Letter to Friedrich Engels, March 7, 1877

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 7 March 1877


First published in MEGA, Abt. III, Bd. 4, Berlin, 1931
Printed according to the original
Published in English in full for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 45


MARX TO ENGELS[1]

IN BRIGHTON

[London,] 7 March 1877

DEAR FRED,

As I might forget to do so later, I am sending off this contribution in the wake of my last epistle[2] :

1. The most important point of Hume's view of the influence of an increase in money on the stimulation of industry, a point which shows more clearly than anything else (if, indeed, there had been any room for DOUBT on this score) that he sees this increase as occurring only in conjunction with a depreciation of precious metals, a point to which Hume reverts on various occasions, as is apparent if only from the excerpt I have sent—is that THE PRICE OF LABOUR rises only in the last resort, after that of all other commodities.[3] Now M. Dühring[4] [5] says not a word about this; indeed, Hume whom he praises so highly, is treated by him in as slovenly and superficial a fashion as all the rest. Besides, assuming he had noticed the thing, which is more than doubtful, he would have seen fit, having regard to the workers, not to praise a theory of this kind but rather TO BURKE THE WHOLE.

2. My own particular way of dealing with the Physiocrats[6] —i.e. as the first methodical (not, like Petty, etc., merely casual) exponents of capital and of the capitalist mode of production—was something I did not, of course, wish to put on display just yet. The fact is, IN PLAIN WORDS SAID, that my viewpoint might be taken up and simultaneously debased by charlatans before I had a chance to expound it. Which is why I did not touch on this in the exposé I sent you.

But in dealing with Diihring it might perhaps be fitting to draw attention to the following two passages in CAPITAL. I quote them from the French edition because they are less vague here than in the German original:

With reference to the Tableau Économique[7] : 'La reproduction annuelle est un procès très facile à saisir tant que l'on ne considère que le fonds de la production annuelle, mais tous les éléments de celle-ci doivent passer par le marché. Là les mouvements des capitaux et des revenus se croisent, s'entremêlent et se perdent dans un mouvement général de déplacement—la circulation de la richesse sociale—qui trouble la vue de l'obser-vateur et offre à l'analyse des problèmes très-compliqués. C'est le grand mérite des physiocrates d'avoir les premiers essayé de donner, dans leur tableau économique, une image de la reproduc-tion annuelle telle qu'elle sort de la circulation. Leur exposition est à beaucoup d'égards plus près de la vérité que celle de leurs successeurs'.[8] (258, 259.)

With reference to the definition of 'travail productif'*: 'Aussi l'économie politique classique -a-t-elle toujours, tantôt instinctivement, tantôt consciemment, soutenu que ce qui carac-térisait le travail productif, c'était de rendre une plus-value. Ses définitions du travail productif, changent à mesure qu'elle pousse plus avant son analyse de la plus-value. Les physiocrates, par exemple, déclarent que le travail agricole seul est productif. Et pourquoi? Parce que seul il donne une plus-value qui, pour eux, n'existe que sous la forme de la rente foncière.'[9] [10] (p. 219).

'Although the Physiocrats could not penetrate the mystery of surplus value, yet this much was clear to them, viz., that it was "une richesse indépendante et disponible qu'il" (the possessor thereof) "n'a point achetée et qu'il vend"[11] (Turgot) (p. 554, Capital, 2nd German ed.), and that the same could not arise out of circulation (I.c., Capital, pp. 141-145).

I happened to be at DINNER when the GREAT Barry arrived IN GREAT HURRY with 8 newspapers under his arm.

English newspaper editors are quite extraordinary ANIMALS. The EDITOR of Vanity Fair (i.e. the subordinate one; Mr Bowles, the head and PROPRIETOR, a semi-Urquhartite, has gone to Spain with his wife for the benefit of the latter's health) had at length published the article[12] from which the Scottish Morning News and the London Whitehall Review had shied away, ditto the 6 GOVERNMENTAL PAPERS, or rather the CENTRAL PRESS which is in the hands of the Tory Ministry and puts their stuff together for them.

Bon.[13] The same Vanity Fair MAN has, by way of revenge, now taken fright in his turn at the prospect of reprinting (in the interests of the cause and Mr Barry) the article already printed by those 8 journals, namely the one relating to Gladstone's ARTICLE IN THE Contemporary Review.[14] Writes, asking Barry what to do in the event of a LIBEL action. I gave Barry—who had providently come already armed with the above-mentioned 8 PAPERS—instructions as to what answer he should give. I MUST BE VERY MUCH MISTAKEN IF EVEN THIS HESITATION (WHICH WE SHALL, HOWEVER, OVERCOME) HAS NOT SOMETHING TO DO WITH THE 'SCRUPLES' OF MR COLLET. IT IS, IN FACT, TOO BAD TO TAKE THE SECRET DIPLOMACY BUSINESS OUT OF THEIR HANDS.'

