Militarism fulfils a quite definite function in the history of capital,
accompanying as it does every historical phase of accumulation. It plays
a decisive part in the first stages of European capitalism, in the
period of the so-called 'primitive accumulation', as a means of
conquering the New World and the spice-producing countries of India.
Later, it is employed to subject the modern colonies, to destroy the
social organisations of primitive societies so that their means of
production may be appropriated, forcibly to introduce commodity trade in
countries where the social structure had been unfavourable to it, and to
turn the natives into a proletariat by compelling them to work for wages
in the colonies. It is responsible for the creation and expansion of
spheres of interest for European capital in non-European regions, for
extorting railway concessions in backward countries, and for enforcing
the claims of European capital as international lender. Finally,
militarism is a weapon in the competitive struggle between capitalist
countries for areas of non-capitalist civilisation.
In addition, militarism has yet another important function. From the
purely economic point of view, it is a pre-eminent means for the
realisation of surplus value; it is in itself a province of
accumulation. In examining the question who should count as a buyer for
the mass of products containing the capitalised surplus value, we have
again and again refused to consider the state and its organs as
consumers. Since their income is derivative, they were all taken to
belong to the special category of those who live on the surplus value
(or partly on the wage of labour), together with the liberal professions
and the various parasites of present-day society ('king, professor,
prostitute, mercenary'). But this interpretation will only do on two
assumptions: first, if we take it, in accordance with Marx's diagram,
that the state has no other sources of taxation than capitalist surplus
value and wages,[420] and secondly, if we regard the state and its
organs as consumers pure and simple. If the issue turns on the personal
consumption of the state organs (as also of the 'mercenary') the point
is that consumption is partly transferred from the working class to the
hangers-on of the capitalist class, in so far as the workers foot the
bill.
Let us assume for a moment that the indirect taxes extorted from the
workers, which mean a curtailment of their consumption, are used
entirely to pay the salaries of the state officials and to provision the
regular army. There will then be no change in the reproduction of social
capital as a whole. Both Departments II and I remain constant because
society as a whole still demands the same kind of products and in the
same quantities. Only _v_ as the commodity of 'labour power' has changed
in value in relation to the products of Department II, i.e. in relation
to the means of subsistence. This _v_, the same amount of money
representing labour power, is now exchanged for a smaller amount of
means of subsistence. What happens to the products of Department II
which are then left over? Instead of the workers, the state officials
and the regular army now receive them. The organs of the capitalist
state take over the workers' consumption on the same scale exactly.
Although the conditions of reproduction have remained stable, there has
been a redistribution of the total product. Part of the products of
Department II, originally intended entirely for the consumption of the
workers as equivalent for _v_, is now allocated to the hangers-on of
the capitalist class for consumption. From the point of view of social
reproduction, it is as if the relative surplus value had in the first
place been larger by a certain amount which is added on to the
consumption of the capitalist class and its hangers-on.
So far the crude exploitation, by the mechanism of indirect taxation, of
the working class for the support of the capitalist state's officials
amounts merely to an increase of the surplus value, of that part of it,
that is to say, which is consumed. The difference is that this further
splitting off of surplus value from variable capital only comes later,
after the exchange between capital and labour has been accomplished. But
the consumption by the organs of the capitalist state has no bearing on
the realisation of _capitalised_ surplus value, because the additional
surplus value for this consumption--even though it comes about at the
workers' expense--is created afterwards. On the other hand, if the
workers did not pay for the greater part of the state officials' upkeep,
the capitalists themselves would have to bear the entire cost of it. A
corresponding portion of their surplus value would have to be assigned
directly to keeping the organs of their class-rule, either at the
expense of production which would have to be curtailed accordingly, or,
which is more probable, it would come from the surplus value intended
for their consumption. The capitalists would have to capitalise on a
smaller scale because of having to contribute more towards the immediate
preservation of their own class. In so far as they shift onto the
working class (and also the representatives of simple commodity
production, such as peasants and artisans) the principal charge of their
hangers-on, the capitalists have a larger portion of surplus value
available for capitalisation. But as yet _no opportunities for such
capitalisation_ have come into being, no new market, that is to say, for
the surplus value that has become available, in which it could produce
and realise new commodities. But when the monies concentrated in the
exchequer by taxation are used for the production of armaments, the
picture is changed.
