50 Ramazzini, professor of
practical
medicine at Padua, published in 1713 his work --De morbis artificum,?
Marx - Capital-Volume-I
i, ch.
i.
) The celebrated passage in the same chapter that begins with the words, --Observe the accommodation of the most common artificer or day-labourer in a civilised and thriving country,?
&c.
, and then proceeds to depict what an enormous number and variety of industries contribute to the satisfaction of the wants of an ordinary labourer, is copied almost word for word from B.
de Mandeville's Remarks to his --Fable of the Bees, or Private Vices, Publick Benefits.
?
(First ed.
, without the remarks, 1706; with the remarks, 1714.
)
34 --There is no longer anything which we can call the natural reward of individual labour. Each labourer produces only some part of a whole, and each part, having no value or utility in itself, there is nothing on which the labourer can seize, and say: It is my product, this I will keep to myself. ? (--Labour Defended against the Claims of Capital. ? Lond. , 1825, p. 25. ) The author of this admirable work is the Th. Hodgskin I have already cited.
35 This distinction between division of labour in society and in manufacture, was practically illustrated to the Yankees. One of the new taxes devised at Washington during the civil war, was the duty of 6% --on all industrial products. ? Question: What is an industrial product? Answer of the legislature: A thing is produced --when it is made,? and it is made when it is ready for sale. Now, for one example out of many. The New York and Philadelphia manufacturers had previously been in the habit of --making? umbrellas with all their belongings. But since an umbrella is a mixtum compositum of very heterogeneous parts, by degrees these parts became the products of various separate industries, carried on independently in different places. They entered as separate commodities into the umbrella manufactory, where they were fitted together. The Yankees have given to articles thus fitted together, the name of --assembled articles,? a name they deserve, for being an assemblage of taxes. Thus the umbrella --assembles,? first, 6% on the price of each of its elements, and a further 6% on its own total price.
36 --On peut. . . e? tablir en re`gle ge? ne? rale, que moins l'autorite? pre? side a` la division du travail dans l'inte? rieur de la socie? te? , plus la division du travail se de? veloppe dans l'inte? rieur de l'atelier, et plus elle y est soumise a` l'autorite? d'un seul. Ainsi l'autorite? dans l'atelier et celle dans la socie? te? , par rapport a` la division du travail, sont en raison inverse l'une de l'autre. ? [It can . . . be laid down as a general rule that the less authority presides over the division of labour inside society, the more the division of labour develops inside the workshop, and the more it is subjected there to the authority of a single person. Thus authority in the workshop and authority in society in relation to the division of labour, are in inverse ratio to each other] (Karl Marx, --Mise`re,? &c. , pp. 130-131. )
37 Lieut. -Col. Mark Wilks: --Historical Sketches of the South of India. ? Lond. , 1810-17, v. I. , pp. 118- 20. A good description of the various forms of the Indian communities is to be found in George Campbell's --Modern India. ? Lond. , 1852.
38 --Under this simple form . . . the inhabitants of the country have lived from time immemorial. The boundaries of the villages have been but seldom altered; and though the villages themselves have been sometimes injured, and even desolated by war, famine, and disease, the same name, the same limits, the same interests, and even the same families, have continued for ages. The inhabitants give themselves no trouble about the breaking up and division of kingdoms; while the village remains entire, they care not to what power it is transferred, or to what sovereign it devolves; its internal economy remains unchanged. ? (Th. Stamford Raffles, late Lieut. Gov. of Java: --The History of Java. ? Lond. , 1817, Vol. I. , p. 285. )
? ? 253 Chapter 14
39 --It is not sufficient that the capital? (the writer should have said the necessary means of subsistence and of production) --required for the subdivision of handicrafts should be in readiness in the society: it must also be accumulated in the hands of the employers in sufficiently large quantities to enable them to conduct their operations on a large scale. . . . The more the division increases, the more does the constant employment of a given number of labourers require a greater outlay of capital in tools, raw material, &c. ? (Storch: --Cours d'Econ. Polit. ? Paris Ed. , t. I. , pp. 250, 251. ) --La concentration des instruments de production et la division du travail sont aussi inse? parables l'une de l'autre que le sont, dans le re? gime politique, la concentration des pouvoirs publics et la division des inte? re^ts prive? s. ? [The concentration of the instruments of production and the division of labour are as inseparable one from the other, as are, in the political sphere, the concentration of public powers and the division of private interests. ] (Karl Marx, l. c. , p. 134. )
40 Dugald Stewart calls manufacturing labourers --living automatons . . . employed in the details of the work. ? (I. c. , p. 318. )
41 In corals, each individual is, in fact, the stomach of the whole group; but it supplies the group with nourishment, instead of, like the Roman patrician, withdrawing it.
