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Title: State Socialism
Author: Jan Wacław Machajski
Date: 1900
Topics: State socialism
Source: Retrieved on April 21, 2012 from http://libcom.org/library/state-socialism

Jan Wacław Machajski

State Socialism

Translator’s Introduction

The following essay by the Polish revolutionary Jan Wacław Machajski

(1866–1926) is part of a larger work, “Scientific Socialism”, written in

1900. Machajski refers to this work as a “brochure” although it is

almost book-length; it is an extended critique of Volume II of Marx’s

Capital.

In “State Socialism” Machajski quotes extensively from the writings of

Karl Johann Rodbertus (1805–1875), especially his “Social Letters” to

Julius von Kirchmann (1802–1884). These two Prussian conservatives

carried on a debate about the foundations of political economy in

1850–1854. The fourth of Rodbertus’s “letters” was actually published

separately as a book under the name “Das Kapital”. A caustic but

detailed account of this debate can be found in Rosa Luxemburg’s The

Accumulation of Capital (Chapters 15–17). Rodbertus defended the labour

theory of value but, despite indulging in a lot of hand-wringing about

the plight of the workers, drew reactionary conclusions from his

analysis. Machajski found Rodbertus’s discussion of the capitalist

economy, especially at the national level, to be similar to Marx’s;

however, the particular issues Machajski wished to discuss are more

transparent in Rodbertus than in Marx – or in Engels, Kautsky, and

Plekhanov.

Machajski’s page references to nineteenth century editions of the works

of Rodbertus have been replaced by references to the four-volume edition

of his works published in 1972. All endnotes are by the translator.

It is believed this is the first substantial piece of writing by

Machajski to appear in the English language. Alexandre Skirda has

published a French translation in his collection Le socialisme des

intellectuels (1979/2001) but it is considerably abridged. Nevertheless

Skirda’s translation has been useful in finding proper translations of

the technical terms used in Machajski’s essay. Skirda himself credits

Maxmilien Rubel for helping him with this problem.

– Malcolm Archibald, January 2011

State Socialism

According to classical economic doctrine[1], the development of the

capitalist mode of production is synonymous with the development of

national wealth, and the growth of the “net national income” and the

“net national profit”.

It is the size of the latter which determines the “strength of a nation”

and its culture; the “net national profit” represents the fund which

provides the upkeep for all non-productive labour, i.e. for the whole of

educated society.

It would seem that the more the source of profit becomes manifest, the

more exposed to scrutiny should become the “net national profit”.

However “scientific socialism”, working from theoretical premises which

I have examined previously[2], takes a completely different approach to

this matter.

The concept of “net national profit”, established by the classical

economists, cannot be found in any of Marx’s economic works. It has

disappeared without a trace.

Profit, considered as the fund drawn upon by the privileged classes for

consumption, exists in Marxist doctrine only for the consumption of a

“relatively small number of capitalists and large-scale landowners”. It

constitutes only a portion of the value which is extracted from the

working class. The remaining portion is accumulated by the capitalists

and transformed into constant capital – into a continually increasing

quantity of the means of production. This is a manifestation of

capitalism’s intrinsic striving for unlimited development of the forces

of production – the characteristic which embodies its progressive

aspect.

So the wealth of a nation is not expressed by the growth of its “net

national profit” in the form of the fund for the consumption needs of

the whole of privileged society, but rather by the increase of the

productive forces of the country, which has no connection whatsoever

with consumption. This why it frequently happens that the national

wealth rises at the same time that the “national” consumption falls.

Thus, even though it is functioning progressively, capitalism finds

itself in a obvious contradiction which implies its inevitable demise.

This characteristic contradiction under capitalism between national

production and “national consumption” has long been noted by scientific

socialism. But despite this obvious contradiction, capitalism quietly

goes on thriving. The main thing is that those who predicted a quick

death for capitalism because of this contradiction sooner or later

become convinced of capitalism’s vitality which will ensure it a

prolonged existence. The most ardent Russian brains state as fact that

in Russia there is not the slightest force capable of shaking the

capitalist system (Beltov–Plekhanov)[3]. The most ardent Russian hearts

exclaim with enthusiasm: “Capitalism shall lead us to the Divine Light”

(Novoye Slovo [The New Word][4]). This dogma is pronounced at the same

time as Russia is ravaged by famines. Apparently the latter either do

not accurately express the contradictions between capitalist production

and consumption, or they are still too insignificant and have not

attained that degree of development which would allow them to overwhelm

the whole “progressiveness of capitalist contradictions”.

Those whom capitalism has failed to “lead to the Divine Light” are

beginning, at last, to pose the question: why does capitalism’s

“progressive” contradiction neglect to manifest itself, to declare its

“historical mission”? Why does it not reveal itself as “the incessant

and inexhaustible source of change of social forms”?

If capitalism’s contradiction is so splendidly compensated for by its

own progressiveness, it is because, apparently, it satisfies the real

interests of certain people. Scientific socialism explains that the

progressiveness of capitalism consists in its development of the

productive forces until they become incompatible with the capitalist

system, thereby creating the preconditions for social forms which are

more just. Apparently this capitalist progressiveness satisfies the

interests of humanity in general. But humanity has not yet arrived at a

state where the action of interests of this kind can be seen to be

coming into play. Up till now the only real forces are those which

represent class interests.

The growth of capitalist progress is inconceivable without the growth of

educated society and the intelligentsia, of the army of intellectual

workers. Even those whose interests it is to call this class a

propertyless, educated proletariat, cannot conceal the fact that the

intelligentsia in its standard of living approaches the bourgeoisie

(Kautsky), i.e. that just like the bourgeoisie it enjoys a privileged

remuneration. Consequently, the growth of capitalism signifies the

growth of a “new intermediate social order” which attains in its

developed form a bourgeois standard of living.

