embodied subjectively and objectively in clans, races, etc.
+4. Produktion, Produktions-mittel und Produktionsverhältnisse.
Produktionsverhältnis und Verkehrsverhältnisse. Staats- und
Eigenthumsformen im Verhältnis zu den Produktions- und
Verkehrsverhältnissen. Rechtsverhältnisse. Familienverhältnisse.+
Notabene in bezug auf Punkte, die hier zu erwähnen und nicht vergessen
werden dürfen:
‖1. Der =Krieg= ist früher ausgebildet, wie der Frieden:
[Auszuführen wäre] die Art, wie durch den Krieg und in den Armeen
etc. gewisse ökonomische Verhältnisse wie Lohnarbeit, Maschinerie
etc. früher entwickelt [werden] als im Inneren der bürgerlichen
Gesellschaft. Auch das Verhältnis von Produktivkraft und
Verkehrsverhältnissen wird besonders anschaulich in der Armee.
2. Verhältnis der bisherigen idealen Geschichtsschreibung zur realen.
Namentlich die sogenannte Kulturgeschichte, die alle Religions-und
Staatengeschichte.
Bei der Gelegenheit kann auch etwas gesagt werden über die
verschiedenen Arten der bisherigen Geschichtsschreibung. Sogenannte
objektive. Subjektive. (Moralische und andere.) Philosophische.
3. =Sekundäres und Tertiäres.= Ueberhaupt =abgeleitete,
übertragene,= nicht ursprüngliche Produktionsverhältnisse. Hier
[ist das] Einspielen der internationalen Verhältnisse [zu behandeln].
4. Vorwürfe über Materialismus dieser Auffassung. Verhältnis zum
naturalistischen Materialismus.
5. Dialektik der Begriffe Produktivkraft (Produktions-mittel) und
Produktionsverhältnis, eine Dialektik, deren Grenzen zu bestimmen sind
und den realen Unterschied nicht aufhebt.
6. Das unegale Verhältnis der Entwicklung der materiellen Produktion
zum Beispiel zur künstlerischen. Ueberhaupt ist der Begriff des
Fortschritts nicht in der gewöhnlichen Abstraktion zu fassen. Bei der
Kunst etc. ist diese Disproportion noch nicht so wichtig und schwierig
zu fassen als innerhalb praktisch-sozialer Verhältnisse selbst, zum
Beispiel das Bildungsverhältnis der Vereinigten Staaten zu Europa. Der
eigentlich schwierige Punkt, der hier zu erörtern ist aber der, wie
die Produktionsverhältnisse als Rechtsverhältnisse in ungleiche (?)
Entwicklung treten. Also zum Beispiel das Verhältnis des römischen
Privatrechts (im Kriminalrecht und öffentlichen ist das wenige der
Fall) zur modernen Produktion.
7. Diese Auffassung erscheint als nothwendige Entwicklung. Aber
Berechtigung des Zufalls. Varia.[167] (Die Freiheit und
anderes noch.) (Einwirkung der Kommunikationsmittel.) Weltgeschichte
eigentlich[168] nicht immer in der Geschichte als weltgeschicht[liches]
Resultat.
8. Der Ausgangspunkt [ist] natürlich von der Naturbestimmtheit [zu
nehmen]; subjektiv und objektiv, Stämme, Rassen etc.‖
It is well known that certain periods of highest development of art
stand in no direct connection with the general development of society,
nor with the material basis and the skeleton structure of its
organization. Witness the example of the Greeks as compared with the
modern nations or even Shakespeare. As regards certain forms of art, as
e. g. the epos, it is admitted that they can never be produced in the
world-epoch making form as soon as art as such comes into existence; in
other words, that in the domain of art certain important forms of it
are possible only at a low stage of its development. If that be true of
the mutual relations of different forms of art within the domain of art
itself, it is far less surprising that the same is true of the relation
of art as a whole to the general development of society. The difficulty
lies only in the general formulation of these contradictions. No sooner
are they specified than they are explained. Let us take for instance
the relation of Greek art and of that of Shakespeare’s time to our own.
It is a well known fact that Greek mythology was not only the arsenal
of Greek art, but also the very ground from which it had sprung. Is the
view of nature and of social relations which shaped Greek imagination
and Greek [art] possible in the age of automatic machinery, and
railways, and locomotives, and electric telegraphs? Where does Vulcan
come in as against Roberts & Co.; Jupiter, as against the lightning
rod; and Hermes, as against the Credit Mobilier? All mythology masters
and dominates and shapes the forces of nature in and through the
imagination; hence it disappears as soon as man gains mastery over
the forces of nature. What becomes of the Goddess Fame side by side
with Printing House Square?[169] Greek art presupposes the existence
of Greek mythology, i. e. that nature and even the form of society are
wrought up in popular fancy in an unconsciously artistic fashion. That
is its material. Not, however, any mythology taken at random, nor any
accidental unconsciously artistic elaboration of nature (including
under the latter all objects, hence [also] society). Egyptian mythology
could never be the soil or womb which would give birth to Greek art.
But in any event [there had to be] _a_ mythology. In no event [could
Greek art originate] in a society which excludes any mythological
explanation of nature, any mythological attitude towards it and which
requires from the artist an imagination free from mythology.
Looking at it from another side: is Achilles possible side by side with
powder and lead? Or is the Iliad at all compatible with the printing
press and steam press? Does not singing and reciting and the muses
necessarily go out of existence with the appearance of the printer’s
bar, and do not, therefore, disappear the prerequisites of epic poetry?
But the difficulty is not in grasping the idea that Greek art and
epos are bound up with certain forms of social development. It rather
lies in understanding why they still constitute with us a source of
aesthetic enjoyment and in certain respects prevail as the standard
and model beyond attainment.
A man can not become a child again unless he becomes childish. But does
he not enjoy the artless ways of the child and must he not strive to
reproduce its truth on a higher plane? Is not the character of every
epoch revived perfectly true to nature in child nature? Why should the
social childhood of mankind, where it had obtained its most beautiful
development, not exert an eternal charm as an age that will never
return? There are ill-bred children and precocious children. Many of
the ancient nations belong to the latter class. The Greeks were normal
children. The charm their art has for us does not conflict with the
primitive character of the social order from which it had sprung. It is
rather the product of the latter, and is rather due to the fact that
the unripe social conditions under which the art arose and under which
alone it could appear can never return.
(End of Manuscript.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Cf. Seligman, “The Economic Interpretation of History.” MacMillan.
1902.
[2] Aristotle, d. Rep. L. l, c. 9 (edit. I Bekkeri Oxonii, 1837)
“ἑκάστου γὰρ κτήματος διττὴ ἡ χρῆσίς ἐστιν ... ἡ μὲν οἰκεία, ἡ δ’ οὐκ
οἰκεία τοῦ πράγματος, οἷον ὑποδήματος ἥ τε ὑπόδησις καὶ ἡ μεταβλητική.
Ἀμφότεραι γὰρ ὑποδήματος χρήσεις· καὶ γὰρ ὁ ἀλλαττόμενος τῷ δεομένῳ
ὑποδήματος ἀντὶ νομίσματος ἢ τροφῆς χρῆται τῷ ὑποδήματι ᾗ ὑπόδημα,
ἀλλ’ οὐ τὴν οἰκείαν χρῆσιν· οὐ γὰρ ἀλλαγῆς ἕνεκεν γέγονεν. Τὸν αὐτὸν δὲ
τρόπον ἔχει καὶ περὶ τῶν ἄλλων κτημάτων.”
(“Of everything which we possess there are two uses:―one is the proper,
and the other the improper or secondary use of it. For example, a shoe
is used for wear, and is used for exchange; both are uses of the shoe.
He who gives a shoe in exchange for money or food to him who wants
one, does indeed use the shoe as a shoe, but this is not its proper
or primary purpose, for a shoe is not made to be an object of barter.
The same may be said of all possessions.” The Politics of Aristotle,
translated into English by B. Jowett, Oxford, 1885, v. I., p. 15.)
[3] That is the reason why German compilers are so fond of dwelling
on use-value, calling it a “good.” See e. g. L. Stein, “System der
Staatswissenschaften,” v. I., chapter on “goods” (Gütter). For
intelligent information on “goods” one must turn to treatises on
commodities.
[4] A ridiculous presumption has gained currency of late to the effect
that common property in its primitive form is specifically a Slavonian,
or even exclusively Russian form. It is the primitive form which we
can prove to have existed among Romans, Teutons, and Celts; and of
which numerous examples are still to be found in India, though in a
partly ruined state. A closer study of the Asiatic, especially of
Indian forms of communal ownership would show how from the different
forms of primitive communism different forms of its dissolution have
been developed. Thus e. g. the various original types of Roman and
Teutonic private property can be traced back to various forms of Indian
communism.
[5] “La Ricchezza è una ragione tra due persone.” (“Value is a relation
between two persons”) Galiani, “Della Moneta,” p. 220 in vol. II.
of Custodi’s collection of “Scrittori classici Italiani di Economia
Politica. Parte Moderna,” Milano, 1803.
[6] “In its natural state, matter ... is always destitute of value.”
McCulloch, “A Discourse on the Rise, Progress, Peculiar Objects, and
Importance of Political Economy,” 2nd edition, Edinburgh, 1825, pg. 48.
It is evident how even a McCulloch stands above the fetishism of German
“thinkers”, who declare “matter” and half a dozen other foreign things
to be elements of value. Cf. e. g. L. Stein, l. c. v. I., p. 110.
[7] Berkeley, _The Querist_, London, 1750.
[8] Thomas Cooper, Lectures on the Elements of Political Economy,
London, 1831, p. 99.
[9] F. List could never grasp the difference between labor as a source
of use-value and labor as the creator of certain social form of wealth
or exchange value, because comprehension was altogether foreign to his
practical mind; he therefore saw in the modern English economists mere
plagiarists of Moses, the Egyptian.
[10] It can be readily understood what kind of “service” is rendered
by the category “service” to economists of the type of J. B. Say and
F. Bastiat, whose pondering sagacity, as Malthus has justly remarked,
always abstracts from the specially definite forms of economic
relations.
