Theories of Surplus Value, Part II, Chapter 8 - Part 7

Marx makes the point, at the beginning of the section, that the materials themselves may not be a product of labour, and he now gives real examples of this, and yet how these materials are sold as commodities. He relates the business of transferring human waste from Holland to Belgium, cited by F.W. Newman.

“The refuse of the towns has therefore become a matter of trade, and is regularly sold at high prices to Belgium… At about twenty miles from Antwerp, up the Schelde, the reservoirs may be seen for the manure that is brought from Holland. The trade is managed by a company of capitalists and the Dutch boats” etc. (Banfield).” (p 23)

The importance of this, Marx relates back to the previous discussion of the difference between the value of output, and the value of the consumption fund. It cannot be claimed that the capital which is reproduced directly from output does not itself represent value, because increasingly, this constant capital was itself bought as a commodity.

“The seed trade has risen in importance to the extent to which the importance of seed rotation has become recognised. Hence it would be ridiculous to say that no “raw material”—i.e., raw material as a commodity— enters into agriculture whether it be reproduced by agriculture itself or bought as a commodity, acquired from outside. It would be equally absurd to say that the machine employed by the engineer who constructs machines does not figure as an element of value in his capital.” (p 24)

Marx describes the way a German peasant considers things, compared to a capitalist farmer. The peasant produces seeds, manure etc., as part of his own production. He also meets most of his consumption needs from this production. As a result, he only needs to spend money to cover the purchase of tools, and maybe to pay some wages. If his total expenses for all these things comes to £100, of which £50 is in money, he covers this by consuming half of his product, and selling the other half, which brings in £100. Half of this £100 goes to cover his money expenses, the other half forming profit.

If the peasant views things only in terms of the elements of capital he has had to spend money to buy, it appears that he has only advanced £50, and so his £50 profit appears as a 100% rate of profit. But, in fact, he also advanced £50 of capital in kind, reproduced directly from his own production, in the shape of seed, manure etc.

“The peasant has merely miscalculated and has cheated himself. The capitalist farmer does not make such errors.” (p 24)

The effect of this is also described in a quote that Marx gives from Mathieu de Dombasle.

““the landlord supplies the land, the buildings and usually all or part of the livestock and the tools required for cultivation; the tenant for his part supplies his labour and nothing, or almost nothing else. The products of the land are shared in equal parts” (l.c., p. 301). “The tenants are as a rule submerged in dire poverty” (l.c., p. 302). “If the metayer, having laid out 1,000 francs, increases his gross product by 1,500 francs” (i.e., a gross gain of 500 francs) “he must pass half of it on to the landowner, retaining merely 750 and so loses 250 francs of his expenses” (l.c., p. 304). “Under the previous system of cultivation the expenses or costs of production were almost exclusively drawn in kind, from the products themselves, for the consumption of the animals and of the cultivator of the land and his family; hardly any cash was paid out. Only these particular circumstances could give rise to the belief that landowner and tenant could divide amongst themselves the whole of the harvest which had not been consumed during production. But this process is only applicable to this type of agriculture, namely, low-level agriculture. But when it is desired to raise that level, it is realised that this is only possible by making certain advances which have to be deducted from the gross product in order to be able to utilise them again in the following year. Hence this kind of division of the gross product becomes an insurmountable obstacle to any sort of improvement” (l.c., p. 307).” (p 24 – 5)

In other words, this is the effect of dividing up the gross product, rather than the net product, after the elements required for reproduction have been deducted.

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