Political Economy (Lev Gatovsky, I. I. Kuzminov, Ivan Laptev, Lev Leontyev, Konstantin Ostrovityanov, Anatoly Pashkov, V. I. Pereslegin, Dmitri Shepilov, Vladimir Starovsky, Pavel Yudin)
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Political Economy | |
|---|---|
| Author | Lev Gatovsky, I. I. Kuzminov, Ivan Laptev, Lev Leontyev, Konstantin Ostrovityanov, Anatoly Pashkov, V. I. Pereslegin, Dmitri Shepilov, Vladimir Starovsky, Pavel Yudin |
| Translated by | Lawrence & Wishart |
| Original language | Russian |
| Publisher | Economics Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR |
| First published | 1954 Moscow |
| Source | MIA |
| Revolutionary Democracy | |
Foreword to the First Edition
This textbook of political economy has been written by a group of economists comprising: Academician K.V. Ostrovityanov; Corresponding Member of the V.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences D.T. Shepilov; Corresponding Member of the V.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences L.A. Leontyev; Member of the All-Union Lenin Academy of Agricultural Sciences I.D. Laptev; Professor I.I. Kuzminov; Doctor of Economic Sciences L.M. Gatovsky; Academician P.F. Yudin; Corresponding Member of the V.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences A.I. Pashkov; and Candidate [Master] of Economic Sciences V. I. Pereslegin, Doctor of Economic Sciences V. N. Starovsky took part in the selection and editing of the statistical information included in the textbook. In connection with the drafting of the textbook a large number of Soviet economists made valuable critical observations and contributed numerous useful suggestions concerning the text. These observations and suggestions were taken into account by the authors in their subsequent work on the book.
Of very great importance for the work on this textbook was the economic discussion organised in November 1951 by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. In the course of this discussion, in which hundreds of Soviet economists took an active part, the draft for a textbook of political economy submitted by the authors was subjected to a thorough critical examination. The proposals worked out as the result of this discussion for improving the draft of the textbook were an important source of improvement in the structure of the textbook and of enrichment of its content.
The final editing of the textbook was carried out by comrades K.V. Ostrovityanov, D.T. Shepilov, L.A. Leontyev, I.D. Laptev, I.I. Kuzminov and L. M. Gatovsky.
Being fully aware of the importance of a Marxist textbook of political economy, the authors intend to continue to work on further improvement of the text, on the basis of critical observations and suggestions which readers may make when they have acquainted themselves with the first edition. In this connection, the authors request readers to address their comments and suggestions on the textbook to the following address:
Institute of Economics,
U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences,
14 Volkhonka,
Moscow
Foreword to the Second Edition
The first edition of the Political Economy textbook, published at the end of 1954 in over six million copies, was rapidly sold out. Besides the Russian original, there were versions in many of the languages of the peoples of the U.S.S.R., and the book was also published in a number of foreign countries.
The need has arisen for a second edition of the textbook. In preparing this edition the authors have made it their task to strengthen the text with new propositions and facts reflecting the steady growth of the socialist economy of the U.S.S.R. and the countries of People's Democracy and also the further intensification of the general crisis of capitalism.
The authors have endeavoured to take into account as fully as possible the experience gained in using this textbook in higher educational institutions, in Party schools and study-groups and for purposes of individual study. During the past year the book has been discussed in many university departments of political economy, and these have sent in their comments and requests. The authors have also received a large number of letters from readers, containing suggestions regarding the text. Broad conferences of economists were held in March and April 1955 to discuss thoroughly the first edition of the book, these being attended by research workers, teachers and business executives in Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, Minsk, Riga, Tallinn, Vilnius, Tbilisi, Erevan, Baku, Tashkent, Ashkhabad, Stalinabad, Alma-Ata and Sverdlovsk.
The authors have carefully studied all the critical observations and proposals regarding the textbook which have been made at conferences of university departments of political economy, at meetings of economists and in readers' letters, and have tried to use all of these that made for improving the book. At the same time they have maintained as their point of departure the need to keep to the present type of textbook, intended for the general reader, and not to allow its size to be enlarged to any considerable extent.
The final editing of the second edition has been carried out by comrades K.V. Ostrovityanov, D.T. Shepilov, L.A. Leontyev, I.D. Laptev, I.I. Kuzminov and L. M. Gatovksy.
Comrade V.N. Starovsky took part in the selection and editing of the statistical information contained in the book.
The authors express their thanks to all the comrades who helped in the preparation of the second edition of this textbook through their critical comments and suggestions. The authors intend to continue to work on the improvement of the textbook, and in this connection request readers to send their comments and suggestions to the following address:
Institute of Economics,
U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences,
14 Volkhonka,
Moscow
September 1955
Introduction
Political economy belongs to the category of the social sciences.[1]. It studies the laws of the social production and distribution of material wealth at the various stages of development of human society.
The basis of the life of society is material production. In order to live, people must have food, clothing and other material means of life. In order to have these, people must produce them, they must work.
Men produce the material means of life, i.e., carry on their struggle with nature, not as isolated individuals but together, in groups and societies. Consequently, production is always and under all circumstances social production, and labour is an activity of social man.
The process of producing material wealth presupposes the following factors: (1) human labour; (2) the subject of labour; and (3) the means of labour.
Labour is a purposive activity of the human being in the process of which he transforms and adapts natural objects so as to satisfy his own requirements. Labour is a natural necessity, an indispensable condition for man's existence.Without labour human life itself would be impossible.
Everything to which man's labour is directed is a subject of labour. Subjects of labour may be directly provided by nature, as, for example, wood, which is cut in the forest, or ore, which is extracted from the bowels of the earth. Subjects of labour which have previously been subjected to the action of labour (e.g., ore in a metal works, cotton in a spinning mill, yarn in a weaving mill) are called raw materials.
Means of labour consist of all those things with the aid of which man acts upon the subject of his labour and transforms it. To the category of means of labour belong, first and fore-most, the instruments of production, together with land, buildings used for production purposes, roads, canals, storehouses, etc. The determining role among the means of labour is played by the instruments of production. These comprise the various kinds of tools which man uses in his working activity, beginning with the crude stone implements of primitive man and ending with modern machinery. The level of development of the instruments of production provides the criterion of society's mastery over nature, the criterion of the development of production. Economic epochs are distinguished one from another not by what is produced but by how material wealth is produced, with what instruments of production.
The subjects of labour and the means of labour constitute the means of production. Means of production in themselves, not associated with labour power, can produce nothing. For the labour process, the process of producing material wealth, to begin, labour power must be united with the instruments of production.
Labour power is man's ability to work, the sum total of the physical and spiritual forces of man, thanks to which he is able to produce material wealth. Labour power is the active element in production, which sets the means of production in motion. With the development of the instruments of production man's ability to work also develops, his skill, habits of work, and production experience.
The instruments of production, by means of which material wealth is produced, and the people who set these instruments in motion and accomplish the production of material values, thanks to the production experience and habits of work which they possess, constitute the productive forces of society.
The working masses are the basic productive force of human society in all stages of its development.
The productive forces reflect the relationship of people to the objects and forces of nature used for the production of material wealth. In production, however, men act not only upon nature but also upon each other.
"They produce only by co-operating in a certain way and mutually exchanging their activities. In order to produce, they enter into definite connections and relations with one another and only within these social connections and relations does their action on nature, does production, take place." (Marx, "Wage-Labour and Capital", Marx and Engels, Selected Works, 1950, English edition, vol. I, p. 83.)
The definite social connections and relations formed between people in the process of the production of material wealth constitute production relations. Production relations include: (a) forms of ownership of the means of production; (b) the position of the various social groups in production which result from this, and their mutual relations; (c) the forms of distribution of products that follow from the ownership of the means of production and people's position in production.
The character of production relations depends on who owns the means of production (land, woods, waters, subsoil, raw materials, instruments of production, buildings used for production, means of communication and transport, etc.)whether they are the property of particular persons, social groups or classes, which use these means of production in order to exploit the working people, or whether they are the property of society, whose aim is the satisfaction of the material and cultural requirements of the masses of the people, of society as a whole. The state of production relations shows how the means of production are distributed among the members of society and, consequently, how the material wealth produced by people is distributed. Thus, the determining feature, the basis of production relations is one or another form of property in the means of production.
The relations of production determine also corresponding relations of distribution. Distribution is the connecting link between production and consumption.
The products which are produced in society serve either productive or personal consumption. Productive consumption means the use of means of production to create material wealth. Personal consumption means the satisfaction of man's requirements in food, clothing, shelter, etc.
The distribution of the objects of personal consumption which are produced depends on the distribution of the means of production. In capitalist society the means of production belong to the capitalists, and in consequence the products of labour also belong to the capitalists. The workers are deprived of means of production and, so as not to die of hunger, are obliged to work for the capitalists, who appropriate the products of their labour. In socialist society the means of production are public property. In consequence, the products of labour belong to the working people themselves.
In those social formations in which commodity production exists, the distribution of material wealth takes place through exchange of commodities. Production, distribution, exchange and consumption constitute a unity, in which the determining role is played by production. The particular forms of distribution, exchange and consumption so determined exert in their turn a reciprocal influence upon production, either facilitating its development or hindering it.
The sum total of the
"relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which rises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness." (Marx, "Preface to a Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy," Marx and Engels, Selected Works, 1950, English edition, vol. I, p. 329).
Having come into existence, the superstructure exercises in its turn a reciprocal active influence on the basis, hastening or hindering the development of the latter.
Production has a technical aspect and a social aspect. The technical aspect of production is studied by the natural and technical sciences: physics, chemistry, metallurgy, engineering, agronomy and others. Political economy studies the social aspect of production, the social-production, i.e., the economic, relations between people. "Political economy", wrote V. I. Lenin, "is not at all concerned with 'production' but with the social relations between people in production, the social system of production." (Lenin, "Development of Capitalism in Russia", Works, vol. III, pp. 40-1.)
Political economy studies production relations in their interaction with the productive forces. The productive forces and the production relations as a unity constitute the mode of production.
The productive forces are the most mobile and revolutionary factor in production. The development of production begins with changes in the productive forces-first of all with changes and development in the instruments of production, and thereafter corresponding changes also take place in the sphere of production relations. Production relations between men, which develop in dependence upon the development of the productive forces, themselves in turn actively affect the productive forces.
The productive forces of society can develop uninterruptedly only where the production relations correspond to the nature of the productive forces. At a certain stage of their development the productive forces outgrow the framework of the given production relations and come into contradiction with them. The production relations are transformed from being forms of development of the productive forces into fetters upon them.
As a result, the old production relations sooner or later give place to new ones, which correspond to the level of development which has been attained and to the character of the productive forces of society. With the change in the economic basis of society its superstructure also changes. The material premises for the replacement of old production relations by new ones arise and develop within the womb of the old formation. The new production relations open up scope for the development of the productive forces.
Thus an economic law of the development of society is the law of obligatory correspondence of production relations to the nature of the productive forces.
In society based on private property and the exploitation of man by man, conflicts between the productive forces and the production relations are expressed in the form of class struggle; In these conditions the replacement of an old mode of production by a new one is effected by way of social revolution.
Political economy is an historical science. It is concerned with material production in its historically determined social form, with the economic laws which are inherent in particular modes of production. Economic laws express the essential nature of economic phenomena and processes, the internal, causal connection and dependence existing between them.
The laws of economic development are objective laws. They arise and operate on the basis of definite economic conditions independent of men's will. Men can understand these laws and utilise them in society's interests, but they can neither abolish nor create economic laws.
The utilising of economic laws in class society always has a class character: the advanced class of each social formation makes use of economic laws to serve the progressive development of society, while the moribund classes resist this.
Each mode of production has its own basic economic law.
This basic economic law expresses the essence of the given mode of production and determines its main aspects and line of development.
Political economy
"must first investigate the special laws of each separate stage in the evolution of production and exchange, and only when it has completed this investigation will it be able to establish the few quite general laws which hold good for production and exchange as a whole". (Engels, Anti-Dühring, 1936, Lawrence & Wishart edition, p.165.)
Consequently, the development of the various social formations is governed both by their own specific economic laws and also by those economic laws which are common to all formations, e.g., the law of obligatory correspondence of the production relations to the character of the productive forces. Hence social formations are not only marked off one from another by the specific economic laws inherent in each given mode of production, but also are linked together by a few economic laws which are common to all formations.
Political economy studies the following basic types of production relations which are known to history: the primitive-communal system, the slave-owning system, feudalism, capitalism, socialism. The primitive-communal system is a pre-class system. The slave-owning system, feudalism and capitalism are different forms of society based on the enslavement and exploitation of the working masses. Socialism is a social system which is free from exploitation of man by man.
Political economy investigates how social production develops from lower, stages to higher stages, and how the social orders which are based on exploitation of man by man arise, develop and are abolished. It shows how the entire course of historical development prepares the way for the victory of the socialist mode of production. It studies, furthermore, the economic laws of socialism the laws of the origin of socialist society and its subsequent development along the road to the higher phase of communism.
Thus political economy is the science of the development of the socialproductive, i.e., economic, relations between men. It elucidates the laws which regulate the production and distribution of material wealth in human society at the different stages of its development.
The method of Marxist political economy is the method of dialectical materialism. Marxist-Leninist political economy is built up by applying the fundamental propositions of dialectical and historical materialism to the study of the economic structure of society.
Unlike the natural sciences -physics, chemistry, etc.- political economy cannot make use in its study of the economic structure of society of experiments or tests carried out in artificially created laboratory conditions which eliminate phenomena that hinder examination of a process in its purest form. "In the analysis of economic forms neither microscopes nor chemical reagents are of use. The force of abstraction must replace both." (Marx, Capital, vol. I, Kerr edition, p. 12.)
Every economic system presents a contradictory and complicated picture. The task of scientific research consists in revealing by means of theoretical analysis the deep-seated processes and fundamental features of the economy which lie behind the outward appearance of economic phenomena and express the essential character of the particular production relations concerned, abstracting these from secondary features.
What emerges from such scientific analysis is economic categories, i.e., concepts which represent the theoretical expression of the real production relations of the particular social formation concerned, such as, for example, commodity, value, money, economic accounting, profitability, work-day, etc.
Marx's method consists of gradually ascending from the simplest of economic categories to more complex ones, which corresponds to the progressive development of society on an ascending line, from lower stages to higher. When such a procedure is used in investigating the categories of political economy, logical investigation is combined with historical analysis of social development.
Marx, in his analysis of capitalist production relations, singles out first of all the everyday relationship which is the simplest of all and the most frequently repeated-the exchange of one commodity for another. He shows that in the commodity, this cell-form of capitalist economy, the contradictions of capitalism are laid up in embryo. With analysis of the commodity as his point of departure, Marx explains the origin of money, discloses the process of transforming money into capital, the essential nature of capitalist exploitation. Marx shows how social development leads inevitably to the downfall of capitalism, to the victory of communism.
Lenin pointed out that political economy must be expounded in the form of the characterisation of the successive periods of economic development. In conformity with this, in the present course of political economy, the basic categories of political economy -commodity, value, money, capital, etc.- are examined in the historical order of succession in which they arose at different stages in the development of human society. Thus, elementary concepts concerning commodities and money are presented already when pre-capitalist formations are being described. These categories are later set forth in fully developed form when capitalist economy, in which they attain their full development, is being studied. The same order of exposition will also be employed when socialist economy is dealt with. An elementary notion of the basic economic law .of socialism, of the law of planned, proportional development of the national economy, of distribution according to work done, and of value, money, etc., will be given in the section devoted to the transitional period from capitalism ' to socialism. An expanded treatment of these laws and categories will be given in the section "The Socialist System of National Economy".
Political economy, unlike history, does not undertake to study the historical process of society's development in all its concrete variety. It provides basic concepts concerning the fundamental features of each system of social economy. Besides political economy there are also a number of other scientific disciplines which are concerned with the study of economic relations in the various branches of the national economy on the basis of the laws discovered by political economy-industrial economics, agricultural economics, etc.
Political economy studies, not some transcendental questions detached from life, but very real and living questions which affect the vital interests of men, society, classes. Are the downfall of capitalism and the triumph of the socialist system of economy inevitable; do the interests of capitalism contradict those of society and of the progressive development of mankind; is the working class capitalism's grave-digger and the bearer of the idea of the liberation of society from capitalism-all these and similar questions are answered differently by different economists, depending on which class's interests they voice.
That is just why there does not exist one single political economy for all classes of society, but instead several political economies: bourgeois political economy, proletarian political economy, and also the political economy of the intermediate classes, petty-bourgeois political economy.
It follows from this, however, that those economists are quite wrong who assert that political economy is a neutral, non-party science, that political economy is independent of the struggle between classes in society and not connected either directly or indirectly with any political party.
Is it possible in general for a political economy to exist which is objective, impartial and does not fear the truth? Certainly this is possible. Such an objective political economy can only be the political economy of that class which has no interest in slurring over the contradictions and sore places of capitalism, which has no interest in preserving the capitalist order: the class whose interests merge with the interests of liberating society from capitalist slavery, whose interests coincide with the interests of mankind's progressive development. Such a class is the working class. Therefore an objective and disinterested political economy can only be that which is based on the interests of the working class. This political economy is the political economy of Marxism-Leninism.
Marxist political economy is a very important component of Marxist-Leninist theory.
The great leaders and theoreticians of the working class, K. Marx and F. Engels, were the founders of proletarian political economy. In his work of genius, Capital, Marx revealed the laws of the rise, development and downfall of capitalism; and showed, the economic grounds for the inevitability of socialist revolution and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Marx and Engels worked out in general terms the theory of the transition period from capitalism to socialism and of the two phases of communist society.
The economic teachings of Marxism underwent further creative development in the works of V.I. Lenin, founder of the Communist Party and the Soviet State, brilliant continuer of the work of Marx and Engels. Lenin enriched Marxist economic science by generalising the new experience of historical development, created the Marxist teaching on imperialism, revealed the economic and political nature of imperialism, provided the initial propositions for the basic economic law of modern capitalism, worked out the fundamentals of the theory of the general crisis of capitalism, created a new, complete theory of socialist revolution, and worked out scientifically the basic problems of the building of socialism and communism.
Lenin's great companion-in-arms and pupil, J.V. Stalin, put forward and developed a number of new propositions in political economy, based on the fundamental works of Marx, Engels and Lenin which had created a really scientific political economy.
Marxist-Leninist economic theory is creatively developed in the resolutions of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and of the fraternal Communist Parties and the works of the pupils and companions-in-arms of Lenin and Stalin-the leaders of these parties, who have enriched economic science with new conclusions and propositions on the basis of generalising the practice of the revolutionary struggle and of the building of socialism and communism.
Marxist-Leninist political economy is a powerful weapon of ideas in the hands of the working class and of all working mankind in their struggle for emancipation from capitalist oppression. The living strength of the economic theory of Marxism-Leninism consists in the fact that it arms the working class and the working masses with knowledge of the laws of the economic development of society, giving them clear prospects and confidence in the ultimate victory of Communism.
Pre-Capitalist Modes of Production
The Primitive Communal Mode of Production
The Rise of Human Society
The rise of man belongs to the present, the Quaternary period of the earth's history, which science reckons as a little less than a million years. In various regions of Europe, Asia and Africa distinguished by their warm and moist climates there dwelt a highly developed species of anthropoid ape. As a result of a very long development, which included a number of transitional stages, from these remote ancestors there originated man.
The emergence of man was one of the greatest turning points in the development of nature. This turning point took place when man's ancestors began to make implements of labour. The fundamental difference between man" and animal starts only with the making of implements, though they be the very simplest. It is well known that apes often use a stick or stone to knock fruit from a tree or to defend themselves from attack. But not a single animal has ever made even the most primitive implement. The conditions of their daily lives drove man's ancestors to make implements. Experience taught them that sharpened stones could be used for defence against attack or for hunting animals. Man's ancestors began to make stone implements, striking one stone against another. In this way a start was made in the making of implements. With the making of implements labour begins.
Thanks to labour the fore-paws of the anthropoid ape were converted into the hands of man. Remains of the ape-man-a transitional stage from ape to man-found by archaeologists afford evidence of this. The ape-man's brain was much smaller than the human brain, but his hand was already comparatively little different from that of man. It follows that the hand is not only an organ of labour, but also its product.
As hands became freed for acts of labour, man's ancestors acquired an ever more upright gait. Once the hands were occupied with labour the final transition to an upright gait took place, and this played a very important part in making man.
Man's ancestors lived in hordes, or herds; the first men also lived in herds. But between men there arose a link which did not, and could not, exist in the animal world: the link through labour. Men made implements jointly and jointly they applied them. Consequently, the rise of man was also the rise of human society, the transition from the zoological to the social condition.
Men's common labour led to the rise and development of articulate speech. Language is the means, the implement by which men communicate with one another, exchange opinions and achieve mutual understanding.
The exchange of thoughts is a constant and vital necessity, since without it the common activities of men in their struggle with the forces of nature, and the very existence of social production, are impossible.
Labour and articulate speech had a decisive influence in perfecting man's organism, in the development of his brain. The development of language is closely linked with the development of thought. In the process of labour man's circle of perceptions and conceptions was widened, his sensory organs were perfected. Man's labour activities became conscious acts as distinct from the instinctive activities of animals.
Thus, labour is "the prime basic condition for all human existence, and this to such an extent that, in a sense, we have to say that labour created man himself". (Engels, "The Part Played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man", Man: and Engels, Selected Works, 1950, English edition, vol. II, p. 74.) Thanks to labour, human society arose and began to develop.
Conditions of Material Life. The Development of the Implements of Labour
In primitive times man was extremely dependent on his natural surroundings; he was completely weighed down by the difficulties of existence, by the difficulties of his struggle with nature. The process of mastering the elemental forces of nature went on extremely slowly, since the implements of labour were extremely primitive. Man's first implements were roughly chipped stones and sticks. They were like artificial extensions of his bodily organs: the stone, of his fist, the stick, of his outstretched arm.
Men lived in groups whose numbers did not exceed a few dozen persons: a greater single number could not have provided food for themselves. When groups met clashes sometimes took place between them. Many groups perished from hunger or became the prey of wild animals. In these conditions labour in common was for men the only possible form of labour and an absolute necessity.
For a long time primitive man lived mainly by means of food gathering and hunting, both carried out collectively with the help of the simplest implements. What was jointly obtained was jointly consumed. Cannibalism occurred among primitive men as a consequence of the precariousness of the food supply. In the course of many thousands of years, as though groping their way, by means of an extremely slow accumulation of experience, men learned to make the simplest implements suitable for striking, cutting, digging and the other very simple activities which then almost exhausted the whole sphere of production.
The discovery of fire was a great victory for primitive man in his struggle with nature. At first men learned to make use of fire which had arisen naturally. They saw lightning set fire to a tree, observed forest fires and the eruptions of volcanoes. The fire which had been obtained by chance was long and carefully preserved. Only after many thousands of years did man learn the secret of making fire. With more advanced production of implements men observed that fire came from friction and learned to make it.
The discovery of fire and its application gave men dominion over specific natural forces. Primitive man had finally broken away from the animal world: the long epoch of his becoming human had been completed. Thanks to the discovery of fire the conditions of material life for man changed fundamentally. First, fire could be used to prepare food, as a result of which the number of edible objects available to man was increased: it became possible to eat fish, meat, starchy roots, tubers and so on prepared with the help of fire. Secondly, fire began to play an important part in making the implements of production. Thirdly, it "also afforded protection against cold, thanks to which it became possible for men to spread over the greater part of the world. Fourthly, fire afforded a defence against wild beasts.
For a long time hunting remained the most important source of the means of existence. It provided men with skins for clothes, bones with which to make implements, and meat which influenced the further development of the human organism and primarily the development of the brain.
As his physical and mental development progressed man became able to perfect his implements. A stick with a sharpened end served for hunting. Then he began to fix sharpened stones to the stick. Stone-tipped spears, stone axes, scrapers and knives, harpoons and fish-hooks appeared. These implements made possible the hunting of large animals and the development of fishing.
Stone remained the chief material for implement-making for a very long time. The epoch when stone implements predominated, which lasted for hundreds of thousands of years, is called the Stone Age. Only later did man learn to make implements of metal; at first of native metal, in the first instance copper (but copper, being a soft metal, was not widely used to make implements), later of bronze (an alloy of copper and tin), and finally of iron. Thus, after the Stone Age the Bronze Age followed, and after that the Iron Age.
The earliest traces of the smelting of copper in Hither Asia date from the fifth to fourth millennia B.C. In Southern and Central Europe the smelting of copper arose in approximately the third to second millennia B.C. The oldest traces of bronze in Mesopotamia date from the fourth millennium B.C.
The earliest traces of the smelting of iron have been discovered in Egypt and Mesopotamia; they date from before 2000 B.C. In Western Europe the Iron Age began about 1000 B.C.
The invention of the bow and arrow, with the appearance of which hunting began to provide more of the necessities of life, was an important landmark on the road to improving the implements of labour. The development of hunting led to the origin of primitive cattle-breeding. Hunters began to domesticate animals. The dog was domesticated earlier than other animals, and later goats, cattle, pigs and horses.
The origin of primitive agriculture was a further great stride in the development of society's productive forces. While gathering fruits and roots of plants, primitive men began to notice that grains which were dropped on the ground sprouted. Thousands of times this remained uncomprehended, but sooner or later the connection of these phenomena was established in primitive man's mind, and he began to cultivate plants. Thus agriculture arose.
For a long time it remained extremely primitive. The earth was broken up by hand, at first with a simple stick, then with a stick with a hooked end, a hoe. In the river valleys the seeds were scattered on the mud which had been brought down by the river floods. The domestication of animals made possible the use of cattle for draught purposes. Later, when men learned to smelt metal, and metal implements appeared, their application made agricultural labour more productive. Tillage acquired a firmer basis. Primitive tribes began to adopt a settled mode of life.
The Production Relations of Primitive Society. Natural Division of Labour
Production relations are determined by the character and condition of the productive forces. In primitive communal society the basis of production relations is communal property in the means of production. Communal property corresponds to the character of the productive forces in this period. The implements of labour in primitive society were so crude that they prevented primitive man from struggling with the forces of nature and wild animals singlehanded. "This primitive type collective or co-operative production", Marx wrote, "was, of course, the result of the weakness of the individual and not of the socialisation of the means of production." ("Rough drafts of Marx's Letter to Vera Zasulich", Marx and Engels, Works, Russian edition, vol. XXVII, p. 681.) Hence came the necessity for collective labour, for common property in land and other means of production as well as in the products of labour. Primitive men had no conception of private ownership of the means of production. Only certain implements of production, those which were also implements of defence against wild animals, were their private property, used by separate members of the commune.
Primitive man's labour created no overplus beyond what was essential for life, that is no surplus product. In such conditions there could be no classes or exploitation of man by man in primitive society. Social property extended only to small communities which were more or less isolated from one another. As Lenin put it, the social character of production here embraced only the members of one community.
The labour activity of men in primitive society was based on simple cooperation. Simple co-operation is the simultaneous application of more or less considerable labour force to perform work of the same kind. Even simple cooperation gave primitive men the possibility of performing tasks which would have been unthinkable for a single man (for example, in hunting large animals).
In the extremely low level of development of productive forces which then existed the meagre food was divided equally. There could be no other division, since the products of labour scarcely sufficed to satisfy the most essential needs: if one member of a primitive community received more than the share which was equal for all, then someone else would be doomed to starvation and death. Thus, equal distribution of the products of common labour was inevitable.
The custom of equal division was deeply rooted among primitive peoples. It has been observed by travellers living among tribes at a low level of social development. More than a hundred years ago the great naturalist Darwin made a voyage round the world. Describing the life of tribes on Tierra del Fuego he relates the following incident: The Tierra del Fuegans were given a piece of canvas; they tore the canvas into completely equal parts so that each one should have an equal share.
The basic economic law of primitive communal society consisted in the securing of the vitally necessary means of existence with the help of primitive implements of production, on the basis of communal. ownership of the means of production, by means of common labour and the equal distribution of the products.
As the implements of production are developed, division of labour arises. Its simplest form was the natural division of labour, i.e., division of labour dependent on sex and age, between men and women, between adults, children and old people.
The famous Russian traveller Miklukho-Maklai, who in the second half of the nineteenth century studied the life of the New Guinea Papuans, thus describes the collective process of labour in tillage. Several men stand in a row and thrust sharpened sticks deep into the soil and then, with one heave, raise a great lump of earth. The women follow after them crawling on their knees. In their hands they have sticks with which they break up the soil raised by the men. Children of various ages go behind the women, rubbing the soil out with their hands. After the soil has been crumbled the women, using little sticks, make depressions in the soil and bury seeds or plant roots in them. Labour here is collective in character and at the same time there exists division of labour by sex and age.
As productive forces developed, the natural division of labour gradually became stable and consolidated. The specialisation of men in the sphere of hunting, of women in the sphere of gathering vegetable food and housekeeping, led to a certain increase in the productivity of labour.
Clan Society. The Matriarchal Clan. The Patriarchal Clan
While the process of man's separation from the animal world was taking place people lived in herds or hordes as their immediate ancestors had done. Subsequently, in connection with the rise of primitive economy and the growth of population, the clan organisation of society gradually came into existence.
In those times only people in kinship relation with one another could unite for common labour. Primitive implements of production limited the possibility of collective labour within the narrow framework of a group of people linked by kinship and life together. Primitive man was usually hostile to anyone who was not tied to him by kinship and life together. The clan was a group at first consisting of a few dozen persons in all and linked by the bond of blood relationship. Every such group existed separately from other such groups. With the passage of time the clan's numbers increased, reaching several hundred persons. The habit of common existence developed the benefits of common labour more and more compelled men to stay together.
Morgan, a student of the life of primitive peoples described the clan structure which was still preserved among the Iroquois Indians in the middle of the last century. Hunting, fishing, the gathering of fruits of the earth and tillage were the basic occupations of the Iroquois: Labour was divided between men and women. Hunting and fishing, the making of weapons and implements of labour clearance of the soil, the building of huts and fortifications were the men's duties. The women carried out the basic field work gathered the harvest and stored it, cooked, made clothing and earthenware and gathered wild fruit, berries, nuts and tubers. The land was the clan's common property. The heavier work -cutting down trees, clearance of the land for arable, large hunting expeditions- was carried out in common. The Iroquois lived in so-called "great houses" accommodating twenty families and more. Such a group had common stores where their stock of provisions was kept. The woman at the head of the group divided the food among the separate families. In time of warfare the clan chose itself a war chief who had no material benefits; with the end of warfare his power ceased.
At the first stage of clan society[1] woman had the leading position and this followed from the material conditions of men's life at that period. Hunting with the help of the most primitive implements, which was the men's business, could not completely secure the community's livelihood; its results were more or less fortuitous. In such conditions even the embryonic forms of agriculture and cattle-breeding (the domestication of animals) were of great economic significance. They were a more reliable and constant source of livelihood than hunting. But tillage of the soil and cattle-breeding, so long as they were carried on by primitive methods, were predominantly the occupation of the women who remained near the domestic hearth while the men were hunting. Throughout a lengthy period woman played the dominant part in the clan community. Kinship was reckoned in the maternal line. This was the maternal or matriarchal clan (matriarchy).
In the course of further development of the productive forces when nomadic breeding of cattle (pastoral economy) and a more developed agriculture (corngrowing), which were the men's concern, began to playa decisive part in the life of the primitive community, the matriarchal ‘clan was replaced by the paternal or patriarchal clan (patriarchy). The dominant position passed to the man. He put himself at the head of the clan community. Kinship began to be reckoned in the paternal line. The patriarchal clan existed in the last period of primitive communal society.
The absence of private property, of a class division of society and of the exploitation of man by man precluded the possibility of the State appearing.
In primitive society... there were yet no signs of the existence of the State. We find the predominance of custom, authority, respect, the power enjoyed by the elders of the tribe; we find this power sometimes accorded to women... but nowhere do we find a special category of people who are set apart to rule others and who, in the interests and with the purpose of rule, systematically and permanently command a certain apparatus of coercion, an apparatus of violence ..." (Lenin, "The State", a lecture delivered at the Sverdlov University, July 11, 1919, Selected Works, Twelve-volume English edition, vol. XI, p. 643.)
The Rise if Social Division if Labour and Exchange
With the advance to cattle-breeding and agriculture there arose the social division of labour, that is, the division of labour under which at first different communities, and then individual members of communities as well, began to engage in differing forms of productive activity. The separation of the pastoral tribes was the first great social division of labour.
The pastoral tribes engaged in breeding cattle achieved substantial successes. They learned to care for the cattle in such a way that they received more meat, wool and milk. This first big social division of labour already led to what was for that age a noticeable rise in the productivity of labour.
For a long time in the primitive community there was no basis for exchange; the whole product was obtained and consumed in common. Exchange first originated and developed between clan communities, and for a long time was fortuitous.
With the appearance of the first great social division of labour the situation changed. Among the pastoral tribes there appeared a certain surplus of cattle, milk products, meat, hides and wool. At the same time they experienced a need for products of the soil. In their turn the tribes engaged in agriculture achieved as time went on considerable successes in the output of agricultural produce. Tillers of the soil and breeders of cattle required products which they could not produce within their own economy. All this led to the development of exchange. Other forms of productive activity also developed side by side with tillage of the soil and cattle-breeding. Even in the period of stone implements men learned to make vessels from clay. Later, hand weaving appeared. Finally, with the discovery of iron smelting it became possible to make metal implements of labour (the wooden plough with iron share, the iron axe) and weapons (iron swords). It became ever more difficult to combine these forms of labour with tillage of the soil or pastoral labour. In the communities men engaged in handicraft gradually separated out. The handiwork of the craftsmen -blacksmiths, weapon-makers, potters and so on- began more and more frequently to be offered for exchange. The field of exchange considerably widened.
The Rise of Private Property and Classes. The Breakdown of Primitive Communal Society
Primitive communal society came to full flower under matriarchy. The patriarchal clan already concealed in itself the seeds of the breakdown of the primitive communal structure. The production relations of primitive communal society up to a certain period corresponded to the level of development of the productive forces. In the last stage of patriarchy, however, with the appearance of new, more improved implements of production (the Iron Age), the production relations of primitive society ceased to correspond to the new productive forces. The narrow framework of communal property and the equal distribution of the products of labour began to act as a brake on the development of new productive forces.
Formerly it had been possible to work a field only by the joint labour of dozens of men. In such conditions common labour was a necessity. With the development of the implements of production and the growth of the productivity of labour one family was now in a position to work a plot of land and secure for itself the essential means of existence. Thus the perfecting of implements of production made possible the advance to an individual economy, which was more productive in those historical conditions. Joint labour and a communal economy became less and less necessary. While common labour demanded common property in the means of production, individual labour demanded private property.
The origin of private property is inseparably linked with the social division of labour and the development of exchange. At first exchange was carried out by the heads of the clan communities-by the elders or patriarchs. They took part in barter deals as representatives of the communities. What they exchanged was the property of the community. But as social division of labour developed further, and exchanges expanded, the clan chiefs gradually began to treat communal property as their own.
At first the chief item of exchange was cattle. Pastoral communities had large flocks of sheep and goats and herds of cattle. The elders and patriarchs, who already held great power in society, became accustomed to dispose of these herds as their own property. Their right in fact to dispose of the herds was also recognised by the other members of the community. Thus first of all cattle, and then gradually all the implements of production, became private property. Common property in land was preserved longest of all.
The development of the productive forces and the appearance of private property led to the breakdown of the clan. The clan fell apart into large patriarchal families. Then, within the large patriarchal family, individual family units began to separate out, converting the implements of production, utensils and cattle into their own private property. The ties of clan became weakened with the growth of private property. The village community began to occupy the place of the clan community. The village, or neighbourhood, community as distinct from the clan consisted of people not necessarily bound by kinship. House, household goods, cattle, all were in the private ownership of individual families. On the other hand, woods, meadows, water and other natural amenities, and also for a definite period the ploughland, were communal property. At first the ploughland was periodically re-divided between the members of the community, but later it began to pass into private hands.
The rise of private property and exchange was the beginning of a great turning-point in the whole structure of primitive society. The development of private property and property distinctions led to the result that within the communities different interests arose among different groups. In these conditions the individuals who in the community held the offices of elders, military leaders and priests used their position to enrich themselves. They acquired a considerable share of the communal property. The bearers of these social offices became more and more distinct from the mass of members of the community, forming a clan aristocracy and more and more frequently passing on their power to their heirs. Aristocratic families became at the same time the richest families. The mass of the members of the community gradually fell into one form or another of economic dependence on the rich and aristocratic upper stratum.
With the growth of productive forces, man's labour applied to cattle-breeding and agriculture began to yield greater means of subsistence than were essential to maintain man's life. The possibility arose of appropriating surplus labour and the surplus product, that is, the surplus of labour and product above what was needed to maintain the worker himself and his family. In these conditions it became advantageous not to kill men taken prisoner, as had formerly been done, but to make them work, converting them into slaves. The slaves were seized by the more aristocratic and richer families. In its turn slave labour led to a further growth of inequality, since the households using slaves grew rich quickly. In conditions of the growth of property inequality the rich began to convert into slaves not only prisoners but also their own impoverished and indebted fellow-tribesmen. Thus the first class division of society arose, the division into slave-owners and slaves. There appeared the exploitation of man by man, that is, the uncompensated appropriation by some of the products of the labour of others.
The relations of production prevailing in primitive communal society broke down, perished and made way for new relations of production, suited to the character of new productive forces.
Common labour gave way to individual labour, social property to private property" clan society to class society. The whole history of mankind from this period onwards, right up to the building of socialist society, became the history of class struggle.
Bourgeois ideologists represent matters as if private property had existed for ever. History refutes such inventions and convincingly bears witness to the fact that all people passed through the stage of primitive communal society based on communal property, and knowing no private property.
Social Conceptions of the Primitive Epoch
Primitive man, weighed down by need and the difficulties of his struggle for existence, at first did not distinguish himself from his natural surroundings. For a long time he had no really coherent conceptions either of himself or of the natural conditions of his existence.
Only gradually did very limited and crude conceptions of himself and of the conditions surrounding his life begin to take shape in the mind of primitive man. There could not be the slightest trace of religious views which, as the defenders of religion assert were allegedly inherent in the human consciousness from the very outset. Only later did primitive man -not being in a position to understand and explain the phenomena of nature and social life around him- in his conceptions begin to people the world around him with supernatural beings, spirits and magical powers. He attributed spiritual existence to the forces of nature. This was the so-called animism (from the Latin anima-the spirit, soul). Primitive myths and primitive religion were born of these dim conceptions in men of their own nature and that around them. In them the primitive equality of the social structure was reproduced. Primitive man not knowing class division and property inequality in real life introduced no corresponding subordination in his imaginary world of spirits. He divided the spirits into his own and others" friendly and hostile. Division of the spirits into higher and lower appeared only when the primitive community was breaking down.
Primitive man felt himself an inseparable part of the clan. He could not imagine himself outside the clan. A reflection of this in ideology was the cult of the ancestral progenitors of the clan. It is characteristic that in the course of the development of language "I" and "my" arise much later than other words. The power of the clan over the individual was exceedingly strong. The breakdown of the primitive community was accompanied by the origin and spread of conceptions associated with private property. This was clearly reflected in myths and religious conceptions. When private property relations began to be established, and property inequality appeared, among many tribes there arose the custom of imposing a religious prohibition -"taboo"- on goods appropriated by the leaders or rich families (the inhabitants of the Pacific Islands used the word "taboo" for everything that was prohibited or taken out of common use). With the breakdown of the primitive community and the rise of private property, the power of religious prohibition began to be used to reinforce the new economic relations and property inequality which had come into existence.
Brief Conclusions
(1) Thanks to labour, men emerged from the animal world and human society arose. The distinctive feature of human labour is the making of implements of production.
(2) The productive forces of primitive society were on an exceedingly low level, the implements of production were extremely primitive. This necessitated collective labour, social property in the means of production and equal distribution. In the primitive community there was no property inequality or private property in the means of production; there were no classes or exploitation of man by man. Social ownership of the means of production was confined within a narrow framework; it was the property of small communities more or less isolated from one another.
(3) "The basic economic law of the primitive community consists in the securing of man's vitally necessary means of subsistence with the help of primitive implements of production, on the basis of communal property in the means of production, by means of common labour and the equal distribution of the products.
(4) Working together, men for a long time performed uniform labour. The gradual improvement of implements of production promoted the rise of a natural division of labour, depending on sex and age. Further perfecting of the implements of production and the mode of obtaining the means of life, the development of cattle-breeding and agriculture led to the appearance of the social division of labour and exchange, of private property and property inequality, to the division of society into classes and to the exploitation of man by man. Thus the growing forces of production entered into contradiction with the relations of production, as a result of which primitive communal society gave way to another type of relations of production-the slave-owning system.
The Slave-Owning Mode of Production
Rise of the Slave-Owning System
Slavery is the first and crudest form of exploitation in history. In the past it existed among almost all peoples.
The transition from the primitive community to the slave-owning system took place for the first time in history in the countries of the ancient East. The slave-owning mode of production predominated in Mesopotamia (Sumer, Babylonia, Assyria and others), Egypt, India and China by the fourth millennium B.C. in some cases, and not later than the second millennium B.C. in others. In the first millennium B.C. the slave-owning mode of production was dominant in Transcaucasia (Urartu); from the eighth or seventh centuries B.C. to the fifth or sixth centuries A.D. a powerful slave-owning State existed in Khorezm. The culture achieved in the slave-owning countries of the ancient East greatly influenced the development of the peoples of European countries.
In Greece the slave-owning mode of production reached its height in the fifth to fourth centuries B.C. Subsequently slavery developed in the States of Asia Minor, Macedonia (from the fourth to the first centuries B.C.). The slave-owning system reached the highest stage of its development in Rome in the period from the second century B.C. to the second century A.D.
At first slavery bore a patriarchal or domestic character. There were comparatively few slaves. Slave labour was not yet the basis of production but played a subsidiary part in the economy. The aim of the economy remained the satisfaction of the demands of the large patriarchal family which had hardly any recourse to exchange. The master's power over his slaves was already unlimited but the sphere of application of slave labour was limited.
The further growth of productive forces, and the development of the social division of labour and of exchange, formed the basis of society's transition to the slave-owning system.
The advance from stone to metal implements of labour led to a considerable extension of the limits of human labour. The invention of the blacksmith's bellows enabled man to make iron implements of labour of a durability not seen before. It became possible with the help of the iron axe to clear the land of forests and undergrowth for ploughing. The wooden plough with iron share made it possible to work comparatively large plots of land. Primitive Hunting economy gave place to agriculture and cattle-breeding. Handicrafts appeared.
In agriculture, which remained the main branch of production, methods of tillage and cattle-breeding improved. New branches of agriculture arose; vine and flax growing, the growing of oil crops, and so on. The rich families' herds increased. More and more working hands were needed to look after the cattle.
Weaving, metal-working, the art of pottery and other crafts gradually improved. Formerly a craft had been a subsidiary occupation of the husbandman or herdsman. Now for many people it became an independent occupation. The separation of handicraft from agriculture took place. This was the second large-scale social division of labour.
With the division of production into two large basic branches, agriculture and handicraft, there arises production directly for exchange though still in an undeveloped form. The growth in productivity of labour led to an increase in the amount of the surplus product which, with private property in the means of production, afforded the opportunity for the accumulation of wealth in the hands of a minority of society, and on this basis for the subordination of the working majority to the exploiting minority, for the conversion of labourers into slaves.
Under conditions of slavery the economy was basically a natural one. A natural economy is one in which the products of labour are not exchanged but consumed within the economy where they were produced. At the same time, however, the development of exchange took place. At first craftsmen made their products to order and then for sale on the market. At the same time, many of them continued for long to have small plots of land and to cultivate them to satisfy their needs. In the main the peasants carried on a natural economy, but were compelled to sell a certain part of their produce on the market in order to be able to buy the craftsman's wares and to pay money taxes. Thus gradually part of the products of the craftsman's and peasant's labour became commodities.
A commodity is a product prepared not for direct consumption but for exchange, for sale on the market. The production of objects for exchange is the characteristic feature of commodity economy. Thus the separation of handicraft from agriculture, the rise of handicraft as an independent occupation, signified the birth of commodity production.
So long as exchange bore a fortuitous character one product of labour was directly exchanged for another. As exchange expanded and became a regular phenomenon, a commodity for which any other commodity would be willingly given gradually emerged. Thus money arose. Money is a universal commodity by which all other commodities are evaluated and which serves as an intermediary in exchange.
The development of handicraft and exchange led to the formation of towns. Towns arose in remote antiquity, at the dawn of the slave-owning mode of production. At first the town was little to be distinguished from the village, but gradually handicraft and trade concentrated in towns. The towns became more and more distinct from villages by the type of occupation of the inhabitants and by their way of life.
Thus began the separation of town from country and the rise of the antithesis between them.
As the quantity of exchangeable commodities increased, the territorial limits of exchange also expanded. Merchants arose who in pursuit of gain purchased commodities from the producers, carried the commodities to markets sometimes quite far from the place of production, and sold them to the consumers.
The expansion of production and exchange considerably intensified inequality of property. Money, working cattle, implements of production and seeds accumulated in the hands of the rich. The poor were compelled more and more frequently to turn to them for loans, mainly in kind, but sometimes also in money. The rich lent them implements of production, seeds and money, making bondsmen of their debtors and, when the latter did not pay their debts, made them slaves and took their land. Thus usury arose. It brought a further growth of riches to some, debt bondage to others.
The land also began to be converted into private property. It began to be sold and mortgaged. If a debtor could not pay the usurer, he had to abandon his land and sell himself and his children into slavery. Sometimes, on one pretext or another, the large landowners seized part of the meadows and pastures from the peasant village communes.
Thus proceeded the concentration of landed property, wealth in money and masses of slaves in the hands of the rich slave-owners. The small peasant economy more and more broke down, while the slave-owning economy grew strong and expanded, spreading to all branches of production.
"The continued increase of production and with it the increased productivity of labour enhanced the value of human labour-power. Slavery, which had been a nascent and sporadic factor in the preceding stage, now became an essential part of the social system. The slaves ceased to be simply assistants, but were now driven in scores to work in the fields and workshops." (Engels, "The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State"; Marx and Engels, Selected Works, English edition, vol. II, p. 283.)
Slave labour became the basis of society's existence. Society split into two basically opposed classes, slaves and slave-owners.
Thus the slave-owning mode of production was established.
Under the slave-owning system the population was divided into free men and slaves. The free had all civil, property and political rights (except women, who were essentially in the position of slaves). The slaves were deprived of all these rights and had no right of admission to the ranks of the free. In their turn the free were divided into a class of large landowners, who were also large-scale slave-owners, and a class of small producers (peasants, craftsmen), the well-to-do strata of which also made use of slave labour and were slave-owners. The priests, who played a great part in the period of slavery, were attached, because of their status, to the class of large landowners and slave-owners.
Apart from the class contradiction between slaves and slave-owners there also existed a class contradiction between the large landowners and the peasants. But with the development of the slave-owning system slave labour, as the cheapest, embraced the larger part of the branches of production and became the main basis of production; and the contradiction between slaves and slave-owners became the basic contradiction of society.
Society's split into classes evoked the necessity for the State. With the growth of social division of labour and the development of exchange, separate clans and tribes came ever closer together and combined into unions. The character of clan institutions was changed. The organs of the clan system more and more lost their popular character. They were converted into organs of dominance over the people, into organs of plunder and oppression of their own and of neighbouring tribes. The elders and military leaders of the clans and tribes became princes and kings. Formerly they had authority as people elected by the clan or union of clans. Now they began to use their power to defend the interests of the propertied upper layer, to keep a grip on their fellow clansmen falling into poverty, and to hold down the slaves. Armed retinues, courts and punitive organs served this end.
Thus State power arose.
"Only when the first form of the division of society into classes appeared, only when slavery appeared, when a certain class of people, by concentrating on the crudest forms of agricultural labour, could produce a certain surplus, when this surplus was not absolutely essential for the most wretched existence of the slave and passed into the hands of the slave-owner when in this way the existence of this class of slave-owners took firm root -and in order that it might take firm root- it was essential that the state should appear." (Lenin, "The State", Selected Works, English edition, vol. XI, p. 647; and in "Lenin and Stalin on the State", Little Lenin Library, vol. XXIII, p. 15.)
The State arose in order to hold in check the exploited majority in the interests of the exploiting minority.
The slave-owning State played a great part in the development and stabilisation of the production relations of slave-owning society. The slave-owning State held the slave masses in subjection. It grew into a widely ramified machinery for domination over and oppression of the masses of the people. The democracy in ancient Greece and Rome which bourgeois history textbooks extol was essentially a slave-owning democracy.
Production Relations of the Slave-Owning System. Position of Slaves
The production relations of slave-owning society were based on the fact that not only the means of production but also the workers in production, the slaves, were the slave-owners' property. The slave was considered a chattel.
He was at the complete and utter disposal of his owner. Slaves were not only exploited, they were bought and sold like cattle and were even killed with impunity. While in the period of patriarchal slavery the slave had been regarded as a member of the family, in the conditions of the slave-owning mode of production he was not considered even a man.
"The slave did not sell his labour-power to the slave-owner, any more than the ox sells its services to the peasant. The slave, together with his labour-power, has been sold once and for all to his owner." (Marx, "Wage, Labour and Capital", Selected Works, English edition, vol. I, p. 77.)
Slave labour had an openly compulsory character. Slaves were made to work by means of the crudest physical force. They were driven to work with whips and were subjected to harsh punishments for the least negligence. Slaves were branded so that they could be more easily taken if they fled. Many of them wore permanent iron collars which bore their owner's name.
The slave-owner acquired the whole product of slave labour. He gave the slaves only the smallest possible quantity of the means of subsistence-sufficient to prevent them dying of hunger and to enable them to go on working for him. The slave-owner took not only the surplus product but also a considerable part of the necessary product of the slaves' labour.
The development of the slave-owning mode of production was accompanied by an increase in the demand for slaves. In a number of countries slaves as a rule had no family. The rapacious exploitation of slaves led to their rapid physical exhaustion. It was continually necessary to add to the numbers of slaves. War was an important source of obtaining new bondmen. The slave-owning States of the ancient East carried on constant wars with a view to conquering other peoples. The history of ancient Greece is full of wars between separate city States, between metropolis and colonies, between Greek and Oriental States. Rome carried on uninterrupted wars; at her height she conquered the greater part of the lands known at that time. Not only the warriors who had been taken prisoner, but also a considerable part of the population of the conquered lands, were enslaved.
Provinces and colonies served as another source for adding to the numbers of slaves. They supplied the slave-owners with "living commodities" as well as with every other commodity. The slave trade was one of the most profitable and flourishing branches of economic activity. Special centres of the slave trade arose: fairs were arranged to which came traders and buyers from distant countries.
The slave-owning mode of production opened broader opportunities for the growth of productive forces than the primitive community. The concentration of a large number of slaves in the hands of the slave-owning State and of individual slave-owners made possible the use of simple co-operation of labour on a large scale: This is attested by the gigantic construction works which were executed in antiquity by the peoples of China, India, Egypt, Italy, Greece, Transcaucasia, Central Asia and others: irrigation systems, roads, bridges, military fortifications, cultural monuments.
Social division of labour developed and expressed itself in the specialisation of agricultural and handicraft production, thus creating conditions for raising the productivity of labour.
In Greece slave labour was widely applied in handicraft. Large workshops arose, ergasteria, in which there worked several dozen slaves at a time. Slave labour was also used in building, in mining iron ore, silver and gold. In Rome slave labour was widespread in agriculture. The Roman aristocracy owned broad estates, latifundia, where hundreds and thousands of slaves worked.
These latifundia were created by the seizure of peasants' lands and also of unoccupied State lands.
The slave-owning latifundia, in consequence of the cheapness of slave labour and the utilisation of the advantages of simple co-operation, were able to produce grain and other agricultural produce at lower cost than the small farms of the free peasants. The small peasantry was squeezed out, fell into slavery or swelled the ranks of the impoverished sections of the town population, the lumpen-proletariat.
The contradiction between town and country, which had already arisen during the transition from the primitive communal system to the slave-owning system, grew deeper and deeper.
The towns became the centres where the slave-owning nobility, the merchants, the usurers, the officials of the slave-owning State, all of whom exploited the broad masses of the peasant population, were concentrated.
On the basis of slave labour the ancient world achieved considerable economic and cultural development. But the slave-owning system could not create the conditions for any further serious technical progress. Slave labour was distinguished by extremely low productivity. The slave was not at all interested in the results of his labour. The slaves hated their labour under the yoke. Frequently they expressed their protest and indignation by spoiling the implements of labour. Therefore the slaves were given only the crudest implements, which it was difficult to spoil.
The technique of production founded on slavery remained at an exceedingly low level. Despite a certain development of the natural and exact sciences, they were hardly applied at all in production. Certain technical inventions were used only for war purposes and in building. Through the several centuries of its dominance the slave-owning mode of production went no further than the application of manual implements borrowed from the small agriculturalist and craftsman, and no further than simple labour co-operation. The basic motive force remained the physical strength of men and cattle.
The wide application of slave labour allowed the slave owners to free themselves from all physical labour and to transfer it completely to the slaves.
The slave-owners treated physical labour with scorn, considered it an occupation unworthy of a free man and led a parasitic form of life. With the development of slavery greater and greater numbers of the free population broke away from any productive activity. Only a certain part of the slave-owning upper class and of the other free population engaged in public affairs, the sciences and the arts, which attained a considerable level of development.
The slave-owning system gave birth to the antithesis between mental and physical labour, to the gap between them. The exploitation of slaves by slave-owners is the main feature of the production relations of slave-owning society.
At the same time the slave-owning mode of production had its peculiarities in various countries.
In the countries of the ancient East natural economy predominated to a still greater degree than in the ancient world' of Europe. Here slave labour was widely applied in the State economies and those of the large slave-owners and temples. Domestic slavery was greatly developed. Huge- masses of members of peasant communities were exploited, as well as the slaves, in the agriculture of China, India, Babylonia and Egypt. Here the system of enslavement for debt acquired great importance. The member of the peasant community who did not pay his debt to the usurer, or his rent to the landowner, was compelled to work on their land for a definite time as a bond-slave.
In the slave-owning countries of the ancient East communal and State forms of ownership of land were widespread. The existence of these forms of property was linked with the system of cultivation based on irrigation. Irrigated agriculture in the river valleys of the East demanded enormous labour expenditure for the construction of dams, canals and reservoirs and the draining of marshes. All this evoked the necessity of centralising the construction and use of the irrigation systems over large territories. "Artificial irrigation is here the first condition of agriculture and this is a matter either for the communes, the provinces or the central government." (Engels, "Letter to K. Marx", June 6, 1843, Marx and Engels, Selected Correspondence, 1846-95, 1934, English edition, p.67.) With the development of slavery the communal lands were concentrated in the hands of the State. The king with unlimited power became the supreme owner of the land.
The slave-owners' State, concentrating in its hands the ownership of land, imposed huge taxes on the peasants, compelled them to carry out different types of duties and thereby put the peasants in a condition of servile dependence. The peasants remained members of the rural community. But with the concentration of the land in the hands of the slave-owning State, the rural community was a firm base for oriental despotism, i.e., the unlimited autocratic power of a despotic monarch. The priestly aristocracy played an important part in the slave-owning States of the East. The great estates belonging to the temples were maintained on the basis of slave labour.
Under the slave-owning system the slave-owners in all countries expended unproductively by far the greater part of slave labour and its products: on the satisfaction of personal fancies, the accumulation of, treasure, the construction of military fortifications and armies, the erection and maintenance of luxurious palaces and temples. In particular the Egyptian pyramids, which have been preserved up to the present day, testify to the unproductive expenditure of huge masses of labour. Only an insignificant part of slave labour and its product was expended on the further expansion of production, which therefore developed exceedingly slowly. Ruinous wars led to the destruction of productive forces, the extermination of huge numbers of the peaceful population and the ruin of the culture of entire States.
The basic economic law of the slave-owning system consists in the production of surplus product to satisfy the demands of the slave-owners, by means of the rapacious exploitation of the slaves, on the basis of full ownership by the slave-owners of the means of production and of the slaves themselves, by the ruining and enslaving of peasants and craftsmen, and also by conquering and enslaving the peoples of other countries.
Further Development of Exchange. Merchants' and Usurers' Capital
The slave-owning economy in the main preserved its natural character. In it production was mainly for the direct consumption of the slave-owner, of his numerous hangers-on and retainers, not with a view to exchange. All the same, exchange gradually began to play a more noticeable part, particularly in the period of the greatest development of the slave-owning system. In a number of branches of production a certain part of the products of labour, was regularly sold on the market-that is, was converted into commodities.
With the expansion of exchange the part played by money increased. Usually there arose as money that commodity which was the most frequently exchanged. Among many peoples, particularly among cattle-breeders, cattle first served as money. Among others salt, grain or furs became money.
Gradually all other forms of money were squeezed out by metallic currency.
Metallic currency first appeared in the countries of the ancient East. Money in the form of bronze, silver and gold bars was already circulating here in the third to second millennia B.C., and in the form of coins from the seventh century B.C. In Greece in the eighth century B.C., iron money was current. In Rome even in the fifth to fourth centuries B.C. only copper money was used. Later iron and copper money were replaced by silver and gold.
The Greek city States carried on quite far-flung trade, including trade with the Greek colonies scattered along the shores of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. The colonies regularly supplied the basic labour force-slaves-and certain forms of raw material and foodstuffs: hides, wool, cattle, grain and fish.
In Rome, as well as in Greece, apart from trade in slaves and other commodities, trade in luxury objects played a great part. These commodities were supplied from the East mainly in the shape of all sorts of tribute taken from conquered peoples. Trade was connected with plunder, piracy and the enslavement of colonies.
Under the slave-owning system money had already become not only a means of buying and selling commodities; it had also come to serve as a means for the appropriation of the labour of others by means of trade and usury. Money expended with a view to appropriating surplus labour and its product becomes capital, that is, a means of exploitation. Merchants' and usurers' capital were historically the first forms of capital. Merchants' capital is capital engaged in the sphere of commodity exchange. Merchants buying up and reselling commodities appropriated a considerable part of the surplus product created by the slaves, small peasants and craftsmen. Usurers' capital is capital applied in the form of loans of money, means of production or objects of consumption for the appropriation of the peasants' and craftsmen's surplus labour by means of high interest rates. The usurers also granted money loans to the slave-owning aristocracy, thus sharing in the surplus product that the latter received.
