Theories of Surplus-Value
[Volume IV of Capital]

Written: 1863;
Source: Theories of Surplus Value, Progress Publishers;
Past Work: Julio Huato
Scan: YongLee Goh
Mark-up: Hans G. Ehrbar.
eBooks: ePub version (1,500kb), PRC version (2,500kb).

Part I

Preface by the Institute of Marxism-leninism, C.C. C.P.S.U.

Contents of the Manuscript Theories of Surplus-Value.

General Observation.

Chapter I. Sir James Steuart. Distinction between “Profit upon Alienation” and the Positive Increase of Wealth

Chapter II. The Physiocrats

1 Transfer of the Inquiry into the Origin of Surplus-Value from the Sphere of Circulation into the Sphere of Direct Production. Conception of Rent as the Sole Form of Surplus-Value

2 Contradictions in the System of the Physiocrats: the Feudal Shell of the System and Its Bourgeois Essence; the Twofold Treatment of Surplus-Value

3 Quesnay on the Three Classes in Society. Further Development of Physiocratic Theory with Turgot: Elements of a Deeper Analysis of Capitalist Relations

4 Confusion of Value with Material Substance (Paoletti)

5 Elements of Physiocratic Theory in Adam Smith

6 The Physiocrats as Partisans of Large-Scale Capitalist Agriculture

7 Contradictions in the Political Views of the Physiocrats. The Physiocrats and the French Revolution

8 Vulgarisation of the Physiocratic Doctrine by the Prussian Reactionary Schmalz

9 An Early Critique of the Superstition of the Physiocrats in the Question of Agriculture (Verri)

Chapter III. Adam Smith

1. Smith’s Two Different Definitions of Value; the Determination of Value by the Quantity of Labour Expended Which Is Contained in a Commodity, and Its Determination by the Quantity of Living Labour Which Can Be Bought in Exchange for This Commodity

2. Smith’s General Conception of Surplus-value. The Notion of Profit, Rent and Interest as Deductions from the Product of the Worker’s Labour

3. Adam Smith’s Extension of the idea of Surplus-Value to All Spheres of Social Labour

4. Smith’s Failure to Grasp the Specific Way in Which the Law of Value Operates in the Exchange between Capital and Wage-Labour

5. Smith’s Identification of Surplus-Value with Profit. The Vulgar Element in Smith’s Theory

6. Smith’s Erroneous View of Profit, Rent of Land and Wages as Sources of Value

7. Smith’s Dual View of the Relationship between Value and Revenue. The Vicious Circle of Smith’s Conception of “Natural Price” as the Sum of Wages, Profit and Rent

8. Smith’s Error in Resolving the Total Value of the Social Product into Revenue. Contradictions in His Views on Gross and Net Revenue

9. Say as Vulgariser of Smith’s Theory. Say’s Identification of the Social Gross Product with the Social Revenue. Attempts to Draw a Distinction between Them by Storch and Ramsay

10. Inquiry into How It Is Possible for the Annual Profit and Wages to Buy the Annual Commodities, Which Besides Profit and Wages Also Contain Constant Capital

(a) Impossibility of the Replacement of the Constant Capital of the Producers of Consumption Goods through Exchange between These Producers

(b) Impossibility of Replacing the Whole Constant Capital of Society by Means of Exchange between the Producers of Articles of Consumption and the Producers of Means of Production

(c) Exchange of Capital for Capital between the Producers of Means of Production, Annual Product of Labour and the Product of Labour Newly Added Annually

11. Additional Points: Smith’s Confusion on the Question of the Measure of Value. General Character of the Contradictions in Smith

Chapter IV. Theories of Productive and Unproductive Labour

1. Productive Labour from the Standpoint of Capitalist Production: Labour Which Produces Surplus-Value

2. Views of the Physiocrats and Mercantilists on Productive Labour

3. The Duality in Smith’s Conception of Productive Labour. His First Explanation: the View of Productive Labour as Labour Exchanged for Capital

4. Adam Smith’s Second Explanation: the View of Productive Labour as Labour Which Is Realised in Commodity

5. Vulgarisation of Bourgeois Political Economy in the Definition of Productive Labour

6. Advocates of Smith’s Views on Productive Labour. On the History of the Subject

(a) Advocates of the First View: Ricardo, Sismondi

(b) Early Attempts to Distinguish between Productive and Unproductive Labour (D’Avenant, Petty)

