A note on this is to follow at the end of this
chapter.) Secondly, it has no “original” powers either, since the land is in no way “original”, but rather
the product of an historical and natural process. But let that pass. By “original” powers of the land we
understand here those, which it possesses independently of the action of human industry, although, on
the other hand, the powers given to it by human industry, become just as much its original powers as
those given to it by the process of nature. Apart from this, it is correct to say that rent is a payment for
the “use” of natural things, irrespective of whether it is for the use of the “original powers” of the soil or
of the power of the waterfall or of land for building or of the treasures to be found in the water or in the
bowels of the earth.
As distinct from the agricultural rent proper, Adam Smith (says Ricardo) speaks of the rent paid for wood
from virgin forests, rent of coal-mines and stone-quarries. The way in which Ricardo disposes of this is
rather strange.
He begins by saying that the rent of land must not be confused with the interest and profit of capital
(l.c., p. 53), that is:
“capital *…+ employed in ameliorating the quality of the land, and in erecting such buildings as were
necessary to secure and preserve the produce” (l.c., p. 54).
From this he immediately [passes on] to the above-mentioned examples from Adam Smith. With regard
to virgin forests:
“Is it not, however, evident, that the person who paid what he” (Adam Smith) “calls rent, paid it in
consideration of the valuable commodity which was then standing on the land, and that he
actuallyrepaid himself with a profit, by the sale of the timber?” (l.c., p. 54).
Similarly with the stone-quarries and coal-mines.
“… the compensation ||565| *…+ for the mine or quarry, is paid for the value of the coal or stone which
can be removed from them, and has no connection with the original and indestructible powers of the
land. This is a distinction of great importance, in an enquiry concerning rent and profits; for it is found,
that the laws which regulate the progress of rent, are widely different from those which regulate the
progress of profits, and seldom operate in the same direction” (l.c., pp. 54-55).
This is very strange logic. One must distinguish rent paid to the owner of the land for the use of the
“original and indestructible powers of the soil” from the interest and profit which is paid to him for the
capital he has invested in ameliorating the land, etc. The “compensation” which is paid to the owner of
naturally-grown forests for the right to “remove” wood, or to the owner of stone-quarries and coal-
mines for the right to remove stones and coal, is not rent, because it is not a payment for the “use of the
original and indestructible powers of the soil”. Very well. But Ricardo argues as though this
“compensation” were the same as the profit and interest which are paid for capital invested in
ameliorations of the land. But this is wrong. Has the owner of a “virgin forest” invested “capital” in it so
that it may bear “wood” or has the owner of stone-quarries and coal-mines invested “capital” in these,
so that they may contain “stones” and “coal”? Whence, therefore, his “compensation”? It is by no
means—as Ricardo tries to make out—profit or interest of capital. Therefore it is “rent” and nothing
else, even if it is notrent as defined by Ricardo. But this only shows that his definition of rent excludes
those forms of it where the “compensation” is paid for mere natural things, in which no human labour is
embodied, and where it is paid to theowner of these natural things only because he is the “owner”, the
owner of land, whether this consists of soil, forest, fish pond, waterfall, building land or anything
else. But, says Ricardo, the man who paid for the right to fell trees in the forest, paid “in consideration
of the valuable commodity which was then standing on the land and […] actually repaid himself with a
profit, by the sale of the timber” *p. 54+. Stop! When Ricardo here calls the wood, i.e., the trees
“standing on the land” in the virgin forest a “valuable commodity”, then this means only that it is
potentially a use-value. And this use-value is expressed here in the word “valuable”. But it is not a
“commodity”. Because for this it would, at the same time, have to be exchange-value, in other words,
to contain a certain quantity of labour expended upon it. It only becomes a commodity by being
separated from the virgin forest, by being felled, removed and transported—by being transformed from
wood into timber. Or does it only become a commodity by the fact it is sold? Then arable land too
becomes a commodity by the mere act of selling?
Then we would have to say: Rent is the price paid to the owner of natural forces or mere products of
nature for the right of using those forces or appropriating (by labour) those products. This is in fact the
form in which all rent appears originally. But then the question remains to be solved, how things which
have no value can have a price and how this is compatible with the general theory of value. The
question: for what purpose does the man pay “a compensation” for the right to remove timber from the
land upon which it stands, has nothing to do with the real question. The question is: from
what fund does he pay? Well, says Ricardo, “by the sale of the timber”. That is, out of the price of the
timber. And furthermore, this price was such that, as Ricardo says, the man “actually repaid
himself with a profit”. Now we know where we are. The price of the timber must at any rate equal the
sum of money representing the quantity of labour necessary to fell the timber, to remove it, to
transport it, to bring it to market. Now is the profit with which the man “repays” himself, an addition
over and above thisvalue, this exchange-value just imparted to the wood through the labour expended
upon it? If Ricardo said this then he would fall into the crudest conception, far beneath his own
doctrine. No. Given that the man was a capitalist, the profit is part of the labour he employed in the
production of the “timber”, the part for which he did not pay; and the man would have made the same
profit, if he had set in motion the same amount of labour, shall we say, in cotton spinning. (If the man is
not a capitalist, then the profit is equal to that quantity of his labour which he exerts beyond that which
is necessary to cover his wages, and which would have constituted the profit of the capitalist, had a
capitalist employed him, but which now constitutes his own profit because he is his own wage-labourer
and his own capitalist in one and the same person.) But here we come to the ugly word that this timber
man “actuallyrepaid himself with a profit”. This gives the whole transaction a very ordinary look and
corresponds to the crude manner of thinking which this capitalist, who removes timber, may himself
have of the source of his profit. First he pays the owner of the virgin forest for the use-value wood,
which, however, has no “value” (value in exchange) and which, so long as it “stands upon the land” has
not even a use-value. He may pay him £ 5 per ton. And then he sells the same wood to the public
(setting aside his other costs) at £ 6 and so actually pays back to himself the £5 with a profit of 20 per
cent. *He+ “actually repaid himself with a profit”. If the owner of the forest had only demanded
“compensation” of £ 2 (40 s.), then the timber man would have sold the ton at £2 8s. instead of at *£+
6. ||566| Since he always adds the same rate of profit, the price of timber would be high or low here
because the rent is high or low. The latter would enter into the price as a constituent part but would in
no way be the result of the price. Whether the “rent”—compensation—is paid to the owner of the land
for the use of the “power” of the land or for the “use” of the “natural products” of the land, in no way
alters the economic relations, in no way alters the fact that money is paid for “a natural thing” (power or
produce of the earth) upon which no previous human labour has been spent. And thus on the second
page of his chapter “On Rent” Ricardo would have overthrown his whole theory in order to avoid a
difficulty. It would appear that Adam Smith was a great deal more far-sighted here.
The same case with the stone-quarries and coal-mines.
“The compensation given for the mine or quarry, is paid for the value of the coal or stone which can be
removed from them, and has no connection with the original and indestructible powers of the
land”[a] (l.c., pp. 54-55).
No! But there is a very significant connection with the “original and destructible productions of the
soil”. The word “value” is just as ugly here as the phrase “repaid himself with a profit” was above.
Ricardo never uses the word value for utility or usefulness or “value in use”. Does he therefore mean to
say that the “compensation” is paid to the owner of the quarries and coal-mines for the “value” the coal
and stone have before they are removed from the quarry and the mine—in their original state? Then he
invalidates his entire doctrine of value. Or does value mean here, as it must do, the possible use-value
and hence also the prospective exchange-value of coal and stone? Then it means nothing but that their
owner is paid rent for the permission to use the “original composition of the soil” for the production of
coal and stones. And it is absolutely incomprehensible why this should not be called “rent”, in the same
way as if the permission were given to use the “powers” of the land for the production of wheat. Or we
end up again with the annulment of the whole theory of rent, as explained in connection with
wood. According to the correct theory, there are no difficulties involved here at all. The labour, or
capital, employed in the “production” <not reproduction> of wood, coal or stone (this labour, it is true,
does not create these natural products, but separates them from their elementary connection with the
earth and so “produces” them as usable wood, coal or stone) evidently belongs to those spheres of
production in which the part of capital laid out in wages is greater than that laid out in constant capital,
*where consequently the amount of+ direct labour is greater than that of “past” labour the result of
which serves as a means of production. If, therefore, the commodity is sold at its value here, then this
value will be above its cost-price, i.e., the wear and tear of the instruments of labour, the wages, and the
average profit. The excess can thus be paid as rent to the owner of forest, quarry or coal-mine.
But why these clumsy manoeuvres of Ricardo’s, such as the wrong use of value etc.? Why this clinging
to the explanation of rent as a payment for the use of the “original and indestructible powers of the
land”? Perhaps the answer will emerge later. In any case, he wants to distinguish, to mention
specifically, the agricultural rent in the strict sense and at the same time to open the way for differential
rent, by saying that payment for this elementary power can only be made in so far as it develops
different degrees of power.
[a] In the manuscript: “soil”.—Ed.
Anti-Dühring by Frederick Engels 1877
Part II: Political Economy
IV. Theory of Force
(Conclusion)
“It is a circumstance of great importance that as a matter of fact the domination over nature, generally
speaking,” (!), “only proceeded,” (a domination proceeded!) “through the domination over man. The
cultivation of landed property in tracts of considerable size never took place anywhere without the
antecedent subjection of man in some form of slave-labour or corvée. The establishment of an
economic domination over things has presupposed the political, social and economic domination of man
over man. How could a large landed proprietor even be conceived without at once including in this idea
also his domination over slaves serfs, or others indirectly unfree? What could the efforts of an
individual, at most supplemented by those of his family, have signified or signify in extensively practiced
agriculture? The exploitation of the land, or the extension of economic control over it on a scale
exceeding the natural capacities of the individual, was only made possible in previous history by the
establishment, either before or simultaneously with the introduction of dominion over land, of the
enslavement of man which this involves. In the later periods of development this servitude was
mitigated ... its present form in the more highly civilised states is wage-labour, to a greater or lesser
degree carried on under police rule. Thus wage-labour provides the practical possibility of that form of
contemporary wealth which is represented by dominion over wide areas of land and” (!) “extensive
landed property. It goes without saying that all other types of distributive wealth must be explained
historically in a similar way, and the indirect dependence of man on man, which is now the essential
feature of the conditions which economically are most fully developed, cannot be understood and
explained by its own nature, but only as a somewhat transformed heritage of an earlier direct
subjugation and expropriation” ,D. C. 18-19}.
Thus Herr Dühring.
Thesis: The domination of nature (by man) presupposes the domination of man (by man).
Proof: The cultivation of landed property in tracts of considerable size never took place anywhere except
by the use of bondmen.
Proof of the proof: How can there be large landowners without bondmen, as the large landowner, even
with his family, could work only a tiny part of his property without the help of bondmen?
Therefore, in order to prove that man first had to subjugate man before he could bring nature under his
control, Herr Dühring transforms "nature" without more ado into "landed property in tracts of
considerable size", and then this landed property—ownership unspecified—is immediately further
transformed into the property of a large landed proprietor, who naturally cannot work his land without
bondmen.
In the first place "domination over nature" and the "cultivation of landed property" are by no means the
same thing. In industry, domination over nature is exercised on quite another and much greater scale
than in agriculture, which is still subject to weather conditions instead of controlling them.
Secondly, if we confine ourselves to the cultivation of landed property consisting of tracts of
considerable size, the question arises: whose landed property is it? And then we find in the early history
of all civilised peoples, not the “large landed proprietors” whom Herr Dühring interpolates here with his
customary sleight of hand, which he calls "natural dialectics", [82] but tribal and village communities with
common ownership of the land. From India to Ireland the cultivation of landed property in tracts of
considerable size was originally carried on by such tribal and village communities; sometimes the arable
land was tilled jointly for account of the community, and sometimes in separate parcels of land
temporarily allotted to families by the community, while woodland and pastureland continued to be
used in common. It is once again characteristic of “the most exhaustive specialised studies” made by
Herr Dühring “in the domain of politics and law” ,D. Ph. 537- that he knows nothing of all this; that all
his works breathe total ignorance of Maurer’s epoch-making writings on the primitive constitution of
the German mark, [83] the basis of all German law, and of the ever-increasing mass of literature, chiefly
stimulated by Maurer, which is devoted to proving the primitive common ownership of the land among
all civilised peoples of Europe and Asia, and to showing the various forms of its existence and
dissolution. Just as in the domain of French and English law Herr Dühring “himself acquired all his
ignorance”, great as it was, so it is with his even much greater ignorance in the domain of German law.
In this domain the man who flies into such a violent rage over the limited horizon of university
professors is himself today at the very most, still where the professors were twenty years ago.