The more that this contradiction of capitalism, identified by Marxism as

“progressive”, fails to be effective, the more the proletariat will

become conscious that this contradiction does not lead to the downfall

of capitalism precisely because its progressive feature satisfies the

real economic interests of educated society. The profits extracted by

the capitalists provide for the parasitical existence not just of a

“handful of capitalists and large-scale landowners”. It also allows the

possibility for the whole of educated society to possess a bourgeois

standard of living. Educated society, the whole army of intellectual

workers, is a consumer of the “net national profit”.

As the proletariat becomes conscious of this fact, it will become more

and more aware of that social force which up to now has diligently

concealed its own nature from the eyes of the proletariat, indeed has

identified itself with the proletariat: that force is the intellectual

worker. The proletariat will realize that it has been too trusting in

its relations with this force, which has joined it in attacking capital,

but for reasons of its own. For the attack on capital of the

intellectual workers consists in the demand for a “just” distribution of

the national profit for the benefit of educated society, a distribution

which is resisted by a handful of plutocrats, the “feudal lords of

industry”. The intellectual workers are struggling to attain legal

status in the class system, the sort of status which has always been

enjoyed by scholars, indeed anyone possessing knowledge. Increasingly

the proletariat will cease to view the army of intellectual workers as

allies, but rather see this army as a privileged class exercising power

over it. And increasingly the proletariat will modify those socialist

doctrines which originated in the period when there was complete trust

in the “intellectual workers”. It is clear that during that period of

the struggle when the enemy was regarded as a friend, the exploitation

of the working class, as well as the basis of class rule and the goal of

the struggle, could only be understood in a manner which did not harm

the special interests of the intellectual worker.

The ultimate goal of proletarian struggle has been established by

scientific socialism as the transformation of commodity production into

socialist production by means of the transfer of land and all the means

of production into social property.

In Kautsky’s writings the reader will find in many places where he

explains that socialist thought was bogged down for a long time in

utopianism, before arriving at the scientific conclusion according to

which the eradication of exploitation does not require the removal of

objects of consumption from the sphere of personal ownership (as assumed

in primitive communism), but only the means of production. Following

this logic, one can only suppose that the “Communist Manifesto”, when it

proclaimed the abolition of personal property in general, was not yet

expressing the “ultimate goal” in its most mature form.

In what way does this just mentioned formula take into account the

special interests of the intellectual worker? Straightforward

discussions of this question are not to be found, of course, in

social-democratic literature which is intended to serve as propaganda

for the working class. This literature already serves a purpose in that

it is able to deflect the proletariat from examining the special

interests of the intellectual workers, which it claims are of no

importance. The proletarians are told that the intelligentsia is not

implicated in exploitation and lives by selling its own intellectual

work power. This is a popularization of that abstract economic doctrine

which declares inviolable the possessions of educated society.

But scientific socialism’s “infallible” formula is virtually identical

with the socialist formula of Rodbertus. The latter, it’s true,

preferred to use the expression “the transfer of the ownership of

capital into the hands of the state” rather than “the transfer of

ownership of the means of production into the hands of society”.

Nevertheless, the reader will find both expressions used by Rodbertus.

Since he relates the socialist formula to educated society, we will find

in his work direct indications as to how this formula satisfies the

special interests of the intellectual workers.

In the Second Social Letter we read[5]:

“... The judge, ... the physician, ... the teacher ... receive incomes

for the creation of which they did not expend their own labour, incomes

which undoubtedly do not constitute the product of their own labour. But

all these persons receive their incomes from what the economists call

‘the second division of wealth’, from the incomes of others who

participate in ‘the first division of wealth’. The former receive

incomes from the latter either directly or through the intermediary of

the state as compensation for services rendered to society, services

which may be onerous, indispensable, or useful. But there are also

people in society who take part in the first distribution of wealth, who

draw their incomes from it, and yet neither participate in generating

this wealth nor render any other equivalent service... Among these

people we find the landowner who does nothing in exchange for his

income, who hands over his piece of land to another to cultivate while

pocketing the rent. Then there is the capitalist who receives a

comfortable income in the form of dividends. And the entrepreneur who

uses hired managers to run his business.”

It’s possible some social-democrats will find the tone of this passage

offensive. But they must admit that its content corresponds in detail to

the content of the Erfurt Program, according to which the only

“non-workers” in contemporary society are capitalists and large-scale

landowners. And this passage is completely in agreement with the general

doctrine of social-democracy according to which the intelligentsia are

non-participants in exploitation and live by the realization of their

own labour power. Rodbertus deals with this question as follows:

“If I assert that the institution of personal ownership in land and

capital is the cause of the workers being deprived of part of their

output, I am by no means suggesting that the ability to make use of a

certain amount of capital to employ a large number of workers in

productive activity is not a public service which deserves to receive

compensation. Common sense tells us otherwise. Not only knowledge, but

also moral strength and moral action are required to successfully

supervise a large group of workers in a productive enterprise...

