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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