Sharpening of the Contradictions of the Slave-Owning Mode of Production
Slavery was an essential stage on mankind's road of development.
"It was slavery that first made possible the division of labour between agriculture and industry on a considerable scale, and along with this, the flower of the ancient world, Hellenism. Without slavery, no Greek state, no Greek art and science; without slavery, no Roman Empire. But without Hellenism and the Roman Empire as a basis, also no modern Europe." (Engels, Anti-Dühring, 1934, English edition, p. 203.)
On the bones of generations of slaves there arose a culture which was the basis for mankind's further development. Many branches of knowledge-mathematics, astronomy, mechanics, architecture-achieved considerable development in the ancient world. The artistic objects which have corrie down to us from antiquity, the works of literature, sculpture and architecture have entered for ever into the treasury of human culture.
The slave-owning system, however, concealed in itself insuperable contradictions which led to its destruction. The slave-owning form of exploitation constantly destroyed the basic productive force of this society, the slaves. The struggle of the slaves against harsh forms of exploitation was more and more frequently expressed in armed risings. An uninterrupted influx of slaves and their cheapness were a condition of existence for slave-owning economy. Slaves were mainly supplied by war. The mass of free small producers, the peasants and craftsmen, formed the basis of the military power of slave-owning society. They served in the armed forces and bore On their shoulders the main burden of taxes essential for conducting war. But as a result of the competition of large-scale production based on cheap slave labour, and under the weight of burdens beyond their strength, the peasants and craftsmen were ruined. The insoluble contradiction between large latifundia and peasant farms continued to intensify.
The squeezing out of the free peasantry subverted not only the economic, but also the military and political might of the slave-owning States, and particularly Rome. Victories were replaced by defeats. Wars of conquest were replaced by defensive ones. The source of the uninterrupted supply of cheap slaves dried up. The negative aspects of slave labour appeared more and more strongly. A general fall in production took place in the last two centuries of the existence of the Roman Empire. Trade fell http confusion, formerly rich lands became poor, the population began to decline, crafts perished and towns began to be deserted.
The productive relations based on slave labour had turned into fetters for the expanded productive forces of society. The labour of slaves, completely uninterested in the results of production, had outlived itself. There had arisen the historical necessity for the replacement of slave-owning production relations by other production relations, which would change the situation in society of the main productive force, the labouring masses. The law of the obligatory correspondence between production relations and the character of the productive forces demanded the replacement of slaves by workers who were to some extent interested in the results of their labour.
As large-scale slave-owning production became economically unprofitable the slave-owners began to set free considerable groups of slaves whose labour no longer brought them any income. Large estates were broken into small plots. These plots were handed over on definite conditions, either to former slaves who had been set free, or to formerly free citizens who were now obliged to bear a number of duties for the benefit of the landowner. The new tillers of the soil were bound to the plots of land, and could be sold together with them. But they were no longer slaves.
This was a new social stratum of small-scale producers, occupying an intermediary position between free and slave, and having a certain interest in the results of their own labour. They were called coloni, and were the predecessors of the medieval serfs.
Thus the elements of a new, feudal mode of production were born in the womb of slave-owning society.
Class Struggle of the Exploited against the Exploiters. Slave Revolts. Downfall of the Slave-Owning System
The history of slave-owning societies in the countries of the ancient East, in Greece and Rome shows that with the development of the slave-owning economy the class struggle of the enslaved masses against their oppressors was intensified. Slave revolts were linked with the struggle of the exploited small peasants against the slave-owning upper class, the large landowners.
The contradiction between small producers and large well-born landowners gave birth already at an early stage in the development of slave-owning society to a democratic movement among the free men which set itself the aim of destroying debt bondage, the redivision of lands, the abolition of the prerogatives of the landed aristocracy and the transfer of power to the demos (that is, to the people).
Of the numerous slave risings in the Roman Empire that led by Spartacus (74-71 B.C.) was particularly remarkable. The most vivid page in the history of the slaves' struggle against the slave-owners is linked with his name.
Slave risings flared up more than once throughout many centuries. Impoverished peasants joined the slaves. These risings achieved particular force in the second to first centuries B.C. and in the third to fifth centuries A.D. The slave-owners suppressed the risings with the fiercest measures.
The risings of the exploited masses, primarily of the slaves, radically undermined the former might of Rome. Blows from inside began more and more to be interconnected with blows from outside. The inhabitants of neighbouring lands who had been enslaved revolted in the fields of Italy, while at the same time their fellow-tribesmen who had remained free stormed the frontiers of the Empire, broke into its territories and destroyed Roman supremacy. These circumstances hastened the downfall of the slave-owning system in Rome.
The slave-owning mode of production achieved its greatest development in the Roman Empire. The fall of the Roman Empire was also the fall of the slave-owning system as a whole. The feudal system took the place of the slave-owning system.
Economic Views of the Slave-Owning Period
The economic views of the slave-owning period were reflected in many literary works left by poets, philosophers, historians, statesmen and public figures. In the view of these men, a slave was considered not a person but a chattel in his master's hands. Slave labour was scorned. And since labour became predominantly the lot of slaves, there followed scorn for labour in general, as activity unworthy of a free person.
The code of laws of the Babylonian king Hammurabi (eighteenth century B.C.) provides evidence of the economic views of slave-owning Babylonia. The code defends the property and personal rights of the rich and noble slave-owners and landowners. According to the code whoever concealed a runaway slave was punished with death. A peasant who did not pay his debt to the moneylender, or his rent to the landowner, had to give his wife, son or daughter into bond slavery until he had worked off the debt. In the ancient Indian collection "The Code of Manu" social, religious and moral injunctions sanctifying slavery are expounded. According to these laws a slave had no property. The law punished with death anyone who "gave shelter to a runaway slave".
The views of the ruling classes were reflected in religion. Thus, in India Buddhism became widespread beginning from the sixth century B.C. Proclaiming acceptance of reality, non-resistance to violence and humility before the ruling classes, Buddhism was a religion of use to the slave-owning aristocracy which they used to strengthen their domination.
Even the outstanding thinkers of antiquity could not imagine the existence of society without slavery. .For example, the Greek philosopher Plato (fifth to fourth centuries B.C.) wrote the first Utopia in the history of mankind about an ideal social system. But even in his ideal State he retained slaves. The labour of slaves, tillers of the soil and artisans, had to supply the means of existence for the higher class of rulers and warriors.
In the eyes of the greatest thinker of antiquity, Aristotle" (fourth century B.C.), slavery was also an eternal and inevitable necessity for society. Aristotle greatly influenced the development of thought in the ancient world and in the middle ages. Though he rose high above the level of contemporary society in his scientific conjectures and anticipations, on the question of slavery Aristotle remained a prisoner of the conceptions of his age. His views on slavery amounted to the following: for the helmsman the rudder is an inanimate instrument, but the slave is an animate instrument. If implements performed their work to order, if, for example, shuttles wove of themselves, there would be no need for slaves. But since in economic life there existed many occupations demanding simple unskilled labour, Nature had made wise provision, by creating slaves. In Aristotle's opinion Nature itself had ordained that some men should be slaves and that others should rule them. Slave labour supplied free men with leisure for perfecting themselves. Hence, he concluded, the whole art of the master consisted in knowing how to use his slaves.
Aristotle gave to the science of management of resources the name "oikonomia". In his lifetime exchange, trade and usury were quite widely developed, but the economy basically preserved its natural character, producing for consumption within its own framework. Aristotle considered natural the acquisition of benefits only by means of agriculture and handicrafts; he was a partisan of natural economy. However, Aristotle also understood the nature of exchange.
He found exchange with a view to consumption completely natural "because usually people have more of certain objects and fewer of others than is essential for the satisfaction of their needs". He understood the necessity for money for exchange.
At the same time Aristotle considered that trade with a view to profit, and usury, were reprehensible occupations. He pointed out that these occupations, as distinct from agriculture and handicraft, knew no limits to the acquisition of wealth.
The ancient Greeks already had a certain conception of the division of labour and the part it played in the life of society. Thus Plato envisaged division of labour as the basic principle of the State system in his ideal republic.
The economic conceptions of the Romans also reflected the relations of the prevailing slave-owning mode of production.
Roman writers and public men, expressing the ideology of the slave-owners, counted slaves as simple implements of production; It is to the Roman encyclopaedist Varro (first century B.C.) who composed, among a number of other books, a sort of handbook for slave-owners on the conduct of agriculture, that we owe the well-known division of implements into (1) the dumb (carts); (2) those which utter inarticulate sounds (cattle); and (3) those gifted with speech (slaves). In giving this definition he was expressing views generally accepted among slave-owners.
The minds of Rome, as well as of Greece, were concerned with the art of managing slaves.
Plutarch (first to second century A.D.), the historian of the Roman era, tells of the "model" slave-owner Cato and how he bought slaves young "that is at the age when, like puppies and foals, they can be readily subjected to education and training". Later he says that "among the slaves he constantly invented methods of maintaining quarrels and disputes, for he considered agreement among them dangerous and feared it".
In ancient Rome, especially in the later period, breakdown and decay of the economy founded on the compulsory labour of slaves grew worse and worse. The Roman writer Columella (first century A.D.) complained: "The slaves do the greatest harm to the fields. They lend the oxen 'on the side'. They also pasture the other stock badly. They plough the land poorly." His contemporary Pliny the Elder said that "the latifundia have destroyed Italy and its provinces".
Like the Greeks, the Romans considered normal the natural form of economy, in which the master exchanges only his surpluses. Sometimes in the literature of that time high trading profits and usurious rates of interest were condemned. In reality, however, the merchants and usurers accumulated enormous fortunes.
In the last period of the existence of the slave-owning system voices could be already heard condemning slavery and proclaiming the natural equality of men. These views, understandably, met with no sympathy among the ruling class of slave-owners. As for the slaves, they were so crushed by their servitude, so downtrodden and ignorant, that they were unable to work out an ideology of their own more progressive than the obsolete ideas of the slave-owning class. This is one of the causes of the spontaneity and unorganised character of the slave revolts.
One of the sharp contradictions inherent in the slave-owning system was the struggle between large and small land-holders. The impoverished peasantry put forward the demand for the limitation of the landed property of the great slave-owners and the re-allocation of lands.
This was the essence of the agrarian reform for which the brothers Gracchi struggled (second century B.C.).
In the period of the decline of the Roman Empire when an absolute majority of the population of town and country, both slaves and free, saw no way out of the situation, there developed a severe crisis in the ideology of slave-owning Rome.
A new religious ideology, Christianity, emerged on the basis of the class contradictions of the dying Empire. The Christianity of that period expressed the protest of slaves, of the ruined masses of the peasantry and craftsmen, and of declassed elements, against slavery and oppression. On the other hand, Christianity reflected the mood of broad strata of the ruling classes, who sensed the utter hopelessness of their situation. That is why, in the Christianity of the decline of the Roman Empire, by the side of grim warnings to the rich and powerful, there are also calls to humility and to seek salvation in life beyond the grave.
In the following centuries Christianity finally became the religion of the ruling classes, a spiritual weapon for the defence and justification of the exploitation and oppression of the labouring masses.
Brief Conclusions
(1) The slave-owning mode of production arose thanks to the growth of the productive forces of society, the appearance of a surplus product, the origin of private property in the means of production, including land, and the appropriation of the surplus product by the owners of the means of production.
Slavery is the first and crudest form of the exploitation of man by man. The slave was the full and unlimited property of his master. The slave-owner, at his will, commanded not only the slave's labour, but also his life.
(2) The State first took shape with the rise or the slave-owning system. It arose, as a result of the splitting of society into irreconcilably hostile classes, as the machine for suppressing the exploited majority of society by the exploiting minority.
(3) Slave-owning economy was in the main of a natural character. The ancient world broke down into numerous separate economic units satisfying their requirements by their own production. Trade was mainly in slaves and luxury articles. The development of exchange gave rise to metallic currency.
(4) The basic economic law of the slave-owning mode of production consists in the production of surplus product, to satisfy the demands of the slave-owners, by the rapacious exploitation of the slaves on the basis of full ownership by the slave-owners of the means of production and the slaves themselves, by the ruining and enslaving of peasants and craftsmen, and also by conquering and enslaving the peoples of other countries.
(5) A comparatively high culture (art, philosophy, the sciences) arose on the basis of slavery. Its fruits were enjoyed by the small upper class of slave-owning society. The social consciousness of the ancient world corresponded to the mode of production based on slavery. The ruling classes and their ideologists did not consider the slave a man. Physical labour, being the lot of the slaves, was considered a shameful occupation, unworthy of a free man.
(6) The slave-owning mode of production caused an increase in the productive forces of society compared with the primitive communal system.
But later the labour of the slaves, who were completely without interest in the results of production, outlived its usefulness. The spread of slave labour and the lack of any legal protection whatsoever for the slaves resulted in the destruction of the basic productive force of society-the labour force-and the ruin of the small free producers-the peasants and artisans. This 'predetermined the inevitable downfall of the slave-owning system.
(7) Slave revolts shook the slave-owning system and hastened its destruction. The feudal mode of production came to replace the slave-owning mode of production; instead of the slave-owning form of exploitation there arose the feudal form of exploitation, which gave some scope for the further, development of the productive forces of society.
The Feudal Mode of Production
Rise of Feudalism
The feudal system existed, with particular features of one sort or another, in almost all countries.
The era of feudalism covers a long period. In China the feudal system existed for more than two thousand years. In Western Europe feudalism covers a number of centuries, from the time of the fall of the Roman Empire (fifth century) to the bourgeois revolution in England (seventeenth century) and in France (eighteenth century); in Russia from the ninth century to the peasant reform of 1861; in Transcaucasia from the fourth century to the seventies of the nineteenth century; among the peoples of Central Asia from the seventh or eighth centuries right up to the victory of the proletarian revolution in Russia.
In Western Europe feudalism arose out of the breakdown of Roman slave-owning society, on the one hand, and the decay of the tribal system of the conquering tribes, on the other; it was established as a result of the interaction of these two processes.
Elements of feudalism, as has already been said, had originated in the womb of slave-owning society in the form of the system of coloni. The coloni were obliged to work the land of their master, the large landowner, to make him a definite money payment or hand over a considerable share of the harvest, and to fulfil various types of duty. Nevertheless, the coloni had more interest in their labour than the slaves, since they had their own holdings.
Thus there arose new productive relations which achieved full development in the feudal period.
Tribes of Germans, Gauls, Slavs and other peoples living in different parts of Europe destroyed the Roman Empire. The slave-owners' power was overthrown and slavery fell. The large latifundia and handicraft workshops based on slave labour broke down. The population of the former Roman Empire consisted of large landowners (former slave-owners, who had adopted the system of coloni), freed slaves, coloni, small peasants and artisans.
The conquering tribes, at the time of the subjugation of Rome, had a communal system which was in decline. The village community, which the Germans called the mark, played a great part in the social life of these tribes.
The land, except for the large landed possessions of the clan nobility, was common property. The forests, heaths, pastures and ponds were used in common. Fields and meadows were re-divided every few years among the members of the community. Gradually, however, the land around the homestead, and later also the ploughland, began to be inherited by separate families. The distribution of land, the investigation of matters concerning the community, the settlement of disputes between its members, were dealt with by the community meeting and by the elders and judges elected by it. At the head of the conquering tribes stood their military leaders who, together with their retinues, held considerable tracts of land.
The tribes which conquered the Roman Empire acquired a great part of its State lands and some part of the lands of the large proprietors. Forests, meadows and pastures remained in common use, but the ploughland was divided into separate holdings. Later the divided lands became the private property of the peasants. Thus a broad stratum of independent small peasantry was formed.
The peasants, however, were unable to preserve their independence for long. Property inequality between different members of the village community inevitably developed on the basis of private ownership of land and 'other means of production. Well-to-do and poor families appeared among the peasants. With the growth of property inequality members of the community who had grown rich began to acquire power over the community. The land was more and more concentrated in the hands of the rich families, the clan aristocracy and military leaders. The peasants fell into personal dependence on the large landowners.
The conquest of the Roman Empire hastened the break-up of the clan system among the conquering tribes.
In order to maintain and strengthen their power over the dependent peasants the large landowners had to reinforce the organs of State power.
Military leaders, relying on the clan aristocracy and the members of their retinues, began to concentrate power in their hands and became kings-monarchical rulers.
A number of new States headed by kings were formed on the ruins of the Roman Empire. The kings generously handed out the land they had seized for the lifetime and afterwards for the hereditary possession of their attendants, who had to bear military service in return. The Church, which served as an important support for the royal power, received much land. The land was worked by peasants who now had to fulfil a number of duties for their new masters. Huge landholdings passed into the hands of members of the royal retinue and servants, the clerical authorities and the monasteries.
The lands distributed on such conditions were called feods (fiefs). Hence comes the name of the new social structure, feudalism.
The gradual conversion of peasant land into the property of feudal lords and the enserfment of the peasant masses (the process of feudalisation) took place in Europe in the course of a number of centuries (from the fifth or sixth to the ninth or tenth centuries). The free peasantry was ruined by incessant military service, plunder and impositions. Turning for help to the large landowner, the peasants converted themselves into his dependents. Frequently the peasants were compelled to yield themselves into the "protection" of the feudal lord; otherwise it was impossible for a defenceless man to exist in conditions of ceaseless wars and bandit raids. In such cases property rights in the plot of land passed to the feudal lord, and the peasant could work his plot only on condition of fulfilling various duties for the lord. In other cases the royal lieutenants and officials, by means of deceit and force, appropriated the land of free peasants, making the latter acknowledge their power.
In different countries the process of feudalisation took different courses, but the essence of the matter was everywhere the same: the formerly free peasants fell into personal dependence on the feudal lords who had seized their land. Sometimes this dependence' was weaker, sometimes stronger. In course of time the differences in the position of former slaves, coloni and free peasants disappeared, and they were all converted into a single mass of peasant serfs. Gradually there was established the' position which is described by the medieval phrase: "No land without its lord." (i.e.) without its feudal master). The kings were the supreme landowners.
Feudalism was an essential stage in the historical development of society.
Slavery had outlived itself. In these circumstances the further development of productive forces was only possible on the basis of the labour of the mass of dependent peasantry, possessing their own holdings, their own implements of production and having some interest in labour.
As the history of mankind testifies, however, it is not obligatory that every people should pass through all stages of social development. For many peoples conditions arise under which they have the possibility of missing one stage of development or another and of passing immediately to a higher stage.
In Russia patriarchal slavery arose when the primitive community was breaking down. The development of society here, however, went in the main not along the road of slave-owning, but of feudalisation. The Slavonic tribes, even when the clan system was predominant among them, beginning from the third century A.D., attacked the Roman slave-owning Empire, struggled to free the towns of the northern Black Sea coast which were in its power and played a great part in the overthrow of the slave-owning system. The transition from the primitive community to feudalism-took place in Russia at a time when the slave-owning system had long since fallen in the countries of Western Europe, and when feudal relations had been stabilised there.
The village community among the Eastern Slavs was called verv or mir. The community had meadows, forests and ponds in common use, but the ploughland began to pass into the possession of separate families. An elder was at the head of the community. The development of private landowning led to the gradual breakdown of the village communities. The elders and tribal princes seized the land. The peasants (smerds) were at first free members of the community, but later fell into dependence on the large landowners (boyars).
The Church became the largest feudal owner. Grants by the princes, endowments and legacies made it the possessor of broad lands and the richest estates of those times. In the period of the formation of the centralised Russian State (fifteenth to sixteenth centuries) the Grand Princes and Tsars began to "place" (Russian, pomeshchat) their attendants and serving people on the land, i.e., to give them land and peasants on condition of their owing military service. Hence the names pomest'e (fee or estate) and pomeshchik (lord of the manor).
At that time the peasants were not yet finally bound to the landowner and the land; they had the right to transfer from one lord to another. At the end of the sixteenth century the lords, with a view to increasing the production of grain for sale, intensified their exploitation of the peasants. In connection with this the State in 1581 deprived the peasants of the right of transfer from one landlord to another. The peasants were completely bound to the land belonging to the lords and were thus converted into serfs.
In the period of feudalism agriculture played a predominant part and tillage was its most important branch. Gradually, in the course of a number of centuries, methods of grain-growing improved and market gardening, fruit-growing, vine-growing and butter-making developed.
In the early period of feudalism the fallow system predominated, but in forested regions the "slash and burn" system of tillage predominated. A plot of land was sown several years consecutively with some crop until the soil was exhausted. Then they transferred to another plot. Later an advance to the "three-field" system took place; in this the arable was divided into three fields of which in turn, one was used for winter crops, the second for spring crops and the third remained fallow. The three-field system began to spread in Western Europe between the ninth and the tenth and in Russia from the eleventh and twelfth centuries onwards: It remained dominant throughout many centuries, being preserved until the nineteenth century and, in many countries, even to the present time.
Agricultural equipment in the early period of feudalism was poor. The primitive wooden plough (sokha) with iron share, the sickle, scythe and spade served as implements of labour. Later, the iron plough and harrow began to be used. The grinding of grain was for a long time carried out by hand, until wind and water mills became widespread.
Production Relations of Feudal Society. Exploitation of Peasants by Feudal Lords
The property of the feudal lords in land and their incomplete property rights over the peasant serf were the basis of the production relations of feudal society. The peasant serf was not a slave. He had his own holding. The feudal lord could no longer kill him, but he could sell him. By the side of the property of the feudal lords there also existed the individual property of peasants and craftsmen in their implements of production and in their private holdings, based on personal labour.
Large-scale feudal landed property was the basis for the exploitation of peasants by the lords. The feudal lord sown demesne occupied part of the land.
The feudal lord granted another part of the land on extortionate conditions for use by the peasants. The lord allotted land to the peasants to "hold", hence the expression "holding". The peasant holding was the means by which the lord secured his labour force. With hereditary possession of his holding, the peasant was obliged to work for the lord to till the lord's soil with the help of his own implements and stock, or else to give the lord his surplus product in kind or in money.
Such a system of economy inevitably presupposed the peasants' personal dependence on the landlord-a system of extra-economic compulsion. "If the lord had not had direct power over the person of the peasant he would not have been able to compel to work for him a man who possessed land and tilled on his own account." (Lenin, "Development of Capitalism in Russia", Works, fourth Russian edition, vol. III, p. 159.).
The peasant serf's working time was divided into necessary and surplus time. During the necessary time, the peasant created the product necessary for his own existence and the existence of his family. During the surplus time he created the surplus product which was appropriated by the lord. The surplus labour of the peasant who worked on the lord's demesne, or the surplus product created by the peasant in his own holding and appropriated by the lord, constitute feudal land-rent.
Feudal rent frequently swallowed up not only the peasant's surplus labour, but also part of his necessary labour. The basis of this rent was feudal ownership of land, linked with the direct domination of the feudal lord over the peasants dependent on him.
Under feudalism there existed three forms of land-rent: labour-rent, rent in kind and money-rent. In all these forms of rent the exploitation of the peasants by the landlords stood out in unconcealed form.
Labour-rent, or "week-work" (barshchina), predominated in the early stages of feudalism's development. Under the system of week-work the peasant worked for a specified part of the week, three or more days, with his own implements of production (plough, draught animals, etc.) on his master's estate and the remaining days worked on his own holding. Thus by week-work the necessary and surplus labour of the peasant were clearly distinguished in time and space. The sphere covered by week-work was exceedingly broad. The peasant ploughed, sowed and gathered the harvest, pastured cattle, worked as a carpenter, chopped timber for the lord, and carted agricultural produce and building materials using his own horse.
Under the week-work system the peasant serf was interested in raising the productivity of labour only while working on his own holding. When working on the lord's land the peasant had no such interest. The feudal lord kept overseers who compelled the peasants to work.
In the course of further development labour-rent was replaced by rent in kind, or quitrent paid in produce. Under this system the peasant was obliged to deliver regularly to the lord a definite quantity of grain, cattle, poultry and other agricultural produce. Most frequently the quitrent was combined with remnants of week-work duties, i.e., with the peasant's work on the lord's demesne.
With rent in kind the peasant expended the whole of his labour both necessary and surplus, according to his own discretion. Necessary and surplus labour were no longer divided as clearly as with labour-rent. Here the peasant became relatively more independent. This created a certain stimulus to further raising the productivity of labour.
At a later stage of feudalism, when exchange had become comparatively widespread, money-rent arose, or quitrent in money. Money-rent is characteristic of the period of the breakdown of feudalism and the appearance of capitalist relations. Various forms of feudal-rent often existed simultaneously.
"In all these forms of ground-rent, whether labour-rent, rent in kind, or money-rent (as a mere change of form of rent in kind), the rent-paying party is always supposed to be the actual tiller and possessor of the land, whose unpaid surplus labour passes directly into the hands of the landlord." (Marx, Capital, Kerr edition, vol. III, p. 932.)
Striving to increase their income, the feudal lords imposed every sort of exaction on the peasant. In many cases they had monopolistic possession of mills, smithies and other enterprises. The peasant was compelled to use them for exceedingly high payments in kind or money. Apart from quitrent in kind or money paid to the feudal lord, the peasant had to pay all sorts of imposts to the State, local taxes and, in some countries, a tithe, i.e., a tenth of the harvest to the Church.
Thus the labour of peasant serfs was the basis of the existence of feudal society. Peasants not only grew agricultural produce. They worked in the feudal lord's estates as craftsmen, erected castles and monasteries and made roads.
Towns were built by the hands of peasant serfs.
The economy of the feudal lords, particularly in the early stages of its development, was basically a natural economy. Each feudal estate, consisting of the lord's demesne and the villages belonging to him, lived an isolated economic life, rarely engaging in exchange. The requirements of the feudal lord and his family, and the needs of the numerous house hold were at first satisfied by the produce from the seigniorial economy and supplied by the peasants paying quitrent. Fairly large estates had a sufficient quantity of craftsmen, mostly among the household serfs. These craftsmen made clothing and footwear, made and repaired weapons, hunting equipment and agricultural implements, and erected buildings.
The peasant economy was also a natural one. The peasants engaged not only in agricultural labour but also in domestic handicraft, mainly working up raw materials produced in their holdings-spinning, weaving, making footwear and farm implements.
For a long time a characteristic of feudalism was the combination of agriculture, as the basic branch of the economy, with domestic handicraft, which was auxiliary to it. The few imported products without which it was impossible to manage, as for example, salt and articles of iron, were at first supplied by wandering traders. Later, in connection with the growth of towns and handicraft, the division of labour and development of exchange between town and country made a great step forward.
The exploitation of dependent peasants by feudal lords was the main feature of feudalism among all peoples. However, in particular countries the feudal system had its own special features. In countries of the East feudal relations were for a long time combined with slave relations. Thus it was in China, India, Japan and a number of other countries. Feudal State property in land was of great significance in the East. For example, in the period of the Bagdad Khalifate, under the dominance of the Arabs (particularly in the eighth to ninth centuries A.D.), a large section of the members of peasant communities lived on the Khalif's land and paid feudal-rent direct to the State. Feudalism in the East was also characterised by the vitality of patriarchal clan relations which were utilised by the feudal lords as a means of intensifying exploitation of the peasants.
In the agricultural lands of the East, where irrigated agriculture is of decisive significance, the peasants were in bondage to the feudal lords because not only the land but also the water resources and irrigation works were the property of the feudal State or of individual feudal lords. Among nomad peoples the land was used as pasture. The size of feudal land-owning was determined by the quantity of cattle. The large cattle-owning feudalists were, in fact, large-scale owners of pasture. They held the peasantry in dependence and exploited them.
The basic economic law of feudalism consisted in the production of surplus product to satisfy the demands of the feudal lords, by means of the exploitation of dependent peasants on the basis of the ownership of the land by the feudal lords and their incomplete ownership of the workers in production-the serfs.
The Medieval Town. Craft Guilds. Merchant Guilds
Towns had already arisen under the slave-owning system. Such towns as Rome, Florence, Venice and Genoa in Italy; Constantinople and Alexandria in the Near East; Paris, Lyons and Marseilles in France; London in England; Samarkand in Central Asia, and many others, were inherited by the Middle Ages from the epoch of slavery. The slave-owning system fell, but towns remained. The large slave-owning workshops broke down, but the crafts continued to exist.
In the period of the early Middle Ages the towns and crafts developed slowly.
Town craftsmen produced articles for sale, but a large part of the objects of consumption which they needed they obtained from their own holdings. Many of them had small ploughlands, gardens and cattle. The women engaged in the spinning of flax and wool to make clothing. This showed the limited extent of markets and exchange.
In the, countryside the working up of agricultural raw material was at first a subsidiary occupation of the husbandman. Then, from among the peasants there began to emerge craftsmen who served their own village. The craftsmen's productivity of labour increased. It became possible to produce more articles than were necessary for the feudal lord or the peasants of one village. The craftsmen began to settle around feudal castles, at the walls of monasteries, in large villages and other trading centres. Thus, gradually, usually on the waterways, new towns arose (in Russia, for example, Kiev, Pskov, Novgorod, Vladimir). In the course of time crafts became a more and more profitable business. The skill of the craftsman was perfected. The feudal lord began to buy the product of handicraft from the townsmen. He was no longer satisfied with the work of his own serfs. The more developed crafts were finally isolated from agriculture.
The towns which had arisen on the lands of lay and clerical feudal lords were subject to their authority. Townsmen owed a number of duties to the feudal lord, paid him quitrent in kind or money, and were subject to his administration and court. The town population very soon began the struggle for freedom from feudal dependence. Partly by force, partly by means of purchase, the towns obtained for themselves the right of self-administration, holding courts, minting coinage and collecting taxes.
The town population consisted mainly of craftsmen and traders. In many towns serfs fleeing from their landlords found refuge. The town acted as the centre of commodity production, as distinct from the countryside where natural economy prevailed. The growth of competition from the fugitive serfs who had crowded into the towns, the struggle against exploitation and oppression by the feudal lords, caused the craftsmen to unite into guilds. The guild system existed in the feudal period in almost all countries.
Guilds arose in Byzantium and Italy in the ninth and tenth centuries, and later in the whole of "Western Europe and Russia. In the countries of the East (Egypt, China), and in the towns of the Arab Khalifate guilds arose even earlier than in the European countries. The guilds united the town craftsmen of one specific trade or several similar ones. Only the master craftsmen were full members of the guilds. The master craftsmen had a small number of journeymen and apprentices. The guilds carefully preserved the exclusive right of their members to engage in that craft and regulated the process of production: they laid down the length of the working day, the number of journeymen and apprentices with each master defined the quality of raw materials and finished products and their prices, and frequently purchased raw material in common. Methods of work established by long tradition were obligatory for all. Strict regulation had as its aim the prevention of any single master from raising himself above the others. Apart from this the guilds served as mutual aid organisations.
The guilds were a feudal form of craft organisation. In the first period of their existence they played a certain positive part in assisting the strengthening and development of urban crafts. However, with the growth of commodity production and the expansion of the market, the guilds gradually became a brake on the development of productive forces.
The strict regulation of craft production by the guilds fettered the craftsmen's initiative and hindered the development of technique. In order to limit competition the guilds began to create all sorts of hindrances to those wishing to receive the rights of a master. For the apprentices and journeymen, whose numbers had considerably increased, the possibility of becoming independent masters had practically ceased. They were compelled to remain for their whole life in the position of hired wage workers. In, these conditions the relations between a master and his subordinates lost their former more or less patriarchal character. The masters intensified the exploitation of their subordinates, making them work fourteen to sixteen hours a day for insignificant pay. The journeymen began to unite into secret brotherhoods to defend their interests. The guilds and town authorities persecuted the journeymen's brotherhoods in every way.
The richest section of the town population were the merchants. Trading activity developed both in the towns surviving from the period of slavery and in the towns which arose under feudalism. The organisation of guilds in the crafts found their counterpart in the organisation of guilds in trade. Merchant guilds in the feudal period existed almost everywhere. In the East they are known from the ninth century, in Western Europe from the ninth or tenth century, and in Russia from the twelfth century. The basic task of the merchant guilds was the struggle with competition from outside merchants, the regulation of weights and measures, the defence of merchants' rights from the infringements of the feudal lords.
In the ninth to tenth centuries there already existed considerable trade between the countries of the East and Western Europe. Kievan Rus [1] took an active part in this trade. The Crusades (eleventh to thirteenth centuries) played a great part in the expansion of trade, opening the Near Eastern markets for Western European merchants. A flood of gold and silver from the East swept into Europe. Money began to appear in places where it had formerly not been used. The Italian towns, particularly Genoa and Venice, which carried the crusaders to the East in their trading vessels and supplied them with provisions, took a direct part in the conquest of Eastern markets.
For a long time the Mediterranean ports were the main centres of the trade linking Western Europe with the East. But apart from this, trade developed widely in the north German and Netherland towns scattered along the trade routes of the North and Baltic Seas. Here in the fourteenth century there arose a commercial union of towns, the German Hansa, which united in the following two centuries about eighty towns of various European countries. The Hanseatic League carried on trade with England, Scandinavia, Poland and Russia. In exchange for the growth of towns and development of trade greatly influenced the feudal countryside. The economy of the feudal lords began to be drawn into the market. In order to purchase luxury objects and articles of town crafts the feudal lords needed money. In connection with this it was convenient for the feudal lords to transfer the peasants from week-work and quitrent in kind to money quitrent. Feudal exploitation was still further intensified with the transfer to money quitrents. The contradiction between town and country which had arisen under slavery became still more acute.
Classes and Estates of Feudal Society.
The Feudal Hierarchy Feudal society was divided into two basic classes, feudal lords and peasants.
"Feudal society represented a division of classes under which the vast majority-the peasant serfs-were completely subjected to an insignificant minority-the landlords, who owned the land." (Lenin, "The State", Selected Works, English edition, vol. XI, p. 651.
The class of feudal lords was not a uniform whole. Petty feudal lords paid tribute to those more powerful, helped them in war, but on the other hand took advantage of their patronage. The patron was called the baron or seigneur, and the one patronised the vassal (vavassar). The barons (seigneurs), in their turn, were vassals of still greater barons or lords (tenantsin-chief). Thus the feudal hierarchy was formed.
As the ruling class, the feudal lords stood at the head of the State. They formed one estate, the baronage (nobility, lords). The lords held the honourable position of first estate and had wide political and economic privileges.
The clergy (Church and monastic) was also a very large landowner. It held extensive lands with a numerous dependent and serf population and was the ruling estate together with the nobles.
The broad base of the "feudal ladder" was the peasantry. The peasants were subordinate to the landowner and were under the supreme power of the most powerful feudal lord, the king. The peasantry was an estate without political rights. The landlords were able to sell their serfs and made wide use of this right. The serf-owners subjected the peasants to physical punishment. Lenin called serfdom "serf slavery". The exploitation of peasant serfs was almost as cruel as the exploitation of slaves in the ancient world. Nevertheless, the serf could work part of the time on his own holding and could, to a certain degree, be independent.
The contradiction between feudal lords and peasant serfs was the basic class contradiction of feudal society. The struggle of the exploited peasantry against the feudal lords was carried on throughout the whole period of feudalism and assumed particular intensity at the end of this period, when serf exploitation had been intensified to extremes.
In the towns freed from feudal dependence power was in the hands of the rich townsmen-merchants, usurers, owners of town lands and large house-owners. The artisans of the various crafts who formed the main mass of the town population, often stood out against the town nobility, winning their participation in the town administration together with the town aristocracy. The small craftsmen and journeymen struggled against the master craftsmen and merchants who were exploiting them.
By the end of the feudal period the town population was already considerably stratified. On the one hand, there were rich merchants and master craftsmen, on the other a broad mass of journeymen and apprentices, the town poor. The lower classes of the towns entered into the struggle against the united forces of the town nobility and feudal lords. This struggle fused into a single stream with the struggle of the peasant serfs against feudal exploitation.
The kings (in Russia the Grand Princes and later the Tsars) were considered the holders of supreme power. Beyond the boundaries of their own holdings, however, the significance of the kings' power in the period of early feudalism was insignificant. Frequently this power remained nominal. The whole of Europe was divided into a multitude of large and small States. The large feudatories were complete masters of their own possessions. They issued laws, saw to their execution, held courts of justice, inflicted penalties, maintained their own forces, raided their neighbours and did not always refrain from highway robbery. Many of them independently minted coinage. The smaller feudal lords also had exceedingly wide rights in respect of the people under their power; they tried to vie with the great lords.
In the course of time feudal relations created an exceedingly confused tangle of rights and obligations. Endless disputes and quarrels arose between the feudal lords. They were usually decided by force of arms in internecine wars.
Development of the Productive Forces of Feudal Society
In the feudal period a higher level of productive forces was achieved compared with the period of slavery.
In the sphere of agriculture the technique of production was improved; the iron plough and other iron implements of labour were used more extensively.
New branches of cultivation arose; vine-growing, wine-making and market gardening developed considerably. Livestock husbandry grew and particularly horse-breeding, which was linked with the feudal lords' military service; butter- making developed. Sheep-breeding became widespread in a number of regions. Meadows and pastures were extended and improved.
Gradually, the implements of labour of the craftsmen and methods of processing raw material were improved. Former crafts began to become specialised. Thus, for example, the blacksmith had formerly produced all metal articles. In the course of time the crafts of the armourer, nail-maker, cutler and locksmith separated from the trade of blacksmith, and the craft of the shoemaker and the saddlemaker were separated from the craft of the leather worker. In the sixteenth to seventeenth centuries in Europe the spinning wheel became wide-spread. In 1600 the ribbon loom was invented.
The improvement of the smelting and working of iron was of decisive significance in perfecting the implements of labour. At first iron was produced by an exceedingly primitive method. In the fourteenth century the water-wheel was first used to work bellows for the blast, and heavy hammers to crush the ore. With the increased draught in the furnaces, instead of a malleable mass, a molten mass, cast iron, was obtained. With the application of gunpowder in warfare and the appearance of firearms (in the fourteenth century) much metal was required for cannon balls; from the beginning of the fifteenth century they began to be cast from pig-iron. More and more metal was needed for the production of agricultural and other implements. In the first half of the fifteenth century the first blast furnaces appeared. The invention of the compass helped the further development of navigation and seafaring. The invention and spread of printing was of great significance.
China had achieved a considerable development of its productive forces and culture by the sixth to eleventh centuries, in many respects surpassing the Europe of that time. The Chinese were the first to invent the compass, gunpowder, writing-paper and a very simple form of printing.
The development of the productive forces of feudal society more and more clashed with the narrow framework of feudal production relations. The peasantry, under the yoke of feudal exploitation, were in no condition to increase further the output of agricultural produce. The productivity of unfree peasant labour was exceedingly low. In the town the growth of the craftsman's productivity of labour came up against the obstacles created by guild statutes and rules. The feudal system was characterised by the slow rate of development of production, by routine and by the authority of tradition.
The productive forces which had grown up in the framework of feudal society demanded new relations of production.
The Birth of Capitalist Production in the Womb of the Feudal System.
The Role of Merchant Capital in the feudal period commodity production gradually developed, town handicrafts expanded and peasant economy was more and more drawn into exchange.
Production by small craftsmen and peasants, based on private property and personal labour creating products for exchange, is called simple commodity production.
As has already been said a product made for exchange is a commodity.
Different commodity producers expend on the production of the same commodities an unequal quantity of labour. This depends on the different conditions in which they have to work: commodity producers possessing improved implements expend on the production of one and the same commodity less labour in comparison with other commodity producers. In addition to differences in the implements of labour, differences in strength, dexterity, the skill of the worker and so on have their effect. The market, however, is not concerned in what conditions and with what implements one commodity or another is produced. For identical commodities on the market one and the same amount of money is paid independent of those individual conditions of labour in which they were produced.
Therefore, commodity producers whose individual labour expenditure, because of worse conditions of production, are higher than average cover only part of these costs when selling their commodities and ultimately are ruined.
On the other hand, commodity producers whose individual labour expenditure thanks to better conditions of production are lower than average, are in an advantageous position when selling their commodities, and grow rich. This strengthens competition. A differentiation takes place among small commodity producers. The majority of them become more and more impoverished, an insignificant section grow rich.
The divided condition of the country under feudalism was a great hindrance in the way of the development of commodity production. The feudal lords established at will dues on imported goods, exacted tribute for passage through their possessions, and thus created serious obstacles to the development of trade. The requirements of trade and the economic development of society in general evoked the necessity of abolishing feudal separatism. The growth of handicraft and agricultural production, the development of the social division of labour between town and country, led to the intensification of economic links between different districts within the country and to the formation of a national market. The formation of a national market created the economic preconditions for the centralisation of State power. The nascent town bourgeoisie was concerned to remove feudal obstacles and supported the creation of a centralised State.
The kings, relying on the broader stratum of non-noble landowners (gentry), on the "vassals of their vassals" and also on the rising towns, dealt the feudal nobility decisive blows and strengthened their own dominance. They became not only nominal, but also effective sovereigns in the State. Large national States emerged in the form of absolute monarchies. The overcoming of feudal separatism and the creation of centralised State power facilitated the appearance and development of capitalist relations.
The formation of a world market was also of great significance for the rise of the capitalist order.
In the second half of the fifteenth century the Turks seized Constantinople and the whole of the eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea. The most important artery along which passed the trade routes between Western Europe and the East was cut. In the search for the sea route to India, Columbus discovered America in 1492; while in 1498 Vasco da Gama, having sailed round Africa, discovered the sea route to India.
As a result of these discoveries the focal point of European trade moved from the Mediterranean Sea to the Atlantic Ocean, the bulk of trade, passed to the Netherlands, England and France. Russia played a noticeable role in European trade.
With the rise of world trade and a world market handicrafts were no longer in a position to satisfy the growing demand for goods. This hastened the transition from small-scale artisan production to large-scale capitalist production, based on the exploitation of wage-workers.
The advance from the feudal mode of production to the capitalist was made in two ways: on the one hand; the differentiation among the small commodity producers gave birth to capitalist entrepreneurs; on the other hand, merchant capital, through the merchants, directly subordinated production to itself.
The guilds were able to limit competition and differentiation among the craftsmen so long as commodity production was little developed. With the development of exchange, competition became stronger and stronger. The masters working for a wider market in part obtained the alteration of guild restrictions, and in part simply evaded them. They lengthened the working day of the journeymen and apprentices, increased their number and applied more productive methods of labour. The richest master craftsmen gradually became capitalists, while the poorer masters, apprentices and journeymen became wage-workers.
Merchant capital assisted the rise of capitalist production by breaking down the natural economy. Merchant capital first appeared as an intermediary in the exchange of the commodities of the small producers-the craftsmen and the peasants-and in the realisation by the feudal lords of part of the surplus product which they appropriated. Later, the merchant began to buy up regularly from the small producers the commodities they had made and then to resell them on a wider market. The merchant became an engrosser. With the growth of competition and the appearance of the engrosser the position of the mass of the craftsmen radically changed. The impoverished masters were compelled to turn for help to the trader or engrosser, who loaned them money and raw materials on condition that they should sell him the finished articles at a pre-arranged low price. Thus, the small producers fell into economic dependence on merchant capital.
Gradually many impoverished masters found themselves dependent in this way on the rich engrosser. He distributed raw material to them-for example, thread to be worked up into cloth for a definite payment-and thus became a putter-out.
The impoverishment of the craftsman resulted in the engrosser now supplying him not only with raw materials, but also with implements of labour.
Thus the craftsman was deprived of the last semblance of independent existence, and was finally converted into a wage-worker, while the engrosser was becoming an industrial capitalist.
The craftsmen of yesterday, gathered in the capitalist's workshop, carried out uniform work. Soon, however, it was discovered that certain of them were more successful with one operation, others with another. Therefore it was more advantageous to entrust to each one just that part of the work at which he was most skilful. Thus, in the workshops with a fairly considerable number of workers division of labour was gradually introduced.
Capitalist enterprises using wage-workers who worked by hand on the basis of division of labour were called manufactories. [2]
The first manufactories already appeared in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in Florence and some medieval city republics of Italy. Then, in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, manufactories in various branches of production-cloth, linen, silk, watchmaking, arms and glass-spread in all European countries.
In Russia manufactories began to arise in the seventeenth century. At the beginning of the eighteenth century under Peter I they began to develop at faster rates. Among them were arms, cloth, silk and other manufactories. Iron foundries, mines and salt works were created in the Urals.
As distinct from the West European factories, which were based on wage labour, Russian enterprises in the seventeenth to eighteenth centuries, while employing some free wage labour, in the main employed the labour of peasant serfs and bound workers. Manufactories based on free wage labour began to become widespread from the end of the eighteenth century. This process was particularly intensified in the last decades before the abolition of serfdom.
The process of the breakdown of feudal relations was also taking place in the countryside. With the development of commodity production the power of money grew. The feudal serf-owners substituted money payments for the peasants' payments in kind. The peasants had to sell the products of their labour and pay the feudal lords the money they had obtained. Chronic need of money appeared among the peasants. Engrossers and usurers made use of this to make the peasants their bondmen. Feudal oppression intensified and the position of the serfs deteriorated.
The development of money relations gave a great impetus to the differentiation of the peasantry, i.e., its stratification into different social groups. The overwhelming majority of the peasantry became impoverished, stifled from overwork and were ruined. Side by side with this kulak land-grabbers began to appear in the countryside, exploiting their fellow-villagers by means of loans at extortionate rates and buying up from them agricultural produce, cattle and farm equipment at ruinous prices.
Thus, capitalist production came into existence in the womb of the feudal system.
Primitive Capital Accumulation. Forcible Seizure of Peasant Lands
Capitalist production presupposes two basic conditions: one, the presence of numbers of propertyless people, personally free and at the same time deprived of the means of production and livelihood and, therefore, compelled to hire themselves out for work to the capitalists; and two, the accumulation of the wealth in money necessary to create large capitalist enterprises.
We have seen that capitalism drew its sustenance from small commodity production based on private property, with its competition bringing enrichment to the few and ruin to the majority of small producers. The slowness of this process, however, did not correspond to the requirement of the new world market created by the great discoveries of the end of the fifteenth century. The rise of the capitalist mode of production was hastened by the application of the crudest methods of violence by the large landowners, bourgeoisie and the State power which was in the hands of the exploiting classes. Force, in Marx's expression, played the part of the midwife, hastening the birth of the new capitalist mode of production.
Some bourgeois historians idyllically depict the history of the rise of the capitalist and working classes. In immemorial times, they assert, there existed a group of assiduous and careful men who accumulated wealth by their labour.
On the other hand, there existed a number of lazy-bones and idlers who squandered all their substance and were converted into propertyless proletarians.
These fables of the defenders of capitalism have no connection with reality.
In fact, the formation of the mass of propertyless people, the proletariat, and the accumulation of wealth in the hands of the few took place by means of the forcible deprivation of the small producers of their means of production. The process of the separation of the producers from the means of production (the land, implements of production, and so on) was accompanied by an endless succession of acts of plunder and cruelty. This process is called primitive capital accumulation since it preceded the creation of large-scale capitalist production.
Capitalist production achieved considerable development first of all in England. From the end of the fifteenth century there took place in that country an agonising process of the forcible expulsion of the peasants from the land.
The increased demand for wool from the large cloth manufactories, which arose first in Flanders and then in England itself, gave the direct impetus to this. The landlords began to raise large flocks of sheep. Pastures were needed for sheep-raising. The feudal lords drove off the peasants in masses from the places they occupied, seized the lands which had been in their permanent possession, and converted the arable into pastures.
The expulsion of the peasants from the land was carried out by various means, and primarily by means of the open seizure of common lands. The landlords enclosed these lands, destroyed the peasant homes and forcibly expelled the peasants. If the peasants attempted to get back the land illegally seized from them, the armed force of the State came to the help of the landlord. The State power began to issue laws in the eighteenth century on "enclosure", justifying the plundering of the peasants.
The ruined and plundered peasants formed innumerable crowds of indigent beggars who filled the towns, villages and roads of England. Having no means of existence they became beggars. The State authority issued bloody laws against those who had been expropriated. These laws were distinguished by their exceptional ferocity. Thus, in the reign of the English king Henry VIII (sixteenth century), 72,000 people were executed for "vagabondage".
In Tsarist Russia, which entered the road of capitalist development later than other European countries, the separation of the producer from the means of production was effected in the same ways as in other countries. In 1861 the Tsarist government, under the influence of peasant risings was compelled to abolish serfdom.
This reform was a gigantic plundering of the peasants. The landlords seized two-thirds of the land, leaving only one-third for the use of the peasants. The most convenient lands, and also in a number of cases the pastures, ponds, roads to the fields and so on which were used by the peasant, were cut off by the landlords. In the hands of the landlords the lands "cut off" by the landlords became a means of imposing a new bondage on the peasants, compelled to rent these lands from the landlords on the most burdensome conditions. The law while announcing the personal freedom of the peasants, temporarily preserved week-work and quitrent. For the reduced plot of land which he received, the peasant was obliged to carry out these duties for the landlord until the land had been paid for. The scale of purchase payments was reckoned at inflated prices for land and amounted to about two milliard roubles.
Characterising the features of the peasant reform of 1861 Lenin wrote:
"They all represent the first acts of mass violence against the peasantry in the interests of nascent capitalism in agriculture. It is the 'clearing of estates' for capitalism by the landlords." (Lenin, "The Agrarian Programme of Social Democracy in the First Russian Revolution", Selected Works, English edition, vol. III, p. 182.),,
A double result was achieved by the eviction of the peasants from the land. On the one hand, the land became the private property of a comparatively small group of landowners.
Feudal estate property in land was converted into bourgeois property. On the other hand, an abundant influx into industry of free workers ready to hire themselves to the capitalists, was assured.
Apart from the presence of a cheap labour force, the accumulation in a few hands of great wealth, in the form of sums of money which could be converted into any means of production and used to hire workers, was essential for the appearance of capitalist production.
In the Middle Ages large amounts of money were accumulated by traders and usurers. This wealth was later used as the basis for organising many capitalist enterprises.
The conquest of America, which was accompanied by the mass plundering and extermination of the native population, brought the conquerors incalculable riches which began to grow still faster as a result of the exploitation of very rich mines of gold and silver. Hands were needed for the mines. The native population, the Indians, perished in masses, not surviving the harsh labour conditions. European merchants in Africa organised the hunting of negroes which was carried out entirely as though it was wild animals they hunted. The trade in negroes exported from Africa and converted into slaves was exceptionally profitable. The slave traders' profits achieved fabulous heights. Negro slave labour began to be widely applied in the cotton plantations of America.
Colonial trade was also one of the most important sources for the creation of large fortunes. Dutch, English and French merchants organised East India companies for trade with India. These companies were supported by their governments. They were granted the monopoly of trade in colonial commodities and the right of unlimited exploitation of the colonies with the use of any forcible measures they pleased. The profits of the East India companies were reckoned in hundreds per cent per year. In Russia rapacious trading with the population of Siberia gave the merchants huge profits, as did the plunderous system of liquor monopolies, which consisted in the State's granting to private entrepreneurs the right to produce and sell alcoholic liquors for a definite payment.
Huge wealth in money was concentrated in the hands of commercial and usurers' capital as a result.
Thus, at the price of the plundering and ruin of the mass of small producers, the wealth essential for the creation of large capitalist enterprises 'was accumulated. Describing this process, Marx wrote: "... capital comes [into the world] dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and dirt." (Marx, Capital, Kerr edition, vol. I, p. 834.)
The Birth of Capitalist Production in the Womb of the Feudal System.
The Role of Merchant Capital In the feudal period commodity production gradually developed, town handicrafts expanded and peasant economy was more and more drawn into exchange.
Production by small craftsmen and peasants, based on private property and personal labour creating products for exchange, is called simple commodity production.
As has already been said a product made for exchange is a commodity.
Different commodity producers expend on the production of the same commodities an unequal quantity of labour. This depends on the different conditions in which they have to work: commodity producers possessing improved implements expend on the production of one and the same commodity less labour in comparison with other commodity producers. In addition to differences in the implements of labour, differences in strength, dexterity, the skill of the worker and so on have their effect. The market, however, is not concerned in what conditions and with what implements one commodity or another is produced. For identical commodities on the market one and the same amount of money is paid independent of those individual conditions of labour in which they were produced.
Therefore, commodity producers whose individual labour expenditure, because of worse conditions of production, are higher than average cover only part of these costs when selling their commodities and ultimately are ruined.
On the other hand, commodity producers whose individual labour expenditure thanks to better conditions of production are lower than average, are in an advantageous position when selling their commodities, and grow rich. This strengthens competition. A differentiation takes place among small commodity producers. The majority of them become more and more impoverished, an insignificant section grow rich.
The divided condition of the country under feudalism was a great hindrance in the way of the development of commodity production. The feudal lords established at will dues on imported goods, exacted tribute for passage through their possessions, and thus created serious obstacles to the development of trade. The requirements of trade and the economic development of society in general evoked the necessity of abolishing feudal separatism. The growth of handicraft and agricultural production, the development of the social division of labour between town and country, led to the intensification of economic links between different districts within the country and to the formation of a national market. The formation of a national market created the economic preconditions for the centralisation of State power. The nascent town bourgeoisie was concerned to remove feudal obstacles and supported the creation of a centralised State.
The kings, relying on the broader stratum of non-noble landowners (gentry), on the "vassals of their vassals" and also on the rising towns, dealt the feudal nobility decisive blows and strengthened their own dominance. They became not only nominal, but also effective sovereigns in the State. Large national States emerged in the form of absolute monarchies. The overcoming of feudal separatism and the creation of centralised State power facilitated the appearance and development of capitalist relations.
The formation of a world market was also of great significance for the rise of the capitalist order.
In the second half of the fifteenth century the Turks seized Constantinople and the whole of the eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea. The most important artery along which passed the trade routes between Western Europe and the East was cut. In the search for the sea route to India, Columbus discovered America in 1492; while in 1498 Vasco da Gama, having sailed round Africa, discovered the sea route to India.
As a result of these discoveries the focal point of European trade moved from the Mediterranean Sea to the Atlantic Ocean, the bulk of trade, passed to the Netherlands, England and France. Russia played a noticeable role in European trade.
With the rise of world trade and a world market handicrafts were no longer in a position to satisfy the growing demand for goods. This hastened the transition from small-scale artisan production to large-scale capitalist production, based on the exploitation of wage-workers.
The advance from the feudal mode of production to the capitalist was made in two ways: on the one hand; the differentiation among the small commodity producers gave birth to capitalist entrepreneurs; on the other hand, merchant capital, through the merchants, directly subordinated production to itself.
The guilds were able to limit competition and differentiation among the craftsmen so long as commodity production was little developed. With the development of exchange, competition became stronger and stronger. The masters working for a wider market in part obtained the alteration of guild restrictions, and in part simply evaded them. They lengthened the working day of the journeymen and apprentices, increased their number and applied more productive methods of labour. The richest master craftsmen gradually became capitalists, while the poorer masters, apprentices and journeymen became wage-workers.
Merchant capital assisted the rise of capitalist production by breaking down the natural economy. Merchant capital first appeared as an intermediary in the exchange of the commodities of the small producers-the craftsmen and the peasants-and in the realisation by the feudal lords of part of the surplus product which they appropriated. Later, the merchant began to buy up regularly from the small producers the commodities they had made and then to resell them on a wider market. The merchant became an engrosser. With the growth of competition and the appearance of the engrosser the position of the mass of the craftsmen radically changed. The impoverished masters were compelled to turn for help to the trader or engrosser, who loaned them money and raw materials on condition that they should sell him the finished articles at a pre-arranged low price. Thus, the small producers fell into economic dependence on merchant capital.
Gradually many impoverished masters found themselves dependent in this way on the rich engrosser. He distributed raw material to them-for example, thread to be worked up into cloth for a definite payment-and thus became a putter-out.
The impoverishment of the craftsman resulted in the engrosser now supplying him not only with raw materials, but also with implements of labour.
Thus the craftsman was deprived of the last semblance of independent existence, and was finally converted into a wage-worker, while the engrosser was becoming an industrial capitalist.
The craftsmen of yesterday, gathered in the capitalist's workshop, carried out uniform work. Soon, however, it was discovered that certain of them were more successful with one operation, others with another. Therefore it was more advantageous to entrust to each one just that part of the work at which he was most skilful. Thus, in the workshops with a fairly considerable number of workers division of labour was gradually introduced.
Capitalist enterprises using wage-workers who worked by hand on the basis of division of labour were called manufactories. [3] The first manufactories already appeared in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in Florence and some medieval city republics of Italy. Then, in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, manufactories in various branches of production-cloth, linen, silk, watchmaking, arms and glass-spread in all European countries.
In Russia manufactories began to arise in the seventeenth century. At the beginning of the eighteenth century under Peter I they began to develop at faster rates. Among them were arms, cloth, silk and other manufactories. Iron foundries, mines and salt works were created in the Urals.
As distinct from the West European factories, which were based on wage labour, Russian enterprises in the seventeenth to eighteenth centuries, while employing some free wage labour, in the main employed the labour of peasant serfs and bound workers. Manufactories based on free wage labour began to become widespread from the end of the eighteenth century. This process was particularly intensified in the last decades before the abolition of serfdom.
The process of the breakdown of feudal relations was also taking place in the countryside. With the development of commodity production the power of money grew. The feudal serf-owners substituted money payments for the peasants' payments in kind. The peasants had to sell the products of their labour and pay the feudal lords the money they had obtained. Chronic need of money appeared among the peasants. Engrossers and usurers made use of this to make the peasants their bondmen. Feudal oppression intensified and the position of the serfs deteriorated.
The development of money relations gave a great impetus to the differentiation of the peasantry, i.e., its stratification into different social groups. The overwhelming majority of the peasantry became impoverished, stifled from overwork and were ruined. Side by side with this kulak land-grabbers began to appear in the countryside, exploiting their fellow-villagers by means of loans at extortionate rates and buying up from them agricultural produce, cattle and farm equipment at ruinous prices.
Thus, capitalist production came into existence in the womb of the feudal system.
Peasant Serf Risings. Bourgeois Revolutions. Fall of the Feudal System
The struggle of the peasantry against the feudal landowners took place throughout the whole feudal epoch, but it became particularly sharp towards the end of this epoch. In the fourteenth century France was in the grip of a peasant war which has gone down to history as the "Jacquerie". The rising bourgeoisie of the towns at first supported this movement, but left it at the decisive moment.