Services of this kind, however, are not rendered by the productive

workers themselves and by the nature of their occupations they are

unable to render such services. But these services are absolutely

necessary for national production. Therefore, since a claim can be made

for compensation for any social service, no one should question that

capitalists, landowners, entrepreneurs, and managers of enterprises can

also demand compensation for themselves for the above-mentioned useful

and necessary services with as much right as anyone else making claims

for services provided... such as, for example, a minister of trade or

public works, assuming that he fulfills his duties. Furthermore, these

services, just like the services of judges, teachers, physicians, etc.,

can receive their compensation only from the output of the workers, for

there is no other source of material wealth.”[6]

Rodbertus, starting from the basic position of social-democracy

according to which the intelligentsia is a non-participant in capitalist

exploitation, follows social-democracy’s logic which leads him to a

defense of... hard-working business owners. But is Rodbertus really

transgressing the scientific aspect of scientific socialism? Not in the

least. His socialist science is characterized by precision just like any

other science. In the case at hand, science defends the truth that

stripping away the means of production from the owners of land and

capital does not require depriving them of the fruits of their

intellectual labour, any more than it does in the case of intellectual

workers. The business owner is an exploiter so long as he delegates the

running of his enterprise to his own manager. But if he personally

manages his business and demands a salary no higher than that of, for

example, “Comrade” Millerand[7] , then he is as an intellectual worker

realizing his own special talents and abilities (as Kautsky says), or

his own skill at bossing a large bunch of workers (as Rodbertus crudely

expresses it).

If this explanation helps in the peaceful resolution of the “social

question” between “entrepreneurs” and “proletarians” of the Millerand

type, it by no means addresses the social question which relates to the

situation of the “productive workers”. No matter what socialist

transformations take place, the latter are unable, by the nature of

their occupations, to render such “services” as their “comrades” of the

Millerand type. From the point of view of proletarian socialism, one can

object strenuously to the state socialism of Rodbertus, which “requires

work from any” member of society, only where he deals with that

exploitation to which the proletarian, i.e. the worker performing

physical labour, is subject, at the hands of educated society, i.e. at

the hands of the intellectual worker.

In the Fourth Social Letter, this question is discussed as follows:

“To that part [of the national product] which is distributed in the form

of income to individuals, has a claim not only, for example, the worker

who grinds the point of a needle over and over, but also anyone who is

occupied with scientific or artistic work, or who carries out continuous

or intermittent managerial functions which are nowadays regarded as a

regular job. For in the general division of labour, the latter is as

much a worker as the former; and if the producers of material goods

enjoy the products of scholars and artists (and are therefore able to

devote themselves exclusively to the production of material goods), so

scholars and artists can commit themselves exclusively to the creation

of scholarly and artistic masterpieces because they have available the

objects of consumption created by others. The objects of consumption are

available to everyone, but the production of objects of consumptions,

and the labour involved in producing them, remains specialized.”[8]

Concerning the great happiness of the needle grinder in being able to

help (thanks to his specialized slave labour) in the development of the

arts and sciences, concerning his great honour to participate (thanks to

that specialization) in a heart-warming collaboration with scientists

and artists – concerning all this the economist, taking note of the

“socialization” of labour, speaks with the same crudity and arrogance as

the classical economists, who regarded the capitalist system as eternal.

This is the manner in which true socialist science interprets the

social-democratic doctrine that “knowledge is labour power”. The

possessors of this labour power – scholars – who provide the needle

grinder with so much pleasure and delight with their products of science

and the arts, are at the same time his co-workers – comrades in the

division of labour.

In the place just cited Rodbertus makes the following interesting

comment:

“This relationship has given rise to an impulse to extend the field of

political economy in an unwarranted fashion to include the division of

labour in general (in society) which results in the abasement of

non-material goods to the level of economic goods. But ... although the

field of political economy concerns itself with the material goods

destined for producers of non-material goods, it nevertheless does not

deal with the services rendered in exchange for the latter.”[9]

This definition of political economy is acknowledged, of course, not

only by Rodbertus. It is acknowledged by all the economists, including

those who, as Rodbertus wittily notes, speak in the prefaces of their

books about the equivalency, in economic terms, of physical and

intellectual labour, while in fact the entire content of these books,

which never mention a word about the products of intellectual labour,

proves just the opposite. This observation can also be applied to Marx’s

treatise, if it is true as affirmed by the Sombarts and Ratners[10] that

Marx considered intellectual labour to be “productive”, on a level with

physical labour. On the other hand, the only factor which accounts for

the existence of political economy is the value of labour power. The

calculation of this constant by the economists is realistic enough, for

it is a measure of the wage rate maintained by the ruling classes at a

certain level which they deign necessary to sustain the existence of

labour power. In obtaining this constant, the economists, while drawing

on their observations of reality, limit its existence to the field of

production of “material goods”, i.e. to the field of physical labour.

Thus the science of political economy—and as a science it has claims of

universal applicability—protests against any attempt at the “abasement

of non-material goods to the level of economic goods”; it protests

against any attempt to abase the “producers of non-material goods to

such a degree that it is possible to apply to them the category of the

value of labour power”; and it protests against any demand requiring

them to account for the services they render in exchange for the

compensation received by them in the form of material goods.

It is appropriate to ask a scientific socialist, continually complaining

that the capitalists always deprive the intelligentsia of the authority

which it possesses in other forms of society, if he can point out to us

even one violation of the rules of political economy by capitalist

economists. No, the imagination of those who protest so eloquently

against the “abasement of intellectuals” – an imagination which is so

passionate, so sensitive to the sufferings of intellectuals who were

raised for cushy jobs but are unable to occupy them because of the

anarchy of production – this imagination gives rise only to illusions

which make it impossible for the scientific socialist to demonstrate

that capitalist economists violate political economy.

The afore-mentioned detailed explanation given by Rodbertus to educated

society occupies in his first work of 1842 a very small place, which

reduces to the following:

“The greater the sum of rents (surplus value), the greater the number of

people who can live without engaging in productive (in a strictly

economic sense) labour, and devote themselves to other occupations.