[11] “Egli è proprio ancora delle misure d’aver si fatta relazione
colle cose misurate, che in certo modo la misurata divien misura della
misurante.” Montanari, Della Moneta, p. 48 in v. III of Custodi’s
“Scrittori classici Italiani di Economia Politica. Parte Antica.” (“It
is the property of measure to be in such a relation to the things
measured, that in a certain way the thing measured becomes the measure
of the measuring thing.”)
[12] It is in that sense that Aristotle (see the passage quoted at the
beginning of this chapter) conceives exchange value.
[13] This expression is used by Genovesi.
[14] Aristotle makes the same remark with reference to the private
family as the primitive community. But the primitive form of family is
the tribal family, from the historical dissolution of which the private
family develops. ἐν μὲν οὔν τῃ πρώτο κοινωνίᾳ (τοῦτο δ’ ἐστὶν οἰκίἀ)
φανερὸν ὅτι οὐδέν ἐστιν ἔργον αὐτῆς (namely της ἀλλαγῆς) “And in the
first community, which is the family, this art is obviously of no use.”
Jowett’s transl. l. c.
[15] “Money is, in fact, only the instrument for carrying on buying
and selling (but, if you please, what do you understand by buying and
selling?) and the consideration of it no more forms a part of the
science of political economy, than the consideration of ships, or
steam engines, or of any other instrument employed to facilitate the
production and distribution of wealth.” Th. Hodgskin, Popular Political
Economy, etc. London, 1827, p. 178, 179.
[16] A comparative study of the writings and characters of Petty and
Boisguillebert, outside of the light which it would throw upon the
difference of French and English society at the end of the seventeenth
and the beginning of the eighteenth centuries, would disclose the
origin of the national contrast between English and French Political
Economy. The same contrast reasserts itself in Ricardo and Sismondi.
[17] Petty had illustrated the productive power inherent in the
division of labor on a much grander scale than that was done later by
Adam Smith. See his “Essay concerning the multiplication of mankind,
etc.,” 3rd edition, 1686, p. 35-36. He not only brings out the
advantages of the division of labor on the example of the manufacture
of a watch, as Adam Smith did later on that of a needle, but considers
also a city and an entire country from the point of view of a large
manufacturing establishment. The Spectator, of November 26, 1711,
refers to this “illustration of the admirable Sir William Petty.”
McCulloch is, therefore, mistaken when he supposes that the Spectator
confounded Petty with a writer forty years his junior. See McCulloch,
“The Literature of Political Economy, a classified catalogue,” London,
1845, p. 105. Petty is conscious of being the founder of a new science.
His method, he says, “is not yet very usual, for instead of using
only comparative and superlative Words, and intellectual Arguments,”
he has undertaken to speak “in Terms of Number, Weight or Measure;
to use only Arguments of Sense, and to consider only such Causes, as
have visible Foundations in Nature; leaving those that depend upon
the mutable Minds, Opinions, Appetites, and Passions of particular
Men, to the Consideration of others.” (Political Arithmetick, etc.,
London, 1699. Preface.) (A new edition of “The Economic Writings of Sir
William Petty,” edited by Chas. Henry Hull, has been published by the
University Press at Cambridge, 1899. The above passage will be found
in vol. I., p. 244. The further references are given to this new, more
accessible edition. Translator.) His wonderful keenness shows itself
e. g. in the proposal to transport “all the moveables and people of
Ireland, and of the Highlands of Scotland ... into the rest of Great
Britain.” Thereby much labor-time would be saved, the productivity of
labor increased, and “the King and his Subjects would thereby become
more Rich and Strong.” (Political Arithmetick, ch. 4, p. 285.) Or
in the chapter of his Political Arithmetic in which he proves that
England’s mission is the conquest of the world’s market at a time when
Holland still played the leading part as a trading nation and France
seemed to be on the way of becoming the ruling trading Power: “That the
King of England’s Subjects, have Stock competent and convenient, to
drive the Trade of the whole Commercial World” (l. c., ch. 10, p. 311).
“That the Impediments of England’s greatness are but contingent and
removable” (l. c., ch. 5, p. 298). A singular humor pervades all his
writings. Thus, he shows that it was by material means that Holland―at
that time the model country with English economists, just as England
is with continental economists to-day―conquered the world market
“without such Angelical Wits and Judgments, as some attribute to the
Hollanders” (l. c., p. 258). He advocates “Liberty of Conscience” as a
condition of trade, because “Dissenters ... are ... patient Men, and
such as believe that Labour and Industry is their Duty towards God,”
and “They believe that ... for those who have less Wealth, to think
they have the more Wit and Understanding, especially of the things
of God which they think chiefly belong to the Poor.” “From whence it
follows that Trade is not fixt to any species of Religion as such; but
rather ... to the Heterodox part of the whole” (l. c., p. 262-264). He
advocates an “allowance by Publick Tax” for those “who live by begging,
cheating, stealing, gaming, borrowing without intention of restoring,”
because “it were more for the publick profit” to tax the country for
such persons “than to suffer them to spend extravagantly, at the only
charge of careless, credulous, and good natured People” (p. 269-270).
But he is opposed to taxes which transfer the wealth from industrious
people “to such as do nothing at all, but eat and drink, sing, play,
and dance; nay such as study the Metaphysicks” (ibid.). Petty’s
writings are rarities of the bookseller’s trade and are to be found
only in scattered poor old editions, which is the more surprising since
William Petty was not only the father of English Political Economy,
but also the ancestor of Henry Petty, alias Marquis of Lansdowne, the
nestor of the English Whigs. However, the Lansdowne family could hardly
bring out a complete edition of Petty’s works without prefacing it
with his biography, and what can be said of most origins of the great
Whig families holds good also in this case, viz., “the less said of
them the better.” The keen-witted but cynical army surgeon who was as
ready to plunder in Ireland under the shield of Cromwell as to crawl
before Charles II. to get the title of baron which he needed for his
plunderings, is a model hardly fit for public exhibition. Besides that,
Petty seeks to prove in most of his writings which he published in his
lifetime, that England’s prosperity reached its climax under Charles
II., a heterodox view for the hereditary exploiters of the “glorious
revolution.”
[18] In contrast with the “black art of finance” of his time,
Boisguillebert says: “La science financière n’est que la connaissance
approfondie des intérêts de l’agriculture et du commerce.” Le Détail de
la France, 1697. Eugène Daire’s edition of Economistes financiers du
XVIII. siècle, Paris, 1843, vol. I., p. 241.
[19] But not _Romance_ Political Economy, since the Italians reproduce
the contrast between the English and French economists in the two
respective schools of Naples and Milan, while the Spaniards of the
earlier period are either pure Mercantilists; modified mercantilists
like Ustariz; or, like Jovellanos (see his Obras, Barcelona, 1839-40),
hold to the “golden mean” with Adam Smith.
[20] “La véritable richesse ... jouissance entière, non seulement des
besoins de la vie, mais même de tous les superflus et de tout, ce qui
peut fair plaisir à la sensualité,” Boisguillebert, “Dissertation sur
la nature de la richesse,” etc., l. c., p. 403. But while Petty was
a frivolous, rapacious and unprincipled adventurer, Boisguillebert,
though an intendant under Louis XIV, championed the interests of the
oppressed classes with a daring that was equal to his keenness of mind.
[21] The French Socialism of the Proudhon type suffers from the same
national hereditary disease.
[22] “Benjamin Franklin, The Works of, etc.,” ed. by I. Sparks, vol.
II., Boston, 1836. “A Modest Inquiry into the Nature and Necessity of a
Paper Currency.”
[23] L. c., p. 265.
[24] L. c., p. 267.
[25] L. c., “Remarks and Facts relative to the American Paper Money,”
1764.
[26] See “Papers on American Politics; Remarks and Facts relative to
the American Paper Money,” 1764, l. c.
[27] See e. g. Galiani, “Della Moneta,” in vol. 3 of Scrittori Classici
italiani di Economia politica (Published by Custodi). Parte Moderna,
Milano, 1803. “La fatica, he says, è l’unica che dà valore alla cosa”
(“only effort can give value to any thing”). The designation of labor
as “fatica,” strain, effort, is characteristic of the southerner.
[28] Steuart’s work, “An Inquiry into the Principles of Political
Economy, being an Essay on the Science of Domestic Policy in Free
Nations,” appeared first in London in two quarto volumes in the year
1767, ten years before Adam Smith’s “Wealth of Nations.” I quote from
the Dublin edition of 1770. (The references to pages are the same for
the standard London edition of 1767, except where otherwise stated.
Translator.)
[29] Steuart, l. c., vol. I., p. 181-183.
[30] Steuart, l. c., vol. I., p. 361-362.
[31] See chapter I., book II., vol. I. “of the reciprocal connections
between Trade and Industry” (Translator).
[32] He declares, therefore, the patriarchal form of agriculture which
is devoted to the direct production of use-values for the owner of the
land, to be an “abuse,” not in Sparta, or Rome, or even in Athens, but
in the industrial countries of the eighteenth century. This “abusive
agriculture” is not “trade,” but a “direct means of subsisting.” Just
as capitalistic agriculture clears the country of superfluous mouths,
so does the capitalistic mode of manufacture clear the factory of
superfluous hands.
[33] Thus e. g., Adam Smith says: “Equal quantities of labour, at all
times and places, may be said to be of equal value to the labourer. In
his ordinary state of health, strength and spirits, in the ordinary
degree of his skill and dexterity, he must always lay down the same
portion of his ease, his liberty, and his happiness. The price which
he pays must always be the same, whatever may be the quantity of goods
which he receives in return for it. Of these, indeed, it may sometimes
purchase a greater and sometimes a smaller quantity; but it is their
value which varies, not that of the labour which purchases them....
Labour alone, therefore, never varying in its own value ... is their
[commodities’] real price, etc. Adam Smith (Book I., ch. V., p. 34,
Oxford, 1869. Translator.)
[34] David Ricardo, “On the Principles of Political Economy and
Taxation,” 3rd edition, London, 1821, p. 3.
[35] Sismondi, “Etudes sur l’Economie Politique,” t. II., Bruxelles,
1837. “C’est l’opposition entre la valeur usuelle ... et la valeur
échangeable à laquelle le commerce a reduit toute chose,” p. 161.
[Paris edition, p. 229, Transl.]
[36] Sismondi l. c., p. 163-166 seq. [Paris edition, 230 etf. Transl.]