At the end of the fourteenth century in England a peasant revolt flared up which covered the greater part of the country. Armed peasants headed by Wat Tyler went through the country, sacking landlords' estates and the monasteries, and entered London. The feudal lords turned to violence and deceit in order to suppress the rising. Tyler was treacherously killed. Believing the promises of the king and the feudal lords the rebels dispersed to their homes. After this, punitive expeditions went about the countryside dealing out savage punishment to the peasants.
At the beginning of the sixteenth century Germany was convulsed by a peasant war supported by the town poor. Thomas Münzer was the leader of the rebels. The peasants demanded the abolition of the licence and violence of the gentry.
In Russia the peasant wars headed by Stepan Razin in the seventeenth century and Emelyan Pugachov in the eighteenth century were on a particularly large scale. The rebellious peasants sought the abolition of serfdom, the transfer to themselves of the landowners' and government lands and the ending of landlord rule. The intensification of the crisis of the feudal serf-owning system of economy in the 1850's was expressed in a broad wave of peasant risings on the eve of the 1861 reform.
In China peasant wars and risings on a huge scale took place throughout the centuries. The rising of the T'ai P'ing in the period of the Tsing dynasty (middle of the nineteenth century) embraced the millions of the peasantry. The rebels occupied the ancient capital of China, Nanking. The T'ai P'ing agrarian law proclaimed equality in the use of land and other property. In State organisation the T'ai P'ing linked monarchy and peasant democracy in their own way, which is also characteristic of peasant movements in other countries.
The revolutionary significance of peasant risings was that they shook the foundations of feudalism and in the end led to the abolition of serfdom.
The transition from feudalism to capitalism in the countries of Western Europe took place through bourgeois revolutions. The struggle of the peasants against the landowners was used by the rising bourgeoisie in order to hasten the downfall of the feudal system, to replace serf exploitation by capitalist exploitation and take power into their own hands. The peasants formed the basic mass of those fighting against feudalism in the bourgeois revolutions. So it was in the first bourgeois revolution in the Netherlands in the sixteenth century. So it was in the English revolution of the seventeenth century. So it was in the bourgeois revolution in France at the end of the eighteenth century.
The bourgeoisie used the fruits of the revolutionary struggle of the peasantry, climbing to power on its shoulders. The peasants were strong in their hatred of the oppressors. The peasant risings, however, bore a spontaneous character. The peasantry, as a class of small private owners, was split up and could not create a clear programme or a strong and well-knit organisation for the struggle. Peasant risings can lead to success only if they unite with the workers' movement and if the workers lead the peasant risings.
At the period of the bourgeois revolutions of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, however, the working class was still weak, few in numbers and unorganised.
In the womb of feudal society more or less complete forms of the capitalist order ripened. The new exploiting class, the capitalist class, grew up and there appeared at the same time masses of people deprived of the means of production, the proletarians.
In the period of bourgeois revolutions the bourgeoisie used against feudalism the economic law of the obligatory correspondence between relations of production and the character of the forces of production; they overthrew feudal production relations, created new, bourgeois production relations and brought production relations into keeping with the character of the forces of production which had ripened in the womb of feudalism.
The bourgeois revolutions put an end to the feudal system and established the dominance of capitalism.
Economic Views of the Feudal Period
The social system dominant at that time was reflected in the economic views of the feudal period. Mental life in feudal society was under the control of the clergy and therefore found expression predominantly in a religious and scholastic form. Considerations on the economic life of that time formed special sections in theological tracts.
Economic opinions in China were for many centuries under the influence of the teaching of Confucius. Confucianism as a religious ideology had arisen already in the fifth century B.C. The social and economic views of Confucianism require strict maintenance of the hierarchy of feudal estates, both in State structure and in family life. In Confucius's words, "the unenlightened people should obey the aristocrats and wise men. Disobedience by ordinary people to their superiors is the beginning of disorder". At the same time, Confucius called upon the "nobles" to be "humane" and not to treat the poor too harshly. Confucius advocated the necessity of uniting China, which was then divided, under the rule of a monarch. Confucius and his followers idealised backward forms of economy and extolled the "golden age" of the patriarchal past. The peasantry, crushed by the feudal aristocracy and the merchants, put into the Confucian preachings their own aspirations and hopes for betterment of their lot, though Confucianism did not express the class interests of the peasantry. As it developed, Confucianism became transformed into the official ideology of the feudal nobility. It was used by the ruling classes for the purpose of training the people in a spirit of slavish submission to the feudalists and of perpetuating the feudal system.
One of the ideologists of feudalism in medieval Europe, Thomas Aquinas (thirteenth century), attempted to justify the need for feudal society by divine law. Proclaiming feudal property as necessary and reasonable, and declaring the peasant serfs to be slaves, Thomas Aquinas, in opposition to the ancient slave-owners, asserted that "in his soul the slave is free" and therefore a master has no right to kill a slave. Labour was no longer considered unworthy of a free man. Thomas Aquinas regarded physical labour as base, and mental labour as noble.
In this division he saw the justification for society's division into estates. The same approach from the point of view of the feudal estates appeared in his views on wealth. Each person should own wealth in keeping with the position which he occupied on the hierarchical feudal ladder. From this point of view the teaching of the medieval theologians on .the so-called ''just'' price is characteristic. The "just" price should reflect the quantity of labour expended in producing a commodity, and the estate of the producer.
Medieval defenders of the ''just'' price did not protest at all against merchant profits. They only strove to confine profits within bounds so that they would not threaten the economic existence of the other estates. They condemned usury as a low and immoral occupation. With the development of commodity production and exchange, however, the clergy themselves began to take part in money-lending; along with this, the attitude of the Church to usury became more and more tolerant.
The class struggle of the oppressed and exploited masses against the ruling classes of feudal society developed in a religious form for several centuries. The demands of exploited peasants and journeymen were frequently based on quotations from the Bible. All sorts of sects were very widespread. The Catholic church, fiercely persecuting "heretics" through the Inquisition, burned them at the stake.
With the development of the class struggle, the religious form of the movement of the oppressed masses retreated into the background, and the revolutionary character of this movement stood out ever more clearly. The peasants demanded the suppression of serf slavery, the abolition of feudal privileges, the establishment of equal rights, the abolition of estates, and so on.
In the course of the peasant wars in England, Bohemia and Germany the slogans of the rebels became more and more radical. The longing of the exploited masses of town and country for equality expressed itself in the demand for community of property. This was a yearning for equality in the sphere of consumption. Although the demand for community of property was unrealisable, it was of revolutionary significance at that time since it rallied the masses in struggle against feudal oppression.
Towards the end of the feudal period two outstanding early Utopian Socialists appeared-the Englishman Thomas More, who wrote Utopia (sixteenth century) and the Italian Tomaso Campanella whose book is called City of the Sun (seventeenth century). Seeing the growing inequality and contradictions of contemporary society, these thinkers expounded their views on the causes of social evils in an original form; they described what were, in their opinion, ideal social systems, from which these evils would be excluded.
In the books of these Utopians a social system is described which is free from private property and all its accompanying faults. Every one in this society is engaged in both handicraft and agricultural labour. All inhabitants work six, or even four, hours a day, and the fruits of their labour are entirely sufficient to satisfy all their needs. Products are distributed according to need. The education of children is a concern of society.
The works of More and Campanella played a progressive part in the process of the development of social thought. They contained ideas considerably in advance of the development of society of that time. More and Campanella, however, did not know the laws of social development, and their ideas were unrealisable, "Utopian". It was impossible at that time to destroy social inequality; the level of productive forces demanded the advance from feudal to capitalist exploitation.
The rise of capitalism belongs to the sixteenth century. To the same century belong the first attempts to comprehend and explain a number of the phenomena of capitalism. Thus in the.sixteenth to eighteenth centuries there arose and developed the trend of economic thought and policy known as mercantilism.
Mercantilism arose in England, and afterwards it appeared in France, Italy and other countries. The mercantilists discussed the question of the country's wealth, the forms of wealth and the ways of its growth.
This was a time when capital-in the form of merchant and usurers' capital-was predominant in the sphere of trade and credit. In the sphere of production, however, it had made only the first steps by founding manufactories. After the discovery and conquest of America a flood of gold and silver poured into Europe. Gold and silver were then ceaselessly re-distributed among the individual European States, both by means of wars and through foreign trade.
In their understanding of the nature of wealth the mercantilists started from the superficial phenomena of circulation. They concentrated attention not on production, but on trade and money circulation, particularly the movement of gold and silver.
In the view of the mercantilists, not social production and its products, but money, gold and silver, was the sole real wealth. The mercantilists demanded active intervention in economic life by the State, so that as much money as possible should flow into the country and as little as possible pass beyond its limits. The early mercantilists sought to achieve this by purely administrative measures, forbidding the export of money from the country. Later mercantilists considered it essential to expand foreign trade for these ends. Thus an English partisan of mercantilism, Thomas Mun (1571-1641), a great merchant and director of the East India Company wrote: "The ordinary means therefore to increase our wealth and treasure is by Foreign Trade, wherein we must ever observe this rule; to sell more to strangers yearly than we consume of theirs in value." The mercantilists reflected the interests of the bourgeoisie which was growing up in the womb of feudalism and striving to accumulate wealth in gold and silver by developing foreign trade, colonial plunder and trade wars and the enslavement of backward peoples. In connection with the development of capitalism, they began to demand that the State authorities should protect the development of industrial enterprises, the manufactories. Export bounties, which were paid to merchants selling commodities on the foreign market, were established. Import duties soon became still more significant. With the development of the manufactories and later of factories, the imposition of duties on imported commodities became the most widespread defence measure of home industry against foreign competition.
Such a defensive policy is called protectionism. In many countries it remained for a long time after the conceptions of mercantilism had been overcome.
In England protective duties were of great significance in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when competition from the more developed manufactories of the Netherlands threatened her. From the eighteenth century England was steadily gaining industrial leadership.
Other less developed countries could not compete with her. Consequently, ideas of free trade began to gain ground in England.
A different situation was created in countries which entered on the capitalist road later than England. Thus, in France in the seventeenth century Colbert, the minister of Louis XIV, who in' fact ruled the country, created a widely ramified system of State patronage of manufactories.
His system included high import duties, the prohibition of exports of raw materials, the introduction of a number of new branches of industry, the setting up of companies for foreign trade, and so on.
Mercantilism played a progressive part for its time. The protectionist policy inspired by the ideas of mercantilism greatly helped the spread of manufactories. The lack of development of capitalist production at that time, however, was reflected in the mercantilists' views of wealth. The further development of capitalism made the unsoundness of the conceptions of the mercantile system more and more evident.
In Russia in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the feudal serf-owning system of economy was dominant. The economy was basically a natural one. At the same time, trade and handicraft developed considerably, a national market was formed and manufactories began to arise. These economic changes in the country helped to strengthen absolutism in Russia.
The representatives of Russian economic thought, reflecting the historical and economic peculiarities of the country, developed certain mercantilist ideas. However, as distinct from many West European mercantilists, they ascribed great significance not only to trade, but also to the development of industry and agriculture.
The economic views of that time were reflected in the works and measures of the seventeenth century Russian statesman A.L. Ordyn-Nashchokin, in the economic policy of Peter I and in the works of the most important Russian economist of the beginning of the eighteenth century, I.T. Pososhkov.
In his Book on Poverty and Wealth (1724) I.T. Pososhkov expounded a broad programme of Russian economic development and offered a developed justification for this programme. Pososhkov demonstrated the necessity of adopting a number of economic measures in Russia with the aim of protecting the development of home industry trade and agriculture and improving the country's financial system.
In the last third of the eighteenth century a tendency to the breakdown of feudal serf-owning relations was noticeable in Russia; this became much more acute in the first quarter of the nineteenth century, and later grew into a direct crisis of serfdom.
The initiator of the revolutionary-democratic trend in Russian social thought, A.N. Radishchev (1749-1802), was an outstanding economist of his time. Radishchev, resolutely attacking serfdom and defending the oppressed peasantry, made an annihilating criticism of the serf-owning system, exposed the exploiting nature of the wealth of the landlords and serf-owners, the owners of manufactories and traders and justified the right to ownership of land of those who worked it with their labour. Radishchev was firmly convinced that the autocracy and serfdom could be liquidated only by revolutionary means. He worked out a system of economic measures which were progressive for, his time, and the realisation of which would have secured Russia s advance to a bourgeois democratic system.
The Decembrists, in the first half of the nineteenth century, were revolutionaries of that historical period in Russia when the need to replace feudalism by capitalism had ripened. They directed the edge of their criticism against serfdom. Standing forth as fiery partisans of the development of Russia's productive forces, they considered the abolition of serfdom and the emancipation of the peasants as the most important conditions of this development. The Decembrists not only put forward the slogan of struggle against serfdom and autocracy, but also organised an armed rising against the absolute monarchy. P.I. Pestel (1793-1826) worked out an original scheme for the solution of the agrarian problem in Russia. He drew up a kind of draft constitution, which he called "The Russian Law", envisaging the urgent and complete emancipation of the peasants from serfdom and also economic measures for the defence of the peasants' interests for the future. For this purpose Pestel considered it essential to create a special public land fund from which each peasant could receive for his own use, without payment, land essential for his existence. This fund should be formed out of part of the land of the landlords and the Government, moreover, part of the land should be alienated from the largest landlords without compensation. The Decembrists, as revolutionaries coming from the ranks of the gentry, were far from the people, but their ideas of struggle against serfdom helped the growth of the revolutionary movement in Russia.
The ideology of the bourgeoisie in their rise to supremacy was formed in conditions of the breakdown of feudalism and the birth of the capitalist order of society. This ideology was directed against the feudal system and against religion as the ideological weapon of the feudal lords. Therefore, the outlook of the bourgeoisie struggling for power had a progressive character in a number of countries. Its most notable representatives-economists and, philosophers-subjected to decisive criticism all the fundamental principles of feudal society: economic, political, religious, philosophical and moral. They played a great part in the ideological preparation of the bourgeois revolution and exerted a progressive influence on the development of science and art.
Brief Conclusions
(1) Feudalism arose on the basis of the disintegration of slave-owning society and the break-up of the village community of the tribes which conquered the slave-owning States. In those countries where there had been no slave-owning system, feudalism arose on the basis of the break-up of the primitive community system. The clan aristocracy and military leaders of the tribes took into their hands a great quantity of lands and distributed them among their followers. The gradual enserfing of the peasants took place. (2) The feudal lord's ownership of land and incomplete ownership of the worker in production-the peasant serf-was the basis of the relations of production in feudal society. As well as feudal property there existed the individual property of the peasant and craftsman, which was based on personal labour. The labour of the peasant serfs was the source of the existence of feudal society. Serf exploitation was expressed in the fact that the peasants were compelled to perform week-work for the feudal lord, or to pay him quitrent in kind and in money. The burden that serfdom laid on the peasant was frequently little different from that of slavery. However, the serf system opened certain possibilities for the development of the productive forces since the peasant could work a certain part of the time on his own holding and had a certain interest in his labour.
(3) The basic economic law of feudalism consists in the production of surplus product to satisfy the demands of the feudal lords, by means of the exploitation of dependent peasants, on the basis of the ownership of the land by the feudal lords and their incomplete ownership of the workers in production-the serfs.
(4) Feudal society, particularly in the period of the early Middle Ages, was split into small princedoms and states. The nobility and clergy were the ruling estates of feudal society. The peasant estate had no political rights. A class struggle between peasants and feudal lords took place throughout the whole history of feudal society. The feudal State, reflecting the interests of nobility and clergy, was an active force helping them to consolidate their right of feudal ownership of the land and to intensify their exploitation of the dispossessed and oppressed peasants.
(5) In the feudal epoch agriculture played a predominant part, and the economy had a basically natural character. With the development of the social division of labour and exchange, the old towns which had survived the fall of the slave-owning system revived, and new towns arose. The towns were centres of handicraft and trade. The crafts were organised in guilds which strove to prevent competition. Traders united in merchant guilds.
(6) The development of commodity production, breaking down the natural economy, led to differentiation among the peasants and the craftsmen. Merchant capital hastened the decline of the crafts and promoted the birth of capitalist enterprise-the manufactories. Feudal limitations and territorial divisions acted as a brake on the growth of commodity production. In the process of further development the national market was formed. The centralised feudal State arose in the form of absolute monarchy.
(7) Primitive accumulation of capital prepared the conditions for the rise of capitalism. Huge numbers of small producers-peasants and craftsmen-were deprived of the means of production. Great monetary wealth concentrated in the hands of large landowners, merchants and usurers was created by means of the forcible expropriation of the peasantry, colonial trade, taxes and the slave trade. Thus the formation of the basic classes of capitalist society, of wage-workers and capitalists, was accelerated. More or less complete forms of the capitalist order of society grew and ripened in the womb of feudal society.
(8) The production relations of feudalism, the low productivity of the unfree labour of the peasant serfs, and guild restrictions, hindered the further development of productive forces. Peasant serf risings. shook the feudal system and led to the abolition of serfdom. The bourgeoisie took the lead in the struggle for the overthrow of feudalism. It made use of the revolutionary struggle of the peasants against the feudal lords in order to take power into its own hands. The bourgeois revolutions put an end to the feudal system and established the rule of capitalism, giving scope for the development of the forces of production.
The Capitalist Mode of Production: Pre-Monopoly Capitalism
Commodity Production. Commodities and Money
Commodity Production—the Point of Departure for the Rise of Capitalism and a General Feature of Capitalism
The capitalist mode of production, which arose as successor to the feudal mode of production, is based upon exploitation of the class of wage-workers by the class of capitalists. To understand the essence of the capitalist mode of production one must bear in mind, first and foremost, that the capitalist system has commodity production as its foundation: under capitalism everything takes the form of a commodity and the principle of buying and selling prevails everywhere.
Commodity production is older, than capitalist production. It existed in slave-owning society and under feudalism. In the period when feudalism was breaking down, simple commodity production served as the basis for the rise of capitalist production.
Simple commodity production presupposes, first, the social division of labour, under which individual producers specialise in making particular products, and, second, the existence of private property in the means of production and in the products of labour.
The simple commodity production of craftsmen and peasants is distinguished from capitalist commodity production by the fact that it is based upon the personal labour of the commodity producer. Yet fundamentally it is similar in kind to capitalist production, in so far as its foundation is private property in the means of production. Private ownership inevitably gives rise to competition between the commodity producers, which leads to the enrichment of a minority and the ruin of the majority. Thus, petty commodity production serves as the point of departure for the rise and development of capitalist relations.
Under capitalism commodity production becomes dominant and universal. The exchange of commodities, Lenin wrote, appears as "the simplest, most ordinary, fundamental, most common and everyday relation of bourgeois (commodity) society, a relation that is encountered thousands of millions of times." (Lenin, "On Dialectics", Marx-Engels-Marxism, 1951, English edition, p. 334.)
The Commodity and its Characteristics. Dual Nature of the Labour embodied in a Commodity
A commodity is a thing which, first, satisfies some human demand and, second, is produced not for personal consumption but for exchange.
The utility of a thing, the characteristics thanks to which it is able to satisfy some human demand, makes the thing a use-value. A use-value can either directly satisfy an individual human demand or else serve as a means of production of material wealth. For instance, bread satisfies a demand as food and cloth as clothing, while the use-value of a loom consists in the fact that cloth is made with its help. In the course of historical development, man continually discovers fresh useful characteristics in things and fresh ways of using them.
Use-value is possessed by many things which have not in any way been created by human labour, such as, for example, spring-water or the fruits of wild trees. But not everything which has use-value is a commodity. For a thing to become a commodity it must be a product of labour produced for sale. Use-value forms the material substance of wealth, whatever its social form may be. In a commodity economy, use-value is the depository of the exchange-value of a commodity. Exchange-value appears first of all as the quantitative relationship in which use-values of one kind are exchanged for use-values of another kind. For example, one axe is exchanged for 20 kilogrammes of grain. In this quantitative relationship between the commodities exchanged is expressed also their exchange-value. Commodities are treated as equivalent to each other in definite quantities, consequently they must have a common basis. This basis cannot be any of the natural properties of commodities-their weight, size, shape, etc. The natural properties of commodities determine their utility and their use-value, a necessary condition for exchange is difference between the use-values of the commodities to be exchanged. No one will exchange commodities which are identical, such as wheat for wheat, or sugar for sugar. The use-values of different commodities, being different qualitatively, are incommensurable quantitatively.
Commodities of different kinds have only one characteristic in common which makes it possible to compare them for purposes of exchange, and it is that they are all products of labour. Underlying the equivalence of two commodities which are exchanged against each other is the social labour expended in producing them. When a commodity producer brings an axe to market in order to exchanger it he finds that for his axe he can get 20 kilogrammes of grain. This means that the axe is worth the same amount of social labour as 20 kilogrammes of grain are worth. Value is the social labour of commodity producers embodied in a commodity.
That the value of commodities embodies the social labour expended in producing them is borne out by some generally known facts. Material wealth which is useful in itself, but requires no expenditure of labour for its production, has no value-e.g., the air. Material wealth which requires a large expenditure of labour has a high value-e.g., gold, diamonds. Many commodities which at one time were costly have become cheaper as the development of technique has reduced the amount of labour needed to produce them. Changes in the amount of labour expended in producing commodities are usually reflected in the quantitative relationship between these commodities when exchanged, i.e., in their exchange-value. It follows from all this that the exchange-value of a commodity is the form in which its value manifests itself.
Hidden behind the exchange of commodities is the social division of labour between the persons who are the owners of these commodities. When commodity producers compare different commodities, one with another, in so doing they are comparing their different kinds of labour. Thus, value expresses the production-relations between commodity producers. These relations manifest themselves in the exchange of commodities.
A commodity has a two-fold character: in one aspect it is a use-value and in another it is a value. The two-fold character of the commodity is caused by the two-fold nature of the labour embodied in the commodity. The kinds of labour are just as various as the use-values which are produced. The labour of a joiner is qualitatively different from that of a tailor, a shoemaker, etc. The different kinds of labour are distinguished one from another by their aims, methods, tools and, finally, their results. The joiner does his work with an axe, a saw and a plane and makes wooden articles: tables, chairs, cupboards; the tailor makes clothes, using a sewing machine, scissors and a needle. Thus, in each use-value a definite kind of labour is embodied: in a table-the joiner's labour, in a suit-the tailor's labour, in a pair of shoes-the shoemaker's labour, etc. Labour expended in a definite form is concrete labour. Concrete labour creates the use-value of a commodity.
In the course of exchange, commodities of the most various kinds, created by different kinds of concrete labour, are compared together and measured on a common footing. Consequently, behind the different concrete forms of labour there is hidden something common, something inherent in every form of labour. Both the joiner's labour and the tailor's, despite the qualitative difference between these forms of labour, constitute a productive expenditure of human brains, nerves, muscles, etc., and in this sense are homogeneous human labour, labour in general. The labour of commodity producers, considered as expenditure of human labour-power generally, without regard to its concrete form, is abstract labour. Abstract labour forms the value of a commodity.
Abstract and concrete labour are two aspects of the labour embodied in a commodity.
"On the one hand, all labour is, speaking physiologically, an expenditure of human labour-power and in its character of identical abstract human labour, it creates and forms the value of commodities. On the other hand, all labour is the expenditure of human labour-power in a special form and with a definite aim, and in this, its character of concrete useful labour, it produces use-values." (Marx, Capital, Kerr edition, vol. I, p. 54.)
In a society in which private property in the means of production prevails, the two-fold character of the labour embodied in a commodity reflects the contradiction between the private and social labour of the commodity producers. Private ownership of the means of production separates people, makes the labour of the individual commodity producer his own private affair. Each commodity producer conducts his enterprise separately from the rest. The labour of the separate workers is not concerted or co-ordinated on the scale of society as a whole. But, from another angle, the social division of labour means that all-round connections exist between the producers, who are working for each other. The more labour is divided in society and the more varied are the products manufactured by the separate producers, the more extensive is the mutual dependence of the latter. Consequently, the labour of each separate commodity producer is essentially social labour and forms a particle of the labour of society as a whole. Commodities, which are products of various kinds of particular, concrete labour, are at the same time also products of human labour in general, abstract labour.
It follows that the contradiction of commodity production consists in the labour of commodity producers, which is directly the private affair of each one of them, having at the same time a social character. Owing to the isolation of the commodity products one from another, the social character of their labour in the process of production remains hidden. It finds expression only in the process of exchange, when the commodity comes on to the market and is exchanged against another commodity. Only in the process of exchange is it revealed whether the labour of a particular commodity producer is needed by society and whether it will receive social recognition.
Abstract labour, which forms the value of a commodity, is an historical category, a specific form of social labour belonging to commodity economy only. In natural economy men produce their products not for exchange but for personal consumption, so that the social character of their labour appears directly in concrete form. For example, when a feudal lord extracted surplus product from serf-peasants in the form of labour-rent or rent in kind, he appropriated their labour directly in the form of labour services or definite products. In these circumstances social labour did not assume the form of abstract labour. In commodity production, products are produced not for personal consumption but for sale. The social character of labour is here expressed by means of the comparison of one commodity with another, and this comparison takes place through the reducing of concrete forms of labour to the abstract labour which forms the value of a commodity. This process takes place spontaneously, without any sort of common plan, behind the backs of the commodity producers.
Socially-necessary Labour-Time. Simple and Complex Labour
The magnitude of the value of a commodity is determined by labour-time. The more labour-time is needed to produce a given commodity, the higher is its value. Of course, the individual commodity producers work in varying conditions and expend varying amounts of labour-time in the production of one and the same kind of commodity. Does this mean that the more idle the worker, or the less favourable the conditions in which he is working, the higher the value of the commodity produced by him? No, it does not mean that. The magnitude of the value of a commodity is determined not by the individual labour-time expended by a particular commodity producer in producing a commodity, but by the socially-necessary labour-time.
Socially-necessary labour-time is the time needed for the making of any commodity under average social conditions of production, i.e., with the average level of technique and average skill and intensity of labour. It corresponds to the conditions of production under which the greatest bulk of goods of a particular kind are produced. Socially-necessary labour-time changes as a result of the growth of the productivity of labour.
The productivity of labour is expressed in the amount of products created in a given unit of labour-time. The productivity of labour grows as a result of the improvement or fuller utilisation of the instruments of production, the development of science, the increase in the worker's skill, the rationalisation of work, and other improvements in the production process. To a greater or less extent it is also dependent on natural conditions. The higher the productivity of labour, the less the time needed for the production of a unit of the given commodity and the lower the value of this commodity.
The intensity of labour must be distinguished from the productivity of labour. The intensity of labour is determined by the amount of labour expended in a unit of time. A growth in the intensity of labour means an increase in the expenditure of labour in one and the same interval of time. More intensive labour embodies itself in a greater quantity of products and creates a greater value in a given unit of time, as compared with less intensive labour.
Workers of varying skill take part in the production of commodities. The labour of a worker who has had no special training is simple labour. Labour which requires special training is complex or skilled labour.
Complex labour creates value of greater magnitude than is created by simple labour in the same unit of time. Into the value of a commodity created by complex labour there enters also part of the labour expended on the worker's training, on raising his degree of skill. Complex; labour is equivalent to multiplied simple labour; one hour of complex labour is equal to several hours of simple labour. The reduction of various forms of complex labour to simple labour takes place spontaneously under commodity production based on private property. The magnitude of the value of a commodity is determined by the socially-necessary amount of simple labour.
Development of the Forms of Value. Nature of Money
The value of a commodity is created by labour in the process of production, but it can manifest itself only through the comparison of one commodity with another in the process of exchange, i.e., through exchange-value.
The simplest form of value is the expression of the value of one commodity in terms of another commodity: e.g., one axe=2.0 kilogrammes of grain. Let us examine this form.
In this case, the value of the axe is expressed in terms of grain. The grain serves as a means of expressing the value of the axe. It is possible to express the value of the axe in the use-value of grain only because labour is expended both in the production of the grain and in that of the axe. Behind the equality of these commodities is concealed the equal expenditure of labour in producing them. A commodity which expresses its value in another commodity (in our example, the axe), has a relative form of value. A commodity the use-value of which serves as the means of expressing the value of another commodity (in our example, the grain), has an equivalent form. The grain is the equivalent of (is worth) the other commodity, viz., the axe.
The use-value of one commodity, grain, thus becomes the form in which the value of another commodity, the axe, is expressed.
In the beginning, exchange, which originated already in primitive society, was of a casual nature and took place in the form of direct exchange of one product for another. To this stage in the development of exchange corresponds the elementary or accidental form of value:
1 axe = 20 kilogrammes of grain.
Under the elementary form of value, the value of an axe can be expressed only in the use-value of a single commodity; in the given example, grain.
With the rise of the first major social division of labour-the separation of pastoral tribes-from the general mass of tribes exchange becomes more regular. Certain tribes, e.g., the cattle-raising ones, begin to produce a surplus of cattle products, which they exchange for products of agriculture or handicraft which they lack. To this level of the development of exchange corresponds the total or expanded form of value. There now take part in exchange not two but a whole series of commodities:
[diagram]
In this case the commodity's value is expressed in the use-value not of a single commodity but of a number of commodities, all playing the part of equivalent. In addition, the quantitative correlations in which the commodities are exchanged, acquire a more constant character. At this stage, however, the direct exchange of one commodity for another is retained.
With the further development of the social division of labour and of commodity production, the form of direct exchange of one commodity far another becomes inadequate. Difficulties arise in the process of exchange, engendered by the growth of the contradictions of commodity production, contradictions between individual and social labour, between the use-value and the value of a commodity. With increasing frequency the situation occurs when, for example, the owner of some shoes wants an axe, but the use-value of the shoes prevents exchange being effected, because the owner of an axe wants not shoes but grain: it is not possible for these two commodity owners to effect a transaction. When this happens the owner of shoes exchanges his shoes for that commodity which is exchanged more often than any other and which everybody accepts most readily-a sheep, say-and then exchanges this sheep for the axe which he wants. The owner of the axe, having received in exchange for it a sheep, exchanges this for grain. This is how the contradictions of direct exchange are solved. The direct exchange of one commodity for another gradually disappears. From among the commodities one becomes singled out-e.g., livestock-for which all commodities begin to be exchanged. To this stage in the development of exchange corresponds the general form of value:
[diagram]
It is a characteristic of the general form of value that all commodities begin to be exchanged for a commodity which plays the role of universal equivalent. At this stage, however, the role of universal equivalent had still not become attached to any single commodity. In different places the role of universal equivalent was played by different commodities. In some places it was livestock, in others furs, in yet others salt, and so on.
The further growth of the productive forces, the transition to metal tools, the rise of the second major division of labour -the separation of handicraft from agriculture-led to the further development of commodity production and the widening of the market. The abundance of different commodities playing the role of universal equivalent came into contradiction with the needs of the growing market, which required transition to a single equivalent.
When the role of universal equivalent had become attached to one commodity, the money form of value appeared. The role of money has been taken by various metals, but eventually it became consolidated in the precious metals, gold and silver. In silver and gold are particularly expressed all the advantages of metals which make them more suitable than anything else to fulfil the function of money: homogeneity, divisibility, durability and insignificant size and weight combined with great value. Therefore the role of money became firmly connected with the precious metals, and in the long run with gold. The money form of value can be depicted like this:
[diagram]
Under the money form of value, the value of every commodity is expressed in the use-value of a single commodity, which has become the universal equivalent.
Money thus arose as a result of a long process of development of exchange and of forms of value. With the rise of money a polarisation took place in the world of commodities-at one pole remained the ordinary commodities, while to the other pole went the commodity which played the role of money. Now all commodities begin to express their value in the money; commodity. Consequently, money appears, in contradiction to all other commodities, as the general embodiment of value the universal equivalent. Money possesses the property of being directly exchangeable for any commodity and so serves as the means of satisfying all the requirements of the commodity owners, whereas all other commodities can satisfy only one or other of their requirements-e.g., bread, clothing, etc.
Consequently, money is the commodity which is the universal equivalent of all commodities; it embodies social labour and expresses the production relations between the' commodity producers.
Functions of Money
As commodity production extends so the functions fulfilled by money expand. In developed commodity production money serves as:
(1) the measure of value, (2) the medium of circulation, (3) the means of accumulation, (4) the means of payment and (5) world-wide currency.
The fundamental function of money consists in serving as the measure of value of commodities. With the aid of money the individual labour of a commodity producer finds social expression and the spontaneous calculation and measurement of the values of all commodities is effected. The value of a commodity cannot be directly expressed in labour-time, since under conditions in which the private commodity producers operate in isolation and separation one from another it is impossible to determine the amount of labour which not any particular commodity producer but society as a whole expends in the production of any particular commodity. For this reason the value of a commodity can be expressed only indirectly, by way of the equating of the commodity with money in the process of exchange.
To fulfil the function of measure of value, money must itself be a commodity and possess value. Just as the weights of bodies can be measured only by means of scales which themselves possess weights, so the value of a commodity can be measured only by means of a commodity which possesses value.
Measurement of the value of commodities by means of gold occurs even before a given commodity is exchanged for money. To express the value of commodities in money it is not necessary to have cash in one's hand. In fixing a definite price for a commodity, its owner mentally (or, as Marx puts it, ideally) expresses the commodity's value in gold. This is possible thanks to the fact that there exists in reality a definite correlation between the value of gold and the value of the given commodity; the basis for this correlation is provided by the socially-necessary labour which is expended in producing them.
A commodity's value expressed in money is called its price. Price is the monetary expression of the value of a commodity. Commodities express their value indefinite amounts of silver or gold. These amounts of the money commodity must themselves in their turn be measured. This gives rise to the need for a unit of measurement of money. This unit consists of a definite amount, by weight, of the metal used for money.
In Britain, for example, the money unit is called the pound sterling; at one time it corresponded to a pound of silver. Later, money units ceased to coincide with units of weight. This occurred as a result of the importation of foreign coins, of the going over from silver to gold, and especially in consequence of the debasement of coins by governments, which gradually reduced their weight. For convenience of measurement monetary units are divided into aliquot parts: the rouble into 100 kopeks, the dollar into 100 cents, the franc into 100 centimes, etc.
The unit of money and its parts provide the standard of price. As a standard of price money plays a role completely different from when it serves as a measure of value. As a measure of value money measures the value of other commodities, but as a standard of price it measures the quantity of the money metal itself. The value of the money commodity varies with changes in the amount of labour socially necessary for its production. Changes in the value of gold are not reflected in its function as a standard of price. However much the value of gold may change, a dollar is still worth a hundred times as much as a cent.
The State can alter the gold content of the money unit, but it is not in a position to vary the value relationship between gold and other commodities. Should the State reduce the amount of gold contained in the money unit, i.e., lower its gold content, the market would react to this by a rise in prices, and the value of a commodity would be expressed, as before, in that quantity of gold which corresponded to the labour expended in producing the commodity in question. All that would happen would be that now a larger number of monetary units than before would be needed to express the same quantity of gold.
The prices of commodities may rise or fall under the influence of changes either in the value of commodities or in the value of gold. The value of gold, as of every commodity, depends on the productivity of labour. Thus, the discovery of America, with its rich gold-fields, led to a price-revolution in Europe between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. Gold was obtained in America with less labour than in Europe. The influx into Europe of the cheaper American gold brought about a general rise in prices.
Money fulfils the function of circulation medium. The exchanging of commodities effected with the aid of money is called commodity circulation. The circulation of commodities is inseparably bound up with the circulation of money itself: when a commodity passes from the hands of the seller into those of the buyer, money passes from the hands of the buyer into those of the seller. Money's function as circulation medium consists in its playing the part of intermediary in the circulation process of commodities. To carry out this function real money must be actually present.
At first, when commodities were exchanged, money figured directly in the form of bars of silver or gold. This led to certain difficulties: it was necessary to weigh the money metal, to break it up into small pieces and to carry out assays. Gradually bars of the money metal gave place to coins. A coin is a piece of metal of definite shape, weight and denomination, which serves as a medium of circulation. The minting of money was concentrated in the hands of the State.
During the process of circulation, coins become worn by use and lose part of their value. The practice of monetary circulation showed that worn coins could fulfil the function of circulation medium equally as well as coins of full value. The reason for this was that money when acting as a circulation medium plays only a fleeting role. As a rule, the seller of a commodity accepts money in exchange for it so as to buy another commodity with this money. Consequently, money acting as circulation medium need not necessarily possess its proper value.
Taking into account the practice of the circulation of worn coins, governments began consciously to debase the coinage, to reduce its weight, to lower the standard of assay of the money metal without changing the nominal value of coins, i.e., the number of monetary units marked upon them. Coins were transformed more and more into symbols of value, tokens of money. Their actual values are very much less than they nominally appear to be.
The splitting of the category "commodities" into commodities and money heralds a development of the contradictions of commodity production. When one commodity is directly exchanged for another, each transaction is of an isolated nature; selling is not separated from buying. It is another matter when exchange is carried on by mean of money, i.e., when commodity circulation arises. Now exchange presupposes an all-round connection between commodity producers and a ceaseless interweaving of transactions among them. It opens up the possibility of a separation between buying and selling. A commodity producer can sell his commodity and retain for the time being the money which he receives for it. When many commodity producers sell without buying, a hold-up in the sale of commodities Can come about. Thus, even simple commodity circulation contains in germ the possibility of crises. For this possibility to be transformed into inevitability, however, a number of conditions are needed which appear only with the advance to the capitalist mode of production.
Money fulfils the function of means of accumulation or means of forming hoards. Money is transformed into a hoard when it is withdrawn from circulation. As money can always be transformed into any commodity, it is the universal equivalent of wealth. It can be kept in any quantity. Commodity producers accumulate money, for example, in order to buy means of production or as savings. With the development of commodity production the power of money grows. All this gives rise to a passion for saving money, to the formation of hoards. The function of a hoard can be fulfilled only by money of full value: gold and silver coins, bars of gold and silver, and also articles made of gold and silver. When gold or silver coins are serving as money, they spontaneously adapt themselves in amount to the requirements of commodity circulation. When the production of commodities declines and commodity circulation shrinks, some of the gold coins disappear from circulation and are transferred into hoards. When production extends and commodity circulation grows, these coins reappear in circulation.
Money fulfils the function of means of payment. Money figures as a means of payment in cases when the buying and selling of a commodity is carried out on credit, i.e., with the payment deferred. When a commodity is bought on credit the transfer of the commodity from the seller's hands to the buyer's is effected without immediate payment by the purchaser. When the time comes for the purchased commodity to be paid for, money is paid by the buyer to the seller without any' transfer of a commodity, this having taken place earlier. Money serves as a means of payment also in the payment of taxes, rent, etc.
The functioning of money as a means of payment reflects the further development of the contradictions of commodity production. The links between the separate commodity producers become more extensive and their dependence upon each other increases. The buyer now becomes a debtor and the seller is transformed into a creditor. When many commodity owners are buying commodities on credit, the failure of one or a number of debtors to honour in due time their promises to pay can react upon a whole series of obligations to pay, and lead to the bankruptcy of a number of commodity owners who are linked together by credit relationships. Thus the possibility of crises, which is already inherent in the function of money as circulation medium, is intensified.
Examination of the function of money as circulation medium and as means of payment enables us to see clearly the law which determines the amount of money needed for the circulation of commodities.
Commodities are bought and sold in many places at the same time. The amount of money needed for circulation in a given period depends, first of all, on the total of the prices of the commodities in circulation, which in turn depends on the quantity of commodities and the price of each separate commodity. In addition, the velocity with which money moves around must be taken into account. The more rapidly money moves, the less of it is needed for circulation, and vice versa. If, for example, in the course of a given period-a year, say-,commodities are sold at a total price of 1,000 million dollars, and each dollar moves five times, on the average, then for the circulation of the whole mass of commodities 200 million dollars are needed.
Thanks to the credit which commodity producers grant each other, the need for money is reduced by the total of the prices of commodities which are sold on credit and by the total of payments which mutually cancel out. Ready money is needed only for the settlement of those debt obligations the time to meet which has arrived.
Thus, the law of the circulation of money is this: the amount of money needed for the circulation of commodities must equal the total of the prices of all commodities, divided by the average turnover of money units of the same denomination. Furthermore, from the total of the prices of all commodities must be deducted the total of the prices of all commodities sold on credit and the sum of mutually-cancelling payments, and to it must be added the total of payments the time to settle which has come round.
This law applies universally to all social formations where commodity production and circulation take place.
Finally, money plays the role of world-wide currency in circulation between different countries. The role of universal money cannot be played by coins of less than full value or by paper money. On the world market money abandons the form of coins and appears in its original aspect-bars of precious metal. On the world market, in circulation between countries, gold is the universal purchasing medium for payment for commodities imported into one country from another, the universal means of payment for clearing international debts, for paying interest on foreign loans and other obligations, and the universal embodiment of social wealth when this is transferred from one country to another in monetary form, e.g., when money capital is exported from one country to another for the purpose of depositing it in foreign banks, for making loans, or for the payment of contributions by a conquered country to a victorious one, etc.
The development of the function of money expresses the growth of commodity production and its contradictions. In social formations based on the exploitations of man by man money bears a class character, serving as the means of appropriating the labour of others. It played this part in slave-owning society and in feudal society. As we shall see below, the role of money as an instrument of exploitation attained its highest development in capitalist society.
Gold and Paper Money
Under conditions of developed commodity production, paper money is often used instead of gold coins. The issue of paper money was engendered by the practice of the circulation of worn and devalued coins which had become transformed into symbols of gold, symbols of money.
Paper money means money tokens issued by the State, which people are obliged to accept instead of gold so far as its function as circulation medium is concerned. Paper money has no value of its own. For this reason it cannot fulfil the function of measure of the value of commodities. However much paper money may be issued, it represents only the value of that quantity of gold which is necessary for commodity circulation to be maintained. Paper money is not accepted in exchange for gold.
If paper money is issued in accordance with the amount of gold needed for circulation, the purchasing power of paper money, i.e., the amount of commodities which it can buy, coincides with the purchasing power of gold money. But usually the State issues paper money to cover its expenses, especially in wartime, during crises or other emergencies, without regard to the needs of commodity circulation.
When the production and circulation of commodities are restricted or when an exceptional amount of paper money is issued, the latter is found to be in excess of the quantity of gold needed for circulation. Money has been issued, let us say, to an extent double what is needed. In such a case, each unit of paper money (dollar, mark, franc, etc.) will represent half the quantity of gold, i.e., the paper will depreciate by half.
The first attempts to issue paper money took place in China as far back as the twelfth century; paper money was issued in America in 16901and in France in 1716; Britain began to issue paper money at the time of the Napoleonic Wars. In Russia paper money was first issued in Catherine II's reign.
An extraordinarily large issue of paper money, leading to its depreciation and used by the ruling classes for the purpose of transferring the burden of State expenditure on to the backs of the working masses and increasing their exploitation; is called inflation. Inflation, which gives rise to an increase in the cost of goods, bears heaviest upon the working people, because the wages and salaries of the workers lag behind the rise in prices. Capitalists and landlords benefit from inflation, owing above all to the fall in the real wages of industrial and agricultural workers. Inflation benefits those capitalists who export their commodities. As a result of the fall in real wages and the reduction thereby of the costs of production of commodities it becomes possible for them to compete successfully with foreign capitalists and landlords and increase the sale of their commodities.
The Law of Value—an Economic Law of Commodity Production
In commodity production based on private property, the production of commodities is carried out by separate private commodity producers. A competitive struggle goes on between these commodity producers. Each one tries to push the others aside and to maintain and extend his own position in the market. Production proceeds without any sort of general plan. Each one produces on his own account, regardless of the others; nobody knows what the demand is for the commodity which he is producing or how many other commodity producers are engaged in producing the same commodity, whether he will be able to find a market for his commodity or whether he will be reimbursed for the labour he has expended. With the development of commodity production the power exercised by the market over the commodity producers becomes ever greater.
This means that in commodity production based on private ownership of the means of production there operates the economic law of competition and anarchy of production. This law expresses the spontaneous nature of production and exchange, the struggle between private commodity producers for more advantageous conditions of production and sale of goods.
Under the conditions of anarchy of production which reign in commodity production based on private property, the law of value appears as the spontaneous regulator of production, acting through market-competition.
The law of value is an economic law of commodity production, by which the exchange of commodities is effected in accordance with the amount of socially-necessary labour expended on their production.
The law of value regulates the distribution of social labour and means of production among different branches of commodity economy spontaneously, through the price mechanism. Under the influence of fluctuations in the relationship of supply and demand the prices of commodities continually diverge either above or below their value. Divergences of prices from values are not a result of some defect in the operation of the law of value, but, on the contrary, are the only possible way in which it can become effective. In a society in which production is in the hands of private owners, working blindly, only the spontaneous fluctuations of prices on the market inform the commodity producers whether they have produced goods in excess of the effective demand by the population or have not produced sufficient to meet it. Only the spontaneous fluctuations of prices around values oblige commodity producers to extend or restrict the production of particular commodities. Under the influence of price-fluctuations, commodity producers rush into those branches which appear most profitable at the given moment because the prices of commodities are higher than their values, and quit those branches where the prices of commodities are lower than their values.
The operation of the law of value conditions the development of the productive forces of commodity economy. As we have seen, the magnitude of the value of a commodity is determined by socially-necessary labour-time. The commodity producers who are the first to introduce a higher technique produce their commodities at reduced cost, in comparison with that which is socially-necessary, but sell these commodities at the prices which correspond to the socially-necessary labour. When they sell their commodities they receive a surplus of money arid grow rich. This impels the remaining commodity producers to make technical improvements in their own enterprises. Thus, as a result of the separate actions of separate commodity producers, each striving for his own private advantages, progress takes place in technique and the productive forces of society are developed.
As a result of competition and anarchy of production, the distribution of labour and means of production between the various branches of economy and the development of the forces of production are accomplished in a commodity economy at the price of great waste of social labour, and lead to the contradictions of this economy becoming more and more acute.
In conditions of commodity production based on private property, the operation of the law of value leads to the rise and development of capitalist relations. Spontaneous fluctuations of market prices around values, and divergences of individual labour costs from the socially-necessary labour which determines the magnitude of the value of a commodity, intensify the economic inequality of the commodity producers and the struggle among them. This competitive struggle leads to some commodity producers being ruined and transformed into proletarians while others are enriched and become capitalists. The operation of the law of value thus brings about a differentiation among the commodity producers. "Small production engenders capitalism and the bourgeoisie continuously, daily, hourly, spontaneously and on a mass scale." (Lenin, '''Left-wing' Communism, an Infantile Disorder", Selected Works, 1951, English edition, vol. II, Pt. 2, p. 344.)
Commodity Fetishism
In conditions of commodity production based on private ownership of the means of production, the social link between people which exists in the production process makes its appearance only through the medium of exchange of commodities. The fate of the commodity producers is found to be closely connected with the fate of the commodities which they create. The prices of commodities continually change, independently of people's will or consciousness, and yet the level of prices is often a matter of life and death for the commodity producers.
Relations between things conceal the social relations between people. Thus, though the value of a commodity expresses the social relationship between commodity producers, it appears as a kind of natural property of the commodity, like, say, its colour or its weight. "It is a definite social relation between men," wrote Marx, "that assumes, in their eyes, the fantastic form of a relation between things." (K. Marx, Capital, Kerr edition, vol. I, p. 83.)
In this way, in a commodity economy based on private property, the production-relations between people inevitably appear as relations between things (commodities). In this transmutation of production-relations between persons into relations between things is inherent also the commodity fetishism which is characteristic of commodity production.2
Commodity fetishism is displayed with especial clarity in money. In commodity economy money is a tremendous force, giving power over men. Everything can be bought for money. It comes to seem that this capacity to buy anything and everything is a natural property of gold, whereas in reality it is a result of definite social relations.
Commodity fetishism has deep roots in commodity production, in which the labour of a commodity producer appears directly as private labour, and its social character is revealed only in the exchange of commodities. Only when private property in the means of production is abolished does commodity fetishism disappear.
Brief Conclusions
(1) The point of departure for the rise of capitalism was the simple commodity production of craftsmen and peasants. Simple commodity production differs from capitalism in that it is based upon the individual labour of the commodity producer. At the same time it belongs fundamentally to the same type as capitalist production, in as much as its foundation is private ownership of the means of production. Under capitalism, when not only the products of labour, but labour power too becomes a commodity, commodity production acquires a dominant, universal character.
(2) A commodity is a product which is made for exchange, it appears from one angle as a use-value and from the other as a value. The labour which creates a commodity possesses a dual character. Concrete labour is labour expended in a definite form; It creates the use-value of a commodity. Abstract labour is the expenditure of human labour power in general; It creates the value of a commodity.
(3) Value is the social labour of the commodity producers embodied in a commodity. Value is an historical category which belongs only to commodity economy. The magnitude of the value of a commodity is determined by the labour which is socially-necessary for its production. The contradiction in simple commodity economy consists in the fact that the commodity producers' labour, which is directly their own private affair, bears at the same time a social character.
(4) The development of the contradictions of commodity production leads to one commodity spontaneously being singled out from the rest and becoming money. Money appears as the commodity which plays the role of universal equivalent. Money fulfils the following functions: (1) measure of value, (2) medium of circulation, (3) means of accumulation, (4) means of payment, and (5) world-wide currency.
(5) With the growth of the circulation of money, paper money arises. Paper money, which lacks any value of its own acts as a token for metallic money and replaces it as the circulation medium. An exceptionally large issue of paper money, causing its depreciation (inflation) leads to a lowering of the standard of life of the working people.
(6) In a commodity economy based on private property in the means of production, the law of value is the spontaneous regulator of the distribution of social labour between branches of production. The operation of the law of value causes a differentiation among the petty commodity producers and the development of capitalist relations.
Capitalist Simple Co-operation and Manufacture
Capitalist Simple Co-operation
Capitalism at first subjects production to itself just as it finds it, i.e., with the backward technique of handicraft and small-peasant economy; and only later, at a higher level of its own development, does it refashion production on new economic and technical foundations. Capitalist production begins when the means of production are concentrated in private hands while the workers, deprived of means of production, are obliged to sell their labour power as a commodity. In handicraft production and in peasant crafts fairly large workshops are formed, belonging to capitalists. The capitalists extend the scale of production without at first changing either the instruments or the methods of work used by the petty producers. This primary stage in the development of capitalist production is called capitalist simple co-operation. Capitalist simple co-operation is that form of social labour under which the capitalist exploits a more or less considerable number of wage-workers who are all employed simultaneously and all of whom carry out the same kind of work. Capitalist simple co-operation arises on the basis of the break-up of petty commodity production. The first capitalist enterprises were founded by merchant-engrossers1 and money-lenders, or by master craftsmen and artisans who had become wealthy. Those who worked in these enterprises were ruined craftsmen and journeymen, who no longer had the possibility of becoming independent master craftsmen, together with the rural poor. Capitalist simple co-operation has certain advantages over petty commodity production. The bringing together of many workers in one enterprise makes for economy in means of production. To build, to heat and to light one workshop containing twenty persons costs less than to build and maintain ten workshops with two workers in each. Expenses for tools, store-rooms and transport of material and of the finished product are also reduced. The results of the labour of an isolated craftsman depend to a considerable extent on his individual characteristics-strength, dexterity, skill, etc. In conditions of primitive technique differences between workers in these respects are very great. Merely for this reason alone the situation of a petty producer is extremely precarious. Commodity producers who expend in producing one and the same kind of commodity more labour than is required in average conditions of production are inevitably ruined. When many workers are together in a workshop individual differences between them tend to be evened out. The work of particular workers diverges in one direction or the other from the average social labour, but the joint work of many simultaneously-employed workers corresponds more or less to the average socially-necessary labour. For this reason, the production and sale of commodities by capitalist workshops become more regular and stable. Under simple co-operation an economy of labour is achieved and the productivity of labour grows. Let us take as an example the shifting of bricks by hand carried out by a chain of workers. Each separate worker accomplishes in this case one and the same movement, but his actions form part of one common operation. As a result the work goes much quicker than when each man separately shifts bricks. Ten men working together produce in the course of a working day more than the same ten men working separately, or than one man in the course of ten working days of the same length. Co-operation enables work to be carried out simultaneously over a large area, for example, in the draining of marshes, the building of dams, canals and railways and also makes it possible to expend a considerable mass of labour in a small space, for example, in the construction of buildings or in the cultivation of crops which require a great deal of labour. Co-operation is of great importance in those branches of production where certain jobs must be carried out in a short time, for instance, harvesting, sheep-shearing, etc. The simultaneous employment of a large number of workers enables such jobs to be completed in a reduced time and thereby prevents the incurring of great losses. Thus, co-operation gave a new social productive force to labour. The mere simple bringing together of the forces of separate workers led to an increase in the productivity of labour. This enabled the owners of the first capitalist workshops to produce commodities more cheaply and to compete successfully with the petty producers. The results of the new social productivity force of labour were appropriated without compensation by the capitalists and served to enrich them. The Period of Capitalist Manufacture
The development of simple capitalist co-operation led to the rise of manufacture. Manufacture is capitalist co-operation based on division of labour and handicraft technique. Manufacture as a form of capitalist production prevailed in Western Europe approximately from the middle of the sixteenth century to the last third of the eighteenth century. Manufacture arose in two different ways. The first way was the bringing together by a capitalist in one workshop of craftsmen of different skills. In this way there arose, for example, a coach manufactory, which brought together within its walls craftsmen who had previously been independent: coachmakers, harnessmakers, upholsterers, locksmiths, coppersmiths, turners, braidmakers, glaziers, painters, polishers, etc. In the manufactory the production of a coach was divided into a large number of different, mutually-complementary operations, each of which was carried out by a particular worker. As a result of this the previous nature of the craftsmen's work underwent a change. For instance, a worker employed as a locksmith now carried out over a long period only certain definite operations connected with the production of a coach, and gradually ceased to be the locksmith who formerly had made a finished product all by himself. The second way was the bringing together by a capitalist in a single workshop of craftsmen all of one skill. Formerly each of these craftsmen had independently carried out all the operations required to produce a given commodity. The capitalist broke down the process of production in his workshop into a series of separate operations, each of which was assigned to' a worker who specialised in it. Thus arose, for example, the manufacture of needles. In a needle manufactory needles were passed through the hands of seventy-two or more workers: one drew the wire, another straightened it, a third cut it, a fourth sharpened the ends, and so on. The division of labour in manufacture means the division of labour within an enterprise for the production of one and the same commodity, as distinguished from the division of labour in society between different enterprises for the production of different commodities. Division of labour within a manufactory presupposes concentration of the means of production in the hands of a capitalist, who is at the same time the owner of the commodities produced. The wage-worker, unlike the petty commodity producer, does not produce the commodity independently; only the common product of the labour of many workers is transformed into a commodity. The division of labour within society presupposes the splitting up of the means of production among commodity producers who are separate from and independent of each other. The products of their labour, for instance, the labour of a joiner, a tanner, a cobbler and tiller of the soil, appear as commodities, and the link between the independent commodity producers is effected by means of the market.. A worker who carries out in a manufactory a particular operation for the production of a commodity, is a detail-worker. Constantly repeating one and the same simple operation, he expends in it less time and energy than does the craftsman who performs by turns a whole series of different operations. At the same time, along with this specialisation, labour becomes more intensive. Formerly the worker spent a certain amount of time in passing from one operation to another, and in changing his tools. In a manufactory this waste of working time was reduced. Gradually specialisation came to affect not only the workers but also the instruments of production; they became more and more closely adapted to that detail operation for which they were designed. All this led to a further increase in the productivity of labour.
The production of needles furnishes a clear example. In the eighteenth century a small manufactory, employing ten workers, by means of division of labour produced in one day 48,000 needles, i.e., 4,800 needles were produced per worker. Yet without division of labour one worker could not have produced even twenty needles a day. Specialisation of labour in the manufactory, associated with continual repetition of one and the same uncomplicated set of movements maimed the worker physically and spiritually. Workers appeared with curvature of the spine, with hollow chests, etc. Thus, the growth of the productivity of labour in manufactories was achieved at the expense of crippling the worker. Manufacture "converts the worker into a crippled monstrosity, by forcing his detail dexterity at the expense of a world of productive capabilities and instincts". (Marx, Capital, Kerr edition, vol. I, p. 396.) Workers in manufacture were subjected to savage exploitation. Their working day reached 18 hours or more; their wages were extremely low, and the overwhelming mass of manufactory-workers lived in want; the new, capitalist labour-discipline was introduced by the most ruthless measures of compulsion and coercion. The division of labour in manufacture, wrote Marx, "creates new conditions for the lordship of capital over labour. If, therefore on the one hand, it presents itself historically as a progress and as a necessary phase in the economic development of society, on the other hand, it is a refined and civilised method of exploitation." (Marx, Capital, Kerr edition, Vol. I, p. 400.) In slave-owning and feudal societies two forms of capital exist-merchant and usurers' capital. The rise of capitalist production signified the appearance of industrial capital. Industrial capital is capital invested in the production of commodities. One of the typical peculiarities of the manufacture period of capitalism is a close and inseparable connection between merchant and industrial capital. The owner of a manufactory was almost always an engrosser as well. He resold raw materials to small commodity producers, distributed material to their houses for them to work up, or else bought particular parts of articles from small commodity producers, or bought finished articles from them for resale later. This sale of raw material to arid purchase of products from small commodity producers became interwoven with debt-enslavement, which worsened the position of the small commodity producer to a tremendous degree, leading to prolongation of his working day and lowering of the earnings he received. Capitalist Domestic Industry
In the period of capitalist manufacture the distribution of work to be done at home developed on an extremely wide scale. Capitalist domestic industry means the working-up at home, on piece-rates, of material received from an entrepreneur. This form of exploitation was encountered sporadically even under simple co-operation. It is found also in the period of large-scale machine industry; but it is typical above all of manufacture. Capitalist domestic industry here figures as an appendage to manufacture. In manufacture the division of labour breaks down the production of each commodity into a series of distinct operations. Often the engrosser manufactory-owner found it profitable to set up a comparatively small workshop, where only the assembly or the ultimate finishing of the commodity was carried out. All the preparatory operations were performed by handicraftsmen and artisans who worked at home but were completely dependent on the capitalist. Frequently the artisans, scattered in different villages, had dealings not with the owner of the assembly workshop but with middlemen or foremen, who exploited them additionally. The artisans and handicraftsmen working at home received from the capitalist payment which was considerably less than that given to workers employed in the capitalist's workshop. Masses of peasants whose need for money obliged them to seek extra work on the side were drawn into handicraft. In order to earn a small sum of money, the peasant exhausted himself and forced all his family to work as well. An excessively long working day, unhealthy working conditions, the most ruthless exploitation-such were the distinguishing features of capitalist' domestic industry.
