Theories of Surplus Value, Marx 1861-3
||438| Linguet,Théorie des lois civiles, etc.,Londres, 1767.
In accordance with the plan of my work socialist andcommunist writers are entirely excluded from the historicalreviews. These reviews are only intended to show onthe one hand in what form the political economistscriticised each other, and on the other hand thehistorically determining forms in which the laws ofpolitical economy were first stated and furtherdeveloped. In dealing with surplus-value I thereforeexclude such eighteenth-century writers as Brissot, Godwinand the like, and likewise the nineteenth-century socialistsand communists. The few socialist writers whom I shallcome to speak of in this survey either themselves adopt thestandpoint of bourgeois economy or contest it from its ownstandpoint.
Linguet however is not a socialist. His polemicsagainst the bourgeois-liberal ideals of the Enlighteners,his contemporaries, against the dominion of the bourgeoisiethat was then beginning, are given—half-seriously,half-ironically—a reactionary appearance. Hedefends Asiatic despotism against the civilised Europeanforms of despotism; thus he defends slavery againstwage-labour.
Vol. I. The only statement directed againstMontesquieu:l’esprit des lois, c’est lapropriété,* shows the depth of hisoutlook.
The only economists whom Linguet found to deal with werethe Physiocrats.
The rich have taken possession of all the conditions ofproduction; [hence] thealienation of the conditions ofproduction, which in their simplest form are the naturalelements themselves.
“In our civilised countries, all theelements [of nature] are slaves” ([Linguet,Théorie des lois civiles…, Londres,1767], p. 188).
In order to get hold of some of this wealth appropriatedby the rich, it must be purchased with heavy labour, whichincreases the wealth of these rich persons.
“Thus it is that all captive naturehas ceased to offer to these children resources of easyaccess for the maintenance of their life. Its favoursmust be paid for by assiduous toil, and its gifts bystubborn labours” [p. 188].
(Here—in the gifts of nature—the Physiocraticview is echoed.)
“The rich man,wino has arrogatedto himself the exclusive possession of it, only at thisprice consents to restore even the smallest part of it tothe community. In order to be allowed to share inits treasures, it is necessary to labour to increasethem” (p. 189). “One must, then,renounce this chimera of liberty” (p. 190). Laws exist in order to “sanctify a primaryusurpation” (of private property), “to preventnew usurpations” (p. 192). “They are, asit were, a conspiracy against the greater part of the humanrace” [p. 195] (that is, against those who own noproperty). “It is society which has produced thelaws, and not the laws which have produced society”(p. 230). “Property existed before thelaws” (p. 236).
Society itself—the fact that man lives in societyand not as an independent, self-supportingindividual—is the root of property, of the laws basedon it and of the inevitable slavery.
On the one hand, there were peaceful and isolatedhusband-men and shepherds. On the other hand—
“hunters accustomed to live by blood,to gather together in bands the more easily to entrap andfell the beasts on which they fed, and to concert togetheron the division of the spoils” (p. 279). “It is among the hunters that the first signs ofsociety must have appeared” (p. 278). “Real society came into being at the expense of theshepherds or husbandman, and was founded on theirsubjection” by a band of hunters who had joinedhands (p. 289). All duties of society were resolvedinto commanding and obeying “This degradation of apart of the human race, after it had produced society, gavebirth to laws” (p. 294).
Stripped of the conditions of production, the labourersare compelled by need to labour to increase the wealth ofothers in order themselves to live.
“It is the impossibility of living byany other means that compels our farm labourers to till thesoil whose fruits they will not eat, and our masons toconstruct buildings in which they will not live. It iswant that drags them to those markets where they awaitmasters who will do them the kindness of buying them. It is want that compels them to go down on their knees tothe rich man in order to get from him permission to enrichhim” (p. 274).
“Violence, then, has been the firstcause of society, and force the first bond that held ittogether” (p. 302). “Their” (men’s)“first care was doubtless to provide themselves withfood… the second must have been to seek toprovidethemselves with it without labour”(pp. 307-08). “They could only achieve this byappropriating to themselves the fruit of other men’slabour” (p. 308). “The firstconquerors only made themselves despots so that they couldbe idle with impunity, and kings, in order to have somethingto live on: and this greatly narrows andsimplifies…the idea of domination” (p.309). “Society is born of violence, and propertyof usurpation” (p. 347). “As soon as therewere masters and slaves, society was formed”(p. 343). “From the beginning, the two
Vol. II: “The question, therefore, isnot to examine whether slavery is contrary to nature initself, but whether it is contrary to the nature ofsociety…it is inseparable from it”(p. 256). “Society and civil servitude wereborn together” (p. 257). “Permanentslavery…the indestructible foundation ofsocieties” (p. 347).