[37] Perhaps the silliest to be found are the annotations of J. B.
Say to the French translation of Ricardo, made by Constancio, and the
most pedantically arrogant are the remarks of Mr. MacLeod in his newly
published “Theory of Exchange,” London, 1858.
[38] This objection raised against Ricardo by bourgeois economists was
taken up later by the socialists. Having assumed the correctness of the
formula, they charged the practice with contradiction to the theory and
appealed to bourgeois society to realize in practice the conclusions
which were supposed to follow from its theoretical principles. That
was at least the way in which the English socialists turned Ricardo’s
formula of exchange value against political economy. It remained for
Mr. Proudhon not only to proclaim the fundamental principle of old
society as the principle of the new, but also to declare himself the
discoverer of the formula in which Ricardo summed up the combined
results of classical English political economy. It has been proven that
the utopian interpretation of the Ricardian formula was about forgotten
in England when Mr. Proudhon “discovered” it on the other side of the
Canal. (Cf. my work: “Misère de la Philosophie,” etc., Paris, 1847,
paragraph on la valeur constituée.)
[39] True, Aristotle sees that the exchange value of commodities
underlies their prices: “ὅτι ὴ ἀλλαγη ἥν πρὶν τὸ νόμισμα ἔιναι, ὁῆλον·
διαφέρει γὰρ οὐδὲν ἡ εί κλίναι πέντε ἀντι οἰκίας, ἣ ὅσου αὶ πέντε
κλῖναι.” (“It is clear that exchange existed before coin. For it does not
make any difference whether you give five beds for a house, or as much
money as five beds are worth”). On the other hand, since commodities
acquire only in price the form of exchange value with respect to one
another, he makes them commensurable through money. “Διὸ δεῖ πάντα
τετιμῆσθαι· οὕτω γὰρ ἀεὶ ἔσται ἀλλαγὴ, εἰ δὲ τοῦτο, κοινωνία. Τὸ δὴ
νόμισμα ὥσπερ μέτρον σύμμετρα ποιῆσαν ἰσάζει, οὔτε γὰρ ἃν μὴ οὔσης
ἀλλαγῆς κοινωνία ἡν, ὄυτ’ ἀλλαγὴ ἰσότητος μὴ οὔτ’ἰσότης, μὴ οὔσης
συμμετρίας.” (“Therefore all has to be appraised. In that way exchange
may always take place, and, with it, society can exist. Coin, like
measure, makes everything commensurable and equal, for without exchange
there would be no society, without equality there would be no exchange,
and without commensurability, no equality.”) He does not conceal from
himself that these different objects measured by money are entirely
incommensurable quantities. What he is after is the common unit of
commodities as exchange values, which as an ancient Greek he was unable
to find. He gets out of the difficulty by making commensurable through
money what is in itself incommensurable, so far as it is necessary for
practical purposes. “Τῇ μὲν οὔν ἀληθείᾳ ἀδύνατον τὰ τοσοῦτον διαφέροντα
σύμμετρα γενέσθαι, πρὸς δὲ τὴν χρείαν ἐνδέχεται ἰκανῶς.” (“In truth
it is impossible to make things that are so different, commensurable,
but for practical purposes it is permissible.”) Aristotle, Ethica
Nicomachea. l. 5, c. 8, edit. Bekkeri. Oxonii, 1837.
[40] The peculiar circumstance that, while the ounce of gold serves
in England as the unit of the standard of money, it is not divided
into aliquot parts has been explained as follows: “Our coinage was
originally adapted to the employment of silver only―hence an ounce of
silver can always be divided into a certain adequate number of pieces
of coin; but as gold was introduced at a later period into a coinage
adapted only to silver, an ounce of gold cannot be coined into an
adequate number of pieces.” Maclaren: “A Sketch of the History of the
Currency,” p. 16, London, 1858.
[41] “Money may continually vary in value and yet be as good a
measure of value as if it remained perfectly stationary. Suppose, for
instance, it is reduced in value.... Before the reduction, a guinea
would purchase three bushels of wheat or 6 days’ labour; subsequently
it would purchase only 2 bushels of wheat, or 4 days’ labour. In both
cases, the relations of wheat and labour to money being given, their
mutual relations can be inferred; in other words, we can ascertain that
a bushel of wheat is worth 2 days’ labour. This, which is all that
measuring value implies, is as readily done after the reduction as
before. The excellence of a thing as a measure of value is altogether
independent of its own variableness in value” (p. 11, Bailey, “Money
and its Vicissitudes.” London, 1837).
[42] “Le monete lequali oggi sono ideali sono le piu antiche d’ogni
nazione, e tutte furono un tempo reali (the latter assertion is too
sweeping), e perchè erano reali con esse si contava.” Galiani, “Della
Moneta,” l. c., p. 153 (“Coins which are ideal to-day [i. e., whose
names no longer correspond to their value] are among the more ancient
with every nation; at one time they were all real, and for that reason
served for the purpose of counting.”)
[43] The romantic A. Müller says: “According to our idea every
independent sovereign has the right to name the metal money, and to
give it a nominal social value, rank, standing and title (p. 276, v.
II., A. H. Müller, “Die Elemente der Staatskunst,” Berlin, 1809). As
far as title is concerned the Hon. Hofrath is right; but he forgets
the _substance_. How confused his “ideas” were, may be seen, e. g.,
from the following passage: “Everybody understands how much depends
upon the right determination of the mint-price, especially in a country
like England, where the government with _magnificent liberality_
coins money gratuitously (Herr Müller seems to think that the members
of the English government defray the mint expenses out of their own
pockets), where it does not charge any mintage, etc., and thus if the
mint-price of gold were set considerably above its market price, if
instead of paying as now £3 17s. 10-1/2d. per 1 oz. of gold, it would
set the price of an ounce of gold at £3 19s., all money would flow
into the mint and exchanging for the silver contained there bring
it into the market to be exchanged there for the cheaper gold; the
latter would in the same manner be brought again to the mint and the
entire coinage system would be upset” (l. c., p. 280-281). To preserve
order in English coinage, Müller falls back on “disorder.” While
shilling and pence are mere names of certain parts of an ounce of gold
represented by signs of silver and copper, he imagines that an ounce
of gold is estimated in gold, silver and copper and thus confers upon
the Englishmen the blessing of a triple standard of value. Silver as a
measure of money, next to gold, was formally abolished only in 1816 by
56 George III., c. 68. As a matter of fact, it was legally abolished
as early as 1734 by 14 George II., c. 42, and still earlier by actual
practice. There were two circumstances that made A. Müller capable of
a so-called higher conception of political economy: first, his wide
ignorance of economic facts; second, his dilettanti-like visionary
attitude toward philosophy.
[44] “Ἀνάχαρσις, πυνθανομένου τινὸς, πρὸς τί οί Ἕλληνες χρῶνται τῷ
ἀργυρίῳ ἕιπε πρὸς τὸ ἀριθμεῖν.” (Athen. Deipn. l. IV. 49. v. 2, ed.
Schweighäuser, 1802.) (When Anacharsis was asked for what purpose the
Greeks used money, he replied, “For reckoning.―‘’“”)
[45] G. Garnier, one of the early French translators of Adam Smith,
conceived the queer notion of fixing a proportion between the use of
money of account and that of actual money. His proportion is 10 to 1.
(G. Garnier, “Histoire de la Monnaie depuis les temps de la plus haute
antiquité,” etc., t. 1, p. 78.)
[46] The act of Maryland in 1723 by which tobacco was made the legal
standard, but its value reduced to terms of English gold money,
namely one penny equal to one pound of tobacco, reminds of the “leges
barbarorum,” in which, inversely, certain sums of money were expressed
in terms of oxen, cows, etc. In that case neither gold nor silver, but
the ox and the cow were the actual material of the money of account.
[47] Thus, we read, e. g., in the “Familiar Words” of Mr. David
Urquhart: “The value of gold is to be measured by itself; how can
any substance be the measure of its own worth in other things? The
worth of gold is to be established by its own weight, under a false
denomination of that weight―and an ounce is to be worth so many pounds
and fractions of pounds. This is falsifying a measure, not establishing
a standard.―‘’“”
[48] “Money is the measure of Commerce, and of the rate of everything,
and therefore ought to be kept (as all other measures) as steady and
invariable as may be. But this cannot be, if your money be made of
two Metals, whose proportion ... constantly varies in respect of one
another.” John Locke: Some Considerations on the Lowering of Interest,
etc., 1691 (p. 166, p. 65 in his Works 7 ed., London, 1768, vol. III.)
[49] Locke says among other things: “ ... call that a Crown now, which
before ... was but a part of a Crown.... An equal quantity of Silver is
always the same Value with an equal quantity of Silver.... For if the
abating 1-20 of the quantity of Silver of any Coin does not lessen its
Value, the abating 19-20 of the quantity of the Silver of any Coin will
not abate its Value. And so a single Penny, being called a Crown, will
buy as much Spice, or Silk, or any other Commodity, as a Crown-Piece,
which contains 20 times as much Silver.... Now [all that may be done]
is giving a less quantity of Silver the Stamp and Denomination of a
greater.... But ’tis Silver and not Names that pay Debts and purchase
Commodities” (l. c., p. 135-145 passim). If to raise the value of
money means nothing but to give any desired name to an aliquot part
of a silver coin, e. g., to call an eighth part of an ounce of silver
a penny, then money may really be rated as high as you please. At the
same time, Locke answered Lowndes that the rise of the market price
above the mint price was due not to the rise of the value of silver,
but to the lighter silver coins. Seventy-seven clipped shillings do not
weigh a particle more than 62 full-weighted ones. Finally he pointed
out with perfect right that, aside from the loss of weight in the
circulating coin, the market price of silver bullion in England could
rise to some extent above its mint price, since the export of silver
bullion was allowed while that of silver coin was prohibited (l. c.,
p. 54-116 passim). Locke was exceedingly careful not to touch upon the
burning question of public debts, and no less carefully avoided the
discussion of the delicate economic question, viz., the depreciation of
the currency out of proportion to its real loss of silver, as was shown
by the rate of exchange and the ratio of silver bullion to silver coin.
We shall return to this question in its general form in the chapter on
the Medium of Circulation. Nicholas Barbon in “A Discourse Concerning
Coining the New Money Lighter, in Answer to Mr. Locke’s Considerations,
etc.,” London, 1696, tried in vain to entice Locke to difficult ground.