These features were found in the numerous handicraft industries of Tsarist Russia. Engrossers who became in practice the bosses of handicraft industry in a given village or district extensively introduced division of labour among the craftsmen. For example, in the Zavyalovs' establishment at Pavlovo (where more than 100 workers were employed in the assembly workshop in the 1860's) an ordinary penknife passed through the hands of eight of nine craftsmen. On it worked a smith, a blade-maker, a handle-maker, a temperer, a polisher, a finisher, a leveller and a stamper. Yet a substantial section of the detail-workers were employed not in the capitalist's workshop but in their own houses. A similar picture was shown by the carriage-making industry, feltmaking, a number of woodworking handicrafts, shoemaking, button-making, etc. Numerous examples of savage exploitation of handicraftsmen are given by V.I. Lenin in his work The Development of Capitalism in Russia. Thus, in Moscow Province at the beginning of the 1880's, in unreeling cotton thread, and in knitting and other industries employing women, 37,500 women workers were engaged. Children began to work at the age of five or six. The average daily wage was thirteen kopeks; the working day lasted up to eighteen hours. Role of Manufacture in History
Manufacture was the transitional form between the petty production of artisans and craftsmen and large-scale capitalist machine industry. A manufactory was akin to handicraft in that its basis remained hand technique, and to a capitalist factory in that it meant large-scale production based on exploitation of wage-workers. The division of labour in manufacture was a notable step forward in the development of the productive forces of society. But manufacture, based on hand labour, was not in a position to supplant petty production. Typical of the manufacturing period of capitalism's development was a small number of relatively large-scale establishments alongside a considerable number of small ones. While a certain share of the commodities were produced in manufactories, the overwhelming mass of them were provided as before by craftsmen and artisans, who were dependent in varying degrees upon capitalist engrossers, putters-out and manufacturers. Thus, manufacture could not lay hold of the whole field of social production. It was a kind of superstructure; the basis remained as before, petty production with its primitive technique. The role played by manufacture in history was that it prepared the conditions necessary for the passage to machine production. In relation to this, three circumstances were of especial importance. First, manufacture, bringing the division of labour to a high level, simplified many working operations. They were reduced to such simple movements that it became possible to replace the worker's hands by machines. Second, the development of manufacture led to specialisation of the working tools, to their becoming considerably improved, as a result of which an advance from hand-operated tools to machines became possible. Third, manufacture prepared cadres of skilled workers for large-scale machine industry, thanks to their prolonged specialisation in the carrying out of particular operations.
Petty commodity production, capitalist simple co-operation and manufacture, with its appendage, capitalist domestic industry, are widespread at the present day in economically under-developed countries such as India, Turkey, Persia, etc. Disintegration of the Peasantry. Transition from Labour- Service Economy to Capitalist Economy
In the manufacturing period of the development of capitalism industry became more and more separated from agriculture. The growth in the social division of labour led to not only industrial products but also agricultural products being transformed into commodities. Specialisation of districts by crops and branches took place in agriculture. Districts where commercial agriculture was carried on made their appearance: flax-cultivation, sugar-beet production, cotton-growing, tobacco-growing, dairying, cheese-making, etc. On this basis exchange developed not merely between industry and agriculture but also between different branches of agriculture. The further commodity production penetrated into agriculture, the fiercer became the competition between the tillers of the soil. The peasants fell into greater and greater dependence upon the market. Spontaneous fluctuation of prices on the market intensified and made more acute the inequality of property among the peasants. Spare money accumulated in the hands of the upper handful of well-to-do in the countryside. This money served them as a means to enslave and exploit the poorer peasants, becoming transformed into capital. One of the ways in which this enslavement was effected was the purchasing for trivial sums of the products of the peasants' labour. Gradually the ruin of the peasantry attained such a level that many of them were forced completely to abandon their holdings and resort to selling their labour-power. Thus, with the development of the social division of labour and with the growth of commodity production, a process of differentiation of the peasantry took place; capitalist relations were formed in the countryside, new social types of rural population, the classes of capitalist society, came into being-a rural bourgeoisie and an agricultural proletariat. The rural bourgeoisie (or kulaks) carry on commodity production on the basis of employing hired labour, exploiting the permanent rural labourers and (still more) the day-labourers and other temporary workers whom they take on for seasonal field work. They concentrate in their possession a considerable share of the land (including leased land), draught animals and agricultural produce. They also own enterprises for the working-up of raw material, mills, threshing-machines, pedigree stock, etc. They usually also function as the village moneylenders and shopkeepers. All this serves as a means of exploiting the poor and a considerable section of the middle peasantry. The agricultural proletariat is the mass of labourers, deprived of means of production and exploited by the landlords and rural bourgeoisie. The basic source of livelihood of the agricultural proletarian is the sale of his labour-power. The typical agricultural proletarian is a hired worker with an allotment. The tiny scale of the farming which he carries on on his patch of land, and his lack of draught animals and implements, inevitably compel a peasant of this kind to sell his labour-power. Very close to the agricultural proletariat are the rural poor. The poor peasant has a small plot of land and a small number of cattle. The grain which such a peasant can grow is not sufficient for his needs. The money which he needs for food and clothing, to run his holding and pay his taxes, he is obliged to earn to a substantial extent by working for wages. A peasant like this has already half-ceased to be his own master and is a rural semi-proletarian. The standard of living of the poor peasant, as of the rural proletarian, is extremely low and is inferior to that of the industrial worker. The development of capitalism in agriculture leads to a continual growth in the ranks of the rural proletariat and poor peasantry. An intermediate position between the rural bourgeoisie and the poor peasants is occupied by the middle peasantry. The middle peasantry carry on agriculture on the basis of their own means of production and their personal labour. Only under favourable conditions does the labour of the middle peasant on his holding guarantee the livelihood of his family. Hence the instability of the middle peasant's situation. "In its social relationships this group oscillates between the higher group towards which it gravitates and into which only a fortunate minority succeeds in entering, and the lower group into which the whole process of evolution is forcing it." (Lenin, "Development of Capitalism in Russia", Selected Works, 12-vol. edition, vol. I, p. 235.) A process of ruining and "erosion" of the middle peasantry goes on. Capitalist relations in the agriculture of bourgeois countries are interwoven with survivals of serfdom. The bourgeoisie when it came to power did not, in the majority of countries, abolish large-scale feudal landownership. The landowners' estates gradually adapted themselves to capitalism. The peasantry, freed from servile dependence but deprived of a substantial part of the land, suffocated from land hunger. It was obliged to lease land from the landlords on extortionate terms.
In Russia, for example, after the reform of 1861, the most widespread form of exploitation of the peasants by the landlords was work-payment, by which the peasant was obliged, either in return for the lease of land or to repay a loan contracted on extortionate terms, to work on the landlord's farm, using his own means of production-draught animals and primitive implements. The disintegration of the peasantry undermined the foundations of the landlords' economy, which was carried on by means of work-payment, exploiting an economically dependent peasantry, and was based on backward technique. The well-to-do peasant was in a position to rent land for money and so did not need to accept extortionate terms of lease which obliged him to perform work-payment. The poor peasant was also unsuitable for the workpayment system, but for a different reason: lacking means of production, he was transformed into a wage-worker. The landlord could use for work-payment mainly the middle peasantry. But the development of commodity economy and commercial agriculture, by ruining the middle peasantry, undermined the workpayment system of economy. The landlords extended their employment of hired labour; which was more productive than the labour of dependent peasants; the importance of the capitalist system of economy grew while that of the work-payment system declined. Work payment, however, as a direct survival of week-work was, preserved for a long time alongside the capitalist system of economy. Formation of a Home Market for Capitalist Industry
With the development of capitalism in industry and agriculture there took place the formation of a home market. Already in the period of manufacture a number of new branches of industrial production arose. One after another various forms of industrial processing of agricultural raw material were separated off from agriculture. With the growth of industry the demand for agricultural products continually grew. In connection with this a widening of the market took place. Districts which specialised in the production, e.g., of cotton, flax or sugar-beet, or in stock-raising, had a demand for grain. Agriculture increased its demand for various products of industry. The home market for capitalist industry is formed by the very development of capitalism, by the disintegration of the petty commodity producers. "The divorcement of the direct producer from the means of production, i.e., his expropriation, which signifies the transition from simple commodity production to capitalist production (and which is the necessary condition for this transition), creates the home market." (Lenin, "Development of Capitalism in Russia", Selected Works, 12-vol. edition, vol. I, p. 223.) The process of formation of the home market bore a two-fold character. On the one hand, the bourgeoisie of town and country presented a demand for means of production: improved implements of labour, machines, raw materials, etc., needed to extend the existing capitalist enterprises and build new ones. The bourgeoisie's demand for consumer goods increased. On the other hand, the increase in the numbers of the industrial and agricultural proletariat, inseparably connected with' the disintegration of the peasantry, was accompanied by an increase in the demand for commodities serving as means of subsistence for the workers. Manufacture, based as it was on primitive technique and hand labour, was not in a position to satisfy the growing demand for industrial commodities. The economic necessity arose to pass over to large-scale machine production. BRIEF CONCLUSIONS
(1) Capitalist simple co-operation is a form of production based on exploitation by a particular capitalist of a more or less substantial number of simultaneously-employed wageworkers who all carry out work of the same kind. Capitalist simple co-operation secured economy in means of production, created a new social productive force of labour, reduced the expenditure of labour per unit of production. The results of the growth in the productive power of social labour were appropriated by the capitalists without compensation.
(2) Manufacture is large-scale capitalist production based on hand technique and division of labour among wage-workers. The division of labour under manufacture considerably enhanced the productivity of labour, while at the same time mutilating the wage-worker by dooming him to an extremely one-sided development. Manufacture created the necessary prerequisites for the transition to large-scale machine industry.
(3) The development of commodity production leads to disintegration of the peasantry. A small upper section of countryfolk pass into the ranks of the bourgeoisie, while a substantial section of the peasantry pass into the ranks of the proletariat-urban and rural; the poor grow in numbers; the broad intermediate stratum of middle peasants falls into ruin. The disintegration of the peasantry undermines the foundations of the work-payment system. The landlords increasingly pass over from labour-service economy to capitalist economy.
(4) The home market is formed by the very development of capitalism. Extension of the home market signifies an increase in the demand for means of production and for means of subsistence. Manufacture, based on backward technique and hand labour, was not in a position to satisfy the demand for industrially produced commodities presented by the growing market. The need arose to pass on to machine industry.
The Machine Period of Capitalism
Transition from Manufacture to Machine Industry
So long as production remained based on hand labour, as was the case in the period of manufacture, capitalism could not achieve a radical revolution in the economic life of society. Such a transformation was effected with the transition from manufacture to machine industry, which began to take place in the last third of the eighteenth century and spread throughout the principal capitalist countries of Europe and the U.S.A. during the nineteenth century.
The material, technical foundation for the revolution was the machine.Every developed machine consists of three parts: (1) the motor mechanism, (2) the transmitting mechanism, (3) the working machine.
The motor mechanism acts as the moving force of the entire mechanism. It either generates the driving power itself (e.g., the steam engine), or obtains it from outside, from some available force of nature" (e.g., the water-wheel, moved by the force of falling water).
The transmitting mechanism consists of all kinds of devices (transmissions, cog-wheels, belts, electrical systems, etc.) which regulate movement, change its form where necessary (e.g., transforming a straight-line movement into a circular one), distribute it and transfer it to the working machine. Like the motor mechanisms, the transmitting mechanism serves to set the working machine in motion.
The working machine acts directly on the object of labour and produces the changes needed in it in accordance with a defined aim. If the working machine is examined more closely there will be found in it, albeit often in very altered forms, the same tools on the whole as are used in hand work. But in every case these are not hand-work tools any more, they are toolmechanisms, mechanical tools. The working machine was the point of departure of the revolution which led to the replacement of manufacture by machine production. After mechanical tools had been invented radical changes were introduced in the construction of the driving and transmitting mechanisms.
In its insatiable pursuit of profit capital acquired in the machine a mighty means of increasing the productivity of labour. First, the use of machines, which put a multitude of tools into operation simultaneously, freed the production process from the narrow limits imposed by the limitations of the human limbs. Second, the use of machines provided for the first time the possibility of employing in production tremendous new sources of energy-the motive power of steam, gas and electricity. Third, the use of machines enabled capital to place science at the service of production, extending the power of man over nature and revealing ever new possibilities of raising the productivity of labour. On the basis of large-scale industry the domination of the capitalist mode of production was consolidated. In large-scale machine industry capitalism found Its appropriate material and technical foundation.
The Industrial Revolution
Large-scale machine industry began in Britain. Favourable historical conditions had been formed in that country for a rapid development of the capitalist mode of production: the early abolition of serfdom and ending of feudal disunity, the victory of the bourgeois revolution in the seventeenth century, the forcible dispossession of the peasantry, and also the accumulation of capital by way of an extensive development of trade and of the plundering of colonies.
In the middle of the eighteenth century Britain was the country with the largest number of manufactories. The most important branch of industry was textile production. It was in this industry that the industrial revolution began which took place in Britain in the course of the last third of the eighteenth century and the first quarter of the nineteenth.
The extension of the market and the capitalists' striving for profit made necessary an improvement in technique of production. In the cotton industry, which was developing more rapidly than other branches, hand labour predominated. The principal operations in the cotton industry are spinning and weaving. The product of the spinners' work serves as the material of the weavers' work. The increase in the demand for cotton Cloth pressed in the first place on the technique of weaving: in 1733 the flying shuttle was invented, which doubled the productivity of the weaver's labour. This led to spinning lagging behind weaving. In the manufactories the looms often stood idle for lack of yarn. An urgent need to improve spinning technique arose.
This task was solved by means of the invention (in 1765-7) of spinning machines, each of which had fifteen to twenty spindles. The driving power of the first machines was at first provided by human beings or draught animals, but later machines appeared which were operated by water power. Further technical improvement led not only to an increase in the amount of yarn produced but also to improvement in its quality. At the end of the eighteenth century there were already in existence spinning machines with up to 400 spindles. As a result of these inventions the productivity of labour in spinning greatly increased.
There now arose in the textile industry another discrepancy: spinning had outstripped weaving. This discrepancy was overcome by the invention in 1785 of a mechanical loom. After a number of improvements the mechanical loom was introduced on a wide scale in Britain, and by the 1840's had completely ousted hand-weaving. The processes of working up cloth-bleaching, dyeing, printing-also underwent radical changes. The application of chemistry shortened the time taken by these processes and improved the quality of the product.
The first textile factories were built on the banks of rivers and the machines were driven by means of water-wheels. This greatly restricted the possibility of using machine technique. A new kind of prime mover was needed which was not dependent on a particular place or season. Such a prime mover was the steam engine.
The steam engine was invented in its primary form as far back as the manufacturing period, and from 1711 to 1712 was in use in the English mining industry in the form of a pump for extracting water from mines. The industrial revolution in England gave rise to a demand for a universal steam engine. This task was accomplished in England in the 1780's through the perfecting of the steam engine already in existence.
The introduction of the steam engine was of enormous importance. The steam engine was a prime mover of universal significance, free from the numerous shortcomings inherent in a water-driven engine. Using coal and water, the steam engine produces a motive force which is wholly under man's control. This machine is movable; it frees industry from its attachment to natural sources of power and makes it possible to concentrate' industry in any place desired.
The steam engine became widespread not only in Britain but also beyond its bounds, creating the prerequisites for the appearance of large-scale factories with many machines and a large number of workers.
Machines revolutionised production in all branches of industry. Not only did they seize hold of cotton production, they also came to be used in the woollen, linen and silk industries as well. Means were quickly found of using steam engines in transport: in 1807 the first steamboat was built in the U.S.A., and in 1825 in Britain the first railway was built.
At first machines were produced in manufactories by means of hand labour. They were expensive and were insufficiently powerful and precise. The manufactories could not produce such a quantity of machines as was required by rapidly-growing industry. This task was solved by going over to production of machines by machines. There arose a new, rapidly-developing branch of industry-engineering. The first machines were made mostly of wood. Later the wooden parts of machines were replaced by metal ones. The replacement of wood by metal, which increased the longevity and durability of machines, revealed the possibility of working at such speed and with such intensity as previously had been unthinkable. At the beginning of the nineteenth century there were invented mechanical hammers, presses and metal-working lathes : first turners' lathes, then milling and boring-machines.
For the production of machines, locomotives rails and steam-ships an enormous quantity of iron and steel was needed. Metallurgy began to develop quickly. Of great importance in the development of metallurgy was the discovery of a method of smelting iron ore with mineral fuel instead of with charcoal. The blast-furnace was increasingly improved. In the 1830's cold blast began to be replaced by hot, which quickened the blast process and gave a large saving of fuel. New, improved methods of smelting steel were discovered.
The spread of the steam engine and the growth of metallurgy created a need for enormous quantities of coal, which led to a rapid growth of the coal industry.
As a result of the industrial revolution Britain was transformed into the industrial workshop of the world. After Britain, machine production spread in other countries of Europe and in America.
The industrial revolution in France took place in the course of the few decades immediately following the bourgeois revolution of 1789-94. The capitalist factory became predominant in French industry only in the second half of the nineteenth century:
In Germany, owing to its feudal disunity and the continued survival of relations originating in serfdom, the industrial revolution took place later than in Britain and France. Large-scale industry began to develop in Germany only from the 1840's onward and advanced especially quickly after the unification of Germany into a single State in 1871.
In the U.S.A. large-scale industry arose at the beginning of the nineteenth century. American machine industry began to develop rapidly after the Civil War of 1861-5. When this happened the technical achievements of British industry were widely drawn upon, together with an influx of surplus capital and of cadres of skilled workers from Europe.
In Russia the transition from manufacture to the machine stage of production began before the abolition of serfdom, but developed to its full extent in the first decades after the Reform of 1861. However, even after the fall of serfdom numerous survivals of the feudal-serf-owning system in the country hindered the transition of industry from hand to machine production. This circumstance affected to an especially striking extent the mining industry of the Urals.
Capitalist Industrialisation
The industrial revolution marked the beginning of capitalist industrialisation. The basis of industrialisation is heavy industry, the production of the means of production.
Capitalist industrialisation takes place spontaneously, in response to the capitalists' drive for profit. The development of large-scale capitalist industry usually begins with the development of light industry, i.e., the branches producing consumer goods. These branches require a smaller investment of resources and capital circulates faster in them than in heavy industry, i.e., in the branches producing means of production-machines, metals, fuel. Heavy industry begins to be developed only at the end of a more or less long period of time during which light industry piles up profits. These profits are gradually pumped into heavy industry. Thus capitalist industrialisation is a process which takes many decades.
In Britain, for example, the textile industry for a long time remained the most developed branch of industry. In the second half of the century heavy industry began to play the predominant role. The same order of succession in the development of branches of industry occurred in the other capitalist countries too.
In the second half of the nineteenth century metallurgy continued to develop; the technique of smelting metal improved, the size of blast-furnaces increased. The production of pig-iron grew. In Britain the production of pig-iron increased from 193,000 tons in 1800 to 2,285,000 tons in 1850, 6,059,000 tons in 1870 and 7,873,000 tons in 1880. In the U.S.A. it grew from 41,000 tons in 1800 to 573,000 tons in 1850, 1,692,000 tons in 1870 and 3,897,000 tons in 1880.
Down to the last third of the nineteenth century the steam engine remained the only kind of engine used in large-scale industry and transport. Steam played a very great role in the development of machine industry. Throughout the nineteenth century further improvement of the steam engine continued; the capacity of steam-driven machines increased and also the degree of utilisation of heat energy. In the 1880's the steam turbine came into being. Thanks to its advantages it began to oust the steam engine from a number of branches.
However, the more large-scale industry grew, the more rapidly did the inadequacy of steam as a motive force become apparent. A new kind of mover was invented-the internal combustion engine, at first using gas (1877), and then an engine working on liquid fuel, the diesel (1893). In the last third of the nineteenth century a new and powerful force appeared in the arena of economic life, which revolutionised production still more-electricity.
In the nineteenth century machine technique laid hold of one branch of industry after another. The mining industry-extraction of ores and of coal developed. In connection with the invention of the internal combustion engine the extraction of petroleum increased. The chemical industry underwent extensive development. The rapid growth of large-scale machine industry was accompanied by intense building of railways.
Capitalist industrialisation is brought about both by means of the exploitation of the wage-workers and the ruin of the peasantry of the country concerned and also by means of the plundering of the working people of other lands, especially colonies. It leads inevitably to a sharpening of the contradictions of capitalism, to the impoverishment of millions of workers, peasants and craftsmen.
History has seen various paths of capitalist industrialisation. The first path of capitalist industrialisation is the path of conquest and plunder of colonies. That was how Britain's industry developed. Having conquered colonies in all parts of the world, Britain pumped enormous profits out of them for two centuries and invested the profits in her own industry.
The second path is the path of war and the imposing of indemnities by victor countries on defeated countries. Thus Germany, after defeating France in the Franco-Prussian War, obliged her to pay five thousand million francs as indemnity and invested these in her own industry.
The third path is the path of enslaving concessions and loans, which lead to the economic and political dependence of backward countries upon the capitalistically developed countries. Tsarist Russia, for example, granted concessions and obtained loans from the Western Powers on extortionate terms, endeavouring in this way to advance gradually along the path of industrialisation.
In the history of various countries these different paths of capitalist industrialisation were often interwoven and supplemented each other. The history of the economic development of the U.S.A. offers an example. The large-scale industry of the U.S.A. was created with the aid of foreign loans and long-term credits, and also by way of unrestrained plundering of the indigenous population of America.
Despite the development of machine industry in the bourgeois countries, a very great part of the population of the capitalist world continues to live and work under conditions in which primitive hand technique predominates.
Growth of Towns and Industrial Centres. Formation of the Class of Proletarians
Capitalist industrialisation caused a rapid growth of towns and industrial centres. The number of large towns in Europe (with populations exceeding 100,000) increased sevenfold during the nineteenth century. The proportion of the urban population grew unceasingly at the expense of the agricultural population. In Britain as early as the middle of the nineteenth century and in Germany by about the beginning of the twentieth century, more than half of the entire population was concentrated in towns.
In the period of capitalist manufacture, the masses of wageworkers did not yet represent a settled class of proletarians. The workers in the manufactories were relatively few and to a considerable degree they were connected with agriculture dispersed among a multitude of small workshops and kept apart by all sorts of narrow craft interests.
As a result of the industrial revolution and the further development of machine industry an industrial proletariat was formed in the capitalist countries. The working class grew rapidly in numbers, its ranks being continually reinforced from those of the peasantry and craftsmen who were being ruined. With the growth of large-scale machine-industry the local, craft and caste interests and prejudices of the earliest generations of workers were gradually outlived, along with their utopian aspirations to get back to the lost position of the medieval craftsman. The mass of workers were welded into a single class, the proletariat. Describing the formation of the proletariat as a class, Engels wrote:
"Only, the development of capitalist production, modern industry and agriculture on a large scale, gave continuity to its existence, enlarged its numbers and formed it as a special class with special interests and with a special historical mission." Engels, The Workers' Movement in America", Marx and Engels, Works, Russian edition, vol. XVI, Pt. 1, p. 287.)
In Britain the number of the workers in industry and transport in the second decade of the nineteenth century amounted to about two millions; during the ensuing hundred years the number grew more than threefold.
In France the workers in industry and transport in the 1860's numbered about two millions, but at the beginning of the twentieth century there were nearly 3,800,000.
In the U.S.A. the number of workers in industry and transport amounted in 1859 to 1,800,000 and in 1899 to 6,800,000. In Germany the number of workers in industry and transport grew from 700,000 in 1848 to 5 millions in 1895.
In Russia after the abolition of serfdom the process of forming a working class went forward rapidly. In 1865,706,000 workers were employed in large factories and works, in mining and on the railways in 1890 they numbered 1,433,000. Thus, the number of workers in large-scale capitalist enterprises more than doubled in twenty-five years. Towards the end of the 1890's the number of workers in large factories and works, in mining and on the railways had reached 2,207,000 in fifty provinces of European Russia, and in Russia as a whole had reached 2,792,000.
The Capitalist Factory. The Machine as a means whereby Capital exploits Wage Labour
The capitalist factory is a large-scale industrial enterprise based on the exploitation of wage-workers and using a system of machinery for the production of commodities.
A system of machinery is an aggregate of working machines which simultaneously carry out uniform production operations (e.g., looms of the same type), or an aggregate of working machines which, though of different kinds, are complementary to each other. A system of machinery of different kinds means a combination of detail-working machines, based on a distribution of production operations amongst them. Each detail machine supplies work to another machine. The machines operate simultaneously, the product continuously going through different stages of the production process and passing from one phase of production to another.
The introduction of machines ensures a tremendous growth in the productivity of labour and reduction in the value of commodities. The machine makes it possible to produce the same number of commodities with very much less expenditure of labour, or to produce with the same expenditure of labour a considerably larger number of commodities.
In the nineteenth century the working-up of a given quantity of cotton into yarn, using a machine, required only 1-180th of the labour-time taken when a hand-operated spinning wheel was used. Using a machine one adult or adolescent worker could in one hour print as many four-coloured chintzes as previously, by hand labour, could be printed by 200 adult workers. In the eighteenth century, under the manufacturing division of labour, a worker made 4,800 needles a day; in the nineteenth century one worker, operating four machines at once, produced up to 600,000 needles a day.
Under the capitalist mode of production all the advantages of introducing machines are appropriated by the owners of these machines, the capitalists, whose profits grow.
The factory is the highest form of capitalist co-operation. Capitalist cooperation, as joint work carried out on a relatively large scale, makes necessary a special function of management, supervision, co-ordination of the separate jobs. In a capitalist enterprise the function of management belongs to the capitalist and has specific features which figure at the same time as functions of exploitation of the wage-workers by capital. The capitalist is not a capitalist because he manages an industrial enterprise; on the contrary, he becomes the manager of an enterprise because he is a capitalist.
Already under simple capitalist co-operation the capitalist freed himself from physical work. With the growth in the scale of co-operation of labour he frees himself also from the function of direct and constant supervision of his workers. He transfers these functions to a special category of wage-workers managers and foremen-who give orders in the enterprise in the capitalist's name. By its very nature, capitalist management is despotic."
With the transition to the factory the creation by capital of a special capitalist labour-discipline is complete. Capitalist labour-discipline is the discipline of hunger. Under it, the worker lives constantly under the threat of dismissal from the factory, in fear of finding himself in the ranks of the unemployed. Barrack discipline is characteristic of the capitalist factory.
Workers are punished by means of money fines and deductions from their wages.1
In itself the machine is a mighty means of lightening labour and enhancing its productivity. Under capitalism, however, the machine serves as a means of intensifying the exploitation of wage-labour.
From its very first introduction the machine became a competitor with the worker. The capitalist rise of machines first and foremost deprives of their livelihood tens and hundreds of thousands of hand workers, who became redundant. For example, when steam-operated looms were installed on a large scale, 800,000 English and Scotch weavers were thrown on to the street. Millions of weavers were condemned to hunger and death in India because Indian hand-produced cloth could not stand up to the competition of British machine-made cloth. In consequence of the increasing use of machines and their increasing improvement, more and more wage-workers are ousted by machines and thrown out of the capitalist factories on to the streets, filling the ranks of the growing army of unemployed. The machine simplifies the production process and makes superfluous the use of great muscular strength by the worker. For this reason, with the transition to machine technique, capital extensively draws women and children into production. The capitalist obliges them to work under hard conditions and for wretchedly small pay. This results in a high level of child mortality in working-class families and the physical and moral crippling of women and children.
The machine opens up extensive possibilities of reducing the labour-time needed for the production of a commodity and so of shortening the working day. Under capitalism, however, it is used as a means of lengthening the working day. In the pursuit of gain the capitalist tries to use his machines to the full. First, the longer a machine is in paying use during a working day, the sooner he recovers its cost. Second, the longer the working day and the more fully the machine is used, the less danger there is that the machine will become technically obsolete and that other capitalists will succeed in adopting better or cheaper machines and so place themselves in more advantageous conditions of production. The capitalist strives therefore to lengthen the working day to its maximum.
In the capitalists' hands the machine is used to pump more labour out of the worker during a given period of time. The excessive intensity of labour, overcrowding in the factory premises, the inadequacy of air and light, the absence of measures necessary for ensuring safety at work lead to mass incidence of occupational diseases among workers, the undermining of their health and the shortening of their lives.
Machine technique opens up a wide field for the utilisation of science in the production process and for making labour more intelligent and creative. Capitalist use of machines, however, leads to the worker becoming transformed into an appendage to the machine. To the worker's lot falls only monotonous and exhausting physical work. Mental work becomes the privilege of certain special workers: engineers, technicians, scientists. Science serves capital. The antagonism between physical and mental labour continually deepens.
The machine signifies in itself a strengthening of man's power over the forces of nature. By raising the productivity of labour the machine increases society's wealth. But this wealth is taken by the capitalists, and the position of the working class, the principal productive force of society, continually worsens. Marx showed in Capital that it is not machines themselves that are the enemies of the working class but the capitalist social order under which they are used. He wrote that :
"machinery, considered alone, shortens the hours of labour, but, when in the service of capital, lengthens them; in itself it lightens labour, but when employed by capital, heightens the intensity of labour; in itself it is a victory of man over the forces of nature, but in the hands of capital, makes man the slave of these forces; in itself it increases the wealth of the producers, but in the hands of capital makes them paupers." (Marx, Capital, Kerr edition, vol. I, p. 482.)
From the very first rise of capitalist relations there began the class struggle between the wage-workers and the capitalists. It went on during the whole of the period of manufacture and with the transition to machine production assumed large dimensions and unprecedented sharpness.
The way in which the as yet immature labour movement expressed its protest against the baneful effects of the capitalist use of machine technique was to try to destroy the machines. The first cloth-shearing machine, invented in 1758, was set on fire by workers whom the introduction of this machine had put out of work. At the beginning of the nineteenth century an extensive "machine-wrecking" movement developed in the industrial areas of Britain, directed first and foremost against the steam-driven looms. The working class needed a certain amount of time and experience to understand that the oppression and poverty under which it suffered were due not to the machines themselves but to the use made of them by the capitalists.
The capitalists made extensive use of the machine as a potent weapon for putting down the periodical workers' outbreaks, strikes, etc., directed against the dictatorship of capital. After 1830 a substantial number of inventions were evoked in Britain directly by the requirements of the class struggle of the capitalists against the workers, the endeavour being made by the capitalists, through reducing the number of workers employed and using labour which was less' skilled, to break the resistance of the workers to their oppression by capital.
Thus the capitalist use of machines causes a, worsening in the position of the workers and a sharpening in the class contradictions between capital and labour.
Large-scale Industry and Agriculture
The development of large-scale industry led to machines beginning to be introduced in agriculture as well. One of the weightiest advantages of largescale agricultural production is that it makes possible the use of machines.
Machines increase the productivity of labour in agriculture to an enormous extent. They are, however, beyond the resources of the petty peasant economy, for the purchase of machines demands a substantial outlay. In addition, the machine can be used effectively over large cultivated areas, for introducing industrial crops, etc. In large-scale economy based on machine technique the expenditure of labour per unit of production is markedly less than in petty peasant economy based on backward technique and hand labour. Consequently, petty peasant economy cannot stand up to the competition of large-scale capitalist economy.
The widespread use of agricultural machinery under conditions of capitalism hastens the process of differentiation among the peasantry. "The systematic employment of machinery in agriculture squeezes out the patriarchal 'middle' peasant as inexorably as the steam-driven loom squeezes out the hand-loom weaver." (Lenin, "Development of Capitalism in Russia", Selected Works, 12- vol. edition, vol. 1, p. 274.) Capitalism, in elevating the technique of agriculture and advancing it, ruins the mass of petty producers. Yet hired labour-power is so cheap in agriculture that many large-scale estates do not use machines but prefer to use hand labour. This hinders the development of machine technique in agricultural production.
Capitalist use of machines in agriculture is inevitably accompanied by intensified exploitation of the agricultural proletariat through raising the intensity of work. For instance, a kind of reaping machine which was widely used in its time was called "the brow-warmer" because working with it demanded great physical exertion.
In the machine period of capitalism the separation of industry from agriculture is completed and the antithesis between town and country deepened and made more acute. Under capitalism agriculture increasingly lags behind industry in its development. Lenin declared that the agriculture of the capitalist countries at the beginning of the twentieth century was at about the stage of manufacture so far as its technical and economic level was concerned.
Under capitalism the introduction of machine technique in agriculture proceeds much more slowly than in industry. While the steam engine made possible fundamental technical transformations in industry, in agriculture it was used only in the form of the steam-driven threshing machine. In the comprehensive mechanical thresher were later combined the threshing, cleaning and sorting of the grain. Only in the last quarter of the nineteenth century were horse-drawn machines -for grain-harvesting-harvester-binders brought into wide use. The caterpillar tractor was invented as far back as the 1880's and the wheeled tractor at the beginning of the twentieth, but the more or less extensive employment of the tractor on large capitalist farms began only in the 1920'S, mainly in the U.S.A.
Down to the present day the basic motive power in the agriculture of the majority of capitalist countries is provided by draught animals, and the implements with which the soil is worked are the horse-drawn plough, harrow and cultivator.
Capitalist Socialisation of Labour and Production. Limits to the Use of Machines under Capitalism
On the basis of machine technique great progress was achieved under capitalism in the development of the productive forces of society as compared with the feudal mode of production. The machine was a revolutionary force which transformed society.
"The transition from manufacture to the factory marks a complete technical revolution, which eliminates the age-old skill of the handicraftsman, and this technical revolution is followed by an extremely sharp change in the social relations in production, by a final rupture between the various groups taking part in production, a complete rupture with tradition, the intensification and expansion of all the gloomy sides of capitalism, and at the same time the mass socialisation of labour by capitalism. Thus, large-scale machine industry is the last word of capitalism, the last word of its negative and 'positive' aspects." (Lenin, "Development of Capitalism in Russia", Selected Works, 12-vol. edition, vol. 1, p. 303.)
On the basis of large-scale machine industry a spontaneous process of extensive socialisation of labour by capital is accomplished.
First, as a result of the use of machines industrial production is more and more concentrated in large-scale enterprises. The machine itself requires the joint labour of many workers.
Second, a further development takes place under capitalism in the social division of labour. The number of branches of industry and agriculture is increased. At the same time the separate branches and enterprises become even more dependent one upon another. With this extensive specialisation of branches a factory-owner producing, for example, cloth, becomes directly dependent on a factory-owner producing yarn, the latter upon a capitalist who produces cotton, an owner of an engineering works, of collieries, etc.
Third, the disunity of petty economic units characteristic of natural economy disappears, and the petty local markets become fused in a vast national and world market.
Fourth, capitalism with its machine technique does away with the various forms of personal dependence affecting the worker. The basis of production becomes free hired labour. Greater mobility of the population is brought about, which guarantees an unfailing supply of labour-power to the growing branches of industry.
Fifth, with the spread of machine production a great number of industrial centres and large towns arise. Society is more and more split into two basic antagonistic classes-the class of capitalists and the class of wage-workers.
The socialisation of labour and production, for which machine technique served as the foundation, was a notable step forward in the progressive development of society. But the selfish interests of the capitalists, avid for profits, set a definite limit to the development of the productive forces. From the social standpoint it is advantageous to use a machine if the labour which it costs to produce the machine is less than the labour which will be saved by using it, and also if the machine lightens labour. But for the capitalist neither economising social labour nor lightening the worker's labour means anything; all' he cares about is economising on wages. The limit to the use of machines is therefore for the capitalist a narrower one. It is set by the difference between the price of the machine and the wages of the workers displaced by it. The lower the wages of the workers the weaker the incentive to the capitalist to introduce machinery. Therefore hand labour is still widely used to this day in the industry of capitalist countries.
Large-scale machine industry sharpened the competitive struggle between the capitalists and intensified the spontaneity and anarchy of all social production. Capitalist use of machines brought about not only a rapid development of the productive forces of society but also an unprecedented growth in the oppression of labour by capital and sharpening of all the contradictions of the capitalist mode of production.
Brief Conclusions
(1) The transition from manufacture to large-scale machine industry meant an industrial revolution. Of very great importance for the transition to machine industry were: the invention of the steam engine, improvement in the method of smelting metal, and the making of machines to produce machines. The machine conquered one province' of the production of commodities after another.
(2) With the growth of capitalism there took place the process of capitalist industrialisation of the most important countries of Europe and America. Capitalist industrialisation begins as a rule with the development of light industry. In the industrialisation of capitalist countries a big role is played by the plundering of colonies and conquered countries and also the obtaining of loans on extortionate terms. Capitalist industrialisation is based on the exploitation of wage-labour and intensifies the ruining of the broad masses of peasants and craftsmen. It leads to a further growth in the social division of labour, completes the separation of industry from agriculture, and makes more acute the antithesis between town and country.
(3) The capitalist factory is a large-scale enterprise, based upon exploitation of wage-workers and employment of a system of machines for producing commodities. Management in the capitalist factory is despotic in character. In capitalist society the use of machines is accompanied by increasingly burdensome labour of the wage-worker, his intensified exploitation and the drawing into production of women and children, who are paid extremely low wages.
Capitalist machine production completes the process of separating mental labour from physical and sharpens the antithesis between them.
(4) The development of large-scale machine industry leads to the growth of cities, to an increase in the urban population at the expense of the rural, to the formation of a class of wage-workers (the proletariat), and to growth in the numbers of the latter. The introduction of machinery into agriculture is an advantage for large-scale production. It leads to raising the productivity of labour and hastens, the process of disintegration of the peasantry. Under capitalism agriculture lags further and further behind industry, and this deepens the antithesis between town and country.
(5) Large-scale machine industry plays a progressive role in history, leads to the growth of the productivity of labour and to the socialisation of labour by capital. The limits to the use of machinery by the capitalists are set by the fact that capitalists introduce machinery only where its price is less than the wages of the workers displaced by it.
Capital and Surplus-Value. The Basic Economic Law of Capitalism
The Basis of Production Relations in the Capitalist System
With the transition from manufacture to large-scale machine industry the capitalist mode of production became predominant. In industry, in place of craft workshops and manufactories based on hand labour, factories and works appeared in which labour was equipped with complicated machinery. Largescale capitalist farms began to arise in agriculture, using comparatively developed agronomical technique and agricultural machinery. New techniques developed, new productive forms came into being, and new capitalist production-relations became predominant. An investigation of the productionrelations of capitalist society in their rise, development and decline makes up the principal content of Marx's Capital.
The basis of the production-relations of bourgeois society is capitalist property in the means of production. Capitalist property in the means of production means the private property of the capitalists, not derived from their own labour, and used for exploitation of wage-workers. In Marx's classic definition,
"the capitalist mode of production rests on the fact that the material conditions of production are in the hands of non-workers in the form of property in capital and land, while the masses are only owners of the personal conditions of production, of labour-power". (Marx, "Critique of the Gotha Programme", Marx and Engels, Selected Works, 1950, English edition, vol. II, p. 23.)
Capitalist production is based on wage-labour. Wageworkers are free from the ties of serfdom. But they are deprived of the means of production and compelled under threat of starvation to sell their labour-power to the capitalists. The exploitation of the proletariat by the bourgeoisie is the main feature of capitalism, and the relationship between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat is the fundamental class relationship of the capitalist system.
In countries where the capitalist mode of production prevails, alongside capitalist forms of economy more or less substantial survivals of pre-capitalist forms of economy have been preserved. "Pure capitalism" does not exist anywhere. Besides capitalist property there also exist in bourgeois countries the large-scale landed property of the landlords, together with the petty private property of simple commodity producers, peasants and craftsmen, who live by their own labour. Petty production plays a subordinate role under capitalism. The mass of petty commodity producers of town and country are exploited by the capitalists and landlords who own the factories and works, the banks, commercial institutions and the land.
The capitalist mode of production passes through two stages in its development: pre-monopoly and monopoly. The general economic laws of capitalism operate in both stages of its development. At the same time, monopoly capitalism is distinguished by a whole series of important special features, of which more later.
Let us now pass to examining the essential nature of capitalist exploitation.
Transformation of Money into Capital
Each unit of capital begins its career in the form of a certain sum of money.
Money does not in itself constitute capital. When, for instance, independent petty commodity producers exchange their commodities, money plays its part as a circulation medium but does not serve as capital. The formula of commodity circulation is: C (commodity)-M (money)-C (commodity), i.e., the selling of one commodity in order to buy another. Money becomes capital when it is used to exploit the labour of others. The general formula of capital is M-CM, i.e., buying in order to sell so as to make money.
The formula C-M-C means that one use-value is exchanged for another: a commodity producer hands over a commodity which he does not need and receives in exchange another commodity which he needs for use. The purpose of the circulation process is a use-value. In the formula M-C-M, on the contrary, the starting and finishing points of the movement coincide: at the beginning of the process the capitalist had money and at the end of it he has money. The movement of capital would be pointless if at the end of the process the capitalist had the same amount of money as at the beginning. The whole sense of the capitalist's activity is that as the result of the operation he has more money than he had at the beginning. The purpose of the circulation process is an increase in value. Therefore the general formula of capital in its full form is: M-C-M', with M' standing for an increased amount of money.
Capital advanced by a capitalist, i.e., put into circulation by him, returns to its owner with a certain increment.
What is the source of this growth of capital? Bourgeois economists, in their endeavour to hide the true source of money-making by the capitalists, often assert that this increment comes about in the process of commodity circulation. This assertion is unsound. Consider the facts. If commodities and money of equal value, i.e., equivalents, are exchanged, none of the commodity owners can derive from circulation any value greater than that which is embodied in his own commodity. If sellers succeed in selling their commodities above their value, by 10 per cent, say, when they become buyers they have to pay back this 10 per cent to the sellers. Thus, what the commodity owners gain as sellers they lose as buyers. Yet in actual fact increments to capital are secured by the whole class of capitalists. Evidently, the owner of money, in order to become a capitalist, must find on the market a commodity which when consumed creates its own value and something over besides, more than it possesses itself. In other words, the owner of money must find on the market a commodity the use-value of which possesses the property of being a source of value. This commodity is labour-power.
Labour-power as a Commodity. Value and Use-value of the Commodity Labour-power
Labour-power, as the aggregate of physical and mental qualities of which a person disposes and which he puts into action whenever he produces material wealth, is a necessary element of production in any form of society. Only under capitalism, however, does labour-power become a commodity.
Capitalism is commodity production at the highest stage of its development, when labour-power too becomes a commodity. With the transformation of labour-power into a commodity, commodity production takes on a universal character. Capitalist production is based on wage-labour, and the hiring of a worker by a capitalist is nothing else than the buying and selling of the commodity labour-power: the worker sells his labour-power and the capitalist buys it.
When he has hired a worker, a capitalist has the worker's labour-power at his free disposal. The capitalist uses this labour-power in the process of production; and that is where the increment to capital takes place.
Like every other commodity, labour-power is sold at a definite price, which is based upon its value. What is this value?
For the worker to retain his ability to work he must satisfy his need for food, clothing, footwear and housing. Satisfaction of these necessary vital requirements means restoring the vital energy-of muscles, nerves and brains which the worker has expended and putting him once more in a fit state to work. Furthermore, capital needs a constant flow of labour-power; for this reason the worker must be able to maintain not only himself but also his family. In this way the reproduction, i.e., the continuous renewal, of labour-power is ensured. Finally, capital needs not only unskilled but also skilled workers, able to handle complex machinery, while the acquisition of skill involves a certain outlay of labour on training. For this reason the expenses of producing and reproducing labour-power also include a definite minimum of expenditure on the training of the rising generations of the working class.
It follows from the above that the value of labour-power as a commodity is equal to the value of the means of existence which are necessary for the maintenance of the worker and his family. "The value of labour-power is determined as in the case of every other commodity, by the labour-time necessary for the production, and consequently, also the reproduction of this special article." (Marx, Capital, Kerr edition, vol. 1, p. 189)
In the course of the historical development of society both the level of worker's customary requirements and also the means needed to satisfy these requirements have undergone changes. The level of a worker's customary requirements varies from country to country. The special features of the historical path followed by a given country and the conditions in which the class of wage-workers was formed have much to do with determining the nature of these requirements. Climatic and other natural conditions also have a certain bearing on the workers' requirements in respect of food, clothing and shelter. The value of labour-power includes not only the value of the consumer goods needed to restore the physical strength of the worker but also the cost of satisfying certain cultural requirements of himself and his family, engendered by the very conditions of society in which the workers live and are brought up (education of children, purchase of newspapers and books, visits to the cinema and the theatre, etc.). The capitalists try, all the time and everywhere, to reduce the material and cultural conditions of the working class to the lowest possible level.
When he begins in business, a capitalist buys everything that he needs for production: buildings, machinery, equipment, raw materials, fuel. Then he engages workers, and the production-process commences in the enterprise which he owns. When the commodity is ready, the capitalist sells it. The value of the finished commodity comprises: first, the value of the means of production expended (the raw material worked up, the fuel used, a certain part of the value of the buildings, machinery and tools); second, the new value created by the workers in the enterprise itself.
What does this new value consist of?
The capitalist mode of production presupposes a comparatively high level of productivity of labour, under which the worker needs only part of the working day to create value equal to the value of his labour-power. Let us suppose that one hour of simple average labour creates value equivalent to one dollar and the daily value of labour-power is equivalent to six dollars. In this case the worker, so as to pay for the daily value of his labour-power, would have to work six hours~ But the capitalist has bought his labour-power for the whole day, and he compels the worker to work not six hours but for an entire working day, lasting, say, twelve hours. During these twelve hours the worker creates value equivalent to twelve dollars, even though the value of his labour-power is equivalent only to six dollars.
We now see what the specific use-value of the commodity labour-power consists of for the person who buys it-the capitalist. The use-value of the commodity labour-power is its capacity to be the source of value, and withal, of more than it possesses itself.
The Production of Surplus-Value-Basic Economic Law of Capitalism
The value of labour-power and the value which is created in the process of using it are, in fact, two quite distinct magnitudes. The difference which exists between these magnitudes is the necessary prerequisite for capitalist exploitation.
In our example, the capitalist, who has spent 6 dollars on hiring workers, obtains value created by their labour which is equivalent to 12 dollars. The capitalist recovers the capital which he originally advanced plus an increment or surplus equivalent to 6 dollars. It is this increment that constitutes surplus-value.
Surplus-value is the value created by the labour of a wage-worker over and above the value of his labour-power and appropriated by the capitalist without payment. Thus, surplus labour is the result of the worker's unpaid labour.
The working day in a capitalist enterprise is divided into two parts : necessary labour-time and surplus labour-time, and the labour of the wageworker into necessary and surplus labour. During the necessary labour-time the worker reproduces the value of his labour-power, and during the surplus labour- time he creates surplus-value.
A worker's labour, under capitalism, is a process of use by the capitalist of the commodity labour-power, or a process of extraction of surplus-value from the worker by the capitalist. The labour-process is characterised, under capitalism, by two fundamental peculiarities. First, the worker works under the control of the capitalist to whom the worker's labour belongs. Second, not only does the worker's labour belong to the capitalist but also the product of this labour. These peculiarities of the labour-process transform the wage-worker's labour into a heavy and hateful burden.
The immediate aim of capitalist production is the production of surplus-value. In accordance with this, productive labour means under capitalism only such labour as creates surplus-value. If the worker does not create surplus-value, his work is unproductive work, useless for capital.
In contrast to the previous forms of exploitation-slave-owning and feudal-capitalist exploitation is masked. When the wage-worker sells his labour-power to the capitalist, this transaction appears at first sight to be an ordinary transaction between commodity owners, the usual exchange of a commodity against money, carried out in accord with the law of value. The transaction of buying and selling labour-power, however, is merely the outward form behind which is hidden the exploitation of the worker by the capitalist, the appropriation by the capitalist, without any equivalent, of the worker's unpaid labour.
In order to clarify the essential nature of capitalist exploitation we will suppose that the capitalist, when he engages the worker, pays him the full value of his labour-power, determined by the law of value. It will be shown later when we examine wages that, unlike the prices of other commodities, the price of labour-power, as a rule, diverges below its value. This circumstance still further increases the exploitation of the working class by the capitalist class.
Capitalism enables the wage-worker to work, and consequently to live, only in so far as for a certain amount of his time he works gratis for the capitalist. If he leaves one capitalist enterprise, the most favourable thing that can happen to the worker will be to find himself in another capitalist enterprise, where he will be subjected to the same exploitation. When he exposed the system of wage-labour as a system of wage-slavery, Marx pointed out that whereas the Roman slave was bound by chains, the wage-worker was bound by invisible threads to his owner. This owner is the capitalist class as a whole.
Surplus-value, created by the unpaid labour of wage-workers, constitutes the common source of the unearned incomes of the various groups of the bourgeois class: industrialists, traders and bankers-and also the class of landowners.
Production of surplus-value is the basic economic law of capitalism. Analysing capitalism, Marx wrote: "Production of surplus-value is, the absolute law of this mode of production." (Marx, Capital, Kerr edition, vol. 1, p. 678.)
The essential features of this law consist in the production of surplus-value on an ever-increasing scale and the appropriation of it by the capitalists on the basis of bourgeois ownership of the means of production by means of increasing exploitation of wage-labour and the extension of production.
Capital did not invent surplus labour. Wherever society consists of exploiters and exploited, the ruling class pumps surplus labour out of the exploited classes. But unlike the slave-owner and the feudalist, who in conditions where natural economy prevailed used the greater part of the product of the surplus labour of the slaves and serf-peasants for the direct satisfaction of their needs and whims, the capitalist transforms the whole of what his wage-workers produce into money. Part of this money the capitalist spends on buying consumer goods and luxury articles, the rest he invests again, as additional capital, to bring him in further surplus-value. This is why capital displays, in Marx's words, truly wolf-like greed for surplus labour.
The pursuit of surplus-value is the principal driving-force of the development of the productive forces under capitalism. None of the previous forms of society based on exploitation, neither slavery nor feudalism, possessed such a force, hastening forward the growth of technique.
Lenin called the doctrine of surplus-value the corner-stone of Marx's economic theory. By disclosing in his doctrine of surplus-value the essence of capitalist exploitation, Marx dealt a mortal blow to bourgeois political economy and its talk about the harmony of interests under capitalism, and gave the working class a spiritual weapon for overthrowing capitalism.
Capital as a Social Relation of Production. Constant and Variable Capital
Bourgeois economists call "capital" every instrument of labour and every means of production, beginning with the stones and sticks of primitive man. This definition of capital has the aim of concealing the essence of capitalist exploitation of the worker and of showing capital as some sort of eternal and unchanging condition for the existence of any human society.
In fact, the stones and sticks of primitive man served him as instruments of labour but were not capital. Neither are the tools and raw material of the handicraftsman capital, nor the Implements, seed and draught animals of the peasant who works his holding with his own labour. Means of production become capital only at a certain level of historical development, when they are the private property of a capitalist and serve as means of exploiting wagelabour. With the liquidation of the capitalist system the means of production pass into social ownership and cease to be capital. Thus, capital is not a thing but a social relationship of production which is historically transient in character.
Capital is value which, through the exploitation of wage-labour, brings in surplus-value. In Marx's words, capital is "dead labour, that vampire-like, only lives by sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks." (Marx, Capital, Kerr edition, vol. 1, p. 257.) Embodied in capital is the production-relationship between the class of capitalists and the working class, consisting in the fact that the capitalists as owners of the means and conditions of production exploit wageworkers who create surplus-value for them. This production-relationship, like all the other production-relations of capitalist society, takes the form of a relationship between things, and appears as if it were a property of things themselves-the means of production-to bring in an income for the capitalist.
This is what constitutes the fetishism of capital. Under the capitalist mode of production a deceptive appearance is created, as though the means of production (or a particular sum of money for which means of production can be bought), possess by themselves the miraculous property of providing their owner with a regular unearned income.
Different parts of capital play different roles in the process of producing surplus-value.
The entrepreneur spends a certain part of his capital on erecting a factory building, on purchasing equipment and machinery, on buying raw materials, fuel and auxiliary supplies. The value of this part of capital is transferred into the newly-produced commodity in proportion as the means of production are used up or worn out in the labour process. The part of capital which exists in the form of value of the means of production does not change its magnitude during the process of production, and is therefore called constant capital.
Another part of his capital is spent by the entrepreneur on the purchase of labour-power-on hiring workers. In return for this part of the capital which he lays out the entrepreneur receives at the end of the production process a new value which has been produced by the workers in his enterprise. This new value, as we have seen) is greater than the value of the labour-power bought by the capitalist. Thus that part of the capital which is spent on the hiring workers changes its magnitude in the production process: it grows as a result of the creation by the workers of surplus-value which is appropriated by the capitalist. The part of capital which is spent on the purchase of labour-power (i.e., on hiring workers) and grows in the process of production, is called variable capital.
Marx used the Latin letter "c" to signify constant capital and "v" to signify variable capital. It was Marx who first divided capital into its constant and variable parts. Through this division the special role played by variable capital employed in the purchase of labour-power was revealed. The exploitation of wage-workers by capitalists is the real source of surplus-value.
The discovery of the two-fold character of the labour embodied in a commodity provided Marx with the key for establishing the difference between constant and variable capital and exposing the essential nature of capitalist exploitation. Marx showed that the worker by his labour simultaneously creates new value and transfers the value of the means of production into the manufactured commodity. As a definite kind of concrete labour, the worker's labour transfers the value of the used-up means of production into his product; while as abstract labour, as expenditure of labour-power in general, the same worker's labour creates new value. These two aspects of the labour-process are distinguished quite tangibly. For example, when the productivity of labour in a particular branch of industry is doubled, a spinner transfers to his product during the course of a working day twice as much of the value of the means of production (because he works up a quantity of cotton twice as large), but he creates only the same amount of new value as before.
The Rate of Surplus-Value
The Rate of Surplus-Value The degree of exploitation of the worker by the capitalist is expressed in the rate of surplus-value.
The rate of surplus-value is the term used for the relation between the surplus-value and the variable capital, expressed as a percentage. The rate of surplus-value shows the proportions in which the labour expended by the worker is divided into necessary and surplus labour, or in other words, what part of the proletarian's working day is spent in replacing the value of his labour-power and what part of it he spends working gratis for the capitalist.
Marx used the Latin letter "s" to stand for surplus-value and "s"/v to stand for the rate of surplus-value. In the case quoted above the rate of surplus-value, expressed as a percentage, would be: s/v=6 dollars/6 dollars x100=100 per cent.
The rate of surplus-value is in this case 100 per cent. What this means is that in the given case the worker's labour is divided equally into necessary and surplus labour. As capitalism develops, the rate of surplus-value grows, expressing the increase in the degree of exploitation of the proletariat by the bourgeoisie. Still more rapidly grows the mass of surplus-value, as the number of wage-workers exploited by capital increases.
In his article "Workers' Earnings and Capitalists' Profits in Russia", written in 1912, Lenin set out the following calculations, showing the degree to which the proletariat was exploited in pre-revolutionary Russia. According to the findings of an official investigation of factories and works carried out in 1908 and tending, undoubtedly, to overestimate the figures for the size of workers' earnings and underestimate those for the size of capitalist's profits, the workers' wages amounted to 555.7 million roubles, while the capitalists' profit totalled 568.7 million roubles. The total number of workers employed in the enterprises of large-scale factory industry which were investigated was 2,254,000. Thus, a worker's average wage was 246 roubles it year, while each worker provided the capitalists, on an average, with 252 roubles of profit annually.
Thus, in Tsarist Russia the worker spent less than half of his day working for himself and more than half working for the capitalist.
Two Ways of Increasing the Degree of Exploitation of Labour by Capital. Absolute and Relative Surplus-Value
Each capitalist tries his utmost, with the aim of increasing surplus-value, to increase the share of surplus labour extracted from the worker. The increasing of surplus-value is effected in two main ways.
Let us take for example a working day of 12 hours, of which 6 hours are necessary and 6 are surplus labour. Let us show this working day as a line on which each division is equivalent to 1 hour.
[diagram]
The magnitude of the surplus labour-time has grown as a result of the absolute lengthening of the working day as a whole, while the necessary labour-time has remained the same. Surplus-value produced by lengthening the working-day is called absolute surplus-value.
The second method of increasing the degree of exploitation of the workers consists in arranging, while the overall length of the working day remains unchanged, for the surplus-value received by the capitalist to increase thanks to a reduction in the necessary labour-time. The growth of the productivity of labour in the branches of industry which manufacture goods consumed by the workers, and also in those supplying implements and material for the production of these consumer goods, leads to a reduction in the labour-time needed for their production. Consequently, the value of the workers' means of subsistence decreases; and in accordance with this the value of labour-power declines. Where formerly 6 hours had to be expended to produce a worker's means of subsistence, now this demands, say, only 4 hours. In a case like this the working day may be depicted in the following manner:
[diagram]
The length of the working day has not been altered, but the amount of surplus labour-time has grown as a result of the changed proportion between necessary and surplus labour-time. Surplus-value which arises from a reduction in necessary labour-time and corresponding increase in surplus labour-time as a result of an increase in the productivity of labour is called relative surplus-value.
Both ways of increasing surplus-value lead to intensifying the exploitation of wage labour by capital; but they play a different part at different stages of the historical development of capitalism. In the first stages of the development of capitalism, when technique was at a low level and progressed relatively slowly, the most important method was the increase in absolute surplus-value. In its hunt for surplus-value capital effected a radical revolution in former methods of production, the Industrial Revolution, which gave rise to large-scale machine industry. Capitalist simple co-operation, manufacture and machine industry, discussed above, in Chapters V and VI, were successive stages in the increase in the productivity of labour by capital. In the machine period, when rapidly developing technique made it possible to raise the productivity of labour in a short time, the capitalists brought about a tremendous intensification in the degree of exploitation of the workers first and foremost by effecting an increase in relative surplus labour. At the same time they continued as before to strive for a lengthening of the working day and especially to enhance the intensity of labour. Intensifying the workers' labour means for the capitalist the same as lengthening the working day: lengthening the working day from 10 to 11 hours or heightening the intensity of labour by one-tenth gives him the same result in either case.
