Capitalism; Imperialism; Saving and investment; Socialism
However, let us see what Sismondi has to say about the origin of these
three kinds of income which betray a rift in the foundations of society.
He is right to take a certain development of labour productivity as his
point of departure.
'By reason of the advances both in industry and science, by which man
has subjugated the forces of nature, every worker can produce more, far
more, in a day than he needs to consume.'[160]
Sismondi thus rightly stresses the fact that the productivity of labour
is an indispensable condition for the historical foundation of
exploitation. Yet he goes on to explain the actual origin of
exploitation in a way typical of bourgeois economics: 'But even though
his labour produces wealth, this wealth, if he is called upon to enjoy
it, will make him less and less fit for work. Besides, wealth hardly
ever remains in the possession of the man who must live by the work of
his hands.'[160]
Thus he makes exploitation and class antagonism the necessary spur to
production, quite in accord with the followers of Ricardo and Malthus.
But now he comes to the real cause of exploitation, the divorce of
labour power from the means of production.
'The worker cannot, as a rule, keep the land as his own; land, however,
has a productive capacity which human labour but directs to the uses of
man. The master of the land on which labour is performed, reserves a
share in the fruits of labour to which his land has contributed, as his
remuneration for the benefits afforded by this productive
capacity.'[161]
This is called rent. And further: 'In our state of civilisation, the
worker can no longer call his own an adequate fund of objects for his
consumption, enough to live while he performs the labours he has
undertaken--until he has found a buyer. He no longer owns the raw
materials, often coming from far away, on which he must exercise his
industry. Even less does he possess that complicated and costly
machinery which facilitates his work and makes it infinitely more
productive. The rich man who possesses his consumption goods, his raw
materials and his machines, need not work himself, for by supplying the
worker with all these, he becomes in a sense the master of his work. As
reward for the advantages he has put at the worker's disposal, he takes
outright the greater part of the fruits of his labour.'[162]
This is called capital profits. What remains of wealth, after the cream
has been taken off twice, by landlord and capitalist, is the wage of
labour, the income of the worker. And Sismondi adds: 'He can consume it
without reproduction.'[163]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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