[50] Steuart, l. c., v. II., p. 154.
[51] The Querist, l. c., (p. 5-6-7.) The “Queries on Money” are
generally clever. Among other things Berkeley is perfectly right in
saying that by their progress the North American colonies “make it
plain as daylight, that gold and silver are not so necessary for the
wealth of a nation, as the vulgar of all ranks imagine.―‘’“”
[52] Price means here real equivalent in the sense commonly employed by
English economic writers in the seventeenth century.
[53] Steuart, l. c., v. II., p. 154, 299 [1st London edition, of 1767,
v. I., p. 526-531. Transl.].
[54] On the occasion of the last commercial crisis the ideal African
money received loud praise from certain English quarters, after its
seat was this time moved from the coast to the heart of Barbary. The
freedom of the Berbers from commercial and industrial crises was
ascribed to the ideal unit of measure of their bars. Would it not have
been simpler to say that trade and industry are the _conditio sine qua
non_ of commercial and industrial crises?
[55] The Currency Question, The Gemini Letters, London, 1844, p.
260-272, passim.
[56] John Gray: “The Social System. A Treatise on the Principle of
Exchange, Edinburgh, 1831.” Compare with “Lectures on the Nature and
Use of Money, Edinburgh, 1848,” by the same author. After the February
revolution Gray sent a memorial to the provisional French government,
in which he instructs the latter that France is not in need of an
“organization of labour,” but of an “organization of exchange” of which
the plan is fully worked out in his money system. Honest John did not
suspect that sixteen years after the appearance of his “Social System”
a patent for the same discovery would be taken out by the ingenious
Proudhon.
[57] Gray, “The Social System,” etc., p. 63: “Money should be merely
a receipt, an evidence that the holder of it has either contributed
certain value to the national stock of wealth or that he has acquired a
right to the same value from some one who has contributed to it.―‘’“”
[58] An estimated value being previously put upon produce, let it be
lodged in a bank, and drawn out again, whenever it is required, merely
stipulating, by common consent, that he who lodges any kind of property
in the proposed National Bank, may take out of it an equal value of
whatever it may contain, instead of being obliged to draw out the
self-same thing that he put in.” L. c., p. 68.
[59] L. c., p. 16.
[60] Gray: “Lectures on Money, etc.,” p. 182.
[61] L. c., p. 169.
[62] “The business of every country ought to be conducted on a national
capital.” John Gray, “The Social System,” etc., p. 171.
[63] “The land to be transformed into national property.” L. c., p. 298.
[64] See e. g. W. Thompson: “An Inquiry into the Distribution of
Wealth, etc.,” London, 1827. Bray, “Labour’s Wrongs and Labour’s
Remedy,” Leeds, 1839.
[65] Alfred Darimont’s “De la Reforme des banques,” Paris, 1856, may be
considered as a compendium of this melodramatic theory of money.
[66] “Di due sorte è la moneta, ideale e reale; e a dui diversi usi
è adoperata, a valutare le cose e a comperarle. Per valutare è buona
la moneta ideale, cosi come la reale e forse anche più. L’altro uso
della moneta è di comperare quelle cose istesse, ch’ella apprezza ...
i prezzi e i contratti si valutano in moneta ideale e si eseguiscono
in moneta reale.” Galiani, l. c., p. 112 sq. (“Money is of two kinds,
ideal and real; and is adapted to two different uses: to determine
the value of things and to buy them. For the purpose of valuation
ideal money is as good as real and perhaps even better. The other
use of money is to buy the same things which it appraises ... prices
and contracts are determined in ideal money and are executed in real
money.”)
[67] This, of course, does not prevent the market price of commodities
to be above or below their value. However, this consideration is
foreign to simple circulation and belongs to quite another sphere to be
considered later, when we shall investigate the relation between value
and market price.
[68] How deeply some beautiful souls are wounded by the merely
superficial aspect of the antagonism which asserts itself in buying
and selling, may be seen from the following abstract from M. Isaac
Pereire’s: “Leçons sur l’industrie et les finances,” Paris, 1832. The
fact that the same Isaac in his capacity of inventor and dictator
of the “Credit mobilier” has acquired the reputation of the wolf of
the Paris Bourse shows what lurks behind the sentimental criticism
of economics. Says Mr. Pereire at the time an apostle of St. Simons:
“C’est parceque tous les individus sont isolés, séparés les uns des
autres, soit dans leur travaux, soit pour la consommation, qu’il y a
echange entre eux des produits de leur industrie respective. De la
nécessité de l’échange est derivée la nécessité de determiner la valeur
relative des objets. Les idées de la valeur et de l’échange sont donc
intimement liées, et toutes deux dans leur forme actuelle exprime
l’individualisme et l’antagonisme.... Il n’y a lieu a fixer la valeur
des produits que parcequ’il y a vente at achat, en d’autres termes,
antagonisme entre les divers membres de la societé. Il n’y a lieu à
s’occuper du prix, de valeur que là où il y avait vente et echat, c’est
à dire, où chaque individu était obligé de lutter, pour se procurer
les object nécessaires a l’entretien de son existence” (l. c., p. 2,
3 passim). (“Since individuals are isolated and separated from one
another both in their labors and in consumption, exchange takes place
between them in the products of their respective industries. From the
necessity of exchange arises the necessity of determining the relative
value of things. The ideas of value and exchange are thus intimately
connected and both express in their actual form individualism and
antagonism.... The determination of values of products takes place
only because there are sales and purchases, or, to put it differently,
because there is an antagonism between different members of society.
One has to occupy himself with price and value only where there is
sale and purchase, that is to say, where every individual is obliged
to struggle to procure for himself the objects necessary for the
maintenance of his existence.”)
[69] “L’argent n’est que le moyen et l’acheminement, au lieu que les
denrées utiles à la vie sont la fin et le but.” (“Money is but the ways
and means, while the things useful in life are the end and object.”)
Boisguillebert: “Le Détail de la France,” 1697, in Eugene Daires’
“Economistes financiers du XVIIIieme siècle, vol. I., Paris, 1843, p.
210.
[70] In November, 1807, William Spence published a pamphlet in England
under the title: “Britain Independent of Commerce.” The principle set
forth in this pamphlet was further elaborated by William Cobbet in
his “Political Register” under the virulent title, “Perish Commerce.”
To this James Mill replied in 1808 in his “Defence of Commerce” which
contains the passage quoted above from his “Elements of Political
Economy” (p. 190-193, Transl.). In his controversy with Sismondi and
Malthus on commercial crises, J. B. Say appropriated this clever
device, and as it would be difficult to point out with what new idea
this comical “prince de la science” had enriched political economy, his
continental admirers have trumpeted him as the man who had unearthed
the treasure of the metaphysical balance of purchases and sales; as a
matter of fact, his merits consisted rather of the impartiality with
which he equally misunderstood his contemporaries, Malthus, Sismondi
and Ricardo.
[71] The manner in which economists explain the different aspects of
the commodity may be seen from the following examples:
“With money in possession, we have but one exchange to make in order
to secure the object of desire, while with other surplus products
we have two, the first of which (procuring the money) is infinitely
more difficult than the second.” (G. Opdyke, “A Treatise on Political
Economy,” New York, 1851, p. 277-278.)
“The superior saleableness of money is the exact effect or natural
consequence of the less saleableness of commodities.” (Th. Corbet, “An
Inquiry into the Causes and Modes of the Wealth of Individuals.” etc.,
London, 1841, p. 117.)
“Money has the quality of being always exchangeable for what it
measures.” (Bosanquet, “Metallic, Paper and Credit Currency,” etc.,
London, 1842, p. 100.)
“Money can always buy other commodities, whereas other commodities
can not always buy money.” (Th. Tooke, “An Inquiry into the Currency
Principle,” 2d ed., London, 1844, p. 10.)
[72] The same commodity can be bought and resold many times. It
circulates, then, not merely as a commodity, but in a capacity which
does not exist from the point of view of simple circulation, of the
simple contrast of commodity and money.
[73] The quantity of money is immaterial “pourvu qu’il y en ait
assez pour maintenir les prix contractés par les denrées” (as long
as it is sufficient to maintain the existing prices of commodities).
Boisguillebert, l. c. p. 210.
“If the circulation of commodities of four hundred millions required a
currency of forty millions, and ... this proportion of one-tenth was
the due level, estimating both currency and commodities in gold; then,
if the value of commodities to be circulated increased to four hundred
and fifty millions, from natural causes ... I should say the currency,
in order to continue at its level, must be increased to forty-five
millions.” (William Blake, “Observations on the Effects Produced by the
Expenditure of Government, etc.,” London, 1823, p. 80.)
[74] “E la velocità del giro del danaro, non la quantità dei metalli
che fa apparir molto a poco il danaro.” (Galiani, l. c. p. 99.) (“It is
the rapidity of the circulation of money and not the quantity of metals
that causes a greater or smaller amount of money to appear.”)
[75] An example of an extraordinary decline of metallic circulation
from its average level was furnished by England in 1858, as may be
seen from the following extract from the London Economist: “From the
nature of the case (namely, the isolated nature of simple circulation)
very exact data cannot be procured as to the amount of cash that is
fluctuating in the market, and in the hands of the not banking classes.
But, perhaps, the activity or the inactivity of the mints of the
great commercial nations is one of the most likely indications in the
variations of that amount. Much will be manufactured when it is wanted;
and little when little is wanted.... At the English mint the coinage
was in 1855 £9,245,000; 1856, £6,476,000; 1857, £5,293,855. During 1858
the mint had scarcely anything to do.” (Economist, July 10, 1858.) But
at the same time about eighteen million pounds sterling were lying in
the bank vaults.
[76] Dodd, “Curiosities of Industry,” etc., London, 1854.
[77] “The Currency Question Reviewed, etc., by a Banker.” (Edinburgh,
1845, p. 69.)
“Si un écu un peu usé était reputé valoir quelque chose de moins qu’un
écu tout neuf, la circulation se trouverait continuellement arrêtée, et
il n’y aurait pas un seul payement qui ne fut matière à contestation.”
(G. Garnier, l. c. t. I., p. 24.) (“If an ecu slightly used would
pass for a little less than an entirely new ecu, circulation would be
continually interfered with, and not a payment would take place that
would not give rise to controversy.”)