With indirect taxation and high protective tariffs, the bill of
militarism is footed mainly by the working class and the peasants. The
two kinds of taxation must be considered separately. From an economic
point of view, it amounts to the following, as far as the working class
is concerned: provided that wages are not raised to make up for the
higher price of foodstuffs--which is at present the fate of the greatest
part of the working class, including even the minority that is organised
in trade unions, owing to the pressure of cartels and employers'
organisations[421]--indirect taxation means that part of the purchasing
power of the working class is transferred to the state. Now as before
the variable capital, as a fixed amount of money, will put in motion an
appropriate quantity of living labour, that is to say it serves to
employ the appropriate quantity of constant capital in production and to
produce the corresponding amount of surplus value. As soon as capital
has completed this cycle, it is divided between the working class and
the state: the workers surrender the state part of the money they
received as wages. Capital has wholly appropriated the former variable
capital in its material form, as labour power, but the working class
retains only part of the variable capital in the form of money, the
state claiming the rest. And this invariably happens after capital has
run its cycle between capitalist and worker; it takes place, as it were,
behind the back of capital, at no point impinging direct on the vital
stages of the circulation of capital and the production of surplus
value, so that it is no immediate concern of the latter. But all the
same it does affect the conditions for the reproduction of capital as a
whole. The transfer of some of the purchasing power from the working
class to the state entails a proportionate decrease in the consumption
of means of subsistence by the working class. For capital as a whole, it
means producing a smaller quantity of consumer goods for the working
class, provided that both variable capital (in the form of money and as
labour power) and the mass of appropriated surplus value remain
constant, so that the workers get a smaller share of the aggregate
product. In the process of reproduction of the entire capital, then,
means of subsistence will be produced in amounts smaller than the value
of the variable capital, because of the shift in the ratio between the
value of the variable capital and the quantity of means of subsistence
in which it is realised, with the money wages of labour remaining
constant, according to our premise, or at any rate not rising
sufficiently to offset the increase in the price of foodstuffs. This
increase represents the level of indirect taxation.
How will the material relations of reproduction be adjusted? When fewer
means of subsistence are needed for the renewal of labour power, a
corresponding amount of constant capital and living labour becomes
available which can now be used for producing other commodities in
response to a new effective demand arising within society. It arises
from the side of the state which has appropriated, by way of tax
legislation, the part wanting of the workers' purchasing power. This
time, however, the state does not demand means of subsistence (after all
that has already been said under the heading of 'third persons', we
shall here ignore the demand for means of subsistence for state
officials which is also satisfied out of taxes) but it requires a
special kind of product, namely the militarist weapons of war on land
and at sea.
Again we take Marx's second diagram of accumulation as the basis for
investigating the ensuing changes in social reproduction:
I. _5,000c + 1,000v + 1,000s = 7,000_ means of production
II. _1,430c + 285v + 285s = 2,000_ means of subsistence
Now let us suppose that, owing to indirect taxation and the consequent
increase in the price of means of subsistence, the working class as a
whole reduces consumption by, say, a 100 value units of the real wages.
As before, the workers receive _1,000v + 285v = 1,285v_ in money, but
for this money they only get means of subsistence to the value of 1185.
The 100 units which represent the tax increase in the price of
foodstuffs go to the state which receives in addition military taxes
from the peasants, etc., to the value of 150 units, bringing the total
up to 250. This total constitutes a new demand--the demand for
armaments. At present, however, we are only interested in the 100 units
taken from the workers' wages. This demand for armaments to the value of
100 must be satisfied by the creation of an appropriate branch of
production which requires a constant capital of 71·5 and a variable
capital of 14·25, assuming the average organic composition outlined in
Marx's diagram.
_71·5c + 14·25v + 14·25s = 100_ weapons of war
This new branch of production further requires that 71·5 means of
production be produced and about 13 means of subsistence, because, of
course, the real wages of the workers are also less by about
one-thirteenth.
You could counter by saying that the profit accruing to capital from
this new expansion of demand is merely on paper, because the cut in the
actual consumption of the working class will inevitably result in a
corresponding curtailment of the means of subsistence produced. It will
take the following form for Department II:
_71·5c + 14·25v + 14·25s = 100_
In addition, Department I will also have to contract accordingly, so
that, owing to the decreasing consumption of the working class, the
equations for both departments will be:
I. _4,949c + 989·75v + 989·75s = 6,928·5_
II. _1,358·5c + 270·75v + 270·75s = 1,900_
If, by the mediation of the state, the same 100 units now call forth
armament production of an equal volume with a corresponding fillip to
the production of producer goods, this is at first sight only an
extraneous change in the material forms of social production: instead of
a quantity of means of subsistence a quantity of armaments is now being
produced. Capital has won with the left hand only what it has lost with
the right. Or we might say that the large number of capitalists
producing means of subsistence have lost the effective demand in favour
of a small group of big armament manufacturers.