Extra Surplus-Value
An important role in the development of capitalism is played by the pursuit of extra surplus-value. It is obtained when individual capitalists introduce machines and production methods in their works which are more advanced than those used in the majority of enterprises in the same branch. In this way the individual capitalist achieves in his enterprise a higher productivity of labour compared with the average level which prevails in the relevant branch of production. As a result, the individual value of a commodity produced in this capitalist's enterprise is lower than the social value of this commodity. As the price of a commodity is determined by its social value, however, the capitalist obtains a higher rate of surplus-value compared with the usual rate.
Let us take the following example. Let us suppose that a worker in a tobacco factory produces 1,000 cigarettes an hour and works twelve hours, during six of which he is creating value equivalent to the value of his own labour-power. If a machine is introduced in this factory which doubles the productivity of labour, this worker, working twelve hours as before, produces not 12,000 but 24,000 cigarettes. Part of the newly-created value, embodied (allowing for the value of the transferred part of the constant capital) in six thousand cigarettes i.e., the product of three hours, reimburses the factory-owner for the worker's wages. The rest of the newly created value, embodied (allowing for the value of the transferred part of the constant capital) in 18,000 cigarettes, i.e., the product of nine hours, remains with the factory-owner.
Thus, a reduction in the necessary labour-time takes place, with a corresponding lengthening of the surplus labour-time. The worker needs not even six hours but only three hours to replace the value of his own labour-power; his surplus labour has increased from six hours to nine. The rate of surplus-value has trebled.
Extra surplus-value is an excess of surplus-value above the usual rate, obtained by individual capitalists as a result of a decrease in the individual values of commodities produced in their enterprises.
The obtaining of extra surplus-value is only a temporary phenomenon for any particular enterprise. Sooner or later the majority of entrepreneurs in the same branch will introduce the new machinery, and whoever does not possess sufficient capital to do this will be ruined in the process of competition. As a result, the time socially-necessary for the production of the given commodity will be shortened and the value of the commodity reduced; and the capitalist who introduced the technical improvements earlier than the rest will cease to obtain extra surplus-value. Disappearing from one enterprise, however, extra surplus-value appears in another, where new and still more advanced machinery is being introduced.
Each capitalist aims only at his own enrichment. But the ultimate result of the separate actions of the individual entrepreneurs is the growth of technique, the development of the productive forces of capitalist society. At the same time the pursuit of surplus-value causes each capitalist to keep his technical achievements from his competitors, gives rise to trade secrets and technological hush-hush, Thus it becomes evident that capitalism sets definite limits to the development of productive forces.
The development of the productive forces under capitalism takes place in contradictory fashion. The capitalists introduce new machinery only when it will lead to an increase in surplus-value. The introduction of new machinery serves as the basis for an all-round increase in the degree of exploitation of the proletariat, lengthening of the working day and growth in the intensity of labour; the progress of technique takes place at the cost of numberless sacrifices and deprivations on the part of many generations of the working class. Thus, capitalism deals in most predatory fashion with the main productive force of society, the working class, the toiling masses.
The Working Day and its Limits. The Struggle to Shorten the Working Day
In their drive to raise the rate of surplus-value the capitalists try to lengthen the working day to its maximum length. The working day means that period of a given 24 hours during which the worker is at the enterprise and at the disposal of the capitalist. Were it possible, the employer would compel his workers to work 24 hours a day. A man needs, however, to spend a certain part of each day and night recovering his strength, resting, sleeping and eating. These needs determine the purely physical limits of the working day. Besides these, the working day also has moral limits, for the worker needs time to satisfy his cultural and social requirements.
Capital, in its insatiable greed for surplus labour, does not want to reckon with even the purely physical limits to the working day, let alone the moral ones. As Marx puts it, capital is ruthless towards the life and health of the worker. The rapacious exploitation of labour-power shortens the proletarian's life-span and leads to an exceptional increase in the mortality rate among the working population.
In the period of the rise of capitalism the State power promulgated special laws in the interests of the bourgeoisie, for the purpose of compelling the wage-workers to work the maximum possible number of hours. In those days technique was still at a low level and the masses of peasants and craftsmen were still able to work independently, in consequence of which capital did not have a surplus of workers at its disposal. The situation changed with the spread of machine production and the growth of the proletarian population. Sufficient workers became available to capital, and they were obliged by the threat of starvation to accept enslavement to the capitalists. The need for State laws lengthening the working day declined. Capital became able to lengthen the working day to its utmost extent by means of economic compulsion. Under these conditions the working class began a stubborn struggle to shorten the working day. This struggle developed earliest in Britain.
As a result of a long struggle the British workers secured the passing in 1833 of a factory Act which restricted the labour of children under thirteen to eight hours and that of adolescents between thirteen and eighteen to twelve hours. In 1844 a law was passed restricting women's hours of work to twelve and those of children to six and a half. In the majority of cases child labour and female labour were employed alongside that of men. For this reason a working day of twelve hours for all workers became general in enterprises affected by the factory legislation. By a law of 1847 the labour of adolescents and women was restricted to ten hours. A law of 1901 restricted working hours for adults to twelve in the first five days of the week and five and a half on Saturdays.
In proportion as the resistance of the workers grew, laws restricting the working day began to appear in other capitalist countries as well. After the passing of each law of this kind, the workers had to wage an unremitting struggle to ensure that it was implemented in practice.
A particularly stubborn struggle for legislative restriction of labour-time developed after the working class put forward as its battle-slogan the demand for an eight-hour working day. This demand was proclaimed in 1866 by the Labour Congress in America and the Congress of the First International, at Marx's suggestion. The struggle for the eight-hour working day became an integral part not only of the economic but also of the political struggle of the proletariat.
In Tsarist Russia the first factory Acts were promulgated at the end of the nineteenth century. After the famous strikes waged by the Petersburg proletariat, the law of 1897 restricted the working day to 11½ hours. This law was, in Lenin's words, a forced concession, won from the Tsarist government by the Russian workers.
On the eve of the first world war a working day of 10 hours prevailed in the majority of developed capitalist countries. In 1919, influenced by the bourgeoisie's alarm at the growth of the revolutionary movement, the representatives of a number of capitalist' countries, meeting at Washington, concluded a convention for introducing an 8-hour day internationally. Later however, all the big capitalist States refused to ratify this convention. Nevertheless, in many capitalist countries the 8-hour working day was introduced, under the pressure of the working class. But the employers made up for the reduction in the working day by acutely increasing the intensity of labour. In a number of capitalist countries, together with an exhausting intensity of labour, a long working day prevails, especially in industries producing armaments. An excessively long working day is the lot of the proletariat in the colonial and dependent countries.
Class Structure of Capitalist Society. The Bourgeois State
The Bourgeois State Characteristic of the slave-owning and feudal modes of production was the splitting-up of society into various classes and estates, forming a complex hierarchical social structure. The bourgeois epoch simplified class contradictions and replaced the diverse forms of hereditary privilege and personal dependence by the impersonal power of money, the unrestricted despotism of capital. Under the capitalist mode of production, society splits up more and more into two great antagonistic camps, into two opposed classes, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.
The bourgeoisie is the class which possesses the means of production and uses them to exploit wage-labour. The bourgeoisie is the ruling class in capitalist society.
The proletariat is the class of wage-workers, deprived of means of production and therefore obliged to sell its labour-power to the capitalists. Machine production enables capital to subject wage-labour to itself completely. Proletarian status becomes the lifelong lot of the class of wage-workers. By force of its economic situation the proletariat is the most revolutionary class.
The bourgeoisie and the proletariat are the basic classes of capitalist society. So long as the capitalist mode of production exists, these two classes are inseparably linked together: the bourgeoisie cannot exist and become rich without exploiting the wage-workers; the latter cannot live unless they are hired by the capitalists. At the same time the bourgeoisie and the proletariat are mutually antagonistic classes, whose interests are opposed and irreconcilably hostile to each other. The development of capitalism leads to a deepening of the gulf between the exploiting minority and the exploited masses. Besides the bourgeoisie and the proletariat there exist also under the capitalist system the classes of landlords and peasants. These classes have survived from the previous, feudal system, but have to a considerable extent changed their nature in accordance with capitalist conditions.
Landlords are, under capitalism, a class of large landowners who usually lease land to capitalist tenants or small producers-peasants; or else conduct large-scale capitalist production, using wage-labour, on the land belonging to them.
The peasantry is the class of small producers who conduct their enterprises on the basis of private ownership of the means of production and by means of backward technique and hand labour. In bourgeois countries the peasantry forms an important part of the population. The main mass of the peasantry are mercilessly exploited by the landlords, kulaks, merchants and usurers, and go down into ruin. As the process of differentiation takes effect, there are continually becoming separated off from the peasantry, on one side a mass of proletarians and on the other kulaks or capitalists.
The bourgeois State, which arose in succession to the feudal State as a result of the bourgeois revolution, is a tool in the hands of the capitalists for subjecting and oppressing the working class and the peasantry. The bourgeois State protects capitalist private property in the means of production, guarantees the exploitation of the working people and puts down their struggle against the capitalist system.
Since the interests of the capitalist class are sharply opposed to those of the overwhelming majority of the population, the bourgeoisie is obliged to conceal in every possible way the class nature of its State. The bourgeoisie tries to present this State in the guise of something above classes, existing for the benefit of the whole people, as a State of "pure democracy". But in fact bourgeois "freedom" is freedom for capital to exploit the labour of others; bourgeois "equality" is an outward show hiding the inequality which exists in fact between the exploiter and the exploited, the satiated and the hungry, between the owners of the means of production and the mass of proletarians who possess only their own labour-power. The bourgeois State holds down the masses of the people by means of its administrative apparatus, police, army, courts, prisons, concentration camps and other means of coercion. As a necessary supplement to these means of coercion, means of ideological influence exist, through which the bourgeoisie maintains its domination. To this category belong the bourgeois press, the wireless, the cinema, bourgeois science and art, and the Church.
The bourgeois State is the executive committee of the capitalist class. Bourgeois constitutions have for their aim to consolidate social systems which are acceptable and profitable to the possessing classes. The basis of the capitalist system, private ownership of the means of production, is proclaimed sacred and inviolable by the bourgeois State.
The forms assumed by bourgeois States are extremely varied, but the essence of them all is the same: all these States are dictatorships of the bourgeoisie, and try by all possible methods to protect and strengthen the system of exploitation of wage-labour by capital.
As large-scale capitalist production grows, the numbers of the proletariat increase and it becomes more and more aware of its class interests, develops politically and organises for struggle against the bourgeoisie.
The proletariat is that class of working people which is linked with the advanced form of economy, large-scale production. "Only the proletariat-by virtue of the economic role it plays in large-scale production-is capable of, being the leader of all the toiling and exploited masses." (Lenin, "State and Revolution", Selected Works, 1951, English edition, vol. II, Pt. I, p. 224) The industrial proletariat is the most revolutionary, most advanced class of capitalist society, called upon to unite around it the working masses of the peasantry and all the exploited strata of the population and to lead them in the attack upon capitalism.
Brief Conclusions
(1) Under the capitalist system the basis of production relations is capitalist ownership of the means of production which is used for exploiting wageworkers. Capitalism is commodity production at its highest level of development, when labour-power also becomes a commodity. Being a commodity, labour-power under capitalism has value and use-value. The value of the commodity labour-power is determined by the value of the means of subsistence necessary for the maintenance of the worker and his family. The use-value of the commodity labour-power consists in property of being the source of value and surplus-value.
(2) Surplus-value is the value created by the labour of the worker in excess of the value of his labour-power and is appropriated by the capitalist without compensation. The production of surplus-value is the basic economic law of capitalism.
(3) Capital is value which brings in surplus-value by exploiting wageworkers. Capital embodies the social relationship between the capitalist class and the working class. The different parts of capital play different roles in the process of producing surplus-value. Constant capital is that part of capital which is spent on means of production; this part of capital does not create new value and does not change its magnitude. Variable capital is that part of capital which is spent on the purchase of labour-power; this part of capital grows as a result of the creation by the workers of surplus-value which is appropriated by the capitalists.
(4) The rate of surplus-value is the proportion of surplus-value to variable capital. It expresses the degree of exploitation of the worker by the capitalist. The capitalists raise the rate of surplus-value by two methods-by the production of absolute surplus-value and by the production of relative surplus-value. Absolute surplus-value is surplus-value created by means of lengthening the working day or raising the intensity of labour. Relative surplus-value is surplus-value created by means of shortening necessary labour-time and correspondingly increasing surplus labour-time.
(5) The class interests of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat are irreconcilable. The contradiction between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat is the main class contradiction of capitalist society. The bourgeois State is the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie which functions as an organ for the protection of the capitalist system and for holding down the working and exploited majority of society.
Wages
The Price of Labour-power. Essential Nature of Wages
Under the capitalist mode of production, labour-power, like every other commodity, has value. The value of labour-power, expressed in money, is the price of labour-power.
The price of labour-power' is unlike the price of other commodities. When a commodity producer sells cloth, say, in the market, the sum of money which he receives is simply the price of the commodity which he has sold. When a proletarian sells his labour-power to a capitalist and obtains a certain sum of money in the form of wages, that sum of money appears not as the price of the commodity labour-power but as the price of labour.
This comes about for the following reasons. First, the capitalist pays the worker his wages after the worker has expended his labour. Second, wages are fixed either in accordance with the amount of time worked (in hours, days, weeks) or in accordance with the quantity of product produced. Let us take our previous example. Let us suppose that the worker works 12 hours a day. During 6 hours he produces the value of 6 dollars, equal to the value of his labour-power. In the remaining 6 hours he produces the value of 6 dollars, which is appropriated by the capitalist as surplus-value. As the employer has hired the proletarian for a full working day, he pays him 6 dollars for the whole 12 hours of his labour. Thus a false impression is created, as though wages were the price of labour and 6 dollars were full payment for the whole of the 12-hour working day. In fact, the 6 dollars are/only the value of one day's labour-power, whereas the proletarian's labour has created value equal to 12 dollars. If wages at the given enterprise are worked out in relation to the product turned out, it looks as though the worker is paid for the labour expended in every unit of the commodity he has made, i.e., as above, that the whole of the labour expended by the worker has been fully paid for.
This deceptive appearance is not an accidental delusion. It arises from the very conditions of capitalist production, under which exploitation is concealed, slurred over and the relations between the employer and the wage-worker appear in distorted form as relations between equal commodity producers.
In reality the wages of the wage-worker are not the value or price of his labour. If we suppose that labour is itself a commodity and has value, then the magnitude of this value must be measured by some means. Evidently, the magnitude of "the value of labour", as of any other commodity, must be measured by the amount of labour contained in it. Such a supposition creates a vicious circle: labour is measured by labour.
Further, if a capitalist were to pay a worker "the value of his labour", i.e., were to pay for his labour to the full extent, there would then be no source for the capitalist's wealth, i.e., no surplus-value, or, in other words, the capitalist mode of production could not exist.
Labour is the creator of the value of commodities, but labour is not itself a commodity and has no value. What in everyday life is called "the value of labour" is in reality the value of labour-power.
The capitalist buys on the market not labour but a special commodity labour-power. The use of labour-power, i.e., the expenditure of the energy of the worker's muscles, nerves and brain, is the process of labour. The value of labour-power is always less than the value newly created by the worker's labour. Wages are the payment for only part of the working day, namely, for necessary labour-time. But in so far as wages take the form of payment for labour the impression is created that the whole of the working day is fully paid for. For this reason Marx calls wages in bourgeois society the transmuted form of the value or price of labour-power.
"Wages are not what they appear to be, namely the value, or price, of labour, but only a masked form for the value, or price, of labour-power." (Marx, "Critique of the Gotha Programme," Marx and Engels, Selected Works, 1950, English edition, vol. II, p. 27.)
Wages are the monetary expression of the value of labour power, its price, outwardly appearing as the price of labour.
Under slavery no buying and selling of labour-power takes place between slave-owner and slave. The slave is the property of the slave-owner. It therefore seems as though the whole of the slave's labour is given for nothing, that even that part of his labour which replaces what has been spent on his upkeep is unpaid labour, labour for the slave-owner. In feudal society the necessary labour of the peasant on his own holding and his surplus labour on the landlord's demesne are distinctly separated in time and space. Under the capitalist system even the unpaid labour of the wage-worker appears to be paid for.
Wages conceal all traces of the division of the working day into necessary and surplus labour-time, into paid and unpaid labour, and so cover up the relation of capitalist exploitation.
Basic Forms of Wages
The basic forms of wages are: (1) time wages and (2) piece wages (payment by the job).
Time wages are that form of wages under which the magnitude of a worker's wages depends on the time which he works-in hours, days, weeks or months. In accordance with these units of time we distinguish payment by the hour, by the day, by the week, by the month.
With one and the same magnitude of time wages, the actual earnings of a worker can differ, depending on the length of the working day. The price of one working hour serves as the measure of payment to the worker for the labour expended by him in a unit of time. Although, as has been shown labour itself has no value, nor, consequently, any price, the conventional name "price of labour" is used to define the size of a worker's earnings. The unit of measurement of the "price of labour" is provided by the payment for the labour of one working hour, or the price of one hour's work. Thus if the average working day lasts 12 hours, and the average per-day value of labour-power is equivalent to 6 dollars, then the average price of a working hour (600 cents÷12) will be 50 cents.
Time wages enable the capitalist to intensify the exploitation of the worker by way of lengthening the working day-to lower the price of a working hour, while leaving the wages per day, week or month unchanged. Let us suppose that the daily rate of payment remains as before, 6 dollars, but the working day is increased from 12 to 13 hours. In such a case the price of 1 working hour (600 cents÷13) will be reduced from 50 to 46 cents. Under pressure of the workers' demands the capitalist is sometimes obliged to raise the daily (and, accordingly, the weekly and monthly) rate of wages, but the price of 1 working hour may nevertheless remain unchanged or even decline. Thus, if the daily wage is raised from 6 dollars to 6 dollars 20 cents, while the working day is increased from 12 to 14 hours, the price of a working hour is thereby reduced (620 cents÷14) to 44 cents.
The growth in the intensity of labour means in practice also a fall in the price of a working hour, since the payment remains the same for a greater output of energy, equivalent to a lengthening of the working day. As a result of the fall in the price of a working hour the proletariat, in order to exist, is obliged to agree to a further lengthening of the working day. Both the lengthening of the working day and the unbounded intensification of labour lead to increased expenditure of labour-power and to its being undermined.
The lower the payment for each hour, the greater the amount of labour or the longer the working day that is needed for the worker to secure even a low wage. From another aspect, the lengthening of the working period brings in its turn a lowering of the payment for a working hour.
The capitalist makes use in his own interests of the circumstance that, with a lengthening of the working day or an increase in the intensity of labour, the payment for 1 hour labour is reduced. When conditions are favourable for the sale of commodities, he lengthens the working day, introduces overtime, i.e., work beyond the established duration of the working day. If market conditions are unfavourable and the capitalist is forced temporarily to reduce the extent of his production, he reduces the working day and introduces hourly rates of payment. Hourly rates, when the working day or working week are incomplete, sharply reduce earnings. If, in our example, the working day be shortened from 12 to 6 hours while the rate of payment for labour remains, as before, 50 cents per hour, then the daily earnings for a worker amount in all to 3 dollars, i.e., they will be half the daily value of labour-power. Thus, the worker loses in earnings not only when the working day is lengthened beyond the usual duration but also when he is obliged to work short time.
"The capitalist can now wring from the labourer a certain quantity of surplus labour without allowing him the labour-time necessary for his own subsistence. He can annihilate all regularity of employment and, according to his own convenience, caprice and the interest of the moment make the most enormous overwork alternate with relative or absolute cessation of work." (Marx, Capital, Kerr edition, vol. 1, p. 597.)
With time wages the size of the worker's earnings bear no direct relation to the degree of intensity of his labour: if the intensity of labour is increased, time wages are not raised and in fact the price of a working hour falls. So as to intensify exploitation the capitalist employs special overlookers who see that the workers obey capitalist labour discipline and intensify this discipline still further.
Time wages were widespread in the early stages of the development of capitalism, when the employer, meeting as yet little organised resistance from the workers, was in a position to increase surplus-value by lengthening the working day. Time wages have been retained, however, even in the highest phase of capitalism. In a number of cases they offer several advantages to the capitalist: through speeding up the movement of the machinery the capitalist obliges the workers to work still more intensively, without increasing their wages.
Piece wages (payment by results) is that form of wages under which the size of the worker's earnings depends on the quantity of articles or separate parts which he produces, or the number of operations he completes, in a given unit of time. Under time wages payment for labour expended varies with its length, under piece wages it vanes with the amount of articles produced or operations completed, each of which is paid for at a definite rate.
In fixing the rate, the capitalist takes into account, first, the time wages of the worker per day and, second, the amount of articles or parts which the worker produces in the course of a day; usually he fixes the production quota at the highest level attained by a worker. If the average daily wage in the given ranch of production under time wages amounts to 6 dollars, and the quantity of articles of a particular kind produced by a worker is 60, then the piece-rate for an article or part will be 10 cents. In fixing the piece-rate the capitalist strive that the hourly (daily, weekly) earnings of a worker should not be higher than under time wages. Thus, piece wages are fundamentally a modified form of time wages.
Piece wages, even more than time wages, give rise to the deceptive appearance that the worker is selling the capitalist not labour-power but labour, and is receiving full payment for his labour in accordance with the amount he produces.
Capitalist piece-wage systems lead to continually greater intensification of labour. In addition they help the entrepreneur in the matter of supervision of the workers. The degree of intensity of labour is here controlled by the quantity and quality of the product which the worker must make in order to obtain the means of subsistence which he needs. The worker is compelled to increase his output by working more intensively. But as soon as a more or less considerable section of the workers achieve the new, heightened level of intensity of labour, the capitalist lowers the piece-rates. If, in our example, the piece-rate is halved, say, the worker is obliged, in order to keep his earnings at their former level, to work twice as hard, i.e., either to work longer hours or to work at still greater intensity, so that in one day he can produce not 60 but 120 parts. "The worker tries to keep up the amount of his wages by working more, whether by working longer hours or by producing more in one hour.... The result is that the more he works, the less wages he receives." (Marx, "Wage Labour and Capital", Marx and Engels, Selected Works, 1950, English edition, vol. 1, p. 95) This is the most important peculiarity of piece wages under capitalism. Time and piece forms of wages are often in force at the same time in one and the same enterprise. Under capitalism both of these forms of wages are only different ways of intensifying the exploitation of the working class.
Capitalist piece-work provides the basis for the sweating systems of wages which are applied in capitalist countries.
Sweating Systems of Wages
The most important feature of capitalist piece-work is the unbounded intensification of work, which drains the worker's entire strength. At the same time the wages paid do not compensate for this increased expenditure of labour-power. Beyond the limits of a certain length and intensity of work, no additional payment can avert direct destruction of labour-power.
As a result of the use in capitalist enterprises of exhausting methods of organising labour, towards the end of the working day an overstrain of the worker's muscular and nervous strength usually makes itself felt, which leads to a falling-off in the productivity of labour. In his pursuit of increased surplus-value the capitalist resorts to various sweating systems of wages, so as to achieve a high intensity of labour throughout the entire length of the working day. Under capitalism it is such aims as these that are served by the so-called "scientific organisation of labour". Widespread forms of such organisation of labour, with use of wage-systems which are extremely exhausting in their effect on the worker, are Taylorism and Fordism, underlying both of which is the principle of raising the intensity of labour to the maximum.
The essence of Taylorism (the system is named after its deviser, the American engineer F. Taylor) is as follows. The strongest and most dexterous workers in the enterprise are picked out. They are obliged to work at their maximum intensity. Their execution of each separate operation is timed in seconds and fractions of a second. On the basis of the data obtained by this time-study a production regime and time norms are laid down for the whole mass of the workers. When he overfulfils the norm (the "job"), the worker receives a small addition to his daily wage-a bonus; if the norm is not fulfilled the worker is paid at a lower rate. Capitalist organisation of labour in accordance with Taylor's system sucks out all the worker's strength; and transforms him into an automaton mechanically performing the same movements over and over again
V. I. Lenin gives an actual example (the work of loading pig-iron on to a truck), where with the introduction of Taylor's system into the execution of one operation alone a capitalist was able to reduce the number of workers from 500 to 140, i.e., to divide it by 3.6; by monstrously intensifying the work, the daily norm of a worker engaged in loading was raised from 16 to 59 tons, i.e., multiplied by 3.7. While a worker now carried out in one day work which previously he had taken three to four days to carry out, his daily wages normally increased (and then only for a time) by only 63 per cent in all. In other words, with the introduction of this system of payment the daily earnings of a worker were divided, in fact, if one compares them with the labour expended, by 2.3. "As a result," wrote Lenin, In those same 9-10 hours of work three times as much labour is extorted from the worker, all his strength is ruthlessly exhausted, every drop of the wage-slave's nervous and muscular energy is sucked out of him at treble speed. Does he die sooner than he would have done? There are many others at the gate! ... " (Lenin, "A 'Scientific' System of Squeezing Out Sweat", Works, Russian edition, vol. XVIII, p, 556.)
Lenin called such ways of organising the worker's labour and wages a "scientific" system of squeezing out sweat.
The system of organising labour and wages introduced by the American "automobile king" H. Ford and other capitalists (the, system of Fordism) has the same aim, that of extracting the largest possible amount of surplus-value by maximising the intensity of labour. This it achieves by continually greater speeding-up of the conveyor belts and introduction of sweating systems of wage-payment. The simplicity of the work operations performed by a worker at one of Ford's conveyor belts makes it possible to use the labour of unskilled workers on a wide scale and to fix a low rate of wages for them. The tremendous intensification of labour is not accompanied by any increase in wages or reduction of working hours. The result is that the worker quickly becomes worn out and transformed into a sick man; he is dismissed from the works as unfit and falls into the ranks of the unemployed.
Intensified exploitation of the workers is attained also by other systems of organising labour and wages which are variants of Taylorism and Fordism. Among these is the Gantt system (U.S.A.). Unlike Taylor's piece-work system, the Gantt system is one of time-bonuses. The worker is assigned a certain "job" and a very low guaranteed payment is fixed for a unit of working time, regardless of fulfilment of the norm. If he fulfils the norm the worker is paid a small addition to his guaranteed minimum-a "bonus". The Halsey system (U.S.A.) is based on the principle of bonus payments for "time saved" supplementing an "average wage" per hour's work. Under this system, for example, when the intensity of labour is doubled, for every hour of "saved" time a "bonus" is paid, amounting to about a third of the hourly rate. By this method, the more intensive the worker's labour the greater the degree to which his wages fall in relation to the labour it he expends. The Rowan system (Britain) is based on the same principles.
A method of increasing surplus-value which is grounded in deception of the workers is so-called "profit-sharing". On the pretext of giving the workers an interest in raising the profitability of the enterprise, the capitalist lowers the workers' wages and at their expense sets up a fund for "distribution of profits among the workers". Later on, towards the end of the year, the worker is paid, under the name of "profit", what is in fact part of the wages which had previously been kept back from him. In the end the worker who is "sharing the profits" receives in fact less than the usual wages. For the same purpose shares in an enterprise are distributed among the workers.
The capitalists' tricks in all kinds of wage systems are aimed at extracting as much surplus-value as possible from the workers. The employers use such methods in order to befuddle the workers' minds with an imaginary interest in intensifying labour, reducing expenditure on wages per unit of production and raising the profits of the concern. In this way the capitalist strives to weaken the proletariat's resistance to the offensive of capital, to induce the workers to refuse to join trade unions or take part in strikes and to bring about a split in the labour movement.
Behind all the various forms of capitalist piece-work the essence remains the same: as the intensity and productivity of labour is raised the workers' earnings in fact fall while the capitalist's income increases.
Nominal and Real Wages
In the early stage of capitalism's development payment of wages to the workers in kind was widespread: the worker received shelter, some meagre food and a little money.
Wages in kind survive to some extent even into the machine period of capitalism. They existed, for instance in the extractive and textile industries of pre-revolutionary Russia. Wages in kind are widespread in capitalist agriculture where the labour of poor peasants is used, in certain branches of industry in the capitalist countries, and in the colonial and dependent countries. The forms in which the worker is paid in kind vary. The capitalists place the workers in a position where they are forced to take food on credit from the factory shop, to lease a dwelling near the mine or on the plantation on oppressive terms fixed by their employer, etc. Under methods of wage-payment in kind the capitalist exploits the wageworker not only as a seller of labour-power but also as a consumer.
Money wages are characteristic of the capitalist mode of production in its developed form.
Nominal wages must be distinguished from real wages.
Nominal wages are wages expressed in money; the sum of money which the worker receives from the sale of his labour-power to the capitalist.
Nominal wages do not in themselves give any idea of the actual level of payment received by the worker. For example, nominal wages may remain unchanged, but if at the same time taxes and the prices of consumer goods rise, the worker's actual wages fall. Nominal wages may even increase but if the cost of living rises to a greater extent in the same period of time, then in fact wages have fallen.
Real wages are wages expressed in terms of the worker's means of subsistence; they show how many and what kinds of consumer goods and services a worker can buy with his money wages. To determine a worker's real wage, one must start the size of his nominal wages, the level of prices of goods, the level of rents, the burden of taxes borne by the workers, the circumstances that some days he may receive no wages owing to short-time working, and the number of unemployed and semi-unemployed who are supported by the' working class. One must also take into account the length the working day and the degree of intensity of labour.
In determining the average level of wages bourgeois statistics distort reality: they include in wages the incomes of the upper administrative groups of the industrial and financial bureaucracy (managers of enterprises, bank directors, etc.); include only the wages of skilled workers in the category of wages while excluding from it the numerous stratum of poorly-paid, unskilled workers and the agricultural proletariat; ignore the huge army of unemployed and semi-unemployed, the rise in the prices of mass consumer goods and in taxation; and resort to other methods of falsification so as to embellish the situation of the working class under capitalism.
Even falsified bourgeois statistics cannot, however, hide the fact that wages under capitalism, owing to their low level, the raising of the cost of living and the growth of unemployment fail to guarantee a living wage to the majority of the workers.
In 1938 some bourgeois economists in the U.S.A. worked out, using extremely modest standards, a living wage for a worker's family consisting of four persons: 2,177 dollars a year. Yet in 1938 the average wage per head of an industrial worker in the U.S.A. amounted to 1,176 dollars, i.e., considerably less than half of his living wage; if the unemployed were brought into the calculation, the figure came to 740 dollars, i.e., only a third of this subsistence minimum. In 1937 a quite humble living wage for an average worker's family in Britain was defined by some bourgeois economists at 55s. a week. Official figures showed that 80 per cent of the workers in the coal industry, 75 per cent of the workers in the extractive industries other than coal mining, and 57 per cent of municipal workers in Britain were being paid less than this subsistence minimum.
Decline of Real Wages under Capitalism
On the basis of his analysis of the capitalist mode of production, Marx established the following fundamental law relating to wages. "The general tendency of capitalist production is not to raise but to sink the average standard of wages." (Marx, "Wages, Price and Profit", Marx and Engels, Selected Works, 1950, English edition, vol. I, p. 405.)
Wages as the price of labour-power, like the price of any other commodity, are determined by the law of value. The prices of commodities vary in capitalist economy both above and below their value, under the influence of supply and demand. But unlike the prices of other commodities the price of labour-power, as a rule, tends to fall below its value.
This tendency of wages to fall below the value of labour-power is due above all to the existence of unemployment. The capitalist tries to buy labour-power as cheap as he can. When there is unemployment the supply of labour-power exceeds the demand for it. The commodity labour-power differs from others in that the proletarian cannot put off selling it. So as not to die of hunger, he is compelled to sell his labour-power on whatever terms the capitalist offers him. In periods of complete, or partial unemployment the worker is either entirely without wages or else their level falls sharply. When there is unemployment this intensifies competition among the workers. Taking advantage of this, the capitalist pays the worker wages which are less then the value of his labour-power. In this way the wretched situation of the unemployed; who form part of the working class, has an effect on the material position of the workers in employment, reducing the level of their wages.
Furthermore, the use of machinery provides the capitalist with extensive opportunities of substituting female and child labour for men's. The value of labour-power is determined by the value of the means of subsistence which are needed by a worker and his family. When, therefore, the worker's wife and children are drawn into production, the worker's wages fall and the entire family now receives approximately the same amount as previously was received by the head of the family only. This by itself means that the working class as a whole is being exploited still more intensely. In capitalist countries women workers doing the same work as men are paid considerably less wages.
Capital extorts surplus-value by unrestrainedly exploiting child labour. The wages of children and youths are much lower than those of adult workers in all capitalist and colonial countries.
The average wage of a woman worker is lower than the average wage of a male worker by 41 per cent in the U.S.A. (1949),46 per cent in Great Britain (1951), and 42 per cent in Western Germany (1951). The difference is even more marked in colonial and dependent countries.
In the U.S.A. in 1949, according to conservative figures, more than 3,300,000 of the wageworkers were children and youths. The working day for children and youths is very long; thus, in starch works and in canning and meat factories, laundries and dry-cleaning workshops, children work 12-13 hours a day.
In Japan the practice of selling children for work in the factories is widespread. Child labour was employed extensively in Tsarist Russia. A considerable section of the workers in textile and several other kinds of enterprise in Russia was made up of children aged eight to ten.
The exploitation of child labour by capital assumes particularly cruel forms in colonial and dependent countries. In the textile and tobacco factories of Turkey children of seven to fourteen work a full working day, the same as adults.
The low wages of women workers and the exploitation of child labour brings in its train a tremendous growth of sickness and child mortality and has a baneful effect on the upbringing and education of the rising generation.
The decline in the workers' real wages is caused also by the fact that, as capitalism develops, the position of a substantial section of the skilled workers deteriorates. As already mentioned, the expenses of a worker's training enter into the value of his labour-power. A skilled worker creates more value, including surplus-value, in a given unit of time, than an unskilled worker. The capitalist is obliged to pay for skilled labour more than he pays for unskilled. But as capitalism develops, with the growth of industrial technique, while on the one hand there arises a demand for highly-skilled workers, able to control and operate complicated mechanisms, on the other hand many work operations are simplified and the labour of a considerable section of the skilled workers becomes redundant. Considerable sections of the skilled workers lose their skill, are pushed out of employment and are forced to take up unskilled work which is paid a great deal less.
The rise in the cost of living and the fall in the level of real wages connected with this are caused also by the rise in prices of mass consumer goods. Thus, in France, on account of inflation, retail prices of foodstuffs stood in 1938 at a level more than seven times as high as in 1914.
A considerable part of the worker's wages is absorbed by rent. In Germany between 1900 and 1930 the average rent grew by 69 per cent. According to the figures of the International Labour Office, in the 1930's the workers spent on rent heating and lighting, in the U.S.A., 25 percent of their family budgets, in Britain 20 per cent and in Canada 27 per cent. In Tsarist Russia workers' expenditure on housing came to as much as a third of their wages.
Taxes which fall on the working people make a big deduction from their wages. In the principal capitalist countries in the post-war period direct and indirect taxes absorb as much as a third of the wages of a working-class family.
One widespread method of reducing wages was the system of fines. In Tsarist Russia, until the promulgation of the law on fines (1886), which somewhat restricted the arbitrary behaviour of the factory owners, deductions from wages in the shape of fines amounted in certain cases to as much as half the monthly earnings of a worker. A worker was fined on every kind of pretext: for "unsatisfactory work", for "breach of regulations", for talking, for taking part in demonstrations, etc. Fines serve not only as a means of strengthening capitalist labour discipline but also as a source of additional income for the capitalist.
Another factor in the decline of the workers' real wages is the exceptionally low wages received by the agricultural proletariat. The great army of surplus labour-power in the countryside exerts a constant downward pressure on the wage-level of the employed workers.
Thus, for example, during the period 1910-39 the average monthly wage of an agricultural worker in the U.S.A. varied between 28 to 47 per cent of the wage of an industrial worker. The situation of the agricultural workers in Tsarist Russia was an exceptionally hard one. For a working day of 16-17 hours the average daily wage drawn by a seasonal agricultural worker in Russia in 1901-10 amounted to 69 kopeks, and the miserable pay which he thus obtained during ploughing, sowing and harvest periods had to support him during the remaining months of the year when he was completely or partially unemployed.
So, with the development of the capitalist mode of production the real wages of the working class suffer a reduction.
In 1924 the real wages of the German workers were 75 per cent of what they had been in 1900, and in 1935 they were 66 per cent. In the U.S.A. the average nominal wages of the workers (unemployed included) grew by 68 per cent between 1900 and 1938; in the same period, however, the cost of living rose to 2.3 times its height at the beginning of the century, so that the workers' real wages fell by much as 74 per cent between these years. In France, Italy and Japan, not to speak of the colonial and dependent countries, the decline real wages in the nineteenth to twentieth centuries was considerably greater than in the U.S.A. In Tsarist Russia in 1913 the real wages of industrial workers had fallen by not less than 90 percent from the level in 1900.
The value of labour-power is not identical in all countries.
The conditions which determine the value of labour-power vary from one country to another. This, fact gives rise to national differences in wages. Marx wrote that, in making comparisons between wages in different countries, one must take into account all the factors which determine variations in the magnitude of the value of labour-power: the historical conditions under which the working class was formed and its established level of requirements, the cost of training a worker, the part played by the labour of women and children, the productivity of labour, the intensity of labour, the prices of consumer goods, etc.
An especially low level of wages is to be observed in colonial and dependent countries. In carrying out its policy of enslaving; and systematically plundering the colonial and dependent countries, capital takes advantage of the great surplus of working; hands available in those countries and pays for labour-power at very much less than its value. In this connection the worker's nationality is taken into account. Thus, for instance, whites and Negroes doing the same work are paid at different rates. In South Africa the average wage of a Negro worker is only one-tenth that of a white worker. In the U.S.A. Negroes in the cities are paid two-fifths as much, and in agriculture hardly one-third as much as whites who do the same work.
The bourgeoisie creates, at the expense of the lowered wages of the basic mass of the workers and the plunder of the colonies, privileged conditions for a relatively small stratum of well-paid workers. The bourgeoisie uses the so-called aristocracy of labour formed from these well-paid strata, including a section of trade union officials and co-operative bureaucrats, some of the foremen, etc., for the purpose of splitting the labour movement, and poisoning the consciousness of the basic mass of proletarians with preachings about class peace and the unity of interests between exploiters and exploited.
The Struggle of the Working Class to Raise Wages
In each country a certain level of wages is established on the basis of the law of the value of labour-power, as a result of a fierce class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie.
The extent to which wages can diverge from the value of labour-power has its limits.
The minimum limit of wages under capitalism is fixed by purely physical conditions: the worker must have that quantity of means of subsistence which he needs absolutely in order to live and reproduce his labour-power. "If the price of labour-power falls to this minimum it falls below its value since under such circumstances, it can be maintained and developed only in a crippled state. (Marx, Capital, Kerr edition, vol. 1, p. 192.) When wages fall below this limit there occurs tin accelerated process of direct physical destruction of labour-power and dying-off of the working population. This finds expression in a shortening of the average expectation of life, a fall in the birth rate and an increase in the mortality rate among the working population, both in the developed countries and also and especially, in the colonial countries.
The maximum limit of wages under capitalism is the value of labour-power. The degree to which the average level of wages approximates to this limit is determined by the relation of class forces as between proletariat and bourgeoisie.
The bourgeoisie endeavours, in its striving for greater profits, to reduce wages below the physical minimum limit. The working class fights against cuts in wages and for increased wages, for the establishment of a guaranteed minimum wage, for the introduction of social insurance, and for a shorter working day. In this struggle the working class is opposed by the capitalist class as a whole and by the bourgeois State.
The stubborn struggle waged by the working class to raise wages had its beginning along with the rise of industrial capitalism. It developed first in Britain, and later spread to the other capitalist countries and to the colonies.
As the proletariat takes shape as a class the workers come together in trade unions for the purpose of successfully conducting their economic struggle. The result of this is that the employer finds himself opposed no longer by individual proletarians but by an entire organisation. With the development of the class struggle, besides local and national trade unions there came into being international associations of trade Unions. The trade unions provide a school of class struggle for the broad masses of the workers.
On their part, the capitalists come together in employers' associations. They bribe venal and reactionary trade union officials, organise strike-breaking, split the workers' organisations, and use the police, troops, courts and prisons to suppress the labour movement.
One of the effective methods of struggle used by the workers under capitalism to secure increased wages, shorter working hours and improved conditions of work is the strike. As class contradictions become more acute and the working-class movement becomes better organised in the capitalist and colonial countries, many millions of workers are drawn into strike struggles. When workers struggling against capital show determination and stubbornness, economic strikes force the capitalists to accept the strikers' terms.
It is only as a result of the unremitting struggle of the working class for its vital interests that the bourgeois States are compelled to promulgate laws on minimum wages, on reduction of working hours and on restriction of child labour.
The economic struggle of the proletariat is of great importance: as a rule, trade unions under steadfast class leadership put up a successful resistance to the employers. The struggle of the working class is a factor which to a certain extent restrict the fall in wages. But the economic struggle of the working class cannot abolish the system of capitalist enslavement of the working people and deliver the workers from exploitation and want.
While recognising the great importance of the economic struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie, Marxism-Leninism teaches that this struggle is directed merely against the consequences of capitalism and not against the root cause of the oppressed situation and poverty of the proletariat. This root cause is the capitalist mode of production itself.
Only through revolutionary political struggle can the working class abolish the system of wage slavery, the source of its economic and political oppression.
Brief Conclusions
(1) In capitalist society wages are the monetary expression of the value of labour-power, its price, appearing to be the price of labour. Wages hide the relationship of capitalist exploitation, creating the false impression that all the worker's labour is paid for, whereas in reality wages constitute only the price of his labour-power.
(2) The main forms of wages are time wages and piece wages. Under the time-wage system the size of the worker's wage-packet depends on the time he spends at work. Under the piece-wage system the size of the worker's wage-packet depends on the number of articles he produces. For the purpose of increasing surplus-value the capitalists employ a variety of sweating systems of wage-payment, which lead to a tremendous increase in the intensity of labour and to an accelerated wearing-out of labour-power.
(3) Nominal wages are the amount of money received by the worker for the labour-power which he sells to the capitalist. Real wages are wages expressed in terms of the worker's means of subsistence; they show what quantity of means of subsistence and services the worker can buy for his money wages.
(4) As capitalism develops real wages fall. Unlike the prices of other commodities the price of labour-power, as a rule, fluctuates below its value. This is due above all to the existence of unemployment, to extensive use of female and child labour and to the paying of extremely low wages to the agricultural workers and also to the workers in the colonial and dependent countries: An important factor in the decline in real wages is the rise in the prices of consumer goods, high rents and the growth of taxation.
(5) The working class, united in trade unions, conducts a struggle to shorten working hours and raise wages. The economic struggle of the proletariat against capital cannot by itself free the proletariat from exploitation. Only with the liquidation of the capitalist mode of production through revolutionary political struggle can the conditions be eliminated under which the working class is economically and politically oppressed.
Accumulation of Capital and Impoverishment of the Proletariat
Production and Reproduction
If it is to live and develop, society must produce material wealth. It cannot stop producing, as it cannot stop consuming.
From day to day and year to year people consume bread, meat and other foodstuffs, and wear out clothes and footwear but at the same time fresh masses of bread, meat, cloth footwear and other products are being produced by human labour. Coal is being burnt in stoves and furnaces but at the same time fresh masses of coal are being drawn from the bowels of the earth. Machine-tools gradually wear out, locomotives sooner or later become decrepit, but fresh machine-tools are being built in the factories and fresh locomotives are being made. Under any system of social relations the process production must continually be renewed.
This continued renewal and ceaseless repetition of the production-process is reproduction. "When viewed, therefore, as a connected whole, and as flowing on with incessant renewal, every social process of production is at the same time a process of reproduction." (Marx, Capital, Kerr edition, vol. 1, p. 620) Whatever the conditions of production are, so also are the conditions of reproduction. If production is capitalist in form, then reproduction takes this form too.
The process of reproduction consists not only in people making ever fresh masses of products in place of, and in excess of, those consumed, but also in the fact that the corresponding production-relations in society are constantly being renewed.
Two types of reproduction must be distinguished: simple and extended.
Simple reproduction means repetition of the production-process on the same scale as before, the newly-produced products merely replacing the means of production and consumer goods which have been expended.
Extended reproduction means repetition of the production-process on an enlarged scale, when society does not merely replace the material wealth which has been consumed but also produces additional means of production and consumer goods over and above this.
Before the rise of capitalism the productive forces developed very slowly. The dimensions of social production changed little from year to year and from decade to decade. Under capitalism the former scarcely-moving, stagnant state of social production gave place to a much more rapid development of productive forces. Typical of the capitalist mode of production is extended reproduction which is interrupted by economic crises, when production falls off.
Capitalist Simple Reproduction
Under capitalist simple reproduction the production-process is renewed without change of volume, the surplus-value being spent entirely on personal consumption by the capitalists.
An examination even of simple reproduction enables one to look more closely into some of the essential features of capitalism.
In the process of capitalist reproduction it is not only the products of labour that are incessantly being renewed but also the relations of capitalist exploitation. On the one hand, in the course of reproduction wealth is constantly being created; this belongs to the capitalist and he uses it to appropriate surplus-value. At the expiration of each production-process the employer appears, again and again, as the owner of capital which enables him to enrich himself by exploiting workers. On the other hand, the worker constantly emerges from the production-process as a propertyless proletarian and is therefore obliged, if he is not to die of hunger, again and again to sell his labour-power to the capitalist. Reproduction of hired labour-power always remains a necessary condition for the reproduction of capital.
"Capitalist production therefore, of itself reproduces the separation between labour-power and the means of labour. It thereby reproduces and perpetuates the condition for exploiting the worker. It incessantly forces him to sell his labour-power in order to live, and enables the capitalist to purchase labour-power in order that he may enrich himself." (Marx, Capital, Kerr edition, vol. 1, p. 623.)
Thus, the fundamental relationship of capitalism is continually renewed in the process of production: the capitalist on the one hand and the wage-worker on the other. Even before he sells his labour-power to one employer or another, the worker already belongs to the combination of capitalists, i.e., to the class of capitalists as a whole. When the proletarian changes his place of work, he only exchanges one exploiter for another. The worker is chained for life to the chariot of capital.
If we examine a single process of production, it seems at first sight as though the capitalist, when he buys labour-power, is advancing money to the worker from his own funds, since at the time when he pays the worker his wages the capitalist may not yet have had time to sell the commodity which the worker has produced in the period for which he is paid (a month, say). But if we take the buying and selling of labour-power, not in isolation but as an element of reproduction, as a continually repeated relationship, then the true character of this transaction is revealed.
First of all, while the worker's labour is creating new value, including surplus-value, in this period the product turned out by the worker in the preceding period is being realised on the market and transformed into money. Hence, it is clear that the capitalist pays the worker his wages not out of his own pocket but out of the value which the worker's labour has created in the preceding period of production (e.g., during the previous month). To use Marx's expression, the capitalist class acts on the time-honoured principle of the conqueror: it buys commodities from the conquered with their own money, of which it has robbed them.
Secondly, unlike what happens with other commodities, labour-power is paid for by the capitalist only after the worker has performed a certain amount of labour. So it turns out that it is not the capitalist who makes an advance to the proletarian, but, on the contrary, it is the proletarian who makes an advance to the capitalist. For this reason employers endeavour to pay wages at as long intervals as possible, so prolonging the time during which they are receiving free credit from the workers.
The capitalist is continually supplying the workers, in the form of wages, with money for purchasing the means of subsistence, i.e., with a certain part of the product which the workers' labour has created and which has been appropriated by the exploiters. This money the workers no less regularly give back to the capitalists, receiving in exchange for it the means of subsistence which the working class itself has produced.
An examination of capitalist relations in the course of reproduction reveals not only the real source of wages but also the real source of all capital.
Let us suppose that a capital of £100,000 invested by an entrepreneur brings in annually surplus-value to the amount of £10,000, and that the whole of this sum is spent entirely by the capitalist on his personal consumption. If the entrepreneur did not appropriate the worker's unpaid labour, his capital would be completely exhausted after ten years had elapsed. This does not happen because the sum of £100,000 which is spent by the capitalist on his personal consumption during this period is completely renewed from the surplus-value created by the unpaid labour of the workers.
Consequently, whatever might be the original source of a given capital, in the course of simple reproduction itself this capital becomes within a certain period value created by the workers' labour and appropriated without compensation by the capitalist. This exposes the absurdity of the assertions made by bourgeois economists that capital is wealth created by the employer's own labour.
Simple reproduction is a constituent part or element of extended reproduction. The relations of exploitation which are inherent in capitalist simple reproduction become still accentuated under conditions of capitalist extended reproduction.
Capitalist Extended Reproduction. Accumulation of Capital
Under extended reproduction a part of the surplus-value is put back by the capitalist in order to increase the scale of production: for the purchase of additional means of production and the hiring of additional workers. Thus, part of the surplus-value is amalgamated with already existing capital, i.e., is accumulated.
The accumulation of capital means the addition of part of the surplus-value to capital, or the transformation of part of the surplus-value into capital. Thus it is surplus-value that provides the source of accumulation. Capital grows through the exploitation of the working class, and along with it capitalist production-relations are reproduced on an extended basis.
Among the compelling motives for accumulation of capital is, first and foremost, the striving to increase surplus-value. Under the capitalist mode of production greed for gain knows no limits. As the extent of production grows, so grows the mass of surplus-value appropriated by the capitalist, and consequently, so also grows that part of it which goes to satisfy the personal requirements and whims of the capitalists. On the other hand, the capitalists are enabled, at the expense of the growing amount of surplus-value, to extend production more and more, to exploit an ever greater number of workers and to appropriate an ever-increasing mass of surplus-value.
Another motive force in the accumulation of capital is the ferocious competitive struggle, in the course of which the larger capitalists find themselves in a better position than the others and strike down the small ones. Competition forces every capitalist, under penalty of ruin, to improve his technique and extend production. To stop the growth of technique and the extension of production means to lag behind, and those who lag behind are conquered by their competitors. Thus, the competitive struggle compels every capitalist to increase his capital, and he can increase his capital only by continually accumulating part of the surplus-value.
The accumulation of capital is the source of extended reproduction.
Organic Composition of Capital. Concentration and Centralisation of Capital
In the course of capitalist accumulation the total mass of capital grows, but the different parts into which it is divided do not change at the same rate and consequently the composition of capital changes.
When he accumulates surplus-value and extends his enterprise, the capitalist usually introduces new machinery and technical improvements, because these promise him an increase in his profits. The development of technique means a more rapid growth of that part of capital which exists in the form of means of production-machinery, buildings, raw materials, i.e., constant capital. On the other hand, that part of capital which is spent on the purchase of labour-power, i.e., variable capital, grows much more slowly.
The proportion between constant and variable capital, being determined by the proportion between the mass of means of production and of living labour-power, is called the organic composition of capital. Let us take, for example, a capital of £100,000. Suppose that of this sum £80,000 is spent on buildings, machinery, raw materials, etc., and £20,000 on wages. The organic composition of this capital is, then, 80 c : 20 v, or 4 : 1.
In different branches of industry and in different enterprises within one and the same branch the organic composition of capital varies: it is higher where there are more complex and costly machines and more worked up material per worker; it is lower where living labour predominates and the amount of machinery and material per worker is less and is comparatively inexpensive. With the accumulation of capital the organic composition of capital grows: the share of variable capital declines while that of constant capital increases. Thus, in the industry of the U.S.A. the organic composition of-capital, which in 1889 was 4.4 : 1, was 5.7 : 1 in 1904, 6.1 : 1 in 1929, and 6.5 : 1 in 1939.
The size of individual capitals grows in the course of capitalist reproduction. This occurs through the concentration and centralisation of capital.
The concentration of capital means the growth in the size of capital as a result of the accumulation of surplus-value obtained in the given enterprise. The capitalist becomes, through investing in his enterprise part of the surplus-value which he has appropriated, the owner of an ever larger capital. The centralisation of capital means the growth in the size of capital as a result of fusing several capitals into one larger capital. In the competitive struggle large capital ruins and devours smaller and medium capitalist enterprises which cannot stand up to competition. By buying up the enterprises of his ruined competitor at low prices, or annexing them to his own by some other method (e.g., by means of loans), the large-scale factory-owner increases the amount of capital in his possession. The union of many capitals into one is effected also by the forming of joint-stock companies, etc.
Concentration and centralisation of capital mean the concentrating of monstrous amounts of wealth in the hands of a few persons. The enlargement of capitals opens wide possibilities for the concentration of production, i.e., for the gathering together of production in large-scale enterprises.
Large-scale production has decisive advantages over small. Large-scale enterprises can introduce machinery and technical improvements, and can apply a broad division and specialisation of labour which is beyond the resources of small concerns. This results in products being turned out more cheaply in large-scale enterprises than in small-scale ones. The competitive struggle involves great expenses and losses. A large-scale concern can bear these losses and later recover them with interest; whereas small and even medium ones are ruined by them. Large capitalists are able to obtain loans with comparatively much greater ease, and on more favourable conditions; and credit is one of the chief weapons used in the competitive struggle. Owing to all these advantages which they possess it is large concerns, equipped with powerful technique, that increasingly come to the forefront in the capitalist countries, while a multitude of small and medium concerns go down in ruin. As a result of the concentration and centralisation of capital a few capitalists, the owners of enormous fortunes, become masters of the fate of tens and hundreds of thousands of workers.
Capitalist concentration in agriculture leads to the land and other means of production becoming increasingly concentrated in the hands of large propertyowners, while broad strata of small and middle peasants, deprived of land, draught animals and implements, fall into debt-bondage to capital. Masses of peasants and craftsmen are ruined and transformed into proletarians.
The concentration and centralisation of capital thus lead to sharpening of class contradictions, to deepening of the gulf between the bourgeois, exploiting minority and the propertyless, exploited majority of society. The concentration of production also results in ever greater masses of the proletariat being concentrated in large capitalist enterprises, in industrial centres. This facilitates the welding together of the workers and their organisations for the struggle against capital.
The Industrial Reserve Army
The growth of production under capitalism, as mentioned already, is accompanied by a rise in the organic composition of capital. The demand for labour-power is determined by the size, not of capital as a whole, but only of its variable part. But the variable part of capital declines, compared with constant capital, as technical progress advances. Therefore as capital accumulates and its organic composition increases, the demand for workers relatively contracts, although the total numbers of the proletariat grow in proportion as capitalism develops.
As a result, a substantial mass of workers are unable to find application for their labour. Part of the working population becomes "redundant", forming the so-called relative surplus-population. This surplus-population is relative because part of the labour-power available is surplus only in relation to the requirements of the accumulation of capital. Thus, in bourgeois society, as social wealth grows, one section of the working class is doomed to ever heavier and more excessive labour while the other section is doomed to compulsory unemployment.
The following main forms of relative surplus-population must be distinguished:
The fluctuating surplus-population is made up of workers who lose their jobs for a certain period as a result of a contraction of production, introduction of new machinery or the closing down of enterprises. As production is extended, a section of these unemployed workers find work, just as do some of the workers newly coming forward from the rising generation. The total number of workers employed grows, but in constantly diminishing proportion compared with the scale of production.
The latent surplus-population consists of ruined small producers, predominantly poor peasants and landworkers, who are employed in agriculture during only a small part of the year, cannot find application for their labour in industry and drag out a miserable existence in the countryside living from hand to mouth somehow or other. In contrast to what happens in industry, in agriculture the growth of technique leads to the demand for labour declining absolutely.
The stagnant surplus-population is formed by these numerous groups of people who have lost regular work, are employed extremely irregularly and are paid a great deal less than the usual rate of wages. These consist of the extensive strata of the working people employed in capitalist domestic industry and also those living by casual day-today work.
Finally, the lowest stratum of relative surplus-population is constituted by people who have been pushed out of productive life over a long period, without any hope of recovering their position, and live by casual earnings. A section of these people get their living by begging.
Workers squeezed out of production constitute the industrial reserve army, the army of unemployed. This army is a necessary appendage of capitalist economy, without which it can neither exist nor develop. In periods of industrial boom, when a rapid extension of production is required, there is a sufficient number of unemployed at the disposal of the employers. As a result of the extension of production unemployment is temporarily reduced. But later a crisis of overproduction occurs, and once again considerable masses of workers are thrown on to the street, to reinforce the reserve army of the unemployed.
The existence of the industrial reserve army enables the capitalists to intensify their exploitation of the workers. Unemployed workers have to accept the most onerous conditions of work. The presence of unemployment creates an unstable situation for the employed workers and sharply reduces the standard of life of the working class as a whole. That is why the capitalists are not interested in abolishing the industrial reserve army, which exercises pressure on the labour market and ensures them a supply of cheap labour power.
As the capitalist mode of production develops, the army of unemployed, which declines in periods of boom and grows in periods of crisis, on the whole increases.
In Britain the percentage of unemployed among members of trade unions was: in 1853-1.7 per cent, in 1880-5.5 per cent, in 1908-7.8 per cent, in 1921-16.6 per cent. In the U.S.A., according to official figures, the percentage of unemployed in the working class as a whole was: in 1890-5.1 per cent, in 1900-10 per cent, in 1915-15.5 per cent, in 1921-23.1 per cent. In Germany the percentage of trade unionists out of work grew from 0.2 per cent in 1887 to 2 per cent in 1900 and 18 per cent in 1926. The volume of the relative surplus-population is enormous in the countries of the colonial and semi-colonial East.
As capitalism develops, partial unemployment, under which a worker is employed in production for only part of the day or only part of the working week, assumes bigger and bigger proportions.
Unemployment is a real scourge to the working class. The worker can only live by selling his labour-power. Workers dismissed from the factories face starvation. Often the unemployed have to go without shelter because they have not the means to pay for a night's lodging. Thus, the bourgeoisie shows itself unable to guarantee the wage-slaves of capital a slave's standard of living.