[78] W. Jacob, “An Inquiry Into the Production and Consumption of the
Precious Metals.” (London, 1831, vol. II., ch. XXVI.)
[79] David Buchanan, “Observations on the Subjects Treated of in Dr.
Smith’s Inquiry on the Wealth of Nations,” etc. (Edinburgh, 1841, p. 3.)
[80] Henry Storch, “Cours d’Economic Politique.” etc., avec des notes
par J. B Say. Paris, 1823, tom. IV., p. 179. Storch published his work
in French at St. Petersburg. J. B. Say immediately issued a Parisian
reprint, supplemented with alleged “notes,” which as a matter of fact
contain nothing but commonplaces. Storch (see his “Considerations sur
la Nature du Revenue National,” Paris, 1824) took by no means kindly to
this annexation of his work by the “prince de la science.”
[81] Plato de Rep. L. II “νόμισμα ξύμβολον τῆς ἀλλαγῆς.” (“Money symbol
of exchange.”) Opera omnia, etc., ed. G. Stallbumius, London, 1850, p.
304. Plato develops money only in two capacities―as a measure of value
and a token of value, but demands, in addition to the token of value
serving for home circulation, another one for trade between Greece and
foreign countries. (See also Book V of his Laws.)
[82] Aristotle, Ethic. Nicom, l. 5., ch. 8, l. c.: οἶον δ’ ὑπάλλαγμα
τῆς χρείας τὸ νόμισμα γέγονου κατὰ συνθήκην καὶ διὰ τοὔτο τοὔνομα ἔχει
νόμισμα. ὅτι οὐ φὐσει ἀλλὰ νόμῳ, καὶ ἐφ’ ἡμῖν μεταβαλεῖν καὶ ποιῆσαι
ἄχρηστον.” (“In the satisfaction of wants money became the medium of
exchange by agreement. And for that reason it bears the name νόμισμα,
because it owes its existence, not to nature, but to law (νόμω), and it
is in our power to change it and make it void.”) Aristotle had a far
more comprehensive and deep view of money than Plato. In the following
passage he beautifully shows how barter between different communities
creates the necessity of assigning the character of money to a specific
commodity, i. e., one which has itself an intrinsic value. “Ξενικωτέρας
γὰρ γενομένης τῆς βοηθείας τῷ εἰσάγεσθαι hὦν ἐνδεεῖς καὶ ἔκπεμπειν ὥν
ἐπλέοναζον, ἐξ ἀνάγκης ἡ τοῦ νομίσματος ἐπορίσθη χρῆσις· διὸ πρὸς τὰς
ἀλλαγας τοιοῦτόν τι συνέθεντο πρὸς σφᾶς αὐτοὺς διδόναι καὶ λαμβάνειν,
δ’ τῶν χρησίμων αὐτὸ ὂν εἶχε τὴν χρείαν εὐμεταχείριστον ... οἶον
σίδηρος καὶ ἄργυρος κἂν εἴ τι τοιοῦτον ἕτερον”. (Arist. De Republica,
l. i. p. 9, [secs. 7, 8] l. c.)
(“When the inhabitants of one country became more dependent on those of
another, and they imported what they needed and exported the surplus,
money necessarily came into use ... and hence men agreed to employ in
their dealings with each other something which was intrinsically useful
and easily applicable to the purposes of life, for example, iron,
silver and the like.” Trans, by B. Jowett, “The Politics of Aristotle,
Oxford, 1885, p. 16). This passage is quoted by Michel Chevalier, who
either has not read Aristotle or did not understand him, to prove that
in Aristotle’s opinion currency must consist of a substance having
intrinsic value. On the contrary, Aristotle says expressly that money
as a mere medium of circulation seems to owe its existence to agreement
or law, as is shown by its name νόμισμα, and that in reality it owes
its utility as coin to its function and not to any intrinsic use-value
of its own. λῆρος εἶναι δοκεῖ τὸ νόμισμα καὶ νόμος παντάπασι, φύσει δ’
οὐδὲν ὅτι μεταθε ενων τε τῶν χρωμένων οὐδενὸς ἄξιον οὐδὲ χρήσιμον πρὸς
οὐδὲν τῶν ἀναγκαίων ἑοτί’ (“Others maintain that coined money is a mere
sham, a thing not natural, but conventional only, which would have no
value or use for any of the purposes of daily life if another commodity
were substituted by the users.”) (l. c. sec. 11.)
[83] Mandeville, Sir John, “Voyages and Travels,” London, 1705, p. 105:
“This Emperor (of Cattay or China) may dispende ols muche as he wile
withouten estymacion. For he despendethe not, nor makethe no money, but
of lether empredeth, or of papyre. And when that money bathe ronne so
longe that it begynethe to waste, than men beren it to the Emperoure
Tresorye, and then they taken newe Money for the old. And that money
gothe thorghe out all the contree, and thorge out all his Provynces....
They make no money neither of Gold nor of Sylver,” and “therefore,”
thinks Mandeville, “he may despende ynew and outrageously.”
[84] Benjamin Franklin, “Remarks and Facts Relative to the American
Paper Money,” 1764, p. 348, l. c. “At this very time, even the silver
money in England is obliged to the legal tender for part of its value;
that part which is the difference between its real weight and its
denomination. Great part of the shillings and sixpences now current
are by wearing become 5, 10, 20, and some of the sixpences even 50
per cent., too light. For this difference between the _real_ and the
_nominal_ you have no intrinsic value. You have not so much as paper,
you have nothing. It is the legal tender, with the knowledge that it
can easily be repassed for the same value, that makes three-pennyworth
of silver pass for a sixpence.”
[85] Berkeley, l. c., p. 5-6. “Whether the denominations being
retained, although the bullion were gone ... might not nevertheless ...
a circulation of commerce (be) maintained?”
[86] “Non solo i metalli ricchi son segni delle cose ...; ma
vicendevolmente le cose ... sono segni dell’oro e dell’argento.” (A.
Genovesi, “Lezioni di Economia Civile,” 1765. p. 281 in Custodi, Parte
Mod. 1. VIII.) (“Not only are precious metals tokens of things, but
vice versa, things are tokens of gold and silver.”)
[87] Petty. “Gold and silver are universal wealth.” (Political
Arithmetic, l. c., p. 242.)
[88] E. Misselden. “Free Trade, or the Means to Make Trade Flourish,”
etc., London, 1622. “The natural matter of Commerce is Merchandise,
which Merchants from the end of Trade have stiled Commodities. The
Artificiall matter of Commerce is Money, which hath obtained the title
of sinewes of warre and of State.... Money, though it be in nature
and time after Merchandise, yet forasmuch as it is now in use become
the chiefe.” (p. 7.) He compares his own treatment of merchandise and
money with the manner of “Old Jacob, who, blessing his Grandchildren,
crost his hands, and laide his right hand on the yonger, and his left
hand on the elder.” (l. c.) Boisguillebert, “Dissert. sur la Nature
Des Richesses,” etc. “Voilà donc l’esclave du commerce devenu son
maître.... La misère des peuples ne vient que de ce qu’on a fait un
maître, ou plutôt un tyran de ce qui était un esclave.” (p. 395, 399.)
[89] Boisguillebert, l. c. “On a fait une idole de ces métaux (l’or
et l’argent) et laissant là, l’objet et l’intention pour lesquels ils
avaient été appelés dans le commerce, savoir, pour y servir de gages
dans l’échange et la tradition réciproque, on les a presque quittés
de ce service pour en former des divinités, aux quelles on a sacrifié
et sacrifie toujours plus de biens et de besoins précieux et même
d’hommes, que jamais l’aveugle antiquité n’en immola à ces fausses
divinités,” etc. (l. c., p. 395.)
[90] In the first halt of the perpetuum mobile, _i. e._, in the
suspension of the function of money as a medium of circulation,
Boisguillebert at once suspects its independent existence from
commodities. Money, he says, must be “in constant motion, it can be
money only by being mobile, but as soon as it becomes motionless all
is lost.” (“Dans un mouvement continuel, ce qui ne peut être que tant
qu’il est meuble, mais sitôt qu’il devient immeuble tout est perdu.”
“Le Détail de la France,” p. 231.) What he overlooks is that this halt
constitutes the condition of its movement. What he really wants is that
the value form of commodities should appear merely in the transitory
form of their change of matter, but should never become an end in
itself.
[91] “ ... The more the stock ... is ... encreased in wares, the more
it decreaseth in treasure.” (E. Misselden, l. c., p. 23.)
[92] l. c., p. 11-13 passim.
[93] Petty, “Political Arith.,” l. c., p. 196 (1899 edition, v. I, p.
269. Transl.)
[94] Francois Bernier, “Voyage contenant la description des états du
Grand Mogul.” (Paris edition, 1830, t. l., conf., p. 312-314.)
[95] Dr. Martin Luther, “Bücher vom Kaufhandel und Wucher,” 1524.
In the same passage Luther says: “Gott hat uns Deutsche dahin
geschleidert, dass wir unser gold und silber müssen in fremde Länder
stossen, alle Welt reich machen und selbst Bettler Bleiben. England
sollte wohl weniger Goldes haben, wenn Deutschland ihm sein Tuch
liesse, und der König von Portugal sollte auch weniger haben, wenn wir
ihm die Würze liessen. Rechne Du, wie viel eine Messe zu Frankfurt
aus Deutschen Landen gefürt wird, ohne Not und Ursache: so wirst Du
Dich wundern, wie es zugehe, dass noch ein heller in Deutschen Landen
sei. Frankfurt ist das Silber-und Goldloch, dadurch aus Deutschem
Lande fleisst, was nur guillet und wächst, gemünzt oder geschlagen
wird bei uns; wäre das Loch zuegestopft, so dürft man itzt der Klage
nicht hören, die allethalben eitel Schuld und kein Geld, alle Land und
Städte ausgewuchert sind. Aber lass gehen, es will doch also gehen; wir
Deutsche müssen Deutsche bleiben! wir lassen nicht ab, wir müssen denn.”
