A Critical Examination of Socialism | Page 9

attainment is practically
possible. The other is this: that the possibilities of redistributing wealth
depend on the causes by which wealth is produced. All wealth, says
Marx, can practically be appropriated by the labourers. But why?
Because the labourers themselves comprise in their own labour all the
forces that produce it. If its production necessitated the activity of any
persons other than themselves, these other persons would inevitably
have some control over its distribution; since if it were distributed in a

manner of which these other persons disapproved, it would be open to
them to refuse to take part in its production any longer; and there would,
in consequence, be no wealth, or less wealth, to distribute.
Let us, then, examine the precise sense and manner in which this theory
of labour as the sole producer of wealth is elaborated and defended by
Marx in his Bible of Scientific Socialism. His argument, though the
expression of it is very often pedantic and encumbered with
superfluous mathematical formulæ, is ingenious and interesting, and is
associated with historical criticism which, in spite of its defects, is
valuable. Marx was, indeed, foremost among those thinkers already
referred to who first insisted on the fact that the economic conditions of
to-day are mainly a novel development of others which went before
them, and that, having their roots in history, they must be studied by the
historical method. He recognised, however, that for practical purposes
each age must concern itself with its own environment; and his logical
starting-point is an analysis of wealth-production as it exists to-day. He
begins by insisting on the fact that labour in the modern world is
divided with such a general and such an increasing minuteness that
each labour produces one kind of product only, of which he himself can
consume but a small fraction, and often consumes nothing. His own
product, therefore, has for him the character of wealth only because he
is able to exchange it for commodities of other kinds; and the amount
of wealth represented by it depends upon what the quantity of other
assorted commodities, which he can get in exchange for it, is. What,
then, is the common measure, in accordance with which, as a fact, one
kind of commodity will exchange for any other, or any others? For his
answer to this question Marx goes to the orthodox economists of his
time--the recognised exponents of the system against which his own
arguments were directed--and notably, among these, to Ricardo; and,
adopting Ricardo's conclusions, as though they were axiomatic, he
asserts that the measure of exchange between one class of commodities
and another--such, for example, as cigars, printed books, and
chronometers--is the amount of manual labour, estimated in terms of
time, which is on an average necessary to the production of each of
them. His meaning in this respect is illustrated with pictorial vividness
by his teaching with regard to the form in which the measure of

exchange should embody itself. This, he said, ought not to be gold or
silver, but "labour-certificates," which would indicate that whoever
possessed them had laboured for so many hours in producing no matter
what, and which would purchase anything else, or any quantity of
anything else, representing an equal expenditure of labour of any other
kind.
Having thus settled, as it seemed to him beyond dispute, that manual
labour, estimated in terms of time, is the sole source and measure of
economic values or of wealth, Marx goes on to point out that, by the
improvement of industrial methods, labour in the modern world has
been growing more and more productive, so that each labour-hour
results in an increased yield of commodities. Thus a man who a couple
of centuries ago could have only just kept himself alive by the products
of his entire labour-day, can now keep himself alive by the products of
half or a quarter of it. The products of the remainder of his labour-day
are what Marx called a "surplus value," meaning by this phrase all that
output of wealth which is beyond what is practically necessary to keep
the labourer alive. But what, he asks, becomes of this surplus? Does it
go to the labourers who have produced it? No, he replies. On the
contrary, as fast as it is produced, it is abstracted from the labourer in a
manner, which he goes on to analyse, by the capitalist.
Marx here advances to the second stage of his argument. Capital, as he
conceives of it, is the tools or instruments of production; and modern
capital for him means those vast aggregates of machinery by the use of
which in most industries the earlier implements have been displaced.
Now, here, says Marx, the capitalist is sure to interpose with the
objection that the increased output