However the magnitude of the sum of rents depends... on the productivity

of labour. Thus we see how closely connected the higher spheres of

political life are with economic activity. The higher the productivity,

the richer can be the intellectual and artistic life of the nation; the

lower the former, the more impoverished the latter.”[11]

How forthright this passage is! It does not obfuscate the issue in the

manner of the Marxists, according to whom the accumulation of profits

only augments the means of production, which cannot be consumed by

anyone. However, Rodbertus avoids establishing a direct connection

between rents and the intellectual life of the nation, because

specifying this relation might evoke in the reader the following image,

stripped of any embellishment: the higher the national profit, the

greater the consumption fund of privileged educated society. It is not

only capitalists who are interested in the exploitation of the

proletariat and the size of profits, but also the whole of educated

society. For the workers are exploited not only so a handful of

capitalists can live in idleness, but also for the parasitical existence

of the whole of educated society, the producers of “non-material goods”.

The standard of living of the workers is reduced to the minimum required

to sustain existence so that the “intellectual workers” can receive

incomes with no fixed limit for the “realization” of “their special

talents and abilities”. The workers cannot enjoy the fruits of increased

productivity, because this increase only serves to improve the life

style of privileged educated society.

If the principles developed by Rodbertus (which are essentially a

“strictly scientific” consequence of the Erfurt Program[12]) are applied

to the planning of a communist society, then the following picture is

obtained:

“This system need not be communistic to the extent that private property

is excluded in general. Private property is completely excluded only in

the case where in dividing up the national income the principle of

social distribution depends exclusively on a single social will,

governed only by considerations of practicality. In this case a

communist ‘distributor’ is required; this role can be filled by a St.

Simonian pope[13] – a proletarian dictator – or take the form of a

social directory. On the other hand, individual property will exist if

the principle of distribution is independent of any such single social

will, and results from some legal principle, i.e. from a principle

associated with the exercise of individual freedom. In the latter case

such a ‘distributor’ is not necessary. So it is quite possible to

introduce communism in the possession of the land and capital of the

nation without communism in relation to distribution. In such a case

only property which bears rent is abolished, and not property generally.

On the contrary, property is then just reduced to its essential

principle – to labour – and reduces to the individual ownership by the

worker of the entire value of the product of his labour.” (Fourth Social

Letter)[14].

Social-democracy takes the position that any discussions about the

“future order” over and above the general demand for the transfer into

the hands of society of the land and the means of production would only

be utopian fantasying. Social-democracy rejects any examination, not

only of the details of this “future order” (such an exercise would just

be a waste of time, of course), but also any analysis of the “legal

principle” which “socialist” educated society would like to see applied

as the basis for the nationalization of land and the means of

production. Encouraging the workers to indulge in fanciful dreams of the

“future order”, “socialist” educated society more and more restricts its

own socialist plans, its own “socialist ideal”, conforming to its own

interests, and in this manner arrives at a “scientific ideal”. We have

already mentioned that the demand of the Communist Manifesto for the

“abolishment of private property” has been reduced, with the development

of scientific socialism, to the demand for nationalization of the means

of production alone. The “socialist ideal” in this form is undoubtedly

“scientific”, because even a non-social-democratic scholar like

Rodbertus recognizes the necessity of such nationalization. Judging by

what we have quoted above, Rodbertus would no doubt have warmly

applauded Deville[15], who declared in the Chamber of Deputies in 1897

that terrible slanders were being spread about the socialists, accusing

them of wishing to abolish private property. Rodbertus would surely also

have recognized his own thought in the following statement of Kautsky in

The Agrarian Question:

“The goal [of social-democracy] is not the abolition of private

property, but the elimination of the capitalist mode of production. We

are striving to eliminate the former only to the extent that this is

necessary for the abolishment of the latter.”[16]

It is clear that that legal principle which Rodbertus posits as the

basis of his communist order is a generalized deduction from his

doctrine about the “various social services” which was cited above. This

doctrine defends the absolute right of doctors, teachers, judges, and

ministers to the incomes they receive today, in view of the absolute

necessity and usefulness of the services they provide. This doctrine

demonstrates the absolute impossibility of transferring these services

to “productive workers”, and that the existence of the arts and sciences

is possible only because at the other pole of social life there is the

specialized occupation of the grinder of needles.

When Rodbertus states that in his communist system “the social law

stipulates not only what sort of social demands must be satisfied, but

also how many individual producers should be assigned to meet these

demands” (ibid., p. 136), it is clear that this social law in practice

would never “lower the income of the producers of non-material goods to

the level of income of the producers of material goods”. If in his

system “property is ... reduced to its essential principle – to labour”,

and if this principle amounts to the “individual ownership by the worker

of the entire value of the product of his labour”, then the “legal

principle” decides beforehand that all the income currently received by

all the “intellectual workers”, i.e. by the whole of educated society,

is its inalienable property since it is its undeniable reward for its

labour, for its “special talents and abilities”. To sum up, this “legal

system with communism in land and capital and private ownership by the

individual of the value of the product of his labour”[17] is a class

system featuring the direct rule (direct in the sense of not involving

plenipotentiaries) of the educated possessors of culture over the

remaining majority, which is condemned for its inherent inability to

render “non-material services”. The age-old oppression of the majority

of humanity, doomed to life-long manual labour, has not been destroyed

at all. However, the capitalist system no longer exists,

capitalist-exploiters have disappeared, and “commodity exchange

inevitably ceases”[18]. If this scenario were to come to pass, it would

apparently be in accordance with the statement of Kautsky cited above,

that “we are striving to eliminate private property only to the extent

that this is necessary for the abolishment of the capitalist means of

production”.

How would this socialist ideal of educated society be put into practice?