In the work quoted above Misselden wishes to retain the gold and silver
at least within the confines of Christendom: “The other forreine
remote causes of the want of money, are the Trades maintained out of
Christendome to Turky, Persia and the East Indies, which trades are
maintained for the most part with ready money, yet in a different
manner from the trades of Christendome within itselfe. For although
the trades within Christendome are driven with ready monies, yet
those monies are still contained and continued within the bounds of
Christendome. There is indeede a fluxus and refluxus, a flood and ebbe
of the monies of Christendome traded within it selfe; for sometimes
there is more in one part of Christendome, sometimes there is lesse
in another, as one Country wanteth and another aboundeth: It cometh
and goeth, and whirleth about the Circle of Christendome, but is still
contained within the compasse thereof. But the money that is traded out
of Christendome into the parts aforesaid is continually issued out and
never returneth againe.” (p. 19-20.)
[96] “A nummo prima origo avaritiae ... haec paulatim exarsit rabie
quadam, non jam avaritia, sed fames auris.” (Plin., Hist. Nat., l.
XXXIII., c. XIV.)
(“From money first springs avarice ... the latter gradually grows into
a kind of madness, which is no more avarice, but a thirst for gold.”)
[97] Horace thus understands nothing of the philosophy of hoarding when
he says (Satir. l. II., Satir. III): “Siquis emat citharas, emptas
comportat in unum, Nec studio citharae nec musae deditus ulli; Si
scalpra et formas non sutor; nautica vela Aversus mercaturis; delirus
et amens, Undique dicatur merito. Qui discrepat istis, Qui nummos
aurunque recondit nescius uti Compositis metuensque velut contingere
sacrum?”
“If one buys fiddles, hoards them up when bought,
Though music’s study ne’er engaged his thought,
One lasts and awls, unversed in cobbler’s craft,
One sails for ships, not knowing fore from aft,
You’d call them mad: but tell me, if you please,
How that man’s case is different from these,
Who as he gets it, stows away his gain,
And thinks to touch a farthing were profane?”
(Transl. by John Covington, London, 1874, p. 60.)
Mr. Senior understands the question much better: “L’argent paraît être
la seule chose dont le désir est universel, et il en est ainsi parceque
l’argent est _une richesse abstraite_ et parceque les hommes, en la
possédant peuvent satisfaire à tous leur besoins de quelque nature
qu’ils soient.” (“Principes Fondamentaux de l’Economie Politique,
tirés de leçons edites et inedites de N. W. Senior, par Comte Jean
Arrivabene,” Paris, 1836, p. 221. The corresponding passage in the
English edition of his Political Economy, London, 1863, is to be found
on p. 27. Translator.) So does Storch: “Since money represents all
other forms of wealth, it is only necessary to accumulate it to provide
for oneself all kinds of wealth existing in the world.” (l. c., v. 2,
p. 134.)
[98] To what extent the inner man of the commodity owner remains
unchanged, even when he has become civilized and has developed into a
capitalist, is shown by the example of a London representative of a
cosmopolitan banking house who adopted as a fitting coat of arms for
his family a £100,000 bank note, which he had hung up in a glass frame.
The point here is in the mocking contempt of the note for circulation.
[99] See the passage from Xenophon, quoted below.
[100] Jacob, l. c., v. 2, ch. 25 and 26.
[101] “In times of great agitation and insecurity, especially during
internal commotions or invasions, gold and silver articles are rapidly
converted into money; whilst during periods of tranquility and
prosperity, money is converted into plate and jewelry.” (l. c., v. 2,
p. 357.)
[102] In the following passage Xenophon develops money in its specific
forms of money and hoard: “ἐν μόνω τούτῳ ὦν ἐγω οἴδα ἔργων οὐδὲ φθονεῖ
οὐδεις τοῖς ἐπισκευαζομένοις ... ἀργυρῖτις δὲ ὅσω ἄν πλείων φαίνηται,
καὶ ἀργύριον πλεῖον γίγνηται, τοσούτῳ πλείονες ἐπί τὸ ἔργον τοῦτο
ἔρχονται ... καὶ γὰρ δὴ ἔπιπλα μὲν ἐπειδὰν ἰκανά τις κτήσηται τῇ οἰκίᾳ,
οὐ μάλα ἔἱτι προσωνοῦνται· ἀργύριον δὲ οὐδείς πω οὔτω πολὺ ἐκτήσατο
ὥστε μὴ ἔτι προσθεῖσθαι, ἀλλ’ ἤν τισι γένηται παμπληθὲς, τὸ περιττεῦον
κατορύττοντες οὐδὲν ἥττον ἥδονται ἥ χρώμενοι αὐτᾠ· καὶ μὲν ὅταν γε εὗ
πράττωσιν αἰ πόλεις ἰσχυρῶς, οἰ ἄνθρωποι ἀργυρίου δέονται. Οἰ μὲν γὰρ
ἄνδρες ἀμφι ὅπλα τε καλὰ καὶ ἵππους ἀγαρθοὺς καὶ οἰκίας καὶ κατασκευὰς
μεγαλοπρεπεῖς βοὐλονται δαπανᾶν, αἰδὲ γυναῖκες εἰς ἐσθῆτα πολυτελῆ καὶ
χρυσοῦν κόσμον τρέπονται· ὅταν δε αὔ νοσήσωσι πόλεις ἠ ἀφορίαις καρπῶν ῆ
πολέμω ἔτι καὶ πολὺ μἄλλον τῆς γῆς ἀρυοῦ γιγνομενης καὶ εἰς ἐπιτήδεια
καὶ εἰς ἐπικουροὺς νομίσματος δέονται.” (Xen. de Vectigalibus, c. IV.)
(“Of all operations with which I am acquainted, this is the only one
in which no sort of jealousy is felt at a further development of the
industry ... the larger the quantity of ore discovered and the greater
the amount of silver extracted, the greater the number of persons
ready to engage in the operation.... No one when he has got sufficient
furniture for his house dreams of making further purchases on this
head, but of silver no one ever yet possessed so much that he was
forced to cry “Enough.” On the contrary, if ever anybody does become
possessed of an immoderate amount he finds as much pleasure in digging
a hole in the ground and hoarding it as an actual employment of it....
When a state is prosperous there is nothing which people so much desire
as silver. The men want money to expend on beautiful armor and fine
horses, and houses and sumptuous paraphernalia of all sorts. The women
betake themselves to expensive apparel and ornaments of gold. Or when
states are sick, either through barrenness of corn and other fruits,
or through war, the demand for current coin is even more imperative
(whilst the ground lies unproductive), to pay for necessaries or
military aid.” Transl. by H. G. Dakyns, London, 1892, v. 2, Revenues,
p. 335-336.) Aristotle develops in Book I., ch. 9 of his Politics
the two opposite movements of circulation. C-M-C and M-C-M, calling
them “economics” and “chrematistics” respectively. The two forms are
represented by the Greek tragedian Euripides as Sikn (right) and Keodos
(profit).
[103] Of course, capital also is advanced in the shape of money, and
the money thus advanced may be advanced capital, but this point of view
does not fall within the horizon of simple circulation.
[104] “The difference between the means of purchase and the means of
payment” is emphasized by Luther.
[105] Mr. MacLeod, in spite of his doctrinaire conceit about
definitions, fails so utterly to grasp the most elementary economic
relations that he tries to deduce the very origin of money from its
crowning form, viz., that of a means of payment. He says among other
things that since people do not always need each other’s services at
the same time, and not to the same extent, “there would remain over
a certain difference or amount of service due from the first to the
second―debt.” The owner of this debt needs the services of a third
person, who does not directly need those of the second, and “transfers
to the third the debt due to him from the first. Evidence of debts
changes so hands―currency.... When a person received an obligation
expressed by metallic currency, he is able to command the services
not only of the original debtor, but of the whole of the industrious
community.” (MacLeod, “Theory and Practice of Banking,” etc., London,
1855, v. I., ch. I.)
[106] Bailey, l. c., p. 3. “Money is the general commodity of
contracts, or that in which the majority of bargains about property, to
be completed at a future time, are made.”
[107] Says Senior (in his Lectures, published by Comte Arrivabene, l.
c., p. 117): “Since the value of everything changes within a certain
period of time, people select as a means of payment an article whose
value changes least and which retains longest a given average ability
to buy things. Thus, money becomes the expression or representative of
values.” On the contrary: just because gold, silver, etc., have become
money, i. e., the embodiment of independently existing exchange value,
they become the universal means of payment. When the consideration as
to the stability of the value of money mentioned by Mr. Senior comes
into play, i. e., in periods when money asserts itself as the universal
means of payment through the force of circumstances, then is just the
time when fluctuations in the value of money are discovered. Such was
the time of Elizabeth in England, when Lord Burleigh and Sir Thomas
Smith, in view of the manifest depreciation of the precious metals, put
through an act of parliament which obliged the universities of Oxford
and Cambridge to stipulate the payment of one-third of their ground
rents in wheat and malt.
[108] Boisguillebert, who would stem the development of bourgeois
relations of production and violently attacks the bourgeois personally,
has a soft heart for those forms of money in which it appears only
ideally or transiently. Thus he speaks first of the medium of
circulation and next of the means of payment. What he does not see is
the direct transition of money from its ideal to the material form,
since the hard cash is latently present in the ideal measure of value.
That money is but another form of commodities, he says, is shown by
wholesale trade, in which exchange takes place without the intervention
of money, after “les marchandises sont appreciés.” (“Le Detail de la
France,” l. c. p. 210.)
[109] Locke, l. c., p. 17, 18.
[110] “Il danaro ammassato supplisce a quella somma, che per essere
attualmente in circolazione, per l’eventuale promiscuità de’ commerci
si allontana _e sorte della sfera della circolazione medesima_.”
(“The accumulated money supplements that amount which, in order to
be actually in circulation and to meet all possible perturbations of
trade, retires from that sphere of circulation.” G. R. Carli, note
to Berri’s “Meditazioni sulla Economia Politica,” p. 196, t. XV. of
Custodi’s l. c.)
[111] Montanari, “Della Moneta,” 1683, l. c., p. 40. “È cosi fattamente
diffusa per tutto il globo terrestre la communicazione de’ populi
insieme, che puo quasi dirsi esser il mondo tutto divinuto una sola
citta in cui si fa perpetua fiera d’ogni mercanzia, e dove ogni uomo
di tutto cio che la terra, gli animali e l’umana industria altrove
producono, puo mediante il danaro stando in sua casa provedersi e
godere. Maravigliosa invenzione.” (“The communication of nations
among themselves is so widely extended all over the globe that it may
be almost said that the entire world has become one city in which a
perpetual fair of merchandise is held and where every man may by means
of money acquire and enjoy, while staying at home, all that the earth,
the animals and human industry produce elsewhere. Marvelous invention.”)
