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
Therefore neither in exchange among the individual members of a
society nor in exchange between different economic societies can gold
realize itself as money. Yet Herr Duehring says that the function of
money is carried out even in his "sociality." We must therefore
discover another field of activity for this money function. Herr
Duehring predicates a quantitatively equal consumption. But he cannot
compel that. On the other hand, he prides himself that in his
community one can do with his money as he will. He cannot prevent one
man, therefore, from saving money and another from not making his
wages sufficient. This is indisputable, for he recognises the common
property of the family in inheritance and talks about the duty of
parents to provide for their children. Thereby his quantitatively
equal consumption comes a cropper. The young unmarried man can get
along splendidly on twelve marks a day, but the widower with eight
young children has a hard time of it. On the other hand the community,
since it takes money in payment without ceremony, lets money be
acquired otherwise than by individual labor when the opportunity
offers. _Non olet._ It does not know whence it comes. But now arises
the chance for money which has up to now played the role of a standard
of work performed to operate as real money. The opportunities and the
motives arise for saving money on the one hand and squandering it on
the other. The needy borrows from the saver. The borrowed money taken
by the community in payment for means of living becomes again, what it
is in present day society, the social incarnation of human labor, the
real measure of labor, the universal means of circulation. All the
laws in the world are powerless against it, just as powerless as they
are against the multiplication table or the chemical composition of
water. And the saver of money is in a position to demand interest so
that specie functioning as money again becomes a breeder of interest.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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