But this picture is only valid for individual capital. Here it makes no
difference indeed whether production engages in one sphere of activity
or another. As far as the individual capitalist is concerned, there are
no departments of total production such as the diagram distinguishes.
There are only commodities and buyers, and it is completely immaterial
to him whether he produces instruments of life or instruments of death,
corned beef or armour plating.
Opponents of militarism frequently appeal to this point of view to show
that military supplies as an economic investment for capital merely put
profit taken from one capitalist into the pocket of another.[422] On the
other hand, capital and its advocates try to overpersuade the working
class to this point of view by talking them into the belief that
indirect taxes and the demand of the state would only bring about a
change in the material form of reproduction; instead of other
commodities cruisers and guns would be produced which would give the
workers as good a living, if not a better one.
One glance at the diagram shows how little truth there is in this
argument as far as the workers are concerned. To make comparison easier,
we will suppose the armament factories to employ just as many workers as
were employed before in the production of means of subsistence for the
working class. 1,285 units will then be paid out as wages, but now they
will only buy 1,185's worth of means of subsistence.
All this looks different from the perspective of capital as a whole. For
this the 100 at the disposal of the state, which represent the demand
for armaments, constitute a new market. Originally this money was
variable capital and as such it has done its job, it has been exchanged
for living labour which produced the surplus value. But then the
circulation of the variable capital was stopped short, this money was
split off, and it now appears as a new purchasing power in the
possession of the state. It has been created by sleight of hand, as it
were, but still it has the same effects as a newly opened market. Of
course for the time being capital is debarred from selling 100 units of
consumer goods for the working class, and the individual capitalist
considers the worker just as good a consumer and buyer of commodities as
anyone else, another capitalist, the state, the peasant, foreign
countries, etc. But let us not forget that for capital as a whole the
upkeep of the working class is only a necessary evil, only a means
towards the real end of production: the creation and realisation of
surplus value. If it were possible to extort surplus value without
giving labour an equal measure of means of subsistence, it would be all
the better for business. To begin with indirect taxation has the same
effects as if--the price of foodstuffs remaining constant--the
capitalists had succeeded in depressing wages by a hundred units without
detracting from the work performed, seeing that a lower output of
consumer goods is equally the inevitable result of continuous wage cuts.
If wages are cut heavily, capital does not worry about having to produce
fewer means of subsistence for the workers, in fact it delights in this
practice at every opportunity; similarly, capital as a whole does not
mind if the effective demand of the working class for means of
subsistence is curtailed because of indirect taxation which is not
compensated by a rise in wages. This may seem strange because in the
latter case the balance of the variable capital goes to the exchequer,
while with a direct wage cut it remains in the capitalists' pockets
and--commodity prices remaining equal--increases the relative surplus
value. But a continuous and universal reduction of money wages can only
be carried through on rare occasions, especially if trade union
organisation is highly developed. There are strong social and political
barriers to this fond aspiration of capital. Depression of the real wage
by means of indirect taxation, on the other hand, can be carried through
promptly, smoothly and universally, and it usually takes time for
protests to be heard; and besides, the opposition is confined to the
political field and has no immediate economic repercussions. The
subsequent restriction in the production of means of subsistence does
not represent a loss of markets for capital as a whole but rather a
saving in the costs of producing surplus value. Surplus value is never
realised by producing means of subsistence for the workers--however
necessary this may be, as the reproduction of living labour, for the
production of surplus value.
