Preliminaries. 737 sought refuge in a reduction of the cost of production, among other things by introducing steam engines and new machin- ery in abundance, which partly replaced horses and crowded them out of the business, but partly also created an artificial overpopulation by throwing agricultural laborers out of work and thereby causing a fall in wages. And this took place in spite of the general relative decrease of the agricultural pop- ulation during that decade, compared to the growth of the total population, and in spite of the absolute decrease of the agricultural population in some purely agricultural dis- tricts.-^^'* In the same way Fawcett, then professor of polit- ical economy at Cambridge, who died in 1884 as Postmaster General, said at the Social Science Congress, October 12, 1865: " The agricultural laborers began to emigrate and the tenants began to complain, that they would not be able to pay such high rents as they had been accustomed to pay, because labor became dearer in consequence of emigration." Here, then, the high ground-rent is directly identified with low wages. And so far as the level of the prices of land is determined by this circumstance increasing the rent, a rise in the value of the land is identical with a depreciation of labor, a high price of land with a low price of labor.
The same is true of France. " The price of rent rises, be- cause the prices of bread, wine, meat, vegetables and fruit rise on the one side, while on the other the price of labor remains unchanged. If the older people compare the bills of their fathers, taking us back about 100 years, they will find that the price of one day's labor was then the same in rural France as it is now. The price of meat has trebled since them...Who is the victim of this revolution? Is it the rich, who is the proprietor of the estate, or the poor who works it?...The raising of the prices of rent is the proof of a national disaster." (Du Mecanisme de la Societe en France et en Angleterre. Par M. Rubichon, Sec- ond edition, Paris, 1837, p. 101.)
We now give some illustrations of rent representing deduc- "* John C. Morton, The Forces Used in Agriculture. Lecture in the London Society of Arts, 1860, based upon authentic documents, collected by about 100 tenants from 12 Scotch and 35 English counties.
2U 738 Capitalist Production.
tions either from the average profit or from the average wages.
The above quoted Morton, real estate agent and agricultural engineer, says that the observation has been made in many localities that the rent for large estates is smaller than for small ones, because '' competition for the latter is generally greater than for the former, and because small tenants, who are rarely able to take up any other business but farming, are frequently willing to pay a rent, which they themselves know to be too high, pressed by the want of finding some otlier busi- ness." (John C. Morton, The Resources of Estates. Lon- However, he is of the opinion that this difference is gradu- ally disappearing in England, and he attributes this largely to the emigration of the class of small tenants. The same Morton gives an illustration, in which evidently the wages of the tenant himself, and still more surely of the laborers, suffer a deduction for ground-rent. This takes place in the case of estates of 70 to 80 acres, who cannot keep a two-horse plow. " Unless the tenant works as diligently with his OT\ni hands as any laborer, he cannot make out on his lease. If he leaves the execution of the work to his men and confines himself to superintending them, he will most likely find very quickly that he is unable to pay his rent." (L. c., p. 118.) Morton concludes, therefore, that unless the tenants of a cer- tain locality are very poor, the leaseholds should not ba smaller than 70 acres, so that the tenants may keep two or three horses.
Extraordinary wisdom of Monsieur Lconce de Lavergne, Membre de VInstitut et de la Societe Centrale d' Agriculture. In his Economic Rurale de I'Angleterre (quoted from the English translation, London, 1855), he makes the following comparison of the annual advantages from cattle, that work in France but not in England, where they are replaced by FRANCE ENGLAND FRANCE ENGLAND Milk 4 million p.st. Milk 16 million p.st.
Meat Ki million p.st. Meat 20 million p.st.
Labor...8 million p.st. Labor Preliminaries. 739 But the higher amount for England is obtained heo-e, ac- cording to his own statement, because miik i» twice as dear in England than in France, while he counts the same prices for meat in both countries (p. 35); therefore the English milk product reduces itself to 8 million pounds sterling, and the total product to 28 million pounds sterling, the same as in France. It is indeed a strong dose, that Mr. Laverg-ne lumps the quantities and price differences together in his calcula- tion, when England produces certain articles more expensively than France, so that this appears as an advantage of English agriculture, whereas it signifies at best only a higher profit for tenants and landlords.
