[4. Rodbertus’s Thesis that in Agriculture Raw Materials Lack Value Is Fallacious]
Marx demonstrates that Rodbertus' theory of rent depends upon leaving out an entire category of expenditure. It is based on a miscalculation of profit and the rate of profit. Rodbertus' error stems from the difference between the way a peasant farmer and a capitalist farmer might undertake their calculations.
For Rodbertus, raw materials, in agriculture, have no value. He arrives at this false conclusion because the peasant farmer does not buy their seed etc., but reproduces it directly from their own output. On the basis of this miscalculation, Rodbertus thereby derives an artificially high rate of profit, out of which the rent is paid.
It is clearly not the case that the raw material has no value. The grain set aside as seed, is the same as the grain sold as cereal. It required the same expenditure of labour for its production and has the same value. The fact that the farmer did not hand over money for the purchase of this seed does not mean it has no value, a fact that becomes more apparent when the seed is indeed bought from specialist seed merchants. What is true is that the seed, because it is not sold, does not constitute revenue, but it does constitute capital.
The fact is, as Marx demonstrated earlier, that in all these cases such as where seed is reproduced in kind, it is bought by capital not revenue. It is an exchange of capital with capital either directly on a like for like basis, or indirectly with some other form of constant capital. It is an exchange of capital with capital rather than an exchange of capital with revenue. As Marx says, Quesnay would not have thought much of Rodbertus' suggestion, because the Tableau Economique includes in one of its items the outlay of capital for the reproduction of seeds, which the farmer must provide from their production.
If the calculation were done correctly, therefore, the surplus profit which Rodbertus thinks exists, would disappear, and along with it the basis of rent. In fact, it would mean that after the deduction of this rent, the farmer would be accepting a lower than average rate of profit, rather than enjoying surplus profit.
Marx sets out an example of Rodbertus' error in which a farmer provides 20% of the advanced capital in kind, in the shape of seeds etc. The other 80% is then advanced as machines and labour-power. The example is given using both weight of grain and money values to represent both the expenditure and income.
So, if total expenditure on capital is £300, this is the equivalent of 150 kilos of grain at £2 per kilo. If the farmer makes 10% profit, £30, this is represented in his surplus product, which is equal to 15 kilos. However, Rodbertus believes that the seed which the farmer reproduces from production has no value. So, he deducts the value of this seed. That value was 20% of the capital, which is £60 or 30 kilos of grain. If the rate of profit is calculated on this basis, it obviously gives a different figure.
We now have capital advanced of £300 - £60 = £240, which is equal to 120 kilos rather than 150 kilos. The profit of £30, or 15 kilos, is then equal to 12.5% of this lower figure, and so appears to give a higher rate of profit in agriculture from which the rent can be paid.
“The game would be over if the peasant realised that it is by no means necessary first to convert his advances into real money, i.e., to sell them, in order to assess them in money, and hence to regard them as commodities.
Without this mathematical error (which may be committed by a large number of German peasants but never by a capitalist farmer) Rodbertus’s rent would be an impossibility.” (p 46-7)
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