But to come back to our example:
I. _5,000c + 1,000v + 1,000s = 7,000_ means of production
II. _1,430c + 285v + 285s = 2,000_ means of subsistence
At first it looks as if Department II were also creating and realising
surplus value in the process of producing means of subsistence for the
workers, and Department I by producing the requisite means of
production. But if we take the social product as a whole, the illusion
disappears. The equation is in that case:
_6,430c + 1,285v + 1,285s = 9,000_
Now, if the means of subsistence for the workers are cut by 100 units,
the corresponding contraction of both departments will give us the
following equations:
I. _4,949c + 989·75v + 989·75s = 6,928·5_
II. _1,358·5c + 270·75v + 270·75s = 1,900_
and for the social product as a whole:
_6,307·5c + 1,260·5v + 1,260·5s = 8,828·5_
This looks like a general decrease in both the total volume of
production and in the production of surplus value--but only if we
contemplate just the abstract quantities of value in the composition of
the total product; it does not hold good for the material composition
thereof. Looking closer, we find that nothing but the upkeep of labour
is in effect decreased. Fewer means of subsistence and production are
now being made, no doubt, but then, they had had no other function save
to maintain workers. The social product is smaller and less capital is
now employed--but then, the object of capitalist production is not
simply to employ as much capital as possible, but to produce as much
surplus value as possible. Capital has only decreased because a smaller
amount is sufficient for maintaining the workers. If the total cost of
maintaining the workers employed in the society came to 1,285 units in
the first instance, the present decrease of the social product by
171·5--the difference of (9,000-8,828·5)--comes off this maintenance
charge, and there is a consequent change in the composition of the
social product:
_6,430c + 1,113·5v + 1,285s = 8,828·5_
Constant capital and surplus value remain unchanged, and only the
variable capital, paid labour, has diminished. Or--in case there are
doubts about constant capital being unaffected--we may further allow for
the event that, as would happen in actual practice, concomitant with the
decrease in means of subsistence for the workers there will be a
corresponding cut in the constant capital. The equation for the social
product as a whole would then be:
_6,307·5c + 1,236v + 1,285s = 8,828·5_
In spite of the smaller social product, there is no change in the
surplus value in either case, and it is only the cost of maintaining the
workers that has fallen.
Put it this way: the value of the aggregate social product may be
defined as consisting of three parts, the total constant capital of the
society, its total variable capital, and its total surplus value, of
which the first set of products contains no additional labour, and the
second and third no means of production. As regards their material form,
all these products come into being in the given period of
production--though in point of value the constant capital had been
produced in a previous period and is merely being transferred to new
products. On this basis, we can also divide all the workers employed
into three mutually exclusive categories: those who produce the
aggregate constant capital of the society, those who provide the upkeep
for all the workers, and finally those who create the entire surplus
value for the capitalist class.
If, then, the workers' consumption is curtailed, only workers in the
second category will lose their jobs. _Ex hypothesi_, these workers had
never created surplus value for capital, and in consequence their
dismissal is therefore no loss from the capitalist's point of view but a
gain, since it decreases the cost of producing surplus value.
The demand of the state which arises at the same time has the lure of a
new and attractive sphere for realising the surplus value. Some of the
money circulating as variable capital breaks free of this cycle and in
the state treasury it represents a new demand. For the technique of
taxation, of course, the order of events is rather different, since the
amount of the indirect taxes is actually advanced to the state by
capital and is merely being refunded to the capitalists by the sale of
their commodities, as part of their price. But economically speaking, it
makes no difference. The crucial point is that the quantity of money
with the function of variable capital should first mediate the exchange
between capital and labour power. Later, when there is an exchange
between workers and capitalists as buyers and sellers of commodities
respectively, this money will change hands and accrue to the state as
taxes. This money, which capital has set circulating, first fulfils its
primary function in the exchange with labour power, but subsequently, by
mediation of the state, it begins an entirely new career. As a new
purchasing power, belonging with neither labour nor capital, it becomes
interested in new products, in a special branch of production which does
not cater for either the capitalists or the working class, and thus it
offers capital new opportunities for creating and realising surplus
value. When we were formerly taking it for granted that the indirect
taxes extorted from the workers are used for paying the officials and
for provisioning the army, we found the 'saving' in the consumption of
the working class to mean that the workers rather than the capitalists
were made to pay for the personal consumption of the hangers-on of the
capitalist class and the tools of their class-rule. This charge devolved
from the surplus value to the variable capital, and a corresponding
amount of the surplus value became available for purposes of
capitalisation. Now we see how the taxes extorted from the workers
afford capital a new opportunity for accumulation when they are used for
armament manufacture.
On the basis of indirect taxation, militarism in practice works both
ways. By lowering the normal standard of living for the working class,
it ensures both that capital should be able to maintain a regular army,
the organ of capitalist rule, and that it may tap an impressive field
for further accumulation.[423]
We have still to examine the second source of the state's purchasing
power referred to in our example, the 150 units out of the total 250
invested in armaments. They differ essentially from the hundred units
considered above in that they are not supplied by the workers but by the
petty bourgeoisie, i.e. the artisans and peasants. (In this connection,
we can ignore the comparatively small tax-contribution of the capitalist
class itself.)
