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  labourvalue
  represented  by  his  wages,  and  the  produce  of  the  remaining ­
  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  unproductively.

What  is  true  in  this  theory  of  surplus  value  is  no  new  revelation. ­
  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  production, ­
  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