CHAPTER III THE RICARDIAN THEORIES OF VALUE AND RENT AND THE SOCIALISTS The Ricardian Labour-Value Theory-Its History-Criticism and Rejection of it-Its Pernicious Effects in Modern Socialism The Ricardian Theory of Rent-Its History-Criticism and Rejection of it-Its Pernicious Effects in Economic Theory and in Land Agitation I. THE THEORY OF VALUE No movement has ever succeeded in greatly influencing mankind that has not had a basis at once in the region of fact and in that of theory or principle. Appealing powerfully as the facts of our daily life do to us, it might be thought that where the basis of fact predominates, the movement would have an intenser force, and a more powerful influence in the world's history. It is one of the most inexplicable enigmas of human life that this is not the case -that the direct contrary is the rather true. Those movements in which the basis of theory or abstract principle has predominated over the basis of fact are the only movements which have endured and vitally moulded history. The greatest revolutions in religion and philosophy have been the product primarily of pure thought or theory, and the admixture of the basis of fact has been of influence only at a later stage. The Christian religion, for instance, existed for centuries as a mere principle carried about in the hearts of men before a solid basis of fact was provided for it in its union with the Roman state. Previous to that union the basis of fact on which it had rested (the decay alike of Jewish and of Greek civilisation) had counted for comparatively little. The very same is true in a remarkable degree of the modern movement of Socialism. The basis of theory has predominated almost to the exclusion of the basis of fact. If wretched conditions of industrial life lie at the root of a socialistic movement, then why was not England socialistic at the close of the eighteenth century, and during the first half of the nineteenth century? The conditions of life for the lower classes were too pitiable to tell. But they were not thereby converted to Socialism or to anything equivalent to Socialism. Plenty of revolutionary agitation there was, it is true, in England as well as in France. But it took a prevailingly political tinge, and it died out. Then machinebreaking arose, but it too died out. Then Owenism and Co-operation and Chartism arose; but Owenism and Chartism died out, and Cooperation has become moribund. Finally, however, in the latter half of the nineteenth century -at a time, that is, when the condition of the working-classes had immensely improved, when, therefore, the basis of fact which underlay those earlier agitations had been in great measure eliminated, German speculation provided the theoretical basis for a new movement, and modern Socialism was born. What has that birth portended to the modern world? Whither and with what strength is it leading us? He would be a rash man indeed who would attempt to form such an estimate or forecast. It is not merely that the movement has spread from country to country: from Germany, where the socialist rate now exceeds two millions-being a quarter of the total electorate, and greater than that of any other party-from this, its German home, to Austria, France, England, the United States, Italy, Switzerland, and Denmark. Not merely has it thus spread internationally, but even where its strength is inconsiderable numerically, the influence of its spirit is working like leaven in trades union politics and municipal or county council politics, in imperial politics, and in men's minds at large. Now, if this is so, the question arises, Why has a German-bred Socialism to all appearances succeeded where all the other movements of the nineteenth century have failed? and that, too, at a time when the condition of the working-classes has immeasurably improved? The answer can only be, that the earlier movements lacked that basis of theory, which the later movement has possessed. Some roots, indeed, of theory, or underlying principle, every movement must have in order to take deep hold on men. But as to whether the theory is false or not is as small a matter in the economic domain as in the religious domain. The truth of this assertion will appear particularly evident in the following survey of the theoretic basis of this very movement of German Socialism with which we are concerned. It is, of course, well known that that basis was furnished by the writings of Rodbertus and Marx and by the agitation of Lassalle. But this is not the beginning. These men were indeed the formulators, but the material upon which their minds operated lay partially prepared and ready for them. That material they drew entirely from English classical Political Economy. Let me hasten to add that it is with no feeling of pride that the ordinary Englishman should view such indebtedness. Germany has given us of her intellectual best, and what a wealth of science and philosophy and music it has been! In giving Germany our classical Political Economy, we have made her a sorry return, for we have given her of our intellectual worst. But, any way, the gift was made, and German classical Political Economy became a mere replica of English classical Political Economy. English economic science has in this way become the parent of German Socialism. To put the matter as tersely as possible: that Socialism rests on two legs as its theoretical basis. On the one hand, the Ricardian theory of rent has furnished it with a basis for agitation against agricultural rent, or against landlords. In every known socialistic system that agitation has taken the shape of a demand for the nationalisation of the land; and in our own country the question is being pushed into the forefront of practical politics by associations devoted exclusively to this single cause of land nationalisation. applies not merely to the present agitation in Ireland, but to the calmer propaganda in England and Scotland. This The second leg on which modern Socialism rests is the Ricardian theory of value. That theory gave to Marx the key to his conception of a surplus value existing in labour, and which is seized from labour by means of the capitalistic system of the modern world. Such is, in a nutshell, the substance of Marx's "Das Kapital," and upon this single foundation of theory rests the main structure of German Socialism. The theft which capital commits upon labour is not arraigned as an intentional theft or an intentionally immoral act. It is simply inevitable in the |