Marx's Grundrisse: Footnotes
45. A reference to the discussion of Ricardo just concluded.
46. Ricardo, On the Principles of Political Economy, pp. 120-25.
47. See the discussion of theories of surplus value just concluded.
48. Cf. Hegel, Science of Logic, pp. 131-7, especially p. 132: 'Something's own boundary posited by it as a negative which is at the same time essential, is not merely boundary as such but barrier.' Also, p. 135: 'The sentient creature, in the limitation of hunger, thirst, etc., is the drive to go beyond its limiting barrier, and it does overcome it.'
* The barrier appears as an accident which has to be conquered. This is apparent on even the most superficial inspection. If capital increases from 100 to 1,000, then 1,000 is now the point of departure, from which the increase has to begin; the tenfold multiplication, by 1,000% counts for nothing; profit and interest themselves become capital in turn. What appeared as surplus value now appears us simple presupposition etc., as included in its simple composition.
** Messrs the manufacturers have, however, also prolonged it into the night, ten hours' bill. See the report of Leonard Horner. [Editor's Note: Leonard Horner (1785-1864) was originally a geologist, and from 1833 to 1860 Chief Factory Inspector in Lancashire. His many reports on factory conditions there were an important source for Marx in the writing of Capital; the reference here would be to one of Horner's reports on the breaches of the Ten Hours' Act committed by manufacturers during the 1850s.] The working day itself does not recognize daylight as a limit; it can be lengthened deep into the night; this belongs to the chapter on wages.
50. This is a slip of the pen on Marx's part. The 'previous relation' was 6/8 = 12/16, not 5/8 = 10/16. Therefore the total surplus value was higher by 3/16 not 5/16.
51. This should read 999/1,000,000 = 1 ÷ (1,001 + 1/999).
52. In English in the original.
*** The labour objectified in the worker here shows itself as a fraction of his own living work day; for that is the same as [the proportion] in which the objectified labour which he obtains from capital as wages stands to the entire working day.
53. This seems to refer back to the value of the capital rather than the material production (the latter would still be 26s.).
* It is not in the least necessary at this point to assume that the material and instrument also has to increase along with surplus labour or surplus time. How surplus labour by itself increases the raw material, see Babbage, e.g. the working of gold wire etc. [see Babbage, Traité sur l'économie des machines et des manufactures, pp. 218-19. -- editor]
** Assume further that raw material doubles and the instrument of labour (for the sake of simpler arithmetic) increases by one-half. Then capital costs would amount to 100 thalers cotton, 20 thalers instrument, i.e. 120 thalers; for labour, now as then, 40 thalers; altogether 160 thalers. If a surplus labour of 4 hours increases 100 thalers by 40%, then it increases 160 thalers by 64 thalers. Hence the total product = 224 thalers. We here have presupposed, further, that the rate of profit does not vary with the size of capital; and material and instrument of labour are not regarded as being themselves realizations, capitalizations of surplus labour; as we saw, the greater the already posited surplus time, i.e. the size of capital as such, the more is it presupposed that an absolute increase of labour time is impossible, and that a relative increase, resulting from an increase in the productive force, declines in geometric proportion.
55. The 'perceptive' publisher was the editor of Eugene Daire (1798-1847), who issued the works of the Physiocrats during the 1840s. The comments on Boisguillebert are in Économistes financiers du XVIIIe siècle, Paris, 1843, p. 419, notes 1 and 2.
56. Ricardo, On the Principles of Political Economy, pp. 88-92.
*** In the example given, the productive force has doubled, risen by 100%, the value of capital has risen by 20%.
57. Ricardo, On the Principles of Political Economy. pp. 327-8.
58. Ricardo, On the Principles of Political Economy, pp. 29-35
* It is at bottom false to say that living labour consumes capital; capital (objectified labour) consumes the living in the production process.