That Mr. Lavergne is not only familiar with the advan- tages of English agriculture, but also believes in the prejudices of the English tenants and landlords, is proved bj him on page 48: " One great disadvantage is generally connected with grain plants...they exhaust the soil that bears them." Mr. Lavergne believes not only that other plants do not do so, but he also believes that leguminous crops and root crops enrich the soil: " Leguminous plants draw the principal elements of their growth out of the air, while they give back to the soil more than they take from it; therefore they help both directly and indirectly through their return in the shape of animal manure to make good in a double way th.e damage caused by grain crops and other exhausting crops; hence it is a matter of principle that they should at least al- ternate with such crops; in this consists the j^orfolk rota- Xo wonder that Mr. Lavergne, who believes these fairy tales of the English rural mind, also believes that the wages of the English farm laborers have lost their abnormality since the repeal of the com tax. See what we have said on this point in another place, Volume I, chapter XXV, 5c, pages 739 to 766. But let us also listen to Mr. John Bright's speech in Birmingham, December 14, 1865. After mention- ing the 5 million families that are not represented in Parlia- ment, he continues: "Among these are one million, or rather more than one million in the United Kingdom, who 740 Capitalist Production.
are put down on the luckless list of paupers. Then there is still another million, who are holding themselves just above pauperism, but who are continually in danger of likewise becoming paupers. Their condition and prospects are not any better. Now take a look at the ignorant lower strata of this portion of society. Consider their outcast condition, their poverty, their complete hopelessness. Even in the United States, even in the southern states during the reign of slavery, eveiy negro looked forward to some jubilee year. But these people, this mass of the lowest strata of our coun- try, I am here to express it, have neither the faith in any im- provement nor even a longing for it. Did you read the other day that item about John Cross, a farm laborer of Dorset- shire? He worked six days in the week, had an excellent character from his employer, for whom he had worked 24 years for a weekly wage of 8 sh. John Cross had to keep a family of seven children in his hut out of this wage. In order to warm his sickly wife and her suckling babe, he took, or legally speaking he stole, a wooden hurdle worth six pence. For this crime he was sentenced to 14 or 20 days' imprison- ment by the justices of the peace. I can tell you that many thousands of cases like that of John Cross may be found in the whole country, and particularly in the South, and that their condition is such, that so far the most sincere investiga- tor has not been able to solve the secret, how they keep body and soul together. And now throw your glances over the whole country and look at those 5 million families and the desperate condition of this stratum of them. Can we not say truly that the mass of the nation excluded from the suf- frage toils and toils again and knows almost no rest? Com- pare them with the ruling class — but if I do that I shall be accused of communism...but compare this great toil- ing and suffrageless nation with that part which may be re- garded as the ruling class. Look at their wealth, their showi- ness, their luxury. Look at their weariness — for there is a weariness also among them, but it is the weariness of satiety — and see how they hasten from place to place, as though it Preliminaries. 741 were only a question of discovering new pleasures." {Morn- ing Star, December 15, 1865.)
We will show hereafter, in what manner surplus-labor, and consequently surplus-products, are confounded with ground- rent, which is, at least under the capitalist mode of produc- tion, qualitatively and quantitatively a specifically determined part of the surplus-product. The natural basis of surplus- labor in general, that is a natural condition without which such labor cannot be performed, is that nature must supply, either in animal or vegetable products of the soil or in fish- eries, etc., the necessary means of subsistence by an expendi- ture of labor wdiicli does not consume the entire working day. This natural productivity of agricultural labor (which im- plies here the labor of gathering, hunting, fishing, cattle rais- ing) is the basis of all surplus-labor; so is all labor primarily and originally directed toward the appropriation and pro- duction of food. (The animal supplies at the same time skins for warmth in colder climates; also cave dwellers, etc.)
