[176] The article in the _Edinburgh Review_ was really directed against
Owen, sharply attacking on 24 pages of print the latter's four
treatises: (1) 'A New View of Society, or Essays on the formation of
Human Character', (2) 'Observations on the Effects of the Manufacturing
System', (3) 'Two Memorials on Behalf of the Working Classes, Presented
to the Governments of America and Europe', and finally (4) 'Three
Tracts' and 'An Account of Public Proceedings relative to the Employment
of the Poor'. 'Anonymous' here attempts a detailed proof that Owen's
reformist ideas by no means get down to the real causes of the misery of
the English proletariat, these causes being: the transition to the
cultivation of barren land (Ricardo's theory of ground rent!), the corn
laws and high taxation pressing upon farmer and manufacturer alike. Free
trade and _laissez-faire_ thus is his alpha and omega. Given
unrestricted accumulation, all increase in production will create for
itself an increase in demand. Owen is accused of 'profound ignorance' as
regards Say and James Mill.--'In his reasonings, as well as in his
plans, Mr. Owen shows himself profoundly ignorant of all the laws which
regulate the production and distribution of wealth.'--From Owen, the
author proceeds to Sismondi and formulates the point of contention as
follows: 'He [Owen] conceives that when competition is unchecked by any
artificial regulations, and industry permitted to flow in its natural
channels, the use of machinery may increase the supply of the several
articles of wealth beyond the demand for them, and by creating an excess
of all commodities, throw the working classes out of employment. This is
the position which we hold to be fundamentally erroneous; and as it is
strongly insisted on by the celebrated M. de Sismondi in his _Nouveaux
Principes d'Économie Politique_, we must entreat the indulgence of our
readers while we endeavour to point out its fallacy, and to demonstrate,
that the power of consuming necessarily increases with every increase in
the power of producing' (_Edinburgh Review_, Oct. 1819, p. 470).
[177] The original title is: _Examen de cette question: Le pouvoir de
consommer s'accroît-il toujours dans la société avec le pouvoir de
produire?_ We have not been able to obtain a copy of Rossi's _Annales_,
but the essay as a whole was incorporated by Sismondi in the second
edition of his _Nouveaux Principes_.
[178] At the time of writing, Sismondi was still in the dark as to the
identity of 'Anonymous' in the _Edinburgh Review_.
[179] Sismondi, op. cit., vol. ii, pp. 376-8.
[180] MacCulloch, loc. cit., p. 470.
[181] Incidentally, Sismondi's Leipsic Book Fair, as a microcosm of the
capitalist world, has staged a come-back after 55 years--in Eugen
Duehring's 'system'. Engels, in his devastating criticism of that
unfortunate 'universal genius' adduces this idea as proof that Duehring,
by attempting to elucidate a real industrial crisis by means of an
imaginary one on the Leipsic Book Fair, a storm at sea by a storm in a
teacup, has shown himself a 'real German _literatus_'. But, as in many
other instances exposed by Engels, the great thinker has simply borrowed
here from someone else on the sly.
[182] Sismondi, op. cit., vol. ii, pp. 381-2.
[183] MacCulloch, loc. cit., p. 470.
[184] Sismondi, op. cit, vol. ii, p. 384.
[185] MacCulloch, loc. cit., p. 471.
[186] Sismondi, op. cit., vol. ii, pp. 394-5.
[187] Ibid., pp. 396-7.
[188] Ibid., pp. 397-8.
[189] MacCulloch, loc. cit., pp. 471-2.
[190] Sismondi, op. cit., vol. ii, pp. 400-1.
[191] Sismondi, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 401.
[192] Ibid., pp. 405-6.
_CHAPTER XII_