59. This refers to Marx's notebooks of excerpts from the works of Ricardo, with Marx's critical commentary. A section of one of the excerpt-books in this series is published in Grundrisse (MELI), pp. 787-839. Marx wrote these notebooks, which contain, additionally, excerpts from ten works by other authors, as well as from various volumes of The Economist, in early 1851. See Grundrisse (MELI), p. 782 n.
60. The following sentence appears in the upper margin of this page of the manuscript, without indication of the place in the text where it might be inserted: '(Money for itself has to be termed neither use value nor exchange value, but value.)'
61. Ricardo, On the Principles of Political Economy, pp. 327-8.
62. A reference to Marx's own excerpt-book VIII. Ricardo's doctrine of foreign trade (On the Principles of Political Economy, pp. 131 -- 8) is covered in Grundrisse (MELI, pp. 808--11.)
63. Ricardo, On the Principles of Political Economy, pp. 416 -- 17.
65. Cf. Hegel, Science of Logic, pp. 450-56, e.g. p. 451: 'Matter is that which is indifferent to form.'
66. This should be 32, not 16, since 2/5 of 40 is itself already 16.
67. This should be 40%. In these passages, the use of the term 'interest' (Zins) is, strictly speaking, incorrect; it should read 'surplus value'. Similarly, in some passages further on, the terminology does not correspond in every case with Marx's later usage.
1. Carey, Principles of Political Economy, pp. 15-16, 27-48.
2. Dr Richard Price (1723-91; Nonconformist minister and writer on political and financial subjects), An Appeal to the Public on the Subject of the National Debt, London, 1772, p. 19.
3. In 1786 William Pitt the Younger established a sinking fund of £1,000,000 in accordance with Dr Price's proposals.
4. 50: material of labour; 10: instrument of labour; 40: wages of labour.
5. The numerical examples above and below contained occasional, always trivial, errors of arithmetic. The corrections, as indicated by MELI, have been implicitly substituted here, unless noted.
6. In the following table the quantity of value is always expressed in thalers.
7. C. Babbage, Traité sur l'économie des machines et des manufactures, p. 29.
8. Bastiat et Proudhon, Gratuité du crédit, pp. 127-32, 135-7, 288
9. Ricardo, On the Principles of Political Economy, pp. 117-19.
10. This is a continuation of the critique of Ricardo.
* Here we see again that the surplus value on the whole of the capital = to half of the newly produced value, since a half of the latter = to necessary labour. The relation between this surplus value, which is always equal to surplus time, i.e. = to the worker's total product minus the part which forms his wage, depends (1) on the relation between the constant part of capital and the productive part; (2) between necessary labour time and surplus time. In the above case, the relation of surplus time to necessary time is 100%; gives 40% on a capital of 100; hence (3) it depends further, not only on the relation given above in (2), but also on the absolute magnitude of necessary labour. If, in a capital of 100, the constant part were 80, then the part exchanged for necessary labour would be = 20, and if this created 100% surplus time, the profit on capital would be 20%. But if the capital were 200 with the same relation between the constant and the variable part (i.e. 3/5 to 2/5), then the total would be 280, which is 40 out of 100. In this case the absolute amount of profit would rise from 40 to 80, but the relation would remain at 40%. However, if out of the 200 the constant element were 120 and the quantity of necessary labour 80, but the latter increased by only 10%, i.e. 8, then the total sum would be = 208, i.e. a profit of 4%; if it increased by only 5, then the total 205, i.e. 2 1/2%.
* If it is postulated, as in our case, that the capital remains the same, i.e. that both begin again with 140 thalers, then in the case of the more productive capital, a larger part has to go to capital (i.e. to its invariable part), while with the less productive capital, a larger part to labour. The first capital of 140 thus sets into motion a necessary labour of 56, and this necessary labour presupposes an invariable part of 84 out of the total capital. The second sets labour in the amount of 20 + 15 = 35 into motion, and an invariable capital of 60 + 45 = 105 (it further follows from what was developed earlier that an increase in the force of production does not proportionately increase value). In the first case, as already shown above, the absolute new value is greater than in the second, because the mass of labour employed is greater in relation to the invariable part; while in the second the former is smaller, precisely because labour is more productive. However (1) the difference between the new value of 60 in one case and 40 in the other means that the first cannot begin production anew with the same capital as the second; for a part of the new value on both sides has to enter into circulation as an equivalent so that the capitalist can live, and live from his capital. If both of them eat up 20 thalers then the first begins anew with a capital of 120, the other also with 120 etc. See above. Return to this whole matter again; but the question of the relation between the new value created by the increased force of production and the new value created by absolute increases in labour belongs in the chapter on accumulation and profit.
