Note further: Although Malthus was a parson of the English State Church, he had taken the monastic vow of celibacy -- one of the conditions of holding a Fellowship in Protestant Cambridge University: --Socios collegiorum maritos esse non permittimus, sed statim
postquam
quis uxorem duxerit socius collegii desinat esse.
Marx - Capital-Volume-I
or that their plethora is in any way connected with plethora of the people's misery is, of course, an idea as --disreputable?
as --unsound.
?
He keeps to facts.
The fact is that, as the Irish population diminishes, the Irish rent-rolls swell; that depopulation benefits the landlords, therefore also benefits the soil, and, therefore, the people, that mere accessory of the soil.
He declares, therefore, that Ireland is still over-populated, and the stream of emigration still flows too lazily.
To be perfectly happy, Ireland must get rid of at least one-third of a million of labouring men.
Let no man imagine that this lord, poetic into the bargain, is a physician of the school of Sangrado, who as often as he did not find his patient better, ordered phlebotomy and again phlebotomy, until the patient lost his sickness at the same time as his blood.
Lord Dufferin demands a new blood-letting of one-third of a million only, instead of about two millions; in fact, without the getting rid of.
these, the millennium in Erin is not to be.
The proof is easily given.
? ? ? NUMBER AND EXTENT OF FARMS IN IRELAND IN 1864 140
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? No.
? ? ? ? Acres
? ? ? (1) Farms not over 1 acre.
? ? ? ? 48,653
? ? 25,394
? ? (2) Farms over 1, not over 5 acres.
? ? ? ? 82,037
? ? ? ? 288,916
? ? ? (3) Farms over 5, not over 15 acres.
? ? ? ? 176,368
? ? 1,836,310
? ? (4) Farms over 15, not over 30 acres.
? ? ? 136,578
? ? ? 3,051,343
? ? (5) Farms over 30, not over 50 acres.
? ? ? ? 71,961
? ? ? ? 2,906,274
? ? ? (6) Farms over 50, not over 100 acres.
? ? ? ? ? 54,247
? ? ? 3,983,880
? ? ? (7) Farms over 100 acres.
? ? ? ? 31,927
? ? 8,227,807
? ? (8) TOTAL AREA.
? ? ? ? -
? ? ? ? ? 26,319,924
? ? Centralisation has from 1851 to 1861 destroyed principally farms of the first three categories, under 1 and not over 15 acres. These above all must disappear. This gives 307,058
? 485 Chapter 25
--supernumerary? farmers, and reckoning the families the low average of 4 persons, 1,228,232 persons. On the extravagant supposition that, after the agricultural revolution is complete one- fourth of these are again absorbable, there remain for emigration 921,174 persons. Categories 4, 5, 6, of over 15 and not over 100 acres, are, as was known long since in England, too small for capitalistic cultivation of corn, and for sheep-breeding are almost vanishing quantities. On the same supposition as before, therefore, there are further 788,761 persons to emigrate; total, 1,709,532. And as l'appe? tit vient en mangeant, Rentroll's eyes will soon discover that Ireland, with 31/2 millions, is still always miserable, and miserable because she is overpopulated. Therefore her depopulation must go yet further, that thus she may fulfil her true destiny, that of an English sheep-walk and cattle-pasture. ? 141
Like all good things in this bad world, this profitable method has its drawbacks. With the accumulation of rents in Ireland, the accumulation of the Irish in America keeps pace. The Irishman, banished by sheep and ox, re-appears on the other side of the ocean as a Fenian, and face to face with the old queen of the seas rises, threatening and more threatening, the young giant Republic:
Acerba fata Romanos agunt Scelusque fraternae necis.
