[917] Such, as we have already seen, is Colson’s conclusion (Cours, vol. iii, p. 366), and such is the verdict of M. Chatelain after studying the United States census returns. According to Chatelain (Questions pratiques de Législation ouvrière, June and July, 1908), the American metal-workers’ share in the product fell from 71 to 68 per cent. between the years 1890 and 1905, while capital’s share increased from 28 to 32 per cent. The men’s wages during the same period rose from 551 dollars to 626, while the rate of interest fell from 9 to 8 per cent. Despite this diminution in labour’s share of the total product it is impossible to say whether the remuneration of labour in general is moving upward or downward, for the working classes do not depend solely upon the wages of their labour. Some of them have a little capital—a very small amount, perhaps, but there is no reason for thinking that it will not grow in future.
It is quite clear that this complicated question must be carefully defined. Three different factors must be distinguished: (1) The individual’s wage; (2) labour’s share in the product; (3) the income of the working class. On this problem see Edwin Cannan’s article in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1905, and his statements in his Theory of Production and Distribution, 1776-1848.
[918] Kapital, p. 176.
[919] Ibid., p. 187.
[920] “And so I believe that just as history is nothing but a series of compromises, the first problem that awaits economic science at the present moment is that of effecting some kind of a working compromise between labour, capital, and property.” (Kapital, p. 187.) In a letter written on September 18, 1873, to R. Meyer, he declares that the great problem “is to help us to pass by a peaceful evolution from our present system, which is based upon private property in land and capital, to that superior social order which must succeed it in the natural course of history, which will be based upon desert and the mere ownership of income, and which is already showing itself in various aspects of social life, as if it were already on the point of coming into operation.”
[921] Cf. Kapital, pp. 109 et seq., and especially his article Der Normalarbeitstag, which appeared in 1871 and was republished in Briefe u. Sozialpolitische Aufsätze, p. 552 et seq. The idea of determining value in the way Rodbertus intended was criticised by Marx in his Misère de la Philosophie, à propos of Proudhon’s attempt in 1847. The socialisation of production involves the socialisation of exchange as well. This is another point upon which Marx and Rodbertus differ.
[922] Cf. Kapital, p. 188, note.
[923] Zur Geschichte der römischen Tributsteuer, in Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie u. Statistik, vol. viii, pp. 446-447, note.
[924] “Extreme socialism,” says Wagner, “is simply an exaggeration of that partial socialism which has long been a feature of the economic and social evolution of all nations, especially the most civilised.” (Grundlegung, 3rd ed., p. 756.)
[925] George Meredith in his Tragic Comedians weaves his story round this tragic adventure, giving us an admirable study of Lassalle’s psychology. Cf. also Lassalle, by Georges Brandes, and Oncken’s Lassalle (Stuttgart, 1904).