“In such a society the division of labour can be retained in that form

which it has assumed at the present time, under the regime of private

property in land and capital... All current enterprises would continue

to produce the same goods, under the condition that the transformation

of private property in land and capital into social property proceeds in

such a way that rents, rather than being paid to the former owners, are

transferred to the social budget. Then so long as the private owners of

land and capital are not abolished without compensation, but rather

bought out, then at the beginning the consumption of goods would

continue in the same form and on the same scale as previously. And only

gradually, in tune with the rising national income and consumption of

the labouring classes, would the content of the national product be

modified... But if the abolishment of private ownership of land and

capital were to proceed without compensation, i.e. with the sudden,

complete loss of rents, the whole of national production would be

delivered into a state of destructive disarray.”[19]

In the event of “the sudden, complete loss of rents” the national profit

would be exposed to great danger which – who knows? – could result in

total ruin. Thus the only possible way to salvage the institution of the

socialist ideal is posited to be the gradual transfer of ownership into

the hands of society with compensation for the owners. For in this case

profit is not eliminated, but rather preserved – it is transformed from

personal to national – and its existence is assured by the whole force

of the law and the power of the state.

Engels mentioned somewhere that Marx very often in conversation with him

expressed the opinion that the cheapest way to bring about

“nationalization” would be by buying out the band of capitalists. Ever

since then, many social-democrats, “not wishing to be more Catholic than

the Pope” (social-democracy adhered to this principle long before it was

formulated by Bernstein) began finally to favour the buy-out as the only

scientific method of nationalizing. Kautsky, for example, says in his

own “Erfurt Program” that it is “not known” and “impossible to predict”

whether nationalizing will take the form of buy-outs or

confiscation.[20] This “not known”, however, actually means “doesn’t

matter”. In his polemic with Bernstein, when he is required to give a

clear answer to the question as to whether nationalizing would require

“a general, simultaneous, and violent expropriation, or rather a gradual

change, organized and legal”, Kautsky with the feigned naivety of a

child replied that “as far as the capitalists are concerned, it does not

make any difference if they are expropriated simultaneously or one after

the other, nor whether this happens in an organized manner according to

law or in some other way – this is also of little interest to them”.

Since it is in no way possible to ascribe to Kautsky such towering

stupidity that his naivety could be considered as genuine, then,

apparently, his polemical style in this case takes the form of

expressing in his distinctive fashion the view that there is no

difference between nationalizing by means of forced expropriation, by

means of “gradual change by virtue of organization and law”, or by means

of buy-outs. Therefore on this question there can be no serious

difference of opinions between Bernstein and Kautsky.

Thus, while the workers are encouraged to dream about how

social-democracy, having attained its goals, will transform human

society into one big family where fraternal communist relations will

prevail, in the meantime social-democratic science is cooking up an

error-free, strictly scientific method of nationalization, thanks to

which in the “future order” “consumption of the labouring masses remains

on the whole at its previous levels, rising only slowly and gradually”.

With the nationalization of the means of production, the national

profit, preserved by the above-described means, ends up in Rodbertus’s

socialist system in the hands of its legal owners.

“As was said earlier [Rodbertus has in mind his theory of value,

according to which the value of all goods is equal to the directly

expended labour + past labour expended in creating the means of

production], land rent and profit on capital are the product not only of

whoever has tilled the field, but also to some degree or other the

product of the labour of whoever, many years ago, dug up the field; and

the product not only of whoever is running the mill today, but also of

those who built the mill many years ago. Two points of contention only

arise: in the first place, should land rent or profits be received by

people who did not actually dig up the field or build the mill, or are

not the legal successors of the people who did so? (I am here assuming

the law of inheritance and other legal means for the free disposition of

private property.) In the second place, does land rent and the profit on

capital constitute appropriate compensation for the labour of digging up

the field and building the mill?”[21] (Third Social Letter)

Elsewhere in the same essay Rodbertus writes: “The right of

inheritance... is as sacred in the eyes of the law as private property

itself”.[22]

One can scarcely imagine a more emphatic and solemn enunciation of the

inviolability, indeed the permanence, of the right of inheritance than

the preceding words of “a scholar who acknowledges the possibility of

nationalizing the economy”. And yet the Marxists, so often seeking to

distance Rodbertus from Marx, have never given any answer to the

question about the “sacredness” of inherited property. Indeed it never

occurs to them that the “Prussian-monarchist barracks” envisaged by

Rodbertus’s social system is the direct and inevitable consequence of

recognizing inherited property as inviolable. For the inviolability of

the right of inheritance in conjunction with the nationalization of the

means of production implies no less than the inviolability in the

nationalized economy of the special privileges of educated society: the

inviolability of the hierarchy of rulers and bureaucrats and the

necessity of a barracks regime for the labouring masses, paid “according

to the wage scale established by the government” (Kautsky on Rodbertus).

The demand for the “abolition of all rights of inheritance” which was

set forth in the Communist Manifesto and which, for the elimination of

servitude, must be formulated as the abolition of family property – this

demand has apparently become simply “obsolete” for Marxists, just like

the vague and unscientific demand for the elimination of private

property generally. At the present time no Marxist party is going to be

so utopian as to revive this demand. Incidentally such a revival would

be counter to the practical activity of Marx himself in the

International. Marx, while putting forward resolutions at congresses of

the International about the need to nationalize private property in

land, mines, and communications, considered it necessary at the Basel

congress (1869) to reject Bakunin’s resolution about the abolition of

the right of inheritance. He justified himself on the ground that

Bakunin was only trying to revive the teachings of Saint-Simon (report

of the Hague Commission about the matter of Bakunin). But it is clear

the rejection of Bakunin’s resolution was not so much a blow struck

against Saint-Simon’s utopianism as a gesture of reassurance in the

direction of Rodbertus, concerned about his sacrosanct inherited

property.