[A cruel fate torments the Romans, and the crime of fratricide]
1 Karl Marx, l. c. , --A e? galite? d'oppression des masses, plus un pays a de prole? taires et plus il est riche. ? (Colins, --L'Economie Politique. Source des Re? volutions et des Utopies, pre? tendues Socialistes. ? Paris, 1857, t. III. , p. 331. ) Our --prole? tarian? is economically none other than the wage labourer, who produces and increases capital, and is thrown out on the streets, as soon as he is superfluous for the needs of aggrandisement of --Monsieur capital,? as Pecqueur calls this person. --The sickly proletarian of the primitive forest,? is a pretty Roscherian fancy. The primitive forester is owner of the primitive forest, and uses the primitive forest as his property with the freedom of an orang-outang. He is not, therefore, a proletarian. This would only be the case, if the primitive forest exploited him, instead of being exploited by him. As far as his health is concerned, such a man would well bear comparison, not only with the modern proletarian, but also with the syphilitic and scrofulous upper classes. But, no doubt, Herr Wilhelm Roscher, by --primitive forest? means his native heath of Lu? neburg.
2 John Bellers, l. c. , p. 2.
3 Bernard de Mandeville: --The Fable of the Bees,? 5th edition, London, 1728. Remarks, pp. 212, 213, 328. --Temperate living and constant employment is the direct road, for the poor, to rational happiness? [by which he most probably means long working days and little means of subsistence], --and to riches and strength for the state? (viz. , for the landlords, capitalists, and their political dignitaries and agents). (--An Essay on Trade and Commerce,? London, 1770, p. 54. )
4 Eden should have asked, whose creatures then are --the civil institutions"? From his standpoint of juridical illusion, he does not regard the law as a product of the material relations of production, but conversely the relations of production as products of the law. Linguet overthrew Montesquieu's illusory --Esprit des lois? with one word: -- L'esprit des lois, c'est la proprie? te? . ? [The spirit of laws is property]
5 Eden, l. c. , Vol. 1, book I. , chapter 1, pp. 1, 2, and preface, p. xx.
6 If the reader reminds me of Malthus, whose --Essay on Population? appeared in 1798, I remind him that this work in its first form is nothing more than a schoolboyish, superficial plagiary of De Poe, Sir James Steuart, Townsend, Franklin, Wallace, &c. , and does not contain a single sentence thought out
? ? 486 Chapter 25
by himself. The great sensation this pamphlet caused, was due solely to party interest. The French Revolution had found passionate defenders in the United Kingdom; the --principle of population,? slowly worked out in the eighteenth century, and then, in the midst of a great social crisis, proclaimed with drums and trumpets as the infallible antidote to the teachings of Condorcet, &c. , was greeted with jubilance by the English oligarchy as the great destroyer of all hankerings after human development. Malthus, hugely astonished at his success, gave himself to stuffing into his book materials superficially compiled, and adding to it new matter, not discovered but annexed by him.
Note further: Although Malthus was a parson of the English State Church, he had taken the monastic vow of celibacy -- one of the conditions of holding a Fellowship in Protestant Cambridge University: --Socios collegiorum maritos esse non permittimus, sed statim postquam quis uxorem duxerit socius collegii desinat esse. ? (--Reports of Cambridge University Commission,? p. 172. ) This circumstance favourably distinguishes Malthus from the other Protestant parsons, who have shuffled off the command enjoining celibacy of the priesthood and have taken, --Be fruitful and multiply,? as their special Biblical mission in such a degree that they generally contribute to the increase of population to a really unbecoming extent, whilst they preach at the same time to the labourers the --principle of population. ? It is characteristic that the economic fall of man, the Adam's apple, the urgent appetite, --the checks which tend to blunt the shafts of Cupid,? as Parson Townsend waggishly puts it, that this delicate question was and is monopolised by the Reverends of Protestant Theology, or rather of the Protestant Church. With the exception of the Venetian monk, Ortes, an original and clever writer, most of the population theory teachers are Protestant parsons. For instance, Bruckner, --The? orie du Syste`me animal,? Leyde, 1767, in which the whole subject of the modern population theory is exhausted, and to which the passing quarrel between Quesnay and his pupil, the elder Mirabeau, fumished ideas on the same topic; then Parson Wallace, Parson Townsend, Parson Malthus and his pupil, the arch-Parson Thomas Chalmers, to say nothing of lesser reverend scribblers in this