Landmarks of Scientific Socialism: "Anti-Duehring"Engels, Friedrich
Philosophy
Landmarks of Scientific Socialism: "Anti-Duehring"
Engels, Friedrich
Dialectical materialism; Dühring, E. (Eugen), 1833-1921; Economics; Philosophy; Socialism
The solution of this problem is the crowning glory of the work of
Marx. He sheds clear daylight in economic places where the earlier
socialists no less than the bourgeois economists have groped in utter
darkness. From his work dates the origin of scientific socialism.
The solution is as follows. The power of increase in money which is
transformed into capital cannot proceed from the money neither does it
depend upon trade, since the money only realizes the price of the
commodities and this price is, since we hold that only equal values
are exchanged, no different from its value. On the same grounds the
power of increase cannot come from the exchange of commodities. The
change therefore depends upon the commodities which are exchanged, but
not upon their value, since they are bought and sold at their value.
It arises from their consumption-value as such; that is the change
must arise out of the consumption of commodities. "In order for a
commodity to derive value from consumption our possessor of money must
be fortunate enough to discover a commodity whose use-value has the
peculiar property of being a source of value, whose consumption would
imply the expenditure of labor and thus be value-producing. And the
possessor of money finds such a specific commodity on the market in
the shape of labor-power." If, as we have seen, labor has no value
this is by no means the case with labor-force. This has a value, as it
is a commodity, and, as a matter of fact, it is a commodity to-day and
this value is fixed "like that of every other commodity by the amount
of labor time necessary for the production and reproduction of this
specific commodity." It is fixed by the labor time which is necessary
for the procuring of the means of livelihood required to maintain the
laborer in a condition to continue laboring and reproduce his kind.
Let us suppose that these means of livelihood represent, taking one
day with another, six hours labor-time a day. Our budding capitalist
who buys labor force for his business, that is hires a laborer, pays
this laborer the full daily value of his labor force, if he pays him a
sum of money which represents six hours of labor. If the laborer has
only expended six hours in the service of the capitalist he has got
the full return of his expenditure, the day's value of his labor-force
has been paid. But money could not be transformed into capital in this
fashion, it would have produced no surplus value. The buyer of
labor-power has quite another view of the nature of his business.
Since only six hours' work is necessary to maintain the laborer for
twenty-four hours, it does not follow that the laborer cannot work
twelve hours out of the twenty-four. The value of labor force and its
realization in the labor-process are two different magnitudes. The
owner of money pays out a day's value of labor-force but there belongs
to him its use for the day, the whole day's labor. That the value
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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