42 --L'ouvrier qui porte dans ses bras tout un me? tier, peut aller partout exercer son industrie et trouver des moyens de subsister: l'autre (the manufacturing labourer) n'est qu'un accessoire qui, se? pare? de ses confre`res, n'a plus ni capacite? , ni inde? pendance, et qui se trouve force d'accepter la loi qu'on juge a` propos de lui imposer. ? [The worker who is the master of a whole craft can work and find the means of subsistence anywhere; the other (the manufacturing labourer) is only an appendage who, when he is separated from his fellows, possesses neither capability nor independence, and finds himself forced to accept any law it is thought fit to impose] (Storch, l. c. , Petersb. edit. , 1815, t. I. , p. 204. )
43 A. Ferguson, l. c. , p. 281: --The former may have gained what the other has lost. ?
44 --The man of knowledge and the productive labourer come to be widely divided from each other, and knowledge, instead of remaining the handmaid of labour in the hand of the labourer to increase his productive powers . . . has almost everywhere arrayed itself against labour . . . systematically deluding and leading them (the labourers) astray in order to render their muscular powers entirely mechanical and obedient. ? (W. Thompson: --An Inquiry into the Principles of the Distribution of Wealth. ? London, 1824, p. 274. )
45 A. Ferguson, l. c. , p. 280.
46 J. D. Tuckett: --A History of the Past and Present State of the Labouring Population. ? Lond. , 1846.
47 A. Smith: --Wealth of Nations,? Bk. v. , ch. i, art. ii. Being a pupil of A. Ferguson who showed the disadvantageous effects of division of labour, Adam Smith was perfectly clear on this point. In the introduction to his work, where he ex professo praises division of labour, he indicates only in a cursory manner that it is the source of social inequalities. It is not till the 5th Book, on the Revenue of the State, that he reproduces Ferguson. In my --Mise`re de la Philosophie,? I have sufficiently explained the historical connexion between Ferguson, A. Smith, Lemontey, and Say, as regards their criticisms of Division of Labour, and have shown, for the first time, that Division of Labour as practised in manufactures, is a specific form of the capitalist mode of production.
48 Ferguson had already said, l. c. , p. 281: --And thinking itself, in this age of separations, may become a peculiar craft. ?
49 G. Garnier, vol. V. of his translation of A. Smith, pp. 4-5.
50 Ramazzini, professor of practical medicine at Padua, published in 1713 his work --De morbis artificum,? which was translated into French 1781, reprinted 1841 in the --Encyclope? die des Sciences Me? dicales. 7me Dis. Auteurs Classiques. ? The period of Modern Mechanical Industry has, of course, very much enlarged his catalogue of labour's diseases. See --Hygie`ne physique et morale de l'ouvrier
? ? 254 Chapter 14
dans les grandes villes en ge? ne? ral et dans la ville de Lyon en particulier. Par le Dr. A. L. Fonteret, Paris, 1858,? and --Die Krankheiten, welche verschiednen Sta? nden, Altern und Geschlechtern eigenthu? mlich sind. 6 Vols. Ulm, 1860,? and others. In 1854 the Society of Arts appointed a Commission of Inquiry into industrial pathology. The list of documents collected by this commission is to be seen in the catalogue of the --Twickenham Economic Museum. ? Very important are the official --Reports on Public Health. ? See also Eduard Reich, M. D. --Ueber die Entartung des Menschen,? Erlangen, 1868.
51 (D. Urquhart: --Familiar Words. ? Lond. , 1855, p. 119. ) Hegel held very heretical views on division of labour. In his --Rechtsphilosophie? he says: --By well educated men we understand in the first instance, those who can do everything that others do. ?