At the present time Marxism – in the person, for example, of Kautsky –

by teaching that socialism demands the elimination of private property

only to the extent necessary for the transfer of the means of production

into the hands of society, encourages its followers to regard the

inviolability of family property as a matter of individual preference.

Since the Marxists share with Rodbertus his basic position that

socialism repudiates only private property in land and the means of

production, they may be said to have in common with him to a greater or

lesser degree the general “socialist ideal”. Therefore they are

compelled to regard his practical activity, distinguished, as is well

known, by an extreme conservatism[23], as a retreat from this ideal

which is inconsistent from their point of view with the true state of

affairs, a residuum of the class interests of his aristocratic milieu

which he found himself unable to abandon, in spite of his socialism. The

Marxists are quite incapable of understanding that this scholar, “rock

solid” in his own convictions, devised his socialist plans, his

socialist ideal, in accord with the class interests of privileged

society – class interests which the Marxists believe he defended only in

his practical, but not his theoretical, activity.

“Despite all his efforts to be unbiased,” wrote Valentinov in 1882 in

Otechestvennye Zapiski[24], “he, Rodbertus, could never raise himself to

that level of impartiality which would have compelled him to make a

final break with traditions which were obsolete, indeed condemned by

history.” Although he displayed “profound theoretical thought”,

“theoretical insight”, and “acknowledged in theory the possibility of

nationalizing the economy,” said Kautsky, “Rodbertus remained too

conservative to recognize the plight of the propertyless producer as his

own concern.”

Sanin, considering it his historical mission to deepen the Marxist class

point of view more than all the Marxists who have preceded him, finds

himself dissatisfied (in Nauchny Oboz. [The Scientific Observer],

1899)[25] not only with Valentinov, but also with Kautsky. For the

latter, in expressing his opinion about Rodbertus’s “theoretical

thought”, deviated from a consistent application of a strictly class

point of view. Sanin explains Rodbertus’s vacillations between the

“socialist ideal” and bourgeois aspirations as a reflection of the

situation of the whole class of feudal aristocrats embedded in the

bourgeois system. A “more profound class point of view” gives the

following analysis of Rodbertus:

“Although [Rodbertus’s ideal] smacks a little of the Prussian-monarchist

barracks, ... nevertheless this ideal is based on the notion of

‘nationalization’. In any case, his ideal expresses to the highest

degree his intransigence towards the appropriation of surplus labour in

any form and his desire to eliminate any social relations which give

rise to, or at least make possible, exploitation. However Rodbertus, the

ideologue of the feudal proprietor, is unable to maintain his thought on

the dizzying heights of this utopian anti-bourgeois ideal, and exhibits

an irrepressible urge to come down from the clouds to the mundane world

of the purely bourgeois form of life.”

The reader has probably noticed by now that a deepening of the Marxist

point of view by Russian Marxists inevitably turns out to be a more

dexterous juggling of balls labeled “class struggle”, “proletarian point

of view”, etc. And so it is in the present case. Kautsky’s more

superficial class point of view at least reminds us that the socialist

ideal of Rodbertus, while involving “nationalization”, is nevertheless a

“barracks” system; while Sanin’s “more profound class point of view”

states bluntly that Rodbertus’s ideal implies the unconditional

“negation” of exploitation and all forms of the appropriation of surplus

labour.

The dizziness referred to by Sanin clearly affects not Rodbertus, but

the Marxists. Rodbertus unceasingly points his finger at that

exploitation which is the key to constructing his socialist ideal. But

his “pupils”, “finding themselves on the heights of European science”,

and dumbfounded by Rodbertus’s prediction of the disappearance of the

kulaks, come up with their analysis of Rodbertus “from the proletarian

point of view”, namely that “this is the absolute negation of

exploitation and the appropriation of surplus labour”.

“Hereditary property is as sacred as individual property.” The socialist

system of Rodbertus takes this eternal institution of human society as

its starting point. With the complete nationalization of the means of

production, all private capital disappears, only to be transformed into

social national capital. This means: private persons surrender to the

State their right to draw profits from their own capital, i.e. the

function of maintaining the workers’ wages at the level required for the

sustenance of their labour power is fulfilled now by the social group

which rules over the workers; the will of this social group is codified

in law and it takes on the role previously exercised by private

capitalists. The constant replacement of social capital takes place on

the assumption of the accumulation in the hands of the dominant social

group – acting through the State – of the whole sum of that wealth

produced at each given moment which remains after deducting the wages of

the “producers of material goods”, i.e. that sum which incessantly grows

in accord with the rising productivity of labour.

But society no longer includes capitalists and their lackeys; “any

possibility of exploitation has been suppressed”. The ruling clique now

includes only some workers from the army of intellectual workers who

have no other means of obtaining their incomes than by the expenditure

of “their own labour power”. Their labour power, as Kautsky explains, is

their knowledge, their special talents and abilities. This labour power

has a value which vulgar political economy does not even dare to

discuss; it cannot be subject to any kind of critique.

Individual property is sacred and so is the sum of the income reserved

for the intellectual workers by virtue of their “special talents and

abilities”. As the national profit grows with each step in the

development of technology, so this national profit is distributed

“according to the will of the people” among the whole of educated

society, in the form of honorariums and pumped-up salaries, creating a

whole hierarchy of state employees.

