Similarly, therefore, the farmers pay 2 milliards in rent to the landlords, but the landlords, having consumed their own stock of food, during the year, must replace it at the end of the year, which they do by handing back to the farmers 2 milliards in exchange for the food they require for the following year.
“This, then, is how the money paid by the farmer class to the landlords as rent for the year 1757 amounting to two milliards, flows back to it at the close of the year 1758 (the Tableau itself will show how this comes about), so that the farmer class can again throw this sum into circulation in 1759. But since, however, as Quesnay observes, this sum is much larger than is actually required for the total circulation of the country (France), in which payments are constantly being repeated piecemeal, the two milliard livres in the hands of the farmers represent the total money in circulation in the nation.” (p 317)
In other words, as described earlier, if the farmers bought industrial commodities 10 times during the year, rather than one large purchase, they only require a money hoard of £100 rather than £1,000. The reality of multiple, simultaneous purchases, not only by the three classes in aggregate, but, also, of individuals within each of the classes means that money hoards are required by individuals within each class. For example, industrial producers would not be waiting to obtain £100 from farmers, before making their own purchases of commodities, and so would require their own separate money hoards for that purpose. As Engels describes, the 2 milliards is the sum total of the money hoards required, but placed, initially, in the hands of the farmers, in the Tableau, for the purposes of exposition.
“The class of landlords drawing rent first appears in the role of receivers of payments, which incidentally is the case even today. On Quesnay's assumption the landlords proper receive only four-sevenths of the two milliards of rent: two-sevenths go to the government, and one-seventh to the receivers of tithes. In Quesnay's day the Church was the biggest landlord in France and in addition received the tithes on all other landed property.” (p 317)
The landlords (and the state and church), having received this 2 milliards in rent, at the start of the year, then use it to buy commodities, replacing their own consumed material stocks. But, they do not consume only agricultural products. They also consume industrial commodities bought from the sterile class. Not all of the 2 milliards in rents, therefore, returns, directly, to the farmers.
“The working capital (avances annuelles) expended by the “sterile” class in the course of a whole year consists of raw materials to the value of one milliard—only raw materials, because tools, machinery, etc., are included among the products of that class itself. But the many different roles, played by such products in the industrial enterprises of this class do not concern the Tableau any more than the circulation of commodities and money which takes place exclusively within this sphere.” (p 317-8)
In other words, the sterile class (industry) has a working-capital consisting of agricultural products (food and raw materials) and industrial products (machines, intermediate goods etc.), but the Tableau is only concerned with the exchanges between agriculture and industry. Within the sterile class, different producers of machines and intermediate goods will exchange with each other, as described earlier. They will also produce industrial commodities for personal consumption, such as clothes consumed by industrial capitalists and workers. The Tableau assumes that these industrial products for personal consumption are not bought by the productive class, which meets its own requirements, in that regard, from its own direct production.
So, the numerous exchanges of industrial products, either for productive or personal consumption, by the sterile class, are outside the concern of the Tableau, and it is only its aggregate exchanges with the farmer and the landlords that are analysed.
No comments:
Post a Comment