It is a pure “free creation and imagination” ,43- on Herr Dühring's part when he asserts that landed
proprietors and bondmen were required for the cultivation of landed property in tracts of considerable
size. In the whole of the Orient, where the village community or the state owns the land, the very term
landlord is not to be found in the various languages, a point on which Herr Dühring can consult the
English jurists, whose efforts in India to solve the question: who is the owner of the land? — were as
vain as those of the late Prince Heinrich LXXII of Reuss-Greiz-Schleiz-Lobenstein-Eberswalde [84] in his
attempts to solve the question of who was the night-watchman. It was the Turks who first introduced a
sort of feudal ownership of land in the countries conquered by them in the Orient. Greece made its
entry into history, as far back as the heroic epoch, with a system of social estates which itself was
evidently the product of a long but unknown prehistory; even there, however, the land was mainly
cultivated by independent peasants; the larger estates of the nobles and tribal chiefs were the
exception; moreover they disappeared soon after. Italy was brought under cultivation chiefly by
peasants; when, in the final period of the Roman Republic, the great complexes of estates, the
latifundia, displaced the small peasants and replaced them with slaves, they also replaced tillage with
stockraising, and, as Pliny already realised, brought Italy to ruin (latifundia Italiam perdidere). During the
Middle Ages, peasant farming was predominant throughout Europe (especially in bringing virgin soil into
cultivation); and in relation to the question we are now considering it is of no importance whether these
peasants had to pay dues, and if so what dues, to any feudal lords. The colonists from Friesland, Lower
Saxony, Flanders and the Lower Rhine, who brought under cultivation the land east of the Elbe which
had been wrested. from the Slavs, did this as free peasants under very favourable quit-rent tenures, and
not at all under “some form of corvée“ ,D. C. 18-. — In North America, by far the largest portion of the
land was opened for cultivation by the labour of free farmers, while the big landlords of the South, with
their slaves and their rapacious tilling of the land, exhausted the soil until it could grow only firs, so that
the cultivation of cotton was forced further and further west. In Australia and New Zealand, all attempts
of the British government to establish artificially a landed aristocracy came to nothing. In short, if we
except the tropical and subtropical colonies, where the climate makes agricultural labour impossible for
Europeans, the big landlord who subjugates nature by means of his slaves or serfs and brings the land
under cultivation proves to be a pure figment of the imagination. The very reverse is the case. Where he
makes his appearance in antiquity, as in Italy, he does not bring wasteland into cultivation, but
transforms arable land brought under cultivation by peasants into stock pastures, depopulating and
ruining whole countries. Only in a more recent period, when the increasing density of population had
raised the value of land, and particularly since the development of agricultural science had made even
poorer land more cultivable—it is only from this period that large landowners began to participate on an
extensive scale in bringing wasteland and grass-land under cultivation—and this mainly through the
robbery of common land from the peasants, both in England and in Germany. But there was another
side even to this. For every acre of common land which the large landowners brought into cultivation in
England, they transformed at least three acres of arable land in Scotland into sheep-runs and eventually
even into mere big-game hunting-grounds.
We are concerned here only with Herr Dühring's assertion that the bringing into cultivation of tracts of
land of considerable size and therefore of practically the whole area now cultivated, “never and
nowhere” took place except through the agency of big landlords and their bondmen—an assertion
which, as we have seen, “presupposes” a really unprecedented ignorance of history. It is not necessary,
therefore, for us to examine here either to what extent, at different periods, areas which were already
made entirely or mainly cultivable were cultivated by slaves (as in the hey-day of Greece) or serfs (as in
the manors of the Middle Ages); or what was the social function of the large landowners at various
periods.
And after Herr Dühring has shown us this masterpiece of the imagination—in which we do not know
whether the conjuring trick of deduction or the falsification of history is more to be admired—he
exclaims triumphantly:
“It goes without saying that all other types of distributive wealth must be explained historically in similar
manner!” ,19.-
Which of course saves him the trouble of wasting even a single word more on the origin, for example, of
capital.
If, with his domination of man by man as a prior condition for the domination of nature by man, Herr
Dühring only wanted to state in a general way that the whole of our present economic order, the level
of development now attained by agriculture and industry, is the result of a social history which evolved
in class antagonisms, in relationships of domination and subjection, he is saying something which long
ago, ever since the Communist Manifesto, became a commonplace. But the question at issue is how we
are to explain the origin of classes and relations based on domination, and if Herr Dühring's only answer
is the one word “force”, we are left exactly where we were at the start. The mere fact that the ruled and
exploited have at all times been far more numerous than the rulers and the exploiters, and that
therefore it is in the hands of the former that the real force has reposed, is enough to demonstrate the
absurdity of the whole force theory. The relationships based on domination and subjection have
therefore still to be explained.
They arose in two ways.
As men originally made their exit from the animal world—in the narrower sense of the term—so they
made their entry into history: still half animal, brutal, still helpless in face of the forces of nature, still
ignorant of their own strength; and consequently as poor as the animals and hardly more productive
than they. There prevailed a certain equality in the conditions of existence, and for the heads of families
also a kind of equality of social position—at least an absence of social classes — which continued among
the primitive agricultural communities of the civilised peoples of a later period. In each such community
there were from the beginning certain common interests the safeguarding of which had to be handed
over to individuals, true, under the control of the community as a whole: adjudication of disputes;
repression of abuse of authority by individuals; control of water supplies, especially in hot countries; and
finally when conditions were still absolutely primitive, religious functions. Such offices are found in
aboriginal communities of every period — in the oldest German marks and even today in India. They are
naturally endowed with a certain measure of authority and are the beginnings of state power. The
productive forces gradually increase; the increasing density of the population creates at one point
common interests, at another conflicting interests, between the separate communities, whose grouping
into larger units brings about in turn a new division of labour, the setting up of organs to safeguard
common interests and combat conflicting interests. These organs which, if only because they represent
the common interests of the whole group, hold a special position in relation to each individual
community—in certain circumstances even one of opposition—soon make themselves still more
independent, partly through heredity of functions, which comes about almost as a matter of course in a
world where everything occurs spontaneously, and partly because they become increasingly
indispensable owing to the growing number of conflicts with other groups. It is not necessary for us to
examine here how this independence of social functions in relation to society increased with time until it
developed into domination over society; how he who was originally the servant, where conditions were
favourable, changed gradually into the lord; how this lord, depending on the conditions, emerged as an
Oriental despot or satrap, the dynast of a Greek tribe, chieftain of a Celtic clan, and so on; to what
extent he subsequently had recourse to force in the course of this transformation; and how finally the
individual rulers united into a ruling class. Here we are only concerned with establishing the fact that the
exercise of a social function was everywhere the basis of political supremacy; and further that political
supremacy has existed for any length of time only when it discharged its social functions. However great
the number of despotisms which rose and fell in Persia and India, each was fully aware that above all it
was the entrepreneur responsible for the collective maintenance of irrigation throughout the river
valleys, without which no agriculture was possible there. It was reserved for the enlightened English to
lose sight of this in India; they let the irrigation canals and sluices fall into decay, and are now at last
discovering, through the regularly recurring famines, that they have neglected the one activity which
might have made their rule in India at least as legitimate as that of their predecessors.
But alongside this process of formation of classes another was also taking place. The spontaneously
evolved division of labour within the family cultivating the soil made possible, at a certain level of well-
being, the incorporation of one or more strangers as additional labour forces. This was especially the
case in countries where the old common ownership of the land had already disintegrated or at least the
former joint cultivation had given place to the separate cultivation of parcels of land by the respective
families. Production had developed so far that the labour-power of a man could now produce more than
was necessary for its mere maintenance; the means of maintaining additional labour forces existed;
likewise the means of employing them; labour-power acquired a value. But the community itself and the
association to which it belonged yielded no available, superfluous labour forces. On the other hand,
such forces were provided by war, and war was as old as the simultaneous existence alongside each
other of several groups of communities. Up to that time one had not known what to do with prisoners
of war, and had therefore simply killed them; at an even earlier period, eaten them. But at the stage of
“economic situation” which had now been attained, the prisoners acquired value; one
therefore let them live and made use of their labour. Thus force, instead of controlling the economic
situation, was on the contrary pressed into the service of the economic situation. Slavery had been
invented. It soon became the dominant form of production among all peoples who were developing
beyond the old community, but in the end was also one of the chief causes of their decay. It was slavery
that first made possible the division of labour between agriculture and industry on a larger scale, and
thereby also Hellenism, the flowering of the ancient world. Without slavery, no Greek state, no Greek
art and science, without slavery, no Roman Empire. But without the basis laid by Hellenism and the
Roman Empire, also no modern Europe. We should never forget that our whole economic, political and
intellectual development presupposes a state of things in which slavery was as necessary as it was
universally recognised. In this sense we are entitled to say: Without the slavery of antiquity no modern
socialism.
It is very easy to inveigh against slavery and similar things in general terms, and to give vent to high
moral indignation at such infamies. Unfortunately all that this conveys is only what everyone knows,
namely, that these institutions of antiquity are no longer in accord with our present conditions and our
sentiments, which these conditions determine. But it does not tell us one word as to how these
institutions arose, why they existed, and what role they played in history. And when we examine these
questions, we are compelled to say—however contradictory and heretical it may sound—that the
introduction of slavery under the conditions prevailing at that time was a great step forward. For it is a
fact that man sprang from the beasts, and had consequently to use barbaric and almost bestial means to
extricate himself from barbarism. Where the ancient communities have continued to exist, they have for
thousands of years formed the basis of the cruellest form of state, Oriental despotism, from India to
Russia. It was only where these communities dissolved that the peoples made progress of themselves,
and their next economic advance consisted in the increase and development of production by means of
slave labour. It is clear that so long as human labour was still so little productive that it provided but a
small surplus over and above the necessary means of subsistence, any increase of the productive forces,
extension of trade, development of the state and of law, or foundation of art and science, was possible
only by means of a greater division of labour. And the necessary basis for this was the great division of
labour between the masses discharging simple manual labour and the few privileged persons directing
labour, conducting trade and public affairs, and, at a later stage, occupying themselves with art and
science. The simplest and most natural form of this division of labour was in fact slavery. In the historical
conditions of the ancient world, and particularly of Greece, the advance to a society based on class
antagonisms could be accomplished only in the form of slavery. This was an advance even for the slaves;
the prisoners of war, from whom the mass of the slaves was recruited, now at least saved their lives,
instead of being killed as they had been before, or even roasted, as at a still earlier period.
We may add at this point that all historical antagonisms between exploiting and exploited, ruling and
oppressed classes to this very day find their explanation in this same relatively undeveloped human
labour. So long as the really working population were so much occupied with their necessary labour that
they had no time left for looking after the common affairs of society—the direction of labour, affairs of
state, legal matters, art, science, etc.—so long was it necessary that there should constantly exist a
special class, freed from actual labour, to manage these affairs; and this class never failed, for its own
advantage, to impose a greater and greater burden of labour on the working masses. Only the immense
increase of the productive forces attained by modern industry has made it possible to distribute labour
among all members of society without exception, and thereby to limit the labour-time of each individual
member to such an extent that all have enough free time left to take part in the general—both
theoretical and practical—affairs of society. It is only now, therefore, that every ruling and exploiting
class has become superfluous and indeed a hindrance to social development, and it is only now, too,
that it will be inexorably abolished, however much it may be in possession of “direct force”.
When, therefore, Herr Dühring turns up his nose at Hellenism because it was founded on slavery, he
might with equal justice reproach the Greeks with having had no steam-engines or electric telegraphs.
And when he asserts that our modern wage bondage can only be explained as a somewhat transformed
and mitigated heritage of slavery, and not by its own nature (that is, by the economic laws of modern
society), this either means only that both wage-labour and slavery are forms of bondage and class
domination, which every child knows to be so, or is false. For with equal justice we might say that wage-
labour could only be explained as a mitigated form of cannibalism, which, it is now established, was the
universal primitive form of utilisation of defeated enemies.
