Anti-Duhring, Part II, Political Economy, IX Natural Laws of Economics. Ground-Rent - Part 1 of 8

Engels cites Duhring's “fundamental laws” of economics.

“Law No. 1. “The productivity of economic instruments, natural resources and human energy is increased by inventions and discoveries.”” (p 283)

Unlike Marx, who locates the role of productivity and technological innovation as stemming from an actual Natural Law – The Law of Value – Duhring's Law No.1 is banal. For Marx, The Law of Value acts as the motor of historical evolution, in the same way that The Law of Natural Selection is the motor of biological evolution. The Law of Value means that society must always seek to reduce unit values, in order to increase its production of use-values/real wealth. To do that, it must raise social productivity, a large part of which is technological innovation.

As Marx describes, for example, in The Poverty of Philosophy, it is this technological innovation which, then, results in the development of new productive relations, and these new productive relations create new forms of property, new social classes as the personification of this property, and so new social relations – a social revolution.

But, Duhring has no such material, historical basis for his law. He has no such means of setting out why societies seek to raise productivity at all. Why do they bother, rather than just continuing as they are? Moreover, as Engels notes, not all technological innovations do raise productivity. Engels points to the masses of paper in patent offices of things that were never taken up. Heath Robinson was renowned for his contraptions, none of which had practical application. Again, here, it is The Law of Value that is determinant, because it is only those innovations that actually do reduce unit values that pass the test of natural selection.

And, here, too, as Marx and Engels set out, in Capital III, it is the historically specific nature of capitalist production that determines the form in which that is manifest. Under capitalism, it is not enough simply that a new machine reduces the unit value of commodities, it must reduce those values – labour-time required for production- by such an amount that it is greater than the savings in wages that it brings about.

The importance of this can be seen from the previous discussion. In other words, the value of commodities (setting aside the constant capital) is not only equal to wages, but wages plus the surplus value. Again, here is the distinction between the social cost of production (value) of the commodities, as against the private cost of production (wages) to the capitalist. It is why, as Marx sets out in Capital and Connolly set out in relation to the cooperative at Ralahine, workers' cooperatives always have an incentive to be early adopters of such technologies, because, for the workers, the social cost of production is the same as their private cost of production, i.e. the labour they must expend.

For the individual capitalist firm, the only point of introducing a new machine is to reduce its individual costs of production, and so increase its profit. So, the machine must cost less than the wages saved. But, for the workers, the point of a new machine is only that it lightens the burden of their labour, enables them to produce more whilst working less.

“If “the triumph of the higher scientific method” in economics, as in philosophy, consists only in giving a high-sounding name to the first commonplace that comes to one’s mind, and trumpeting it forth as a natural law or even a fundamental law, then it becomes possible for anybody, even the editors of the Berlin Volkszeitung, to lay “deeper foundations” and to revolutionise science.” (p 283-4)

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According to Duhring, who adopts from Adam Smith's cost of production theory of value, the value of commodities consists of two components, the costs of production, including wages, and the net product, which constitutes the master's income.

“And what is the “net product” constituting “the master's income” but the surplus of the product of labour over and above the wages, which, despite their quite superfluous disguise as a remuneration, must generally assure the worker's subsistence and possibility of propagation even with Herr Dühring? How can the “appropriation of the most important part of the product of labour-power” be carried out unless, as Marx shows, the capitalist extorts from the worker more labour than is necessary for the reproduction of the means of subsistence the latter consumes, that is, unless the capitalist makes the worker work a longer time than is necessary for the replacement of the value of the wages paid the labourer?” (p 280)

For Duhring, the determination of the value of the commodity becomes subjective and so arbitrary. It is the consequence of a cost of production theory of value in which the value/price of a commodity is derived simply as an exercise in the summation of these different factor costs.