The money accruing to the state as taxes from the peasant masses--as our
generic term for all non-proletarian consumers--was not originally
advanced by capital and has not split off from capital in circulation.
In the hand of the peasant it is the equivalent of goods that have been
realised, the exchange value of simple commodity production. The state
now gets part of the purchasing power of the non-capitalist consumers,
purchasing power, that is to say, which is already free to realise the
surplus value for capitalist accumulation. Now the question arises,
whether economic changes will result for capital, and if so, of what
nature, from diverting the purchasing power of such strata to the state
for militarist purposes. It almost looks as if we had come up against
yet another shift in the material form of reproduction. Capital will now
produce an equivalent of war materials for the state instead of
producing large quantities of means of production and subsistence for
peasant consumers. But in fact the changes go deeper. First and
foremost, the state can use the mechanism of taxation to mobilise much
larger amounts of purchasing power from the non-capitalist consumers
than they would ordinarily spend on their own consumption.
Indeed the modern system of taxation itself is largely responsible for
forcing commodity economy on the peasants. Under pressure of taxes, the
peasant must turn more and more of his produce into commodities, and at
the same time he must buy more and more. Taxation presses the produce of
peasant economy into circulation and compels the peasants to become
buyers of capitalist products. Finally, on a basis of commodity
production in the peasant style, the system of taxation lures more
purchasing power from peasant economy than would otherwise become
active.
What would normally have been hoarded by the peasants and the lower
middle classes until it has grown big enough to invest in savings banks
and other banks is now set free to constitute an effective demand and an
opportunity for investment. Further the multitude of individual and
insignificant demands for a whole range of commodities, which will
become effective at different times and which might often be met just as
well by simple commodity production, is now replaced by a comprehensive
and homogeneous demand of the state. And the satisfaction of this demand
presupposes a big industry of the highest order. It requires the most
favourable conditions for the production of surplus value and for
accumulation. In the form of government contracts for army supplies the
scattered purchasing power of the consumers is concentrated in large
quantities and, free of the vagaries and subjective fluctuations of
personal consumption, it achieves an almost automatic regularity and
rhythmic growth. Capital itself ultimately controls this automatic and
rhythmic movement of militarist production through the legislature and a
press whose function is to mould so-called 'public opinion'. That is why
this particular province of capitalist accumulation at first seems
capable of infinite expansion. All other attempts to expand markets and
set up operational bases for capital largely depend on historical,
social and political factors beyond the control of capital, whereas
production for militarism represents a province whose regular and
progressive expansion seems primarily determined by capital itself.
In this way capital turns historical necessity into a virtue: the ever
fiercer competition in the capitalist world itself provides a field for
accumulation of the first magnitude. Capital increasingly employs
militarism for implementing a foreign and colonial policy to get hold of
the means of production and labour power of non-capitalist countries and
societies. This same militarism works in a like manner in the capitalist
countries to divert purchasing power away from the non-capitalist
strata. The representatives of simple commodity production and the
working class are affected alike in this way. At their expense, the
accumulation of capital is raised to the highest power, by robbing the
one of their productive forces and by depressing the other's standard of
living. Needless to say, after a certain stage the conditions for the
accumulation of capital both at home and abroad turn into their very
opposite--they become conditions for the decline of capitalism.
The more ruthlessly capital sets about the destruction of non-capitalist
strata at home and in the outside world, the more it lowers the
standard of living for the workers as a whole, the greater also is the
change in the day-to-day history of capital. It becomes a string of
political and social disasters and convulsions, and under these
conditions, punctuated by periodical economic catastrophes or crises,
accumulation can go on no longer.
But even before this natural economic impasse of capital's own creating
is properly reached it becomes a necessity for the international working
class to revolt against the rule of capital.
Capitalism is the first mode of economy with the weapon of propaganda, a
mode which tends to engulf the entire globe and to stamp out all other
economies, tolerating no rival at its side. Yet at the same time it is
also the first mode of economy which is unable to exist by itself, which
needs other economic systems as a medium and soil. Although it strives
to become universal, and, indeed, on account of this its tendency, it
must break down--because it is immanently incapable of becoming a
universal form of production. In its living history it is a
contradiction in itself, and its movement of accumulation provides a
solution to the conflict and aggravates it at the same time. At a
certain stage of development there will be no other way out than the
application of socialist principles. The aim of socialism is not
accumulation but the satisfaction of toiling humanity's wants by
developing the productive forces of the entire globe. And so we find
that socialism is by its very nature an harmonious and universal system
of economy.