The role played in history by force as contrasted with economic development is therefore clear. In the
first place, all political power is organically based on an economic, social function, and increases in
proportion as the members of society, through the dissolution of the primitive community, become
transformed into private producers, and thus become more and more divorced from the administrators
of the common functions of society. Secondly, after the political force has made itself independent in
relation to society, and has transformed itself from its servant into its master, it can work in two
different directions. Either it works in the sense and in the direction of the natural economic
development, in which case no conflict arises between them, the economic development being
accelerated. Or it works against economic development, in which case, as a rule, with but few
exceptions, force succumbs to it. These few exceptions are isolated cases of conquest, in which the
more barbarian conquerors exterminated or drove out the population of a country and laid waste or
allowed to go to ruin productive forces which they did not know how to use. This was what the
Christians in Moorish Spain did with the major part of the irrigation works on which the highly
developed agriculture and horticulture of the Moors depended. Every conquest by a more barbarian
people disturbs of course the economic development and destroys numerous productive forces. But in
the immense majority of cases where the conquest is permanent, the more barbarian conqueror has to
adapt himself to the higher “economic situation” ,D. K. G. 231- as it emerges from the conquest; he is
assimilated by the vanquished and in most cases he has even to adopt their language. But where —
apart from cases of conquest—the internal state power of a country becomes antagonistic to its
economic development as at a certain stage occurred with almost every political power in the past, the
contest always ended with the downfall of the political power. Inexorably and without exception the
economic development has forced its way through—we have already mentioned the latest and most
striking example of this: the great French Revolution. If, in accordance with Herr Dühring's theory, the
economic situation and with it the economic structure of a given country were dependent simply on
political force, it is absolutely impossible to understand why Frederick William IV after 1848 could not
succeed, in spite of his “magnificent army”, [85] ingrafting the mediaeval guilds and other romantic
oddities on to the railways, the steam-engines and the large-scale industry which was just then
developing in his country; or why the tsar of Russia, who is possessed of even much more forcible
means, is not only unable to pay his debts, but cannot even maintain his “force” without continually
borrowing from the “economic situation” of Western Europe.
To Herr Dühring force is the absolute evil; the first act of force is to him the original sin; his whole
exposition is a jeremiad on the contamination of all subsequent history consummated by this original
sin; a jeremiad on the shameful perversion of all natural and social laws by this diabolical power, force.
That force, however, plays yet another role in history, a revolutionary role; that, in the words of Marx, it
is the midwife of every old society pregnant with a new one, that it is the instrument with the aid of
which social movement forces its way through and shatters the dead, fossilised political forms—of this
there is not a word in Herr Dühring. It is only with sighs and groans that he admits the possibility that
force will perhaps be necessary for the overthrow of an economic system of exploitation—
unfortunately, because all use of force demoralises the person who uses it. And this in spite of the
immense moral and spiritual impetus which has been given by every victorious revolution! And this in
Germany, where a violent collision—which may, after all, be forced on the people—would at least have
the advantage of wiping out the servility which has penetrated the nation's mentality following the
humiliation of the Thirty Years' War. And this parson's mode of thought — dull, insipid and impotent—
presumes to impose itself on the most revolutionary party that history has known!
Articles by Engels in the Labour Standard 1881
The French Commercial Treaty
Source: Reproduced from the newspaper;
Written: mid-June, 1881;
Published: No. 7, June 18, 1881, as a leading article;
Transcribed: [email protected], Labor Day 1996.
On Thursday, June 9, in the House of Commons, Mr. Monk (Gloucester) proposed a resolution to the
effect that
"no commercial treaty with France will be satisfactory which does not tend to the development of the
commercial relations of the two countries by a further reduction of duties".
A debate of some length ensued. [1] Sir C. Dilke, on behalf of the Government, offered the mild
resistance required by diplomatic etiquette. Mr. A. J. Balfour (Tamworth) [2] would compel foreign
nations, by retaliatory duties, to adopt lower tariffs. Mr. Slagg (Manchester) would leave the French to
find out the value of our trade to them and of theirs to us, even without any treaty. Mr. Illingworth
(Bradford) despaired of reaching free-trade through commercial treaties. Mr. Mac Iver (Birkenhead)
declared the present system of free-trade to be only an imposture, inasmuch as it was made up of free
imports and restricted exports. The resolution was carried by 77 to 49, a defeat which will hurt neither
Mr. Gladstone's feelings nor his position.
This debate is a fair specimen of a long series of ever-recurring complaints about the stubbornness with
which the stupid foreigner, and even the quite as stupid colonial subject, refuse to recognise the
universal blessings of free-trade and its capability of remedying all economic evils. Never has a prophecy
broken down so completely as that of the Manchester School [3] -- free-trade, once established in
England, would shower such blessings over the country that all other nations must follow the example
and throw their ports open to English manufactures. The coaxing voice of the free-trade apostles
remained the voice of one crying in the wilderness. Not only did the Continent and America, on the
whole, increase their protective duties [4]; even the British Colonies, as soon as they had become
endowed with self-government, [5] followed suit; and no sooner had India been placed under the Crown
than a 5 per cent duty on cotton goods was introduced even there, [6] acting as an incentive to native
manufactures.
Why this should be so is an utter mystery to the Manchester; School. Yet it is plain enough.
About the middle of last century England was the principal seat of the cotton manufacture, and
therefore the natural place where, with a rapidly rising demand for cotton goods, the machinery was
invented which, with the help of the steam engine, revolutionised first the cotton trade, and
successively the other textile manufactures. The large and easily accessible coalfields of Great Britain,
thanks to steam, became now the basis of the country's prosperity. The extensive deposits of iron ore in
close proximity to the coal facilitated the development of the iron trade, which had received a new
stimulus by the demand for engines and machinery. Then, in the midst of this revolution of the whole
manufacturing system, came the anti-Jacobin and Napoleonic wars [7] which for some twenty-five years
drove the ships of almost ail competing nations from the sea, and thus gave to English manufactured
goods the practical monopoly of all Transatlantic and some European markets. When in 1815 peace was
restored, England stood there with her steam manufactures ready to supply the world, while steam
engines were as yet scarcely known in other countries. In manufacturing industry, England was an
immense distance in advance of them.
But the restoration of peace soon induced other nations to follow in the track of England. Sheltered by
the Chinese Wall of her prohibitive tariff, [8] France introduced production by steam. So also did
Germany, although her tariff was at that time far more liberal [9] than any other, that of England not
excepted. So did other countries. At the same time the British landed aristocracy, to raise their rents,
introduced the Corn Laws, [10] thereby raising the price of bread and with it the money rate of wages.
Nevertheless the progress of English manufactures went on at a stupendous rate. By 1830 she had laid
herself out to become "the workshop of the world". To make her the workshop of the world in reality
was the task undertaken by the Anti-Corn Law League. [11]
There was no secret made, in those times, of what was aimed at by the repeal of the Corn Laws. To
reduce the price of bread, and thereby the money rate of wages, would enable British manufacturers to
defy all and every competition with which wicked or ignorant foreigners threatened them. What was
more natural than that England, with her great advance in machinery, with her immense merchant navy,
her coal and iron, should supply all the world with manufactured articles, and that in return the outer
world should supply her with agricultural produce, corn, wine, flax, cotton, coffee, tea, etc.? It was a
decree of Providence that it should be so, it was sheer rebellion against God's ordinance to set your face
against it. At most France might be allowed to supply England and the rest of the world with such
articles of taste and fashion as could not be made by machinery, and were altogether beneath the
notice of an enlightened millowner. Then, and then alone, would there be peace on earth and goodwill
towards men; then all nations would be bound together by the endearing ties of commerce and mutual
profit; then the reign of peace and plenty would be for ever established, and to the working class, to
their "hands", they said: "There's a good time coming, boys -- wait a little longer." Of course the "hands"
are waiting still.
But while the "hands" waited the wicked and ignorant foreigners did not. They did not see the beauty of
a system by which the momentary industrial advantages possessed by England should be turned into
means to secure to her the monopoly of manufactures all the world over and for ever, and to reduce all
other nations to mere agricultural dependencies of England -- in other words, to the very enviable
condition of Ireland. They knew that no nation can keep up with others in civilisation if deprived of
manufactures, and thereby brought down to be a mere agglomeration of clodhoppers. And therefore,
subordinating private commercial profit to national exigency, they protected their nascent
manufactures by high tariffs, which seemed to them the only means to protect themselves from being
brought down to the economical condition enjoyed by Ireland.
We do not mean to say that this was the right thing to do in every case. On the contrary, France would
reap immense advantages from a considerable approach towards Free Trade. German manufactures,
such as they are, have become what they are under Free Trade, and Bismarck's new Protection
tariff [12] will do harm to nobody but the German manufacturers them" selves. But there is one country
where a short period of Protection is not only justifiable but a matter of absolute necessity -- America.
America is at that point of her development where the introduction of manufactures has become a
national necessity, This is best proved by the fact that in the invention of labour-saving machinery it is
no longer England which leads, but America. American inventions every day supersede English patents
and English machinery. American machines are brought over to England; and this in almost all branches
of manufactures Then America possesses a population the most energetic in the world, coalfields
against which those of England appear almost as a vanishing quantity, iron and all other metals in
plenty. And is it to be supposed that such a country will expose its young and rising manufactures to a
long, protracted, competitive struggle with the old-established industry of England, when, by a short
term of some twenty years of protection, she can place them at once on a level with any competitor?
But, says the Manchester School, America is but robbing herself by her protective system. So is a man
robbing himself who pays extra for the express train instead of taking the old Parliamentary train -- fifty
miles an hour instead of twelve.
There is no mistake about it, the present generation will see American cotton goods compete with
English ones in India and China, and gradually gain ground in those two leading markets; American
machinery and hardware compete with the English makes in all parts of the world, England included;
and the same implacable necessity which removed Flemish manufactures to Holland, Dutch ones to
England, will ere long remove the centre of the world's industry from this country to the United States.
And in the restricted field which will then remain to England she will find formidable competitors in
several Continental nations.
The fact cannot be longer shirked that England's industrial monopoly is fast on the wane. If the
"enlightened" middle class think it their interest to hush it up, let the working class boldly look it in the
face, for it interests them more than even their "betters". These may for a long time yet remain the
bankers and money-lenders of the world, as the Venetians and the Dutch in their decay have done
before them. But what is to become of the "hands" when England's immense export trade begins to
shrink down every year instead of expanding? If the removal of the iron shipbuilding trade from the
Thames to the Clyde was sufficient to reduce the whole East-end of London to chronic pauperism, what
will the virtual removal of all the staple trades of England across the Atlantic do for England?
It will do one great thing: it will break the last link which still binds the English working class to the
English middle class. This link was their common working of a national monopoly. That monopoly once
destroyed, the British working class will be compelled to take in hand its own interests, its own
salvation, and to make an end of the wages system. Let us hope it will not wait until then.
Notes
From the MECW
1 The main question discussed in the House of Commons during the debate on concluding a commercial
treaty with France was the new common customs tariff adopted by the French government on May 8,
1881, which provided for some restrictions on imports in the interest of French industry. Despite the
fact that the talks about the new treaty were repeatedly resumed throughout the year, the parties
concerned failed to find an acceptable solution.
2 A. J. Balfour was elected to Parliament from Hertford, in Southeast England.
3 The Manchester School -- a trend in economic thinking which reflected the interests of the industrial
bourgeoisie. Its supporters, known as Free Traders, advocated removal of protective tariffs and non-
intervention by the government in economic life. The centre of the Free Traders' agitation was
Manchester, where the movement was headed by two textile manufacturers, Richard Cobden and John
Bright. In the 1840s and 1850s, the Free Traders were a separate political group, which later formed the
Left wing of the Liberal Party.
4 This refers to the protective tariff tabled in Congress by the Republican Justin Smith Morrill and passed
by the Senate on March 2, 1861. It raised customs duties considerably. Later, during the American Civil
War and in 1867 and 1869, the tariff was repeatedly revised, and by 1869 it had raised the average size
of import duties to 47 per cent. In 1870 and 1872, these duties were lowered to 10 per cent, but this
was cancelled in 1875.
5 The first British colony which was granted the status of a dominion (in 1867) was Canada.
6 After the abolition of the East India Company in August 1858 India was placed under direct
administration of the British Crown. Seeking to protect the national textile industry, the authorities
introduced a 5-per cent duq on the English cotton goods imported by India. However, as early as 1879
the Lancashire manufacturers managed to get these duties cancelled, and in 1882 the duties on other
goods were also abolished.
The British East India Company, was founded in 1600. It enjoyed a monopoly of trade with the East
Indies and played a decisive part in the establishment of the British colonial empire.
7 The reference is to the coalition wars of European states against the French Republic (1792-1802) and
against Napoleon (1805-15).
8 In 1814 and 1822 the French authorities introduced high import tariffs on iron, in 1819, on grain, cattle
and wool, and in 1826, doubled the tariffs on pig iron and steel.
9 The economic development of Germany was most adversely affected by her political fragmentation,
the absence of universal commercial laws, internal customs barriers, and the multiplicity of currencies
and of the weight and measure systems. On May 26, 1818 Prussia alone passed a law on the abolition of
internal duties and the introduction of a universal customs tariff.