7. Germain Garnier. Vulgarisation of the Theories Put Forward by Smith and the Physiocrats

(a) Confusion of Labour Which Is Exchanged against Capital with Labour Exchanged against Revenue. The False Conception that the Total Capital Is Replaced through the Revenue of the Consumers

(b) Replacement of the Constant Capital by Means of the Exchange of Capital against Capital

(c) Vulgar Assumptions of Garnier’s Polemics against Smith. Garnier’s Relapse into Physiocratic Ideas. The View of the Unproductive Labourer’s Consumption as the Source of Production— a Step Backwards as Compared with the Physiocrats

8. Charles Ganilh Mercantilist Conception of Exchange and Exchange-Value. Inclusion of All Paid Labour in the Concept of Productive Labour

9. Ganilh and Ricardo on Net Revenue. Ganilh as Advocate of a Diminution of the Productive Population; Ricardo as Advocate of the Accumulation of Capital and the Growth of Productive Forces

10. Exchange of Revenue and Capital Replacement of the Total Amount of the Annual Product: (a) Exchange of Revenue for Revenue; (b) Exchange of Revenue for Capital; (c) Exchange of Capital for Capital

11. Ferrier Protectionist Character of Ferrier’s Polemics against Smith’s Theory of Productive Labour and the Accumulation of Capital. Smith’s Confusion on the Question of Accumulation. The Vulgar Element in Smith’s View of “Productive Labourers”

12. Earl of Lauderdale Apologetic Conception of the Ruling Classes as Representatives of the Most Important Kinds of Productive Labour

13. Say’s Conception of “Immaterial Products”. Vindication of an Unrestrained Growth of Unproductive Labour

14. Count Destutt de Tracy Vulgar Conception of the Origin of Profit. Proclamation of the “Industrial Capitalist” as the Sole Productive Labourer

15. General Nature of the Polemics Against Smith’s Distinction between Productive and Unproductive Labour. Apologetic Conception of Unproductive Consumption as a Necessary Spur to Production

16. Henri Storch Unhistorical Approach to the Problems of the Interaction between Material and Spiritual Production. Conception of “Immaterial Labour” Performed by the Ruling Class

17. Nassau Senior Proclamation of All Functions Useful to the Bourgeoisie as Productive. Toadyism to the Bourgeoisie and the Bourgeois State

18. Pellegrino Rossi Disregard of the Social Form of Economic Phenomena. Vulgar Conception of “Labour-Saving” by Unproductive Labourers

19. Apologia for the Prodigality of the Rich by the Malthusian Chalmers

20. Concluding Observations on Adam Smith and His Views on Productive and Unproductive Labour

[Chapter V] Necker [Attempt to Present the Antagonism of Classes in Capitalism as the Antithesis between Poverty and Wealth]

[Chapter VI] Quesnay’s Tableau Economique (Digression)

1. Quesnay’s Attempt to Show the Process of Reproduction and Circulation of the Total Capital

2. Circulation between Farmers and Landowners. The Return Circuit of Money to the Farmers, Which Does Not Express Reproduction

3. On the Circulation of Money between Capitalist and Labourer

(a) The Absurdity of Speaking of Wages as an Advance by the Capitalist to the Labourer. Bourgeois Conception of Profit as Reward for Risk

(b) Commodities Which the Labourer Buys from the Capitalist. A Return Flow of the Money Which Does Not Indicate Reproduction

4. Circulation between Farmer and Manufacturer According to the Tableau Economique

5. Circulation of Commodities and Circulation of Money in the Tableau Economique. Different Cases in Which the Money Flows Back to Its Starting-Point

6. Significance of the Tableau Economique in the History of Political Economy

[Chapter VII] Linguet. [Early Critique of the Bourgeois-Liberal View of the “Freedom” of the Labourer]

Addenda to Part 1 of Theories of Surplus-Value

1. Hobbes on Labour, on Value and on the Economic Role of Science

2. Historical: Petty Negative Attitude to Unproductive Occupations. Germs of the Labour Theory of Value. Attempt to Explain Wages, Rent of Land, the Price of Land and Interest on the Basis of the Theory of Value