The same confusion between surplus-product and gi-ound- reut, differently expressed, is shown by Mr. Dove. Origi- nally agricultural and industrial labor are not separated. The second joins into the first. The surplus-labor and the surplus- product of the farming tribe, the house commune or family, comprise both agricultural and industrial labor. Both go hand in hand. Hunting, fishing, agriculture are impossible without suitable tools. Weaving, spinning, etc., were first carried on as side occupations to farming.
We have shown previously, that in the same way in which the labor of the individual workman may be separated into necessary and sui'plus-labor, the aggTCgate labor of the work- ing class may be divided so that that portion, which produces the total means of subsistence for the working class (includ- ing the means of production required for this purpose) per- forms the necessary labor for the whole society. The labor performed by all the remainder of the working class may then be regarded as surplus-labor. But the necessary includes by no means only agricultural labor, but also that labor which 742 Capitalist Production.
produces all other products tliat necessarily pass into the aver- age consumption of the laborer. Socially speaking, some per- form only necessary, others only surplus-labor, and vice versa. It is but a division of labor between them. It is the same with the division of labor between agricultural and industrial laborers in general. The purely industrial character of labor on the one side is offset by the purely agricultural one on the other. This purely agricultural labor is by no means nat- ural, but is rather a product, and a very modern one at that, which has not yet been acquired everywhere, of social devel- opment, and it corresponds to a very definite stage of devel- opment. Just as a portion of the agricultural labor is ma- terialised in products, which either minister only to luxury or serve as raw materials in industry, but do not serve as food, particularly not as food for the masses, so a portion of the industrial labor is materialised in products, which sen'e as necessary means of consumption,of both the agricultural and industrial laborers. It is a mistake to consider this indus- trial labor, from a social point of view, as surplus-labor. It is in part as much necessary labor as the necessary portion of the agricultural labor. It is likewise but a separated form of a part of industrial labor which was formerly naturally connected with agricultural labor, it is a necessary and mutual supplement to the purely agricultural labor, which is now separated from it. (From a purely material point of view 500 mechanical weavers may produce surplus-fabrics to a far greater degree, that is, more than is required for their own clothing. ) It should finally be remembered in the study of the various forms which appear as ground-rent, that is, of the lease money paid under the name of gi'ound-rent to the landlord for the use of the land for the purposes of production or consump- tion, that the price of things, which have in themselves no value, not being the products of labor, such as the land, or which at least cannot be reproduced by labor, such as antiqui- ties, works of art of certain masters, etc., may be determined by many accidental combinations. In order to sell a thing.
Preliminaries. 743 nothing more is required than that it can be monopolised and alienated.
There are three great errors, which should be avoided in the study of ground-rent, and which obscure its analysis.
1) Confusion of the various forms of rent, which corre- spond to different stages of development of the process of so- cial production.
Whatever may be the specific form of rent, all tyjDes of it have this in common that the appropriation of rent is that economic form, in which property in land realises itself, and that ground-rent on its j^art is conditioned on the existence of private property in land, the ownership of certain portions of the globe by certain individuals. The owner may be the individual representing the community, as in Asia, Egypt, etc., or this private ownership in land may be merely acces- sory to the o^vnership of the persons of the direct producers by some individuals, as under the slave or serf system, or it may be a purely private ownership of nature by nonproduc- ers, a mere title to land, or finally it may be a relation to the soil which, as in the case of colonists and small peasants own- ing land, seems included under a system of isolated and un- social labor in the appropriation and production of the prod- ucts of certain pieces of land by the direct producers.
This common element in the various forms of rent, namely that of being the economic realisation of property in land, a legal fiction by grace of Avhich certain individuals have an ex- clusive right to certain pieces of the globe, misleads into over- looking the differences.