line. Originally, Political Economy was studied by philosophers like Hobbes, Locke, Hume; by businessmen and statesmen, like Thomas More, Temple, Sully, De Witt, North, Law, Vanderlint, Cantillon, Franklin; and especially, and with the greatest success, by medical men like Petty, Barbon, Mandeville, Quesnay. Even in the middle of the eighteenth century, the Rev. Mr. Tucker, a notable economist of his time, excused himself for meddling with the things of Mammon. Later on, and in truth with this very --Principle of population,? struck the hour of the Protestant parsons. Petty, who regarded the population as the basis of wealth, and was, like Adam Smith, an outspoken foe to parsons, says, as if he had a presentiment of their bungling interference, --that Religion best flourishes when the Priests are most mortified, as was before said of the Law, which best flourisheth when lawyers have least to do. ? He advises the Protestant priests, therefore, if they, once for all, will not follow the Apostle Paul and --mortify? themselves by celibacy, --not to breed more Churchmen than the Benefices, as they now stand shared out, will receive, that is to say, if there be places for about twelve thousand in England and Wales, it will not be safe to breed up 24,000 ministers, for then the twelve thousand which are unprovided for, will seek ways how to get themselves a livelihood, which they cannot do more easily than by persuading the people that the twelve thousand incumbents do poison or starve their souls, and misguide them in their way to Heaven. ? (Petty: --A Treatise of Taxes and Contributions,? London, 1667, p. 57. ) Adam Smith's position with the Protestant priesthood of his time is shown by the following. In --A Letter to A. Smith, L. L. D. On the Life, Death, and Philosophy of his Friend, David Hume. By one of the People called Christians,? 4th Edition, Oxford, 1784, Dr. Horne, Bishop of Norwich, reproves Adam Smith, because in a published letter to Mr. Strahan, he --embalmed his friend David? (sc. Hume); because he told the world how --Hume amused himself on his deathbed with Lucian and Whist,? and because he even had the impudence to write of Hume: --I have always considered him, both in his life-time and since his death, as approaching as nearly to the idea of a perfectly wise and virtuous man, as, perhaps, the nature of human frailty will permit. ? The bishop cries out, in a passion: --Is it right in you, Sir, to hold up to our view as ? perfectly wise and
? ? 487 Chapter 25
virtuous,' the character and conduct of one, who seems to have been possessed with an incurable antipathy to all that is called Religion; and who strained every nerve to explode, suppress and extirpate the spirit of it among men, that its very name, if he could effect it, might no more be had in remembrance? ? (l. c. , p. 8. ) --But let not the lovers of truth be discouraged. Atheism cannot be of long continuance. ? (P. 17. ) Adam Smith, --had the atrocious wickedness to propagate atheism through the land (viz. , by his --Theory of Moral Sentiments? ). Upon the whole, Doctor, your meaning is good; but I think you will not succeed this time. You would persuade us, by the example of David Hume, Esq. , that atheism is the only cordial for low spirits, and the proper antidote against the fear of death. . . . You may smile over Babylon in ruins and congratulate the hardened Pharaoh on his overthrow in the Red Sea. ? (l. c. , pp. 21, 22. ) One orthodox individual, amongst Adam Smith's college friends, writes after his death: --Smith's well-placed affection for Hume . . . hindered him from being a Christian. . . . When he met with honest men whom he liked . . . he would believe almost anything they said. Had he been a friend of the worthy ingenious Horrox he would have believed that the moon some times disappeared in a clear sky without the interposition of a cloud. . . . He approached to republicanism in his political principles. ? (--The Bee. ? By James Anderson, 18 Vols. , Vol. 3, pp. 166, 165, Edinburgh, 1791-93. ) Parson Thomas Chalmers has his suspicions as to Adam Smith having invented the category of --unproductive labourers,? solely for the Protestant parsons, in spite of their blessed work in the vineyard of the Lord.
7 --The limit, however, to the employment of both the operative and the labourer is the same; namely, the possibility of the employer realising a profit on the produce of their industry. If the rate of wages is such as to reduce the master's gains below the average profit of capital, he will cease to employ them, or he will only employ them on condition of submission to a reduction of wages. ? (John Wade, l. c. , p. 241. )
8 Note by the Institute of Marxism-Leninism to the Russian edition: The MS in the first case says --little? and in the second case --much? ; the correction has been introduced according to the authorised French translation.
