In one sense Bray takes a step backwards, explaining profit in the same way that the Mercantilists did, as resulting from unequal exchange. But, unlike the Mercantilists, Bray explains this unequal exchange not in terms of a general phenomenon, but as one specific to the relation between capital and labour. Profit does not arise from a general surcharge placed on the value of commodities, in every exchange, but only in relation to the exchange of labour-power for wages. And, Bray recognises, therefore, that the real foundation of the surplus resides in production, and the productivity of labour.
““From the relation which capital and labour bear to each other, it is evident that the more capital or accumulated produce there is in a country, the greater will be the facilities for production, and the less labour will it require to obtain a given result. Thus the people of Great Britain, with the aid of their present vast accumulations of capital—their buildings, machinery, ships, canals and railways—can produce more manufactured wealth in one week, than their ancestors of a thousand years since could have created in half a century. It is not our superior physical powers, but our capital, which enables us to do this; for, wherever there is a deficiency of capital, production will progress slowly and laboriously, and vice versa. From these considerations, then, it is apparent, that whatever is gained to Capital, is likewise gained to Labour—that every increase of the former tends to diminish the toil of the latter—and that, therefore, every loss to Capital must also be a loss to Labour. This truth, though long since observed by the political economists, has never yet been fairly stated by them” [loc. cit., pp. 59-60].” (p 322)
As Marx adds, the bourgeois economists argue that capital makes labour more productive, and so this additional product should go to capital not labour.
“Consequently, it is not accumulation which must be the property of labour but labour must be the property of accumulation—[that is, it must be the property 1 of its own products. Consequently, the worker must not accumulate for himself but for someone else, and the accumulation must confront him as capital.” (p 322)
The bourgeois economists cannot separate out the physical manifestation of capital, as means of production, resulting from past labour, from its social form, as the property of capitalists. As a result, they are constantly driven into contradiction.
As Bray puts it,
““They have even identified Capital with one class of the community, and Labour with another class—although the two powers have naturally, and should have artificially, no such connection. The economists always attempt to make the prosperity, if not the very existence, of the working man dependent upon the condition of maintaining the capitalist in luxury and idleness. They would not have the working man to eat a meal until he has produced two—one for himself and the other for his master—the latter receiving his portion indirectly, by unequal exchanges” (ibid., p. 60).” (p 322)
Bray continues,
““But even if all the land and the machinery and the houses did belong to the capitalists, and the working class were not in being, the former would not thereby be enabled to evade the great condition ‘that there shall be labour’. Their wealth would leave them in the choice only of working or starving. They cannot eat the land and the houses; and the land will not yield sustenance, nor the machinery make clothing, without the application of human labour.” (p 323)
And that continues to be the case. However, as Paul Mason describes in Postcapitalism, and I have discussed in past blog posts, that may not always be the case, as automation and robotisation proceed at an increased pace.
“Through the instrumentality of money, the working class are not only compelled to perform the labour which the preservation of existence naturally imposes upon them, but they are likewise saddled with the labour of other classes. It matters not whether the producers now receive gold, or silver, or other commodities from a non-producing class: it all amounts to this—that the working class perform their own labour, and support them-selves, and likewise perform the labour of the capitalist, and maintain him into the bargain! Whatever may be the nominal receipts which the producers receive from the capitalists, their actual receipts are—the transfer of that labour which ought to be rendered by the capitalists” (op. cit., pp. 153-54).” (p 323)
Bray describes the fact that around 4 million workers produced all of the commodities required for the maintenance of its population of 25 million. That would not have been possible without the accumulation of capital that raised the productive power of labour.
““The present constitution of society has been fertilised by machinery, and by machinery will it be destroyed… The machinery itself is good—is indispensable; it is the application of it—the circumstance of its being possessed by individuals instead of by the nation—that is bad” (loc. cit., pp. 82-83).” (p 324)
Bray enumerates the number of idlers amongst the capitalists, landlords and rentiers, and the amount of revenues they obtain from the production undertaken by the labourers. In total he estimates they account for a quarter of the population, and obtain revenues of around £300 million, or approximately half of the wealth produced annually.
“From calculations made in 1815, it appears that the annual income of the whole people of the United Kingdom amounted to about £430,000,000; of which the working class received £99,742,547, and the rent, pension, and profit class £330,778,825! The whole property of the country was at the same time calculated to be worth nearby three thousand millions of pounds sterling” (loc. cit., pp. 84-85).” (p 325)
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