Bourgeois economists try to justify the existence of unemployment under capitalism by references to eternal laws of nature. This was the aim served by the pseudo-scientific fabrications of Malthus a reactionary British economist who flourished at the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning 'of the nineteenth century. According to the "law of population" invented by Malthus, the population, from the very beginning of human society has increased in geometrical progression (as 1, 2, 4, 8, etc). but the means of subsistence, owing to the limitations of natural resources, have grown only in arithmetical progression (as 1, 2, 3, 4, etc.) This, said Malthus, was the fundamental cause of the existence of surplus-population and of starvation and want among the masses of the people. The proletariat, in Malthus's opinion; can free itself from poverty and hunger not by abolishing the capitalist system but by abstaining from marriage and artificially restricting childbearing. Malthus considered wars and epidemics beneficial, since they cut down the working population. The theory of Malthus is profoundly reactionary. It is a means whereby the bourgeoisie justifies the incurable taints of capitalism. Malthus's fabrications have nothing in common with reality. The mighty technique which mankind has at its disposal is capable of increasing the amount of means of life at rates which cannot be overtaken by even the fastest growth of population, But this is prevented by the capitalist system, which is the real Cause of the poverty of the masses.
Marx discovered the capitalist law of population, which is that in bourgeois society the accumulation of capital leads to a section of the workers inevitably becoming relatively surplus and being thrust out of employment and doomed to suffer poverty and want. The capitalist law of population is engendered by the production relations of bourgeois society.
Agrarian Surplus-Population
As already mentioned, one of the forms of the relative surplus-population is the latent, or agrarian surplus-population.
The agrarian surplus-population is the excess population in the agricultural economy of the capitalist countries, which arises as a result of the ruin of masses of the peasantry; these people can find only partial employment in agricultural production and cannot be absorbed into industry.
As capitalism develops, the differentiation among the peasantry is intensified. A numerous army of agricultural workers and poor peasants is formed. Large-scale capitalist economy creates a demand for wage-workers. But in proportion as capitalist production lays hold of one branch of agriculture after another and the use of machinery becomes widespread, the mass of the peasants are more and more ruined and the demand for agricultural wageworkers is reduced. The ruined sections of the rural population are continually being transformed into industrial proletarians or reinforce the army of unemployed in the cities. A considerable part of the rural population, unable to find work in industry, remain in the country, where only occasionally do they find employment in agriculture.
The latent character of the agrarian surplus-population consists in the fact that surplus labour-power in the countryside is always connected in some degree or another with small and very small peasant economy. The agricultural wage-worker usually has a small holding which serves as a means of supplementing his earnings when he is in employment, or as the source of a miserable livelihood when the is out of it. Such holdings are needed by capitalism, so that it may have cheap labourers at its disposal.
The agrarian surplus-population attains huge dimensions under capitalism. In Tsarist Russia at the end of the nineteenth century latent unemployment in the countryside embraced 13,000,000 persons. In Germany in 1907, out of 5,000,000 peasant households, 3,000,000 petty ones formed a reserve army of labour. In the U.S.A. in the 1930's official data, obviously tending towards under-estimation, showed 2,000,000 "superfluous" farmers. Every year in the summer months between 1,000,000 and 2,000,000 American agricultural workers, taking their families and household goods with them wander about the country in search of work.
The size of the agrarian surplus-population is especially large in the colonial countries. Thus, in India, where about three-quarters of the population are engaged in agriculture, the agrarian surplus-population constitutes an army many millions strong. A considerable section of the rural population is made up of people who are in a state of chronic semi-starvation; every year several millions of people die of hunger and epidemics.
The General Law of Capitalist Accumulation. Relative and Absolute Impoverishment of the Proletariat
The development of capitalism leads, with the accumulation of capital, to enormous wealth being concentrated in few hands at one pole of bourgeois society, with a growth in luxury and parasitism, dissipation and idleness among the exploiting classes; while at the other pole the burden of exploitation becomes continually more intense, and unemployment and poverty increases among those whose labour is the creator of all wealth.
"The greater the social wealth, the functioning capital, the extent and energy of its growth, and therefore also the absolute mass of the proletariat and the productiveness of its labour, the greater is the industrial reserve army.... The relative mass of the industrial reserve army increases therefore with the potential energy of wealth. But the greater this reserve army in proportion to the active labour army, the greater is the mass of a consolidated surplus-population whose misery is in inverse ratio to its torment of labour... This is the absolute, general law of capitalist accumulation." (Marx, Capital, Kerr edition, vol. 1, p. 707.)
The general law of capitalist accumulation gives concrete expression to the operation of the basic economic law of capitalism-the-law of surplus-value. The striving to increase surplus-value leads to an accumulation of wealth in the hands of the exploiting classes and to the growth of impoverishment and degradation of the propertyless classes.
As capitalism develops, a process of relative and absolute impoverishment of the proletariat takes place.
Relative impoverishment of the proletariat means that in bourgeois society the working class's share of the total national income steadily decreases, while at the same time the share 01 the exploiting classes steadily grows.
Notwithstanding the absolute growth of social wealth, the relative weight of the incomes received by the working class sharply declines. Workers' wages in American industry, shown as a percentage of capitalists' profits, were in 1889-70 per cent, in 1918-61 per cent, in 1929-47 per cent and in 1939-45 per cent.
In Tsarist Russia the total amount of nominal wages grew by nearly 80 per cent between 1900 and 1913 as a result of the increase in the number of industrial workers (real wages falling the while), but the profits of the industrialists grew more than threefold.
According to bourgeois economists' figures, in the U.S.A. in the 1920's 1 per cent of the property-owners possessed 59 per cent of all the wealth, while the poorest sections which made up 87 per cent of the population owned only 8 per cent of the national wealth.
In 1920-1 the largest property-owners of Britain, who made up less than 2 per cent of the total number of property-owners, concentrated 64 per cent of all the country's national wealth in their hands, while 76 per cent of the population possessed only 7.6 per cent of it.
Absolute impoverishment of the proletariat means the direct lowering of its standard of living.
"The worker is impoverished absolutely, i.e., becomes directly poorer than before, is forced to live worse, to eat more meagrely, to go without food for longer periods, to be coop up in cellars and garrets… "Wealth increases in capitalist society with incredible speed-alongside the impoverishment of the working masses." (Lenin, "Impoverishment in Capitalist Society, Works, Russian edition, vol. XIII, pp. 405-6.)
Seeking to whitewash capitalist reality, bourgeois political economy tries to deny the absolute impoverishment of the proletariat. Facts, however, prove that under capitalism workers' standard of living continually declines. This is shown in many ways.
Absolute impoverishment is expressed in the fall in real wages. As mentioned above, the increase in the prices of articles of mass consumption, the rise in rents and the growth of taxes cause the real wages of the workers to fall.
Absolute impoverishment of the proletariat is expressed in the increase in the amount of unemployment and in its duration.
Absolute impoverishment of the proletariat is expressed in the growth in the intensity of labour and deterioration of working conditions, which lead to the worker ageing rapidly, losing his capacity for work, and becoming disabled. In connection with the growth in the intensity of labour and the absence of needful measures for ensuring safety at work an increase takes place in the number of accidents and injures at work.
Absolute impoverishment of the proletariat is shown in the acute deterioration in the nutrition and housing conditions of the working people, which results in the undermining of their health, an increase in the death-rate and a reduction in the expectation of life among the working-class people.
In the coal industry of the U.S.A. between 1878 and 1914 the number of accidents at work entailing fatal consequences increased by 71.5 per cent. In the course of 1952 alone about 15,000 persons were killed and over 2,000,000 injured in the U.S.A. in the course of their employment. In the British coal industry before the war one miner in every six was every year the victim of an accident, but for 1949-53 the figure was one miner in every three.
According to the official data provided by the housing census, about 40 per cent of all dwelling-houses in the U.S.A. fail to come up to the minimum standards of sanitation and safety. The mortality rate among the working-class population is much higher than that amongst the ruling classes. Infant mortality in the slums of Detroit is six times greater than the average for the U.S.A.
The standard of living of the proletariat is particularly low in the colonial countries, where extreme poverty and the extraordinarily high mortality among the workers as a result of their exhausting labour and chronic hunger take on a mass character.
The living standard of the poorest peasantry under capitalism is not higher but often even lower, than that of the wage-workers. In capitalist society there takes place not only the absolute and relative impoverishment of the proletariat but also the ruin and impoverishment of the basic masses of the peasantry. In Tsarist Russia there were several tens of millions of starving rural poor. According to the data of American censuses, during recent decades about two-thirds of the farm population of the U.S.A., as a rule, has lacked the minimum needed for subsistence. For this reason, the vital interests of the peasants themselves impel the latter to join forces with the working class.
The path of development of capitalism is one of impoverishment and semi-starvation for the great majority of the working people. Under the bourgeois order the growth in the productive forces brings the working class not an easing of their position but increased poverty and privations.
At the same time the struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie, to overthrow the yoke of capital, develops, and its consciousness and degree of organisation grows. The mass of the peasantry are increasingly drawn into this struggle.
The Basic Contradiction of the Capitalist Mode of Production
In proportion as capitalism develops, it links together the labour of multitudes of people ever more closely. The social division of labour increases. Separate, more or less independent branches of industry are transformed into a whole series of mutually connected and inter-dependent branches. The economic connections between separate enterprises, districts and entire countries grow to an enormous extent.
Capitalism creates large-scale production both in industry and in agriculture. The development of the productive forces engenders such instruments and methods of production that they demand the joint labour of many hundreds and thousands of workers. Production becomes continually more concentrated. In this way capitalist socialisation of labour and of production takes place.
This growing socialisation of labour occurs, however, in the interests of a few private entrepreneurs who strive to increase their own profits. The product of the social labour of millions of people becomes the private property of the capitalists.
Consequently, a profound contradiction is inherent in the capitalist system: production is a social matter, whereas the ownership of the means of production remains private, capitalistic, and so is incompatible with the social character of production. The contradiction between the social character of production and the private, capitalist form of appropriation of the results of production is the basic contradiction of the capitalist mode of production, and becomes continually more acute as capitalism develops. This contradiction is expressed in the intensified anarchy of capitalist production, in the growth of class antagonisms between the proletariat and the working masses as a whole, on the one hand, and the bourgeoisie on the other.
Brief Conclusions
(1) Reproduction is the continual renewal and ceaseless repetition of the production-process. Simple reproduction means renewal of production on an unchanged scale. Extended reproduction means renewal of production on an enlarged scale. Typical of capitalism is extended reproduction, interrupted by periodical economic crises, when production declines. Capitalist extended reproduction means continual renewal and deepening of the relations of exploitation.
(2) Extended reproduction under capitalism presupposes accumulation of capital. Accumulation of capital means the fusion of part of surplus-value with capital, or the transformation of part of surplus-value into capital. Capitalist accumulation leads to an increase in the organic composition of capital, i.e., to the more rapid growth of constant capital as compared with variable capital. During capitalist reproduction the concentration and centralisation of capital takes place. Large-scale production has decisive advantages over small, by virtue of which the large and very large enterprises oust and subject to themselves the small and medium capitalist concerns.
(3) With the accumulation of capital and the growth in its organic composition the demand for workers is relatively reduced. An industrial reserve army of unemployed is formed. The excess of labour-power in capitalist agriculture produced by the ruin of the basic masses of the peasantry leads to the creation of an agrarian surplus-population. The general law of capitalist accumulation is the concentration of wealth in the hands of the exploiting minority and the growth of poverty among the working people, i.e., the overwhelming majority of society. Extended reproduction under capitalism leads inevitably to relative and absolute impoverishment of the working class. Relative impoverishment means the decline in the share taken by the working class of the national income in the capitalist countries. Absolute impoverishment is the direct lowering of the standard of living of the working class.
(4) The fundamental contradiction of capitalism is the contradiction between the social character of production and the private, capitalist form of appropriation. As capitalism develops, this contradiction becomes more and more acute, deepening the class antagonisms between bourgeoisie and proletariat.
Rotation and Turnover of Capital
Rotation of Capital. Three Forms of Industrial Capital
One of the conditions of existence of the capitalist mode of production is developed commodity circulation, i.e., exchange of commodities through the medium of money. Capitalist production is inseparably connected with circulation.
Every individual capital begins its career as a certain sum of money, it appears as money capital. The capitalist uses money to buy commodities of certain kinds: (1) means of production, (2) labour-power. This act of circulation can be expressed like this:
M-C <L/Pm.
In this diagram M stands for money, C for the commodity, L for labour-power, and Pm for means of production. As a result of this change of form which his capital has undergone, its owner has at his disposal everything he needs for production. Whereas previously he owned capital in the form of money, he now owns capital to the same amount but in the form of productive capital.
So the first phase in the movement of capital is the transformation of money capital into productive capital.
Following this begins the process of production, in which there takes place the productive consumption of the commodities which the capitalist has bought. It is expressed in the fact of the workers expending their labour, the raw material being worked up, fuel being burnt and machinery wearing out.
Capital changes its form once again: as a result of the production-process the capital invested appears embodied in a certain mass of commodities, it assumes the form of commodity capital. However, in the first: place, these are not the same commodities which the capitalist bought when he started up in business, and secondly, the value of this mass of commodities is greater than the original value of his capital, for in it is contained the surplus-value produced by the workers.
This stage in the movement of capital can be shown like this:
C <L/Pm ... P ... C'.
Here the letter P stands for production and the dots before and after it show that the process of circulation has been interrupted and a process of production is taking place, while C' stands for capital in the form of commodities, the value of which has grown as a result of the workers surplus labour.
Thus the second phase in the movement of capital consists of the transformation of productive capital into commodity capital.
Capital does not stop short with this movement. The commodities which have been produced have to be realised. In exchange for the commodities which he sells the capitalist receives a certain sum of money.
This act of circulation may be depicted like this:
C' - M'.
Capital changes its shape a third time: it once more assumes the form of money capital. At the end of this process its owner has a larger sum of money than he had at the beginning. The aim of capitalist production, which is to extract surplus-value, has been attained.
Thus the third stage in the movement of capital consists in the transformation of commodity capital into money capital.
Having received money for the commodities he has sold, the capitalist spends it once again on buying the means of production and labour-power needed for further production, and the entire process starts anew.
These are the three phases through which capital passes successively in the course of its movement. In each of these phases, capital fulfils a corresponding function. The transformation of money capital into the elements of productive capital ensures the union of the means of production which belong to the capitalists with the labour-power of the wage-workers: unless such a union is effected the process of production cannot take place. The function of productive capital is to create, with the labour of the wage-workers, masses of commodities, new value, and consequently, surplus-value. The function of commodity capital is, through the sale of the mass of commodities which has been produced, first, to return to the capitalist in money form the capital which he invested in production and, second, to realise in money form the surplus-value created in the process of production.
Industrial capital passes through these three phases in the course of its movement. By industrial capital we mean, in this instance, all capital which is used for the production of commodities, regardless of whether industry or agriculture is meant.
"Industrial capital is the only form of existence of capital in which not only the appropriation of surplus-value or surplus product but also its creation is a function of capital. Therefore it gives to production its capitalist character. Its existence includes that of class antagonisms between capitalists and labourers." (Marx, Capital, Kerr edition, vol. II, p. 63.)
Consequently, all industrial capital performs a rotatory movement.
By the rotation if capital is meant the successive transformation of capital from one form into another, its movement, which includes three phases. Of these phases, the first and third take place in the sphere of circulation, while the second belongs to that of production. Without circulation, that is, without transformation of commodities into money and then of money back into commodities, capitalist reproduction, i.e., the constant renewal of the production-process, would be unthinkable.
The rotation of capital as a whole can be shown in the following form:
M - C <… P/Pm … P … C' … M'.
All three stages of the rotation of capital are very closely interconnected and mutually dependent. The rotation of capital proceeds normally only so long as its various phases flow uninterruptedly one into the other.
If capital stops short in its first phase, this means it drops into a barren existence as money capital. If the hold-up occurs in the second phase, this means that the means of production remain lifeless and labour-power remains unemployed. If capital stops short in its last phase, unsold commodities accumulate in the warehouses and clog the channels of circulation.
It is the second phase, when it is in the form of productive capital, that is of decisive importance in the rotation of industrial capital; in this phase takes place the production of commodities, value and surplus-value. In the other two phases value and surplus-value are not created; in them only a change in the form of capital takes place.
To the three phases of the rotation of capital correspond three forms of industrial capital: (I) money capital, (2) productive capital and (3) commodity capital.
Every capital exists simultaneously in all of these forms: at the same time as one part of it appears as money capital being transformed into productive capital, another part appears as productive capital being transformed into commodity capital, and a third part appears as commodity capital being transformed into money capital. Each part of it in turn assumes and discards, one after another, all three of these forms. This is true not only of each capital taken separately but also of all capitals taken together or, in other words, of the aggregate social capital. Therefore, Marx declares, capital can be understood only as a movement and not as a thing lying at rest.
This includes the possibility of distinct existence of the three forms of capital. Later on it will be shown how merchant capital and loan capital are separated off from capital employed in production. It is this distinction that provides the basis for the existence of the different groups of the bourgeoisie--manufacturers, merchants bankers-who share out the surplus-value among themselves.
Turnover of Capital. Time of Production and Time of Circulation
Every capital undergoes rotation as an uninterrupted, constantly repeated process. In this way capital is turned over.
By the turnover of capital is meant its rotation, considered not as a momentary act but as a periodically renewed and repeated process. The period of turnover of capital is the sum of the time of production and the time of circulation. In other words, the period of turnover is the interval of time which elapses between the moment when the capital is invested in a certain form to the moment when it returns to the capitalist in the same form but increased by the amount of the surplus-value.
The time of production is the time during which the capital is in the sphere of production. The principal part of the time of production is the working period during which the object being worked up undergoes directly the operation of labour. The working period depends on the nature of the given branch of production, the level of technique in the particular enterprise, and other conditions. For example, in a spinning mill not more than a few days are needed for a certain quantity cotton to be transformed into yarn, ready to be sold, whereas in a locomotive-building works the completion of each locomotive requires the work of a large number of workers over long period.
The time of production is usually longer than the working period. It includes as well those breaks in the work during which the object of labour is undergoing the operation of certain natural processes such as, e.g., the fermentation of wine, the tanning of skins, the growth of wheat, etc.
The time of circulation is the time during which capital is being transformed from the money form into the productive form and from that into the money form. The length of the time of circulation depends on the conditions under which the purchase of means of production and the sale of completed commodities, are carried out, on the proximity of the market and on the level of development of the means of transport and communication.
Fixed and Circulating Capital
The various parts of productive capital do not circulate in the same way.
The different ways in which separate parts of productive capital circulate derive from the different ways in which each of them transfers its value to the product. This underlies the division of capital into fixed and circulating.
By fixed capital is meant that part of productive capital which, though it fully takes part in production, transfers its value to the product not all at once but in parts, during the course of a series of periods of production. This is that part of capital which is spent on the erection of buildings and works and on the purchase of machinery and equipment.
The various elements of which fixed capital is composed usually serve the purpose of production over many years; they wear out to a certain degree every year and at last are found useless for further employment. This is what is meant by the physical depreciation of machinery and equipment.
Besides physical depreciation, the instruments of production also undergo a moral depreciation. A machine which has been in use for five or ten years may be still sound enough, but if during that period another, improved, more productive or cheaper machine of the same kind has been invented, this leads to the depreciation of the old machine. For this reason the capitalist is interested in completely using up his equipment in the shortest possible period of time. Hence the capitalists' endeavours to lengthen the working day, to intensify labour, and to introduce uninterrupted shift work in their enterprises.
By circulating capital is meant that part of productive capital the value of which during a single period of production is completely returned to the capitalist in the form of money when the commodities are realised. This is that part of capital which is spent on the purchase of labour-power, and also of raw material, fuel and auxiliary materials, i.e., those means of production which do not form part of fixed capital. The value of the raw material, fuel and auxiliary materials is fully transferred to the commodities during a single period of production, and the outlay on labour-power returns to the capitalist with an increase (an addition of surplus-value).
During the time that it takes for fixed capital to complete a single turnover, circulating capital manages to complete a number of turnovers.
When he sells his commodities, the capitalist receives a certain sum of money, which is made up of: (1) the value of that part of the fixed capital which has been transferred to the commodities in the process of production, (2) the value of the circulating capital, (3) the surplus-value. So as to keep production going, the capitalist uses once more part of the money he has received, corresponding to circulating capital, to hire workers and to buy raw material, fuel and auxiliary materials. The capitalist Uses part of the money corresponding to the part of his fixed capital which has been transferred to the commodities, to replace depreciation in his machinery, machine-tools, buildings, etc., i.e., for amortisation.
Amortisation means the gradual replacement in money form of the value of fixed capital, through periodical deductions corresponding to the extent of its depreciation. Part of the amortisation deductions is spent on capital repairs, i.e., on partial replacement of worn-out equipment, tools, factory buildings, etc. But the bulk of the amortisation deductions is kept by the capitalists in money form (usually in the banks) so as to be able when necessary, to buy new machinery in place of the old or to erect new buildings to replace those which have become unfit for further use.
Marxist political economy distinguishes between the division of capital into fixed and circulating and its division into constant and variable. Constant and variable capital differ from each other in the roles which they play in the process whereby the workers are exploited by the capitalists, whereas fixed and circulating capital differ in the manner in which they circulate.
These two ways of dividing capital may be shown in the following fashion :
[diagram]
Bourgeois political economy recognises only the division of capital into fixed and circulating, since this way of dividing capital does not in itself show the role of labour power in creating surplus-value, but, on the contrary, conceals the radical difference between the capitalist's expenditure on the hiring of labour-power and that on raw material, fuel, etc.
Annual rate of Surplus-Value. Ways of Accelerating the Turnover of Capital
The speed with which a given amount of variable capital is turned over has a bearing on the amount of surplus-value which a capitalist can extract from his workers during a year.
Let us take two capitals, in each of which the variable part is 25,000 dollars, the rate of surplus-value being in each case 100 per cent. Let us suppose that one of them is turned over once in one year whereas the other is turned over twice. This means that the owner of the second capital, though he possesses the same amount of money, is able to hire and exploit during one year twice as many workers as the owner of the first. At the end of a year, therefore, the results shown by the two capitalists will differ. The first will receive 25,000 dollars of surplus-value, while the second will receive 50,000.
The rapidity of the turnover of capital also has a bearing correspondingly on the size of that part of the circulating capital which is laid out for buying raw material, fuel and auxiliary materials.
The annual rate of surplus-value means the proportion which the amount of surplus-value produced per year bears to the variable capital invested. In our example the annual rate of surplus-value, expressed as a percentage, would be, in the case of the first capitalist 25,000/25,000=100 per cent, and in that of the second capitalist 50,000/25,000=200 per cent. Hence it is clear that it is to the interest of capitalists to accelerate the turnover of capital, since this acceleration enables them to obtain the same amount of surplus-value with a smaller capital or with the same capital to obtain a larger sum of surplus-value.
Marx showed that by itself the acceleration of the circulation of capital does not create a single atom of new value. More rapid turnover of capital and more rapid realisation in money form of the surplus-value created in a given year only enables the capitalists to hire with one and the same quantity of capital a larger number of workers, whose labour creates a larger amount of surplus-value per year.
As we have seen, the time of turnover of capital consists of the time of production and time of circulation. The capitalist strives to shorten the duration of both of these.
The working period necessary for the production of commodities becomes shorter as the productive forces develop and technique grows.
For example, present-day methods of smelting pig-iron and steel enable these processes to be completed many times faster, compared with the methods which were used 100-150 years ago. Noteworthy results have also been achieved by progress in the organisation of production, e.g., the transition to serial or mass production.
The interruptions in the work which form part of the time of production over and above the working period are also shortened in many cases as technique advances. Thus, the process of tanning hides formerly took weeks, but at present, thanks to the use of the latest chemical methods, it takes only a few hours. In a number of branches of production extensive use is made of catalysts, i.e., substances which speed up the action of chemical processes.
In order to accelerate the turnover of capital employers' resort also to lengthening the working day and intensifying labour. If with a 10-hour working day the working period lasts 24 days, then a lengthening of the working day to 12 hours shortens the working period to 20 days and correspondingly accelerates the turnover of capital. The same result is given by an intensification of labour, under which the worker expends in 60 minutes the same amount of energy as previously he expended, say, in 72 minutes.
Furthermore, the capitalists bring about an acceleration in the turnover of capital by shortening the time of circulation of capital. Such a shortening is made possible by the development of transport and of the postal and telegraph services, and by the improved organisation of trade.
But reduction of the time of circulation is counteracted, first, by the extremely irrational distribution of production in the capitalist world, which necessitates the transport of commodities over vast distances, and, secondly, the sharpening of capitalist competition and growth of difficulties in finding markets.
The surplus-value created during a given period passes through circulation along with the circulating capital. The shorter the period of turnover of capital, the more quickly the surplus-value which the workers have created is realised in money form and the more quickly it can be used to extend production.
Brief Conclusions
(1)Each individual industrial capital goes through an uninterrupted movement in the form of a rotation comprising three phases. To these three phases correspond three forms of industrial capital-money, productive and commodity distinguished by their respective functions.
(2) The rotation of capital, taking place not as an isolated act but as a periodically renewed process, is called the turnover of capital. The period of turnover of capital means the sum of the time of production and the time of circulation. The principal part of the time of production is the working period.
(3) Each productive capital is divided into two parts, distinguished by the manner of their turnover: fixed capital and circulating capital. Fixed capital is the part of productive capital the value of which is transferred to commodities not all at once but little by little, during a series of periods of production. Circulating capital is that part of productive capital the value of which is in the course of a single period of production fully returned to the capitalist when the given commodities are sold.
(4) Acceleration of the, turnover of capital enables the capitalists to complete during one year, with the same capital, a greater number of turnovers, and, therefore, to hire more workers, who produce a larger amount of surplus-value. The capitalists endeavour to speed up the turnover of capital both by improving technique and, especially, by stepping up the exploitation of the workers-through lengthening the working day and intensifying labour.
Average Profit and Price of Production
Capitalist Costs of Production and Profit
The Rate of Profit The surplus-value created by the labour of the wage-workers in the process of production is the source from which are drawn the incomes of all the exploiting classes of capitalist society. Let us first examine the laws by force of which surplus-value assumes the form of the profit of those capitalists who have invested their capital in the production of commodities.
The value of a commodity produced in a capitalist enterprise break down into three parts: (1) the value of the constant capital, (part of the value of the machinery and buildings, the value of the raw material, fuel, etc.); (2) the value of the variable capital; and (3) surplus-value. The magnitude of a commodity's value is determined by the amount of socially-necessary labour required for producing it. But the capitalist does not, expend his own labour in producing the commodity, he lays out his capital for this purpose.
The capitalist costs of production of a commodity consist of the outlay of constant and variable capital (c+v), i.e., of expenditure on means of production and on workers' wages. The cost of the commodity to the capitalist is measured by the outlay of capital, its cost to society is measured by the outlay of labour. Therefore the capitalist costs of production of a commodity are less than its value, or the real costs of its production (c+v+s). The difference between value, or real costs of production, and capitalist costs of production is equal to the surplus-value (5) which the capitalist appropriates without compensation.
When the capitalist sells a commodity which has been produced in his enterprise, surplus-value makes its appearance as a definite surplus over and above the capitalist costs of production. The capitalist sets this surplus, in determining the profitability of the enterprise, against the capital which he has advanced, i.e., all the capital invested in production. Surplus-value, placed in relation to total capital, take the form of profit.
In so far as surplus-value is compared not with variable capital only but with capital as a whole-the difference between constant capital, spent on purchasing means of production, and variable capital, spent on hiring labour-power, is hidden. As a result the deceptive appearance is created that profit is engendered by capital itself. In reality, however, the source of profit is surplus-value, created only by the workers, by labour-power, the value of which is embodied in variable capital. Profit is surplus-value compared with the total capital invested in production and appearing outwardly to be engendered by the capital. Owing to this peculiarity of profit Marx calls it the transmuted form of surplus-value.
In similar fashion as the form of wages conceals the exploitation of wage-labour, creating the false impression that all labour is paid for, so also the form of profit in its turn hides from view the relationship of exploitation, creating a misleading appearance of profit being created by capital. Thus the forms assumed by capitalist production relations obscure and mask their true nature.
The degree of profitability of a capitalist enterprise for its owner is determined by the rate of profit. The rate of profit is the proportion between the surplus-value and the total capital advanced, expressed as a percentage. For example, if the total capital advanced is 200,000 dollars, and the year's profit amounts to 40,000 dollars, then the rate of profit = 40,000/200,000x100 or 20 per cent.
Inasmuch as the total capital advanced is greater than the variable capital, the rate of profit (s/c+v) is less than the rate of surplus-value (s/v). Suppose, in our example, that the capital of 200,000 dollars consists of 160,000 dollars of constant capital and 40,000 dollars of variable capital, then the rate of surplus is 40,000/40,000x100=100 per cent, but the rate of profit is 20 per cent, or one-fifth of the rate of surplus-value.
The rate of profit depends first of all on the rate of surplus-value. The higher the rate of surplus-value the higher, other things being equal, will be the rate of profit. All the factors which increase the rate of surplus-value, i.e., which raise the degree of exploitation of labour by capital (lengthening the working day, raising the intensity and productivity of labour, etc.) also increase the rate of profit.
Further, the rate of profit depends on the organic composition of capital. As we know, the organic composition of capital is the proportion between constant and variable capital. The lower the organic composition of capital, i.e., the larger the relative weight in the capital of its variable part (the value of labour-power), the larger, with the same rate of surplus-value, will the rate of profit be. And, conversely, the higher the organic composition of capital, the lower the rate of profit.
One of the factors which affect the rate of profit is economy in the use of constant capital. Finally, the rapidity of turnover of capital affects the rate of profit. The more rapid the turnover of capital, the higher the annual rate of profit, which represents the relation between the surplus-value produced, in the year to the total capital advanced. And, conversely, a slowing down in the turnover of capital leads to a lowering of the annual rate of profit.
Formation of the Average Rate of Profit, and Transformation of the Value of Commodities into their Price of Production
Under capitalism the distribution of capital among various branches of production and the development of technique take place in a ferocious competitive struggle.
Competition within a particular branch of production must be distinguished from competition between branches.
Competition within a branch means competition among enterprises in one and the same line of production, all producing commodities of the same kind, each of which tries to secure more advantageous disposal of its commodities and to obtain additional profit. The separate enterprises concerned work in varying conditions and differ one from another in their scale and in their level of technical equipment and organisation of production. Consequently the individual values of the commodities produced in the different enterprises are not the same. But competition between enterprises in one and the same branch of production leads to the price of commodities being determined not by their individual values but by the social value of these commodities. And the magnitude of this social value of the commodities concerned, as has been mentioned, depends on the average conditions of production in the particular branch.
As a result of the fact that the price of commodities is determined by their social value, those enterprises gain in which the, technique of production and the productivity of labour is higher than the average level in the branch concerned and, consequently, where the individual value of the commodities produced is lower than the social value. These enterprises receive an additional profit, or super-profit, which is a form of the extra surplus-value which we have examined earlier (in Chapter VII).
Thus, as a result of competition within a particular branch of production varying rates of profit are formed in different enterprises of the branch in question. Competition between different enterprises of one and the same branch leads to a squeezing-out of the small and medium enterprises by the large-scale ones. In order to hold their ground in the competitive struggle, those capitalists who own backward enterprises endeavour to introduce in them the technical improvements adopted by their competitors who own technically more developed enterprises. As a result a heightening of the organic composition of capital takes place in the branch as a whole, the super-profit which the capitalists who own the technically more advanced enterprises have been receiving now disappears, and a general lowering of the rate of profit takes place. This obliges the capitalists again to introduce technical improvements. Thus, in the process of competition within a particular branch, there takes place the development of technique and the growth of the productive forces.
Competition between branches means competition between the capitalists of different branches of production over the most profitable way of investing capital. The capitals invested in different branches of production have varying organic compositions. Since surplus-value is created only by the labour of wage-workers, in enterprises in those branches of production where a low organic composition of capital prevails a capital of the same size produces a relatively large mass of surplus-value. In enterprises with a higher organic composition of capital, a relatively smaller amount of surplus-value is produced. The competitive struggle between capitalists of different branches leads, however, to the amount of profit on capitals of equal size becoming equalised.
Let us suppose that in society there are three branches of production-leatherworking, textiles and engineering-with capitals of the same size but differing in organic composition. The amount of the capital advanced in each of these branches is 100 units (millions of pounds sterling, say). The capital of the leatherworking branch consists of 70 units of constant capital and 30 units of variable, that of the textile branch consists of 80 units of constant and 20 of variable, and that of the engineering branch consists of 90 units of constant and 10 units of variable. Let the rate of surplus-value of all three branches be the same and be 100 per cent. So, then, in the leatherworking branch 30 units of surplus-value will be produced in the textile branch 20 and in the engineering branch 10. The value of the commodities in the first branch will be equal to 130, in the second to 120, in the third to 110, and in all three branches together-360 units.
If the commodities are sold at their values, then in the leatherworking branch the rate of profit will be 30 per cent, in the textile branch 20 per cent and in the engineering branch 10 per cent. Such a distribution of profit will be quite advantageous to the capitalists in the leatherworking branch of production, but disadvantageous to the capitalists in the engineering branch. Under these conditions, the entrepreneurs in the engineering branch will seek more advantageous application for their capitals. This application for their capitals they will find in the leatherworking branch. A flow of capital from the engineering branch to the leatherworking branch will take place. In consequence, the quantities of commodities produced in the leatherworking branch will grow, competition will inevitably become more acute and will oblige the entrepreneurs in this branch to lower the prices of their commodities, which it will lead also to a reduction in the rate of profit. Conversely, in the engineering branch the quantities of commodities produced will fall and the changed relationship between supply and demand will enable the entrepreneurs to raise the process of their commodities, as a result of which the rate of profit will also rise.
The fall in prices in the leatherworking branch and the rise in prices in the engineering branch will continue until the rate of profit in all three branches becomes approximately the same.
This will happen when the commodities produced by all three branches are sold at 120 units (130+120+110)/3. The average profit of each of the branches will then be 20 units. The average profit is an equal profit on capitals of the same, magnitude invested in different branches of production.
And so, competition between branches leads to the differing rates of profit existing in different branches of capitalist production being equalised to a general (or average) rate of profit. This equalisation takes place through a flow of capital (and consequently, also of labour) from Some branches to others.
Through the formation of an average rate of profit the capitalists of some branches (in our example, leatherworking) are deprived of part of the surplus-value created by their workers. On the other hand, the capitalists in other branches (in our example, engineering) realise extra surplus-value. This means that the first sell their commodities at prices below their value, while the second sell them at prices above their value.
The price of a commodity in any of the branches is now composed of the cost of production (100 units) and the average profit (20 units).
The price which equals the cost of production of a commodity plus the average profit is the price of production. In the separate enterprises of a particular branch, as a result of the differences in the conditions of production, there exists different individual prices of production which are determined by the individual costs of production plus the average profit.
But the commodities are realised at an averaged-out, uniform price of production. The process of formation of an average rate of profit and price of production may be depicted in the form of the following table:
| Branches of
production |
Constant
capital |
Variable
capital |
Surplus-
value |
Value of
commodities |
Average rate of
profit (%) |
Price of
production of commodities |
Variation of
price of production from value |
| Leatherworking | 70 | 30 | 30 | 130 | 30 | 120 | -10 |
| Textile | 80 | 20 | 20 | 120 | 20 | 120 | Equal |
| Engineering | 90 | 10 | 10 | 110 | 10 | 120 | +10 |
| Total | 240 | 60 | 60 | 360 | 20 | 360 |
The commodities produced in each of the three branches are sold at 120 units (millions of dollars, say). Yet the value of the commodities in the leatherworking branch is 130 units, in the, textile branch 120 and in the engineering branch 110. In contrast to what happens under simple commodity production, under capitalism commodities are sold not at prices which correspond to their value but at prices which correspond to their prices of production.
The transformation of value into price of production is result of the historical development of capitalist production. Under conditions of simple commodity production the market price of commodities in general correspond to their values. In the first stages of capitalism's development significant differences were still retained between the rates of profit in different branches of production, since the separate branches were as yet insufficiently interconnected, and craft and other restrictions in existed which hindered the free flow of capital from some branches to others. The process of forming the average rate of profit and transforming value into price of production was brought to completion only with the triumph of capitalist machine industry. With the transformation of value into price of production the basic economic law of capitalism, the law of surplus-value, becomes concrete and finds expression in their form of the average rate of profit.
Bourgeois economists try to refute Marx's labour theory of value by referring to the fact that in particular branches the prices of production do not coincide with the values of the commodities. In reality, however, the law of value fully retains its force in capitalist conditions, for the price of production is merely a modified form of value.
This is shown by the following circumstances:
First, some entrepreneurs sell their commodities above their value, others below, but the capitalists as a whole, taken together, realise the full amount of the value of their commodities. On the scale of society as a whole the sum total of prices of production is equal to the sum total of the values of all commodities.
Second, the sum total of the profit received by the whole class of capitalists is equal to the sum total of the surplus-value produced by all the unpaid labour of the proletariat. The magnitude of the average rate of profit depends on the magnitude of the surplus-value produced in society.
Third, a reduction in the value of commodities leads to a reduction in their prices of production, an increase in the value of commodities leads to the raising of their prices of production.
Thus, the law of the average rate of profit operates in capitalist society; it means that the different rates of profit which depend on the differences in the organic composition of capital in different branches of production are levelled out, as a result of competition, to a common (average) rate of profit. The law of the average rate of profit, like all the laws of the capitalist mode of production, manifests itself spontaneously through innumerable variations and fluctuations. In the struggle for the most profitable application of capital a ferocious competitive struggle is waged between the capitalists. They endeavour to place their capital in those branches of industry which promise them the largest profits. In the hunt for high profits a flow of capital from one branch to another takes place, and as a result of this an average rate of profit is established.
Thus, the distribution of labour and means of production between the different branches of capitalist production takes place on the basis of the law of the average rate of profit. This means that in a developed capitalist society the law of value operates as the spontaneous regulator of production, working through the price of production.
The price of production is that average magnitude around which fluctuate, in the last analysis, the market prices of commodities, i.e., the prices at which commodities are actually bought and sold on the market.
The equalisation of the rate of profit and the transformation of value into price of production still further disguise the relationship of exploitation, still further conceal the true source of the enrichment of the capitalists.
"The actual difference of magnitude between profit and surplus value ... in the various spheres of production now conceals completely the true nature and origin of profit, not only for the capitalist, who has a special interest in deceiving himself on this score, but also for the labourer. By the transformation of values into prices of production, the basis of the determination of value is itself removed from direct observation." (Marx, Capital, Kerr edition, vol. III, p. 198.)
In reality the formation of an average rate of profit means a redistribution of surplus-value among the capitalists in different branches of production. Part of the surplus-value created in branches with a low organic composition of capital is appropriated by the capitalists in the branches with a high composition of capital. It follows that the workers are exploited not only by those capitalists for whom they work but by the entire class of capitalists as a whole. The entire capitalist class has an interest in raising the degree to which the workers are exploited, since this leads to a rise in the average rate of profit. As Marx showed, the average rate of profit is dependent on the degree to which the whole of labour is exploited by the whole of capital.
The law of the average rate of profit expresses, on the one hand, the contradictions and the competitive struggle among the industrial capitalists over the sharing-out of surplus-value, and on the other hand, the profound antagonism between two mutually hostile classes, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. It testifies to the fact that in capitalist society the bourgeoisie' as a class opposes the proletariat as a whole, that a struggle for particular interests of the workers or of particular groups of workers, a struggle against particular capitalists, cannot lead to a radical change in the position of the working class. The working class can free itself from the yoke of capital only by overthrowing the bourgeoisie as a class, only by abolishing the system of capitalist exploitation itself.
Tendency of the Rate of Profit to Fall
As capitalism develops, the organic composition of capital steadily rises. Each separate entrepreneur, more and more replacing workers by machines, strives to cheapen production, extend the market for his commodities and win super-profit for himself. But when the technical attainments of particular enterprises become widespread, a rise in the organic composition of capital takes place in the majority of enterprises, which leads to a fall in the general rate of profit.
A more rapid growth of fixed capital compared with circulating capital acts in the same direction, leading as it does to a slowing down in the turnover of the whole capital.
Each capitalist, in raising the level of technique, endeavours to obtain the largest possible profit, but the result of the activities of all the capitalists directed to achieving this purpose is something which none of them wanted-a lowering of the general rate of profit.
Let us take our previous example. The sum-total of all the capitals, amounting to 300 units, is made up of 240 units of constant and 60 of variable capital. With the rate of surplus-value at 100 per cent, 60 units of surplus-value are produced, and the rate of profit is 20 per cent. Let us suppose that during twenty years the total amount of capital grows from 300 to 500 units. At the same time as a result of the progress of technique, the organic composition of capital grows. Consequently, the 500 units are divided into 425 units of constant and 75 units of variable capital. In this case, given the previous rate of surplus-value, 75 units of surplus-value will be created. The rate of profit will now be 75/500x100=15 per cent. The amount of profit has grown from 60 to 75 units, but the rate of profit has fallen from 20 per cent to 15 per cent.
So, then, a rise in the organic composition of capital leads to a lowering of the average rate of profit. There are a number of factors, however, which counteract the lowering of the rate of profit.
In the first place, the exploitation of the working class grows. The development of the productive forces of capitalism, which expresses itself in the increasing organic composition of capital, leads at the same time to a growth in the rate of surplus-value. Owing to this, the lowering of the rate of profit takes place more slowly than it would have done had the rate of surplus-value remained the same. Secondly, technical progress, raising the organic composition of capital, gives rise to unemployment, which presses upon the labour market. This enables the employers to reduce wages fixing them well below the value of labour-power.
Thirdly, as the productivity of labour grows, there is a fall in the value of the means of production-machinery, equipment, raw material, etc. This slows down the growth in the organic composition of capital, and, consequently, counteracts the lowering of the rate of profit.
Let us suppose that an employer compels his workers, who formerly were operating five looms, to operate twenty. As a result of the growth in the productivity of labour in the manufacture of looms, however, the value of looms has fallen by half. Consequently, twenty looms are now worth not four times as much as five but only twice as much. Therefore the share of constant capital per worker grows not fourfold but only twofold.
Fourthly, the lowering of the average rate of profit is counteracted by economy in constant capital effected by the capitalist at the expense of the health and lives of his workers. In order to enlarge their profits employers compel their workers to do their work in workshops which are too small and without adequate ventilation, and they economise on the devices which are needed for safety. In consequence of this niggardliness on the part of the capitalists, the workers' health is undermined, an enormous number of accidents happen, and the death rate rises among the working population.
Fifthly, the fall in the rate of profit is held up because of the nonequivalent exchange which exists in the sphere of foreign trade, when the entrepreneurs of advanced capitalist countries, through selling their commodities in colonial countries, obtain super-profit.
All these counteracting factors do not abolish but merely weaken the lowering of the rate of profit and convert it into a tendency. Thus, the raising of the organic composition of capital has as its inevitable consequence the law of the tendency of the general (or average) rate of profit to fall.
The fall in the rate of profit does not mean a reduction in the amount of profit, i.e., in the total volume of surplus-value produced by the working class. On the contrary, the amount of profit grows both in connection with the rise in the rate of surplus-value and as a result of the growth in the number of workers exploited by capital. For example, in the U.S.A. the total of industrial profit, calculated from the official data of the Census of Industry, amounted in 1859 to 316 million dollars, in 1869 to 516 million, in 1879 to 660 million, in 1889 to 1,513 million, and in 1899 to 2,245 million.
The capitalists try by intensifying to the utmost the exploitation of the workers to weaken the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. This leads to the contradictions between proletariat and bourgeoisie becoming more acute.
The law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall intensifies the struggle within the bourgeoisie itself over the distribution of the total mass of profit.
In their drive for higher profits the capitalists invest their capital in backward countries, where working hands are cheaper and the organic composition of capital is lower than in countries with highly-developed industry: and they begin to exploit the peoples of these countries intensively. This leads to a sharpening of the contradictions between the developed capitalist countries and the backward ones, between metropolitan countries and colonies.
Further, in order to keep prices at a high level, entrepreneurs join together in associations of various kinds. By this means they manage to secure high profits.
Finally, striving to make up for the fall in the rate of profit by increasing its amount, the capitalists extend the scale of production far beyond the limits of demand effective in terms of money. In this connection, the contradictions caused by the tendency of the rate of profit to fall make themselves felt especially sharply during crises.
The law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall is one of the clearest indications of the historical limitations of the capitalist mode of production. In sharpening the contradictions of capitalism, this law shows vividly that at a certain stage the bourgeois system becomes an obstacle to the further development of the productive forces.
BRIEF CONCLUSIONS
(1) Profit is surplus-value taken in comparison with the-total capital invested in production and appearing from outside as though produced by this capital. The rate of profit means the relation of the amount of surplus-value produced to the total capital, expressed as a percentage.
(2) Competition within a branch of production leads to the prices of identical commodities being determined not by the individual but by the social value of these commodities. Competition between branches leads to a flow of capital from one branch to another, to the formation of an average rate of profit throughout the field of capitalist production. On the basis of the law of the average rate of profit there takes place a distribution of labour and means of production among the various branches of capitalist economy.
(3) As a result of the equalisation of the rate of profit commodities are sold not at their values but as their prices of production. The price of production is the price which equals the cost of producing the commodity plus the average profit. The price of production is a modified form of the value. The sum-total of the prices of production is equal to the sum-total of the values of all commodities; with a change in the value o commodities their price of production also changes.
(4) As capitalism develops, in proportion to the growth in the organic composition of capital the average rate of profit shows a tendency to fall.
At the same time the amount of profit steadily grows. The law of the tendency of the average rate of profit to fall leads to the contradictions of capitalism becoming acute.
Merchant Capital and Merchants' Profit
Merchants' Profit and its Source
Merchant and money-lenders' capital preceded industrial capital in history. Under the capitalist mode of production these forms of capital lose their previous independent role; their functions are reduced to serving industrial capital. Consequently, under capitalism, merchant capital and interest-bearing capital are essentially different from what they were in their pre-capitalist forms.
Industrial capital, as already stated, assumes in the course of its rotation three successive forms: money capital, industrial capital and commodity capital, which have different functions. These functional forms of industrial capital come to stand apart from each other at a certain level of its development. From industrial capital employed in production there is separated off merchant capital, in the shape of the capital of the merchant, and loan capital in the shape of bank capital. Within the capitalist class three groups are formed, all sharing in the appropriation of surplus-value: manufacturers, merchants and bankers.
Merchant capital is capital employed in the sphere of commodity circulation. In this sphere no surplus-value is created. Whence, then, does the merchant's profit arise? If the capitalist manufacturer himself were to undertake the realisation of his commodities, he would have to spend part of his capital on equipping commercial establishments, hiring salesmen, and other expenses connected with trade. In order to do this he would have to increase the amount of capital advanced or else, with the same amount of capital advanced, to reduce the scale of production.
And in either case his profit would fall. The manufacturer prefers to sell his commodities to a middleman-a merchant capitalist, who as his special task undertakes the selling of goods, the forwarding of them to the consumer. This specialisation of merchant capital in the function of commodity circulation enables the time and expense connected with circulation to be reduced. Merchant capital, in serving the process of realisation of the commodities of many industrial capitalists, thereby reduces the part of social capital which is diverted from production to the circulation process. Thanks to having transferred the task of realising his commodities to the merchant, the industrial capitalist speeds up the turnover of his capital and this leads to an increase in his profits. This enables the manufacturer in his own interests to surrender to the merchant a certain share of the surplus-value, which constitutes the merchant capitalist's profit. Merchants' profit is a part of the surplus-value, which the manufacturer surrenders to the merchant in return for realising his commodities.
The realisation of commodities is effected by merchant capital by means of exploiting commercial employees. The labour of these wageworkers who are engaged in realising commodities, i.e., in transforming commodities into money and money into commodities, creates neither value nor surplus-value, but it enables the merchant capitalist to appropriate part of the surplus-value created in production.".
"Just as the unpaid labour of the labourer of the productive capital creates surplus-value for it in a direct way, sot:, unpaid labour of the commercial wage-workers secures, share of this surplus-value for the merchant's capital." (Marx, Capital, Kerr edition, vol. III, p.346.)
The working day of commercial employees, like that of workers engaged in production, breaks down into two parts: during the necessary time they effect the realisation of that part of the surplus-value created in the sphere of production which replaces the capitalists' outlay on the hiring of their labour-power, and during the surplus time they work gratis for the capitalists, enabling them to appropriate merchants' profit.
Consequently the workers in the sphere of trade are subjected to exploitation on the part of the merchant capitalists just as the workers who produce commodities are subjected to exploitation by the manufacturers.
If he is to realise a certain mass of commodities, the merchant must advance for a certain period a capital of appropriate amount. He tries to obtain as large profits as possible on this, capital. If the rate of merchants' profit turns out to be less than the average rate of profit, the business of merchant becomes unprofitable, and merchants transfer their capital to industry, agriculture or some other branch of the economy.
Conversely, a high rate of merchants' profit attracts industrial capital into commerce. Competition between the capitalists leads to the level of merchants' profit being determined by the average rate of profit, the average profit being formed in relation to all capital, including that which operates in the sphere of circulation.
Thus, not only the capital of industrial capitalists but also merchant capital takes part in the process of evening-out the rate of profit, as a result of which both industrial and merchant capitalists receive the average rate of profit in proportion to the amount of capital expended by them. It follows that the industrial capitalists do not realise all the profit created in industry but only that part of it which constitutes the average profit on the capital which they have invested. The merchant capitalists sell commodities at their price of production, which includes the average profit both of the industrialist and of the merchant. Because of this it is possible for them to realise the average profit on the capital they have invested out of the difference between their buying and selling prices.
In the form of merchants' profit the true source of the increase of capital is still more closely hidden than it is in the form of industrial profit. The merchant's capital plays no part in production. The formula for the movement of merchant capital is: M-C-M. Here the stage of productive capital is missing and the link with production outwardly seems broken. A misleading appearance is created that profit is arising from trade itself by way of additions to the price and the selling of commodities above their price of production. What in fact happens, as has been shown, is the opposite: the manufacturer sells the commodity to the merchant below the price of production, surrendering to him part of his profit.
Merchant capital not only takes part in realising the surplus-value created in production, it also subjects the working people to additional exploitation as consumers. Striving to obtain additional profit, the merchant capitalists inflate prices by all means available, extensively practise the giving of short weight and short measure to customers, and sell poor-quality and adulterated goods.
One of the sources of merchants' profit is the exploitation of petty commodity producers by merchant capital. Merchant capitalists compel peasants and craftsmen to sell them the products of their labours at low prices and at the same time the latter buy from the merchant capitalists tools, equipment, raw material, etc., at high prices. The share taken by commercial middlemen of the retail price of agricultural products in the, U.S.A. rose between 1913 and 1934 from 54 per cent to 63 per cent.
All this leads to enhanced impoverishment of the working people and still further sharpens the contradictions of capitalism.
Costs of Circulation
The process of capitalist circulation of commodities demands, a certain outlay for expenses. These expenses, connected with the maintenance of the sphere of circulation, are the costs of circulation.
Two kinds of capitalist costs incurred in the sphere of trade must be distinguished one from the other: first, net costs of circulation which are directly connected with the processes of purchase and sale of goods and derive from the peculiarities of the capitalist system; and, second, costs arising from the extension of the production-process into the sphere of circulation.
The predominant and continually growing share of the costs of circulation in capitalist trade is taken by the net costs. To the net costs of circulation belong the expenses connected with the transformation of commodities into money and money into commodities. To this category belong the expenses arising from competition and speculation, from advertising, the greater part of the expenditure on the wages of commercial employees, on the keeping of accounts, correspondence, the upkeep of commercial offices, etc. Net costs of circulation, as Marx showed do not add one jot of value to the commodity. They constitute a direct deduction from the total sum of values produced in society, and are covered by the capitalists from the total mass of surplus-value produced by the labour of the working class. The increase in the net costs of circulation testifies to the growth of waste under capitalism." .
In the U.S.A. recorded expenses on advertisement alone amounted in 1934 to 1.6 milliard dollars, in 1940 to 2.1 milliard and in 1953 to 7.8 milliard.
With the development of capitalism and the growing difficulties of realising commodities, a colossal trading apparatus with manifold links is built up. Before they reach the hands of the consumer, commodities pass through the hands of a whole army of merchants, speculators, retailers and agents.
To the category of costs connected with the extension of the production process into the sphere of circulation belong expenses which are socially necessary and do not depend on the peculiarities of the capitalist system-on the finishing, transport and packing of goods. Every product is available to the consumer only when it has been delivered to him. The costs of finishing, transport and packing of goods correspondingly increase the cost of production of commodities. The labour which the workers expend in this work transfers to the commodities the value of the means of production expended and adds new value to the value of the commodity.
The anarchy of capitalist production and crises, the competitive struggle and speculation, bring about the piling up of extraordinary stocks of commodities and lengthen and distort their channels of movement, which leads to huge unproductive expenditure being incurred. In the overwhelming majority of cases capitalist advertisement is connected to a greater or less extent with swindling the customer and gives rise to superfluous and expensive packing of goods. This means that an ever larger part of the expenses for transport, storage and packing of commodities are transformed into net costs caused by capitalist competition and anarchy of production. The rise in the level of the costs of circulation is one of the indices of intensified parasitism in bourgeois society. The cost of capitalist trade weigh heavily upon the working people as consumers. .
In the U.S.A. costs of circulation amounted in 1929 to 31 per cent and in 1935 to 32.8 per cent of the total amount of retail trade. In the capitalist countries of Europe the costs of circulation amount to approximately a third of the total retail turnover.
Forms of Capitalist Trade. Commodity Exchanges
As capitalist production and circulation develop, the forms of trade, wholesale and retail, also develop. Wholesale trade is trade between manufacturers and trading concerns, while retail trade is the sale of commodities directly to the population.
In trade, as in industry, concentration and centralisation of capital goes on. Small and medium capitalists are squeezed out by large-scale ones both in wholesale and in retail trade. In retail trade the concentration of capital takes place principally in the form of the setting up of large stores, both universal a specialised. Universal stores carry on trade in all kinds of goods, specialised shops trade only in one kind of goods, e.g., footwear, or clothing.
The production of identical commodities permits merchants to carry on wholesale trade by means of samples. Mass homogeneous goods such as cotton, flax-fibre, metals b ferrous and non-ferrous, rubber, grain, sugar, coffee, etc., are bought and sold in accordance with fixed standards and samples on the commodity exchanges.
A commodity exchange is a special kind of market, where trade in uniform commodities in bulk is carried on and the supply of and demand for these commodities is concentrated on the scale of entire countries often even on the scale of the capitalist world market.
The commodities which are the subject of the deals made between capitalists on the exchanges do not pass immediately from hand to hand. The deals are usually made for completion at the end of a period: the seller undertakes to supply the buyer with a certain quantity of the commodity at a stated time. For instance, deals are concluded in spring for supplying cotton from the next harvest, when this cotton has not yet been sown. In concluding these exchange deals the seller reckons that the price of the commodity in question will have fallen by the time stated, so that he will benefit by the difference in price; the buyer reckons that prices will rise. Often the sellers on the exchange do not possess the goods they sell and the buyers do not want the goods they buy. Thus commodity exchanges are places where speculative trade is carried on. The speculators buy and sell the ownership of goods with which they have not the slightest connection. Speculation is inseparably linked with the whole structure of capitalist trade, since this trade has for its aim not the satisfaction of society's wants but the extraction of profit. It is the largescale capitalists, mostly, who make big money in speculative trade. It leads to the ruin of a considerable section of the small and medium entrepreneurs.
In bourgeois countries trade is often conducted on credit or on the instalment plan. This type of trade frequently lead the ordinary consumer being obliged to pay his debts with his goods and chattels, being unable to settle with his creditors in due time. Trade on a credit basis is often used by the capitalists as a means of disposing of inferior goods which are otherwise unsaleable.
Foreign Trade
As mentioned above, the transition to capitalism was connected with the creation of a world market. Lenin said that capitalism resulted from "widely developed commodity circulation which goes beyond the boundaries of the State. For this reason one cannot imagine a capitalist nation without foreign trade; and there is no such nation." (Lenin, "Development of Capitalism in Russia", Works, Russian edition, vol. III, p.43.)
In the course of the development of commodity circulation, going beyond the limits of national markets, capitalist foreign trade is extended.
The extension of world trade in itself expresses the development of the international division of labour, connected with the growth of the productive forces. For the capitalists, however, foreign trade serves as a means of increasing profits. In their hunt for profit the capitalists are constantly seeking new markets for their goods and sources of raw material. The limitations of the home market resulting from the impoverishment of the masses and the seizure of internal sources of raw material by large-scale capitalists intensifies their striving to establish supremacy in foreign markets.
Foreign trade was really extensively developed only in the capitalist epoch. During one hundred years, from 1800 to 1900, the turnover of world trade grew more than twelve-and-a-half-fold, from 1.5 milliard dollars to 18.9 milliard dollars. During the following three decades it grew more than three-and-a-half-fold and in 1929 attained the figure of 68.6 milliard dollars.
Foreign trade is a source of additional profit for the capitalists of the more developed capitalist countries, since manufactured articles are sold in backward countries at relatively higher prices, while raw material can be purchased there at much lower prices. Foreign trade serves as One of the means of economic enslavement of the backward countries by the developed bourgeois countries, and of the extension of the spheres of influence of the capitalist powers.
Thus, for example, the English East India Company plundered India for more than 250 years (1600-1858). As a result of the rapacious exploitation of the local inhabitants by the East India Company many provinces of India were transformed into wildernesses; the fields were not cultivated, the land became overgrown with scrub and the population died off.
Foreign trade is made up of export, i.e., the sending out of commodities, and import, i.e., the bringing in of commodities. The relationship between the total of the prices of the commodities exported by a particular country and the total of the prices of the commodities imported by it during a certain period, e.g., a year, constitutes the balance of trade. If the export side exceeds the import side, the balance of trade is active, while if the opposite is the case it is passive.
A country which has a passive balance of trade must cover its deficit by drawing upon such sources as stocks of gold, income from transporting the products of other countries, income from capital investments in other countries, and finally, by means of foreign, loans.
The trade balance does not show all the forms of economic: relations which exist between countries. A fuller expression of these relations is given by the balance of payments. The balance of payments is the relationship between the total of all payments received by a particular country from other countries and the total of all payments which this country makes to other countries.
