The use of the foreign market as a solution by the Narodniks was simply a reflection of their own theoretical errors and failure to understand the process of realisation and capital accumulation. As Lenin says, the way the Narodniks pose the question is also facile and superficial. They assume that the workers will consume wages, but that the capitalists will not be able to consume the surplus value.
“What grounds have we for thinking that the products intended by the entire capitalist class of a given country for consumption by all the workers of that country will really equal their wages in value and will replace them, that there will be no need for a foreign market for these products? There are absolutely no grounds for thinking so, and actually it is not so at all.” (p 163-4)
The capitalists may also, as Marx describes in relation to the 19th century, increase their employment of domestic servants, and all of these must consume commodities, whilst producing no surplus value. As seen more recently, the capitalists may use money profits to engage in speculation, which amounts to another form of unproductive consumption, as with gambling in a casino. The fact that such speculation results in the blowing up of asset price bubbles that are passed off as a creation of wealth, even though they represent merely a massive accumulation of fictitious-capital, does not change the nature of such speculation as unproductive.
All workers consume wage goods, but not all workers produce wage goods. The workers who produce means of production can only consume wage goods, because the workers who produce wage goods produce a surplus of them compared to what is required for their own consumption. The workers engaged in the production of wage goods (Department II) must produce a surplus of wage goods, equal in value to the wages of the workers producing means of production (Department I v). The Department I workers are able to buy these wage goods because the means of production they produce are sold to Department II, and form part of Department II output value. But, there is no reason why, in practice, the commodities produced by Department I workers, that are bought by Department II, should reproduce the wages of Department I workers. Indeed, there is no reason why the commodities produced by Department II workers should be the ones they seek to buy with their own wages either. The fact that equal values have been produced is a necessary, but not a sufficient condition, because what is also required is consideration of demand, which is determined on the basis of use value, not value.
The Department II capitalists may produce wage goods in excess of what Department I and II workers can or wish to buy. So, the capitalists would face the same problem of how to realise this value as the Narodniks propose in relation to the surplus value. But, as Marx sets out, in Theories of Surplus Value, they could export these commodities in exchange for other wage goods that their workers may wish to consume instead, or they can exchange them for imported luxuries for their own consumption, or for fixed capital and raw materials, for the purpose of capital accumulation, or else to employ domestic servants and so on. And, the same thing applies to the actual reproduction and realisation of all other part of the social product.
“Not only the products (or part of the products) which replace surplus-value, but also those which replace variable capital; not only products which replace variable capital, but also those which replace constant capital (forgotten by our “economists” who also forget their kinship . . . with Adam); not only products that serve as articles of consumption but also those that serve as means of production—all these products are realised in the same way, in the midst of “difficulties,” in the midst of continuous fluctuations, which become increasingly violent as capitalism grows, in the midst of fierce competition, which compels every entrepreneur to strive to expand production unlimitedly, to go beyond the bounds of the given country, to set out in quest of new markets in countries not yet drawn into the sphere of capitalist commodity circulation.” (p 164)
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