“Men have only been reduced to dependfor their subsistence on the liberality of another manwhen the latter by despoiling them has become richenough to be ableto return a small portion tothem. His feigned generosity could be no more than arestitution of some part of the fruits of their labourswhich he had appropriated” (p. 242). “Does not servitude consist in this obligationto sow without reaping for oneself, to sacrifice one’swell-being to that of another, to labour without hope? And did not its real epoch begin from he moment when therewere men whom the whip and a few measures of oats when theywere brought to the stable could compel to labour? It is only in a fully developed society thatfood seems to the poorstarveling a sufficientequivalent for his liberty; but in n society in itsearly stages free men would be struck with horror at thisunequal exchange. It could only be proposed forcaptives. Only after they have been deprived ofthe enjoyment of all their faculties can it” [theexchange] “become a necessity for them”(pp. 244-45).
“The essence ofsociety…consists in freeing the rich man fromlabour, giving him new organs, untiring members, whichtake upon themselves all the laborious operationsthefruits of which he is to appropriate. That is theplan which slavery allows him to carry out withoutembarrassment. He buys men who are to serve him”(p. 461). “In suppressing slavery, no claim wasmade that either wealth or its advantages weresuppressed… It was therefore necessary thatthings should remain the same except in name, It has alwaysbeen necessary for the majority of men to continue to livein the pay of and in dependence on the minoritywhich hasappropriated to itself all wealth. Slavery hastherefore been perpetuated on the earth, but under a sweetername. Among us now it is adorned with the title ofservice” (p. 462).
By these servants, Linguet says, he does not mean lackeysand the like:
“The towns and the countryside arepeopled by another kind of servant, more widely spread, moreuseful, more laborious, and known by the name ofjourneymen, handicraftsmen, etc. They are notdishonoured by the brilliant colours of luxury; they sighbeneath the loathsome rags which are thelivery ofpenury. They never share in the abundance of whichtheir labour is the source. Wealth seems to grantthem a favour when it kindly accepts thepresents thatthey make to it. It is for them to he grateful forthe services which they render to it. It pourson them the most outrageous contempt while they are claspingits knees imploringpermission to be useful toit. It has to be pleaded with to grant this, andinthis peculiar exchange of real generosity for animaginary favour, arrogance and disdain areon theside of the receiver, and servility, anxiety andeagernesson the side of the giver. These arethe servants who have truly replaced the serfs amongus” (pp. 463-64).
“The point that has to he examinedis: what effective gain thesuppression of slaveryhas brought to them. I say with as much sorrow asfrankness: all that they have gained is to be every momenttormented by the fear of death from hunger, a calamity thatat least never visited their predecessors in this lowestrank of mankind” (p. 464). “He is free,you say. Ah! That is his misfortune. He isbound to no one; but also no one is bound to him. Whenhe is needed, he ishired at the cheapest pricepossible. The meagrewage that he is promisedis hardly equal tothe price of his subsistence for theday which he gives in exchange. He is givenoverlookers to compel him to fulfil his taskquickly; he is hard driven; he is goaded on, for fearthat a skilfully concealed and only too comprehensiblelaziness may make him hold back half his strength; for fearthat the hope ofremaining employed longer on the sametask may stay his hands and blunt his tools. The sordid economy that keeps a restless watch on himoverwhelms him with reproaches at the slightest respite heseems to allow himself, and claims to have been robbedif he takes a moment’s rest. When he has finished heis dismissed as be was taken on, with the coldestindifference, and without any concern as to whether thetwenty or thirty sous that he has just earned for a hardday’s labour||440| will beenough to keep himif he finds no work the followingday” (pp. 466-67).
