MALTHUS

At the same time as Sismondi, Malthus also waged war against some of the

teachings of Ricardo. Sismondi, in the second edition of his work as

well as in his polemics, repeatedly referred to Malthus as an authority

on his side. Thus he formulated the common aims of his campaign against

Ricardo in the _Revue Encyclopédique_:

'Mr. Malthus, on the other hand, has maintained in England, as I have

tried to do on the Continent, that consumption is not the necessary

consequence of production, that the needs and desires of man, though

they are truly without limits, are only satisfied by consumption in so

far as means of exchange go with them. We have affirmed that it is not

enough to create these means of exchange, to make them circulate among

those who have these desires and wants; that it can even happen

frequently that the means of exchange increase in society together with

a decrease in the demand for labour, or wages, so that the desires and

wants of one part of the population cannot be satisfied and consumption

also decreases. Finally, we have claimed that the unmistakable sign of

prosperity in a society is not an increasing production of wealth, but

an increasing demand for labour, or the offer of more and more wages in

compensation for this labour. Messrs. Ricardo and Say, though not

denying that an increasing demand for labour is a symptom of prosperity,

maintained that it inevitably results from an increase of production. As

for Mr. Malthus and myself, we regard these two increases as resulting

from independent causes which may at times even be in opposition.

According to our view, if the demand for labour has not preceded and

determined production, the market will be flooded, and then new

production becomes a cause of ruin, not of enjoyment.'[222]

These remarks suggest far-reaching agreement, a brotherhood in arms of

Sismondi and Malthus, at least in their opposition against Ricardo and

his school. Marx considers the _Principles of Political Economy_, which

Malthus published in 1820, an outright plagiarism of the _Nouveaux

Principes_ which had been published the year before. Yet Sismondi and

Malthus are frequently at odds regarding the problem with which we are

here concerned.

Sismondi is critical of capitalist production, he attacks it sharply,

even denounces it, while Malthus stands for the defence. This does not

mean that he denies its inherent contradictions, as Say or MacCulloch

had done. On the contrary he raises them quite unmercifully to the

status of a natural law and asserts their absolute sanctity. Sismondi's

guiding principle is the interests of the workers. He aspires, though

rather generally and vaguely, towards a thoroughgoing reform of

distribution in favour of the proletariat. Malthus provides the ideology

for those strata who are the parasites of capitalist exploitation, who

live on ground rent and draw upon the common wealth, and advocates the

allocation of the greatest possible portion of the surplus value to

these 'unproductive consumers'. Sismondi's general approach is

predominantly ethical, it is the approach of the social reformer.

Improving upon the classics, he stresses, in opposition to them, that

'consumption is the only end of accumulation', and pleads for restricted

accumulation. Malthus, on the contrary, bluntly declares that production

has no other purpose than accumulation and advocates unlimited

accumulation by the capitalists, to be supplemented and assured by the

unlimited consumption of their parasites. Finally, Sismondi starts off

with a critical analysis of the reproductive process, of the relation

between capital and income from the point of view of society; while

Malthus, opposing Ricardo, begins with an absurd theory of value from

which he derives an equally absurd theory of surplus value, attempting

to explain capitalist profits as an addition to the price over and above

the value of commodities.[223]

Malthus opposes the postulate that supply and demand are identical with

a detailed critique in chapter vi of his _Definitions in Political

Economy_.[224] In his _Elements of Political Economy_, James Mill had

declared:

'What is it that is necessarily meant, when we say that the supply and

the demand are accommodated to one another? It is this: that goods which

have been produced by a certain quantity of labour, exchange for goods

which have been produced by an equal quantity of labour. Let this

proposition be duly attended to, and all the rest is clear.--Thus, if a

pair of shoes is produced with an equal quantity of labour as a hat, so

long as a hat exchanges for a pair of shoes, so long the supply and

demand are accommodated to one another. If it should so happen, that

shoes fell in value, as compared with hats, which is the same thing as

hats rising in value compared with shoes, this would simply imply that

more shoes had been brought to market, as compared with hats. Shoes

would then be in more than the due abundance. Why? Because in them the

produce of a certain quantity of labour would not exchange for the

produce of an equal quantity. But for the very same reason hats would be

in less than the due abundance, because the produce of a certain

quantity of labour in them would exchange for the produce of more than

an equal quantity in shoes.'[225]

Against such trite tautologies, Malthus marshals a twofold argument. He

first draws Mill's attention to the fact that he is building without

solid foundations. In fact, he argues, even without an alteration in the

ratio of exchange between hats and shoes, there may yet be too great a

quantity of _both_ in relation to the demand. This will result in both

being sold at less than the cost of production plus an appropriate

profit.

