Lenin turns to the work of N.F. Danielson, one of the leading theoreticians of these Narodnik ideas.
“He regards as the greatest “obstacle” to the development of capitalism in Russia the “contraction” of the home market and the “diminution” of the purchasing power of the peasants. The capitalisation of the handicraft industries, he says, ousted the domestic production of goods; the peasants had to buy their clothing. To obtain the money for this, the peasant took to the expansion of his crop area, and as the allotments were inadequate he carried this expansion far beyond the limits of rational farming; he raised the payment for rented land to scandalous heights, and in the end he was ruined. Capitalism dug its own grave, it brought “people’s economy” to the frightful crisis of 1891 and ... stopped, having no ground under its feet, unable to “continue along the same path.”” (p 122)
We see the familiar dialogue of catastrophism leading to an inevitable collapse of capitalism. A similar catastrophism is presented today, on the basis of the argument that Marx's Law of the Tendency for the Rate of Profit to Fall, which, founded on this concept that Department I (c) grows faster than the other components of total output, is the cause of crises of overproduction.
Lenin notes that Danielson himself is familiar with that very law, although “in view of his faculty for castigating himself with contradictions, he sometimes (cf. p. 123) forgets about that law, but it is obvious that the correction of such contradictions would not in the least correct the author’s main (above-quoted) argument.” (p 123)
Danielson fails to explain the development of capitalism, and his argument is based on a series of fictions deriving from a romantic notion of the nature of the peasantry as some kind of homogeneous group, and of natural economy as some form of natural path of development which had been departed from.
“Nothing of the kind exists in reality. Commodity production could not have arisen in Russia if the productive units (the peasant households) had not existed separately, and everybody knows that actually each of our peasants conducts his farming separately and independently of his fellows; he carries on the production of products, which become his private property, at his own exclusive risk; he enters into relation with the “market” on his own.” (p 123)
Lenin examines Danielson's argument, starting with the claim that the peasants enlarged their crop areas. But, as Lenin points out, its only the better off peasant who can do that. They are the minority, and, in order to cultivate this larger area, they must hire additional labour. The majority of peasants cannot do so. They cannot produce the money they require from their own production, and must increasingly hire out their own labour.
“Such peasants (and they, as we know, are the minority) do, indeed, extend their crop areas and expand their farming to such an extent that they cannot cope with it without the aid of hired labourers. The majority-of peasants, however, are quite unable to meet their need for money by expanding their farming, for they have no stocks, or sufficient means of production. Such a peasant, in order to obtain money, seeks “outside employments,” i.e., takes his labour-power and not his product to the market.” (p 124)
At the same time, the wealthier peasant, who can no longer devote time to other domestic production, as they devote all their time to farming, now, instead, buys these products, such as clothes, shoes, etc., as commodities, from the market, and thereby the market is again extended.
“As to the impoverished peasant, he, too, has to buy footwear; he cannot produce it on his farm for the simple reason that he no longer has one. There arises a demand for footwear and a supply of grain, produced in abundance by the enterprising peasant, who touches the soul of Mr. V. V. with the progressive trend of his farming. The neighbouring handicraft footwear-makers find themselves in the same position as the agriculturists just described: to buy grain, of which the declining farm yields too little, production must be expanded. Again, of course, production is expanded only by the handicraftsman who has savings, i.e., the representative of the minority; he is able to hire workers, or give work out to poor peasants to be done at home.” (p 124)
In the same way as in farming, the majority of handicraft producers cannot expand production, and themselves becomes wage workers, selling labour-power to the minority that bought up the production facilities.
“Again we get the impoverishment of the people, the growth of capitalism and the expansion of the market; a new impetus is given to the further development and intensification of the social division of labour.” (p 124)
The development of capitalism, and the expansion of the market cannot be separated. Trying to do so leads to contradiction and absurdity. But, those that try to do so “break off the investigation with the statement that one of the two phenomena equally unintelligible to them [and, of course, precisely the one that contradicts “the morally developed sense of the critically thinking individual] is “absurd,” “accidental,” “hangs in the air.”
In actual fact, what is “hanging in the air” is of course only their own arguments.” (p 125)
In this essay, Lenin has taken on, in more detail, the economic arguments of the Narodniks, in relation to the development of capitalism in Russia. In the next essay, he turns in more detail to the theoretical underpinning of Narodism, in subjective sociology, and its philosophical manifestation as Sismondism.
No comments:
Post a Comment