A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy · Karl Marx
FOOTNOTES:
His method, he says, “is not yet very usual, for instead of using only comparative and superlative Words, and intellectual Arguments,” he has undertaken to speak “in Terms of Number, Weight or Measure; to use only Arguments of Sense, and to consider only such Causes, as have visible Foundations in Nature; leaving those that depend upon the mutable Minds, Opinions, Appetites, and Passions of particular Men, to the Consideration of others.” (Political Arithmetick, etc., London, 1699. Preface.) (A new edition of “The Economic Writings of Sir William Petty,” edited by Chas. Henry Hull, has been published by the University Press at Cambridge, 1899. The above passage will be found in vol. I., p. 244. The further references are given to this new, more accessible edition. Translator.) His wonderful keenness shows itself e. g. in the proposal to transport “all the moveables and people of Ireland, and of the Highlands of Scotland ... into the rest of Great Britain.” Thereby much labor-time would be saved, the productivity of labor increased, and “the King and his Subjects would thereby become more Rich and Strong.”
(Political Arithmetick, ch. 4, p. 285.) Or in the chapter of his Political Arithmetic in which he proves that England’s mission is the conquest of the world’s market at a time when Holland still played the leading part as a trading nation and France seemed to be on the way of becoming the ruling trading Power: “That the King of England’s Subjects, have Stock competent and convenient, to drive the Trade of the whole Commercial World” (l. c., ch. 10, p. 311). “That the Impediments of England’s greatness are but contingent and removable” (l. c., ch. 5, p. 298). A singular humor pervades all his writings. Thus, he shows that it was by material means that Holland―at that time the model country with English economists, just as England is with continental economists to-day―conquered the world market “without such Angelical Wits and Judgments, as some attribute to the Hollanders” (l. c., p. 258). He advocates “Liberty of Conscience” as a condition of trade, because “Dissenters ... are ... patient Men, and such as believe that Labour and Industry is their Duty towards God,” and “They believe that ... for those who have less Wealth, to think they have the more Wit and Understanding, especially of the things of God which they think chiefly belong to the Poor.”
“From whence it follows that Trade is not fixt to any species of Religion as such; but rather ... to the Heterodox part of the whole” (l. c., p. 262-264). He advocates an “allowance by Publick Tax” for those “who live by begging, cheating, stealing, gaming, borrowing without intention of restoring,” because “it were more for the publick profit” to tax the country for such persons “than to suffer them to spend extravagantly, at the only charge of careless, credulous, and good natured People” (p. 269-270). But he is opposed to taxes which transfer the wealth from industrious people “to such as do nothing at all, but eat and drink, sing, play, and dance; nay such as study the Metaphysicks” (ibid.). Petty’s writings are rarities of the bookseller’s trade and are to be found only in scattered poor old editions, which is the more surprising since William Petty was not only the father of English Political Economy, but also the ancestor of Henry Petty, alias Marquis of Lansdowne, the nestor of the English Whigs. However, the Lansdowne family could hardly bring out a complete edition of Petty’s works without prefacing it with his biography, and what can be said of most origins of the great Whig families holds good also in this case, viz., “the less said of them the better.” The keen-witted but cynical army surgeon who was as ready to plunder in Ireland under the shield of Cromwell as to crawl before Charles II. to get the title of baron which he needed for his plunderings, is a model hardly fit for public exhibition. Besides that, Petty seeks to prove in most of his writings which he published in his lifetime, that England’s prosperity reached its climax under Charles II., a heterodox view for the hereditary exploiters of the “glorious revolution.”
Il n’y a lieu à s’occuper du prix, de valeur que là où il y avait vente et echat, c’est à dire, où chaque individu était obligé de lutter, pour se procurer les object nécessaires a l’entretien de son existence” (l. c., p. 2, 3 passim). (“Since individuals are isolated and separated from one another both in their labors and in consumption, exchange takes place between them in the products of their respective industries. From the necessity of exchange arises the necessity of determining the relative value of things. The ideas of value and exchange are thus intimately connected and both express in their actual form individualism and antagonism.... The determination of values of products takes place only because there are sales and purchases, or, to put it differently, because there is an antagonism between different members of society. One has to occupy himself with price and value only where there is sale and purchase, that is to say, where every individual is obliged to struggle to procure for himself the objects necessary for the maintenance of his existence.”) [69] “L’argent n’est que le moyen et l’acheminement, au lieu que les denrées utiles à la vie sont la fin et le but.” (“Money is but the ways and means, while the things useful in life are the end and object.”) Boisguillebert: “Le Détail de la France,” 1697, in Eugene Daires’ “Economistes financiers du XVIIIieme siècle, vol. I., Paris, 1843, p. 210.
“The superior saleableness of money is the exact effect or natural consequence of the less saleableness of commodities.” (Th. Corbet, “An Inquiry into the Causes and Modes of the Wealth of Individuals.” etc., London, 1841, p. 117.) “Money has the quality of being always exchangeable for what it measures.” (Bosanquet, “Metallic, Paper and Credit Currency,” etc., London, 1842, p. 100.) “Money can always buy other commodities, whereas other commodities can not always buy money.” (Th. Tooke, “An Inquiry into the Currency Principle,” 2d ed., London, 1844, p. 10.) [72] The same commodity can be bought and resold many times. It circulates, then, not merely as a commodity, but in a capacity which does not exist from the point of view of simple circulation, of the simple contrast of commodity and money. [73] The quantity of money is immaterial “pourvu qu’il y en ait assez pour maintenir les prix contractés par les denrées” (as long as it is sufficient to maintain the existing prices of commodities). Boisguillebert, l. c. p. 210. “If the circulation of commodities of four hundred millions required a currency of forty millions, and ... this proportion of one-tenth was the due level, estimating both currency and commodities in gold; then, if the value of commodities to be circulated increased to four hundred and fifty millions, from natural causes ... I should say the currency, in order to continue at its level, must be increased to forty-five millions.” (William Blake, “Observations on the Effects Produced by the Expenditure of Government, etc.,” London, 1823, p. 80.)