3. Petty, Sir Dudley North, Locke

4. Locke Treatment of Rent and Interest from the Standpoint of the Bourgeois Theory of Natural Law

5. North Money as Capital. The Growth of Trade as the Cause of the Fall in the Rate of Interest

6. Berkeley on Industry as the Source of Wealth

7. Hume and Massie

(a) Massie and Hume on Interest

(b) Hume. Fall of Profit and Interest Dependent on the Growth of Trade and Industry

(d) Conclusion

8. Addendum to the Chapters on the Physiocrats

(a) Supplementary Note on the Tableau Economique. Quesnay’s False Assumptions

(b) Partial Reversion of Individual Physiocrats to Mercantilist Ideas. Demand of the Physiocrats for Freedom of Competition

9. Glorification of the Landed Aristocracy by Buat, an Epigone of the Physiocrats

10. Polemics against the Landed Aristocracy from the Standpoint of the Physiocrats (an Anonymous English Author)

11. Apologist Conception of the Productivity of All Professions

12. Productivity of Capital. Productive and Unproductive Labour

(a) Productivity of Capital as the Capitalist Expression of the Productive Power of Social Labour

(b) Productive Labour in the System of Capitalist Production

(d) The Specific Use-Value of Productive Labour for Capital

(e) Unproductive Labour as Labour Which Performs Services; Purchase of Services under Conditions of Capitalism. Vulgar Conception of the Relation between Capital and Labour as an Exchange of Services

(f) The Labour of Handicraftsmen and Peasants in Capitalist Society

(g) Supplementary Definition of Productive Labour as Labour Which Is Realised in Material Wealth

(h) Manifestations of Capitalism in the Sphere of Immaterial Production

(i) The Problem of Productive Labour from the Standpoint of the Total Process of Material Production

(j) The Transport Industry as a Branch of Material Production. Productive Labour in the Transport Industry

13. Draft Plans for Parts I and III of Capital

(a) Plan for Part I or Section I of Capital

(b) Plan for Part III or Section III of Capital

Part II

Chapter VIII. Herr Rodbertus. New Theory of Rent. (Digression)

1. Excess Surplus-Value in Agriculture. Agriculture Develops Slower Than Industry under Conditions of Capitalism

2. The Relationship of the Rate of Profit to the Rate of Surplus-Value, The Value of Agricultural Raw Material as an Element of Constant Capital in Agriculture

3. Value and Average Price in Agriculture. Absolute Rent

(a) Equalisation of the Rate of Profit in Industry

(b) Formulation of the Problem of Rent

(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

4. Rodbertus’s Thesis that in Agriculture Raw Materials Lack Value Is Fallacious

5. Wrong Assumptions in Rodbertus’s Theory of Rent

6. Rodbertus’s Lack of Understanding of the Relationship Between Average Price and Value in Industry and Agriculture. The Law of Average Prices

7. Rodbertus’s Erroneous Views Regarding the Factors Which Determine the Rate of Profit and the Rate of Rent

(a) Rodbertus’s First Thesis

(b) Rodbertus’s Second Thesis

8. The Kernel of Truth in the Law Distorted by Rodbertus

9. Differential Rent and Absolute Rent in Their Reciprocal Relationship. Rent as an Historical Category. Smith’s and Ricardo’s Method of Research)

10. Rate of Rent and Rate of Profit. Relation Between Productivity in Agriculture and in Industry in the Different Stages of Historical Development

Chapter IX. Notes on the History of the Discovery of the So-Called Ricardian Law of Rent. Supplementary Notes on Rodbertus (Digression)

1. The Discovery of the Law of Differential Rent by Anderson. Distortion of Anderson’s Views by His Plagiarist: Malthus, in the Interests of the Landowners

2. Ricardo’s Fundamental Principle in Assessing Economic Phenomena Is the Development of the Productive Forces. Malthus Defends the Most Reactionary Elements of the Ruling Classes. Virtual Refutation of Malthus’s Theory of Population by Darwin