10 The Corn Laws, the first of which were passed as early as the 15th century, imposed high import
duties on agricultural products in order to maintain high prices for these products on the domestic
market. The Corn Laws served the interests of the big landowners.
11 The Anti-Corn Law League was founded in 1838 by the Manchester manufacturers and Free Trade
leaders Richard Cobden and John Bright. By demanding complete freedom of trade, the League fought
for the abolition of the Corn Laws. In this way, it sought to weaken the economic and political position of
the landed aristocracy and lower the cost of living, thus making possible a lowering of the workers'
wages. After the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846), the League ceased to exist.
12 The campaign for the introduction of protectionist laws unfolded in Germany at the outset of the
1873 crisis. On February 15 1876, a number of protectionist unions formed a single
organization, Centralverband Deutscher Industrieller zur Beförderung und Wahrung nationaler Arbeit. In
1876, during the agrarian crisis, big landowners, Prussian Junkers above all, joined the campaign. In
October 1877, the industrial and agrarian advocates of the reform concluded an agreement. In March
1878, a non-partisan Freie wirtschaftliche Vereinigung was formed, which 204 deputies joined at the
very first session of the Reichstag in September-October 1878. In December of that year, Bismarck
submitted his preliminary draft of the customs reform to a specially appointed commission. On July 12
1879, the final draft was approved by the Reichstag, and came into force on July 15. The new customs
tariff provided for a substantial increase in import taxes on iron, machinery and textiles, as well as on
grain, cattle, lard, flax, timber, etc.
Condition of the Working Class in England by Frederick Engels
(1845)
Preface to the Second German Edition (1892)
Source: MECW Volume 27, p. 307;
Written: London, July 21, 1892;
First published: in F. Engels, Die Lage der arbeitenden Klasse in
England, second edition, Stuttgart, 1892;
Transcribed: Andy Blunden.
The book herewith again made available to the German public first appeared in the summer of 1845.
Both in its strengths and in its weaknesses it bears the stamp of the author’s youth. At the time, I was
twenty-four; today, I am thrice as old, and as I re-read this early work I find I need not be ashamed of it
on any count. So I have no intention of somehow obliterating this stamp of youthfulness. I am
presenting my work to the reader again, unchanged. I have only worded more precisely a few not
entirely clear passages and added, here and there, a brief footnote, marked with the present date
(1892).
As for the fate of this book, I will only mention that an English translation of it (by Mrs. Florence Kelley-
Wischnewetzky) came out in New York in 1887 and was also published by Swan Sonnenschein & Co. in
London in 1892. The preface to the American edition underlies that to the English one, and the latter in
its turn underlies the present German preface. Modern large-scale industry makes the economic
conditions in all the countries affected uniform to such an enormous extent that I hardly need tell the
German reader anything different from what I tell the American or English.
The state of things described in this book belongs today in many respects, to the past, as far as England
is concerned. Though not expressly stated in our recognised treatises, it is still a law of modern political
economy that the larger the scale on which capitalistic production is carried on, the less can it support
the petty devices of swindling and pilfering which characterise its early stages. The pettifogging business
tricks of the Polish Jew, the representative in Europe of commerce in its lowest stage, those tricks that
serve him so well in his own country, and are generally practised there, fail him once he comes to
Hamburg or Berlin; and, again, the commission agent who hails from Berlin or Hamburg, Jew or
Christian, after frequenting the Manchester Exchange, finds out that in order to buy cotton yarn or cloth
cheap, he, too, had better drop those slightly more refined but still miserable wiles and subterfuges
which are considered the acme of cleverness in his native country. Of course, with the progress of large-
scale industry a great deal has supposedly changed in Germany too, and a bad odour now attaches,
particularly since the industrial Jena of Philadelphia, 283 even to the time-honoured German principle:
People will be nothing but pleased if we first send them good samples and then bad goods. The fact is,
those tricks do not pay any longer in a large market, where time is money, and where a certain standard
of commercial morality is unavoidably developed not because of any considerations of virtue, but purely
as a means of saving time and trouble. And exactly the same has taken place in England with the relation
between the manufacturer and his “hands”.
The revival of trade, after the crisis of 1847, was the dawn of a new industrial epoch. The repeal of the
Corn Laws 184 and the financial reforms subsequent thereon gave to English industry and commerce all
the elbow-room they had asked for. The discovery of the Californian and Australian goldfields followed
in rapid succession. The colonial markets developed at an increasing rate their capacity for absorbing
English manufactured goods. In India millions of handweavers were finally crushed out by the Lancashire
power-loom. China was more and more being opened up. But most important of all, America was
developing at a rate unprecedented even for that country of tremendous progress; and America, it will
be recalled, was then merely a colonial market, indeed the largest of all, i.e., a country supplying raw
materials and importing industrial products, notably from England.
And, finally, the new means of communication introduced at the close of the preceding period-railways
and ocean steamerswere now worked out on an international scale; they realised actually what had
hitherto existed only potentially, a world-market. This world-market, at the time, was still composed of a
number of chiefly or entirely agricultural countries grouped around one manufacturing centre – England
– which consumed the greater part of their surplus raw produce, and supplied them in return
with the greater part of their requirements in manufactured articles. No wonder, therefore, that
England’s industrial progress was colossal and unparallelled, and such that the status of 1844 now
appears to us as comparatively insignificant, almost primitive.
And in proportion as this increase took place, in the same proportion did manufacturing industry
become apparently moralised. The competition of manufacturer against manufacturer by means of
petty thefts upon the workpeople did no longer pay. Trade had outgrown such low means of making
money; the manufacturing millionaire had to know better than waste his time on petty tricks of this
kind. Such practices were good enough, at best, for small fry in need of money, who had to snap up
every penny in order not to succumb to competition. Thus the truck system was suppressed, the Ten-
Hours’ Bill was enacted, and a number of other secondary reforms introduced-much against the spirit of
Free Trade and unbridled competition, but quite as much in favour of the giant-capitalist in his
competition with his less favoured brother.
Moreover, the larger the concern, and with it the number of workers, the greater the loss and
inconvenience caused by every conflict with the workers and thus a new spirit came over the
manufacturers, especially the largest ones, which taught them to avoid unnecessary squabbles, to
acquiesce in the existence and power of trades unions, and finally even to discover in strikes-at
opportune times – a powerful means to serve their own ends. The largest manufacturers, formerly the
leaders of the war against the working class, were now the foremost to preach peace and harmony. And
for a very good reason.
All these concessions to justice and philanthropy were nothing else but means to accelerate the
concentration of capital in the hands of the few and crushing the smaller competitors, who could not
survive without extra receipts of this sort. To these few, the petty accessory extortions of earlier years
had not only lost all significance but had turned, as it were, into hindrances to large-scale business. Thus
the development of production on the basis of the capitalistic system has of itself sufficed – at least in
the leading industries, for in the more unimportant branches this is far from being the case – to do away
with all those minor grievances which aggravated the workman’s fate during its earlier years. And thus it
renders more and more evident the great central fact that the cause of the miserable condition of the
working class is to be sought, not in these minor grievances, but in the capitalistic system itself.The
worker sells to the capitalist his labour-force for a certain daily sum. After a few hours’ work he has
reproduced the value of that sum; but the substance of his contract is, that he has to work another
series of hours to complete his working-day; and the value he produces during these additional hours of
surplus labour is surplus value, which costs the capitalist nothing, but yet goes into his pocket. That is
the basis of the system which tends more and more to split up civilised society into a few Rothschilds
and Vanderbilts, the owners of all the means of production and subsistence, on the one hand, and an
immense number of wage-workers, the owners of nothing but their labour-force, on the other. And that
this result is caused, not by this or that secondary grievance, but by the system itself – this fact has been
brought out in bold relief by the development of capitalism in England.
Again, the repeated visitations of cholera, typhus, smallpox, and other epidemics have shown the British
bourgeois the urgent necessity of sanitation in his towns and cities, if he wishes to save himself and
family from falling victims to such diseases. Accordingly, the most crying abuses described in this book
have either disappeared or have been made less conspicuous. Drainage has been introduced or
improved, wide avenues have been opened out athwart many of the worst “slums”. “Little Ireland” had
disappeared, and the “seven dials” 286 are next on the list for sweeping away. But what of that? Whole
districts which in 1844 I could describe as almost idyllic have now, with the growth of the towns, fallen
into the same state of dilapidation, discomfort, and misery. Only the pigs and the heaps of refuse are no
longei. tolerated. The bourgeoisie have made further progress in the art of hiding the distress of the
working class. But that, in regard to their dwellings, no substantial improvement has taken place is
amply proved by the Report of the Royal Commission “On the Housing of the Poor”, 1885. And this is
the case, tool in other. respects. Police regulations have been plentiful as blackberries; but they can only
hedge in the distress of the workers, they cannot remove it.
But while England has thus outgrown the juvenile state of capitalist exploitation described by me, other
countries have only just attained it. France, Germany, and especially America, are the formidable
competitors who, at this moment – as foreseen by me [See Report of the Royal Commission on the
Housing of the Working Classes. England and Wales, 1885.-Ed.] In 1844 - are more and more breaking up
England’s industrial monopoly. Their manufactures are young as compared with those of England, but
increasing at a far more rapid rate than the latter; and they have at this moment arrived at about the
same phase of development as English manufacture in 1844. With regard to America, the parallel is
indeed most striking. True, the external surroundings in which the working class is placed in America are
very different, but the same economical laws are at work, and the results, if not identical in every
respect, must still be of the same order. Hence we find in America the same struggles for a shorter
working-day, for a legal limitation of the working-time, especially of women and children in factories; we
find the truck system in full blossom, and the cottage system, in rural districts, made use of by the
“BOSSES”, the capitalists and their agents, as a means of domination over the workers. When I received,
in 1886, the American papers with accounts of the great strike of 12,000 Pennsylvanian coal-miners in
the Connellsville district, I seemed but to read my own description of the North of England colliers' strike
of 1844. The same cheating of the workpeople by false measure; the same truck system; the same
attempt to break the miners’ resistance by the capitalists’ last, but crushing, resource – the eviction of
the men out of their dwellings, the cottages owned by the companies.
Neither here nor in the English editions did I try to update the book, i.e. to list one by one the changes
that have taken place since 1844. I did not do it for two reasons. Firstly, I would have had to double the
volume of the book. And secondly, Volume One of Marx’s Capital gives a detailed description of the
condition of the British working class for about 1865, i.e. the time when Britain’s industrial prosperity
had reached its peak. I would therefore have had to repeat what Marx says.
It will be hardly necessary to point out that the general theoretical standpoint of this book —
philosophical, economical, political — does not exactly coincide with my standpoint of to-day. Modern
international socialism, since fully developed as a science, chiefly and almost exclusively through the
efforts of Marx, did not as yet exist in 1844. My book represents one of the phases of its embryonic
development; and as the human embryo, in its early stages, still reproduces the gill-arches of our fish-
ancestors, so this book exhibits everywhere the traces of the descent of modern [See present edition,
Vol. 4, pp. 540-47.-Ed.] socialism from one of its ancestors, German classical philosophy. Thus great
stress is laid on the dictum that communism is not a mere party doctrine of the working class, but a
theory compassing the emancipation of society at large, including the capitalist class, from its present
narrow conditions. This is true enough in the abstract, but absolutely useless, and sometimes worse, in
practice. So long as the wealthy classes not only do not feel the want of any emancipation, but
strenuously oppose the self-emancipation of the working class, so long the social revolution will have to
be prepared and fought out by the working class alone. The French bourgeois of 1789, too, declared the
emancipation of the bourgeoisie to be the emancipation of the whole human race; but the nobility and
clergy would not see it; the proposition – though for the time being, with respect to feudalism, an
abstract historical truth – soon became a mere sentimentalism, and disappeared from view altogether in
the fire of the revolutionary struggle. And to-day, the very people who, from the “impartiality” of their
superior standpoint, preach to the workers a socialism soaring high above their class interests and class
struggles-these people are either neophytes, who have still to learn a great deal, or they are the worst
enemies of the workers-wolves in sheep’s clothing.
The recurring period of the great industrial crisis is stated in the text as five years. This was the period
apparently indicated by the course of events from 1825 to 1842. But the industrial history from 1842 to
1868 has shown that the real period is one of ten years; that the intermediate revulsions were
secondary, and had been increasingly disappearing from 1842 onwards. Since 1868 the state of things
has changed again, of which more anon.