12. Lauderdale, Recherches sur la nature et l'origine de la richesse publique. p. 137.
*Although in the case e.g. of the farmer this is quite correct, if the seasons bring a doubling of fertility, and correct for every industrialist if the force of production doubles not in his branch, but in the branch whose output he uses; i.e. if e.g. raw cotton cost 50% less and grain (i.e. wages) and the instrument likewise; he would then continue as before to spend 40 thalers for raw cotton, but in twice the quantity, 20 for machinery, 40 for labour.
** Suppose cotton alone doubled in productivity, the machine remains the same, then - this to be examined further.
* The total capital which would be necessary in order to employ the old labour time is therefore = to the old labour fund multiplied by the denominator of the fraction which now expresses the relation of the labour fund to the new total capital. If the doubling of productive force has reduced the latter to 1/4, then multiplied by 4; if to 1/3, then multiplied by 3. If the productive force has doubled, then necessary labour, and thereby the labour fund, is reduced to 1/2 of its earlier value; but this makes up 1/4 relative to the new total capital of 800 or 1/5 relative to the old total capital of 1,000. Or the new total capital is = 2 x the old capital minus the liberated part of the labour fund; (1,000 - 200) x 2 = 800 x 2 = 1,600. The new total capital expresses the total sum of constant and variable capital required in order to employ half of the old labour time (1/3, 1/4, 1/x, etc, depending on whether the force of production increased 3, 4, or x times); 2 x then the capital required to employ all of it (or 3 x,4 x, etc., depending on the relation in which the productive force has grown). The original relation of the parts of capital must here always be given (technologically); on this depends, e.g., in what ratios the multiplication of productive force expresses itself as a division of necessary labour.
13. See above, discussion of Carey's confusion of profit and surplus value..
14. Quotations taken from pp. 4-6 of an anonymous pamphlet published in London in 1821 and entitled The Source and Remedy of the National Difficulties, deduced from principles of political economy in a letter to Lord John Russell.
15. Ravenstone, Thoughts on the Funding System and its Effects, pp. 11, 13, 45-6.
16. The original text has 'more productive' here.
17. See below, section on Original Accumulation of Capital.
* It does not belong here, but can already be recalled here, that the creation of surplus labour on the one side corresponds to the creation of minus-labour, relative idleness (or not-productive labour at best), on the other. This goes without saying as regards capital itself; but holds then also for the classes with which it shares; hence of the paupers, flunkeys, lickspittles etc. living from the surplus product, in short, the whole train of retainers; the part of the servant [dienenden] class which lives not from capital but from revenue. Essential difference between this servant class and the working class. In relation to the whole of society, the creation of disposable time is then also creation of time for the production of science, art etc. The course of social development is by no means that because one individual has satisfied his need he then proceeds to create a superfluity for himself; but rather because one individual or class of individuals is forced to work more than required for the satisfaction of its need - because surplus labour is on one side, therefore not-labour and surplus wealth are posited on the other. In reality the development of wealth exists only in these opposites [Gegensätze]: in potentiality, its development is the possibility of the suspension of these opposites.[Cf. Hegel, Science of Logic, pp. 546-7.] Or because an individual can satisfy his own need only by simultaneously satisfying the need of and providing a surplus above that for another individual. This brutal under slavery. Only under the conditions of wage labour does it lead to industry, industrial labour. -- Malthus therefore quite consistent when, along with surplus labour and surplus capital, he raises the demand for surplus idlers, consuming without producing, or the necessity of waste, luxury, lavish spending etc.