52 The simple belief in the inventive genius exercised a priori by the individual capitalist in division of labour, exists now-a-days only among German professors, of the stamp of Herr Roscher, who, to recompense the capitalist from whose Jovian head division of labour sprang ready formed, dedicates to him --various wages? (diverse Arbeitslo? hne). The more or less extensive application of division of labour depends on length of purse, not on greatness of genius.
53 The older writers, like Petty and the anonymous author of --Advantages of the East India Trade,? bring out the capitalist character of division of labour as applied in manufacture more than A. Smith does.
54 Amongst the moderns may be excepted a few writers of the 18th century, like Beccaria and James Harris, who with regard to division of labour almost entirely follow the ancients. Thus, Beccaria: --Ciascuno prova coll'esperienza, che applicando la mano e l'ingegno sempre allo stesso genere di opere e di produtte, egli piu` facili, piu` abbondanti e migliori ne traca risultati, di quello che se ciascuno isolatamente le cose tutte a se necessarie soltanto facesse. . . . Dividendosi in tal maniera per la comune e privata utilita` gli uomini in varie classi e condizioni. ? [Everyone knows from experience that if the hands and the intelligence are always applied to the same kind of work and the same products, these will be produced more easily, in greater abundance, and in higher quality, than if each individual makes for himself all the things he needs . . . In this way, men are divided up into various classes and conditions, to their own advantage and to that of the commodity. ](Cesare Beccaria: --Elementi di Econ: Pubblica,? ed. Custodi, Parte Moderna, t. xi, p. 29. ) James Harris, afterwards Earl of Malmesbury, celebrated for the --Diaries? of his embassy at St. Petersburg, says in a note to his --Dialogue Concerning Happiness,? Lond. , 1741, reprinted afterwards in --Three Treatises, 3 Ed. , Lond. , 1772: --The whole argument to prove society natural (i. e. , by division of employments) . . . is taken from the second book of Plato's Republic. ?
55 Thus, in the Odyssey xiv. , 228, [--? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? For different men take joy in different works] and Archilochus in Sextus Empiricus, [--? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? . ? men differ as to things cheer their hearts]
56 [--? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? . ? He could do many works, but all of them badly - Homer] Every Athenian considered himself superior as a producer of commodities to a Spartan; for the latter in time of war had men enough at his disposal but could not command money, as Thucydides makes Pericles say in the speech inciting the Athenians to the Peloponnesian war: [--? ? ?
34 --There is no longer anything which we can call the natural reward of individual labour. Each labourer produces only some part of a whole, and each part, having no value or utility in itself, there is nothing on which the labourer can seize, and say: It is my product, this I will keep to myself. ? (--Labour Defended against the Claims of Capital. ? Lond. , 1825, p. 25. ) The author of this admirable work is the Th. Hodgskin I have already cited.
35 This distinction between division of labour in society and in manufacture, was practically illustrated to the Yankees. One of the new taxes devised at Washington during the civil war, was the duty of 6% --on all industrial products. ? Question: What is an industrial product? Answer of the legislature: A thing is produced --when it is made,? and it is made when it is ready for sale. Now, for one example out of many. The New York and Philadelphia manufacturers had previously been in the habit of --making? umbrellas with all their belongings. But since an umbrella is a mixtum compositum of very heterogeneous parts, by degrees these parts became the products of various separate industries, carried on independently in different places. They entered as separate commodities into the umbrella manufactory, where they were fitted together. The Yankees have given to articles thus fitted together, the name of --assembled articles,? a name they deserve, for being an assemblage of taxes. Thus the umbrella --assembles,? first, 6% on the price of each of its elements, and a further 6% on its own total price.
36 --On peut. . . e? tablir en re`gle ge? ne? rale, que moins l'autorite? pre? side a` la division du travail dans l'inte? rieur de la socie? te? , plus la division du travail se de? veloppe dans l'inte? rieur de l'atelier, et plus elle y est soumise a` l'autorite? d'un seul. Ainsi l'autorite? dans l'atelier et celle dans la socie? te? , par rapport a` la division du travail, sont en raison inverse l'une de l'autre. ? [It can . . . be laid down as a general rule that the less authority presides over the division of labour inside society, the more the division of labour develops inside the workshop, and the more it is subjected there to the authority of a single person. Thus authority in the workshop and authority in society in relation to the division of labour, are in inverse ratio to each other] (Karl Marx, --Mise`re,? &c. , pp. 130-131. )
37 Lieut. -Col. Mark Wilks: --Historical Sketches of the South of India. ? Lond. , 1810-17, v. I. , pp. 118- 20. A good description of the various forms of the Indian communities is to be found in George Campbell's --Modern India. ? Lond. , 1852.
