A Contribution To The Critique of Political Economy, Introduction, I Production, Consumption, Distribution, Exchange (Circulation), 1 Production - Part 4 of 4

On the basis of the superficial description of the commonalities of production, it is,

“presented as governed by eternal natural laws which are independent of history, and at the same time bourgeois relations are clandestinely passed off as irrefutable natural laws of society in abstracto.” (p 192)

But, just as its possible to superficially describe the commonalities of production, so its possible to describe the commonalities of distribution.

“For example, the slave, the serf, the wage-worker, they all receive an amount of food enabling them to exist as a slave, serf or wage-worker. The conqueror who lives on tribute, or the official who lives on taxes, or the landowner who lives on rent, or the monk who lives on alms, or the clergyman who lives on tithes, all receive a portion of the social product which is determined by laws different from those that determine the portion of the slave, and so on. The two principal factors which all economists include in this section are: 1) property and 2) its protection by the judiciary, police, etc.” (p 192)

All production implies the existence of property, and all appropriation of the products also implies the existence of property. But, it is impossible to go from that fact to the assertion that all of this property is bourgeois property, or even just private property. For the vast majority of Man's history, property was collectively owned and communal.

“History has shown, on the contrary, that common property (e.g., among the Indians, Slavs, ancient Celts, etc.) is the original form, and in the shape of communal property it plays a significant role for a long time.” (p 192-3)

In relation to the second point, about the legal and political relations, Marx says, the bourgeois theorists say more than they realise.

“The bourgeois economists have merely in view that production proceeds more smoothly with modern police than, e.g., under club-law. They forget, however, that club-law too is law, and that the law of the stronger, only in a different form, still survives even in their “constitutional State.”” (p 193)

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Forward To 2. The General Relations of Production to Distribution, Exchange, and Consumption