[300] S. Bulgakov, _On the Markets of Capitalist Production. A Study in
Theory_ (Moscow, 1897), p. 15.
[301] Ibid., p. 32, footnote.
[302] Ibid., p. 27.
[303] Ibid., pp. 2-3.
[304] _On the Markets of Capitalist Production_, pp. 50, 55.
[305] _On the Markets of Capitalist Production_, p. 132 ff.
[306] Ibid., p. 20.
[307] Bulgakov's italics.
[308] _Capital_, vol. iii, p. 387.
[309] Bulgakov, op. cit., p. 161.
[310] Ibid., p. 167.
[311] Bulgakov, op. cit., p. 210 (our italics).
[312] Ibid., p. 199.
[313] K. Buecher; The Rise of National Economy (_Die Entstehung der
Volkswirtschaft_), 5th edition, p. 147. Professor Sombart's theory is
the most recent contribution in this field. He argues that we are not
moving towards an international economy but rather farther and farther
away from it. 'I maintain, on the contrary, that commercial relations
to-day do not form a stronger but rather a weaker link between the
civilised nations, in relation to their economy as a whole. Individual
economy takes not more but rather less account of the world market than
it did a hundred or fifty years ago. At least ... it would be wrong to
assume that the relative importance of international relations with
regard to modern political economy is increasing. The opposite is the
case.' Sombart scornfully rejects the assumption of a progressive
international division of labour, of a growing need for outside markets
owing to an inelastic home demand. He in his turn is convinced that 'the
individual national economies will develop into ever more perfect
microcosms and that the importance of the home market will increasingly
surpass that of the world market for all branches of industry' (_Die
Deutsche Volkswirtschaft im 19. Jahrhundert_, 2nd edition, 1909, pp.
399-420). This devastating discovery admittedly hinges on a full
acceptance of the Professor's peculiar conception which, for some
reasons, only considers those as 'exporting countries' who pay for their
imports with a surplus of agricultural products over and above their own
needs, who pay 'with the soil'. In this scheme Russia, Rumania, the
U.S.A. and the Argentine are, but Germany, England and Belgium are not,
'exporting countries'. Since capitalist development will sooner or later
also claim the surplus of agricultural products for the home demand in
Russia and the U.S.A., it is evident that there will be fewer and fewer
'exporting countries' in the world--international economy will
vanish.--Another of Sombart's discoveries is that great capitalist
'non-exporting' countries increasingly obtain 'free' imports in form of
interest on exported capital--but the capital exports as well as exports
of industrial commodities are of absolutely no account to Professor
Sombart. 'In the course of time we shall probably get to a point where
we import without exporting' (p. 422). Modern, sensational, and
precious!
[314] Bulgakov, op. cit., p. 132.
[315] Ibid., p. 236. A quite uncompromising version of the same view is
given by V. Ilyin [Lenin]: 'The romanticists (as he calls the sceptics)
argue as follows: the capitalists cannot consume the surplus value;
therefore they must dispose of it abroad. I ask: Do the capitalists
perhaps give away their products to foreigners for nothing, throw it
into the sea, maybe? If they sell it, it means that they obtain an
equivalent. If they export certain goods, it means that they import
others' (_Economic Studies and Essays_, p. 2). As a matter of fact, his
explanation of the part played by external commerce in capitalist
production is far more correct than that of Struve and Bulgakov.
_CHAPTER XXIII_