Part 23 (1/2)
Having thus 'employed' Marx's 'logical' version of Ricardo's theory of value, Vorontsov arrives at Sismondi's theory of crises which he adopts in as crude and simplified a form as possible. He believes, of course, that he is adopting the views of Rodbertus in reproducing those of Sismondi. 'The inductive method of research', he declares triumphantly, 'has resulted in the very same theory of crises and of pauperism which had been objectively stated by Rodbertus.'[285]
It is not quite clear what Vorontsov means by an 'inductive method of research' which he contrasts with the objective method--since all things are possible to Vorontsov, he may conceivably mean Marx's theory. Yet Rodbertus, too, was not to emerge unimproved from the hands of the original Russian thinker. Vorontsov corrects Rodbertus' theory merely in so far as he eliminates the stabilisation of the wage rate in accordance with the value of the aggregate product which, to Rodbertus, had been the pivot of his whole system. According to Vorontsov, this measure against crises is a mere palliative, since 'the immediate cause of the above phenomena (over-production, unemployment, etc.) is not that the working cla.s.ses receive too small a share of the national income, but that the capitalist cla.s.s cannot possibly consume all the products which every year fall to their share.'[286]
Yet, as soon as he has refuted Rodbertus' reform of the distribution of incomes, Vorontsov, with that 'strictly logical' consistency so peculiar to him, ultimately arrives at the following forecast for the future destiny of capitalism: 'If industrial organisation which prevails in W.
Europe is to prosper and flourish further still, it can only do so provided that some means will be found to destroy [_verbatim_--R. L.]
that portion of the national income which falls to the capitalists'
share over and above their capacity to consume. The simplest solution of this problem will be an appropriate change in the distribution of the aggregate income among those who take part in production. If the entrepreneurs would retain for themselves only so much of all increase of the national income as they need to satisfy all their whims and fancies, leaving the remainder to the working cla.s.s, the ma.s.s of the people, then the regime of capitalism would be a.s.sured for a long time to come.'[287]
The hash of Ricardo, Marx, Sismondi and Rodbertus thus is topped with the discovery that capitalist production could be radically cured of over-production, that it could 'prosper and flourish' in all eternity, if the capitalists would refrain from capitalising their surplus value and would make a free gift to the working cla.s.s of the corresponding part of the surplus value. Meanwhile the capitalists, until they have become sensible enough to accept Vorontsov's good advice, employ other means for the annual destruction of a part of their surplus value.
Modern militarism, amongst others, is one of these appropriate measures--and this precisely to the extent to which the bills of militarism are footed by the capitalists' income--for Vorontsov can be counted upon to turn things upside down--and not by the working ma.s.ses.
A primary remedy for capitalism, however, is foreign trade which again is a sore spot in Russian capitalism. As the last to arrive at the table of the world market, Russian capitalism fares worst in the compet.i.tion with older capitalist countries and thus lacks both prospects as to foreign markets and the most vital conditions of existence. Russia remains the 'country of peasants', a country of 'populist' production.
'If all this is correct,' Vorontsov concludes his essay on 'The Commodity Surplus in the Supply of the Market', 'then capitalism can play only a limited part in Russia. It must resign from the direction of agriculture, and its development in the industrial sphere must not inflict too many injuries upon the domestic industries which under our economic conditions are indispensable to the welfare of the majority of the population. If the reader would comment that capitalism might not accept such a compromise, our answer will be: so much the worse for capitalism.'
Thus Vorontsov ultimately washes his hands of the whole thing, declining for his part all responsibility for the further fortunes of economic development in Russia.
FOOTNOTES:
[277] An essay in _Patriotic Memoirs_, May 1883.
[278] An essay in the review _Russian Thought_, September 1889.
[279] A book published in 1893.
[280] A book published in 1895.
[281] _Patriotic Memoirs_, vol. v: 'A Contemporary Survey', p. 4.
[282] Ibid., p. 10.
[283] _Patriotic Memoirs_, vol. v: 'A Contemporary Survey', p. 14.
[284] _Outlines of Economic Theory_ (St. Petersburg, 1895), pp. 157 ff.
[285] 'Militarism and Capitalism' in _Russian Thought_ (1889), vol. ix, p. 78.
[286] 'Militarism and Capitalism' in _Russian Thought_ (1889), vol. ix, p. 80.
[287] Ibid., p. 83. Cf. _Outlines_, p. 196.
_CHAPTER XX_
NIKOLAYON
The second theorist of populist criticism, Nikolayon, brings quite a different economic training and knowledge to his work. One of the best-informed experts on Russian economic relations, he had already in 1880 attracted attention by his treatise on the capitalisation of agricultural incomes, which was published in the review _Slovo_.
Thirteen years later, spurred on by the great Russian famine of 1891, he pursued his inquiries further in a book ent.i.tled _Outlines of Our Social Economy Since the Reform_. Here he gives a detailed exposition, fully doc.u.mented by facts and figures, of how capitalism developed in Russia, and on this evidence proceeds to show that this development is the source of all evil, and so of the famine, also, so far as the Russian people are concerned. His views about the destiny of capitalism in Russia are grounded in a definite theory about the conditions of the development of capitalist production in general, and it is this with which we must now deal.
Since the market is of decisive importance for the capitalist mode of economy, every capitalist nation tries to make sure of as large a market as possible. In the first place, of course, it relies on its home market. But at a certain level of development, the home market is no longer sufficient for a capitalist nation, and this for the following reasons: all that social labour newly produces in one year can be divided into two parts--the share received by the workers in the form of wages, and that which is appropriated by the capitalists. Of the first part, only so many means of subsistence as correspond, in value, to the sum total of the wages paid within the country can be withdrawn from circulation. Yet capitalist economy decidedly tends to depress this part more and more. Its methods are a longer working day, stepping up the intensity of labour, and increasing output by technical improvements which enable the subst.i.tution of female and juvenile for male labour and in some cases displace adult labour altogether. Even if the wages of the workers still employed are rising, such increase can never equal the savings of the capitalists resulting from these changes. The result of all this is that the working cla.s.s must play an ever smaller part as buyers on the home market. At the same time, there is a further change: capitalist production gradually takes over even the trades which provided additional employment to an agricultural people; thus it deprives the peasants of their resources by degrees, so that the rural population can afford to buy fewer and fewer industrial products. This is a further reason for the continual contraction of the home market. As for the capitalist cla.s.s, we see that this latter is also unable to realise the entire newly created product, though for the opposite reason. However large the requirements of this cla.s.s, the capitalists will not be able to consume the entire surplus product in person. First, because part of it is needed to enlarge production, for technical improvements which, to the individual entrepreneur, will be a necessary condition of existence in a compet.i.tive society. Secondly, because an expanding capitalist production implies an expansion in those branches of industry which produce means of production (e.g. the mining industry, the machine industry and so forth) and whose products from the very beginning take a use-form that is incapable of personal consumption and can only function as capital. Thirdly and lastly, the higher labour productivity and capital savings that can be achieved by ma.s.s production of cheap commodities increasingly impel society towards ma.s.s production of commodities which cannot all be consumed by a mere handful of capitalists.
Although one capitalist can realise his surplus value in the surplus product of another capitalist and _vice versa_, this is only true for products of a certain branch, for consumer goods. However, the incentive of capitalist production is not the satisfaction of personal wants, and this is further shown by the progressive decline in the production of consumer as compared to that of producer goods.