Labour Defended against the Claims of Capital [12]
stream, and he sets bounds to the ocean; in short, he presses all the elements into his service, and makes Nature herself the handmaid to his will. The instruments he uses to do all this, which have been invented by his intelligence to aid his feeble powers, and which are employed by his skill and his hands, have been called fixed capital; and shutting out of view man himself, in order to justify the existing order of society, which is founded on property or possessions, and the existing oppression of the labourer, who forms unhappily part of these possessions -- all these glorious effects have been attributed, with a more extraordinary perversion of thought, perhaps, than is to be found in any other department of knowledge, to fixed and circulating capital. The skill and the art of the labourer have been overlooked, and he has been vilified; while the work of his hands has been worshipped. 1
[1. In all errors which are generally adopted there is a tolerable substratum of truth. In the present case the substratum of truth is this: There was time in society when capital and capitalists were of the most essential service to it. On the establishment of towns in Europe, and on the introduction of manufactures into them, they became the refuge of all the oppressed and enslaved peasantry who could escape from their feudal tyrants. The capitalists and manufacturers who inhabited them were the skilled labourers, and really gave employment and protection to the peasantry. They taught them useful arts, and hence became invested with the character of benefactors, both to the poor and the state. They were infinitely better than the feudal barons with whom they were compared; and the character they then acquired they now retain. The veneration men have for capital and capitalists is founded on a sort of superstitious and transmitted notion of their utility in former times. But they have long since reduced the ancient tyrant of the soil to comparative insignificance, while they have inherited his power over all the labouring classes. It is, therefore, now time that the reproaches so long cast on the feudal aristocracy should be heaped on capital and capitalists; or on that still more oppressive aristocracy which is founded on wealth, and which is nourished by profit.]
I have now show the reader that the effects attributed to circulating capital result from co-existing labour, and the assurance common to each labourer, that he will be able to procure what he wants, or that while he is at work other men are also at work. I have also shown that fixed capital is produce by the skill of the labourer. Circulating capital, consisting of food and clothes, is created only for consumption; while fixed capital, consisting of instruments and tools, is made, not to be consumed, but to aid the labourer in producing those things which are to be consumed. There is no analogy between these two descriptions of commodities, except that both are the produce of labour, and both give the owner of them a profit. There is, however, a striking difference between them which deserves to be noticed. It is usually stated that "the productive industry of any country is in proportion to its capital, increase when its capital increases, and declines when its capital declines." This position is true only of circulating capital, but not of fixed capital. The number of productive labourers depends certainly on the quantity of food, clothing, etc., produced and appropriated to their use; it is not, however, the quantity but the quality of the fixed capital on which the productive industry of a country depends. Instruments are productive, to use the improper language of the political economists, not in proportion as they multiplied, but as they are efficient. It is probable that since Mr Watt's improvements on the steam engine one man can perform as much work with these instruments as ten men did before. As the efficiency of the fixed capital is increased by men obtaining greater knowledge and greater skill, it is quite possible, and is the case, that a greater
[1. In all errors which are generally adopted there is a tolerable substratum of truth. In the present case the substratum of truth is this: There was time in society when capital and capitalists were of the most essential service to it. On the establishment of towns in Europe, and on the introduction of manufactures into them, they became the refuge of all the oppressed and enslaved peasantry who could escape from their feudal tyrants. The capitalists and manufacturers who inhabited them were the skilled labourers, and really gave employment and protection to the peasantry. They taught them useful arts, and hence became invested with the character of benefactors, both to the poor and the state. They were infinitely better than the feudal barons with whom they were compared; and the character they then acquired they now retain. The veneration men have for capital and capitalists is founded on a sort of superstitious and transmitted notion of their utility in former times. But they have long since reduced the ancient tyrant of the soil to comparative insignificance, while they have inherited his power over all the labouring classes. It is, therefore, now time that the reproaches so long cast on the feudal aristocracy should be heaped on capital and capitalists; or on that still more oppressive aristocracy which is founded on wealth, and which is nourished by profit.]
I have now show the reader that the effects attributed to circulating capital result from co-existing labour, and the assurance common to each labourer, that he will be able to procure what he wants, or that while he is at work other men are also at work. I have also shown that fixed capital is produce by the skill of the labourer. Circulating capital, consisting of food and clothes, is created only for consumption; while fixed capital, consisting of instruments and tools, is made, not to be consumed, but to aid the labourer in producing those things which are to be consumed. There is no analogy between these two descriptions of commodities, except that both are the produce of labour, and both give the owner of them a profit. There is, however, a striking difference between them which deserves to be noticed. It is usually stated that "the productive industry of any country is in proportion to its capital, increase when its capital increases, and declines when its capital declines." This position is true only of circulating capital, but not of fixed capital. The number of productive labourers depends certainly on the quantity of food, clothing, etc., produced and appropriated to their use; it is not, however, the quantity but the quality of the fixed capital on which the productive industry of a country depends. Instruments are productive, to use the improper language of the political economists, not in proportion as they multiplied, but as they are efficient. It is probable that since Mr Watt's improvements on the steam engine one man can perform as much work with these instruments as ten men did before. As the efficiency of the fixed capital is increased by men obtaining greater knowledge and greater skill, it is quite possible, and is the case, that a greater