I have taken care not to strike out of the text the many prophecies, amongst others that of an imminent
social revolution in England, which my youthful ardour induced me to venture upon. The wonder is, not
that a good many of these prophecies proved wrong, but that so many of them have proved right, and
that the critical state of English trade, to be brought on by Continental and especially American
competition, which I then foresaw — though in too short a period — has now actually come to pass. In
this respect I am bound to bring the book up to date, by placing here an article which appeared in the
London Commonweal of March 1, 1885 in English and in Neue Zeit in June of the same year (Issue 6) in
German.
“Forty years ago England stood face to face with a crisis, solvable to all appearances by force only. The
immense and rapid development of manufactures had outstripped the extension of foreign markets and
the increase of demand. Every ten years the march of industry was violently interrupted by a general
commercial crash, followed, after a long period of’ chronic depression, by a few short years of
prosperity, and always ending in feverish over-production and consequent renewed collapse. The
capitalist class clamoured for Free Trade in corn, and threatened to enforce it by sending the starving
population of the towns back to the country districts whence they came, to invade them, as John Bright
said, not as paupers begging for bread, but as an army quartered upon the enemy. The working masses
of the towns demanded their share of political power – the People’s Charter; they were supported by
the majority of the small trading class, and the only difference between the two was whether the
Charter should be carried by physical or by moral force. Then came the commercial crash of 1847 and
the Irish famine, and with both the prospect of revolution.
“The French Revolution of 1848 saved the English middle class. The Socialistic pronunciamentos of the
victorious French workmen frightened the small middle class of England and disorganised the narrower,
but more matter-of-fact movement of the English working class. At the very moment when Chartism
was bound to assert itself in its full strength, it collapsed internally before even it collapsed externally,
on the 10th of April, 1848. The action of the working class was thrust into the background. The capitalist
class triumphed along the whole line.
“The Reform Bill of 1831 had been the victory of the whole capitalist class over the landed aristocracy.
The repeal of the Corn Laws was the victory of the manufacturing capitalist not only over the landed
aristocracy, but over those sections of capitalists, too, whose interests were more or less bound up with
the landed interest-bankers, stockjobbers, fundholders, etc. Free Trade meant the readjustment of the
whole home and foreign, commercial and financial policy of England in accordance with the interests of
the manufacturing capitalists — the class which now [These words belong apparently not to Bright but
to his adherents. See The Quarterly Review, Vol. 71, No. 141, p. 273.-Ed.] represented the nation. And
they set about this task with a will. Every obstacle to industrial production was mercilessly removed. The
tariff and the whole system of taxation were revolutionised. Everything was made subordinate to one
end, but that end of the utmost importance to the manufacturing capitalist: the cheapening of all raw
produce, and especially of the means of living of the working class; the reduction of the cost of raw
material, and the keeping down – if not as yet the bringing down - of wages. England was to become the
‘workshop of the world’; all other countries were to become for England what Ireland already was-
markets for her manufactured goods, supplying her in return with raw materials and food. England, the
great manufacturing centre of an agricultural world, with an ever-increasing number of corn and cotton-
growing Irelands revolving around her, the industrial sun. What a glorious prospect!
“The manufacturing capitalists set about the realisation of this their great object with that strong
common sense and that contempt for traditional principles which has ever distinguished them from
their more narrow-minded compeers on the Continent. Chartism was dying out. The revival of
commercial prosperity, natural after the revulsion of 1847 had spent itself, was put down altogether to
the credit of Free Trade. Both these circumstances had turned the English working class, politically, into
the tail of the ‘great Liberal Party’, the party led by the manufacturers. This advantage, once gained, had
to be perpetuated. And the manufacturing capitalists, from the Chartist opposition, not to Free Trade,
but to the transformation of Free Trade into the one vital national question, had learnt, and were
learning more and more, that the middle class can never obtain full social and political power over the
nation except by the help of the working class. Thus a gradual change came over the relations between
both classes. The Factory Acts, once the bugbear of all manufacturers, were not only willingly submitted
to, but their expansion into acts regulating almost all trades was tolerated. Trades Unions, hitherto
considered inventions of the devil himself, were now petted and patronised as perfectly legitimate
institutions, and as useful means of spreading sound economical doctrines amongst the workers. Even
strikes, than which nothing had been more nefarious up to 1848, were now gradually found out to be
occasionally very useful, especially when provoked by the masters themselves, at their own time. Of the
legal enactments, placing the workman at a lower level or at a disadvantage with regard to the master,
at least the most revolting were repealed. And, practically, that horrid People’s Charter actually became
the political programme of the very manufacturers who had opposed it to the last. The Abolition of the
Property Qualification and Vote by Ballot are now the law of the land. The Reform Acts of 1867 and
1884 make a near approach to universal suffrage, at least such as it now exists in Germany; the
Redistribution Bill now before Parliament creates equal electoral districts-on the whole not more
unequal than those of France or Germany; payment of members, and shorter, if not actually annual
Parliaments, are visibly looming in the distanceand yet there are people who say that Chartism is dead.
“The Revolution of 1848, not less than many of its predecessors, has had strange bedfellows and
successors. The very people who put it down have become, as Karl Marx used to say, its testamentary
executors. Louis Napoleon had to create an independent and united Italy, Bismarck had to revolutionise
Germany and to restore Hungarian independence, and the English manufacturers had to enact the
People’s Charter.
“For England, the effects of this domination of the manufacturing capitalists were at first startling. Trade
revived and extended to a degree unheard of even in this cradle of modern industry; the previous
astounding creations of steam and machinery dwindled into nothing compared with the immense mass
of productions of the twenty years from 1850 to 1870, with the overwhelming figures of exports and
imports, of wealth accumulated in the hands of capitalists and of human working power concentrated in
the large towns. The progress was indeed interrupted, as before, by a crisis every ten years, in 1857 as
well as in 1866; but these revulsions were now considered as natural, inevitable events, which must be
fatalistically submitted to, and which always set themselves right in the end.
“And the condition of the working-class during this period? There was temporary improvement even for
the great mass. But this improvement always was reduced to the old level by the influx of the great body
of the unemployed reserve, by the constant superseding of hands by new machinery, by the
immigration of the agricultural population, now, too, more and more superseded by machines.
“A permanent improvement can be recognised for two ‘protected’ sections only of the working class.
Firstly, the factory hands. The fixing by Act of Parliament of their working-day within relatively rational
limits has restored their physical constitution and endowed them with a moral superiority, enhanced by
their local concentration. They are undoubtedly better off than before 1848. The best proof is that, out
of ten strikes they make, nine are provoked by the manufacturers in their own interests, as the only
means of securing a reduced production. You can never get the masters to agree to work ‘short time’,
let manufactured goods be ever so unsaleable; but get the workpeople to strike, and the masters shut
their factories to a man.
“Secondly, the great Trades Unions. They are the organisations of those trades in which the labour of
Grown-up men predominates, or is alone applicable. Here the competition neither of women and
children nor of machinery has so far weakened their organised strength. The engineers, the carpenters
and joiners, the bricklayers, are each of them a power, to that extent that, as in the case of the
bricklayers and bricklayers’ labourers, they can even successfully resist the introduction of machinery.
That their condition has remarkably improved since 1848 there can be no doubt, and the best proof of
this is in the fact that for more than fifteen years not only have their employers been with them, but
they with their employers, upon exceedingly good terms. They form an aristocracy among the working
class; they have succeeded in enforcing for themselves a relatively comfortable position, and they
accept it as final. They are the model working men of Messrs. Leone Levi & Giffen (and also the worthy
Lujo Brentano), and they are very nice people indeed nowadays to deal with, for any sensible capitalist
in particular and for the whole capitalist class in general.
“But as to the great mass of working people, the state of misery and insecurity in which they live now is
as low as ever, if not lower. The East End of London is an everspreading pool of stagnant misery and
desolation, of starvation when out of work, and degradation, physical and moral, when in work. And so
in all other large towns-abstraction made of the privileged minority of the workers; and so in the smaller
towns and in the agricultural districts. The law which reduces the value of labour-power to the value of
the necessary means of subsistence, and the other law which reduces its average price, as a rule, to the
minimum of those means of subsistence, these laws act upon them with the irresistible force of an
automatic engine which crushes them between its wheels.
“This, then was the position created by the Free Trade policy of 1847, and by twenty years of the rule of
the manufacturing capitalists. But then a change came. The crash of 1866 was, indeed, followed by a
slight and short revival about 1873; but that did not last. We did not, indeed, pass through the full crisis
at the time it was due, in 1877 or 1878; but we have had, ever since 1876, a chronic state of stagnation
in all dominant branches of industry. Neither will the full crash come; nor will the period of longed-for
prosperity to which we used to be entitled before and after it. A dull depression, a chronic glut of all
markets for all trades, that is what we have been living in for nearly ten years. How is this?
“The Free Trade theory was based upon one assumption: that England was to be the one great
manufacturing centre of an agricultural world. And the actual fact is that this assumption has turned out
to be a pure delusion. The conditions of modern industry, steam-power and machinery, can be
established wherever there is fuel, especially coals. And other countries besides England-France,
Belgium, Germany, America, even Russiahave coals. And the people over there did not see the
advantage of being turned into Irish pauper farmers merely for the greater wealth and glory of English
capitalists. They set resolutely about manufacturing, not only for themselves, but for the rest of the
world; and the consequence is that the manufacturing monopoly enjoyed by England for nearly a
century is irretrievably broken up.
“But the manufacturing monopoly of England is the pivot of the present social system of England. Even
while that monopoly lasted, the markets could not keep pace with the increasing productivity of English
manufacturers; the decennial crises were the consequence. And new markets are getting scarcer every
day, so much so that even the Negroes of the Congo are now to be forced into the civilisation attendant
upon Manchester calicos, Staffordshire pottery, and Birmingham hardware. How will it be when
Continental, and especially American, goods flow in in ever-increasing quantities – when the
predominating share, still held by British manufacturers, will become reduced from year to year?
Answer, Free Trade, thou universal panacea.
“I am not the first to point this out. Already in 1883, at the Southport meeting of the British Association,
Mr. Inglis Palgrave, the President of the Economic section, stated plainly that
“‘the days of great trade profits in England were over, and there was a pause in the progress of several
great branches of industrial labour. The country might almost be said to be entering the non-progressive
state’.
“But what is to be the consequence? Capitalist production cannot stop. It must go on increasing and
expanding, or it must die. Even a Report of the Fifty-Third Meeting of the British Association for the
Advancement of Science; held at Southport in September 1883, now the mere reduction of England’s
lion’s share in the supply of the world’s markets means stagnation, distress, excess of capital here,
excess of unemployed workpeople there. What will it be when the increase of yearly production is
brought to a complete stop?
“Here is the vulnerable place, the heel of Achilles, for capitalistic production. Its very basis is the
necessity of constant expansion, and this constant expansion now becomes impossible. It ends in a
deadlock. Every year England is brought nearer face to face with the question: either the country must
go to pieces, or capitalist production must. Which is it to be?
“And the working class? If even under the unparalleled commercial and industrial expansion, from 1848
to 1868, they have had to undergo such misery; if even then the great bulk of them experienced at best
but a temporary improvement of their condition, while only a small, privileged, ‘protected’ minority was
permanently benefited, what will it be when this dazzling period is brought finally to a close; when the
present dreary stagnation shall not only become intensified, but this, its intensified condition, shall
become the permanent and normal state of English trade?
“The truth is this: during the period of England’s industrial monopoly the English working class have, to a
certain extent, shared in the benefits of the monopoly. These benefits were very unequally parcelled out
amongst them; the privileged minority pocketed most, but even the great mass had, at least, a
temporary share now and then. And that is the reason why, since the dying-out of Owenism, there has
been no Socialism in England. With the breakdown of that monopoly, the English working class will lose
that privileged position; it will find itself generally – the privileged and leading minority not excepted-on
a level with its fellow-workers abroad. And that is the reason why there will be Socialism again in
England.”
So I wrote in 1885. In the Preface to the English edition written on January 11, 1892 I continued:
“To this statement of the case, as that case appeared to me in 1885, I have but little to add. Needless to
say that to-day there is indeed ‘Socialism again in England’, and plenty of it-Socialism of all shades:
Socialism conscious and unconscious, Socialism prosaic and poetic, Socialism of the working class and of
the middle class, for, verily, that abomination of abominations, Socialism, has not only become
respectable, but has actually donned evening dress and lounges lazily on drawing-room causeuses. That
shows the incurable fickleness of that terrible despot of ‘society’, middle-class public opinion, and once
more justifies the contempt in which we Socialists of a past generation always held that public opinion.
At the same time we have no reason to grumble at the symptom itself.