3. Roscher’s Falsification of the History of Views on Ground-Rent. Examples of Ricardo’s Scientific Impartiality, Rent from Capital Investment in Land and Rent from the Exploitation of Other Elements of Nature. The Twofold Influence of Competition

4. Rodbertus’s Error Regarding the Relation Between Value and Surplus-Value When the Costs of Production Rise)

5. Ricardo’s Denial of Absolute Rent—a Result of His Error in the Theory of Value

6. Ricardo’s Thesis on the Constant Rise in Corn Prices. Table of Annual Average Prices of Corn from 1641 to 1859

7. Hopkins’s Conjecture about the Difference Between Absolute Rent and Differential Rent; Explanation of Rent by the Private Ownership of Land

8. The Costs of Bringing Land into Cultivation. Periods of Rising and Periods of Falling Corn Prices (1641-1859)

9. Anderson versus Malthus. Anderson’s Definition of Rent. His Thesis of the Rising Productivity of Agriculture and Its Influence on Differential Rent

10. The Untenability of the Rodbertian Critique of Ricardo’s Theory of Rent. Rodbertus’s Lack of Understanding of the Peculiarities of Capitalist Agriculture

Chapter X. Ricardo’s and Adam Smith’s Theory of Cost-Price (Refutation)

A. Ricardo’s Theory of Cost-Price

1. Collapse of the Theory of the Physiocrats and the Further Development of the Theories of Rent

2. The Determination of Value by Labour-Time — the Basis of Ricardo’s Theory. Despite Certain Deficiencies the Ricardian Mode of Investigation Is a Necessary Stage in the Development of Political Economy

3. Ricardo’s Confusion about the Question of “Absolute” and “Relative” Value. His Lack of Understanding of the Forms of Value

4. Ricardo’s Description of Profit, Rate of Profit, Average Prices etc.

(a) Ricardo’s Confusion of Constant Capital with Fixed Capital and of Variable Capital with Circulating Capital. Erroneous Formulation of the Question of Variations in “Relative Values” and Their Causative Factors

(b) Ricardo’s Confusion of Cost-Prices with Value and the Contradictions in His Theory of Value Arising Therefrom. His Lack of Understanding of the Process of Equalisation of the Rate of Profit and of the Transformation of Va1ues into Cost-Prices

5. Average or Cost-Prices and Market-Prices

(a) Introductory Remarks: Individual Value and Market-Value; Market-Value and Market-Price

(b) Ricardo Confuses the Process of the Formation of Market-Value and the Formation of Cost-Prices

(c) Ricardo’s Two Different Definitions of “Natural Price”. Changes in Cost-Price Caused by Changes in the Productivity of Labour

B. Adam Smith’s Theory of Cost-Price

1. Smith’s False Assumptions in the Theory of Cost-Prices. Ricardo’s Inconsistency Owing to His Retention of the Smithian Identification of Value and Cost-Price

2. Adam Smith’s Theory of the “Natural Rate” of Wages, Profit and Rent

Chapter XI. Ricardo’s Theory of Rent

1. Historical Conditions for the Development of the Theory of Rent by Anderson and Ricardo

2. The Connection Between Ricardo’s Theory of Rent and His Explanation of Cost-Prices

3. The Inadequacy of the Ricardian Definition of Rent

Chapter XII. Tables of Differential Rent and Comment

1. Changes in the Amount and Rate of Rent

2. Various Combinations of Differential and Absolute Rent. Tables A, B, C, D, E

3. Analysis of the Tables

(a) Table A. The Relation Between Market-Value and Individual Value in the Various Classes

(b) The Connection Between Ricardo’s Theory of Rent and the Conception of Falling Productivity in Agriculture. Changes in the Rate of Absolute Rent and Their Relation to the Changes in the Rate of Profit

(c) Observations on the Influence of the Change in the Value of the Means of Subsistence and of Raw Material (Hence also the Value of Machinery) on the Organic Composition of Capital

(d) Changes in the Total Rent, Dependent on Changes in the Market-Value

Chapter XIII. Ricardo’s Theory Of Rent (Conclusion)

1. Ricardo’s Assumption of the Non-Existence of Landed Property. Transition to New Land Is Contingent on Its Situation and Fertility