9 Cf. Karl Marx: --Zur Kritik der Politischen Oekonomie,? pp. 166, seq.
10 --If we now return to our first inquiry, wherein it was shown that capital itself is only the result of human labour. . . it seems quite incomprehensible that man can have fallen under the domination of capital, his own product; can be subordinated to it; and as in reality this is beyond dispute the case, involuntarily the question arises: How has the labourer been able to pass from being master of capital -- as its creator -- to being its slave? ? (Von Thu? nen, --Der isolierte Staat? Part ii. , Section ii. , Rostock, 1863, pp. 5, 6. ) It is Thu? nen's merit to have asked this question. His answer is simply childish.
11 Adam Smith, --Enquiry into the Nature of . . . ? , Volume I.
12 Note in the 4th German edition. -- The latest English and American --trusts? are already striving to attain this goal by attempting to unite at least all the large-scale concerns in one branch of industry into one great joint-stock company with a practical monopoly. F. E.
13 Note in the 3rd German edition. -- In Marx's copy there is here the marginal note: --Here note for working out later; if the extension is only quantitative, then for a greater and a smaller capital in the same branch of business the profits are as the magnitudes of the capitals advanced. If the quantitative extension induces qualitative change, then the rate of profit on the larger capital rises simultaneously. ? F. E.
14 The census of England and Wales shows: all persons employed in agriculture (landlords, farmers, gardeners, shepherds, &c. , included): 1851, 2,011,447; 1861, 1,924,110. Fall, 87,337. Worsted manufacture: 1851, 102,714 persons; 1861, 79,242. Silk weaving: 1851, 111,940; 1861, 101,678. Calico-printing: 1851, 12,098; 1861, 12,556. A small rise that, in the face of the enormous extension
? ? 488 Chapter 25
of this industry and implying a great fall proportionally in the number of labourers employed. Hat- making: 1851, 15,957; 1861, 13,814. Straw-hat and bonnet-making: 1851, 20,393; 1861, 18,176. Malting: 1851, 10,566; 1861, 10,677. Chandlery, 1851, 4,949; 1861, 4,686. This fall is due, besides other causes, to the increase in lighting by gas. Comb-making -- 1851, 2,038; 1861, 1,478. Sawyers: 1851, 30,552; 1861, 31,647 -- a small rise in consequence of the increase of sawing-machines. Nail- making: 1851, 26,940; 1861, 26,130 -- fall in consequence of the competition of machinery. Tin and copper-mining: 1851, 31,360; 1861, 32,041. On the other hand: Cotton-spinning and weaving: 1851, 371,777; 1861, 456,646. Coal-mining: 1851, 183,389, 1861, 246,613, --The increase of labourers is generally greatest, since 1851, in such branches of industry in which machinery has not up to the present been employed with success. ? (Census of England and Wales for 1861. Vol. Ill. London, 1863, p. 36. )
15 Added in the 4th German edition. -- The law of progressive diminution of the relative magnitude of variable capital and its effect on the condition of the class of wage workers is conjectured rather than understood by some of the prominent economists of the classical school. The greatest service was rendered here by John Barton, although he, like all the rest, lumps together constant and fixed capital, variable and circulating capital. He says:
--The demand for labour depends on the increase of circulating, and not of fixed capital. Were it true that the proportion between these two sorts of capital is the same at all times, and in all circumstances, then, indeed, it follows that the number of labourers employed is in proportion to the wealth of the state. But such a proposition has not the semblance of probability. As arts are cultivated, and civilisation is extended, fixed capital bears a larger and larger proportion to circulating capital. The amount of fixed capital employed in the production of a piece of British muslin is at least a hundred, probably a thousand times greater than that employed in a similar piece of Indian muslin. And the proportion of circulating capital is a hundred or thousand times less . . . the whole of the annual savings, added to the fixed capital, would have no effect in increasing the demand for labour. ? (John Barton, --Observations on the Circumstances which Influence the Condition of the Labouring Classes of Society. ? London, 1817, pp. 16, 17. ) --The same cause which may increase the net revenue of the country may at the same time render the population redundant, and deteriorate the condition of the labourer. ? (Ricardo, l. c. , p. 469. ) With increase of capital, --the demand [for labour] will be in a diminishing ratio. ? (Ibid. , p. 480, Note. ) --The amount of capital devoted to the maintenance of labour may vary, independently of any changes in the whole amount of capital. . . . Great fluctuations in the amount of employment, and great suffering may become more frequent as capital itself becomes more plentiful. ? (Richard Jones, --An Introductory Lecture on Pol.
