The author of the “Observations” writes,
““If, in the first sentence, the productive powers of labour mean the smallness of that aliquot part of any produce that goes to those whose manual labour produced it, the sentence is nearly identical, because the remaining aliquot part is the fund whence capital can, if the owner pleases, be accumulated” [Observations, London, 1821, p. 74].” (p 114-5)
This again emphasises the point that, from the standpoint of capital, the productiveness of labour is viewed not in terms of the absolute product, but the relative product. In other words, as with Ricardo's argument as against Smith, it is the size of the net product not the gross product that counts. It is better to have 200 workers produce a product sufficient to sustain a population of 300 than to have 300 workers produce a product sufficient to sustain 400.
The author continues,
““But then this does not generally happen where there is most fertile land” [loc. cit., p. 74].” (p 115)
The author means here that where land is more fertile, peasant producers are more likely to be able to meet their own needs, and so capitalist production may be slower to get started. But, as Marx says, Ricardo is making the assumption of capitalist production, not investigating the conditions of its origin. On the assumption of capitalist production, labour is, at least initially, most productive where the land is fertile, because this means that less labour-time is required for the reproduction of labour-power, and so the rate of surplus value is higher, and capital can be accumulated more rapidly. The accumulation of capital is then means by which labour can become even more productive.
“His expression “capital, or the means of employing labour” is, in fact, the only one in which he grasps the real nature of capital. He himself is so much the prisoner of a capitalist standpoint that this conversion, this quid pro quo, is for him a matter of course. The objective conditions of labour—created, moreover, by labour itself—raw materials and working instruments, are not means employed by labour as its means, but, on the contrary, they are the means of employing labour. They are not employed by labour; they employ labour. For them labour is a means by which they are accumulated as capital, not a means to provide products, wealth for the worker.” (p 115)
The author of the “Observations” writes further,
““It does in North America, but that is an artificial state of things”(that is, a capitalistic state of things).
“It does not in Mexico. It does not in New Holland. The productive powers of labour are, indeed, in another sense, greatest where there is much fertile land, viz. the power of man, if he chooses it, to raise much raw produce in proportion to the whole labour he performs. It is, indeed, a gift of nature, that men can raise more food than the lowest quantity that they could maintain and keep up the existing population on…” [loc. cit., pp. 74-75].” (p 115)
This notion that the surplus value, as a surplus product, is a gift of nature, is the foundation of Physiocratic theory. This gift of nature is expressed in the fertility of the land, which is why they believe that only the labour employed on the land is productive, and why the owner of the land has title to the surplus product. Where the land is fertile, a larger gross product arises, relative to the labour employed, which thereby results in a larger surplus product, appropriated as rent.
The situation with industry appears differently, because the commodity has to be sold, and its value then resolves into its component parts, including the revenues of wages and profits. The author of the “Observations” says,
“… but ‘surplus produce’ (the term used by Mr. Ricardo, page 93), generally means the excess of the whole price of a thing above that part of it which goes to the labourers who made it… ” (p 116)
Marx notes, “(the fool does not see that where the land is fertile, the part of the price of the produce that goes to the labourer, although it may be small, buys a sufficient quantity of necessaries; the part that goes to the capitalist is great)” (p 116)
In other words, the situation here is no different. If the land is fertile, the means of subsistence, required by the worker are produced in less time, and they constitute, thereby, a smaller proportion of total output, and total output value. In the same way, if the cost of reproducing the wages of the industrial worker is less, then they constitute a smaller proportion of the value created by that worker, and so the surplus value they produce will be greater.
The author is confused, because they fail to recognise the objective basis of the value of labour-power, which applies as much to the industrial worker as to the agricultural labourer. Rather than seeing that objective basis being the labour-time required to reproduce the worker's labour-power, they see it as being merely subjectively determined on the basis of a negotiation between capital and labour over their respective shares of the gross output, and so they say that it is,
““a point, which is settled by human arrangement, and not fixed by nature” (loc. cit., pp. 74-75).” (p 116)
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