Inherited property is sacred. However, as a result of that elemental

sentiment innate to humans which obliges them to love and nurture their

own children, educated society transmits its own special talents and

abilities, all its own knowledge, only to its own offspring – Rodbertus

has no doubts about this. Educated society without question will

reproduce itself through its descendants in the same form – the army of

intellectual workers who are learned, capable, and talented and who have

concentrated in their own persons the whole of human knowledge.

On the other hand, the remaining millions of individuals will reproduce

descendants who will already be ignorant, lacking in any talents, and

quite “incapable of rendering immaterial services to human society”.

These millions, generation after generation, will only be capable of

engaging in manual labour, only capable of toiling and admiring the

magnificent talent and genius generated uniquely in the higher society

which rules over them; they find themselves condemned to a life of

slavish, mechanistic labour.

The socialist system of Rodbertus is far from being the complete

negation of exploitation as the Marxists claim. In fact he offers us in

its purest form that foundation of the State and servitude on which

rests our contemporary class system. Indeed Rodbertus says himself that

he described his communist system not in order to oppose it to the

existing system as a better alternative, but rather in order to better

understand the existing system.

The goal of the proletarian global struggle is to overthrow the basis of

contemporary domination which regards state socialism as sacred, to

overthrow the economic basis of the class system which transmits the

entire heritage of humanity into the hands of the ruling educated

society. This heritage allows educated society to prepare its own

progeny from generation to generation as the sole, hereditary possessors

of the whole of human knowledge, of the whole of civilization and

culture. Meanwhile the remaining millions are turned into hereditary

slaves, condemned to hard physical labour.

The proletariat, through global conspiracy and dictatorship, will seize

control of the state machinery, but not in order to extricate it from

its difficulties – from the anarchy and bankruptcy of an economic system

which is incapable of coping with productive forces which are outgrowing

the constraints of current ownership relations... The proletariat will

strive to seize power in order to seize the resources of the dominant

educated society, the property of the world of knowledge, in order to

wrest the heritage of humanity from the hands of the minority which

holds it. Then, having abolished hereditary family property as well as

private funds and educational facilities, it will use the confiscated

resources to organize public education – to “socialize knowledge”. For

only this conquest, achieved by means of the “uncompromising assault of

the proletariat on the right of private property” – that is, by the

violent manifestation of its will – will annihilate the basic law of the

class system, defended by million-strong armies, by virtue of which all

the members of the privileged minority are destined from birth to accede

to power, while the descendants of the minority are condemned to

slavery.

The transfer of the means of production into the hands of society,

without disturbing any of the other sacred rights of property, is the

socialist ideal of the “intellectual workers”, of educated society. And

it is to this ideal that social-democracy has reduced the goal of

proletarian struggle, thereby transforming its brand of socialism into

state socialism. Marx’s economic doctrine, as we showed in the preceding

chapter[26], is completely compatible with this goal.

The “scientific socialist ideal”, according to the affirmations of

radical socialist educated society, is already being realized at the

present time in the West European democracies in the form of

“municipalization” and “nationalization” of those enterprises which

“yield the highest profits” and which are currently “ripe to be taken

over by the State”, or, as the Marxist say, have been “prepared by the

capitalist system itself” for the socialist economy.

Orthodox Marxist social-democracy rejects the various individual cases

of nationalization in Germany, because in its opinion they were done

“for tax purposes” and the “concentration of political and economic

oppression in one set of hands” only reinforces the present system. But

in such countries as England and Switzerland, “individual instances of

nationalization have undoubtedly weakened the existing order, its

oppression, and its exploitation” (see the articles of Kautsky in Neue

Zeit, 1893, on the subject of state socialism)[27]. In those countries

state socialism is not on the agenda, orthodox Marxism assures us; the

municipalizations and nationalizations being carried out in the “true

democracies” at the present time must be seen, apparently, as the first

steps in the “gradual nationalization of the means of production”.

But in reality the practice of contemporary nationalizations in France,

England, and Switzerland shows that the less the workers are

enthusiastic about this “socialism” (in the opinion of the “socialist

intelligentsia” this deficit of enthusiasm is indicative of the

political immaturity of the workers who even in a democratic setting

have not been able to grasp the “socialist ideal”), and the more the

workers are indifferent to the achievement of these “socialist steps”,

the better it is for them. For they can receive major concessions with

respect to their working conditions from the new owners (nations,

municipalities) which, depending on the will of the people, are

compelled to count on the workers’ votes to institute their

nationalizations. But once installed, the new owners become just as

inaccessible as the old ones.

“Individual nationalizations” reinforce the contemporary class system in

Switzerland just as much as in Germany. In both countries this means one

and the same thing: the transfer of the source of profit from private

hands to the ownership of the nation, i.e. of privileged society.

Capital and exploitation are now protected by a new boss – the “will of

the people”. If social-democracy considers that “nationalizing” in

Germany is a tax grab, while in Switzerland the same phenomenom is a

reduction of exploitation, it is only because in Germany the income of

the state, augmented by this nationalization, is received primarily by

the highest levels of privileged society; while in Switzerland it is

distributed “more equitably” among the whole of privileged educated

society. It is for this sole reason, according to the teaching of

Kautsky, that one and the same reform reinforces the class system in

Germany and undermines it in Switzerland.

Social-democracy declares that democracy cannot accomodate state

socialism of the Rodbertus type, which implies that the socialist

practice of social-democracy in a democratic state reduces to the quest

for state socialism (response of Kautsky to Vollmar in the articles

cited earlier). In other words, the socialism of social-democracy is

state socialism which realizes itself in a democracy. This is confirmed

by the tactics of the English, French, and Swiss Marxists, rejecting any

illegal methods of struggle and formulating as their goal the gradual

taking over by the state of individual branches of industry wherever

possible, and insofar as concentration has taken place. By doing so they

are able to draw into their own ranks the radicals, the

socialist-chauvinists, and outright counter-revolutionaries like the

Fabians, creating from all these elements a “purely proletarian”

social-democracy.