? ? ? NUMBER AND EXTENT OF FARMS IN IRELAND IN 1864 140
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? No.
? ? ? ? Acres
? ? ? (1) Farms not over 1 acre.
? ? ? ? 48,653
? ? 25,394
? ? (2) Farms over 1, not over 5 acres.
? ? ? ? 82,037
? ? ? ? 288,916
? ? ? (3) Farms over 5, not over 15 acres.
? ? ? ? 176,368
? ? 1,836,310
? ? (4) Farms over 15, not over 30 acres.
? ? ? 136,578
? ? ? 3,051,343
? ? (5) Farms over 30, not over 50 acres.
? ? ? ? 71,961
? ? ? ? 2,906,274
? ? ? (6) Farms over 50, not over 100 acres.
? ? ? ? ? 54,247
? ? ? 3,983,880
? ? ? (7) Farms over 100 acres.
? ? ? ? 31,927
? ? 8,227,807
? ? (8) TOTAL AREA.
? ? ? ? -
? ? ? ? ? 26,319,924
? ? Centralisation has from 1851 to 1861 destroyed principally farms of the first three categories, under 1 and not over 15 acres. These above all must disappear. This gives 307,058
? 485 Chapter 25
--supernumerary? farmers, and reckoning the families the low average of 4 persons, 1,228,232 persons. On the extravagant supposition that, after the agricultural revolution is complete one- fourth of these are again absorbable, there remain for emigration 921,174 persons. Categories 4, 5, 6, of over 15 and not over 100 acres, are, as was known long since in England, too small for capitalistic cultivation of corn, and for sheep-breeding are almost vanishing quantities. On the same supposition as before, therefore, there are further 788,761 persons to emigrate; total, 1,709,532. And as l'appe? tit vient en mangeant, Rentroll's eyes will soon discover that Ireland, with 31/2 millions, is still always miserable, and miserable because she is overpopulated. Therefore her depopulation must go yet further, that thus she may fulfil her true destiny, that of an English sheep-walk and cattle-pasture. ? 141
Like all good things in this bad world, this profitable method has its drawbacks. With the accumulation of rents in Ireland, the accumulation of the Irish in America keeps pace. The Irishman, banished by sheep and ox, re-appears on the other side of the ocean as a Fenian, and face to face with the old queen of the seas rises, threatening and more threatening, the young giant Republic:
Acerba fata Romanos agunt Scelusque fraternae necis.
[A cruel fate torments the Romans, and the crime of fratricide]
1 Karl Marx, l. c. , --A e? galite? d'oppression des masses, plus un pays a de prole? taires et plus il est riche. ? (Colins, --L'Economie Politique. Source des Re? volutions et des Utopies, pre? tendues Socialistes. ? Paris, 1857, t. III. , p. 331. ) Our --prole? tarian? is economically none other than the wage labourer, who produces and increases capital, and is thrown out on the streets, as soon as he is superfluous for the needs of aggrandisement of --Monsieur capital,? as Pecqueur calls this person. --The sickly proletarian of the primitive forest,? is a pretty Roscherian fancy. The primitive forester is owner of the primitive forest, and uses the primitive forest as his property with the freedom of an orang-outang. He is not, therefore, a proletarian. This would only be the case, if the primitive forest exploited him, instead of being exploited by him. As far as his health is concerned, such a man would well bear comparison, not only with the modern proletarian, but also with the syphilitic and scrofulous upper classes. But, no doubt, Herr Wilhelm Roscher, by --primitive forest? means his native heath of Lu? neburg.