[112] I metalli han questo di proprio e singulare che in essi soli
tutte le ragioni si riducono ad una che è la loro quantità, non
avendo ricevuto delle natura diversa qualità nè nell’interna loro
constituzione nè nell’externa forma e fattura.” (Galiani, l. c., p.
130.) (“Metals have this singular property, that everything in them is
reduced to one consideration, viz., that of quantity, since they are
not endowed by nature with any differences in quality either in their
internal structure or in their external form and shape.”)
[113] De Orbe Novo. “O, happy coin, which furnishes mankind with a
pleasant and useful beverage and keeps its possessors immune from
the hell-born pest of avarice, since it can not be either buried or
preserved long.”
[114] In 760 a multitude of poor people emigrated to the south of
Prague to wash the gold sand found there, and three men were able to
extract three marks of gold a day. As a result of that the run on
the “diggings” and the number of hands taken away from agriculture
became so great that the country was visited by a famine the following
year. See M. G. Körner, “Abhandlung von dem Alterthum des Böhmischen
Bergwerks,” Schneeberg, 1758.
[115] So far the Australian and other discoveries have not affected the
ratio of the values of gold and silver. The assertions to the contrary
of Michel Chevalier are worth as much as the Socialism of this ex-St.
Simonist. The quotations of silver on the London market prove, however,
that the average gold price of silver during 1850-1858 is not quite
3 per cent. higher than the price during 1830-1850. But this rise in
price is accounted for simply by the Asiatic demand for silver. In
the course of the years 1852-1858 the price of silver was changing in
certain years and months only with a change in this demand, and in no
case with the importation of gold from the newly discovered sources.
The following is a summary of the gold prices of silver on the London
market.
PRICE OF SILVER PER OUNCE.
_Year―_ _March._ _July._ _November._
1852 60-1/8 pence 60-1/4 pence 61-7/8 pence
1853 61-3/8 pence 61-1/2 pence 61-7/8 pence
1854 61-7/8 pence 61-3/4 pence 61-1/2 pence
1855 60-7/8 pence 61-1/2 pence 60-7/8 pence
1856 60 pence 61-1/4 pence 62-1/8 pence
1857 61-3/4 pence 61-5/8 pence 61-1/2 pence
1858 61-5/8 pence
[116] “Gold is a wonderful thing! Whoever possesses it, is master of
all that he desires. By means of gold even admission to Heaven may be
gained for souls.” (Columbus in a letter from Jamaica in 1503).
[117] The slowness of the process was admitted by Hume, although it but
little agrees with his principle. See David Hume “Essays and Treatises
on several subjects.” London, 1777, v. I, p. 300.
[118] Conf. Steuart, l. c. v. I, p. 394-400.
[119] David Hume, l. c. p. 300.
[120] David Hume, l. c. p. 303.
[121] David Hume, l. c. p. 303.
[122] David Hume, l. c. p. 307, 308, 303: “It is evident, that the
prices do not so much depend on the absolute quantity of commodities,
and that of money, which are in a nation, as on that of the
commodities, which can or may come to market, and of the money which
circulates. If the coin be locked up in chests, it is the same thing
with regard to prices, as if it were annihilated; if the commodities be
hoarded in magazines and granaries, a like effect follows. As the money
and commodities in these cases, never meet, they cannot affect each
other. The whole (of prices) at last reaches _a just proportion with
the new quantity of specie which is in the kingdom_.”
[123] See _Law_ and _Franklin_ about surplus value which gold and
silver are supposed to acquire from their function of money. Also
_Forbonnais_.
[124] This fiction is literally advanced by Montesquieu. [The passage
from Montesquieu is quoted by Marx in his Capital, v. I. Part 1, Ch.
III, section 2, b, foot-note. Note by K. Kautsky to 2nd German edition].
[125] Steuart, l. c. v. I., p. 394 seq.
[126] Steuart, l. c., v. 2. p. 377-379 passim (not found in the 1767
London edition. Translator).
[127] Steuart, l. c., p. 379-380 passim (London, 1767 edition, v. l. p.
400. Transl.).
[128] “The additional coin will be locked up, or converted into
plate.... As for the paper money, so soon as it has served the first
purpose of supplying the demand of him who borrowed it, it will
return upon the debtor in it and become realized.... Let the specie
of a country, therefore, be augmented or diminished in ever so great
a proportion, commodities will still rise and fall according to the
principles of demand and competition, and these will constantly
depend upon the inclinations of those who have property or any kind
of equivalent whatsoever to give, but never upon the quantity of coin
they are possessed of.... Let it (namely, the quantity of specie
in a country) be ever so low, while there is real property of any
denomination in the country, a competition to consume in those who
possess it, prices will be high, by the means of barter, symbolical
money, mutual prestations and a thousand other inventions.... If
this country has a communication with other nations, there must
be a proportion between the prices of many kinds of merchandize
there and elsewhere, and a sudden augmentation or diminution of the
specie, supposing it could of itself operate the effects of raising
or sinking prices, would be restrained in its operation by foreign
competition.” l. c. v. 1, p. 400-402. “The circulation of every country
must be in proportion to the industry of the inhabitants producing
the commodities which come to market.... If the coin of a country,
therefore, falls below the proportion of the price of industry offered
to sale, inventions, like symbolical money, will be fallen upon, to
provide for an equivalent for it. But if the specie be found above the
proportion of industry, it will have no effect in raising prices, nor
will it enter into circulation: it will be hoarded up in treasures....
Whatsoever be the quantity of money in a nation, in correspondence with
the rest of the world, there never can remain in circulation, but the
quantity nearly proportional to the consumption of the rich and to the
labour and industry of the poor inhabitants,” and this proportion is
not determined “by the quantity of money actually in the country” (l.
c. p. 403-408 passim.) “All nations will endeavor to throw their ready
money, not necessary for their own circulation, into that country where
the interest of money is high with respect to their own.” (l. c. v. 2.
p. 5). “The richest nation in Europe may be the poorest in circulating
specie.” l. c., v. 2, p. 6. For the polemics against Steuart see Arthur
Young. [In his foot-note in Capital, v. 1, Part 1, ch. III., section
2, b. p. 62, Humboldt ed., Marx says: The theory of Hume was defended
against the attacks of J. Steuart and others, by A. Young, in his
“Political Arithmetic,” London, 1774, in which work there is a special
chapter entitled “Prices depend on quantity of money.” Note by K.
Kautsky to 2nd German edition].
[129] Steuart, l. e., v. 2, p. 370. Louis Blanc translates the
expression “money of the society” which stands for home or national
money, as socialist money, which is perfectly meaningless and makes
a Socialist of John Law. (See the first volume of his History of the
French Revolution).
[130] Maclaren, l. c. p. 43 seq. Patriotism led Gustav Julius, a
German writer who met with very early death, to hold up old Büsch as
an authority as against the Ricardian school. Honest Büsch rendered
Steuart’s elegant English into Hamburg Platt and by trying to improve
upon the original spoiled it as often as he could.
[131] Note to the 2nd edition: This is not an exact statement. Adam
Smith expresses the law correctly on many occasions. [See Capital,
Humboldt edition, p. 62, ft-note 1, where writing seven years later,
Marx makes the following qualification: “This statement applies only
in so far as Adam Smith, _ex officio_, treats of money. Now and then,
however, as in his criticism of the earlier systems of political
economy, he takes the right view. ‘The quantity of coin in every
country is regulated by the value of the commodities which are to be
circulated by it.... The value of the goods annually bought and sold
in any country requires a certain quantity of money to circulate and
distribute them to their proper consumers, and can give employment to
no more. The channel of circulation necessarily draws to itself a sum
sufficient to fill it, and never admits any more.’ Wealth of Nations,
Book iv., ch. I.”]
[132] The distinction between currency and money is therefore
not found in “Wealth of Nations.” Deceived by the apparent impartiality
of Adam Smith, who knew his Hume and Steuart very well, honest Maclaren
remarks: “The theory of the dependence of prices on the extent of the
currency had not as yet, attracted attention; and Doctor Smith, like
Mr. Locke (Locke undergoes a change in his view), considers metallic
money nothing but a commodity.” Maclaren, l. c. p. 44.
[133] David Ricardo, “The High Price of Bullion, a Proof of
the Depreciation of Bank-notes.” 4th edition, London, 1811. (The first
edition appeared in 1809). Further, “Reply to Mr. Bosanquet’s Practical
Observations on the Report of the Bullion Committee.” London, 1811.
[134] David Ricardo: “On the Principles of Political Economy,
etc.” p. 77. “Their value [of metals] [like that of all other
commodities], depends on the total quantity of labour necessary to
obtain the metal, and to bring it to market.”
[135] 1 p. 77, 180, 181.
[136] Ricardo, l. c. p. 421. “The quantity of money that can be
employed in a country must depend on its value: if gold alone were
employed for the circulation of commodities, a quantity would be
required, one fifteenth only of what would be necessary, if silver were
made use of for the same purpose.” See also Ricardo’s: “Proposals for
an Economical and Secure Currency,” London, 1816, p. 89, where he says:
“The amount of notes in circulation depends on the amount required for
the circulation of the country; which is regulated ... by the value
of the standard [of money], the amount of payments, and the economy
practised in effecting them.”
[137] Ricardo, “Principles of Political Economy”, p. 432.
[138] David Ricardo, “Reply to Mr. Bosanquet’s Practical Observations,
etc.” p. 49. “That commodities would rise or fall in price, in
proportion to the increase or diminution of money, _I assume as a fact
which is incontrovertible_.”
[139] David Ricardo, “The High Price of Bullion,” etc. “Money would
have the same value in all countries.” p. 4. In his Political Economy
Ricardo modified this statement, but not in a way to affect what has
been said here.
[140] l. c. p. 3-4.
[141] l. c., p. 4.
[142] Ricardo, l. c., p. 11-12.
[143] Ricardo, l. c., p. 14.
[144] l. c., p. 17.
