Surplus Value: Matters of Timing and Indebtedness

H. Surplus Value: Matters of Timing and Indebtedness

An editorial comment to the Grundrisse finds the discovery of the theory of sur- plus value in that work: “The Manuscript of 1857–58 constitutes a landmark in the history of Marxism. In it Marx for the first time elaborated his theory of value and, on that basis, the theory of surplus value” (MECW 28 : xvi). Dobb, for his part, apparently finds this breakthrough only in 1859: Marx’s “more detailed analysis of exploitation and production of surplus value, with its accent on the distinction between labour and labour power and on capitalism as being charac- teristically a form of commodity production in which ‘labour-power itself becomes

a commodity,’ ” is fully apparent by the time of the Critique in 1859 (Dobb 1970: 8–9). And this impression is confirmed when he later maintained that the Grun- drisse itself is “concerned in the main with the sphere of circulation and exchange. Value, for example, is dealt with explicitly only in a fragmentary paragraph which breaks off in the middle of a sentence” (Dobb 1982: 79).

In my view, the embryonic formulations already present in Poverty of Philosophy (1847) and Wage Labour and Capital (1849) must be allowed for, particularly the references in the latter to “the creative power whereby the worker not only replaces what he consumes but gives to the accumulated labour [capital] a greater value than it previously possessed”; and to the capitalist’s purchase of “just that . . . power of the labourer which produces agricultural products of double value and makes ten silver groschen out of five,” which five “have . . . been consumed . . . reproductively for capital, for they have been exchanged for labour power which produced ten silver groschen” (Chapter 7, p. 211). In Capital itself, as we there noted (p. 194), Marx cites that 1849 paper to the effect that the worker “produces values that give fresh command over his labour, and that, by means of such command, creates fresh values.” At the same time, though there is some continuity between the 1840s and 1850s, we should also note that during the four years 1853–57 Marx did little work on his various notebooks on economics which date to the early 1850s (McLellan 1970: 37–8); and though in those years he set out twice to develop further his economic theory, it was only in Autumn 1857 that he began a systematic exposition based on his researches, which endeavor appears as the Grundrisse manuscript (editorial comment, MECW 28 : xiii).

Where then did the matter stand in the early 1850s? In July 1851, Marx made rough abstracts from the anonymous The Source and Remedy of the National Diffi- culties 1821, upon which he drew in the Grundrisse (see MECW 28 : 324–5), includ- ing the following remarkable selection regarding surplus labor time as source of the capitalist’s income: “Wealth . . . is disposable time and nothing more” (1821: 6; Marx’s italics). “Suppose the whole labour of a country to raise just sufficient for the support of the whole population; it is evident there is no surplus labour, con- sequently nothing that can be allowed to accumulate as capital” (4; Marx’s italics). “[W]here men heretofore laboured twelve hours they would now labour six, and this is national wealth, this is national prosperity” (6), or in Marx’s paraphrase

H. Surplus Value: Matters of Timing and Indebtedness 259 “A nation is truly rich if no interest exists or if the working day is 6 hours rather

than twelve.” “[W]hatever may be due to the capitalist, he can only receive the sur- plus labour of the labourer; for the labourer must live” (23). And much the same notion of surplus labor time is cited in the Grundrisse from Ravenstone (1824) using notes taken in 1851: “Property grows from the improvement in the means of production. . . . When each man’s labour is barely sufficient for his own subsistence, as there can be no property, there will be no idle men. When one man’s labour can maintain five, there will be four idle men for one employed in production . . . ” (1824: 11). “[This] growth of property, this greater ability to maintain idle men, and unproductive industry . . . in political economy is called capital” (13).

Apart from the explicitly recognized obligation to the author of 1821 and to Ravenstone, to whom else might Marx have been indebted regarding the source of surplus value? 33 One obvious candidate one might think is J. S. Mill. But in fact the famous passage relating to surplus labor time as source of profit, independent of exchange, did not appear until the 1857 edition of the Principles :

[T]he reason why capital yields a profit, is because food, clothing, materials and tools, last longer than the time which was required to produce them; so that if a capitalist supplies a party of labourers with these things, on condition of receiving all they pro- duce, they will, in addition to reproducing their own necessaries and instruments, have

a portion of their time remaining, to work for the capitalist. We thus see that profit arises, not from the incident of exchange, but from the productive power of labour; and the general profit of the country is always what the productive power of labour makes it, whether any exchange takes place or not. If there were no division of employments, there would be no buying or selling, but there would still be profit. If the labourers of the country collectively produce twenty per cent more than their wages, profits will be twenty per cent, whatever prices may or may not be. The accidents of price may for a time make one set of producers get more than the twenty per cent, and another less, the one commodity being rated above the natural value in relation to other commodities, and the other below, until prices have again adjusted themselves; but there will always

be just twenty per cent divided among them all (Mill 1963–91, 2 : 411). In terms of timing, the passage may have come to Marx’s attention whilst he was

working on the Grundrisse, but that it did so cannot simply be taken for granted –

a conclusion that would be more difficult to justify had the passage appeared in earlier editions of the Principles. 34 Another candidate is Karl Rodbertus who in 1875 charged that Marx in Capi- tal had plagiarized from two of his earlier works, that his Zur Erkenntniss unsrer

33 Marx in The Economic Manuscripts credits Necker 1789 [1775], 1789 [1784] with “show[ing] how the development of the productive powers of labour merely results in the worker requiring

less time for the reproduction of his own wage, and therefore working more time for his employer unpaid. In dealing with this, he rightly starts from the basis of the average wage, the minimum of wages” (MECW 31 : 200). The whole matter of indebtedness as a serious issue seems in that case to fall away. 34 The hostile treatment accorded the passage in Capital will be discussed in our concluding chapter.

1857–1858 I: Surplus Value

staatswirtschaftlichen Zust¨ande (1842) “has been very nicely used . . . by Marx, with- out, however giving me credit for it” (cited by Engels, MECW 36 : 10); and more specifically – writing to R. Meyer – that he had shown in the Sociale Briefe an von Kirchmann. Dritter Brief (1851), “virtually in the same way as Marx, only more briefly and clearly, whence the surplus value of the capitalist originates.”

Attention is entirely focused by Rodbertus himself and others on Marx’s formu- lation in Capital whereas what would have to be shown to justify the complaint is familiarity with Rodbertus predating 1857–58 considering the maturity of the formulations found in the Grundrisse. Until such evidence is forthcoming, there is sufficient reason to accept Engels’s assurance in his 1884 Preface to the first German edition of the Poverty of Philosophy, that Marx was wholly unaware of Zur Erkennt- niss, and that “all he knew of Rodbertus was the three Sociale Briefe and even these certainly not before 1858 or 1859” (MECW 26 : 279); and in his 1885 Preface to Capital 3 that “[i]t was only around 1859, through Lassalle, that Marx learned of the existence of an economist named Rodbertus and thereupon Marx looked up the ‘third social letter’ in the British Museum,” though by then he already knew “not only whence but also how ‘the surplus value of the capitalist’ originated”; indeed, by then “his own critique of political economy had been completed, not only in its fundamental outlines, but also in its more important details” (MECW 36 : 11). 35 But Marx himself apparently did not object to Rodbertus’s claim. At least Engels reported his reaction to be that he “had no objection, and . . . could well afford to let Rodbertus enjoy the pleasure of considering his own presentation the briefer and clearer one.”