2 John Bellers, l. c. , p. 2.
3 Bernard de Mandeville: --The Fable of the Bees,? 5th edition, London, 1728. Remarks, pp. 212, 213, 328. --Temperate living and constant employment is the direct road, for the poor, to rational happiness? [by which he most probably means long working days and little means of subsistence], --and to riches and strength for the state? (viz. , for the landlords, capitalists, and their political dignitaries and agents). (--An Essay on Trade and Commerce,? London, 1770, p. 54. )
4 Eden should have asked, whose creatures then are --the civil institutions"? From his standpoint of juridical illusion, he does not regard the law as a product of the material relations of production, but conversely the relations of production as products of the law. Linguet overthrew Montesquieu's illusory --Esprit des lois? with one word: -- L'esprit des lois, c'est la proprie? te? . ? [The spirit of laws is property]
5 Eden, l. c. , Vol. 1, book I. , chapter 1, pp. 1, 2, and preface, p. xx.
6 If the reader reminds me of Malthus, whose --Essay on Population? appeared in 1798, I remind him that this work in its first form is nothing more than a schoolboyish, superficial plagiary of De Poe, Sir James Steuart, Townsend, Franklin, Wallace, &c. , and does not contain a single sentence thought out
? ? 486 Chapter 25
by himself. The great sensation this pamphlet caused, was due solely to party interest. The French Revolution had found passionate defenders in the United Kingdom; the --principle of population,? slowly worked out in the eighteenth century, and then, in the midst of a great social crisis, proclaimed with drums and trumpets as the infallible antidote to the teachings of Condorcet, &c. , was greeted with jubilance by the English oligarchy as the great destroyer of all hankerings after human development. Malthus, hugely astonished at his success, gave himself to stuffing into his book materials superficially compiled, and adding to it new matter, not discovered but annexed by him.
Note further: Although Malthus was a parson of the English State Church, he had taken the monastic vow of celibacy -- one of the conditions of holding a Fellowship in Protestant Cambridge University: --Socios collegiorum maritos esse non permittimus, sed statim postquam quis uxorem duxerit socius collegii desinat esse. ? (--Reports of Cambridge University Commission,? p. 172. ) This circumstance favourably distinguishes Malthus from the other Protestant parsons, who have shuffled off the command enjoining celibacy of the priesthood and have taken, --Be fruitful and multiply,? as their special Biblical mission in such a degree that they generally contribute to the increase of population to a really unbecoming extent, whilst they preach at the same time to the labourers the --principle of population. ? It is characteristic that the economic fall of man, the Adam's apple, the urgent appetite, --the checks which tend to blunt the shafts of Cupid,? as Parson Townsend waggishly puts it, that this delicate question was and is monopolised by the Reverends of Protestant Theology, or rather of the Protestant Church. With the exception of the Venetian monk, Ortes, an original and clever writer, most of the population theory teachers are Protestant parsons. For instance, Bruckner, --The? orie du Syste`me animal,? Leyde, 1767, in which the whole subject of the modern population theory is exhausted, and to which the passing quarrel between Quesnay and his pupil, the elder Mirabeau, fumished ideas on the same topic; then Parson Wallace, Parson Townsend, Parson Malthus and his pupil, the arch-Parson Thomas Chalmers, to say nothing of lesser reverend scribblers in this line. Originally, Political Economy was studied by philosophers like Hobbes, Locke, Hume; by businessmen and statesmen, like Thomas More, Temple, Sully, De Witt, North, Law, Vanderlint, Cantillon, Franklin; and especially, and with the greatest success, by medical men like Petty, Barbon, Mandeville, Quesnay. Even in the middle of the eighteenth century, the Rev. Mr. Tucker, a notable economist of his time, excused himself for meddling with the things of Mammon. Later on, and in truth with this very --Principle of population,? struck the hour of the Protestant parsons. Petty, who regarded the population as the basis of wealth, and was, like Adam Smith, an outspoken foe to parsons, says, as if he had a presentiment of their bungling interference, --that Religion best flourishes when the Priests are most mortified, as was before said of the Law, which best flourisheth when lawyers have least to do. ? He advises the Protestant priests, therefore, if