[From
The Wealth of Nations. In the following excerpt shows in
blue text where Marx has most obviously paraphrased Smith; (note
that Marx was using the French translation, Garnier edition).]
IN
that early and rude state of society which precedes both the accumulation
of stock and the appropriation of land, the proportion between the
quantities of labour necessary for acquiring different objects seems
to be the only circumstance which can afford any rule for exchanging
them for one another. If among a nation of hunters, for example,
it usually costs twice the labour to kill a beaver which it does
to kill a deer, one beaver should naturally exchange for or be worth
two deer. It is natural that what is usually the produce of two
days' or two hours' labour, should be worth double of what is usually
the produce of one day's or one hour's labour.
If
the one species of labour should be more severe than the other,
some allowance will naturally he made for this superior hardship;
and the produce of one hour's labour in the one way may frequently
exchange for that of two hours' labour in the other.
Or
if the one species of labour requires an uncommon degree of dexterity
and ingenuity, the esteem which men have for such talents will naturally
give a value to their produce, superior to what would be due to
the time employed about it. Such talents can seldom be acquired
but in consequence of long application, and the superior value of
their produce may frequently be no more than a reasonable compensation
for the time and labour which must be spent in acquiring them. In
the advanced state of society, allowances of this kind, for superior
hardship and superior skill, are commonly made in the wages of labour;
and something of the same kind must probably have taken place in
its earliest and rudest period.
In
this state of things, the whole produce of labour belongs to the
labourer; and the quantity of labour commonly employed in acquiring
or producing any commodity is the only circumstance which can regulate
the quantity of labour which it ought commonly to purchase, command,
or exchange for.
As
soon as stock has accumulated in the hands of particular persons,
some of them will naturally employ it in setting to work industrious
people, whom they will supply with materials and subsistence, in
order to make a profit by the sale of their work, or by what their
labour adds to the value of the materials. In exchanging the complete
manufacture either for money, for labour, or for other goods, over
and above what may be sufficient to pay the price of the materials,
and the wages of the workmen, something must be given for the profits
of the undertaker of the work who hazards his stock in this adventure.
The value which the workmen add to the materials, therefore, resolves
itself in this case into two parts, of which the one pays their
wages, the other the profits of their employer upon the whole stock
of materials and wages which he advanced.
He could have no interest to employ them, unless he expected from
the sale of their work something more than what was sufficient to
replace his stock to him; and he could have no interest to employ
a great stock rather than a small one; unless his profits were to
bear some proportion to the extent of his stock.
The
profits of stock, it may perhaps be thought, are only a different
name for the wages of a particular sort of labour, the labour of
inspection and direction. They are, however, altogether different,
are regulated by quite different principles, and bear no proportion
to the quantity, the hardship, or the ingenuity of this supposed
labour of inspection and direction. They are regulated altogether
by the value of the stock employed, and are greater or smaller in
proportion to the extent of this stock. Let us suppose, for example,
that in some particular place, where the common annual profits of
manufacturing stock are ten per cent, there are two different manufactures,
in each of which twenty workmen are employed at the rate of fifteen
pounds a year each, or at the expense of three hundred a year in
each manufactory. Let us suppose, too, that the coarse materials
annually wrought up in the one cost only seven hundred pound; while
the finer materials in the other cost seven thousand. The capital
annually employed in the one will in this case amount only to one
thousand pounds; whereas that employed in the other will amount
to seven thousand three hundred pounds. At the rate of ten per cent,
therefore, the undertaker of the one will expect a yearly profit
of about one hundred pounds only; while that of the other will expect
about seven hundred and thirty pounds. But though their profits
are so very different, their labour of inspection and direction
may be either altogether or very nearly the same. In
many great works almost the whole labour of this kind is committed
to some principal clerk. His wages properly express the value of
this labour of inspection and direction. Though in settling them
some regard is had commonly, not only to his labour and skill, but
to the trust which is reposed in him, yet they never bear any regular
proportion to the capital of which he oversees the management; and
the owner of this capital, though he is thus discharged of almost
all labour, still expects that his profits should bear a regular
proportion to his capital. In the price of commodities, therefore,
the profits of stock constitute a component part altogether different
from the wages of labour, and regulated by quite different principles.
In
this state of things the whole produce of labour does not always
belong to the labourer. He must in most cases share it with the
owner of the stock which employs him. Neither is the quantity of
labour commonly employed in acquiring or producing any commodity,
the only circumstance which can regulate the quantity which it ought
commonly to purchase, command, or exchange for. An additional quantity,
it is evident, must be due for the profits of the stock which advanced
the wages and furnished the materials of that labour.
As
soon as the land of any country has all become private property,
the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never
sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce [link
pI column 3] The wood of the forest, the grass of the field,
and all the natural fruits of the earth, which, when land was in
common, cost the labourer only the trouble of gathering them, come,
even to him, to have an additional price fixed upon them. He must
then pay for the licence to gather them; and he must give up to
the landlord a portion of what his labour either collects or produces.
This portion, or, what comes to the same thing, the price of this
portion, constitutes the rent of land, and in the price of the greater
part of commodities makes a third component part. The real value
of all the different component parts of price, it must be observed,
is measured by the quantity of labour which they can, each of them,
purchase or command. Labour measures the value not only of that
part of price which resolves itself into labour, but of that which
resolves itself into rent, and of that which resolves itself into
profit.
In
every society the price of every commodity finally resolves itself
into some one or other, or all of those three parts; and in every
improved society, all the three enter more or less, as component
parts, into the price of the far greater part of commodities...
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