By the by, Russian diplomacy has degenerated into pure farce. Mr Ignatiyev's TOUR, whether or not it is initially successful, will still remain, no matter what the circumstances, an even more grotesque and compromising pilgrimage than that of Mr Thiers after the farrago of the 4th of September.[15]

From the magnanimous Gambuzzi I have received an epilogue, 9 PAGES long, of his own contriving, upon the magnanimous Fanelli, who has just died. Presumably intended to make me repent of the insulting remarks about ejusdem[16] [17] Fanelli in the piece concerning the Alliance.[18]

Your

K. M.

  1. ↑ An extract from this letter was published in English for the first time in: K. Marx and F. Engels, Letters on 'Capital', New Park Publications Ltd., London, 1983.
  2. ↑ Enclosed in Marx's letter TO ENGELS of 5 March 1877 were Marx's 'Randnoten zu Dührings Kritische Geschichte der Nationalökonomie. The manuscript, which contains a critical analysis of the first three sections of the second edition of Diihring's book, was used by Engels as the basis for Chapter X, 'From Kritische Geschichte', of Part II of his Anti-Dühring (see present edition, Vol. 25, pp. 211-43).
  3. ↑ D. Hume. Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects, Vol. I, Dublin, 1779, pp. 303-04.
  4. ↑ E. Dühring, Cursus der National- und Socialökonomie...
  5. ↑ minds that are narrow and anarchic and at the same time—monstrous contradiction this—dictatorial
  6. ↑ The Physiocrats—followers of a trend in the classical bourgeois political economy that arose in France in the mid-18th century. The Physiocrats held Nature to be the only source of wealth, and agriculture the only sphere of the economy where value was created. Although they underestimated the role of industry and commerce, the Physiocrats made an important contribution to economic science by shifting the search for the origins of surplus value from circulation to production, thereby laying the basis for the analysis of capitalist production. Advocates of large-scale capitalist farming, they exposed the moribund nature of the feudal economy, thus paving the way ideologically for the bourgeois revolution in France. Marx gave a critical analysis of the Physiocrats' views in the Theories of Surplus Value, the central section of the Economic Manuscript of 1861-63 (see present edition, Vol. 30, pp. 352-76).
  7. ↑ The Tableau économique—François Quesnay's chart of the reproduction and circulation of the total social product—was first published as a short pamphlet in Versailles in 1758. Marx used Quesnay's Analyse du Tableau économique (first printed in 1766) contained in Eugène Daire's edition of Physiocrates. Première partie, Paris, 1846. Marx made an in-depth study of the Tableau économique in the Economic Manuscript of 1861-63 (see present edition, Vol. 31, pp. 204-40), in Chapter X of Part II of Anti-Dühring (ibid., Vol. 25, pp. 211-43), and in Capital, Volume Two, Chapter XIX (ibid., Vol. 36).
  8. ↑ 'Annual reproduction is a process very easy to comprehend provided one considers only the funds of annual production. But all elements of the latter have to pass through the market. It is there that the movements of capital and revenue meet, intermingle and lose themselves in a general interchange—the circulation of social wealth—which confuses the eye of the beholder and presents problems of great complexity to the analyst. It is greatly to the credit of the Physiocrats that they should have been the first to attempt to give, in their tableau économique, a picture of annual reproduction as it is when it emerges from circulation. In many respects their exposé is closer to the truth than that of their successors.'
  9. ↑ Engels' letter has not been found.
  10. ↑ productive labour—'Indeed, classical political economy has always, whether instinctively or consciously, maintained that it was in the nature of productive labour to provide surplus value. The further it carries its analysis of surplus value, the more its definitions of productive labour change. The Physiocrats, for example, declare agricultural labour alone to be productive. And why? Because it alone provides surplus value which, for them, exists only in the form of rent.'
  11. ↑ 'independent and disposable wealth which he... has not bought and which he sells'
  12. ↑ In February and March 1877, Marx provided the English journalist Maltman Barry with advice and materials. Barry was working on essays dealing with Gladstone's foreign policy that were published by several conservative papers. The Vanity Fair of 3 March 1877, for example, carried Barry's article 'Mr. Gladstone', and of 10 March its sequel, 'The Great Agitator Unmasked'.
  13. ↑ Very well.
  14. ↑ In his article 'Russian Policy and Deeds in Turkestan', published in The Contemporary Review (Vol. XXVIII) in November 1876, Gladstone described the political line pursued by the Russian government as one 'of marked moderation and prudence'. In his opinion, it presented no threat to British rule in India. Maltman Barry's article 'Mr. Gladstone and Russian Intrigue', written with Marx's assistance and printed by the Whitehall Review on 3 February 1877, subjected Gladstone's views to a critical analysis.
  15. ↑ On 4 September 1870, the people of Paris launched an uprising that overthrew the Second Empire and established a republic headed by the bourgeois Government of National Defence. On 12 September 1870, Thiers, its head, left for London whence he intended to travel to St Petersburg and Vienna. The purpose of the tour was to convince the governments of the three countries of the 'loyalty' of the French republican government (see K. Marx, The Civil War in France, present edition, Vol. 22, pp. 311-12).
  16. ↑ C. Gambuzzi, Sulla tomba di Giuseppe Fanelli.
  17. ↑ the same
  18. ↑ See K. Marx and F. Engels, The Alliance of Socialist Democracy and the International Working Men's Association (see present edition, Vol. 23, p. 497).