they, once for all, will not follow the Apostle Paul and --mortify? themselves by celibacy, --not to breed more Churchmen than the Benefices, as they now stand shared out, will receive, that is to say, if there be places for about twelve thousand in England and Wales, it will not be safe to breed up 24,000 ministers, for then the twelve thousand which are unprovided for, will seek ways how to get themselves a livelihood, which they cannot do more easily than by persuading the people that the twelve thousand incumbents do poison or starve their souls, and misguide them in their way to Heaven. ? (Petty: --A Treatise of Taxes and Contributions,? London, 1667, p. 57. ) Adam Smith's position with the Protestant priesthood of his time is shown by the following. In --A Letter to A. Smith, L. L. D. On the Life, Death, and Philosophy of his Friend, David Hume. By one of the People called Christians,? 4th Edition, Oxford, 1784, Dr. Horne, Bishop of Norwich, reproves Adam Smith, because in a published letter to Mr. Strahan, he --embalmed his friend David? (sc. Hume); because he told the world how --Hume amused himself on his deathbed with Lucian and Whist,? and because he even had the impudence to write of Hume: --I have always considered him, both in his life-time and since his death, as approaching as nearly to the idea of a perfectly wise and virtuous man, as, perhaps, the nature of human frailty will permit. ? The bishop cries out, in a passion: --Is it right in you, Sir, to hold up to our view as ? perfectly wise and
? ? 487 Chapter 25
virtuous,' the character and conduct of one, who seems to have been possessed with an incurable antipathy to all that is called Religion; and who strained every nerve to explode, suppress and extirpate the spirit of it among men, that its very name, if he could effect it, might no more be had in remembrance? ? (l. c. , p. 8. ) --But let not the lovers of truth be discouraged. Atheism cannot be of long continuance. ? (P. 17. ) Adam Smith, --had the atrocious wickedness to propagate atheism through the land (viz. , by his --Theory of Moral Sentiments? ). Upon the whole, Doctor, your meaning is good; but I think you will not succeed this time. You would persuade us, by the example of David Hume, Esq. , that atheism is the only cordial for low spirits, and the proper antidote against the fear of death. . . . You may smile over Babylon in ruins and congratulate the hardened Pharaoh on his overthrow in the Red Sea. ? (l. c. , pp. 21, 22. ) One orthodox individual, amongst Adam Smith's college friends, writes after his death: --Smith's well-placed affection for Hume . . . hindered him from being a Christian. . . . When he met with honest men whom he liked . . . he would believe almost anything they said. Had he been a friend of the worthy ingenious Horrox he would have believed that the moon some times disappeared in a clear sky without the interposition of a cloud. . . . He approached to republicanism in his political principles. ? (--The Bee. ? By James Anderson, 18 Vols. , Vol. 3, pp. 166, 165, Edinburgh, 1791-93. ) Parson Thomas Chalmers has his suspicions as to Adam Smith having invented the category of --unproductive labourers,? solely for the Protestant parsons, in spite of their blessed work in the vineyard of the Lord.
7 --The limit, however, to the employment of both the operative and the labourer is the same; namely, the possibility of the employer realising a profit on the produce of their industry. If the rate of wages is such as to reduce the master's gains below the average profit of capital, he will cease to employ them, or he will only employ them on condition of submission to a reduction of wages. ? (John Wade, l. c. , p. 241. )
8 Note by the Institute of Marxism-Leninism to the Russian edition: The MS in the first case says --little? and in the second case --much? ; the correction has been introduced according to the authorised French translation.
9 Cf. Karl Marx: --Zur Kritik der Politischen Oekonomie,? pp. 166, seq.
10 --If we now return to our first inquiry, wherein it was shown that capital itself is only the result of human labour. . . it seems quite incomprehensible that man can have fallen under the domination of capital, his own product; can be subordinated to it; and as in reality this is beyond dispute the case, involuntarily the question arises: How has the labourer been able to pass from being master of capital -- as its creator -- to being its slave? ? (Von Thu? nen, --Der isolierte Staat? Part ii. , Section ii. , Rostock, 1863, pp. 5, 6. ) It is Thu? nen's merit to have asked this question. His answer is simply childish.