“What I consider far more important than this momentary fashion among bourgeois circles of affecting a
mild dilution of Socialism, and even more than the actual progress Socialism has made in England
generally, that is the revival of the East End of London. That immense haunt of misery is no longer the
stagnant pool it was six years ago. It has shaken off its torpid despair, has returned to life, and has
become the home of what is called the ‘New Unionism’, that is to say, of the organisation of the great
mass of ‘unskilled’ workers. This organisation may to a great extent adopt the form of the old Unions of
‘skilled’ workers but it is essentially different in character. The old Unions preserve the traditions of the
time when they were founded, and look upon the wages system as a once-for-all established, final fact,
which they at best can modify in the interest of their members. The new Unions were founded at a time
when the faith in the eternity of the wages system was severely shaken; their founders and promoters
were Socialists either consciously or by feeling; the masses, whose adhesion gave them strength, were
rough, neglected, looked down upon by the working-class aristocracy; but they had this immense
advantage, that their minds were virgin soil, entirely free from the inherited ‘respectable’ bourgeois
prejudices which hampered the brains of the better situated ‘old’ Unionists. And thus we see now these
new Unions taking the lead of the working-class movement generally, and more and more taking in tow
the rich and proud, old Unions.
“Undoubtedly, the East Enders have committed colossal blunders; so have their predecessors, and so do
the doctrinaire Socialists who pooh-pooh them. A large class, like a great nation, never learns better or
quicker than by undergoing the consequences of its own mistakes. And for all the faults committed in
past, present and future, the revival of the East End of London remains one of the greatest and most
fruitful facts of this fin de siécle, and glad and proud I am to have lived to see it.”
Since I wrote the above, six months ago, the English working-class movement has again made a good
step forward. The parliamentary elections which took place a few days ago gave both the official parties,
Conservative as well as Liberal, notice in due form that from now on one and the other will have to
reckon with a third party, the workers’ party. This workers’ party is now only in the process of
formation; its elements are still engaged in shaking off traditional prejudices of all kinds-bourgeois, old
trade-unionist, indeed, even doctrinaire-socialist-in order to be able to get together at last on ground
common to all of them. And yet the instinct to unite which they followed was already so strong that it
produced election results hitherto unheard-of in England. In London two workers’ have stood for
election, and openly as Socialists at that; the Liberals did not dare to put up one of theirs against them,
and the two Socialists have won by an overwhelming and unexpected majority [James Keir Hardie and
John Burns. —Ed.+. In Middlesbrough a workers’ candidate [John Havelock Wilson.—Ed.] has stood
against a Liberal and a Conservative and been elected in the teeth of both; on the other hand, the new
workers’ candidates who allied themselves with the Liberals have been hopelessly defeated, with the
exception of a single one. Among those who so far have been called workers’ representatives, that is,
those who are forgiven their quality of workers because they themselves would willingly drown it in the
ocean of their liberalism, the most significant representative of the old Unionism, Henry Broadhurst, has
suffered a striking defeat because he declared himself against the eight-hour day. In two Glasgow, one
Salford, and several other constituencies, independent workers’ candidates stood against candidates of
the two old parties; they were beaten, but so were the Liberal candidates. Briefly, in a number of large-
town and industrial constituencies the workers have resolutely severed all connections with the two old
parties and thus achieved direct or indirect successes such as they had never scored in any election so
far. And the joy on this account among the workers is boundless. For the first time they have seen and
felt what they can do when they make use of their electoral rights in the interest of their class. The
superstitious belief in the “great Liberal Party” which had kept a hold on the English workers for nearly
forty years has been destroyed. They have seen by striking examples that they, the workers, are the
decisive force in England if only they have the will and know their own will; and the 1892 elections have
been the beginning of that knowledge and that will. The workers’ movement on the Continent will see
to the rest: the Germans and the French, who are already so strongly represented in parliaments and
local councils, will keep the spirit of emulation of the English sufficiently high by further successes. And if
in the not very distant future it turns out that this new parliament can get nowhere with Mr. Gladstone,
nor Mr. Gladstone with this parliament, the English workers’ party will surely be sufficiently constituted
to put an early end to the seesaw game of the two old parties which have been succeeding each other in
power and thereby perpetuating bourgeois rule.
F. Engels
London, July 21, 1892 END OF EXCERPTS
From the Marx-Engels Correspondence
Marx-Engels Correspondence 1857
Engels To Marx
In London
Source: MECW Volume 40, p. 182;
First published: slightly abridged in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels
und K. Marx, Stuttgart, 1913 and in full in Marx and Engels, Works,
Moscow, 1929.
Ryde, 24 September 1857
Dear Marx,
Depicted above is the castle where Cromwell incarcerated Charles I for a while. I shall inspect it more
closely on Sunday.
Your wishes concerning India coincided with an idea I had that you might perhaps like to have my views
on the business. At the same time I took the opportunity of going over the contents of the
latest mail map in hand andvoici ce qui en resulte.
The situation of the English in the middle and upper reaches of the Ganges is so incongruous that
militarily speaking the only right course would be to effect a junction between Havelock’s column and
the one from Delhi, if possible at Agra, after each had done everything possible to evacuate the
detached or invested garrisons in the area; to man, besides Agra, only the neighbouring stations south
of the Ganges, especially Gwalior (on account of the Central Indian princes) and to hold the stations
lower down the Ganges — Allahabad, Benares, Dinapur — with the existing garrisons and
reinforcements from Calcutta; meanwhile to escort women and non-combatants down river, so that the
troops again become mobile; and to employ mobile columns to instill respect in the region and to obtain
supplies. If Agra cannot be held, there must be a withdrawal to Cawnpore or Allahabad; the latter to be
held at all costs since it is the key to the territory between the Ganges and the Jumna.
If Agra can be held and the Bombay army remains available, the armies of Bombay and Madras must
hold the peninsula proper up to the latitude of Ahmedabad and Calcutta and send out columns to
establish communications with the north — the Bombay army via Indor and Gwalior to Agra, the Madras
army via Saugor and Gwalior to Agra, and via Jubbulpore to Allahabad. The other lines of
communication would then run to Agra from the Punjab, assuming it is held, and from Calcutta via
Dinapur and Allahabad, so that there would be 4 lines of communication and, excluding the Punjab, 3
lines of withdrawal, to Calcutta, Bombay and Madras. Concentrating the troops arriving from the south
at Agra would, therefore, serve the dual purpose of keeping the Central Indian princes in check and
subduing the insurgent districts astride the line of march.
If Agra cannot he held, the Madras army must first establish communications with Allahabad and then
make for Agra with the Allahabad troops, while the Bombay army makes for Gwalior.
The Madras army would seem to have been recruited exclusively from the rag-tag and bobtail and to
that extent is reliable. In Bombay they have 150 or more Hindus to a battalion and these are dangerous
in that they may disaffect the rest. If the Bombay army revolts, all military calculations will temporarily
cease to apply, and then nothing is more certain than that there'll be one colossal massacre from
Kashmir to Cape Comorin. If the situation in Bombay is such that in future also the army cannot be used
against the insurgents, then at least the Madras columns, which will by now have pushed on beyond
Nagpur, will have to be reinforced and communications established as speedily as possible with
Allahabad or Benares.
The absurdity of the position in which the English have now been placed by the total absence of any real
supreme command is demonstrated mainly by 2 complementary circumstances, namely, 1. that they
permit themselves to be invested when dispersed over a host of small, far flung stations while 2. they tie
down their one and only mobile column in front of Delhi where not only can it do nothing but is actually
going to pot. The English general who ordered the march on Delhi deserves to be cashiered and hanged,
for he must have known what we have only just learned, viz. that the British had strengthened the old
fortifications to the point where the place could only be taken by a systematic siege, for which a
minimum of 15-20,000 men would be required, and far more if it was well defended. Now that they are
there they will have to stick it out for political reasons; a withdrawal would be a defeat and will
nevertheless be difficult to avoid.
Havelock’s troops have worked wonders. 126 miles in 8 days including 6 to 8 engagements in that
climate and at this time of year is truly superhuman. But they're also quite played out; he, too, will
probably have to let himself be invested after exhausting himself still further by excursions over a
narrow radius round Cawnpore. Or he will have to return to Allahabad.
The actual route of reconquest will run up the valley of the Ganges. Bengal proper will be easier to hold
since the population has so greatly degenerated; the really dangerous region begins at Dinapur. Hence
the positions at Dinapur, Benares, Mirzapur and particularly Allahabad are of the utmost importance;
from Allahabad, it would first be necessary to take the Doab (between the Ganges. and the Jumna) and
the cities on these two rivers, then Oudh, then the rest. The lines from Madras and Bombay to Agra and
Allahabad can only be secondary lines of operations.
The main thing, as always, is concentration. The reinforcements sent up the Ganges are scattered all
over the place and so far not one man has reached Allahabad. Unavoidable, perhaps, if these stations
were to be made secure and then again, perhaps not. At all events, the number of stations to be held
must he reduced to a minimum and forces must be concentrated for the field. If C. Campbell, about
whom we know nothing save that he is a brave man, wants to distinguish himself as a general, he must
create a mobile army, coûte que coûte [cost what it may], whether or not Delhi is abandoned.
And where, summa summarum, there are 25-30,000 European soldiers, no situation is so desperate that
5,000 at least cannot be mustered for a campaign, their losses being made good by the garrisons
withdrawn from the stations. Only then will Campbell be able to see how he stands and what kind of
enemy is actually confronting him. The odds are, however, that like a fool he will se blottir
devant [squat down before] Delhi and watch his men go to pot at the rate of 100 a day, in which case it
will be all the more ‘brave’ simply to stay there until everyone has cheerfully met his doom. Now as in
the past brave stupidity is the order of the day.
Concentration of forces for the fighting in the north, vigorous support from Madras and, if possible,
from Bombay, that’s all. Even if the Mahratta princes on the Nerbudda defect it can do little harm save
by way of an example, for their troops are already with the insurgents. Certainly the very most that can
be done is to hold out until the first reinforcements arrive from Europe at the end of October. But if a
few more Bombay regiments revolt, that will be the end of strategy and tactics; it’s there that the
decision lies.
I leave for Brighton on Tuesday at the latest and set out from there for Jersey at 10 o'clock on
Wednesday night, but will let you have further details, and hope that you will come. Tomorrow shall
start on ‘Battery’, etc. Today I drove round the island and, as I again slogged away until 3 o'clock
yesterday, now propose to have a good long sleep.
Your
F. E.
Marx-Engels Correspondence 1858
Marx To Engels
In Manchester
Source: MECW Volume 40, p. 248;
First published: abridged in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels
und K. Marx, Stuttgart, 1913, and in full in: Marx and Engels,
Works, Moscow, 1929.
[London,] 16 January 1858
Dear Frederick,
You, too, will have had a letter from Harney about friend [Conrad] Schramm. There was no prospect of
recovery. A pity, though, that money worries — for which the fat London philistine [Rudolf Schramm] is
to blame — should have clouded his last days.
Your article 3 is splendid and in style and manner altogether reminiscent of the Neue Rheinische
Zeitung in its heyday. As for Windham, he may be a very bad general, but on this occasion the man was
undone by what was the making of him at the Redan — unseasoned troops. I am generally of the
opinion that in terms of bravery, self-reliance and steadiness this, the second army England has
committed to India (and of which not a man will return), will not be able to hold a candle to the first,
which seems to have dwindled away almost entirely. As regards the effect of the climate on the troops,
while temporarily in charge of the military department I showed in various articles by exact calculations
that mortality was disproportionately higher than stated in the official English despatches. In view of
the drain of men and bullion which she will cost the English, India is now our best ally.
On Monday I shall again visit the Museum, after which I shall send you ‘Catapult’ — along with the other
stuff you ask for — drawn from the best sources. I have not done ‘Coehoorn’, as it would have taken me
too much time to unearth the correct sources.
I am exceedingly glad to learn that your health is progressing well. For the past 3 weeks I, too, have
again been dosing myself and only stopped doing so today. I had been overdoing very much my
nocturnal labours, accompanied, it is true, by mere lemonade on the one hand, but an immense deal of
tobacco on the other. I am, by the way, discovering some nice arguments. E.g. I have completely
demolished the theory of profit as hitherto propounded. What was of great use to me as
regards method of treatment was Hegel’s Logic at which I had taken another look by mere accident,
Freiligrath having found and made me a present of several volumes of Hegel, originally the property of
Bakunin. If ever the time comes when such work is again possible, I should very much like to write 2 or 3
sheets making accessible to the common reader the rational aspect of the method which Hegel not only
discovered but also mystified.
Of all recent economists, Monsieur Bastiat with his Harmonies économiques represents the very dregs of
fatuity at their most concentrated. Only a crapaud could have concocted an harmonious pot-au-feu of
this kind.