2. The Ricardian Assertion that Rent Cannot Possibly Influence the Price of Corn. Absolute Rent Causes the Prices of Agricultural Products to Rise

3. Smith’s and Ricardo’s Conception of the “Natural Price” of the Agricultural Product

4. Ricardo’s Views on Improvements in Agriculture. His Failure to Understand the Economic Consequences of Changes in the Organic Composition of Agricultural Capital

5. Ricardo’s Criticism of Adam Smith’s and Malthus’s Views on Rent

Chapter XIV. Adam Smith’s Theory of Rent

1. Contradictions in Smith’s Formulation of the Problem of Rent

2. Adam Smith’s Hypothesis Regarding the Special Character of the Demand for Agricultural Produce. Physiocratic Elements in Smith’s Theory of Rent

3. Adam Smith’s Explanation of How the Relation Between Supply and Demand Affects the Various Types of Products from the Land. Smith’s Conclusions Regarding the Theory of Rent

4. Adam Smith’s Analysis of the Variations in the Prices of Products of the Land

5. Adam Smith’s Views on the Movements of Rent and His Estimation of the Interests of the Various Social Classes

Chapter XV. Ricardo’s Theory of Surplus-Value.

A. The Connection Between Ricardo’s Conception of Surplus-Value and His Views on Profit and Rent

1. Ricardo’s Confusion of the Laws of Surplus-Value with the Laws of Profit

2. Changes in the Rate of Profit Caused by Various Factors

3. The Value of Constant Capital Decreases While That of Variable Capital Increases and Vice Versa, and the Effect of These Changes on the Rate of Profit

4. Confusion of Cost-Prices with Value in the Ricardian Theory of Profit

5. The General Rate of Profit and the Rate of Absolute Rent in Their Relation to Each Other. The Influence on Cost-Prices of a Reduction in Wages

6. Ricardo on the Problem of Surplus-Value

1. Quantity of Labour and Value of Labour. (As Presented by Ricardo the Problem of the Exchange of Labour for Capital Cannot Be Solved

2. Value of Labour-Power. Value of Labour. (Ricardo’s Confusion of Labour with Labour-Power. Concept of the “Natural Price of Labour”

3. Surplus-Value. An Analysis of the Source of Surplus-Value Is Lacking in Ricardo’s Work. His Concept of Working-Day as a Fixed Magnitude

4. Relative Surplus-Value. The Analysis of Relative Wages Is One of Ricardo’s Scientific Achievements

Chapter XVI. Ricardo’s Theory of Profit

1. Individual Instances in Which Ricardo Distinguishes Between Surplus-Value and Profit

2. Formation of the General Rate of Profit (Average Profit or “Usual Profit”)

a) The Starting-Point of the Ricardian Theory of Profit Is the Antecedent Predetermined Average Rate of Profit

b) Ricardo’s Mistakes Regarding the Influence of Colonial Trade, and Foreign Trade in General, on the Rate of Profit

3. Law of the Diminishing Rate of Profit

a) Wrong Presuppositions in the Ricardian Conception of the Diminishing Rate of Profit

b) Analysis of Ricardo’s Thesis that the Increasing Rent Gradually Absorbs the Profit

c) Transformation of a Part of Profit and a Part of Capital into Rent. The Magnitude of Rent Varies in Accordance with the Amount of Labour Employed in Agriculture

d) Historical Illustration of the Rise in the Rate of Profit with a Simultaneous Rise in the Prices of Agricultural Products. The Possibility of an Increasing Productivity of Labour in Agriculture

e) Ricardo’s Explanation for the Fall in the Rate of Profit and Its Connection with His Theory of Rent

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

1. Adam Smith’s and Ricardo’s Error in Failing to Take into Consideration Constant Capital. Reproduction of the Different Parts of Constant Capital

2. Value of the Constant Capital and Value of the Product

3. Necessary Conditions for the Accumulation of Capital. Amortisation of Fixed Capital and Its Role in the Process of Accumulation

4. The Connection Between Different Branches of Production in the Process of Accumulation. The Direct Transformation of a Part of Surplus-Value into Constant Capital—a Characteristic Peculiar to Accumulation in Agriculture and the Machine-building Industry