“Thus the prolongation of the working-day beyond the time necessary for the reproduction of the labourer’s means of subsistence, Marx’s surplus-labour — this, and nothing but this, is concealed behind Herr Dühring's “utilisation of labour-power”; and his “net product” falling to the master — how can it manifest itself otherwise than in the Marxian surplus-product and surplus-value?” (p 280)

For Marx, there are objective, material constraints. The physical working-day is limited to 24 hours, but, itself, is reduced by the time required for the rest and recuperation required by the worker. The normal working day is limited by the fact that, beyond a certain degree of duration or intensity, the labour-power, itself, wears out more quickly, and so the value of labour-power/wages rises, reducing the amount of surplus value. So a limit on the amount of new value that can be produced, in a day, is set. At the same time, the value of labour-power is also objectively determined by the labour-time required to reproduce the labourer. Consequently, the difference between these two values – the new value created by labour and the value of labour-power – determines the amount of surplus-labour/value, which means it is no longer a subjective or arbitrary amount.

“And what, apart from its inexact formulation, is there to distinguish the Dühringian rent of possession from the Marxian surplus-value? For the rest, Herr Dühring has taken the name “rent of possession” (“Besitzrente“) from Rodbertus, who included both the ground-rent and the rent of capital, or earnings of capital, under the one term rent, so that Herr Dühring had only to add "possession" to it. So that no doubt may be left about his plagiarism, Herr Dühring sums up, in his own way, the laws of the changes of magnitude in the price of labour-power and in surplus-value which are developed by Marx in Chapter XV (Capital page 539, ff.), and does so in such a manner that what falls to the rent of possession must be lost to wages, and vice versa, he thus reduces the particular Marxian laws, which are so rich in content, to a tautology without content, for it is self-evident that one part of a given magnitude falling into two parts, cannot increase unless the other decreases.” (p 280-1)

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Anti-Duhring, Part II, Political Economy, VIII – Capital and Surplus Value (Concluded) - Part 12 of 13

Duhring's approach is entirely moralistic and subjective. He cannot explain where the surplus value/profit comes from, and no amount of force, on its own, can bring it into existence, as against its ability to appropriate it when it does exist. A modern day equivalent of this petty-bourgeois moralistic and subjective approach is seen in the arguments of the “anti-capitalists” and “anti-imperialists”. It basically explains the profits of the big, developed capitalist/imperialist economies on the basis of a mercantilist theory of unequal exchange and monopoly. Like Duhring, it fails to identify how these economies arrived at that superior position in the first place. In that respect, they not only go back to a time before Marx, but to before Adam Smith's “Wealth of Nations”.

“However we approach the Dühringian economics, we do not get one step further. For every obnoxious phenomenon—profit, ground-rent, starvation wages, the enslavement of the workers, it has only one word of explanation, force, and ever again force, and Herr Dühring's “mightier wrath” finally resolves itself into wrath against force.” (p 277)

As Engels already set out, it is economics which explains the material basis for the mobilisation of superior force, not vice versa. That applies equally in relation to the arguments of the “anti-capitalists” and “anti-imperialists”. The large companies can mobilise “force” against small capitals precisely because they have become large companies, and have economic power. They did not become large companies because they used force/market power.

“We have seen, first, that this appeal to force is a lame subterfuge, a relegation of the problem from the economic to the political sphere, which is unable to explain a single economic fact; and second, that it leaves unexplained the origin of force itself, and very prudently so, for otherwise it would have to come to the conclusion that all social power and all political force have their source in economic preconditions, in the mode of production and exchange historically given for each society.” (p 277)

Engels, then, turns to Duhring's treatment of wages and gives several of his quotes. But, in these quotes, Duhring, in his own style, simply repeats the historical analysis provided by Marx, in Capital, of the nature of surplus labour in different modes of production.

