Marx seizes on McCulloch's use of the term “accumulated labour” to attack him on a more personal level. Not only had McCulloch gained financially, by selling his writing that had been largely plagiarised from the labour of other writers, such as Ricardo, Mill and Say, but McCulloch had also sold his own writings on multiple occasions to different journals. Marx refers specifically to an 1826 work by Mordecai Mullion, Some illustrations of Mr. McCulloch’s Principles of Political Economy, Edinburgh, 1826.
“It traces how our chevalier d’industrie made a name for himself. Nine-tenths of his work is copied from Adam Smith, Ricardo and others, the remaining tenth being culled repeatedly from his own accumulated labour which he repeats most shamelessly and contemptibly. Mullion shows, for example, not only that McCulloch sold the same articles to The Edinburgh Review and The Scotsman and the Encyclopaedia Britannica as his own “dissertations” and as new works, but also that he published the same articles word for word and with only a few transpositions and under new titles in different issues of The Edinburgh Review over the years.
In this respect Mullion says the following about “this most incredible cobbler”, “this most Economical of all Economists”:
“Mr. McCulloch’s articles are as unlike as may be to the heavenly bodies […] but, in one respect, they resemble such luminaries—they have stated times of return” ([Mordecai Mullion,] (op. cit., p. 21). “ (p 185-6)
McCulloch also issued forth on the question of the law of falling profits, giving “vent to a veritable jeremiad” on the question, similar to the warnings of current day catastrophists, who prophesy crises of capitalism always impending as a result of that same law.
“(This claptrap is called “Considerations on the Accumulation of Capital”.)
“The author … expresses the fears in him by the decline in profit as follows:”
‘…the condition of’ (England) ‘however prosperous in appearance, is bad and unsound at bottom; […] the plague of poverty is secretly creeping on the mass of her citizens; […] the foundations of her power and greatness have been shaken…’
‘… where […] the rate of interest is low, as in [Holland and] England, […] the profits of stock are also low […], those are countries […] that […] are approaching the termination of their career.’
“These observations must surprise everybody acquainted with England’s splendid situation” ([McCulloch, Discours sur l’économie, traduit par] Prévost, p. 197” (p 186)
However, McCulloch did manage to stumble on one correct proposition. As Marx puts it, even a blind sow sometimes finds an acorn.
“But even this, as he presents it, is only an inconsistency, since he does not distinguish surplus-value from profit. Secondly, it is again one of his thoughtless, eclectic acts of plagiarism.” (p 186)
For subjectivists, like Bailey, there is no difference between surplus value and profit. Profit is simply derivative from capital, and proportionate to it. That is also the case with Torrens. In other words, for them, surplus value does not exist as a concept; there is only profit. They do not try to explain its source, and their theory prevents them from doing so. All their theory does is to recognise its existence and to describe it.
Ricardo does acknowledge surplus value and profit, but considers them to be identical, and he has to do so, because he equates the natural price of commodities with their exchange value rather than their price of production.
“The passages in Mac’s work, who is (1) a Ricardian and (2) plagiarises Ricardo’s opponents—without attempting to reconcile [the conflicting ideas]—read:
Ricardo’s law [that a rise in profits can be brought about in no other way than by a fall in wages, and a fall in profits only by a rise in wages] is only true “in those cases in which the productiveness of industry […] remains constant” (J. R. McCulloch, The Principles of Political Economy, London, 1825, p. 373), that is, the productiveness of the industry which produces constant capital.
“… profits depend on the proportion which they bear to the capital by which they are produced, and not on the proportion […] to wages” (loc.cit., pp. 373-74). If the productivity of industry in general is doubled and the additional product thus obtained is divided between capitalists and workers, then the proportion of the share of the capitalists to that of the workers remains unchanged, although the rate of profit calculated on the capital advanced has risen.” (p 187)
In other words, here, McCulloch correctly makes the distinction, by contrast with Ricardo, between surplus value, which is produced by, and measured against, variable-capital, and profit, which is the product of and measured against the total capital, constant and variable. So, as McCulloch correctly states, if productivity rises, the value of the constant capital may fall, so that even if the mass of surplus value remains constant, the rate of profit will rise.
It could be said that wages have fallen proportionately to the total product, but Marx says, this is an incorrect way of measuring wages, “and, as we saw previously, Mr. John Stuart Mill seeks to generalise the Ricardian law in this sophistical manner.” (p 187)
No comments:
Post a Comment