5. The Transformation of Capitalised Surplus-Value into Constant and Variable Capital

6. Crises (Introductory Remarks)

7. Absurd Denial of the Over-production of Commodities, Accompanied by a Recognition of the Over-abundance of Capital

8. Ricardo’s Denial of General Over-production. Possibility of a Crisis Inherent in the Inner Contradictions of Commodity and Money

9. Ricardo’s Wrong Conception of the Relation Between Production and Consumption under the Conditions of Capitalism

10. Crisis, Which Was a Contingency, Becomes a Certainty. The Crisis as the Manifestation of All the Contradictions of Bourgeois Economy

11. On the Forms of Crisis

12. Contradictions Between Production and Consumption under Conditions of Capitalism. Over-production of the Principal Consumer Goods Becomes General Over-production

13. The Expansion of the Market Does Not Keep in Step with the Expansion of Production. The Ricardian Conception That an Unlimited Expansion of Consumption and of the Internal Market Is Possible

14. The Contradiction Between the Impetuous Development of the Productive Powers and the Limitations of Consumption Leads to Overproduction. The Theory of the Impossibility of General Over-production Is Essentially Apologetic in Tendency

15. Ricardo’s Views on the Different Types of Accumulation of Capital and on the Economic Consequences of Accumulation

Chapter XVIII. Ricardo’s Miscellanea. John Barton

A. Gross and Net Income

B. Machinery Ricardo and Barton on the Influence of Machines on the Conditions of the Working Class

1. Ricardo’s Views

(a) Ricardo’s Original Surmise Regarding the Displacement of Sections of the Workers by Machines

(b) Ricardo on the Influence of Improvements in Production on the Value of Commodities. False Theory of the Availability of the Wages Fund for the Workers Who Have Been Dismissed

(c) Ricardo’s Scientific Honesty, Which Led Him to Revise His Views on the Question of Machinery. Certain False Assumptions Are Retained in Ricardo’s New Formulation of the Question

(d) Ricardo’s Correct Determination of Some of the Consequences of the Introduction of Machines for the Working Class. Apologetic Notions in the Ricardian Explanation of the Problem

2. Barton’s Views

(a) Barton’s Thesis that Accumulation of Capital Causes a Relative Decrease in the Demand for Labour. Barton’s and Ricardo’s Lack of Understanding of the Inner Connection Between This Phenomenon and the Domination of Capital over Labour

(b) Barton’s Views on the Movement of Wages and the Growth of Population

Addenda.

1. Early Formulation of the Thesis That the Supply of Agricultural Products Always Corresponds to Demand. Rodbertus and the Practicians among the Economists of the Eighteenth Century

2. Nathaniel Forster on the Hostility Between Landowners and Traders

3. Hopkins’s Views on the Relationship Between Rent and Profit

4. Carey, Malthus and James Deacon Hume on Improvements in Agriculture

5. Hodgskin and Anderson on the Growth of Productivity in Agricultural Labour

6. Decrease in the Rate of Profit

Part III

Chapter XIX. Thomas Robert Malthus

1. Malthus’s Confusion of the Categories Commodity and Capital

2. Malthus’s Vulgarised View of Surplus-Value

3. The Row Between the Supporters of Malthus and Ricardo in the Twenties of the 19th Century. Common Features in Their Attitude to the Working Class

4. Malthus’s One-sided Interpretation of Smith’s Theory of Value. His Use of Smith’s Mistaken Theses in His Polemic Against Ricardo

5. Smith’s Thesis of the Invariable Value of Labour as Interpreted by Malthus

6. Malthus’s Use of the Ricardian Theses of the Modification of the Law of Value in His Struggle Against the Labour Theory of Value

7. Malthus’s Vulgarised Definition of Value. His View of Profit as Something Added to the Price. His Polemic Against Ricardo’s Conception of the Relative Wages of Labour

8. Malthus on Productive Labour and Accumulation

(a) Productive and Unproductive Labour

(b) Accumulation

9. Constant and Variable Capital According to Malthus

10. Malthus’s Theory of Value Supplementary Remarks

11. Over-Production, “Unproductive Consumers”, etc

12. The Social Essence of Malthus’s Polemic Against Ricardo. Malthus’s Distortion of Sismondi’s Views on the Contradictions in Bourgeois Production