The nature of the economic connections between countries also determines the foreign-trade policy of capitalist States. In the epoch of pre-monopoly capitalism two main types of trade policy took shape: the policy of free trade and the policy of protecting native industry (protectionism), which was carried out mainly by introducing high customs dues on foreign goods.
BRIEF CONCLUSIONS
(1) Merchant capital serves the circulation of industrial capital. Merchants' profit is part of surplus-value, which their manufacturer yields to the merchant.
(2) The exploitation by merchant capital of its wage-workers enables, it to appropriate part of the surplus-value created in production. Merchant capital exploits the small commodity producers through nonequivalent exchange. The workers and other sections of the working people are exploited by merchant capital as purchasers of consumer goods.
(3) The outlay connected with maintaining the sphere of circulation constitutes the costs of circulation. The costs of circulation are made up of net costs, directly connected with the buying and selling of commodities, and costs which arise from the continuation of the production-process into the sphere of circulation. As capitalist trade develops, unproductive expenditure in the sphere of circulation grows.
(4) Foreign trade arises from an international division of labour. Under capitalism it serves as one of the methods of economic enslavement of industrially less developed countries by more developed industrial capitalist powers.
Loan Capital and Loan Interest. Circulation of Money
Loan Capital
Just as commodity capital becomes separated off in the form of merchant capital, money capital becomes separated off as loan capital.
In the process of the turnover of capital the industrial capitalist finds himself from time to time with spare capital for which he can discover no application in his business. For instance, when a capitalist accumulates a depreciation fund intended for restoring the worn-out parts of his fixed capital, he temporarily assembles spare sums of money. These sums will be spent on purchasing new equipment and machinery only after the lapse of several years. If the manufacturer sells finished products every month but buys raw material only, once in six months, he has spare money at his disposal for five months. This is inactive capital, i.e., capital which is not bringing in any profit.
At other times the capitalist finds himself in need of money, e.g., when, though he has not yet managed to dispose of his finished goods, he needs to buy raw material. At the very moment when one entrepreneur has a temporary surplus of money capital, another has need of it. In their hunt for profit the capitalists strive to ensure that each particle of their capital brings them in income. The capitalist lets out his spare money on loan, i.e., for temporary use by other capitalists.
Loan capital is money capital which its owner allows another capitalist to use for a period in return for a definite consideration. The distinctive feature of loan capital is that it is used in production not by the capitalist who owns it but by others. When he is able to borrow money, an industrial capitalist is freed from the necessity of keeping substantial reserves of money in an inactive state. A loan of money enables a manufacturer to extend production and increase the number of workers he employs, and, consequently, to increase the amount of surplus-value he obtains.
As consideration for the money capital of which he is allowed to dispose, the manufacturer pays the owner of this capital a certain sum which is called interest. Interest is the part of his profit which the industrial capitalist yields to the lending capitalist in return for being granted a loan by him. Loan capital is capital which brings in interest. The source of interest is surplus-value.
The movement of loan capital is wholly based on the movement of industrial capital. Capital granted on loan is used in production, for the purpose of increasing surplus-value. Loan capital, therefore, like all capital generally, expresses first and foremost the production relations between the capitalists and the workers exploited by them. At the same time loan capital in particular reflects the relations between two groups of capitalists: on one side the money capitalists and on the other the functioning capitalists (manufacturers and merchants)..
The formula of motion of loan capital is: M-M'. Here, not only the stage of productive capital but also of merchant capital is missing. The impression is created that the source of income is not surplus-value, produced by exploiting the workers in the sphere of production, but money by itself. The fact that loan capital brings in income in the form of interest appears to be as natural a property of money as the bearing of fruit is of a fruit tree. Here the fetishism characteristic of capitalist relations attains its farthest limit.
The owner of money capital places his capital for a period at the disposal of the industrial capitalist, who uses it in production in order to obtain surplus-value. Thus there arises a separation between the ownership of capital and its employment in production, a separation between capital as property and capital as function.
Interest and Profit of Enterprise.
The Rate of Interest and its Tendency to Fall
The manufacturer or merchant surrenders part of his profit to the money capitalist in the form of interest. Thus, the average profit is broken down into two parts. The part which remains with the industrialist or merchant, i.e., the functioning capitalists~ is called the profit of enterprise.
Just as the form assumed by interest gives rise to a misleading Impression that interest is a natural product of capital-ownership, so the form assumed by profit of enterprise gives rise to the illusion that this income is the remuneration of the functioning capitalist for managing the enterprise and supervising the labour of his workers. In fact, profit of enterprise, like interest, has no connection with work in the management of production; it is part of the surplus-value which the capitalists appropriate without compensation.
The proportion in which the average profit is divided between profit of enterprise and interest depends on the balance of supply and demand of loan capital, the state of the market for money capital. The higher the demand for money capital, the higher, other things being equal, will the rate of interest be. The rate of interest is the name given to the relationship between the amount of the interest and that of the money capital which is lent. In ordinary circumstances, the upper limit of the rate of interest is the average rate of profit, since interest is a part of profit.
As a rule, the rate of interest is considerably less than the average rate of profit.
As capitalism develops, the rate of interest displays a tendency to fall. This tendency results from two causes: first, the operation of the law of the tendency of the average rate of profit to fall, since the average rate of profit constitutes the upper limit of the fluctuations of the rate of interest; secondly, as capitalism develops, the total mass of loan capital grows faster than the demand for it. One of the causes of the growth of loan capital is the increase among the bourgeoisie of the group of rentiers, i.e., capitalists who are owners of money capital and engage in no activity whatsoever in connection with business. This also reflects the increase of parasitism in bourgeois society. The growth of loan capital is facilitated by the centralisation of spare money in banks and savings banks.
Interest on short-term loans on the U.S. money market ranged in 1866-80 from 3.6 (lowest rate) to 17 (highest rate), in 1881-1900 from 2.63 to 9.75, in 1921-20 from 2.98 to 8, in 1921-35 from 0.75 to 7.81, and in 1945-54 from 0.75 to 2.75.
Forms if Credit. Banks and their operations
Capitalist credit is the form of motion of loan capital. Through the medium of credit, temporarily spare money capital is transformed into loan capital. Under capitalism two forms of credit exist: commercial and bankers'.
Commercial credit means the credit which the functioning capitalists (i.e., the manufacturers and merchants) allow other in connection with the realising of commodities. The manufacturer, endeavouring to hasten the turnover of his capital which is in commodity form, supplies commodities on credit to another manufacturer or wholesale merchant, and the wholesale merchant in his turn sells the commodities on credit to the retailer. Commercial credit is used by capitalists in buying and selling raw material, fuel, equipment, machinery and also consumer goods.
Usually, commercial credit is short-term: it is given for a period not exceeding a few months. The instrument of commercial credit is the bill of exchange. A bill of exchange is a debt obligation by which the debtor undertakes to pay within a definite period of time for the commodities he has bought. When the time for payment comes round a buyer who has given a bill of exchange must honour it in cash. Commercial credit therefore is bound up with trading deals and as a consequence is the foundation of the capitalist credit system.
Bankers' credit means credit granted by money capitalists (bankers) to the functioning capitalists. Bankers' credit, unlike commercial credit, is not drawn from capital engaged in production or circulation but from idle and also temporarily spare money capital seeking application. Bankers' credit is granted; by the banks. A bank is a capitalist concern which trades in money capital and acts as middleman between lenders and borrowers. The bank, on the one hand, collects spare, inactive capital and income, and on the other, places money capital at the disposal of the functioning capitalists-manufacturers and merchants.
The overwhelmingly larger part of the capital at the disposal of the banks is not their own property and is subject to withdrawal. But at any particular moment only a fairly small section of the depositors are applying to take out their deposits. In the majority of cases the withdrawal of money is balanced and exceeded by the inflow of new deposits. Thee situation is radically altered when any emergency occurs-a crisis or a war. Then the depositors demand the return of their deposits all at the same time. In ordinary circumstances a bank need keep in its safes only a comparatively small amount of money to pay those who want to withdraw their deposits. By far the larger amount of the deposits is lent out.
Bank operations are divided into passive and active.
Passive operations are those by which the bank draws money into its safes. The principal means by which these operations are effected is the receipt of deposits. Deposits are made in various forms: some for a definite term, others on current account. The latter must be paid out by the bank on demand, whereas fixed-term deposits may be withdrawn only after the agreed term has elapsed. Thus, fixed-term deposits are advantageous to the bank.
Active operations are those by which the bank places and utilises the means which it has at its disposal. These are, first and foremost, the granting of money on loan. One of these operations is the discounting of bills of exchange. A manufacturer who has sold his goods on credit brings to the bank the bill of exchange he has received from the purchaser, and the bank forthwith pays out to the manufacturer the sum specified in the bill of exchange, less a certain percentage. At the conclusion of the period for which the bill is made out, the drawer of the bill pays not the manufacturer but the bank. Through this operation commercial credit is interwoven with bank credit. Also to the category of the bank's active operations belong the granting of loans on various kinds of security: goods, gilt-edged securities, shipping documents. The bank also makes direct investments of capital in various enterprises in the form of longterm credit.
Thus, a banker is a trader in money capital. In its passive operations the bank pays interest, in its active operations it receives interest. The bank pays a lower rate of interest on the money lent to it and charges a higher rate on the loans which it makes itself. The source of the bank's profit is the surplus-value created in production. The bank's profit comes out of the difference between the interest which the bank draws and the interest which it pays out. Out of this difference the bank covers the expenses arising from its operations; these expenses are net costs of circulation. The sum remaining forms the bank's profit. The mechanism of capitalist competition by its own action brings down the level of this profit to the average rate of profit on capital in general. The labour of the wageworkers employed in the bank, like the labour of commercial employees in the realisation of commodities, does not create value and surplus-value; but enables the banker to appropriate part of the surplus-value which is created in production. The bank employees are thus subjected to exploitation by the bankers.
The banks fulfil the function of centres for the settling of accounts. Each business which deposits money with the bank or is in receipt of a loan from it has a current account at the bank. The bank pays out money from current accounts on orders presented in a special form, called cheques. Thus, the bank acts as cashier for a number of businesses. This circumstance makes it possible to develop on an extensive scale the settling of accounts without any actual passing of cash. Capitalist A, who has sold commodities to capitalist B, receives from him a cheque drawn on the bank where both of them have current accounts. The bank adjusts the account, transferring the amount named on the cheque from B's current account to A's. Concerns have current accounts in different banks.
In the principal centres the banks set up special clearing houses where cheques drawn on many banks cancel each other out to a considerable extent. The circulation of cheques and bills of exchange reduces the need for cash.
Under capitalism there are three main types of bank: commercial banks, mortgage banks and banks of issue. Commercial banks provide credit for manufacturers and merchants predominantly by way of using short-term loans. To a large extent this is done by discounting bills of exchange. This credit is mainly drawn from deposits.
Mortgage banks are concerned with the issue of long-term loans on the security of real property (landholdings, houses, buildings). The rise and activity of mortgage banks is closely connected with the development of capitalism in agriculture, with the exploitation of the peasants by the bankers. To this category of banks also belong the agricultural banks which grant long-term loans for productive purposes.
Banks of issue have the right to issue money of credit-banknotes. Central banks of issue play a special role. It is in these banks that the country's gold reserves are concentrated. They enjoy the exclusive right to issue banknotes. Central banks do not usually do business with particular manufacturers or merchants, but make loans to commercial banks, which in their turn do business with entrepreneurs. Thus, the central banks of issue are bankers' banks.
By concentrating loan and payment transactions, banks help to speed up the turnover of capital and to lower the costs of monetary circulation. At the same time, the activity, of the banks facilitates the centralisation of capital, the squeezing-out of the small and medium capitalists, the intensification of the exploitation of the workers and the plundering of the craftsmen and artisans. Mortgage loans ruin the peasants because the payment of interest on these loans, absorbing as it does the major part of their incomes, leads to the breakdown of their economic activity. The paying off of these debts is often effected by way of selling up the land and other property of the peasants who have fallen into dependence on the banks.
Concentrating all the money capital of society as they do, and acting as middlemen for credit, the banks serve as a special kind of apparatus for the spontaneous distribution of resources between different branches of the economy. This distribution takes place not in the interest of society or in accordance with its needs, but in the interests of the capitalists. Credit facilitates the extension of production, but this extension again and again encounters the narrow framework of effective demand. Credit and the banks contribute to the further growth of the socialisation of labour, but the social character of production comes into ever sharper conflict with the private, capitalist form of appropriation. Thus, the development of credit renders the contradictions of the capitalist mode of production more acute and intensifies its anarchy.
Joint-Stock Companies. Fictitious Capital
In the capitalist countries of today the overwhelming majority of large concerns take the form of joint-stock companies. Joint-stock companies made their appearance as far back as the beginning of the seventeenth century, but they became very widespread only in the second half of the nineteenth century.
A joint-stock company is a form of enterprise the capital which consists of contributions by its members, who own a certain number of shares, commensurate with the amount of money invested by them. A share is a security which gives the holder the right to receive part of the income of the enterprise in accordance with the amount inscribed upon it.
The income received by the shareholder is called a dividend. Shares are bought and sold at definite prices.
A capitalist who buys shares might have deposited his capital in the bank and received, say, 5 per cent on it, However, this income does not satisfy him and he prefers to buy shares. Although this course has some risk attached to it, as against that it offers him a larger income. Let us suppose that a share capital of ten million dollars is divided into 20,000 shares, priced at 500 dollars each, and that the business brings in one million dollars profit. The joint-stock company decides to leave 250,000 dollars of this amount in reserve and to divide the remaining sum of 750,000 dollars as dividend amongst the shareholders. In this case each share will bring its owners an income, in the form of dividend (750,000 dollars divided into 20,000 shares) of 37.5 dollars, which works out at 7.5 per cent.
Shareholders when they sell their shares try to get a price which, if it were paid into a bank, would bring them in as loan-interest the same income which they receive as dividend. If a 500-dollar share brings in 37.S dollars dividend, the holder of such a share will try to sell it for 750 dollars, so that, when he deposits this amount in a bank which pays 5 per cent, he will receive the same 37.5 dollars as interest. Purchasers of shares, however, taking into account the risk involved in investing their capital in a joint-stock enterprise, endeavour to acquire shares for a smaller sum. The price of shares depends on the amount of dividend and the level of loan-interest, The price of shares rises with the rise of dividend or the fall in the interest-rate; conversely; it falls when the dividend is lowered or the interest-rate raised.
The difference between the total amount of the prices of shares issued on the foundation of a joint-stock company and the magnitude of the capital actually invested in the concern, makes up the founder's profit. Founder's profit is one of the important means of enrichment of the large-scale capitalists.
If the capital previously invested in a concern amounts to ten million dollars, and the total of the prices of the shares issued amounts to fifteen million dollars, then founder's profit in this instance will be five million dollars.
As a result of the transformation of an individual business into a joint-stock company, capital obtains as it were a two-fold existence. The actual capital invested in the business to the amount of ten million dollars exists in the form of factory buildings, machinery, raw materials, stores, finished products, and, finally, of definite amounts of money kept in the safes belonging to the business or in a current account at the bank.
Alongside real, capital, however, when the joint-stock company is founded, securities make their appearance-shares, amounting to fifteen million dollars. A share is only a reflection of capital which really exists in the concern. But at the same time, the shares have an existence separate from that of the business; they are bought and sold, the bank issues loans on them, etc.
From the formal standpoint the supreme authority in a joint-stock company is the general meeting of shareholders which elects the governing body, nominates the officials, receives and adopts the accounts of the business and decides the main questions of the activity of the jointstock company.
But the number of votes at a general meeting is allotted in accordance with the number of shares, as represented by their holders. For this reason, the joint-stock company is in reality completely in the grip of a small handful of the biggest shareholders. Since a certain number of the shares are dispersed among small and medium shareholders who are not in a position to exercise any influence whatever on the course of affairs, in practice the big capitalists do not need to possess even so much as half of the shares to dominate a joint-stock company. The number of shares which enables one completely to rule the roost in a joint-stock company, is called the controlling interest.
Thus, the joint-stock company is the form in which big capital subordinates to itself and utilises for its own ends the resources of the small and medium capitalists. The widespread extension of joint-stock companies very greatly facilitates the centralisation of capital and the enlargement of production.
Capital which exists in the form of securities which bring in an income to their owners is called fictitious capital. To the category of fictitious capital belong shares and bonds. A bond is acknowledgment of debt, issued by a bank, by a business or the State and bringing its bearer a fixed annual rate of interest.
Securities (shares, bonds, etc.) are bought and sold on stock exchanges. A stock exchange is a market for securities. The prices at which securities are being bought and sold at any particular moment are registered on the stock exchange; deals in securities are made at these prices outside the exchanges as well (e.g., the banks). The price of securities depends on the level loan-interest and the amount of presumable income from the securities. Speculation in securities takes place on the stock exchange. Inasmuch as all the advantages in the game of speculation lie with the big and very big capitalists, stock exchange speculation contributes to the centralisation of capital, enriching the upper circle of capitalists and ruining the medium and small property owners.
The widespread extent of credit and in particular of joint-stock companies to an ever-increasing extent transforms the capitalist into a receiver of interest and dividends, while the management of production passes into the hands of salaried persons-managers and directors. Thus the parasitic nature of capitalist property becomes ever more marked.
Monetary Circulation in Capitalist Countries
Even before the appearance of capitalism metallic monetary systems had arisen in which metals played the part of money commodity. Metallic monetary systems are divided into bimetallic, where the measure of value and the basis of monetary circulation is furnished by two metals at the same time, silver and gold, and monometallic, where only one of the two metals named plays this role. In the early stage of the development of capitalism (sixteenth to eighteenth centuries), the monetary systems of many countries were bimetallic. Towards the end of the nineteenth century nearly all capitalist countries had gone over to monometallism, with gold as the metal used.
The main features of a system of gold monometallism are: free minting of gold coins, free exchange of other money tokens for gold coins, and free movement of gold from country to country. Free minting of gold coins means the right of private persons to exchange any gold they have for coins at the mint. At the same time the owners of coins have the right to transform their coins into ingots of gold. Thus a direct and very close link is established between gold as a commodity and gold coins. Under a system like this the amount of money in circulation is spontaneously brought into keeping with the amount required for the circulation of commodities. If an excess of money is formed, part of this leaves the sphere of circulation and is transformed into hoards. If a shortage of money arises, then these hoards flow out into the sphere of circulation; money ceases to be hoarded and becomes circulation medium and means of payment. To meet the requirements of small-scale turnovers, where a gold-monometallic system prevails coins are issued which are not of face value, made of a cheaper metal (silver, copper, etc.).
Gold, the world money, serves as the instrument of international settlement in commercial and financial transactions. The exchange of the currency of one country for the currencies of others is carried out in accordance with a rate of exchange. The rate of exchange means the price of the monetary unit of one country expressed in the monetary units of other countries. For example, one pound sterling is equal to such-and-such a quantity of dollars.
Settlements in foreign trade transactions can also be effected without transfers of gold or foreign currency. In some cases this can be done by a clearing settlement, i.e., by the mutual setting-off of debts incurred through the supply of commodities in bi-lateral trade. In other cases, settlements between countries may be effected by means of transfer of bills of exchange from country to country, without the movement of gold.
With the growth of credit-relations and the development money's function as a means of payment credit money made its appearance and developed widely. Bills of exchange, banknotes and cheques began to function mainly as means of payment. Although the bill of exchange is not money, it can serve as a means of payment through the transfer of a bill of exchange from one capitalist to another.
Banks issue their own bonds, which function as credit money, being used as medium of circulation and as means of payment. The principal form of credit money is bank-notes, which banks, issue in exchange for bills of exchange deposited with them. This means that underlying banknotes in the last analysis are; commodity transactions.
The issue of bank-notes makes it possible to provide circulation media and means of payment adequate for the growing circulation of commodities without increasing the amount of metallic money. Under a gold system of monetary circulation; bank-notes can at any time be exchanged by the banks for gold or other metallic money. In such conditions bank-notes circulate on an equal footing with gold coins and cannot depreciate, since besides the backing of credit they also have al backing of metal. As capitalism develops, a relative reduction takes place in the amount of gold which is in circulation. Gold is to an increasing extent accumulated in the form of reserve funds in the central banks of issue. The capitalist States took the road of building up gold reserves so as to strengthen their position in foreign trade, for the conquest of new markets and in preparing and waging wars. Gold came to be replaced in circulation by bank-notes and later also by paper money. Whereas at first bank-notes were, as a rule, exchangeable for gold, later on inconvertible bank-notes were issued. This has to a considerable extent made banknotes similar to paper money.
As already mentioned, paper money arose on the basis of the development of money's function as a medium of circulation.
Paper money issued by States as legal tender, are inconvertible into gold and serve to represent metallic money of full value in its function as a medium of circulation.
Since the beginning of the first imperialist world war (1914-18) the majority of capitalist countries have gone over to the system of papermoney circulation. At the present time gold money is not in circulation in any country. The ruling classes of capitalist States utilise the issue of inconvertible banknotes and paper money and the devaluation of currencies as a means of additional exploitation and plundering of the working people.
This is seen with particular clarity in the case of inflation. Inflation is characterised by the presence in the channels of circulation of an excessive amount of paper money, its devaluation, a rise in the prices of commodities, a fall in the real wages of manual and clerical workers and an intensification of the impoverishment of the peasants, with an increase in the profits of the capitalists and the receipts of the landlords. Bourgeois States employ inflation as an instrument of economic war against other countries and conquest of fresh markets. Inflation often enables exporters to make additional profits, through buying goods in their own countries with depreciated money at a low rate and selling these goods abroad for hard currency. At the same time the growth of inflation brings disorder into economic life and arouses indignation among the masses.
This compels the bourgeois States to carry out monetary reforms in order to strengthen their monetary systems and stabilise currencies.
The most widespread kind of monetary reform is devaluation. Devaluation is an official reduction of the rate of exchange of paper money, in relation to the metallic unit of money, carried out by changing old, depreciated paper money for a smaller quantity of new money. Thus, in Germany in 1924 the old depreciated money was exchanged for new, expressed in gold marks, at the rate of one trillion marks for one mark.
In a number of cases devaluation has not been accompanied by exchange of old paper money for new.
Monetary reforms are carried out in capitalist countries at the expense of the working people, through increases in taxes and decreases in wages.
BRIEF CONCLUSIONS
(1) Loan capital is money capital which its owner places temporarily at a capitalist's disposal in return for a consideration in the form of interest-payments. Interest is a part of the industrial capitalist's profit which he hands over to the owner of loan capital.
(2) Capitalist credit is the form of movement of loan capital. The main forms of credit are commercial credit and bankers credit. The banks concentrate the monetary resources of society in their hands and make them available as money capital to the functioning capitalistsmanufacturers and merchants. The development of credit leads to the growth of capitalist contradictions. The separation of ownership of capital from the employment of capital in production graphically reveals the parasitic character of capitalist property.
(3) A joint-stock company is a form of enterprise the capital of which consists of contributions by its members, each of whom owns a certain number of shares corresponding to the amount of money he has invested. In joint-stock companies big capital subjects to itself and uses in its own interests the resources of small and medium capitalists. Jointstock companies stimulate the centralisation of capital.
(4) As credit develops, the use of credit money becomes widespread bank-notes issued by the banks in exchange for bills of exchange. The ruling classes of capitalist society use the issue of paper money as a means of intensifying the exploitation of the working people. By inflation the burden of State expenditure is transferred to the shoulders of the mass of the people. Monetary reforms are carried out by capitalist States at the expense of the interests of the working people.
Ground-Rent. Agrarian Relations under Capitalism
The Capitalist System of Farming and Private Property in Land
In bourgeois countries capitalism prevails not only in industry but also in agriculture. The greater part of the land is concentrated .in the hands of a class of large landowners. The bulk of agricultural production for the market is carried on by capitalist enterprises employing wagelabour.
In bourgeois countries, however, the numerically predominant form of economy in farming remains the petty-commodity-producing peasant holding.
Two paths of development are most typical of capitalism in agriculture.
The first path is one in which the old landlord estate is preserved, in the main, and gradually transformed through reforms into a capitalist economy. Passing over to capitalist forms of estate-management, the landlords, in addition to using free, hired labour, also make use of methods of exploitation derived from serfdom. Servile forms of dependence by the peasants on the landlords are retained in agriculture, in such forms as labour-rent, share-cropping, etc. This path of capitalist evolution in farming was typical for Germany, Tsarist Russia, Italy, Japan and a number of other countries.
The second path consists of the old landlord estate being broken up by a bourgeois revolution and agriculture being freed from the shackles of serfdom: as a result of which the development of the productive forces takes place more rapidly. Thus, in France the bourgeois revolution of 1789-94 brought feudal landownership to an end. The confiscated lands of the nobility and clergy were sold off. Small peasant economy came to predominate in the country, though a considerable part of the land fell into the hands of the bourgeoisie. In the U.S.A. as a result of the Civil War of 1861-5 the slave-owners' latifundia in the Southern States were broken up, a large amount of unworked land was sold off cheaply and agriculture began to develop along the lines of capitalist farming. But even in these countries, as capitalism developed, large-scale property in land arose anew on a new, capitalist basis.
As a result of the transformation of pre-capitalist forms of agriculture, large-scale feudal and petty peasant property in land to an ever-increasing extent give place to bourgeois landed property. A continually growing section of the lands of the landlords and the peasants passes into the hands of the banks, the rural-bourgeoisie, manufacturers, merchants and money-lenders.
The following figures show how property in land is becoming concentrated. In the U.S.A. in 1950 76.4 per cent of the farms; possessed only 23 per cent of all the land area, while in 23.6 per cent of the farms were concentrated 77 per cent of the land. The largest latifundia, each with more than a thousand acres, which made up 2.3 per cent of all the farms, possessed 42.6 per cent of the land.
According to census data for 1950, in Great Britain (U.K., excluding Northern Ireland), 75.9 per cent of the farms embraced only 20.4 per cent of all the agricultural land, while 24.1 per cent of the farms embraced 79.6 per cent, and of these 2.3 per cent of the largest farms embraced 34.6 per cent of the land. .
In France in 1950 62.1 per cent of the land was in the hands of 20.5 per cent of the farmers.
In pre-revolutionary Russia a very large amount of land belonged to the landlords, the Imperial family, the monasteries and the kulaks. The largest landlords, possessing more than 1,500 acres each, numbered in European Russia at the end of the nineteenth century about 30,000. They owned 190 million acres of land. At the same time ten and a half million peasant households, suffering the oppression of semi-serfdom, possessed only 202 million acres.
Under capitalism a monopoly of private ownership of land by a class of large landowners prevails. Large landed proprietors usually let out part of their land on lease to capitalist tenant-farmers and small peasants. The ownership of land is separated from agricultural production.
Capitalist tenant farmers pay to the owner of the land at definite intervals, e.g., every year, a rent laid down in the tenancy agreement, i.e., a sum of money in return for permission to apply their capital to the piece of land in question. The principal part of the rent is the ground-rent.
Rent includes other elements in addition to ground-rent. Thus, if capital has previously been invested in a piece of land which is being leased (e.g., in the form of farm buildings or irrigation works), then the tenant must pay the landowner, besides the ground-rent, also an annual interest on this capital. In practice capitalist tenant-farmers often meet part of their rent by lowering the wages of their workers.
Capitalist ground-rent expresses the relations between three classes in bourgeois society: wage-workers, capitalists and owners of land. The surplus-value created by the labour of the wage-workers falls first of all into the hands of the capitalist tenant-farmer. Part of the surplus-value remains with the tenant in the form of average profit on capital. Another part, being the excess over the average profit, the tenant is obliged to hand over to the landowner as ground-rent. Capitalist ground-rent is that part of the surplus-value which remains after deduction of the average rate of profit on the capital invested in the farm, and which is paid to the owner of the land. Often the landowner, instead of letting out the land on lease, himself engages workers and runs a farm. In that case both rent and profit belong to him alone.
It is necessary to distinguish between differential rent and absolute rent.
Differential Rent
In agriculture as in industry an entrepreneur will invest his capital in a certain line of production only if it promises him the average. profit. Those entrepreneurs who invest their capital under more favourable conditions of production than others, for example, in more fertile pieces of land, obtain besides the average profit on their capital also an additional profit.
In industry, additional profit is obtained by enterprises which introduce higher technique compared with the average level of technique in the given branch of industry. Additional profit cannot be a constant phenomenon in industry. As soon as some technical improvement which has been introduced in a particular enterprise becomes widespread, the pioneer enterprise is deprived of its additional profit. In agriculture, however, additional profit is consolidated for a more or less lengthy period. The reason for this is that in industry any number of concerns may be set up, equipped with the most advanced machinery. In agriculture it is not possible to bring into being any number of pieces of land, not to speak of better pieces, because the amount of land is limited and all the land suitable for cultivation is occupied by private owners. The limited amount of land and the fact that it is occupied by particular owners gives rise to monopoly of capitalist ownership of land, or monopoly in land as the subject of economic activity.
Furthermore, in industry the price of production of commodities is determined by the average conditions of production. The price of production of agricultural commodities is formed in a different way. The existence of the monopoly of capitalist ownership of land as a subject of economic activity leads to the general, regulating price of production (i.e., the costs of production plus the average profit) of agricultural products being determined by the conditions of production which prevail not on the average but on the worst of the cultivated land, since the production of the best and medium-quality land is insufficient to meet society's demands. If the capitalist tenant-farmer who invested his capital in the worst piece of land did not obtain the average profit, he would withdraw his capital to another branch of economy.
The capitalists who farm the medium and best pieces of land produce agricultural commodities more cheaply; in other words, the individual price of production on their farms is lower than the general price of production. Making use of the monopoly of land as an object of economic activity, these capitalists sell their goods at the general price of production and obtain additional profit, which goes to form differential rent. Differential rent does not arise because private property in land exists; it comes into being because of the fact that agricultural which are grown under varying conditions of labour, are sold at a uniform market price, conditions of production on the worst lands. The capitalist tenantfarmers are compelled to pay the differential rent to the landowners, retaining for themselves the average profit.
Differential rent is the excess profit-over and above the average profit-obtained by those farms that operate under more favourable conditions of production; it means the difference between the individual price of production on the best and medium plots of land and the general price of production, determined by conditions of production on the worst plots of land.
This additional profit, like all surplus-value in agriculture, is created by the labour of the agricultural workers. Differences in the fertility of the plots of land provide only the conditions for a higher productivity of labour on the best lands. Under capitalism, however, a misleading appearance is formed, as though the rent which is appropriated by the owners of land were a product of the land and not of labour. In fact, the only source of ground-rent is surplus labour, surplus-value. "For a correct understanding of rent naturally what is needed first and foremost is recognition that it is obtained not from the soil but from the produce of agriculture, and so from labour, from the price of the product of labour, e.g., wheat: from the value of agricultural produce, from labour invested in the land, and not from the land itself." (K. Marx, Theories of Surplus Value, Russian edition, 1936, vol. II, Pt. I, p. 221.)
There are two forms of differential rent:
Differential rent I is connected with the difference in the fertility of the soil and in the location of the pieces of land in relation to markets.
From a more fertile piece a higher yield can be obtained with the same outlay of capital. Let us take for example three pieces which are identical in size but different in fertility.
| Individual price of
production |
General price
of production |
Differential
rent I In dollars | ||||||
| Pieces of land | Outlay of
capital dollars |
Average
profit in dollars |
Production in
centres |
Of all
production in dollars |
Of one
centner in dollars |
Of one
centner in dollars |
Of all
production in dollars |
|
| I | 100 | 20 | 4 | 120 | 30 | 30 | 120 | 0 |
| II | 100 | 20 | 5 | 120 | 24 | 30 | 150 | 30 |
| III | 100 | 20 | 6 | 120 | 20 | 30 | 180 | 60 |
The leaseholder of each of these pieces lays out 100 dollars on hire of workers, purchase of seed, machinery, implements, upkeep of cattle, and other expenses. The average profit is 20 per cent. Labour applied to these pieces of varying fertility gives a yield of 4 centners from the first plot, 5 from the second and 6 from the third.
The individual price of production of the whole mass of products produced on each piece is the same. It is 120 dollars (costs of production plus average profit). The individual price of production of a unit of production differs from one piece to another. A centner of agricultural produce from the first piece ought to be sold for 60 dollars and one from the third for 20 dollars. But since the general price of production in agricultural commodities is uniform and is determined by the conditions of production on the worst piece of land, every centner of produce from all three of the pieces will be sold at 30 dollars. The tenant of the first (worst) piece will receive for his harvest of 4 centners 120 dollars, i.e., the amount equal to his costs of production (100 dollars) plus the average profit (20 dollars). The tenant of the second piece receives for his 5 centners 150 dollars. Over and above his costs of production and the average profit, he receives 60 dollars of additional profit, which constitutes the differential rent. Finally, the tenant of the third piece receives for his 6 centners 180 dollars. Here the differential rent amounts to 60 dollars.
Differential rent I is also connected with difference in location of pieces of land. Those farms which are situated nearer to selling outlets (towns, railway stations, seaports, elevators, etc.) save a considerable part of the labour and means of production required for transport of products, compared with farms which are at a greater distance from these outlets. As they sell their products at the same price as the others, the farms which are situated near to markets, obtain additional profit, which forms differential rent, by virtue of their situation.
Differential rent II arises as a result of additional investments of means of production and labour in one and the same piece of land, i.e., when farming is intensified. In contrast to extensive farming, which grows by extending the arable area of pastures, intensive farming develops by the introduction of improved machinery and artificial fertilizers, the carrying out of land- improvement work, the breeding of more productive strains of cattle, etc. With technique unchanged" intensification of agriculture can be expressed in a greater amount of labour expended on a given piece of land. All these measures result in the obtaining of additional profit, which forms differential rent.
Let us come back to our example. On the third piece, the most fertile one of the three, 100 dollars was expended first of all, and this gave 6 centners of produce: the average profit was 20 dollars, the differential rent 60 dollars. Let us suppose that, prices remaining as before, a second, additional and more productive expenditure of 100 dollars of capital is made on this piece-connected with development of technique, use of greater quantity of fertilizer, etc. As a result, an additional harvest of 7 centners is obtained, the average profit on the additional capital amounts to 20 dollars, and the surplus over the average profit to 90 dollars. This surplus of 90 dollars constitutes differential rent II. So long as the previously-made tenancy agreement continues in force, the tenant is paying for this piece a differential rent of 60 dollars, and the excess over the average profit which he receives from the second, supplementary expenditure of capital, goes into his pocket. But the land is leased for a defined period of time. When next the land is leased to a tenant, the landowner will take into account the profits which have been achieved by additional expenditure of capital, and will raise the amount of ground-rent on this piece to go dollars. With these aims in mind landlords try always to conclude tenancy agreements for short periods only. What follows from this is that capitalist tenant-farmers are not interested in making large-scale outlays of capital such as bring results only after a long interval of time, since the gains produced by these outlays will eventually be appropriated by the landowners.
Capitalist intensification of agriculture is carried out for the purpose of obtaining the maximum profit. In their hunt for high profits the capitalists use the land in rapacious fashion, developing farms of a narrowly specialised type, with cultivation of some single crop alone.
Thus, in the last quarter of the nineteenth century the land in the Northern States of the U.S.A. was mainly under grain crops. This brought in its train destruction of the soil structure, its pulverisation, and the appearance of "black storms" of dust.
The production of certain kinds of agricultural crops rather than others changes with the fluctuation of market prices. This makes it impossible to introduce on all lands correct crop-rotations, which are the foundation of a high level of agriculture. Private property in land hinders the carrying out of large-scale land-improvement and other works which pay for themselves only over a lapse of years. Capitalism thus obstructs the introduction of a rational system of agriculture.
"All progress in capitalistic agriculture is a progress in the art, not only of robbing the labourer, but of robbing the soil; all progress in increasing the fertility of the soil for a given time is a progress towards ruining the lasting sources of that fertility." (Marx, Capital, Kerr edition, vol. I, p. 555.)
Capitalism's defenders, in their attempts to conceal the contradictions of capitalist agriculture and to justify the poverty of the masses, allege that agriculture is subject to the operation of an eternal, natural "law of diminishing returns": each additional application of labour to land is said to give a poorer result than the previous one.
This fabrication of bourgeois political economy is deduced from the false assumption that technique in agriculture remains unchanging, that progress in technique occurs only by way of exception. In reality, however, additional investments of means of production and labour in one and the same piece of land are associated as a rule with the development of technique, with the introduction of new and improved methods of agricultural production, which bring about a rise in the productivity of agricultural labour.
The real source of the exhaustion of natural fertility and the degradation of capitalist agriculture is not the "law of diminishing results" thought up by bourgeois economists, but capitalist relations, and above all private property in land, which hold back the development of the productive forces of agriculture. What in fact increases under capitalism is not the difficulty of producing agricultural produce but the workers' difficulty in purchasing it, which results from their growing poverty.
Absolute Rent. Price of Land
Besides differential rent the owner of land receives absolute rent. The existence of this is linked with the existence of the monopoly of private ownership of land.
When we were examining differential rent we assumed that the tenant of the worst piece of land, when he sells agricultural produce, obtains for it only the costs of production plus the average profit, i.e., that he does not pay ground-rent. In reality, however, the owner of even the worst piece does not make it available for cultivation free of charge. And this means that the market price of agricultural commodities has to be higher than the price of production on the worst piece of land.
What is the source of this surplus? Under capitalism, agriculture is much more backward than industry from the technical and economic standpoint. The organic composition of capital is lower in agriculture than in industry. Let us assume that the organic composition of capital in industry is, on the average, 80c+20v. With a rate of surplus-value of 100 per cent, each 100 dollars of capital will produce 20 dollars of surplus-value, and the price of production will be 120 dollars. The organic composition of capital in agriculture is, let us say, 60c+40v. For each 100 dollars there is produced in this case 40 dollars of surplus-value, and the value of agricultural commodities is 140 dollars. The capitalist tenantfarmer, like the industrial capitalist, receives the average profit on his capital, equivalent to 20 dollars. In accordance with this, the price of production of agricultural goods is 120 dollars. Under these conditions the absolute rent will be (140- 120) 20 dollars. It follows from all this that the value of agricultural commodities is higher than the general price of production, and the amount of surplus-value in agriculture is greater than the average profit. This excess of surplus-value over average profit is the source of absolute rent.
If there were no private property in land, this surplus would enter into the general redistribution of surplus-value among the capitalists, and agricultural products would then be sold at their prices of production. But private property in land prevents free competition, the flow of capital from industry into agriculture and the formation of an average profit, common for both agricultural and industrial enterprises. For this reason agricultural products are sold at the price which corresponds to their value, i.e., which is higher than the general price of production. The extent to which this difference can be realised and transformed into absolute rent depends on the level of market prices, which is established as a result of competition.
The monopoly of private property in land is thus the reason for the existence of absolute rent, which is paid on every plot of land regardless of its fertility or its location. Absolute rent is the excess of value over the general price of production which is created in agriculture in consequence of its lower organic composition of capital compared with industry and is appropriated by the landowners thanks to private property in land.
Besides differential and absolute rent another form which exists under capitalism is monopoly rent. Monopoly rent is additional income received owing to the price exceeding the value of a commodity produced in especially favourable natural conditions. Such, for example, is rent obtained for lands on which it is possible to produce scarce agricultural crops in restricted quantity (e.g., particularly valuable types of grape, citrus fruit, etc.), or rent for the use of water in areas where agriculture depends on irrigation. The commodities which are produced under these conditions are sold, as a rule, at prices which are above their value, i.e., at monopoly prices. Monopoly rent in agriculture is paid at the expense of the consumer.
The class of large landowners, who have nothing whatsoever to do with material production, are able thanks to the monopoly of private ownership of land to make use of the attainments of technical progress in agriculture for their own enrichment. Ground-rent is the tribute which society is obliged under capitalism to pay to the large landowners. The existence of absolute and monopoly rent makes agricultural produce dearer-both foodstuffs for the workers and raw material for industry. The existence of differential rent deprives society of all the benefits connected with the higher productivity of labour on fertile lands. These benefits fall to the class of landowners and capitalist farmers. Just how burdensome ground-rent is for society is shown by the fact that in the U.S.A., according to figures for 1935-7, it amounted to 26 to 29 per cent of the price of maize and 26 to 36 per cent of the price of wheat.
Enormous resources are diverted from productive application in agriculture when land is purchased. If we leave out of account artificial constructions and improvements, such as farm-buildings, irrigation, drainage of marshes, or application of fertilizers, the land in itself has no value, since it is not a product of human labour. Nevertheless, this land which has no value is under capitalism an article which is bought and sold and has a price. The explanation of this is that the land has been seized by the landowners and made their private property. The price of a piece of land depends on the rent annually receivable from it and on the rate of interest which the banks pay on deposits. The price of land is equal to the sum of money which, if it were lodged with the bank, would produce in the form of interest an income of the same amount as the rent obtainable from the land in question. Let us suppose that a piece of land brings in 300 dollars of rent per year and that the bank pays 4 per cent. In this case the price of the land will 300x100/4=7,500 dollars. Thus, the price of land is capitalised rent. The price of land is the higher, the higher the amount of rent and the lower the rate of interest.
As capitalism develops the size of rent increases. This leads to systematic raising of the price of land. Another reason for the increase in the price of land is the fall in the rate of interest.
The following figures give an idea of the growth in the price of land. Farm values in the U.S.A. rose in ten years (from 1900 to 1910) by more than 20 milliard dollars. Of this sum increased value of implements, buildings, etc., accounted only for 5 milliard dollars, the remaining 15 milliard dollars coming from the increased price of land. During the following decade the total price of farms rose by 37 milliard dollars; more than 26 milliard dollars of this was due to the rise in the price of land.
Rent in the Extractive Industries. Rent on Building Lots
Ground-rent is not only found in agriculture. It is received also by the owners of tracts of land from the depths of which minerals are extracted (iron ore; coal, petroleum, etc.), and also by the owners of building lots in towns and industrial centres when dwelling-houses, industrial or commercial buildings or public offices are erected on them.
Rent in the extractive industries is formed in the same way as agricultural rent. Mines, pits and oilfields differ in the wealth of their reserves and the depth of their deposits, and also in their distance from the market outlets. Capitals of varying size are invested in them. For this reason the individual price of production of each ton of ore, coal, petroleum, varies from the general price of production. On the market, however, each of these commodities is sold at the general price of production which is determined by the worst conditions of production. The extra profit which. is thereby received by the best and middling mines, pits and oil wells forms the differential rent intercepted by the landowner.
Besides this, the landowners take absolute rent from each piece of land, regardless of the wealth of the minerals contained in the depths.
This consists, as has been mentioned, of the excess of value over the general price of production. The existence of this excess is explained by the fact that in the extractive industries the organic composition of capital is lower than the average for industry, owing to the comparatively low level of mechanisation and the absence of outlay for the purchase of raw material. Absolute rent increases the price of ore, coal, petroleum, etc.
Finally, monopoly rent exists in the extractive industries in those tracts of land from which are extracted those exceptionally rare minerals which are sold at prices exceeding the value of their output.
The ground-rent drawn by large landowners from mines, pits and oil wells prevents a rational utilisation of the bowels of the earth. Private property in land imports a disunited character to the enterprises of the extractive industry, which obstructs mechanisation and contributes to making production expensive.
Rent for building lots is paid to a landowner by entrepreneurs leasing land where dwelling-houses or industrial, commercial or other enterprises are to be built. The main mass of the ground rent paid in cities consists of rent from the land on which dwelling-houses stand. Location has an enormous bearing on the amount of differential rent payable for a building site. Fort sites which are comparatively near to the city centre and to the industrial enterprises a higher rent is charged. This is one of the reasons why, in the big cities of capitalist countries, houses are built so densely, streets so narrow, etc.)
Besides differential and absolute rent the owners of land in the cities also draw tribute from society in the form of monopoly rent (they are able to do this because of the extremely limited amount of land available in many cities and industrial centres); and this raises house-rent to a very large extent. In connection with the growth of city populations the owners of urban land inflate the rent chargeable for building lots, which puts an obstacle in the way of housing construction. A considerable section of the working population is compelled to live cooped up in slums. The rising rent for housing reduces the real wages of the workers.
The monopoly created by private property in land puts a brake on the development of industry. If he is to build an industrial enterprise, a capitalist must spend his resources unproductively on buying land or on paying ground-rent for land which he leases. Ground-rent constitutes a large item in the expenses of manufacturing industry.
How great is the amount of ground-rent paid for building sites is shown by the fact that of the total amount-£155 million-of the rent annually received by British landlords in the 1930's, £100 million was ground-rent from urban land. The price of land grows rapidly in big cities.
Large-scale and Small-scale Production in Agriculture
The economic laws of development of capitalism are the same for industry and for agriculture. The concentration of production in agriculture, as in industry, leads to the ousting of petty economy by large-scale capitalist economy, which inevitably renders class contradictions more acute. The defenders of capitalism have an interest in covering up and concealing this process. Falsifying reality, they have created a mendacious theory of the "stability of small-peasant economy". According to this theory, small-peasant economy maintains its stability in the struggle with large-scale economy.
In reality, however, large-scale production in agriculture possesses a number of decisive advantages compared with small-scale production. These advantages consist first of all in the fact that it can make use of costly machines (tractors, combines, etc.) which increase the productivity of labour many times over. In the conditions of the capitalist mode of production machine technique is concentrated in the hands of the upper groups of capitalist farmers, and is beyond the reach of the working sections of the country population.
It is large-scale production that obtains all the benefits which flow from capitalist co-operation and division of labour. The principal advantage possesses, by large-scale production is the high proportion of its output which is available for the market. Large and very large agricultural enterprises are responsible for the major part of all the U.S.A.'s marketable agricultural production. Meanwhile the main mass of the farmers carry on what is in essence a subsistence economy, and what they produce does not suffice to meet even the vital needs of their families.
"Small peasants' property excludes by its very nature the development of the social powers of production of labour, the social forms of labour, the social concentration of capitals, cattle raising on a large scale, and a progressive application of science." (Marx, Capital, Kerr edition, vol. III, p. 938.)
Nevertheless, the process, characteristic of capitalism, of the growth of large-scale production and the ousting of small production has certain special features in agriculture. Large capitalist agricultural enterprises develop mainly by way of intensifying cultivation. Often a farm which is small in extent of land is a large-scale capitalist concern in respect of its gross and marketable output. The concentration of agricultural production in large-scale capitalist concerns is frequently accompanied by a growth in the number of very small peasant holdings. The existence of a considerable number of such very small holdings in highly-developed capitalist countries is accounted for by the fact that it is in the interests of the capitalists to preserve a stratum of labourers with tiny allotments so that they can exploit them.
The development of large-scale capitalist agricultural production leads to intensified differentiation of the peasantry, and growth in the enslavement, impoverishment and ruin of millions of small and medium peasant households.
In Tsarist Russia before the October Revolution the peasant households consisted of 65 per cent poor peasants, 20 per cent middle peasants and 15 per cent kulaks. In France the number of owners of land fell from 7-7½ million in 1850 to 2.7 million in 1929, though the expropriation of small, parcelled-out peasant holding, while the numbers of the agricultural proletariat and semi-proletariat reached about 4 million in 1929.
Small-scale economy in agriculture survives at the price of incredible privations and excessive overwork on the part of the tiller of the soil and the whole of his family. In spite of the peasant's working himself to exhaustion to save his seeming independence, he loses his land nevertheless, and is ruined.
Mortgage credit plays a large part in the expropriation the peasantry.
Mortgage credit means loans granted on security of land and real property. When a farmer who carries on an enterprise on his own land experiences a need for money to meet payments which cannot be postponed (e.g., for payment of taxes), he applies to the bank for a loan.
Sometimes loans are granted for the purchase of a piece of land. The bank advances a certain sum of money on the security of the land. If the money is not paid back in due time, the land passes into the bank's possession. In fact the bank becomes the true owner of the land even earlier, for the farmer-debtor is obliged to pay over as interest a considerable part of the income he derives from the land. The peasant in fact pays ground-rent to the bank, in the form of interest, for his own piece of land.
The mortgage-indebtedness of American farmers amounted in 1910 to 3.2 milliard dollars and in 1940 to 6.6 milliard dollars. According to figures for 1936, interest on loans absorbed, together with taxes, approximately 45 per cent of the farmers' net income.
Indebtedness to the banks is a real scourge for small production in agriculture. The number of mortgaged farms in the U.S.A. was in 189028'2 per cent of the total and in 194043'8 per cent.
Every year a large number of peasant farms are sold by auction. The ruined farmers are driven from the land. The growth in farm debts expresses the process separating, the ownership of land from agricultural production, its concentration in the hands of the large landowners and the transformation of the independent producer into a tenant or a wageworker.
A very large number of small peasants rent little plots of land from large landowners on extortionate terms. The agricultural bourgeoisie takes leases of land in order to produce goods for the market and obtain profit. This is entrepreneur tenancy. The small peasant tenant is compelled to take a lease of a fragment of land in order to live. This is so-called food or hunger tenancy. The rent per acre paid for tenancy is usually much larger in the case of small plots of land than in that of large ones. A small peasant's rent often absorbs not only all his surplus labour but also part of his necessary labour. Tenancy relations are here interwoven with survivals of serfdom. The most widespread survival of feudalism under capitalist conditions is share-cropping, under which the peasant-leaseholder pays in kind up to half or more of the crops he harvests as rent for his holding.
In the U.S.A. in 1950, 57.5 per cent of the farmers owned their land and 26.5 per cent were tenants. In addition, 15.6 per cent of all farmers were "part-owners", i.e., were also obliged to hold on lease part of the land they worked. About half the tenants were share-croppers. Although slavery was officially abolished in the U.S.A. during last century, certain survivals of slavery continue to exist to this day, especially where Negro share-croppers are concerned.
France has a considerable number of share-cropper tenants. Besides rent in kind, which amounts to a half of their crop (and in some cases even more), they are often obliged to supply the owners of their land with produce from their farms--cheese, butter, eggs, poultry, etc.
Deepening of the Antithesis between Town and Country
A typical feature of the capitalist mode of production is a marked lagging of agriculture behind industry, a deepening and sharpening of the antithesis between town and country.
"The development of agriculture lags behind that of industry. This is characteristic of all capitalist countries and is one of the most important causes of the disproportion in the development of the different branches of national economy, of crises, and of the high cost of living." (Lenin, "New data on the laws of development of capitalism in agriculture", Selected Works, 12-vol. edition, vol. XII, p.274.)
Agriculture under capitalism lags behind industry, first and foremost in the level of the productive forces. Technique develops in agriculture slower than in industry. Machinery is used only on the large-scale farms; the petty commodity production of the peasantry is not in a position to use it. And the capitalist use of machinery leads to intensified exploitation and ruin of the small producers. An obstacle to the extensive use of machinery in agriculture is the cheapness of labour-power, which is caused by rural overpopulation.
Capitalism has sharply intensified the lagging of the country behind the town in the sphere of culture. Towns are centres of science and art. In the towns are concentrated the institutes of higher education, the museums, the theatres, the cinemas. The benefits of this culture are utilised mainly by the exploiting classes. The mass of the proletariat is able only to a very slight extent to share in the achievements of urban culture. The main mass of the peasant population in capitalist countries is also cut off from the urban centres and is doomed to cultural backwardness.
The economic basis of the antithesis between town and country under capitalism is the exploitation of the country by the town, the expropriation of the peasantry and the ruining of the majority of the rural population by the entire course of development of capitalist industry, trade and credit. The urban bourgeoisie together with the capitalist farmers and landlords exploit the many millions of peasants. The forms assumed by this exploitation are various; the industrial bourgeoisie and the merchants exploit the countryside through high prices for manufactured commodities and relatively low prices for agricultural commodities; the banks and usurers exploit it through extortionate terms of credit; the bourgeois State exploits it by means of all sorts of taxes.
The huge sums appropriated by large landowners through rent-charges and the sale of land, and also the resources collected by the banks as interest on mortgage loans etc., are diverted from the country to the town to serve the parasitic consumption of the exploiting classes.
Thus the causes of the lagging of agriculture behind industry and the deepening and sharpening of the antithesis between town and country are inherent in the very system of capitalism itself.
Private Ownership of Land and Nationalisation of the Land
As capitalism develops, private property in land becomes more and more parasitic in character. The class of large landowners grabs in the form of ground-rent an enormous share of the revenues received from agriculture. A considerable part of the revenue is withdrawn from agriculture and falls to the large landowners through the price of land. All this hinders the development of productive forces and renders agricultural produce dearer, which imposes a heavy burden upon the shoulders of the working people. This is why "nationalisation of the land has become a social necessity" (Marx, "Nationalisation of the land", Marx and Engels, Works, Russian edition, vol. XIII, Pt. I, p. 341). Nationalisation of the land means the transformation of private ownership of land into State ownership.
In showing the need for nationalisation of the land, Lenin proceeded from the existence of two kinds of monopoly--monopoly of private property in land and monopoly in land as a subject of economic activity.
Nationalisation of the land means abolition of the monopoly of private ownership of land and the absolute rent connected with it. Abolition of absolute rent would lead to a fall in the price of agricultural produce. But differential rent would continue to exist, as it is connected with monopoly in land as an object of economic activity. In capitalist conditions, a considerable part of differential rent would, on the land being nationalised, be placed at the disposal of the bourgeois State.
Nationalisation of the land would remove a number of obstacles to the development of capitalism in agriculture created by private property in land, and would free the peasantry from survivals of feudal serfdom.
The demand for nationalisation of the land was put by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union as far back as the period of the first Russian Revolution, 1905-7. Nationalisation of the land meant seizure without compensation (confiscation) of all the land belonging to landlords and its transfer to the peasants.
Lenin considered that nationalisation of the land was possible in a bourgeois-democratic revolution only if a revolutionary democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry were set up. Nationalisation of the land, as a demand of the bourgeois-democratic revolution, has nothing intrinsically socialist in it. But abolition of landlord ownership of land strengthens the alliance between the proletariat and the main mass of the peasantry and clears the field for the class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. Nationalisation of the land thus helps the proletariat, in alliance with the rural poor, in its struggle to bring about the development of the bourgeois-democratic revolution into a socialist revolution.
In developing the Marxist theory of rent, Lenin pointed out that nationalisation of the land within the framework of bourgeois society was capable of accomplishment only in periods of bourgeois revolution and was "inconceivable when the class struggle between proletariat and bourgeoisie is very acute". (Lenin, "The Agrarian Programme of the Social Democrats in the First Russian Revolution, 1905-07, Selected Works, 12- vol. edition, vol. XII, p. 329.) In the epoch of developed capitalism, when the task of carrying through the Socialist revolution is on the order of the day, nationalisation of the land cannot be realized within the framework of bourgeois society for the following reasons. First, the bourgeoisie cannot bring itself to abolish private property in land because it fears that with the growth of the revolutionary movement of the proletariat this may shake the foundations of private property in general. Secondly, the capitalists themselves have acquired landed property. The interests of the class of bourgeois and the class of landlords become ever more closely interwoven. They always stand together in the struggle against the proletariat and the peasantry.
The entire course of the historical development of capitalism confirms that in bourgeois society the mass of the peasantry, mercilessly exploited by the capitalists, landlords, usurers and merchants, is doomed to impoverishment and want. Under capitalism the small peasants cannot reckon on an improvement in their situation. The class struggle inevitably grows more acute in the countryside. The basic interests of the main mass of the peasantry coincide with the interests of the proletariat. This provides the economic basis for the alliance between the proletariat and the working peasantry in their common struggle against the capitalist system.
BRIEF CONCLUSIONS
(1) The characteristic features of the capitalist system of agriculture are, first, that the predominant share of the land is concentrated in the hands of large landowners who let the land out on lease; secondly, that the capitalist tenant-farmers carry on their economic activity on the basis of exploiting wage-workers; thirdly, the existence of private ownership of means of production, including land, by a numerous class of small and middle peasants. Agriculture in bourgeois countries, despite the growth of capitalism, is still to a substantial degree broken up among small and middle peasant-proprietors whom the capitalists and landlords exploit.
(2) Capitalist ground-rent is that part of the surplus-value created by wage-workers in agriculture which constitutes an excess over the average profit and is paid by the capitalist tenant-farmer to the landowner for the right to use his land. The existence of capitalist ground-rent is connected with the presence of monopoly of two kinds. The monopoly of capitalist economic activity on the land as an object of economic activity is a result of the limited amount of land, and its employment as separate farms, and it leads to the price of production of agricultural commodities being determined by the worst conditions of production. The extra profit obtained from the best lands or from more productive outlays of capital, constitutes differential rent. The monopoly of private property in land, with the low organic composition of capital in agriculture compared with that in industry, gives rise to absolute rent. With the development of capitalism, all forms of rent become bigger and the price of land increases, this being capitalised rent.
(3) In agriculture as in industry, large-scale production, squeezes out small. Large-scale machine production, however, extends in agriculture considerably more slowly than in industry, even in the most developed capitalist countries. At the price of excessive, exhausting labour and sharp reduction of the standard of life of the small peasant and his family, a mass of small peasant holdings continue to exist in the capitalist countries, but are marked by extreme instability.
(4) Capitalism inevitably gives rise to a growing lag of agriculture behind industry and makes deeper and sharper the antithesis between town and country. The monopoly of private property in land withdraws from agriculture in the form of ground-rent and unproductive outlays on the purchase of land vast resources which go to finance the parasitic consumption of the landowning class and hinder the development of the productive forces of agriculture.
(5) The main mass of the peasantry is doomed under capitalism to suffer ruin and want. The fundamental interests of the proletariat and of the exploited masses of the peasantry coincide. Only in alliance with the proletariat and under its leadership, through a revolution which abolishes the capitalist system, can the working peasantry free itself from exploitation and poverty.
The National Income
Aggregate Social Product and National Income
The entire mass of material wealth produced in society over a definite period, e.g., a year, constitutes the aggregate social product (or gross product).
Part of the aggregate social product, equivalent to the value of the constant capital which has been used up; in the course of the process of reproduction goes to replace the expended means of production. The cotton which has been worked up in the mill is replaced by an equivalent amount of cotton from the current year's harvest. Fresh masses of coal and oil take the place of the fuel which has been burnt up. Machines which have become obsolete are replaced by new ones. The remaining part of the aggregate social product embodies new value created by the working class in the process of production.