“Si un écu un peu usé était reputé valoir quelque chose de moins qu’un écu tout neuf, la circulation se trouverait continuellement arrêtée, et il n’y aurait pas un seul payement qui ne fut matière à contestation.” (G. Garnier, l. c. t. I., p. 24.) (“If an ecu slightly used would pass for a little less than an entirely new ecu, circulation would be continually interfered with, and not a payment would take place that would not give rise to controversy.”) [78] W. Jacob, “An Inquiry Into the Production and Consumption of the Precious Metals.” (London, 1831, vol. II., ch. XXVI.) [79] David Buchanan, “Observations on the Subjects Treated of in Dr. Smith’s Inquiry on the Wealth of Nations,” etc. (Edinburgh, 1841, p. 3.) [80] Henry Storch, “Cours d’Economic Politique.” etc., avec des notes par J. B Say. Paris, 1823, tom. IV., p. 179. Storch published his work in French at St. Petersburg. J. B. Say immediately issued a Parisian reprint, supplemented with alleged “notes,” which as a matter of fact contain nothing but commonplaces. Storch (see his “Considerations sur la Nature du Revenue National,” Paris, 1824) took by no means kindly to this annexation of his work by the “prince de la science.” [81] Plato de Rep. L. II “νόμισμα ξύμβολον τῆς ἀλλαγῆς.” (“Money symbol of exchange.”) Opera omnia, etc., ed. G. Stallbumius, London, 1850, p. 304. Plato develops money only in two capacities―as a measure of value and a token of value, but demands, in addition to the token of value serving for home circulation, another one for trade between Greece and foreign countries. (See also Book V of his Laws.)
(“When the inhabitants of one country became more dependent on those of another, and they imported what they needed and exported the surplus, money necessarily came into use ... and hence men agreed to employ in their dealings with each other something which was intrinsically useful and easily applicable to the purposes of life, for example, iron, silver and the like.” Trans, by B. Jowett, “The Politics of Aristotle, Oxford, 1885, p. 16). This passage is quoted by Michel Chevalier, who either has not read Aristotle or did not understand him, to prove that in Aristotle’s opinion currency must consist of a substance having intrinsic value. On the contrary, Aristotle says expressly that money as a mere medium of circulation seems to owe its existence to agreement or law, as is shown by its name νόμισμα, and that in reality it owes its utility as coin to its function and not to any intrinsic use-value of its own. λῆρος εἶναι δοκεῖ τὸ νόμισμα καὶ νόμος παντάπασι, φύσει δ’ οὐδὲν ὅτι μεταθε ενων τε τῶν χρωμένων οὐδενὸς ἄξιον οὐδὲ χρήσιμον πρὸς οὐδὲν τῶν ἀναγκαίων ἑοτί’ (“Others maintain that coined money is a mere sham, a thing not natural, but conventional only, which would have no value or use for any of the purposes of daily life if another commodity were substituted by the users.”) (l. c. sec. 11.)
In the work quoted above Misselden wishes to retain the gold and silver at least within the confines of Christendom: “The other forreine remote causes of the want of money, are the Trades maintained out of Christendome to Turky, Persia and the East Indies, which trades are maintained for the most part with ready money, yet in a different manner from the trades of Christendome within itselfe. For although the trades within Christendome are driven with ready monies, yet those monies are still contained and continued within the bounds of Christendome. There is indeede a fluxus and refluxus, a flood and ebbe of the monies of Christendome traded within it selfe; for sometimes there is more in one part of Christendome, sometimes there is lesse in another, as one Country wanteth and another aboundeth: It cometh and goeth, and whirleth about the Circle of Christendome, but is still contained within the compasse thereof. But the money that is traded out of Christendome into the parts aforesaid is continually issued out and never returneth againe.” (p. 19-20.) [96] “A nummo prima origo avaritiae ... haec paulatim exarsit rabie quadam, non jam avaritia, sed fames auris.” (Plin., Hist. Nat., l. XXXIII., c. XIV.) (“From money first springs avarice ... the latter gradually grows into a kind of madness, which is no more avarice, but a thirst for gold.”)
No one when he has got sufficient furniture for his house dreams of making further purchases on this head, but of silver no one ever yet possessed so much that he was forced to cry “Enough.” On the contrary, if ever anybody does become possessed of an immoderate amount he finds as much pleasure in digging a hole in the ground and hoarding it as an actual employment of it.... When a state is prosperous there is nothing which people so much desire as silver. The men want money to expend on beautiful armor and fine horses, and houses and sumptuous paraphernalia of all sorts. The women betake themselves to expensive apparel and ornaments of gold. Or when states are sick, either through barrenness of corn and other fruits, or through war, the demand for current coin is even more imperative (whilst the ground lies unproductive), to pay for necessaries or military aid.” Transl. by H. G. Dakyns, London, 1892, v. 2, Revenues, p. 335-336.) Aristotle develops in Book I., ch. 9 of his Politics the two opposite movements of circulation. C-M-C and M-C-M, calling them “economics” and “chrematistics” respectively. The two forms are represented by the Greek tragedian Euripides as Sikn (right) and Keodos (profit). [103] Of course, capital also is advanced in the shape of money, and the money thus advanced may be advanced capital, but this point of view does not fall within the horizon of simple circulation.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.