13. Critique of Malthus’s Conception of “Unproductive Consumers” by Supporters of Ricardo

14. The Reactionary Role of Malthus’s Writings and Their Plagiaristic Character. Malthus’s Apologia for the Existence of “Upper” and “Lower” Classes

15. Malthus’s Principles Expounded in the Anonymous Outlines 0f Political Economy

Chapter XX. Disintegration of the Ricardian School

1. Robert Torrens

(a) Smith and Ricardo on the Relation Between the Average Rate of Profit and the Law of Value

(b) Torrens’s Confusion in Defining the Value of Labour and the Sources of Profit

2. James Mill Futile Attempts to Resolve the Contradictions of the Ricardian System

(a) Confusion of Surplus-Value with Profit

(b) Mill’s Vain Efforts to Bring the Exchange Between Capital and Labour into Harmony with the Law of Value

(d) Demand, Supply, Over-Production

(e) Prévost Rejection of Some of the Conclusions of Ricardo and James Mill. Attempts to Prove That a Constant Decrease of Profit Is Not Inevitable

3. Polemical Writings

(a) Observations on Certain Verbal Disputes. Scepticism in Political Economy

(b) An Inquiry into those Principles … The Lack of Understanding of the Contradictions of the Capitalist Mode of Production Which Cause Crises

(d) Samuel Bailey
(a) Superficial Relativism on the Part of the Author of Observations on Certain Verbal Disputes and on the Part of Bailey in Treating the Category of Value. The Problem of the Equivalent. Rejection of the Labour Theory of Value as the Foundation of Political Economy
(b) Confusion with Regard to Profit and the Value of Labour
(c) Confusion of Value and Price. Bailey’s Subjective Standpoint

4. McCulloch

(a) Vulgarisation and Complete Decline of the Ricardian System under the Guise of Its Logical Completion. Cynical Apologia for Capitalist Production. Unprincipled Eclecticism

(b) Distortion of the Concept of Labour Through Its Extension to Processes of Nature. Confusion of Exchange-Value and Use-Value

5. Wakefield Some Objections to Ricardo’s Theory Regarding the “Value of Labour” and Rent

6. Stirling Vulgarised Explanation of Profit by the Interrelation of Supply and Demand

7. John Stuart Mill Unsuccessful Attempts to Deduce the Ricardian Theory of the Inverse Proportionality Between the Rate of Profit and the Level of Wages Directly from the Law of Value

(a) Confusion of the Rate of Surplus-Value with the Rate of Profit. Elements of the Conception of “Profit upon Alienation”. Confused Conception of the “Profits Advanced” by the Capitalist

(b) Apparent Variation in the Rate of Profit Where the Production of Constant Capital Is Combined with Its Working Up by a Single Capitalist

8. Conclusion

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

1. The Pamphlet The Source and Remedy of the National Difficulties

(a) Profit, Rent and Interest Regarded as Surplus Labour of the Workers. The Interrelation Between the Accumulation of Capital and the So-called “Labour Fund”

(b) On the Exchange Between Capital and Revenue in the Case of Simple Reproduction and of the Accumulation of Capital

(c) The Merits of the Author of the Pamphlet and the Theoretical Confusion of His Views. The Importance of the Questions He Raises about the Role of Foreign Trade in Capitalist Society and of “Free Time” as Real Wealth

2. Ravenstone. The View of Capital as the Surplus Product of the Worker. Confusion of the Antagonistic Form of Capitalist Development with Its Content. This Leads to a Negative Attitude Towards the Results of the Capitalist Development of the Productive Forces

3. Hodgskin

(a) The Thesis of the Unproductiveness of Capital as a Necessary Conclusion from Ricardo’s Theory

(b) Polemic Against the Ricardian Definition of Capital as Accumulated Labour. The Concept of Coexisting Labour. Underestimation of the Importance of Materialised Past Labour. Available Wealth in Relation to the Movement of Production

(d) Hodgskin’s Polemic Against the Conception that the Capitalists “Store Up” Means of Subsistence for the Workers. His Failure to Understand the Real Causes of the Fetishism of Capital