What do you think of our friend Jones? I still refuse to believe that the chap has sold himself. Perhaps his
experience of 1848 lies heavy on his stomach. So great is his faith in himself that he may think himself
capable of exploiting the middle class or imagine that if only, one way or the other, Ernest Jones could
be got into Parliament, world history could not fail to take a new turn. The best of it all is that — out
of spite against Jones, of course —Reynolds is now posing in his paper as the most rabid opponent of
the middle class and of all compromise. Mr B. O'Brien has likewise become an irrepressible Chartist at
any price. Jones’ only excuse is the enervation now rampant among the working class in England.
However that may be, if he goes on as at present he will become either dupe of the middle
class or renegade. The fact that he should now seek to avoid me as anxiously as he once used to consult
me over the merest trifle is evidence of anything but a good conscience.
Herewith a letter for Lupus from Laura and Jenny. The two girls naturally imagine that you might take
umbrage at Lupus appearing to be preferred as a correspondent. Hence they have earnestly
admonished me not to forget to tell you that yours shall be the next turn.
I shall wait another 3 weeks until the situation has pretty well come to a head and then write to Mr
Dana saying that I cannot go on working for the Tribune if I'm restricted to 4 articles a month, and that 6
is the minimum. In fact I am now invariably obliged to compress into 1 article sufficient material for 2,
and hence am doing double the work for half the price. This will never do.
Did you enclose Lassalle’s and Friedländer’s letters’ in the one about Lassalle which went astray? For
political reasons, it would be desirable to preserve them.
Salut.
Your
K. M.
Marx-Engels Correspondence 1862
Marx To Engels
In Manchester
Source: MECW Volume 41, p. 347;
First published: in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Stuttgart, 1913.
[London,] 6 March 1862
Dear Frederick,
My best thanks for the Post Office order and the wine. That swine Koller, who has an I.O.U. of mine, had
already dunned me yesterday.
I enclose herewith the 3 last Free Presses. I haven’t yet seen Collet in person, but feel sure he will be
able to get hold of the other numbers as well.
In my letter to you, read Japan for Java. I obtained the actual facts from sundry numbers of
the Tribune which contained the official Russian communiqués and reports from American consuls — all
of them suppressed by the English press. I sent the relevant numbers to Urquhart and haven’t yet got
them back. I had previously used them for a Presse article on the Russian advance in Asia. However, the
jackasses didn’t print it. Now, you know what a bad memory for names I've got. So, at the moment I
can’t provide you with the names. The first island lies exactly half way between the south-western
extremity of Japan and the Korean mainland. It has a large harbour and, according to the American
account, is capable of becoming a second Sevastopol. As regards the other islands that are actual
Japanese possessions, one of them, if I am not mistaken, is called Jeso. However, I shall see if I can
retrieve the documents.
Chinese trade, compared with what it was like up to 1852, has certainly increased, but by no means on
the same scale as have all other markets since the Californian-Australian discoveries. Moreover, in
earlier reports Hong Kong, as an English possession, is shown separately from China, so that exports
under the heading ‘China’ invariably (from the 40s on) amount to less than total exports. Finally, the
increment achieved since 1859 fell back in 1861 to its former level.
In consequence of the American crisis, the Board of Trade report for 1861 shows a considerable change
in the ranking order of the various markets for English exports. India leads with £17,923,767 (including
Ceylon and Singapore. India alone, £16,412,090).
Second market Germany, normally 4th. 1860: £13,491,523. 1861: £12,937,073 (not including what goes
via Holland and, to a lesser degree, via Belgium). In view of Germany’s economic importance to England,
what a diplomatic advantage it would give us, circumstances being different, over bluff John Bull!
France this year the 5th market. 1860: £5,249,980. 1861: £8,896,282. However, that includes
Switzerland as well. England, on the other hand, now ranks as the premier market for France.
Out of the total exports of £125,115,133 (1861), £42,260,970 go to English ‘possessions’ and
‘colonies’. If one adds to that what England exports to other parts of Asia, Africa and America, there
remains at most 23 to 24% for export to the countries of Europe.
Should Russia continue to advance in Asia at the same rapid pace as during the past 10 years, until all
her efforts are concentrated on India, it will be the end of John Bull’s world market, a demise that will
be hastened by the United States’s protective tariff policy, which that country will certainly be in no
hurry to relinquish, if only out of revenge against John. Moreover, John Bull is discovering to his horror
that his main colonies in North America and Australia are becoming protectionist to the same extent as
he himself is becoming a Free-Trader. The complacent, brutal stupidity with which John has acclaimed
Pam’s ‘spirited policy’ in Asia and America, will one day cost him damned dear.
To me it does not seem very probable that the Southerners will have concluded peace by July 1862.
When the Northerners have 1. secured the Border states — and it is upon these, in fact, that everything
has centred from the start — and 2. the Mississippi as far as New Orleans and Texas, the war may well
enter a 2nd phase during which the Northerners will make no great exertions of a military nature but,
by isolating the Gulf states, finally bring them to the point of voluntary re-annexation.
During this war Bull has acted with what must be wholly unprecedented effrontery.
In terms of brutality on the English side, the Mexican Blue Book exceeds anything previously known in
history. Menshikov appears a gentleman compared with Sir C. Lennox Wyke. Not only does this
blackguard evince the most immoderate zeal in the execution of Pain’s secret instructions but, by his
insolence, also seeks to avenge himself for the fact that, in the exchange of diplomatic dispatches, Senor
Zamacona, the Mexican Foreign Minister (now resigned) and erstwhile Journalist, invariably proves
himself superior. As for the chap’s style, herewith a few examples from his dispatches to Zamacona.
*‘the arbitrary act of stopping all payments for the space of two years is depriving the parties interested
of their money for that space of time, which is a dead loss of so much value to them.’ ‘A starving man
may justify, in his own eyes, the fact of stealing a loaf on the ground that imperious necessity impelled
him thereto; but such an argument cannot, in a moral point of view, justify his violation of the law,
which remains as positive, apart from all sentimentality, as if the crime had not had an excuse. If he was
actually starving, he should have first asked the baker to assuage his hunger, but doing so’ (starving?)
‘of his own free will, without permission, isacting exactly, as the Mexican government has done
towards its creditors opt the present occasion.’ ‘With regard to the light in which you view the question,
as expressed in your above named note, you will excuse me for stating that it cannot be treated of
partially, without also taking into consideration the opinions of those who directly suffer from the
practical operation of such ideas as emanating from yourself. “I had a full right to complain ... of having
first of all heard of this extraordinary measure ... by seeing it in printed bills placarded through the public
streets ...”
‘I have a duty to perform both to my own Gvt. and to that to which I am accredited, which impels me...,’
etc.,
‘I suspend all official relations with the Government of this Republic until that of Her Majesty shall adopt
such measures as they shall deem necessary.*”
Zamacona writes and tells him that the intrigues of foreign diplomatists in the past 25 years have been
largely to blame for the troubles in Mexico. Wyke replies that
*‘the population of Mexico is so degraded as to make them dangerous, not only to themselves, but to
everybody coming into contact with them!'*
Zamacona writes, saying that the propositions he *Wyke+ has made would put an end to the Republic’s
independence, and were incompatible with the dignity of any independent state. Wyke replies:
*‘Excuse me for adding that such a proposition as I have made to you does not necessarily become
undignified and impracticable simply, because you, an interested person,’* (i.e., Foreign Minister of
Mexico) *'are pleased to say so.'*
But satis superque.
According to a letter from Schily to Rheinländer, things look most precarious in Paris and, unless there is
war, Badinguet cannot hold on for another year. What bad luck for the chap that he should have the
Parisians to govern, and not the Berliners, who admire him.
Salut.
Your
K. M.
PS. 1. How do I translate gigs into German?
2. What are feeders on circular frames?
3. Could you inform me of all the different types of workers employed, e.g., at your mill (all, that
is, except the warehouse), and in what proportion to each other? For in my book, I need an example
showing that, in mechanical workshops, the division of labour, as forming the basis of manufacture and
as described by A. Smith, does not exist. The proposition itself has already been set forth by Ure. All that
is needed is an example of some kind.
I must write and tell the chaps at the Presse that some new arrangement will have to be made. It’s all
the same to me if they don’t print the best articles (although I always write them in such a way that they
can print them). But financially it’s no go if, out of every 4 or 5 articles, they print 1 and only pay for 1.
That places me far below the penny-a-liners.
Marx-Engels Correspondence 1881
Marx to Nikolai Danielson
In St. Petersburg
Abstract
Source: Marx and Engels Correspondence;
Publisher: International Publishers (1968);
First Published: Gestamtausgabe;
Translated: Donna Torr;
Transcribed: Sally Ryan in 1999;
HTML Markup: Sally Ryan.
London, February 19, 1881
I have read with the greatest interest your article, which is in the best sense of the word “original.”
Hence the boycotting – if you break through the webs of routine thought, you are always sure to be
“boycotted” in the first instance; it is the only arm of defence which in their first perplexity the
routiniers know how to wield. I have been “boycotted” in Germany for many, many years, and am still
so in England, with that little variation that from time to time something so absurd and asinine is
launched against me that I would blush to take any public notice of it. But try on! The next thing to do –
in my opinion – is to take up the wonderfully increasing indebtedness of the landlords,the upper-class
representatives of agriculture, and show them how they are “crystallised” in the retort under the
control of the “new pillars of society.”
I am very anxious to see your polemics with the “Slovo.” As soon as I shall sail in more quiet waters I
shall enter more fully upon your Esquisse [sketch]. For the present I cannot omit one observation. The
soil being exhausted and getting not the elements – by artificial and vegetable and animal manure, etc.
– to supply its wants, will, with the changing favour of the seasons, of circumstances independent of
human influence – still continue to yield harvests of very different amounts, though, summing up a
period of years, as for instance, from 1870-80, the stagnant character of the production presents itself in
the most striking character. Under such circumstances the favourable climatic conditions pave the way
to a famine year by quickly consuming and setting free the mineral fertilisers still potent on the soil,
while vice-versa, a famine-year, and still more a series of bad years following it, allow the soil-inherent
minerals to accumulate anew, and to work efficiently with returning favour of the climatic conditions.
Such a process goes, of course, everywhere on, but elsewhere it is checked by the modifying
intervention of the agriculturist himself. It becomes the only regulating factor where man has ceased to
be a “power” – for want of means.
So we have 1870 as an excellent harvest in your country, but that year is a climax year, and as such
immediately followed by a very bad one; the year 1871, the very bad harvest, must be considered as the
starting point for a new little cycle, till we come to the new climax year 1874, which is immediately
followed by the famine year 1875; then the upwards movement begins again, ending in the still worse
famine year 1880. The summing up of the years during the whole period proves that the average annual
production remained the same and that the mere natural factors have alone produced the changes,
comparing the single years and the smaller cycles of years.
I wrote you some time ago, that if the great industrial and commercial crisis England has passed
through, went over without the culminating financial crash at London, this exceptional phenomenon
was only due to French money. This is now seen and acknowledged even by English routiniers. Thus
the Statist (January 19, 1881) says: “The money market has only be*en+ so easy as it has been during the
past years through an accident. The Bank of France in the early autumn permitted its stock of gold
bullion to fall from £30 millions to £22 millions .... Last autumn undoubtedly there was a very narrow
escape.” (!)
The English railway system rolls on the same inclined plane as the European Public Debt system. The
ruling magnates amongst the different railway-nets directors contract not only – progressively – new
loans in order to enlarge their network, i.e., the ” territory,” where they rule as absolute monarchs, but
they enlarge their respective networks in order to have new pretexts for engaging in new loans which
enable them to pay the interest due to the holders of obligations, preferential shares, etc., and also
from time to time to throw a sop to the much ill-used common shareholders in the shape of somewhat
increased dividends. This pleasant method must one day or another terminate in an ugly catastrophe.
In the United States the railway kings have become the butt of attacks, not only, as before this, on the
part of the farmers and other industrial “entrepreneurs” of the West, but also on the part of the grand
representative of commerce – the New York Chamber of Commerce. The Octopodus railway king and
financial swindler Gould has, on his side, told the New York commercial magnates: You now attack the
railways, because you think them most vulnerable considering their present unpopularity; but take
heed: after the railways every sort of corporation (means in the Yankee dialect joint stock company) will
have its turn; then, later on, all forms of associated capital; finally all forms of capital; you are thus
paving the way to – Communism whose tendencies are already more and more spreading among the
people. M. Gould “a le flair bon.”