The workers do not share this ideal because of their own class

interests. The proletarian movement defends people condemned to servile

physical labour. Its goal is liberation from this slavery. Proletarian

socialism is therefore diametrically opposed to the socialism of the

intellectual workers, which consists of socializing capital –

transforming it from private into socialist, national capital – into

constant social capital.

[1] Machajski means the mainly British school of economics which

flourished from 1750–1830 and is associated with such names as Adam

Smith and David Ricardo.

[2] Machajski is referring to his work The Evolution of

Social-Democracy, published in its final form in 1905 in Geneva.

[3] The leading Russian Marxist theoretician Georgi Valentinovich

Plekhanov (1857–1918) published his famous book The Development of the

Monist View of History under the pseudonym “Beltov”.

[4] Novoye Slovo was a journal of so-called “legal Marxism”; Plekanov

published in it, but under the name “Kamensky”.

[5] Machajski actually quotes from the “ Third Social Letter”: Johann

Karl Rodbertus, Gesammelte Werke und Briefe, Abteilung I, Band I

(Osnabruck, 1972), p. 456.

[6] Ibid., pp. 561–562.

[7] Alexandre Millerand (1859–1943), French politician, was the first

socialist to accept a cabinet position in a bourgeois democracy (in

1899). As labour minister he pushed through a law reducing the working

day to 11 hours.

[8] Rodbertus, op. cit., Abteilung I, Band II, pp. 88–89.

[9] Ibid., p. 89(fn).

[10] The German sociologist and Marxist academic Werner Sombart

(1863–1941) was the author of Sozialismus und soziale Bewegung (1896);

the Russian Jew Mark Ratner (1871–1917) was one of the leaders of the

Socialist Jewish Workers Party, and the author of Marxist analyses of

the peasant question in the Russian empire.

[11] Rodbertus, op. cit., Abteilung I, Band I, p. 110. Rodbertus defines

“rent” as “all income obtained without personal exertion, solely by

virtue of possession” (Gesammelte Werke, Abteilung I, Band I, p. 392).

Thus it includes both land-rent and profit on capital.

[12] The Erfurt Program was adopted by the Social Democratic Party of

Germany at its 1891 congress in Erfurt. Karl Kautsky, who helped to

draft the Program, wrote an official commentary on it, The Class

Struggle, which came to be regarded as an exposition of the doctrine of

“orthodox” Marxism or, as some would say, “vulgar” Marxism.

[13] The utopian socialist Henri de Saint-Simon (1760–1825) founded a

social movement loosely modelled on the Catholic Church.

[14] Rodbertus, op. cit., Abteilung I, Band II, pp. 117–118.

[15] The French socialist deputy Gabriel Deville (1854–1940) was the

author of a number of theoretical works of Marxism. He approved of

Millerand’s entry into a bourgeois government (see note 7).

[16] Karl Kautsky, Die Agrarfrage, (Hannover, 1966; reprint of the 1899

edition), p. 333.

[17] Rodbertus, op. cit., Abteilung I, Band II, p. 118.

[18] Ibid., p. 123.

[19] Ibid., pp. 118–119.

[20] Kautsky’s comments are found in The Class Struggle (see note 12):

“The program of the Socialist Party has nothing to say about

confiscation. It does not mention it, not from fear of giving offense,

but because it is a subject upon which nothing can be said with

certainty... In what way this transfer from private and individual into

collective ownership will be effected, whether this inevitable transfer

will take the form of confiscation, whether it will be a peaceable or a

forcible one – these are questions no man can answer...” [p. 129 in the

Norton edition: New York, 1971].

[21] Rodbertus, op. cit., Abteilung I, Band I, p. 451.

[22] Ibid., p. 567.

[23] Rodbertus once served as Prussian Minister of Education and Public

Worship. Although his term of office lasted only 14 days, it sufficed to

destroy any notion that he was progressive.

[24] Valentinov, “The economic theory of Karl Rodbertus-Jagetsov”,

Otechestvennye Zapiski [Notes of the Fatherland], № 9, 10 (1883).

Valentinov was another pseudonym used by G. V. Plekhanov; Otechestvennye

Zapiski was a monthly literary-scientific-political journal published in

St. Petersburg in 1839–1884. Its contributors included Herzen, Belinsky,

Turgenev, and Bakunin. Plekanov’s book-length essay on Rodbertus is more

readily accessed in his collected works: G. V. Plekanov, Sochinenia,

Vol. 1 (Moscow, 1922). The passage quoted by Machajski is on page 338.

Jagetsov is the name of an estate purchased by Rodbertus.

[25] It has not been possible to locate this rather obscure reference.

However, Alexei Alexeievich Sanin was a Russian social-democrat based in

Samara, who was regarded as a talented theoretician and whose work was

cited with approval by Lenin in The Development of Capitalism in Russia.

[26] Machajski is referring to his essay “Marx’s Theory of Social

Constant Capital”.

[27] Machajski is referring to Kautsky’s polemic with George von Vollmar

on state socialism, carried out in the pages of Neue Zeit in 1892–1893:

Karl Kautsky, “Vollmar und der Staatssozialismus”, Neue Zeit (1892), pp.

705–713; George von Vollman, “Zur Streitfrage über den

Staatssozialismus”, Neue Zeit (1893), pp. 196–210; Karl Kautsky, “Der

Parteitag und der Staatssozialismus”, Neue Zeit (1893), pp. 210–221.