In the first of these quotes, cited by Engels, Duhring describes wages as “the remuneration for the subsistence of labour-power.” (p 278) He goes on to say,

“Whether it is a slave or a serf, or a wage-worker who has to be maintained, only gives rise to a difference in the mode of charging the costs of production. In every case the net product obtained by the utilisation of labour-power constitutes the master's income.” (p 278)

This net product, or master's income, he describes as a “rent of possession”, i.e. the feudal lord owns land, and obtains rent from the serfs allowed to live on it, just as the capitalist owns means of production, and, in return for allowing workers to use them, obtains profit. Engels notes,

“This net product has a very well-known physiognomy, which no tattooing or feat of whitewashing can conceal. “In order to become quite clear about the relationships obtaining in this field”, let the reader imagine the passages just cited from Herr Dühring printed opposite the passages previously cited from Marx on surplus-labour, surplus-product and surplus-value, and he will find that in his own style Herr Dühring is here directly copying from Capital.” (p 279)

So, Duhring, having railed against Marx, ends up plagiarising him. He accepts, in these statements, that, throughout history, the basis of exploitation, the source of revenue for all ruling classes, is the surplus labour of the labourer. But, what Duhring's version lacks is the historical specificity of Marx's analysis. As described earlier, the nature of this exploitation is different for slave societies, than for feudal societies, which, in turn, is different to capitalist society. The form of the revenues differs.

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Part II, Political Economy, VIII – Capital and Surplus Value (Concluded) - Part 11 of 13

Duhring writes,

“The domination of capital arose in close conjunction with the domination of land. Part of the agricultural serfs were transformed into craftsmen in the towns, and ultimately into factory material. After ground-rent, earnings of capital developed as a second form of rent of possession.” (p 276)

As Engels notes, as a historical description, this is perverse. Landed property came into existence long before industrial capital. What landed property extracted, as feudal rent, was not a proportion of surplus labour/value, but the whole amount. It is quite different to ground-rent/capitalist rent, which, itself, can only come into existence after the dominance of capitalist production and formation of an average industrial rate of profit. The fact that the former serfs and feudal retainers did move to the towns of the Middle Ages, and became the basis of the urban bourgeoisie, provides a further problem for Duhring's argument. They did not, thereby, become the ruling-class, or have the power of the state behind them, to extract this surcharge by force, as he claims. And yet they were able to sell their commodities at prices that realised the surplus value they contained.

“We can therefore come to no other conclusion than that Herr Dühring is incapable of answering his own question: how can the competing entrepreneurs constantly realize the product of labour above the natural costs of production? That is to say, he is incapable of explaining the genesis of profit. He can only bluntly decree: earnings of capital shall be the product of force — which, true enough, is wholly in accordance with Article Two of the Dühringian social constitution: force distributes. This is certainly expressed very nicely; but now “the question arises”, force distributes—what? Surely there must be something to distribute, or with the best will in the world even the most omnipotent force can distribute nothing.” (p 276-7)

Duhring has a purely subjectivist theory. At least Smith's theory recognised the existence of surplus value, as surplus labour, even if his failure to distinguish between labour-power and labour left him confused about the basis upon which it ends up in the hands of capital and labour. Even here, Smith is in advance of Duhring, because Smith posits the laws of supply and demand for capital and labour as resolving that question, whereas Duhring can only posit “force”.

Smith's solution, based on the operation of supply and demand, starts from the fact of the existence of a surplus value contained within the value of the commodity. Its weakness is that, like all explanations based on supply and demand, it fails to look behind that appearance to what determines the supply, and what determines the demand. It has the advantage over Duhring that it is both objective and scientific. It sets an objective determination of value, and of surplus-value, even if Smith did not properly draw it out. It is what lies behind the appearance of his supply and demand determination of the price of labour (wages) and capital (profit).

“The earnings pocketed by the competing entrepreneurs are something very tangible and solid. Force can take them, but cannot produce them. If Herr Dühring obstinately refuses to explain to us how force takes the earnings of entrepreneurs, he is as silent as the grave in answer to the question of where force takes them from. Where there is nothing, the king, like any other force, loses his rights. Out of nothing nothing comes, and certainly not profit.” (p 277)

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