In India serious complications, if not a general outbreak, is in store for the British government. What the
English take from them annually in the form of rent, dividends for railways useless to the Hindus;
pensions for military and civil service men, for Afghanistan and other wars, etc., etc. – what they take
from them without any equivalent and quite apart from what they appropriate to themselves
annually within India, speaking only of the value of the commodities the Indians have gratuitously and
annually to send over to England – it amounts to more than the total sum of income of the sixty millions
of agricultural and industrial labourers of India! This is a bleeding process, with a vengeance! The famine
years are pressing each other and in dimensions till now not yet suspected in Europe! There is an actual
conspiracy going on wherein Hindus and Mussulmans co-operate; the British government is aware that
something is “brewing,” but this shallow people (I mean the governmental men), stultified by their own
parliamentary ways of talking and thinking, do not even desire to see clear, to realise the whole extent
of the imminent danger! To delude others and by deluding them to delude yourself – this
is: parliamentary wisdom in a nutshell! Tant mieux!
Marx-Engels Correspondence 1890
Engels to Conrad Schmidt
In Berlin
Abstract
Source: Marx and Engels Correspondence;
Publisher: International Publishers (1968);
First Published: Gestamtausgabe;
Translated: Donna Torr;
Transcribed: Sally Ryan in 2000;
HTML Markup: Sally Ryan.
London, October 27, 1890
I think you would do very well to take the post in Zürich. [Editor of the Zürich Post.] You could always
learn a good deal about economics there, especially if you bear in mind that Zürich is still only a third-
rate money and speculation market, so that the impressions which make themselves felt there are
weakened or deliberately distorted by twofold or threefold reflection. But you will get a practical
knowledge of the mechanism and be obliged to follow the stock exchange reports from London, New
York, Paris, Berlin and Vienna at first hand, and in this way the world market, in its reflex as money and
stock market, will reveal itself to you. Economic, political and other reflections are just like those in the
human eye, they pass through a condensing lens and therefore appear upside down, standing on their
heads. Only the nervous system which would put them on their feet again for representation is lacking.
The money market man only sees the movement of industry and of the world market in the inverted
reflection of the money and stock market and so effect becomes cause to him. I noticed that in the
'forties already in Manchester: the London Stock Exchange reports were utterly useless for the course of
industry and its periodical maxima and minima because these gentry tried to explain everything from
crises on the money market, which were generally only symptoms. At that time the object was to
explain away the origin of industrial crises as temporary overproduction, so that the thing had in
addition its tendentious side, provocative of distortion. This point has now gone (for us, at any rate, for
good and all), added to which it is indeed a fact that the money market can also have its own crises, in
which direct disturbances of industry only play a subordinate part or no part at all – here there is still
much, especially in the history of the last twenty years, to be examined and established.
Where there is division of labour on a social scale there is also mutual independence among the
different sections of work. In the last instance production is the decisive factor. But when the trade in
products becomes independent of production itself, it follows a movement of its own, which, while it is
governed as a whole by production, still in particular cases and within this general dependence follows
particular laws contained in the nature of this new factor; this movement has phases of its own and in
its turn reacts on the movement of production. The discovery of America was due to the thirst for gold
which had previously driven the Portuguese to Africa (compare Soetbeer's Production of Precious
Metals), because the enormously extended European industry of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries
and the trade corresponding to it demanded more means of exchange than Germany, the great silver
country from 1450 to 1550, could provide. The conquest of India by the Portuguese, Dutch and English
between 1500 and 1800 had imports from India as its object – nobody dreamt of exporting anything
there. And yet what a colossal reaction these discoveries and conquests, solely conditioned by the
interests of trade, had upon industry: they first created the need for exports to these countries and
developed large-scale industry.
So it is too with the money market. As soon as trading in money becomes separate from trade in
commodities it has (under certain conditions imposed by production and commodity trade and within
these limits) a development of its own, special laws and separate phases determined by its own nature.
If, in this further development, trade in money extends in addition to trade in securities and these
securities are not only government securities but also industrial and transport stocks and shares, so that
money trade conquers the direct control over a portion of the production by which, taken as a whole, it
is itself controlled, then the reaction of money trading on production becomes still stronger and more
complicated. The money traders have become the owners of railways, mines, iron works, etc. These
means of production take on a double aspect if their working has to be directed sometimes in the
immediate interests of production but sometimes also according to the requirements of the
shareholders, in so far as they are money traders. The most striking example of this is the American
railways, whose working is entirely dependent on the stock exchange operations of a Jay Gould or a
Vanderbilt, etc., these having nothing whatever to do with the particular railway concerned and its
interests as a means of communication. And even here in England we have seen struggles lasting for
tens of years between different railway companies over the boundaries of their respective territories –
struggles in which an enormous amount of money was thrown away, not in the interests of production
and communications but simply because of a rivalry which usually only had the object of facilitating the
stock exchange dealings of the shareholding money traders.
With these few indications of my conception of the relation of production to commodity trade and of
both to money trading, I have already also answered, in essence, your questions about "historical
materialism" generally. The thing is easiest to grasp from the point of view of the division of labour.
Society gives rise to certain common functions which it cannot dispense with. The persons selected for
these functions form a new branch of the division of labour within society. This gives them particular
interests, distinct too from the interests of those who gave them their office; they make themselves
independent of the latter and – the state is in being. And now the development is the same as it was
with commodity trade and later with money trade; the new independent power, while having in the
main to follow the movement of production, also, owing to its inward independence (the relative
independence originally transferred to it and gradually further developed) reacts in its turn upon the
conditions and course of production. It is the interaction of two unequal forces: on one hand the
economic movement, on the other the new political power, which strives for as much independence as
possible, and which, having once been established, is also endowed with a movement of its own. On the
whole, the economic movement gets its way, but it has also to suffer reactions from the political
movement which it established and endowed with relative independence itself, from the movement of
the state power on the one hand and of the opposition simultaneously engendered on the other. Just as
the movement of the industrial market is, in the main and with the reservations already indicated,
reflected in the money market and, of course, in inverted form, so the struggle between the classes
already existing and already in conflict with one another is reflected in the struggle between
government and opposition, but also in inverted form, no longer directly but indirectly, not as a class
struggle but as a fight for political principles, and so distorted that it has taken us thousands of years to
get behind it again.
The reaction of the state power upon economic development can be one of three kinds: it can run in the
same direction, and then development is more rapid; it can oppose the line of development, in which
case nowadays state power in every great nation will go to pieces in the long run; or it can cut off the
economic development from certain paths, and impose on it certain others. This case ultimately reduces
itself to one of the two previous ones. But it is obvious that in cases two and three the political power
can do great damage to the economic development and result in the squandering of great masses of
energy and material.
Then there is also the case of the conquest and brutal destruction of economic resources, by which, in
certain circumstances, a whole local or national economic development could formerly be ruined.
Nowadays such a case usually has the opposite effect, at least among great nations: in the long run the
defeated power often gains more economically, politically and morally than the victor.
It is similar with law. As soon as the new division of labour which creates professional lawyers becomes
necessary, another new and independent sphere is opened up which, for all its general dependence on
production and trade, still has its own capacity for reacting upon these spheres as well. In a modern
state, law must not only correspond to the general economic position and be its expression, but must
also be an expression which is consistent in itself, and which does not, owing to inner contradictions,
look glaringly inconsistent. And in order to achieve this, the faithful reflection of economic conditions is
more and more infringed upon. All the more so the more rarely it happens that a code of law is the
blunt, unmitigated, unadulterated expression of the domination of a class – this in itself would already
offend the “conception of justice.” Even in the Code Napoleon the pure logical conception of justice held
by the revolutionary bourgeoisie of 1792-96 is already adulterated in many ways, and in so far as it is
embodied there has daily to undergo all sorts of attenuation owing to the rising power of the
proletariat. Which does not prevent the Code Napoleon from being the statute book which serves as a
basis for every new code of law in every part of the world. Thus to a great extent the course of the
“development of law” only consists: first in the attempt to do away with the contradictions arising from
the direct translation of economic relations into legal principles, and to establish a harmonious system
of law, and then in the repeated breaches made in this system by the influence and pressure of further
economic development, which involves it in further contradictions (I am only speaking here of civil law
for the moment).
The reflection of economic relations as legal principles is necessarily also a topsy turvy one: it happens
without the person who is acting being conscious of it; the jurist imagines he is operating with a
priori principles, whereas they are really only economic reflexes; so everything is upside down. And it
seems to me obvious that this inversion, which, so long as it remains unrecognised, forms what we
call ideological conception, reacts in its turn upon the economic basis and may, within certain limits,
modify it. The basis of the law of inheritance – assuming that the stages reached in the development of
the family are equal – is an economic one. But it would be difficult to prove, for instance, that the
absolute liberty of the testator in England and the severe restrictions imposed upon him in France are
only due in every detail to economic causes. Both react back, however, on the economic sphere to a
very considerable extent, because they influence the division of property.
As to the realms of ideology which soar still higher in the air, religion, philosophy, etc., these have a
prehistoric stock, found already in existence and taken over in the historic period, of what we should to-
day call bunk. These various false conceptions of nature, of man's own being, of spirits, magic forces,
etc., have for the most part only a negative economic basis; but the low economic development of the
prehistoric period is supplemented and also partially conditioned and even caused by the false
conceptions of nature. And even though economic necessity was the main driving force of the
progressive knowledge of nature and becomes ever more so, it would surely be pedantic to try and find
economic causes for all this primitive nonsense. The history of science is the history of the gradual
clearing away of this nonsense or of its replacement by fresh but already less absurd nonsense. The
people who deal with this belong in their turn to special spheres in the division of labour and appear to
themselves to be working in an independent field. And in so far as they form an independent group
within the social division of labour, in so far do their productions, including their errors, react back as an
influence upon the whole development of society, even on its economic development. But all the same
they themselves remain under the dominating influence of economic development. In philosophy, for
instance, this can be most readily proved in the bourgeois period. Hobbes was the first modern
materialist (in the eighteenth century sense) but he was an absolutist in a period when absolute
monarchy was at its height throughout the whole of Europe and when the fight of absolute monarchy
versus the people was beginning in England. Locke, both in religion and politics, was the child of the
class compromise of 1688. The English deists and their more consistent successors, the French
materialists, were the true philosophers of the bourgeoisie, the French even of the bourgeois revolution.
The German petty bourgeois runs through German philosophy from Kant to Hegel, sometimes positively
and sometimes negatively. But the philosophy of every epoch, since it is a definite sphere in the division
of labour, has as its presupposition certain definite intellectual material handed down to it by its
predecessors, from which it takes its start. And that is why economically backward countries can still
play first fiddle in philosophy: France in the eighteenth century compared with England, on whose
philosophy the French based themselves, and later Germany in comparison with both. But the
philosophy both of France and Germany and the general blossoming of literature at that time were also
the result of a rising economic development. I consider the ultimate supremacy of economic
development established in these spheres too, but it comes to pass within conditions imposed by the
particular sphere itself: in philosophy, for instance, through the operation of economic influences (which
again generally only act under political, etc., disguises) upon the existing philosophic material handed
down by predecessors. Here economy creates nothing absolutely new (a novo), but it determines the
way in which the existing material of thought is altered and further developed, and that too for the most
part indirectly, for it is the political, legal and moral reflexes which exercise the greatest direct influence
upon philosophy.
About religion I have said the most necessary things in the last section on Feuerbach.
If therefore Barth supposes that we deny any and every reaction of the political, etc., reflexes of the
economic movement upon the movement itself, he is simply tilting at windmills. He has only got to look
at Marx's Eighteenth Brumaire, which deals almost exclusively with the particular part played by political
struggles and events; of course, within their general dependence upon economic conditions.
Or Capital, the section on the working day, for instance, where legislation, which is surely a political act,
has such a trenchant effect. Or the section on the history of the bourgeoisie. (Chapter XXIV.) Or why do
we fight for the political dictatorship of the proletariat if political power is economically impotent? Force
(that is state power) is also an economic power.
But I have no time to criticise the book now. I must first get Vol. III out and besides I think too
that Bernstein, for instance, could deal with it quite effectively.
What these gentlemen all lack is dialectic. They never see anything but here cause and there effect. That
this is a hollow abstraction, that such metaphysical polar opposites only exist in the real world during
crises, while the whole vast process proceeds in the form of interaction (though of very unequal forces,
the economic movement being by far the strongest, most elemental and most decisive) and that here
everything is relative and nothing is absolute – this they never begin to see. Hegel has never existed for
them.
Check out On Pre-Capitalist Social Formations and the Peasantry on Marxists.org for the social-economic
formations of the peasantry including the Asiatic mode of production and Oriental depostism.