11 Adam Smith, --Enquiry into the Nature of . . . ? , Volume I.
12 Note in the 4th German edition. -- The latest English and American --trusts? are already striving to attain this goal by attempting to unite at least all the large-scale concerns in one branch of industry into one great joint-stock company with a practical monopoly. F. E.
13 Note in the 3rd German edition. -- In Marx's copy there is here the marginal note: --Here note for working out later; if the extension is only quantitative, then for a greater and a smaller capital in the same branch of business the profits are as the magnitudes of the capitals advanced. If the quantitative extension induces qualitative change, then the rate of profit on the larger capital rises simultaneously. ? F. E.
14 The census of England and Wales shows: all persons employed in agriculture (landlords, farmers, gardeners, shepherds, &c. , included): 1851, 2,011,447; 1861, 1,924,110. Fall, 87,337. Worsted manufacture: 1851, 102,714 persons; 1861, 79,242. Silk weaving: 1851, 111,940; 1861, 101,678. Calico-printing: 1851, 12,098; 1861, 12,556. A small rise that, in the face of the enormous extension
? ? 488 Chapter 25
of this industry and implying a great fall proportionally in the number of labourers employed. Hat- making: 1851, 15,957; 1861, 13,814. Straw-hat and bonnet-making: 1851, 20,393; 1861, 18,176. Malting: 1851, 10,566; 1861, 10,677. Chandlery, 1851, 4,949; 1861, 4,686. This fall is due, besides other causes, to the increase in lighting by gas. Comb-making -- 1851, 2,038; 1861, 1,478. Sawyers: 1851, 30,552; 1861, 31,647 -- a small rise in consequence of the increase of sawing-machines. Nail- making: 1851, 26,940; 1861, 26,130 -- fall in consequence of the competition of machinery. Tin and copper-mining: 1851, 31,360; 1861, 32,041. On the other hand: Cotton-spinning and weaving: 1851, 371,777; 1861, 456,646. Coal-mining: 1851, 183,389, 1861, 246,613, --The increase of labourers is generally greatest, since 1851, in such branches of industry in which machinery has not up to the present been employed with success. ? (Census of England and Wales for 1861. Vol. Ill. London, 1863, p. 36. )
15 Added in the 4th German edition. -- The law of progressive diminution of the relative magnitude of variable capital and its effect on the condition of the class of wage workers is conjectured rather than understood by some of the prominent economists of the classical school. The greatest service was rendered here by John Barton, although he, like all the rest, lumps together constant and fixed capital, variable and circulating capital. He says:
--The demand for labour depends on the increase of circulating, and not of fixed capital. Were it true that the proportion between these two sorts of capital is the same at all times, and in all circumstances, then, indeed, it follows that the number of labourers employed is in proportion to the wealth of the state. But such a proposition has not the semblance of probability. As arts are cultivated, and civilisation is extended, fixed capital bears a larger and larger proportion to circulating capital. The amount of fixed capital employed in the production of a piece of British muslin is at least a hundred, probably a thousand times greater than that employed in a similar piece of Indian muslin. And the proportion of circulating capital is a hundred or thousand times less . . . the whole of the annual savings, added to the fixed capital, would have no effect in increasing the demand for labour. ? (John Barton, --Observations on the Circumstances which Influence the Condition of the Labouring Classes of Society. ? London, 1817, pp. 16, 17. ) --The same cause which may increase the net revenue of the country may at the same time render the population redundant, and deteriorate the condition of the labourer. ? (Ricardo, l. c. , p. 469. ) With increase of capital, --the demand [for labour] will be in a diminishing ratio. ? (Ibid. , p. 480, Note. ) --The amount of capital devoted to the maintenance of labour may vary, independently of any changes in the whole amount of capital. . . . Great fluctuations in the amount of employment, and great suffering may become more frequent as capital itself becomes more plentiful. ? (Richard Jones, --An Introductory Lecture on Pol.