“He is free! That is preciselywhy I pity him. For that reason, he is much less caredfor in the labours in which be is used. His life ismuch more readily hazarded. The slave was precious tohis master because of the money he had cost him. Butthe handicraftsman costs nothing to the rich voluptuary whoemploys him. Men’s blood had some p rice in the daysof slavery. They were worth at least as much as theycould be sold for in the market. Since they have nolonger been sold they have no real intrinsic value. Apioneer is much less valued in an army than a pack-horse,because the horse is very costly and a pioneer can be hadfor nothing. The suppression of slavery brought thesemilitary calculations into civil life; andsince thatepoch there has been no prosperous bourgeois who does notcalculate in this way, as heroes do” (p. 467)
“The day-labourers are born, grow upand are trained for” (are bred for) “the serviceof wealth without causing it the slightest expense, like thegame that it massacres over its estates. It seems asif it really has the secret of which the unfortunate Pompeyvainly boasted. Wealth has only to stamp on theground, and from it emerge legions of hard-working men whocontend among themselves for the honour of being at itsdisposal: if one among this crowd of mercenaries putting upits buildings or keeping its gardens straight disappears,the place that he has left empty is an invisible point whichis immediately covered again without any intervention fromanyone. A drop of the water of a great river is lostwithout regret, because new torrents incessantly succeedit. It is the same with labourers; the ease with whichthey can be replaced fosters therich man’s”(this is the form used by Linguet; not yet capitalist)“hard-heartedness towards them” (p. 468).
“These men, it is said, have nomaster…pure abuse of the word. What does itmean? they have no master—they have one, and themost terrible, the most imperious of masters, that is,need. It is this that reduces them to the mostcruel dependence. It is not one man in particularwhose orders they must obey, but the orders of all ingeneral. It is not a single tyrant whose whimsthey have to humour and whose benevolence they have tocourt— which would set a limit to their servitude andmake it endurable. They become the valets of anyonewho has money, which gives their slavery an infinitecompass and severity. It is said that if they do notget on well with one master they at least have theconsolation that they can tell him so and the power to makea change: but the slaves have neither the one nor theother. They are therefore all the more wretched. What sophistry! For bear in mind that the number ofthose who make others work is very small and thenumber of labourers on the contrary is immense”(pp. 470-71). “What is this apparent libertywhich you have bestowed on them reduced to for them? They live only by hiring out their arms. They musttherefore find someone to hire them, or die of hunger. Is that to be free?” (p. 472).
“What is most terrible is that thevery smallness of this pay is another reason for reducingit. The more the day-labourer is driven by want, thecheaper he sells himself. The greater the urgency ofhis need, the less profitable is his labour. Thedespots for the moment whom he beseeches with tears toaccept his services feel no shame in, as it were, feelinghis pulse, to assure themselves that he has enough strengthleft; they fix the reward that they offer him by the degreeof his weakness. The nearer they think he is to deathfrom starvation, the more they deduct from what could keephim from it; and what the savages that they are give him isless to prolong his life than to delay his death”(pp. 482-83). The “independence” (of theday-labourer) “is one of the most baneful scourgesthat the refinement of modern times has produced. Itaugments the wealth of the rich and the poverty of thepoor. The one saves everything that the otherspends. What the latter is forced to economise is notfrom his superfluity but from what is indispensable tohim” (p. 483).
“If today it is so easy to maintainthese prodigious armies which join with luxury in order tobring about the extinction of the human race, it is only dueto the suppression of slavery… It is only sincethere have no longer been slaves that debauchery and beggarymake heroes at five sous a day” (pp. 484-85).
“I find this” (Asiatic slavery)“a hundred times more preferable than any other way ofexisting, for men reduced to having to win their livelihoodby daily labour” (p. 496).
“Their” (the slaves’ and thelabourers’) “chains are made of the same material andonly differently coloured. Here they are black, andseem heavy: there they look less gloomy and seem hollower:but weigh them impartially and you will find no differencebetween them; both are equally forged by necessity. They have precisely the same weight, or rather, if they area few grains more in one case, it is in the one whoseexternal appearance proclaims that it is lighter”(p. 510).
He calls to the men of the French Enlightenment, inregard to the labourers:
“Do you not see that the subjection,the annihilation—since it must he said—of thislarge part of the flock creates the wealth of theshepherds?… Believe me, in his interest” (theshepherd’s), “in yours, and even in theirs, leavethem” (the sheep) “with the conviction that theyhave that this cur who yelps at them is stronger by himselfthan they are all together. Let them flee with stupidfright at the mere sight of his shadow. Everyonebenefits from it. It will make it easier for you togather them in to fleece them for yourself. They aremore easily guarded from being devoured by wolves. [441] It is true, only to he eaten by men. But anywaythat is their fate from the moment they have entered astable. Before talking of releasing them from there,start by overthrowing the stable, that is to say,society” (pp. 512-13).
* The sprit of thelaws is property.—Ed.