'But can it be said on this account', he asks, 'that the supply of hats

is suited to the demand for hats, or the supply of shoes suited to the

demand for shoes, when they are both so abundant that neither of them

will exchange for what will fulfil the conditions of their continued

supply?'[226]

In other words, Malthus confronts Mill with the possibility of general

over-production: '... when they are compared with the costs of

production ... it is evident that ... they may all fall or rise at the

same time'.[227]

Secondly, he protests against the way in which Mill, Ricardo and

company are wont to model their postulates on a system of barter: 'The

hop planter who takes a hundred bags of hops to Weyhill fair, thinks

little more about the supply of hats and shoes than he does about the

spots in the sun. What does he think about, then? and what does he want

to exchange his hops for? Mr. Mill seems to be of opinion that it would

show great ignorance of political economy, to say that what he wants is

money; yet, notwithstanding the probable imputation of this great

ignorance, I have no hesitation in distinctly asserting, that it really

is money which he wants....'[228]

For the rest, Malthus is content to describe the machinery by which an

excessive supply can depress prices below the cost of production and so

automatically bring about a restriction of production, and _vice versa_.

'But this tendency, in the natural course of things, to cure a glut or a

scarcity, is no ... proof that such evils have never existed.'[229]

It is clear that in spite of his contrary views on the question of

crises, Malthus thinks along the same lines as Ricardo, Mill, Say, and

MacCulloch. For him, too, everything can be reduced to barter. The

social reproductive process with its large categories and interrelations

which claimed the whole of Sismondi's attention, is here completely

ignored.

In view of so many contradictions within the fundamental approach, the

criticism of Sismondi and Malthus have only a few points in common:

(1) Contrary to Say and the followers of Ricardo, they both deny the

hypothesis of a pre-established balance of consumption and production.

(2) They both maintain that not only partial but also universal crises

are possible.

But here their agreement ends. If Sismondi seeks the cause of crises in

the low level of wages and the capitalists' limited capacity for

consumption, Malthus, on the other hand, transforms the fact of low

wages into a natural law of population movements; for the capitalists'

limited capacity for consumption, however, he finds a substitute in the

consumption of the parasites on surplus value such as the landed gentry

and the clergy with their unlimited capacity for wealth and luxury. 'The

church with a capacious maw is blest.'

Both Malthus and Sismondi look for a category of consumers who buy

without selling, in order to redeem capitalist accumulation and save it

from a precarious position. But Sismondi needs them to get rid of the

surplus product of society over and above the consumption of the workers

and capitalists, that is to say, to get rid of the capitalised part of

the surplus value. Malthus wants them as 'producers' of profit in

general. It remains entirely his secret, of course, how the _rentiers_

and the incumbents of the state can assist the capitalists in

appropriating their profits by buying commodities at an increased price,

since they themselves obtain their purchasing power mainly from these

capitalists. In view of these profound contrasts, the alliance between

Malthus and Sismondi does not go very deep. And if Malthus, as Marx has

it, distorts Sismondi's _Nouveaux Principes_ into a Malthusian

caricature, Sismondi in turn stresses only what is common to them both

and quotes Malthus in support, giving the latter's critique of Ricardo a

somewhat Sismondian cast. On occasion, no doubt, Sismondi actually

succumbs to the influence of Malthus; for instance, he takes over the

latter's theory of reckless state expenditure as an emergency measure in

aid of accumulation and so becomes involved in contradictions with his

own initial assumptions.

On the whole, Malthus neither rendered an original contribution to the

problem of reproduction, nor even grasped it fully. In his controversy

with the followers of Ricardo, he operated with the concepts of simple

commodity circulation, just as they did in their controversy with

Sismondi. His quarrel with that school turns on the 'unproductive

consumption' by the parasites of the surplus value; it is not a quarrel

about the social foundations of capitalist reproduction. Malthus'

edifice tumbles to the ground as soon as the absurd mistakes in his

theory of profits are uncovered. Sismondi's criticism remains valid, and

his problems remain unsolved even if we accept Ricardo's theory of value

with all its consequences.