2) All gTound-rent is surplus-A'alue, the product of surplus- labor. In its undeveloped form, as natural rent (rent in kind), it is as yet directly the surplus-product itself. This gives rise to the mistaken idea that the rent corresponding to the capitalist mode of production is explained by merely explaining the general prerequisites of surplus-value and profit, whereas this ground-rent is always a surplus over and 744 Capitalist Production.
above profit. It is a peculiar and specific portion of surplus- value, over and above that portion of the value of commodi- ties, vs^hich is known as profit and consists itself of surplus- value (surplus-labor). The general conditions for the exist- ence of surplus-value and profit are: The direct producers must work beyond the time necessary for the reproduction of their own labor-power. They must perform surplus labor in general. This is the subjective condition. The objective con- dition is that they must be able to perform surplus-labor. The natural conditions must be such that a part of tlieir available labor time suffices for their reproduction and selfmaintenance as producers, that the production of their necessary means of subsistence shall not consume their whole labor-power. The fertility of nature forms a limit here, a starting point, a basis. The development of the social productivity of their labor forms the other limit. Still more strictly speaking, since the production of means of subsistence is the very first condition of their existence and of all production, the labor used in this production, that is the agricultural labor in the widest eco- nomic meaning, must be productive enough, so that it will not absorb the entire available labor time in the production of means of subsistence for the direct producers. Agricultural surplus-labor and an agricultural surplus-product must be pos- sible. More widely applied, it means that the total agricul- tural labor, both necessary and surplus-labor, of a part of so- ciety suffices to produce the necessary subsistence for the whole society, including the laborers who are not agricultural. It means that this great division of labor between farmers and industrials must be possible, also that between farmers producing subsistence and farmers producing raw materials. Although the labor of the producers of subsistence consists of necessary and surplus-labor, so far as their owti point of view goes, it represents from the social standpoint only the labor necessary to produce the social subsistence. The same takes place in the case of division of labor within society as a whole, as distinguished from division of labor in the indi- vidual workshop. It is the labor necessary for the produc- tion of particular articles, for the satisfaction of some partic- Preliminaries. 745 ular need of society. If this division is proportional, then the products of the various groups are sold at their values (at a later stage of development at their prices of production), or at prices which are modifications of their values or prices of production due to general laws. It is indeed the law of value enforcing itself, not with reference to individual com- modities or articles, but to the total products of the particular social spheres of production made independent by division of labor. Every commodity must contain the necessary quantity of labor, and at the same time only the proportional quantity of the total social labor time must have been spent on the various groups. For the use-value of things remains a prerequisite. The use-value of the individual commodities depends on the particular need which each satisfies. But the use-value of the social mass of products depends on the extent to which it satisfies in quantity a definite social need for every particular kind of product in an adequate manner, so that the labor is proportionately distributed among the dif- ferent spheres in keeping with these social needs, which are definite in quantity. (This point is to be noted in the dis- tribution of capital to the various spheres of production.)
The social need, that is the use-value on a social scale, ap- pears here as a determining factor for the amount of social labor which is to be supplied by the various particular spheres. But it is only the same law, which showed itself in the indi- vidual commodity, namely that its use-value is the basis of its exchange-value and thus of its surplus-value. This point has any bearing upon the proportion between necessary and surplus-labor only in so far as a violation of this proportion makes it impossible to realise the value of the commodities and the surplus-value contained in it. For instance, take it that proportionally too much cotton goods have been pro- duced, although only the labor-time necessary for this total product under the prevailing conditions is realised in it. But too much social labor has been expended in this particu- lar line, in other words, a portion of this product is useless. The whole of it is therefore sold only as though it had been produced in the necessary proportion. This quantitative 746 Capitalist Production.
limit of the quota of social labor available for the various particular spheres is but a wider expression of the law of value, although the necessary labor time assumes a different meaning here. Only just so much of it is required for the satisfaction of the social needs. The limitation is here due to the use-value. Society can use only so much of its total labor for this particular kind of products under the prevail- ing" conditions of production. But the subjective and ob- jective conditions of surplus-labor and surplus-value in general have nothing to do with the peculiar form of either the profit or the rent. These conditions apply to surplus-value as such, no matter what special form it may assume. Hence they do not explain ground-rent.