(e) Compound Interest: Fall in the Rate of Profit Based on This

(f) Hodgskin on the Social Character of Labour and on the Relation of Capital to Labour

(g) Hodgskin’s Basic Propositions as Formulated in His Book —Popular Political Economy

(h) Hodgskin on the Power of Capital and on the Upheaval in the Right of Property

4. Bray as an Opponent of the Economists

Chapter XXII. Ramsay

1. The Attempt to Distinguish Between Constant and Variable Capital. The View that Capital Is Not an Essential Social Form

2. Ramsay’s Views on Surplus-Value and on Value. Reduction of Surplus-Value to Profit. The Influence Which Changes in the Value of Constant and Variable Capital Exert on the Rate and Amount of Profit

3. Ramsay on the Division of “Gross Profit” into “Net Profit” (Interest) and “Profit of Enterprise”. Apologetic Elements in His Views on the “Labour of Superintendence”, “Insurance Covering the Risk Involved” and “Excess Profit”

Chapter XXIII. Cherbuliez

1. Distinction Between Two Parts of Capital — the Part Consisting of Machinery and Raw Materials and the Part Consisting of “Means of Subsistence “ for the Workers

2. On the Progressive Decline in the Number of Workers in Relation to the Amount of Constant Capital

3. Cherbuliez’s Inkling that the Organic Composition of Capital Is Decisive for the Rate of Profit. His Confusion on This Question. Cherbuliez on the “Law of Appropriation” in Capitalist Economy

4. On Accumulation as Extended Reproduction

5. Elements of Sismondism in Cherhuliez. On the Organic Composition of Capital. Fixed and Circulating Capital

6. Cherbuliez Eclectically Combines Mutually Exclusive Propositions of Ricardo and Sismondi

Chapter XXIV. Richard Jones

1. Reverend Richard Jones, An Essay on the Distribution of Wealth, and on the Sources of Taxation, London, 1831, Part I, Rent Elements of a Historical Interpretation of Rent. Jones’s Superiority over Ricardo in Particular Questions of the Theory of Rent and His Mistakes in This Field

2. Richard Jones, An Introductory Lecture on Political Economy etc. The Concept of the “Economical Structure of Nations”. Jones’s Confusion with regard to the “Labor Fund”

3. Richard Jones, Textbook of Lectures on the Political Economy of Nations, Hertford, 1852

(a) Jones’s Views on Capital and the Problem of Productive and Unproductive Labour

(b) Jones on the Influence Which the Capitalist Mode of Production Exerts on the Development of the Productive Forces. Concerning the Conditions for the Applicability of Additional Fixed Capital

Addenda. Revenue and its Sources. Vulgar Political Economy

1. The Development of Interest-Bearing Capital on the Basis of Capitalist Production Transformation of the Relations of the Capitalist Mode of Production into a Fetish. Interest-Bearing Capital as the Clearest Expression of This Fetish. The Vulgar Economists and the Vulgar Socialists Regarding Interest on Capital

2. Interest-Bearing Capital and Commercial Capital in Relation to Industrial Capital. Older Forms. Derived Forms

3. The Separation of Individual Parts of Surplus-Value in the Form of Different Revenues. The Relation of Interest to Industrial Profit. The Irrationality of the Fetishised Forms of Revenue

4. The Process of Ossification of the Converted Forms of Surplus-Value and Their Ever Greater Separation from Their Inner Substance—Surplus Labour. Industrial Profit as “Wages for the Capitalist”

5. Essential Difference Between Classical and Vulgar Economy. Interest and Rent as Constituent Elements of the Market Price of Commodities. Vulgar Economists Attempt to Give the Irrational Forms of Interest and Rent a Semblance of Rationality

6. The Struggle of Vulgar Socialism Against Interest (Proudhon). Failure to Understand the Inner Connection Between Interest and the System of Wage-Labour

7. Historical Background to the Problem of Interest. Luther’s Polemic Against Interest Is Superior to That of Proudhon. The Concept of Interest Changes as a Result of the Evolution of Capitalist Relations

Post-Ricardian Social Criticism (Excerpt)

Theories of Surplus-Value [Volume IV of Capital]

Table of Contents

Part I

Part II

Part III

Theories of Surplus-Value
[Volume IV of Capital]