38 --Under this simple form . . . the inhabitants of the country have lived from time immemorial. The boundaries of the villages have been but seldom altered; and though the villages themselves have been sometimes injured, and even desolated by war, famine, and disease, the same name, the same limits, the same interests, and even the same families, have continued for ages. The inhabitants give themselves no trouble about the breaking up and division of kingdoms; while the village remains entire, they care not to what power it is transferred, or to what sovereign it devolves; its internal economy remains unchanged. ? (Th. Stamford Raffles, late Lieut. Gov. of Java: --The History of Java. ? Lond. , 1817, Vol. I. , p. 285. )
? ? 253 Chapter 14
39 --It is not sufficient that the capital? (the writer should have said the necessary means of subsistence and of production) --required for the subdivision of handicrafts should be in readiness in the society: it must also be accumulated in the hands of the employers in sufficiently large quantities to enable them to conduct their operations on a large scale. . . . The more the division increases, the more does the constant employment of a given number of labourers require a greater outlay of capital in tools, raw material, &c. ? (Storch: --Cours d'Econ. Polit. ? Paris Ed. , t. I. , pp. 250, 251. ) --La concentration des instruments de production et la division du travail sont aussi inse? parables l'une de l'autre que le sont, dans le re? gime politique, la concentration des pouvoirs publics et la division des inte? re^ts prive? s. ? [The concentration of the instruments of production and the division of labour are as inseparable one from the other, as are, in the political sphere, the concentration of public powers and the division of private interests. ] (Karl Marx, l. c. , p. 134. )
40 Dugald Stewart calls manufacturing labourers --living automatons . . . employed in the details of the work. ? (I. c. , p. 318. )
41 In corals, each individual is, in fact, the stomach of the whole group; but it supplies the group with nourishment, instead of, like the Roman patrician, withdrawing it.
42 --L'ouvrier qui porte dans ses bras tout un me? tier, peut aller partout exercer son industrie et trouver des moyens de subsister: l'autre (the manufacturing labourer) n'est qu'un accessoire qui, se? pare? de ses confre`res, n'a plus ni capacite? , ni inde? pendance, et qui se trouve force d'accepter la loi qu'on juge a` propos de lui imposer. ? [The worker who is the master of a whole craft can work and find the means of subsistence anywhere; the other (the manufacturing labourer) is only an appendage who, when he is separated from his fellows, possesses neither capability nor independence, and finds himself forced to accept any law it is thought fit to impose] (Storch, l. c. , Petersb. edit. , 1815, t. I. , p. 204. )
43 A. Ferguson, l. c. , p. 281: --The former may have gained what the other has lost. ?
44 --The man of knowledge and the productive labourer come to be widely divided from each other, and knowledge, instead of remaining the handmaid of labour in the hand of the labourer to increase his productive powers . . . has almost everywhere arrayed itself against labour . . . systematically deluding and leading them (the labourers) astray in order to render their muscular powers entirely mechanical and obedient. ? (W. Thompson: --An Inquiry into the Principles of the Distribution of Wealth. ? London, 1824, p. 274. )
45 A. Ferguson, l. c. , p. 280.
46 J. D. Tuckett: --A History of the Past and Present State of the Labouring Population. ? Lond. , 1846.
47 A. Smith: --Wealth of Nations,? Bk. v. , ch. i, art. ii. Being a pupil of A. Ferguson who showed the disadvantageous effects of division of labour, Adam Smith was perfectly clear on this point. In the introduction to his work, where he ex professo praises division of labour, he indicates only in a cursory manner that it is the source of social inequalities. It is not till the 5th Book, on the Revenue of the State, that he reproduces Ferguson. In my --Mise`re de la Philosophie,? I have sufficiently explained the historical connexion between Ferguson, A. Smith, Lemontey, and Say, as regards their criticisms of Division of Labour, and have shown, for the first time, that Division of Labour as practised in manufactures, is a specific form of the capitalist mode of production.