3) It is precisely the self -expansion of private property, the development of ground-rent, which reveals the characteris- tic peculiarity, that its amount is by no means determined by the actions of its recipient, but by the independent develop- ment of social labor, in which he does not take part. It may easily happen, therefore, that something is regarded as a pe- culiarity of rent (and of the products of agriculture in gen- eral), which is really a common feature of all lines of production and all their products on the basis of the produce tion of commodities, or, more strictly speaking, of capitalist production.
The amount of ground-rent (and with it the value of the soil) develops with the progress of social advance as a result of the total labor of society. On the one hand this leads to a gTowth of the market and of the demand for products of the soil, on the other it stimulates the demand for the land itself, which is a prerequisite of competitive production in all lines of business, even in those Avhich are not agricultural. Speak- ing strictly of real-ground rent, this rent, and with it the value of the soil, develops with the market for the products of the soil, and thus with the increase of the other than agricultural population, with its needs and demand for either means of subsistence or raw materials. It is the nature of capitalist production to reduce the agricultural population Continually as compared to the non-agricultural, because in Preliminaries. 747 Preliminaries. 747 industry (strictly speaking) the increase of the constant cap- ital compared to the variable capital goes hand in hand with an absolute increase, though relative decrease, of the vari- able capital; vi'hereas in agriculture the variable capital re- quired for the exploitation of a certain piece of land de- creases absolutely and cannot increase, unless new land is taken into cultivation, which implies a still greater previous growth of the non-agricultural population.
In fact we are not dealing here with a characteristic peculiarity of agriculture and its products. On the con- trary, the same applies to all other lines of production and products on the basis of a prodution of commodities and of its absolute form, capitalist production.
These products are commodities, use-values, which have an exchange-value which can be realised, converted into money, only to the extent that other commodities form an equivalent for them, that other products face them as commodities and values. They have an exchange-value to the extent that they are not produced as immediate means of subsistence for the producers themselves, but as commodities, as products which become use-values only by their conversion into exchange- values (money), by being gotten rid of. The market for these commodities develops through the social division of labor; the separation of the productive labor into various departments transforms their respective products mutually into commodities, into mutual equivalents, makes them serve mutually as markets. This is in no way peculiar to agri- cultural products.
Rent can develop as money-rent only on the basis of a pro- duction of commodities, more strictly of capitalist produc- tion, and it so develops in proportion as the agricultural pro- duction becomes a production of commodities. This is the same proportion in which other than agricultural lines of production develop independently of agriculture, for to that extent does the agricultural product become a commodity, an exchange-value, a value. To the same extent that the production of commodities develops as a capitalist produc- tion, and as a production of value, does the production of.
748 Capitalist Production.
surplus-value and surplus-products proceed. But to the same extent that this continues does property in land acquire the faculty of capturing an ever increasing portion of this sur- plus-value by means of its land monopoly. Thereby it raises its rent and the price of the land itself. The capi- talist performs at least an active function himself in the development of surplus-value and surplus-products. But the land owner has but to capture his growing share in the sur- plus-product and the surplus-value created without his as- sistance. It is this which is the characteristic peculiarity of his position, and not the fact that the value of the products of the soil and thus of the land increases in proportion as the market for them expands, the demand grows and with it the world of commodities which are not agricultural prod- ucts, the mass of producers and products outside of agricul- ture. But as this is done without the assistance of the land- owner, it appears as something specifically his own, that measures of value, measures of surplus-value, and the con- version of a portion of surplus-value into ground-rent should depend upon the process of social production, on the develop- ment of the production of the commodities in general. For