That part of the aggregate social product in which newly-created value is incorporated is the national income. The national income in capitalist society is consequently equivalent to the value of the entire aggregate social product less the value of the means of production expended during the year, or, in other words, it is equal to the sum of the variable capital and the surplus-value. As it exists in kind, the national income comprises the whole mass of consumer goods which have been produced together with that part of the means of production produced which goes to extend production. Thus the national income means, on the one hand, the total value newly created during the year, and on the other, a mass of material wealth of various kinds, part of the aggregate social product in which this newly created value is embodied.
If, for example, in the course of a year commodities are manufactured in a particular country to the value of go milliard dollars or marks, and of this value 60 milliards go to replace the means of production used up during the year, then the national income created during the year will be 30 milliards.
Under capitalism there are a mass of small producers (peasants and artisans), whose labour also creates a definite part of the aggregate social product. For this reason a country's national income includes also the value newly created in the given period by the peasants and artisans.
The aggregate social product, and therefore also the national income, are created by workers employed in the various branches of material production. This means all those branches in which material wealth is produced: industry, agriculture, building, transport, etc.
The, national income is not created in the non-productive branches, to which belong the machinery of State, credit, trade (except for those operations in this branch which are a continuation of the process of production into the sphere circulation), medical institutions, places of entertainment, etc.
In capitalist countries a quite considerable part of the able-bodied population not only does not take part in producing the social product and national income, but is not in any way engaged in socially-useful labour.
To this category of persons belong first and foremost the exploiting classes and their numerous parasitic hangers-on, together with the huge police, bureaucratic and militaristic apparatus which upholds the system of capitalist wage-slavery. A great deal of labour-power is expended without any benefit to society. Thus, enormous unproductive expenditures of labour are connected with competition and with the unrestrained speculation and incredibly extravagant advertising which go on.
The anarchy of capitalist production, the devastating economic crises, and the working of enterprises substantially below capacity sharply restrict the utilisation of labour-power. Very great masses of the working people are deprived under capitalism of the opportunity to work. The number of fully unemployed registered in the towns of the bourgeois countries in the period 1930 to 1938 was never less than 14 million.
As capitalism develops, the State apparatus becomes more and more inflated; the number of persons in attendance upon the bourgeoisie grows, and while the portion of the population engaged in the sphere of material production is reduced, the proportion of persons engaged in circulation increases. The army of unemployed grows in size and agrarian surplus-population becomes more intense. The effect of all this is to limit very much the growth of the aggregate social product and the national income in bourgeois society.
In the U.S.A. the proportion of the able-bodied population engaged in branches of material production was in 1910 43.9 per cent, in 1920 41.5 per cent, in 1930 35.5 per cent and in 1940 about 34 per cent.
In the U.S.A. the average annual growth of the national income during the last thirty years of the nineteenth century amounted to 4.7 per cent, in 1900-1919 to 2.8 per cent, in 1920-38 to 1 per cent and in the years since the Second World War, 1945-54, to 0.7 per cent.
Distribution of the National Income
Each mode of production has its own historically determined forms of distribution. The distribution of the national income under capitalism is determined by the fact that ownership of the means of production is concentrated in the hands of the capitalists and landlords, who exploit the proletariat and peasantry. The consequence of this is that the national income is distributed not in the interests of the working people but in those of the exploiting classes.
Under capitalism the national income created by the workers' labour falls to the disposal, first of all, of the industrial capitalists (including capitalist entrepreneurs in agriculture). The industrial capitalists, when they realise the commodities produced, receive the full amount of their value, including the sum of variable capital and surplus-value. Variable capital is transformed into the wages which the industrial capitalists pay to the workers engaged in production. The surplus-value remains in the hands of the industrial capitalists; from it come the incomes of all the groups which constitute the exploiting classes. Part of the surplus-value is transformed into industrial capitalists' profit. A certain portion of the surplus-value is handed over by the industrial capitalists to the merchant capitalists in the form of merchants' profit and to the bankers as interest. Part of the surplus-value is handed over by the industrial capitalists to the landowners as ground-rent.
This distribution of the national income between the different classes of capitalist society can be depicted in the form of a diagram like this (the figures stand for milliards of dollars or marks, etc.):
[diagram]
Involved in this distribution is also that portion of the national income which is created in the given period by the labour of the peasants and artisans: part of this is taken by the peasants and artisans themselves, another part goes to the capitalists, (kulaks, purchasing agents, merchants, bankers, etc.) and a third part goes to the landlords.
The incomes of the working people are based on their personal labour and are earned incomes. The source of the incomes received by Aggregate social product the exploiting classes is the labour of the workers, together with that of the peasants and artisans. The incomes of the capitalists and landlords are based upon the labour of and are unearned incomes.
The unearned incomes of the exploiting classes are increased still more in the process of the further distribution of the national income. Part of the income received by the population, and in the first place of the working people, is redistributed through the State budget and used in the interests of the exploiting classes. Thus, part of the income of the workers and peasants, which finds its way through tax-payments into the State budget, is then transformed into additional income for the capitalists and into the income of officials. The burden taxation imposed by the exploiting classes on the working people grows rapidly.
In Britain at the end of the nineteenth century taxes amounted to 6-7 to 23 per cent, in 1950 to 38 percent; in France at the end of the nineteenth century taxes were 10 per cent of the national income, in 1913 13 per cent, in 1924 21 per cent and in 1950 29 per cent.
Furthermore, part of the national income is transferred, by way of payments for, what are called services, to the non-productive branches (e.g., for use of municipal services, medical aid, places of entertainment, etc.). As already pointed out, no social product is created in these branches, nor, consequently, any national income; but the capitalists who exploit the workers employed in these branches receive part of the national income created in the branches of material production. From this income the capitalists who own businesses in the non-productive branches pay the wages of their workers, meet the material outlay which they have to find (for premises, equipment, heating, etc.) and take their profit.
Thus, the payment made for services must replace the costs incurred by these concerns and ensure the average rate of profit, since otherwise the capitalists will not employ their capital in these branches. In their hunt for high profits the capitalists endeavour to inflate payments for services, which leads to a further fall in the real wages of the workers and the real incomes of the peasants.
The re-distribution of the national income which takes place through the budget and also through high payments for services intensifies the impoverishment of the working people.
As the outcome of this entire process of distribution, the national income is divided into two parts: (1) the income of the exploiting classes, and (2) the income of the working people, both those engaged in the material-production branches and those in the non-productive branches.
The share of the national income taken by the workers and other working people of town and country who do not exploit the labour of others amounted in the U.S.A. in 1923 to 54 per cent, while the share taken by the capitalists was 46 per cent; in Britain in 1924 the share of the wage-earners was 45 per cent; in Germany in 1929 the working people's share was 55 per cent and that of the capitalists 45 per cent. At the present time in the capitalist countries the working people, who make up nine-tenths of the population, receive considerably less than half of the national income, while the exploiting receive considerably more than half.
The working people's share of the national income steadily falls, while that taken by the exploiting classes grows. In the U.S.A., for example, the working people's share of the national income amounted in 1870 to 58 per cent, in 1890 to 56 per cent, in 1923 to 54 per cent, in 1951 to approximately 40 per cent.
The national income is used, in the last analysis, for consumption and accumulation. The way the national income is used in bourgeois countries is determined by the class nature of capitalism and expresses the ever-growing parasitism of the exploiting classes.
The share of the national income which goes toward the personal consumption of the working people, who are the principal productive force of society, is so low that, as a rule, it does not guarantee them even the minimum needed for subsistence. A very great number of workers and working peasants are obliged to deny themselves and their families necessities, to live wretchedly in hovels and to deprive their children of education.
A very substantial part of the national income goes toward parasitic consumption by the capitalists and landowners. Colossal sums are spent by the capitalists and landowners on buying luxury articles and on maintaining a numerous crowd of hangers-on.
Under capitalism the share of the national income which goes toward the extension of production is quite small in comparison with the possibilities and needs of society. Thus, in the U.S.A. the share of the national income going to accumulation amounted in the period 1919-28 to approximately 10 per cent; but in the decade 1929 to 1938 accumulation amounted on the average only to 2 per cent of the national income, while during the years of crisis a certain eating away of fixed capital took place.
The comparatively small size of accumulation under capitalism is due to the fact that a considerable part of the national income goes to the parasitic consumption of the capitalists, to unproductive expenditure.
Thus, the net costs of circulation which are incurred in the upkeep of the commercial and credit apparatus, the storing of surplus stocks, advertising, stock exchange speculation, etc., come to huge amounts. In the U.S.A., during the period between the first and second world wars, the net costs of circulation absorbed 17- 19 per cent of the national income.
A continually growing part of the national income under capitalism goes on war expenditure, the armaments race and the upkeep of the State apparatus.
On the surface of things in capitalist society, incomes and their sources appear in distorted, fetishistic form. A misleading appearance comes about, as though capital itself gave birth to profit and land to rent, while the workers created only the value of their own wages.
These fetishistic notions underlie the bourgeois theories about the national income. By means of theories of this kind bourgeois economists endeavour to muddle the question of the national income in a way which benefits the bourgeoisie. They try to show that not only the workers and peasants but also the capitalists and landowners, and such persons as officials, policemen, stockbrokers, clergymen, etc. all have a share in creating the national income.
Furthermore, bourgeois economists show in a false light the distribution of the national income. They understate the share of this income which is taken by the capitalists and landowners. Thus, for example, the incomes of the exploiting classes are given on the basis of the returns made by the taxpayers themselves, which markedly understate these incomes; they do not take into account the enormous salaries drawn by many of the capitalists as directors of joint-stock companies; they do not take into account the incomes of the rural bourgeoisie, etc. At the same time the incomes of the working people are artificially exaggerated through including in their ranks the high-salaried upper officials, managers of businesses, banks, commercial concerns, etc.
Finally, the bourgeois economists distort the real picture of the distribution of national income by omitting to separate off the expenditure on consumption by the exploiting classes and the net costs of circulation, by understating the share which goes to military expenditure and in every possible way concealing the unproductive spending of a large part of the national income.
The State Budget
The bourgeois State is an organ of the exploiting classes which has for its purpose to hold the exploited majority of society in subjection and to assure the interests of the exploiting minority in all spheres of internal and external policy.
The bourgeois State possesses a ramified apparatus for the fulfilment of its tasks: army, police, punitive and judicial bodies, intelligence service, and various instruments for administrative control and ideological influence over the masses. This machinery is kept up out of the State Budget. Taxes and loans provide the sources of the money for the State Budget.
The State Budget is an instrument for the redistribution of part of the national income in the interests of the exploiting classes. It takes the form of an annual estimate of State income and expenditure. Marx wrote that the Budget of the capitalist State is nothing but "a class Budget-a middle class Budget" (Marx, "L.S.D. or Class Budgets, and Who's Relieved by Them", in The People's Paper, No. 51, April 23, 1853).
The expenditure of the capitalist State is to an overwhelming degree unproductive.
A very great portion of the resources of the State Budget under capitalism goes on war and war preparation. With this should be grouped also expenditure on scientific research in the field of the production and perfection of new weapons of mass annihilation, and on subversive activity in other countries. Another large portion of the expenditure of capitalist States is connected with the maintenance of an apparatus for holding down the working people.
"Contemporary militarism is the result of capitalism; it is the 'living manifestation' of capitalism in both its forms: as a military force used by the capitalist States in their external conflicts... and as a weapon in the hands of the ruling class for the suppression of all movements (economic and political) of the proletariat." (Lenin, "Militant Militarism and the Anti-militarist Tactics of the Social Democrats", Selected Works, 12-vol. edition, vol. IV, p. 325.), Very considerable sums are spent by the State, especially during wars and crises, on direct subsidising of capitalist businesses and guaranteeing them high profits. Frequently the subsidies paid out to banks and manufacturers have the purpose of saving them from bankruptcy during crises. By means of State purchases paid for out of the Budget, milliards of additional profit are pumped into the pockets of the big capitalists. Expenditure on culture and science, education and public health takes an insignificant share of the State Budgets of the capitalist countries. In the U.S.A., for example, more than two-thirds-of the total Federal Budget has in recent years been spent on war purposes, while public health, education and housing took less than 4 per cent, of which less than 1 per cent went on education.
The capitalist State obtains the bulk of its revenue by way of taxes.
In Britain, for example, taxes made up 89 per cent of the total amount of the Budget in 1938.
Taxes serve, in capitalist conditions, as a form of additional exploitation of the working people by way of redistribution through the Budget of part of their incomes for the benefit of the bourgeoisie. Taxes are called direct if they are assessed on the incomes of particular persons, and indirect if they are charged on goods sold (chiefly mass consumption goods) or on services (e.g., cinema and theatre tickets, tickets for travel on municipal transport, etc.). Indirect taxes raise the prices of goods and the charges for services. Indirect taxes are in fact paid by the consumers. The capitalists also transfer to the consumers part of their direct taxes, if they succeed in raising the price of goods or services.
The policy of the bourgeois State is directed towards reducing as much as possible the rate of taxation falling on the exploiting classes. The capitalists evade paying their taxes by concealing the true amount of their incomes. The policy of indirect taxation is particularly advantageous for the propertied classes.
"Indirect taxation charged upon articles consumed by the masses is distinguished by its very great injustice. It casts all its weight upon the poor, creating a privileged situation for the rich. The poorer a person is, the larger the share of his income that he pays to the State in the form of indirect taxes. The masses who own little or no property make up nine-tenths of the whole population, consume nine-tenths of all the taxed articles and pay nine-:tenths of the total amount of indirect taxes." Lenin, "Apropos of the Public Estimates", Works, Russian edition, vol. v, p. 309.)
Consequently the main burden of taxation falls on the working masses: the manual and clerical workers and the peasants. As mentioned above, at the present time in the bourgeois countries about a third of the wages of the manual and clerical workers is drawn into the State Budget through taxation. High taxes are exacted. from the peasants and intensify their impoverishment.
Besides taxes, an important item on the revenue side of the Budget in capitalist States is loans. Most often the bourgeois State resorts to loans to cover exceptional expenditure, in the first place war expenditure.
A considerable part of the resources which are gathered by way of loans are spent on State purchases of arms and supplies for the armed forces, which bring large profit to the manufacturers. In the long run loans lead to further increases in taxation of the working people, to pay interest on the loans and to pay off the loans themselves. The size of the State debt grows rapidly in bourgeois countries.
The total amount of State indebtedness throughout, the world grew from 38 milliard francs in 1825 to 250 milliard in 1900, i.e., it was multiplied by 6.6. In the twentieth century it grew still faster. In the U.S.A. in 1914 the State debt amounted to 1.2 milliard dollars, and in 1938 to 37.2 milliard, i.e., to thirty-one times as much. In Britain in 1890 £24,100,000 was paid out in interest on loans, and in 1953-4 £570,400,000. In the U.S.A. in 1940 a milliard dollars were paid in loan interest, and in 1953-46.5 milliard.
One of the sources of revenue for the State Budget under capitalism is the issue of paper money. Bringing inflation and, rising prices in its train, the issue of paper money transfers part of the national income to the bourgeois State at the cost of a lowered standard of living for the masses.
Thus the State Budget under capitalism serves as an instrument in the hands of the bourgeois State for additional robbery of the working people and enrichment of the capitalist class, and enhances the tendency to unproductiveness and parasitism in the way the national income is used.
BRIEF CONCLUSIONS
(1) The national income in capitalist society is that part of the aggregate social product in which newly created value is embodied. The national income is created in the branches of the economy where material production takes place, by the labour of the working class together with that of the peasants and artisans. As it exists in kind, the national income consists of the whole mass of consumer goods produced and that part of the means of production which is set aside for extending production. Under capitalism a considerable section of the able-bodied population not only does not create national income but does not even take part in socially-useful work.
(2) The distribution of the national income under capitalism is effected in the interests of the enrichment of the exploiting classes. The share taken by the working people in the national income falls while that taken by the exploiting classes increases.
(3) Under capitalism the national income, created by the working class, is distributed in the form of wages to the workers, profits to the capitalists (manufacturers, merchants and owners of loan-capital) and ground-rent to the landowners. A considerable part of what results from the labours of the peasants and artisans is also appropriated by the capitalists and landowners. Through the State Budget and by way of high charges for services a redistribution of the national income is carried out which still further impoverishes the working people.
(4) A huge and ever-increasing part of the national income under capitalism is used unproductively: it is spent on parasitic consumption by the bourgeoisie, on covering the excessively inflated costs of circulation, on the upkeep of the State apparatus for holding down the masses and on the preparation and conduct of predatory wars.
Reproduction of Social Capital
Social Capital. Composition of the Aggregate Social Product
Capitalist reproduction includes both the direct process of production and also the process of circulation.
In order that reproduction may take place capital must be able to complete its rotation unhindered, i.e., to pass from the money form to the productive form, from the productive form to the commodity form, from that to the money form, and so on; This applies not only to each separate capital but also to all the capital which exists in society.
"However, the turnovers of individual capitals intermingle, are mutually conditioned on one another, are their mutual premises, and form precisely in this interrelation the movement of social capital" (Marx, Capital, Kerr edition, vol. II, p. 407.)
The social capital is the aggregate of individual capitals taken together in their interdependence and interconnection. Many-sided connections exist between the separate capitals of the capitalist enterprises: some concerns supply machinery, raw material and other means of production to others, while others produce the means of subsistence bought by the workers and the consumer goods and luxury articles bought by the capitalists. Each of the individual capitalists is independent in relation to the others, but at the same time all are linked together and depend one upon the other. This contradiction shows itself in the course of the reproduction and circulation of the whole social capital. The many-sided relations of interconnection and interdependence which exist between the separate capitalists appear spontaneously as a result of the anarchy of production which is inherent in capitalism.
In examining the process of reproduction and circulation of the whole of social capital, we will suppose, so as not to complicate the question, that the whole of the country's economy is carried on on capitalist lines (i.e., that society consists exclusively of capitalists and workers) and that the whole of the constant capital is used up in the course of a year and its value completely transferred to the annual product. The aggregate social product means simply, given this supposition, the social capital (with an increment in the form of surplus-value) which emerges from the process of production in the form of commodities.
If production is to be carried on, the social product must go through a process of circulation. In the process of circulation every part of the social product first changes its commodity form into monetary form and then changes from its monetary form into that commodity form which is necessary for the continuation of production. Realisation of the social product means this change of form: commodity into money and then money into a new commodity form.
As shown above, the entire social product is divided in respect of value into three parts: the first replaces constant capital, the second replaces variable capital, the third is surplus-value. Thus, the value of the social product is equivalent to c+v+s. The different parts of which the social product is composed play different roles in the course of reproduction. Constant capital must continue to serve the process of production. Variable capital is transformed into wages, which the workers spend on consumption. The surplus-value is, under simple reproduction, entirely consumed by the capitalists and, under extended reproduction, is partly so consumed and partly spent on the purchase of additional means of production and on the hire of additional labour-power.
As regards its material form, the entire social product consists of means of production and consumer goods. Accordingly, the whole of social production falls into two major subdivisions: the first subdivision (I) is the production of means of production, and the second subdivision (II)
is the production of consumer goods. Consumer goods in their turn are divided into necessary means of subsistence, which go to satisfy the requirements of the working class and the working masses generally, and luxury articles which are within the means of the exploiting classes only.
Owing to the lowering of their standard of living the working people are more and more obliged to give up good-quality consumer goods in favour of poor-quality ones and substitutes. At the same time the luxury and extravagance of the parasitic classes increase.
The division of the social product according to its material form predetermines in its turn a different role for different parts of this product in the course of reproduction. Thus, for example, looms are intended to be used for the production of cloth and cannot be used for any other purpose; ready-made clothing, on the other hand, must enter into personal consumption.
In examining the rotation and turnover of an individual capital it is of no importance what commodities in particular, in material form (use-values), are produced in the given enterprise. When we examine the reproduction and circulation of the whole social capital, however, the material form of the commodities produced in society takes on essential importance. For the uninterrupted renewal of the process of production it is necessary that there shall be available both the appropriate means of production and consumer goods.
The question arises, how, in conditions of the anarchy of capitalist production, does the realisation of the social product take place? Lenin showed that "the solution of the problems of realisation will be found by analysing the replacement of all parts of the social product in value and in material form". (Lenin, A Characterisation of Economic Romanticism, F .L.P.H. edition, p. 56.) It is a matter, then, of how each part of the social product, in respect of value (constant capital, variable capital and surplus-value) and in respect of the natural form (means of production, consumer goods) finds on the market another part of the product to take its place.
When we examine extended reproduction we find that also connected with it is the question of how the transformation of surplus-value into capital takes place, i.e., whence come the additional means of production and consumer goods for the additional workers who are needed for the extension of production.
Conditions for Realisation in Capitalist Simple Reproduction
Let us first examine the conditions needed for the realisation of the social product in capitalist simple reproduction, when the whole of the surplus-value goes on personal consumption by the capitalists. These conditions may be illustrated by means of the following example.
Suppose that in the first subdivision, i.e., in the production of means of production, the value of constant capital, expressed, for example, in millions of pounds sterling, is equal to 4,000, that of variable capital to 1,000, and that of surplus-value to 1,000. Suppose that in the second subdivision, i.e., in the production of consumer goods, the value of constant capital is 2,000, that of variable capital 500 and the surplus 500.
Given these presuppositions the annual social product will consist of the following parts:
I. 4,000 c + 1,000 v + 1,000 s=6,000.
II. 2,000 c + 500 v + 500 s=3,000.
The value of the whole product which is produced in the first subdivision and exists in the form of machinery, raw material, equipment, etc., amounts, then, to 6,000. In order that the process of production may be renewed, part of this product, equal to 4,000, must be sold to concerns belonging to the first subdivision for renewal of the constant capital of this subdivision. The remaining part of the product of the first subdivision, being the reproduced value of the variable capital (1,000) and the newly-produced surplus-value (1,000), also existing in the form of the means of production, is sold to concerns of the second subdivision in exchange for consumer goods for the personal consumption of the workers and capitalists of the first subdivision. In their turn the capitalists of the second subdivision need means of production to the value of 2,000 in order to renew their constant capital.
The value of the entire product produced in the second sub-division and existing in the form of consumer goods (bread, meat, clothing, footwear, etc., and also luxury articles) amounts to 3,000. Part of the consumer goods produced in the second subdivision, to the value of 2,000, is exchanged for the wages and surplus-value of the first subdivision; in this way the constant capital of the second subdivision is renewed. The remaining part of the product of the second subdivision, being the reproduced value of the variable capital (500) and the newly-produced surplus (500), is realised within the second subdivision itself for the personal consumption of the workers and capitalists of this subdivision.
Consequently in conditions of simple reproduction there are exchanged between the two subdivisions: (1) the variable capital and surplus-value of the first subdivision, which must be exchanged into consumer goods produced in the second sub-division, and (2) the constant capital of the second subdivision, which must be exchanged into means of production produced in the first subdivision. The following equation is a condition for realisation in capitalist simple reproduction: the variable capital plus the surplus-value of the first subdivision must be equal to the constant capital of the second subdivision:
I (v+s)=II c.
This condition of simple reproduction can also be expressed in the following image.
The entire mass of goods produced in the course of a year in the first subdivision-- enterprises manufacturing means of production--must be equal i~ value to the mass of means of production which is consumed during the year in the enterprises of both subdivisions. The entire mass of commodities produced during a year in the second subdivision-enterprises manufacturing consumer goods-must be equal in value to the total of the incomes of the workers and capitalists in both subdivisions.
Conditions for Realisation in Capitalist Extended Reproduction
Capitalist extended reproduction presupposes accumulation of capital. Since the capital of each subdivision consists of two parts-- constant and variable capital--so also the accumulated part of the surplus-value is divided into these two parts: one part goes toward the purchase of additional means of production; the other to the hiring of additional labour-power. It follows from this that the annual product of the first subdivision must contain a certain surplus over the quantity of means of production which is necessary for simple reproduction. In other words, the total of the variable capital and surplus-value of the first subdivision must be, greater than the constant capital of the second subdivision: I (v+s) must be greater than II c. This is the fundamental condition for capitalist extended reproduction.
Let us examine the conditions for realisation in capitalist extended reproduction.
Suppose that in the first subdivision the value of constant capital equals 4,000, that of variable capital 1,000, and surplus-value 1,000; and suppose that in the second subdivision the value of constant capital equals 1,5°°, that of variable capital 750, and the surplus-value 750. On these presuppositions the annual social product will consist of the following parts:
I. 4,000 c + 1,000 v + 1,000 s=6,000
II. 1,500 c + 750 v + 750 s=3,000..
Let us suppose that, in the first subdivision, 500 out of the 1,000 surplus is accumulated. In accordance with the organic composition of capital in the first subdivision (4:1) the accumulated part of the surplus-value breaks down like this: 400 goes to increasing the constant capital and 100 to increasing the variable capital. The additional constant capital (400) exists as part of the product of the first subdivision itself, in the form of means of production; the additional variable capital must be obtained by way of exchange from the second subdivision, which, consequently, must also accumulate. The capitalists of the second subdivision exchange part of their surplus-value, equal to 100, for means of production and turn these means of production into additional constant capital. Then, in accordance with the organic composition of capital in the second subdivision (2:I), the variable capital in this subdivision must grow by 50..
Consequently, in the second subdivision, out of surplus-value equal to 750, 150 will be allocated to accumulation.
Just as in simple reproduction, the second subdivision must exchange its constant capital-equal to 1,500-with the first and the first subdivision must exchange with the second its variable capital, equal to 1,000 and the part of its surplus-value consumed by the capitalists, equal to 500.
Exchange between the two subdivisions can take place only given equality between these two magnitudes. Thus, the condition for realisation in capitalist extended reproduction is the following equation: the value of variable capital plus that part of surplus-value destined for personal consumption by the capitalists plus that part of accumulated surplus-value which is added to variable capital, in the first subdivision, must be equal to the value of constant capital plus that part of accumulated surplus value added to constant capital, in the second subdivision.
In extended reproduction the total of the variable capital and surplus-value of the first subdivision must grow more rapidly than the constant capital of the second subdivision, and the growth of the constant capital of the first subdivision must to an even greater extent outstrip the growth of the constant capital of the second subdivision.
In any system of society development of the productive forces is expressed in the share of social labour devoted to the production of means of production growing in comparison with the share devoted to the production of consumer goods. Preferential growth of-the production of means of production as compared with production of consumer goods is a law of extended reproduction. Under capitalism a more rapid growth of the production of means of production compared with the production of consumer goods is expressed as a more rapid growth of constant capital compared with variable, i.e., a rise in the organic composition of capital.
In explaining the conditions for realisation in capitalist simple and extended reproduction, Marx put on one side, for the sake of simplifying his analysis, the growth of the organic composition of capital. The diagram of reproduction given by Marx in Capital presupposes an unchanging organic composition of capital. Lenin developed Marx's theory of reproduction further and worked out a diagram of extended reproduction which took into account the growth in the organic composition of capital. This diagram shows that "the production of means of production for means of production grows faster, then comes the production of means of production for means of consumption, and the growth of the production of means of consumption is slowest". (V. I. Lenin, Concerning the So-called Question of Markets, F.L.P.H. edition, 1954, p. 19.) Lenin's diagram graphically illustrates the operation of the law of priority growth of the production of means of production in the course of capitalist extended reproduction. This operation is reflected in the spontaneous violation of the established proportions between the branches of production, in the unequal development of various branches, and in the marked lagging of the consumption of the masses behind the growth of production, because a rise in the organic composition of capital inevitably leads to a growth of unemployment and lowering of the standard of life of the working class.
The Problem of the Market, Contradictions of Capitalist Reproduction
It is obvious from the foregoing exposition that for the social product to be realised certain definite relationships (proportions) must exist between the separate parts of which it is composed and, consequently, between the branches and elements of production. Under capitalism, when production is carried on by isolated producers who are guided by the hunt for profit and who work for a market which is unknown to them, these proportions cannot but be subject to continual upsets. Extension of production takes place unequally,' so that the old proportions between branches are constantly being violated and new proportions being established spontaneously, by way of the flow of capital from some branches into others. Therefore proportionality between different branches is accidental, while constant violation of proportionality is the general rule of capitalist reproduction. Examining the conditions for the normal course of capitalist simple and extended reproduction, Marx declared that they "become so many causes of abnormal movements implying the possibility of crises, since a balance is. an accident under the crude conditions of this production". (Marx, Capital, Kerr edition, vol. II, p. 578.) In the conditions of anarchy of capitalist production the realisation of the social product takes place only amidst difficulties and continual fluctuations, which become ever stronger as capitalism grows.
Of special importance in this connection is the circumstance that the extension of capitalist production and, therefore, the formation of the internal market takes place not so much in respect of consumer goods as in respect of means of production. However, the production of means of production cannot develop in complete independence of the production of consumer goods and without any connection with it, for the enterprises which use these means of production throw on to the market ever-increasing quantities of commodities for consumption. Thus, in the last analysis, productive consumption (consumption of the means of production) is always connected with individual consumption and always depends on it. But the dimensions of the individual consumption of the mass of the people are kept in capitalist society within extremely narrow limits, on account of the operation of the laws of capitalism, which are responsible for the impoverishment of the working class and the ruin of the peasantry. For this reason the formation and extension of the internal market under capitalism not only does not mean extension of consumption by the masses, it is, on the contrary, combined with a growth in the poverty of the overwhelming majority of the working people.
The nature of capitalist reproduction is determined by the basic economic law of capitalism; by force of which the aim of production is the extraction of profit on an ever-increasing scale, and the extension of production serves as a means to the attainment 6f this end, which inevitably comes up against the narrow framework of capitalist relations.
It was in this sense that Marx wrote of "production for the sake of production" and "accumulation for the sake of accumulation" as typical of capitalism. But commodities are produced, in the long run, not for production but for the satisfaction of the needs of man. Thus inherent in capitalism is a deep-rooted antagonistic contradiction between production and consumption.
The contradiction between production and consumption inherent in capitalism consists in this, that the national wealth grows alongside the growth in the poverty of the people, the productive forces of society grow without a corresponding growth in consumption by the people. This contradiction is one of the forms in which the basic contradiction of capitalism manifests itself--the contradiction between the social character of production and the private-capitalist form of appropriation.
Exposing the servants of the bourgeoisie who slur over the deep rooted contradictions of capitalist realisation, Lenin emphasises that .
"even with an ideally smooth and proportional reproduction and circulation of the whole social capital, a contradiction is inevitable between the growth of production and the restricted limits of consumption. In reality, besides this, the process of realisation proceeds not with ideally smooth proportionality, but only amidst 'difficulties', 'fluctuations', 'crises', etc. (Lenin, "Once Again on the Question of the Theory of Realisation", Works, Russian edition, vol. IV, p. 7 I.)
We must distinguish between the internal market (outlet for commodities within the country itself) and the external market (outlet for commodities abroad).
The internal market appears and extends along with the appearance and growth of commodity production, and especially with the development of capitalism, which deepens the social division of labour and breaks up the direct producers into capitalists and workers. As a result of the social division of labour the number of separate branches of production grows. The development of some branches extends the market for the commodities produced by other branches, especially for raw material, machinery and other means of production. Furthermore, the differentiation of the petty commodity producers into classes, the growth in the number of workers and the increase in the profits of the capitalists lead to an increase in the outlet for consumer goods bought by them. The level of development of the internal market is the level of development of capitalism in a country.
The socialisation of labour by capitalism appears first and foremost in the fact that the fragmentation of petty production units which existed previously is done away with and the petty local markets become united into a huge national (and later world) market.
When we examine the process of reproduction and circulation of the entire social capital the role of the external market is left on one side, since inclusion of the external market does not affect the substance of the problem. Bringing in foreign trade only shifts the problem from one country to a number of countries, but it in no way changes the essence of the process of realisation. This does not mean, however, that external markets are not of essential importance for capitalist countries. In their hunt for profit the capitalists expand production in every way possible, arid seek more profitable markets, and foreign markets often prove to be especially profitable.
The contradictions of capitalist realisation manifest themselves in full force in the periodic economic crises of over-production.
BRIEF CONCLUSIONS
(1) The rotations of individual capitals, taken in their aggregate, constitute the movement of social capital. The social capital is the aggregate of individual capitals in their connection one with another.
(2) The aggregate product of capitalist society is divided in respect of value into constant capital, variable capital and surplus-value, and in respect of its material form into means of production and consumer goods. The whole of social production is divided into two subdivisions: the first subdivision is the production of means of production and the second is the production of consumer goods. The problem of realisation is the problem of finding, for each part of the social product by value and by material form, another part of the product to exchange for it.
(3) In capitalist simple reproduction the condition for realisation is that the variable capital plus the surplus-value of the first subdivision must be equal to the constant capital of the second subdivision. In capitalist extended reproduction the sum of the variable capital and the surplus-value of the first subdivision must be greater than the constant capital of the second subdivision. The law of extended reproduction under any social system is a preferential (more rapid) growth in the production of means of production compared with the production of consumption goods.
(4) In the course of its development capitalism creates an internal market. The growth of production and of the internal market under capitalism takes Place to a greater extent in respect of means of production than in respect of consumer goods. In the process of capitalist reproduction a disproportionality of production, and a contradiction between production and consumption, reveal themselves which are inevitable under capitalism, flowing as they do from the fundamental contradiction of capitalism, the contradiction between the social character of production and the private capitalist form of appropriation of the results of production. The contradictions of capitalist reproduction are most vividly expressed in economic crises of overproduction.<.p>
Economic Crises
The Basis of Capitalist Crises of Overproduction
Starting from the beginning of the nineteenth century, from the time when large-scale machine industry first arose, the course of capitalist extended reproduction has been periodically interrupted by economic crises.
Capitalist crises are crises of overproduction. A crisis shows itself first of all in the' fact that commodities cannot be sold, since they have been produced in quantities greater than can be bought by the main consumers--the mass of the people--whose purchasing power is confined under capitalist relations of production within extremely narrow limits. "Surplus" goods encumber the warehouses. The capitalists curtail production and dismiss workers. Hundreds and thousands of enterprises are closed down. Unemployment increases sharply. A great number of petty producers are ruined, in both town and country. The lack of outlet for the goods produced leads to disorganisation of trade. Credit connections are broken. The capitalists experience an acute shortage of money for payments. The exchanges crash-the prices of shares, bonds and other securities fall headlong. A wave of bankruptcies of industrial, commercial and banking concerns sweeps forward.
Overproduction of commodities during crises is not absolute but relative. This means that an excess of commodities exists only in relation to demand effective in terms of money, but not at all in relation to the actual requirements of society. During crises the working masses suffer extreme want in respect of elementary necessities, their requirements are satisfied worse than at any other time. Millions of people starve because "too much" grain has been produced, people suffer from cold because "too much" coal has been produced. The working people are deprived of means of livelihood just because they have produced these means in too great a quantity. Such is the crying contradiction of the capitalist mode of production, under which, in the words of the French Utopian Socialist Fourier, "plenty becomes the source of poverty and want".
Upheavals in economic life often occurred under pre-capitalist modes of production, too. But they were called forth some extraordinary elemental or social calamity: flood, drought, wars or epidemics sometimes laid waste entire countries, dooming population to famine and extinction. The radical difference, however, between these economic upheavals and capitalist crises is that the hunger and want caused by these upheavals were an outcome of the low level of development of production, the extreme shortage of products; whereas under capitalism crises are engendered by the growth of production alongside the wretched standard of living of the masses, by a relative "excess" of commodities produced.
As has been shown above (in Chapter IV), the possibility of crises is inherent even in simple commodity production and circulation. Only under capitalism, however, do crises become inevitable, for then production assumes a social character but the product of the socialised labour of many thousands and millions of workers passes into private appropriation by the capitalists. The contradiction between the social character of production and the private, capitalist form of appropriation of the results of production, which is the fundamental contradiction of capitalism, furnishes the basis for economic crises of overproduction. Thus the inevitability of crises is rooted in the system of capitalist economy itself.
The basic contradiction of capitalism shows itself as an antithesis between the organisation of production in the individual enterprises and the anarchy of production in society as a whole. In each separate factory the workers' labour is organised and subordinated to the single will of the employer. But in society as a whole, owing to the supremacy of the private ownership of the means of production, anarchy of production reigns and excludes planned development of the economy. Therefore the complex conditions which are necessary for the realisation of the social product under capitalist extended reproduction are inevitably broken up. These violations gradually accumulate until the onset of a crisis, when the process of realisation falls into complete disorder.
In their hunt for the highest possible profits the capitalists expand production; improve technique, introduce new machinery and throw vast masses of commodities on to the market. Acting in the same direction is the constant tendency of the rate of profit to fall, which arises from the growth in the organic composition of capital. The employers endeavour to make up for the fall in the rate of profit by increasing the amount of profit, through expansion of the scale of production and the quantity of commodities produced. Thus capitalism has an inherent tendency to expand production, a tendency towards a huge growth in production potentialities. But as a result of the impoverishment of the working class and of the peasantry, the effective demand of the working people is relatively reduced. In consequence of this the expansion of capitalist production inevitably encounters the narrow limits of consumption by the bulk of the population. It ensues from the basic economic law of capitalism that the aim of capitalist production--the extraction of profit on an ever-increasing scale--inevitably comes into contradiction with the means for attaining this aim--the extension of production. Crisis is that moment in the course of capitalist extended reproduction when this contradiction appears in the acute form of overproduction of commodities, for which no outlet can be found.
"The basis of the crisis lies in the contradiction between the social character of production and the capitalist form of appropriation of the results of production. An expression of this basic contradiction of capitalism is the contradiction between the colossal growth of capitalism's potentialities of production, calculated to yield the maximum of capitalist profit, and the relative reduction of the effective demand of the vast masses of the working people whose standard of living the capitalist always try to keep at the minimum level" (Stalin, "Political Report of the Central Committee to the XVIth Congress of the CPSU(B)", Works, vol. XII, pp. 250-1.)
The basic contradiction of capitalism comes to light in the class antagonism between proletariat and bourgeoisie. Characteristic of capitalism is the split between the two most important conditions of production: between the means of production, concentrated in the hands of the capitalists, and the direct producers, who are deprived of everything except their labour-power. This split is vividly revealed in the crises of over-production, when a vicious circle is formed: on the one hand a surplus of means of production and products, and on the other a surplus of labour-power, masses of unemployed who are without the means of existence.,
Crises are the inescapable companions of the capitalist mode of production. To abolish crises one must abolish capitalism.
Cyclic Character of Capitalist Reproduction
Capitalist crises of overproduction recur at definite intervals of time, every eight to twelve years. The inevitability of crises is determined by the general economic laws of the capitalist mode of production, which operate in all counties taking the capitalist path of development. At the same time the course of each crisis, the form in which it appears and its special features, depend also on the concrete conditions of development of the particular country concerned. Partial crises of over-production, affecting particular branches of industry, occurred in Britain as far back as the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth. The first industrial crisis which embraced a country's economy as a whole broke out in Britain in 1825. In 1836 a crisis began in Britain and then spread to the. U.S.A. as well. The crisis of 1847-8, which embraced Great Britain, a number of countries of the European continent and the U.S.A., was, in essence, a world crisis. The crisis of 1857 affected the principal countries of Europe and America. It was followed by the crises of 1866, 1873, 1882 and 1890. The most serious was that of 1873, which marked the beginning of the transition from pre-monopoly capitalism to monopoly capitalism. In the twentieth century crises occurred in 1900-3 (this crisis began in Russia, where it was felt much more strongly than in any other country), in 1907, 1920-1, 1929-33, 1937-8 and 19489 (in the U.S.A).
The period from the beginning of one crisis to the beginning of another crisis is called a cycle. A cycle is made up of four phases: crisis, depression, recovery and boom. The fundamental phase of a cycle is the crisis, which provides the starting point for a new cycle.
The crisis is that phase of a cycle in which the contradiction between the growth of the productive potentialities and the relative reduction of effective demand breaks out in an acute and, destructive form. This phase of a cycle is characterised by overproduction of commodities which cannot find outlets, by a sharp fall in prices, by an acute shortage of means of payment and by stock exchange crashes which bring in their train mass bankruptcy, a sharp curtailment of production, a growth in unemployment, and a fall in wages. The fall in the prices of commodities, unemployment, direct destruction of machinery, equipment and entire works--all this means a tremendous destruction of society's productive forces. Through the ruin and collapse of a large number of concerns and the destruction of part of the productive forces the crisis forcibly adapts, and that within a very short time, the magnitude of production to the magnitude of effective demand. "The crises are always but momentary and forcible solutions of the existing contradictions, violent eruptions, which restore the disturbed equilibrium for a while." (Marx, Capital, Kerr edition, vol. III, p. 292.)
The depression is the phase of the cycle which comes immediately after the crisis. This phase of the cycle is characterised by the fact that industrial production stagnates, prices of commodities are low, trade proceeds sluggishly, and there is an abundance of spare money capital. In the depression period the prerequisites are created for the ensuing recovery and boom. The accumulated stocks of commodities are partly destroyed and partly sold off at reduced prices. The capitalists endeavour to find a way out from the stagnant condition of production by reducing the costs of production. They seek this objective, first, by intensifying in every way the exploitation of the workers, further reducing wages and heightening the intensity of labour; second, by re-equipping their works, renewing their fixed capital, introducing technical improvements, all with the aim of making production profitable at the low prices which prevail owing to the crisis. The renewal of fixed capital gives a fillip to the growth of production in a number of branches. Enterprises which manufacture equipment receive orders and in their turn create a demand for all kinds of raw material and other materials. Thus there opens a way out of the crisis and depression and for transition to recovery.
Recovery is that phase of the cycle during which enterprises revive from their disturbed condition and proceed to an extension of production. Gradually the level of production attains Its former height, prices rise, profits grow. Recovery passes into boom.
The boom is that phase of the cycle in which production rises above the highest point attained in the previous cycle, before the crisis. During a boom new industrial enterprises, railways, etc., are built. Prices rise; merchants try to buy as many commodities as possible in the expectation of a further rise in prices, and by so doing stimulate manufacturers to expand production still further. The banks readily grant advances to manufacturers and traders. All this makes it possible to extend' the" scale of production and trade far beyond the limits of effective demand. In this way the conditions for the next crisis of overproduction are created.
Before the onset of a crisis production attains its highest level, but selling possibilities seem to be even greater. Over-production already exists, but in a hidden form. Speculation pushes up prices and inflates the demand for commodities to an excessive degree. Goods surpluses pile up. Credit still further conceals the fact of overproduction: the banks go on financing industry and trade, artificially sustaining the expansion of production. When overproduction attains its highest point, the crisis breaks out. Then the whole cycle is repeated.
Each crisis gives a stimulus to mass renewal of fixed capital. Endeavouring to restore the profitability of their enterprises by means of a sharp reduction of prices, the capitalists, besides intensifying the exploitation of the workers, are obliged to introduce new machinery and machine-tools, new methods of production. At the expense of intensified exploitation of the working class, ruin of the small producers, absorption of many enterprises by their competitors, the large capitalists bring about new investments of capital. Thus, the way out of the crisis is effected by the internal forces of the capitalist mode production. But with the transition to recovery and boom, violations of the conditions of reproduction, disproportions, contradictions between the growth of production and the narrow limits of effective demand, inevitably begin to pile up once more. In consequence, a new crisis of overproduction inevitably breaks out within a more or less definite space of time. "It is true that the periods in which capital is invested are different in time and place. But a crisis is always the starting-point of a large amount of new investment. Therefore it also constitutes, from the point of view of society, more or less of a new material basis for the next cycle of turnover." (K. Marx, Capital, Kerr edition, vol. II, p. 211.) In the decisive branches of large-scale industry the longevity of the basic means of production, taking into account not only physical but also moral depreciation, amounts on the average to about ten years. The inevitability of periodical mass renewal of fixed capital serves as the material basis for the periodicity of crises, which recur regularly throughout the history of capitalism.
Every crisis prepares the ground for fresh and still deeper crises, so that as capitalism develops their destructive force and acuteness becomes greater and greater.
Agrarian Crises
Capitalist crises of overproduction, which bring in their train unemployment, a fall in wages, and reduction in the effective demand for agricultural produce, inevitably give rise to partial or general, overproduction in the sphere of agriculture. Crises of overproduction in agriculture are called agrarian crises.
Behind the inevitability of agrarian crises is the same fundamental contradiction Of capitalism which constitutes the basis of industrial crises. At the same time, agrarian crises have certain special features: they are usually more prolonged than industrial crises.
The agrarian crisis of the last quarter of the nineteenth century, which involved the West-European countries, Russia and eventually also the U$A., began in the first half of the 1870'S and continued in one form or another down to the middle of the 1890's. It arose because the development of maritime transport and the extension of the network of railways began to bring to the markets of Europe large quantities of cheaper grain from America, Russia and India. The production of grain was less costly in America owing to the opening-up of new and fertile lands there and the availability of free land which bore no charge of absolute rent. Russia and India could export grain to Western Europe at low prices because the Russian and Indian peasants, crushed by unbearable taxes, were obliged to sell their grain very cheaply. The European capitalist tenant-farmers and peasants could not stand up to this competition, owing to the high rents exacted from them by the landlords. After the first world war, in the spring of 1920, owing to the great reduction in the effective demand of the population, an acute agrarian crisis broke out; it affected the non-European countries (U.S.A., Canada, Argentina, Australia) with particular violence. Agriculture had not yet recovered from this crisis when, at the end of 1928, clear signs of a new one made their appearance in Canada, U.S.A., Brazil and Australia. This crisis embraced the principal countries of the capitalist world exporting raw materials and foodstuffs. The crisis involved all branches of agriculture; it became interwoven with the industrial crisis of 1929-33 and continued down to the beginning of the second world war. After the second world war an agrarian crisis again broke out in the largest countries exporting agricultural produce--the U.S.A., Canada, Argentina-and in a number branches of agriculture in the Western European Countries.
The protracted nature of agrarian crises is due to the following main causes.
First, the landlords by virtue of the monopoly of private property in land compel the tenants to go on paying during agrarian crises the same ground-rent which they agreed to in their tenancy agreement. When the prices of agriculture commodities fall, the ground-rent is paid at the cost of a further reduction of the wages of agricultural workers, and also at cost of the profits of the tenants, sometimes even by drawing the capital advanced by them. Consequently it becomes extremely hard for them to emerge from the crisis by introducing technical improvements and reductions in the costs of production.
Secondly, agriculture under capitalism is a backward branch of the economy compared with industry. Private ownership of land, survivals of feudal relations, the necessity of paying absolute and differential rent to the landlords--all these so many obstacles in the way of a free influx of capital into agriculture, and hindrances to the development of the productive forces. The organic composition of capital is lower agriculture than in industry; fixed capital, the mass-scale renewal of which is the material basis, of the periodicity industrial crises, plays a very much smaller role in agriculture than in industry.
Thirdly, the petty producers (the peasants) strive during crises to keep up their former level of production, so as at costs to hang on to their bit of land, whether it be their own property or leased; this they do at the price of exhausting labour, underfeeding and destructive use of the soil and cattle. This still further increases the overproduction of agricultural produce.
Thus the common basis for the protracted character of agrarian crises is the monopoly of private property in land, the, feudal survivals connected with this and the extreme backwardness of agriculture in capitalist countries. The main burden of agrarian crises falls on the bulk of the peasantry. An agrarian crisis ruins a mass of petty common producers; breaking up established property relations, it hastens the differentiation of the peasantry and the development of capitalist relations in agriculture. At the same time agrarian crises have a devastating effect on agriculture in the capitalist countries, causing a diminution in the sown area, a fall in the level agricultural technique, and a lowering of agricultural crops and of the productivity of stockbreeding.
Crises and the Sharpening of the Contradictions of Capitalism
Economic crises in which all the contradictions of the capitalist mode of production violently explode, inevitably lead to a further deepening and sharpening of these contradictions.
As a rule, capitalist crises of overproduction are universal in character. Beginning in a particular branch of production, they rapidly embrace the entire national economy. Arising first in one country or a few countries, they spread over the whole capitalist world.
Every crisis leads to a sharp decline in production, a fall in the wholesale prices of commodities and in the price of shares on the exchanges a decline in the volume of both domestic and external trade. The scale of production falls to a level which prevailed a number of years previously. In the nineteenth century the level of the economic life of capitalist countries was thrown back during crises by three to five years, in the twentieth century by decades.
The output of coal in the U.S.A. fell during the crisis of 1873 by 9.1 per cent, during that of 1882 by 7.5 per cent, during that of 1893 by 6.4 per cent, during that of 1907 by 13.4 per cent, during that of 1920-1 by 27.5 per cent and during that of 192933 by 40.9 per cent. The production of pig-iron in the U.S.A. fell by the following amounts during the crises indicated: 1873--27 per cent, 1882--12.5 per cent, 1893-- 27.3 per cent, 1907--38.2 per cent, 1920-1--54.8 per cent, 1929-33--79.4 per cent.
In Germany the total volume of industrial production fell during the crisis of 1873 by 6.1 per cent, 1890--3.4 per cent, 1907--6.5 per cent, and 1929-33--40.1 per cent.
In Russia during the crisis of 1900-03 the smelting of iron declined by 17 per cent the output of oil by 10 per cent, the rolling of rails by 30 per cent, and the production of sugar by 19 per cent.
The crisis of 1857 threw the U.S.A. back two years in output of coal, four years in production of pig-iron, two years in exports and three years in imports. The crisis of 1929 threw the U.S.A, back 28 years in output of coal, 36 years in output of pig-iron, 31 years in outputs of steel, 35 years in exports and 31 years in imports. Britain was thrown back by the 1929 crisis 35 years in coal output, 76 years in pig-iron output, 23 years in steel output and 36 years in external trade.
Economic crises vividly reveal the predatory character of capitalism. During every crisis, while millions of people are in extreme want, doomed to poverty and hunger, vast quantities of commodities are destroyed because they cannot find a market--wheat, potatoes, milk, cattle, cotton. Whole factories, shipyards, blast-furnaces are closed down or sold for scrap, grain crops and technical crops are destroyed and plantations of fruit trees are cut down.
During three years of the 1929-33 crisis 92 blast-furnaces were pulled down in the U.S.A., 72 in Britain, 28 in Germany and 10 in France. The tonnage of sea-going vessels destroyed in those years amounted to more than 6V2 million registered tons.
The destructive effect of agrarian crises is clear from the following figures. In the U.S.A. between 1926 and 1937 more than two million farms were compulsorily sold for debt. The revenue from agriculture shrank from 6.8 milliard dollars in 1929 to 2.4 milliard dollars in 1932. During the same period sales of agricultural machinery and equipment were reduced from 458 million dollars a year to 65 million (one-seventh), and the demand for artificial fertilisers fell by nearly a half The U.S. Government took all kinds of steps to reduce agricultural production. In 1933 10.4 million acres of cotton crop were destroyed by ploughing over, 6.4 million pigs were bought and destroyed by the State, and wheat was burned in the fire-boxes of locomotives. In Brazil about 22 million sacks of coffee were destroyed, and in Denmark 117 thousand head of cattle.
Crises cause incalculable sufferings to the working class, the bulk of the peasantry and the working people as a whole. They bring about mass unemployment, which condemns hundreds of thousands and millions of people to enforced idleness, poverty and hunger. The capitalists make use of unemployment to intensify in every way the exploitation of the working class, and sharply to reduce the standard of living of all the working people.
The number of workers employed in manufacturing industry in the U.S.A. fell by 11.8 per cent at the time of the 1907 crisis. During the 1929-33 crisis the number of workers in America's manufacturing industry decreased by 38.8 per cent, and the total wages bill fell by 57.7 per cent. According to American statisticians, 43 million man-years were lost between 1929 and 1938 as a result of unemployment.
Crises enormously increase the insecurity of the working people's lives, their fear of the morrow. Through spending years out of work, workers lose their skill, and after the crisis has ended many of them cannot return to industry any more. The housing conditions of the working people are greatly worsened; the number of homeless people wandering about the country in search of work increases. During crises the number of suicides caused by desperation rises markedly, and destitution and crime increase.
Crises lead to a sharpening of class contradictions between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, between the bulk of the peasantry and the landlords, usurers and kulaks who exploit them. During a crisis the working class is deprived of many of the achievements which it has won through long and hard struggle against the exploiters and the bourgeois State. This shows the workers that the only way to salvation from want and hunger lies through abolishing capitalist wage slavery. The broadest masses of the proletariat, doomed by crises to tremendous privations, acquire class consciousness and revolutionary determination. The inability of the bourgeoisie to control the productive forces of society undermines the faith of the petty-bourgeois strata of the population in the enduring nature of the capitalist order. All this leads to a sharpening of the class struggle in capitalist society.
The bourgeois State renders aid to the capitalists during crises in the form of subsidies, the cost of which is paid in the long run by the working masses. Using its apparatus of coercion and compulsion, the State helps the capitalists to wage an offensive against the standard of living of the working class and the peasantry. All this intensifies the impoverishment of the working masses. At the same time, crises reveal the complete incapacity of the bourgeois State to curb to any degree the elemental laws of capitalism. In capitalist countries it is not the State that controls the economy but, on the contrary, the State itself is in the power of capitalist economy, in subjection to big capital.
Crises are the clearest indication that the productive forces brought into being by capitalism have outgrown the framework of bourgeois production relations, so that the latter have become a brake on the further growth of the productive forces.
"The crisis shows that present-day society could produce an incomparably greater quantity of products, which could go to improve the lives of all the working people, if only the land, the factories, the machines, etc., were not in the grip of a handful of private owners who draw millions from die poverty of the people." (Lenin, "Lessons of the Crisis", Works, Russian edition, vol. v, p. 76.).
Every crisis brings nearer the downfall of the capitalist mode of production.
Inasmuch as crises exhibit with particular clarity and sharpness the insoluble contradictions of capitalism, testifying to the inevitability of its doom, bourgeois economists try in every way possible to conceal the true nature and causes of crises. Endeavouring to gloss over the inevitability of crises under capitalism, they usually explain crises as resulting from accidental causes which they claim could be eliminated while maintaining the capitalist system of economy intact.
With this purpose, the economists of the bourgeoisie proclaim the ultimate, cause of crises to be either a violation in the proportionality between branches of production or the lagging of consumption behind production, and they propose as a means of curing capitalism of crises that such types of "consumption" be guaranteed as armaments drives and wars. In fact, neither disproportionality of production nor the contradiction between production and consumption are accidental defects of the capitalist mode of production, but inevitable ways in which the basic contradiction of capitalism manifests itself, the contradiction which cannot be eliminated while capitalism exists. Certain bourgeois economists have gone so far as to declare that crises are caused by sunspots, on the grounds that these exert an influence on the harvest and so on the whole of economic life.
In the intervals between crises the defenders of the bourgeoisie usually come out with sweeping statements to the effect that crises are no more and capitalism has taken the road of crisis-free development; the very next crisis shows up the mistakenness of such statements. Life invariably reveals the complete bankruptcy of such prescriptions for curing capitalism of crises.
The Historical Tendency of Capitalist Development.
The Proletariat as the Grave-digger of Capitalism
After capitalism had become the dominant system, the concentration of property in a few hands advanced with giant strides. The development of capitalism leads to the run of the petty producers, who fall into the ranks of the army of wage-workers. Along with this, the competitive struggle among the capitalists becomes acute, as a result of which one capitalist lays low many others. The concentration of capital means concentration of enormous wealth in the hands of an ever narrower circle of persons.
In developing large-scale production, capitalism gives birth to its own grave-digger in the person of the working class, which comes forward to assume the role of guide and leader of all the working and exploited masses. The development of industry is accompanied by the growth of the proletariat, in numbers, solidarity, consciousness and degree of organisation. The proletariat advances ever more resolutely in struggle against capital. The development of capitalist society, which is accompanied by a sharpening of the. antagonistic contradictions inherent within it and by an intensification of class struggle, prepares the conditions necessary for the victory of the proletariat over the bourgeoisie.
The theoretical expression of the fundamental interests of the working class is Marxism--scientific socialism--which is an integral, harmonious outlook on the world. Scientific socialism teaches the proletariat to unite for class struggle against the bourgeoisie. The class interests of the proletariat coincide with the interests of the progressive development of human society, they merge with the interests of the overwhelming majority of society, for the revolution of the proletariat means the abolition not of this or that form of exploitation but of all exploitation in general.
While at the dawn of capitalism a few usurpers in the shape of the capitalists and landlords expropriated the masses of the people, the development of capitalism leads inevitably to the expropriation of the usurpers by the masses of the people. This task is carried out by the socialist revolution, which socialises the means of production and sweeps away capitalism along with its crises, unemployment and poverty of the masses.
"The monopoly of capital becomes a fetter upon the mode of production which has sprung up and flourished along with and under it. Centralisation of the means of production and socialisation of labour at last reach a point where they become incompatible with their capitalist integument. This integument is burst asunder. The knell of capitalist property sounds. The expropriators are expropriated." (Marx, Capital, Kerr edition, vol. I, p. 837.)
Such is the historical tendency of development of the capitalist mode of production.
BRIEF CONCLUSIONS
(1) Economic crises are crises of overproduction. Underlying crises is the contradiction between the social character of production and the private capitalist form of appropriation of the products of labour. The forms in which this contradiction is expressed are, first, the antithesis between the organisation of production within the individual capitalist enterprises and the anarchy of production in society as a whole, and, second, the contradiction between the huge growth in the productive potentialities of capitalism and the relative reduction in the purchasing capacity of the working masses. The basic contradiction of capitalism shows itself in the class antagonism between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie.
(2) The period from the beginning of one crisis to the beginning of another is called a cycle. A cycle consists of the following phases: crises, depression, recovery, boom. The material foundation of the periodicity of capitalist crises is the necessity for periodical renewal of fixed capital. Interwoven with industrial crises are agrarian crises, which are distinguished by their protracted character owing to the monopoly of private property in land, the existence of feudal survivals and the backwardness of agriculture under capitalism.
(3) Capitalist crises mean destruction of the productive forces on a gigantic scale. They bring with them incalculable sufferings for the working masses. It is in crises that there is most clearly revealed the historically-limited character of the bourgeois system, the inability of capitalism to control any further the productive forces which have matured within its womb. In order to abolish crises it is necessary abolish capitalism.
(4) The historical tendency of capitalist development is, on the one hand, that it develops the productive forces and socialises production, thus creating the material prerequisites for Socialism, and, on the other hand, that i gives birth to its own grave-digger in the person of the proletariat, which organises and heads the revolutionary struggle of all the working people for liberation from the yoke of capital.