The Socialism of to-day

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 835096955

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-28834

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Laveleye, Émile de

Title:: The Socialism of to-day

Place of publication:: London

Publisher:: Field & Tuer

Year of publication:: 1884

Scope:: 1 Online-Ressource (XLIV, 331 S.)

Collection:: Economics Books

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314 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. talist, therefore, in the competition of the market, is enabled to buy the labour-force for a starvation wage, a wage just sufficient to enable the labourer to subsist and perpetuate his race. But the labourer in three or four hours’ work replaces the labour- value represented by his wages, and the produce of the remain ing six or seven hours’ labour constitutes the surplus value which “ makes capital breed,” pays the capitalist, the landlord, the banker, the broker, the shopkeeper, the merchant, and in short enables “ idle ” people to live on the produce of unpaid labour. Thus, capital is not the result of saving or abstinence, as the orthodox Economists “ do vainly talk,” but arises from the produce of unpaid labour. “ To the carnal eye,” says Mr. Belfort Bax, who, as far as he goes, is a much clearer exponent of the ideas of Karl Marx than Mr. Hyndman, “ the abstinence of a Nathaniel Rothschild is below the minimum visible." Certainly it is no great merit on his part, but whatever the millionnaire accumulates he abstains from spending unproduc- tively. What is true in this theory of surplus value is no new reve lation. Every one knows that the labourer does not get the whole value of the product in his wages. As long as land and capital are owned by some individuals, and not by all, nay, as long as special business abilities are the property of a few, so long will labourers, who are without these requisites of produc tion, have to pay for their use. It is unnecessary for me to discuss the “ iron law ” of wages which is summoned in aid of the surplus value theory. M. de Laveleye has shown what a small element of truth there is in it. There is only one point I need notice. Mr. Hyndman says,“ The higher wages which some workers get than others do not vitiate this (the bare-subsistence theory). Complex labour is at most a multiple of simple labour.” It would seem, therefore, that the “ complex labourer,” who earns thirty shillings a week, requires three times as many loaves to keep him in working order as the “ simple labourer,” who, for the same number of hours’ work, gets only ten shillings a week. And again, as the value of commodities depends on the quantity of labour-force, measured by time, “ socially necessary ” to produce them, the product of

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