[145] Ricardo, l. c., p. 74-75. “England, in consequence of a bad
harvest, would come under the case of a country having been deprived
of a part of its commodities, and, therefore, requiring a diminished
amount of circulating medium. The currency which was before equal to
her payments would now become superabundant and relatively cheap,
in proportion ... of her diminished production; the exportation of
this sum, therefore, would restore the value of her currency to the
value of the currencies of other countries.” His confusion of money
and commodity, and of money and coin borders on the ludicrous in
the following passage: “If we can suppose that after an unfavorable
harvest, when England has occasion for an unusual importation of corn,
another nation is possessed of a superabundance of that article, but
has no wants for any commodity whatever, it would unquestionably follow
that such nation would not export its corn in exchange for commodities:
_but neither would it export corn for money_, as that is a commodity
which no nation ever wants absolutely, but relatively.” l. c., p.
75. Pushkin in his hero poem makes the father of his hero incapable
of comprehending that commodities are money. But that money is a
commodity, the Russians have understood from times of yore as is proven
not only by the English corn imports in 1838-1842, but by the entire
history of their commerce.
[146] Conf. Thomas Tooke, “History of Prices,” and James Wilson,
“Capital, Currency and Banking.” (The latter work is a reprint of a
series of articles which appeared in the London Economist in 1844, 1845
and 1847.)
[147] James Deacon Hume: “Letters on the Corn Laws.” London, 1834, p.
29-31. [Letter by H. B. T. on the Corn Laws and on the Rights of the
Working Classes. Transl.]
[148] Thomas Tooke, “History of Prices,” etc. London, 1848, p. 110.
[149] Conf. W. Blake’s above quoted “Observations etc.”
[150] James Mill: “Elements of Political Economy.” [London, 1821, p.
95-101 passim. Transl.]
[151] A few months before the outbreak of the commercial crisis of
1857, a committee of the House of Commons was in session to inquire
into the effect of the bank-laws of 1844 and 1845. Lord Overstone, the
theoretical father of these laws, delivered himself of this boast in
his testimony before the committee: “By strict and prompt adherence
to the principles of the act of 1844, everything has passed off with
regularity and ease; the monetary system is safe and unshaken, the
prosperity of the country is undisputed, the public confidence in
the wisdom of the act of 1844 is daily gaining strength; and if the
committee wish for further practical illustration of the soundness of
the principles on which it rests, or of the beneficial results which it
has assured, the true and sufficient answer to the committee is, look
around you; look at the present state of trade of the country, look
at the contentment of the people; look at the wealth and prosperity
which pervades every class of the community; and then, having done so,
the committee may be fairly called upon to decide whether they will
interfere with the continuance of an act under which these results have
been developed.” Thus did Overstone blow his own horn on the fourteenth
of July, 1857; on the twelfth of November of the same year the Ministry
had to suspend on its own responsibility the wonderful law of 1844.
[152] Tooke was entirely ignorant of Steuart’s work, as may be seen
from his “History of Prices for 1839-1847,” London, 1848. where he
reviews the history of the theories of money.
[153] Tooke’s most important work besides the “History of Prices” which
his co-worker Newmarch published in six volumes, is “An Inquiry into
the Currency Principle, the Connection of the Currency with Prices”
etc., 2nd edition, London, 1844. Wilson’s book we have already quoted.
Finally there is to be mentioned John Fullarton’s “On the Regulation of
Currencies,” 2d edition, London, 1845.
[154] “We ought to ... distinguish ... between gold ... as merchandise,
_i. e._ as capital, and gold ... as currency” (Tooke, “An Inquiry into
the Currency Principle, etc.” p. 10). “Gold and silver may be counted
upon to realize on their arrival nearly the exact sum required to be
provided ... gold and silver possess an infinite advantage over all
other description of merchandize ... from the circumstance of being
universally in use as money.... It is not in tea, coffee, sugar or
indigo that debts, whether foreign or domestic, are usually contracted
to be paid, but in coin; and the remittance, therefore, either in the
identical coin designated, or in bullion which can be promptly turned
into that coin through the mint or market of the country to which
it is sent, must always afford to the remitter, the most certain,
immediate, and accurate means of affecting this object, without risk
of disappointment from the failure of demand or fluctuation of price.”
(Fullerton, l. c. p. 132-133.) “Any other article (except gold or
silver) might in quantity or kind be beyond the usual demand of the
country to which it is sent.” (Tooke: “An Inquiry, etc.”)
[155] The transformation of money into capital we shall consider in the
third chapter which treats of capital and forms the end of the first
book.
[156] This introduction was first published in the Neue Zeit (see
Translator’s Preface, p. 5) of March 7, 14 and 21, 1903, by Karl
Kautsky, with the following explanation:
“This article has been found among the posthumous papers of Karl Marx.
It is a fragmentary sketch of a treatise that was to have served as an
introduction to his main work, which he had been writing for many years
and whose outline was clearly formed in his mind. The manuscript is
dated August 23, 1857.... As the idea is very often indicated only in
fragmentary sentences, I have taken the liberty of introducing here and
there changes in style, insertions of words, etc.... A mere reprint of
the original would have made it unintelligible.... Not all the words in
the manuscript are legible....
“Wherever there could be no doubt as to the necessity of corrections,
I did so without indicating them in the text; in other cases I put all
insertions in brackets. Wherever I am not certain as to whether I have
deciphered a word correctly, I have put an interrogation point after
it; other changes are specially noted. In all other respects this is
an exact reprint of the original, whose fragmentary and incomplete
passages serve to remind us only too painfully of the many treasures
of thought which went down to the grave with Marx, treasures which
would have sufficed for generations if Marx had not so anxiously
avoided giving to the world any of his ideas until he had tested them
repeatedly from every conceivable point of view and had given them a
wording that would be incontrovertible. In spite of its fragmentary
character it opens before us a wealth of new points of view.”
[157] The original reads “person.”
[158] The manuscript reads “production.”
[159] The manuscript reads “production.”
[160] The German text reads “instruktiv,” which I take to be a misprint
of “instinktiv.” Translator.
[161] Compare this with foot-note 1, on p. 34 of Capital, Humboldt
edition, New York:
“Truly comical is M. Bastiat, who imagines that the ancient Greeks and
Romans lived by plunder alone. But when people plunder for centuries,
there must always be something at hand for them to seize; the objects
of plunder must be continually reproduced.” K. Kautsky.
[162] The English expression is used by Marx in his German original.
Transl.
[163] Marx evidently has in mind here a passage in Adam Smith’s Wealth
of Nations (vol. 2, ch. 2) in which he speaks of the circulation of
a country as consisting of two distinct parts: circulation between
dealers and dealers, and that between dealers and consumers. The word
dealer signifies here not only a merchant or shopkeeper, but also a
producer. K. Kautsky.
[164] Here two words in the manuscript can not be deciphered. They look
like “ausser sich” (“outside of itself”). K. Kautsky.
[165] Distribution (Verkehr) is used here in the sense of physical
distribution of goods and not in sense of economic distribution of the
shares of the products between the different factors of production.
Translator.
[166] As the “notes” written down by Marx in the following eight
paragraphs are extremely fragmentary, making translation in some cases
impossible without a certain degree of interpretation, and as the
original is not accessible in book-form, they are reproduced here in
German for the benefit of the student who may feel interested in the
original wording as it had been jotted down by Marx.
[167] Im Original ist zu lesen Va
[168] Im Original ist zu lesen egtl.
[169] The site of the “Times” building in London. K. K.
AUTHORS QUOTED IN ZUR KRITIK
Arbuthnot, 258.
Aristotle, 19, 41, 53, 78-79, 153, 154, 184.
Athenaeus, 87.
Attwood, 100.
Bailey, 84.
Barbon, 95.
Bastiat, 34.
Berkeley, Bischop, 32, 95-96, 155.
Bernier, 173.
Blake, 133, 250.
Blanc, Louis, 231.
Boisguillebert, 56, 59, 121, 133, 166, 168, 198.
Bosanquet, 124, 235, 242.
Bray, 106.
Brougham, 70.
Buchanan, 147.
Büsch, 231.
Carli, 205.
Castlereagh, Lord, 100.
Cato, 170.
Chevalier, 154, 215.
Clay, 258.
Cobbet, 123.
Cooper, 32.
Corbet, 124.
Darimont, 107.
Dodd, 141.
Forbonnais, 226.
Franklin, 62-3, 155, 226.
Fullarton, 260.
Galiani, 30, 65, 85, 111, 134.
Garnier, 87, 141.
Genovesi, 51, 164.
Gladstone, 73.
Gray, 103 sq.
Grim, 211.
Hodgskin, 55.
Horace, 178.
Hume, D., 219, 221 sq, 231.
Hume, J. D., 249.
Jakob, 141, 181.
Jovellanos, 61.
Julius, 231.
Körner, 212.
Law, 226, 231.
List, 34.
Locke, 91, 93 sq., 199, 219, 226, 233.
Lowndes, 94.
Luther, 174-5, 190.
McCulloch, 31, 57.
Maclaren, 82, 231, 233.
Macleod, 71, 193.
Malthus, 34.
Mandeville, Sir J., 154.
Mill, James, 123-4, 250 sqq.
Misselden, 165, 171, 174-5.
Montanari, 38.
Montesquieu, 219, 227.
Müller, 85.
Norman, 258.
Opdyke, 124.
Overstone, Lord, 241, 258.
Peel, Sir R., 73, 100, 241, 258.
Pereire, 120.
Peter Martyr, 210.
Petty, Sir W., 32, 56 sq., 165, 172-3.
Plato, 153.
Pliny, 177.
Proudhon, 61, 72, 103, 107.
Ricardo, 56, 69 sq., 71, 217, 231, 235, 250, 259.
Say, 34, 71, 123, 153, 233.
Senior, 178, 194.
Sismondi, 56, 77.
Smith, 34, 57, 61, 67-68, 80, 231 sq.
Spence, 123.
Stein, 21, 31-2.
Steuart, Sir James, 65 sq., 94 sq., 222, 227 sq., 260.
Storch, 152-3, 179.
Thompson, 106.
Tooke, 124, 247, 249, 260 sq.
Torrens, 58.
Urquhart, 89.
Ustariz, 61.
Wilson, 260.
Xenophon, 181, 184.
Young, 231.