The problem Duhring faced was, if no surplus labour is undertaken, no surplus value or surplus product created, how could it be extracted, however much force is mobilised? Even if Duhring argues that surplus labour is undertaken as a result of the coordinated use of force by the state/ruling-class, he is, then, forced to accept that the social cost of production, i.e. the total labour undertaken, is greater than simply the labour-time represented by wages. If workers are forced to work 10 million hours, whereas only 8 million are required to reproduce the labour-power of the workers/wages, then the total social cost of production is still 10 million hours/£100 million, and not 8 million hours/£80 million, and so he finds himself having to answer the question he posed to Marx of how the capitalists realise this value of £100 million.
As set out earlier, Marx's scientific resolution of this question also enabled him to explain the basis of the existence of an appropriation of the surplus product in previous modes of production, and, thereby, to establish a scientific theory of the evolution of class society. It is the potential for the labourer to perform surplus labour, i.e. to produce more in a day than is required to reproduce their own labour-power (to create more new value than the value of their labour-power) which enables a section of society to consume without producing. It is the amount of surplus production which determines how much can be extracted by an exploiting class, be they slave-owners, feudal lords, or capitalists.
The idea of Duhring's that the capitalists came together as some kind of cabal to determine what “certain measure of earnings of capital” are required can be found, today, in other forms. For example, Michael Roberts perennially predicts an imminent recession, on the basis that capitalists will reduce or refrain from capital accumulation, as a result of a falling rate of profit. But, why would that be the case, unless, as with Duhring, he believes that there is some given, unspoken, “measure of earnings of capital” that is required? Marx specifically rejected such a view. It is a completely different thing to say, as Marx did, that capital will tend o move in to spheres where the rate of profit is highest, and away from where it is lowest than to claim that it will, in total, sit on its hands!
As Engels puts it,
“Just as little can we be satisfied with the assurance that a certain measure of earnings of capital is a necessity in this kind of economy, once it is dominant; for the point to be proved is precisely why this is so.” (p 276)
Duhring utilises the argument put forward by Adam Smith, which led him to advance a cost of production theory of value as against his original labour theory of value. Smith set out the Labour Theory of Value, adopted by Ricardo, and developed by Marx, whereby the value of commodities is determined by the amount of labour-time required for their production. However, because Smith did not distinguish between labour and labour-power, he found himself in a dilemma in trying to explain why wages were not equal to the new value added by labour, and so how profit, rent and interest was possible, as component of the price of the commodity. He concluded that, when landed property and capital comes into existence, the Labour Theory of Value cases to operate as the basis of the price of commodities. In essence, he argues labour is plentiful and so its price falls below its value, whereas capital is scarce and so its price rises above its value. This was also the foundation of Smith's theory of a falling rate of profit. He believed that capital would accumulate and so its supply would rise, whereas labour supply would not increase in proportion. The price of capital (profit) would fall, and wages rise.
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