Note 189-3 — Chapter IV

The most recent relapse into the old error of the unproductiveness of capital, viz.: that of Karl Marx (Das Kapital; Kritik der polit. Oekonomie, I, 167) is a turning round and round of the author in the vicious circle of his demonstration. If the value of every commodity depends simply on the labor necessary to bring it into existence, or on the time of labor required to produce it, it is self-evident that the value of the capital consumed for the purpose of its production, can at most be only preserved in the new product, and that all the additional value (Mehrwerth) of the latter should be ascribed to labor. (172, and passim.) Hence, strictly speaking, the capitalist who advances capital to workmen, is still bound in duty to be grateful to the latter when the value of his advance is preserved to him undiminished, (§ 173) and all interest levied by him should be considered as a payment towards the extinguishment of the capital [debt] itself. (556.) Relying on such theories, many socialists admit private property and even the right of inheritance to means of enjoyment and use capital (Gebrauchskapitalien) provided only that land and productive capital should pass over into the "collective property" of society, with compensation, however, to their former owners. Considering the short duration of most goods used in enjoyment or consumed, the evil consequences of a community of goods mentioned in § 81, could not be avoided to any extent by this means.

How entirely fallacious the above assumption is, is seen most strikingly in the case of such goods as cigars, wine, cheese, etc., which, without the least addition of labor, by merely postponing the consumption of them, obtain a much larger value both in exchange and in use. Or, how would it be possible, for instance, to reduce the value of a hundred-year-old tree, over and above the cost of planting it, to labor alone? Similarly, the fact that on a Chilian hacienda, 25 per cent. of the cattle can be slaughtered and no diminution of the herd take place. (Wappäus, M. und S. Amerika, 784.) Strassburger rightly inquires: if all the profit of capital is based on a cheating of workmen by capitalists, who is cheated in the case in which a manufacturer without workmen earns more with an increased capital than before with a small capital? (Hildebrand's Jahrb., I, 103.)