Lenin quotes Sismondi, who argues that the product of any year exchanges only for the product of the previous year. If that were so, then, as Lenin says, any accumulation would be impossible. Sismondi feels there is something incongruous in such a conclusion, Lenin says, and so he modifies this statement.
““If production grows gradually,” he continues, “then annual exchange causes only a slight loss (une petite perte) each year, while at the same time improving the conditions for the future (en même temps qu’elle bonifie la condition future). If this loss is slight and well distributed, every body will bear it without complaint. . . . If, however, the discrepancy between the new production and the preceding one is great, capital perishes (sont entamés), suffering is caused, and the nation retrogresses instead of progressing” (I, 121). It would be difficult to formulate the fundamental thesis of romanticism and of the petty-bourgeois view of capitalism more vividly and more plainly than is done in the above tirade.” (p 147-8)
For the classical economists, the more rapid the development of the productive forces the better, but for Sismondi, and other petty-bourgeois romantics, development has to be held back if not even turned back.
“And we know also that Marx’s theory, which recognised that the more rapid the growth of wealth, the fuller the development of the productive forces of labour and its socialisation, and the better the position of the worker, or as much better as it can be under the present system of social economy, took over this view of accumulation from the classical economists. The romanticists assert the very opposite, and base all their hopes on the feeble development of capitalism; they call for its retardation.” (p 148)
This is also the mentality of the petty-bourgeois catastrophists today, which sees in every setback for capitalist development, every expectation of the next recession, some gain for Socialism. It is what is behind the mentality of many who sought to utilise COVID to argue for society to be shut down, and to continue such lock downs for as long as possible, with ridiculous demands for zero-Covid and so on.
The idea of Sismondi that the problem is one of the realisation of surplus value is taken up by Proudhon, as well as later by the Narodniks. It leads them to the conclusion about the necessity of the foreign market. So, Sismondi says whenever some new invention is introduced that significantly increases productivity, it is also related to the development of these foreign markets. The invention means that labour is released, and then used to expand output, but this additional output can then only be sold in foreign markets. The lower unit price of this output allows it to replace existing production. However, Sismondi argues, eventually all of these foreign markets will be simply components of one single large market, so that this export of excess production is no longer possible.
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