On the whole, Malthus neither rendered an original contribution to the problem of reproduction, nor even grasped it fully. In his controversy with the followers of Ricardo, he operated with the concepts of simple commodity circulation, just as they did in their controversy with Sismondi. His quarrel with that school turns on the 'unproductive consumption' by the parasites of the surplus value; it is not a quarrel about the social foundations of capitalist reproduction. Malthus' edifice tumbles to the ground as soon as the absurd mistakes in his theory of profits are uncovered. Sismondi's criticism remains valid, and his problems remain unsolved even if we accept Ricardo's theory of value with all its consequences. FOOTNOTES: [222] _Nouveaux Principes_ ..., vol. ii, p. 409. [223] Cf. Marx, _Theorien über den Mehrwert_, vol. iii, pp. 1-29, which gives a detailed analysis of Malthus' theory of value and profits. [224] Dedicated to James Mill and published in 1827. [225] James Mill, _Elements of Political Economy_ (3rd edition, London, 1826), pp. 239-40. [226] Malthus. _Definitions in Political Economy_ (London, 1827), p. 51. [227] Ibid., p. 64. [228] Malthus, _Definitions in Political Economy_ (London, 1827), pp. 53-4. [229] Ibid., pp. 62-3. _SECTION TWO_ HISTORICAL EXPOSITION OF THE PROBLEM SECOND ROUND THE CONTROVERSY BETWEEN RODBERTUS AND VON KIRCHMANN _CHAPTER XV_ v. KIRCHMANN'S THEORY OF REPRODUCTION The second theoretical polemics about the problem of accumulation was also started by current events. If the first English crisis and its attendant misery of the working class had stimulated Sismondi's opposition against the classical school, it was the revolutionary working-class movement arisen since which, almost twenty-five years later, provided the incentive for Rodbertus' critique of capitalist production. The risings of the Lyons silk weavers and the Chartist movement in England were vastly different from the shadowy spectres raised by the first crisis, and the ears of the bourgeoisie were made to ring with their criticism of the most wonderful of all forms of society. The first socio-economic work of Rodbertus, probably written for the _Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung_ in the late thirties but not published by that paper, bears the significant title, _The Demands of the Working Classes_,[230] and begins as follows: 'What do the working classes want? Will the others be able to keep it from them? Will what they want be the grave of modern civilisation? Thoughtful people have long realised that a time must come when history would put this question with great urgency. Now, the man in the street has learned it too, from the Chartist meetings and the Birmingham scenes.'