48 Ferguson had already said, l. c. , p. 281: --And thinking itself, in this age of separations, may become a peculiar craft. ?
49 G. Garnier, vol. V. of his translation of A. Smith, pp. 4-5.
50 Ramazzini, professor of practical medicine at Padua, published in 1713 his work --De morbis artificum,? which was translated into French 1781, reprinted 1841 in the --Encyclope? die des Sciences Me? dicales. 7me Dis. Auteurs Classiques. ? The period of Modern Mechanical Industry has, of course, very much enlarged his catalogue of labour's diseases. See --Hygie`ne physique et morale de l'ouvrier
? ? 254 Chapter 14
dans les grandes villes en ge? ne? ral et dans la ville de Lyon en particulier. Par le Dr. A. L. Fonteret, Paris, 1858,? and --Die Krankheiten, welche verschiednen Sta? nden, Altern und Geschlechtern eigenthu? mlich sind. 6 Vols. Ulm, 1860,? and others. In 1854 the Society of Arts appointed a Commission of Inquiry into industrial pathology. The list of documents collected by this commission is to be seen in the catalogue of the --Twickenham Economic Museum. ? Very important are the official --Reports on Public Health. ? See also Eduard Reich, M. D. --Ueber die Entartung des Menschen,? Erlangen, 1868.
51 (D. Urquhart: --Familiar Words. ? Lond. , 1855, p. 119. ) Hegel held very heretical views on division of labour. In his --Rechtsphilosophie? he says: --By well educated men we understand in the first instance, those who can do everything that others do. ?
52 The simple belief in the inventive genius exercised a priori by the individual capitalist in division of labour, exists now-a-days only among German professors, of the stamp of Herr Roscher, who, to recompense the capitalist from whose Jovian head division of labour sprang ready formed, dedicates to him --various wages? (diverse Arbeitslo? hne). The more or less extensive application of division of labour depends on length of purse, not on greatness of genius.
53 The older writers, like Petty and the anonymous author of --Advantages of the East India Trade,? bring out the capitalist character of division of labour as applied in manufacture more than A. Smith does.
54 Amongst the moderns may be excepted a few writers of the 18th century, like Beccaria and James Harris, who with regard to division of labour almost entirely follow the ancients. Thus, Beccaria: --Ciascuno prova coll'esperienza, che applicando la mano e l'ingegno sempre allo stesso genere di opere e di produtte, egli piu` facili, piu` abbondanti e migliori ne traca risultati, di quello che se ciascuno isolatamente le cose tutte a se necessarie soltanto facesse. . . . Dividendosi in tal maniera per la comune e privata utilita` gli uomini in varie classi e condizioni. ? [Everyone knows from experience that if the hands and the intelligence are always applied to the same kind of work and the same products, these will be produced more easily, in greater abundance, and in higher quality, than if each individual makes for himself all the things he needs . . . In this way, men are divided up into various classes and conditions, to their own advantage and to that of the commodity. ](Cesare Beccaria: --Elementi di Econ: Pubblica,? ed. Custodi, Parte Moderna, t. xi, p. 29. ) James Harris, afterwards Earl of Malmesbury, celebrated for the --Diaries? of his embassy at St. Petersburg, says in a note to his --Dialogue Concerning Happiness,? Lond. , 1741, reprinted afterwards in --Three Treatises, 3 Ed. , Lond. , 1772: --The whole argument to prove society natural (i. e. , by division of employments) . . . is taken from the second book of Plato's Republic. ?
55 Thus, in the Odyssey xiv. , 228, [--? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? For different men take joy in different works] and Archilochus in Sextus Empiricus, [--? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? . ? men differ as to things cheer their hearts]
56 [--? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? . ? He could do many works, but all of them badly - Homer] Every Athenian considered himself superior as a producer of commodities to a Spartan; for the latter in time of war had men enough at his disposal but could not command money, as Thucydides makes Pericles say in the speech inciting the Athenians to the Peloponnesian war: [--? ? ?
