[311]Bulgakov, op. cit., p. 210 (our italics).
[312]Ibid., p. 199.
[313]K. Buecher; The Rise of National Economy (Die Entstehung der Volkswirtschaft), 5th edition, p. 147. Professor Sombart’s theory is the most recent contribution in this field. He argues that we are not moving towards an international economy but rather farther and farther away from it. ‘I maintain, on the contrary, that commercial relations to-day do not form a stronger but rather a weaker link between the civilised nations, in relation to their economy as a whole. Individual economy takes not more but rather less account of the world market than it did a hundred or fifty years ago. At least ... it would be wrong to assume that the relative importance of international relations with regard to modern political economy is increasing. The opposite is the case.’ Sombart scornfully rejects the assumption of a progressive international division of labour, of a growing need for outside markets owing to an inelastic home demand. He in his turn is convinced that ‘the individual national economies will develop into ever more perfect microcosms and that the importance of the home market will increasingly surpass that of the world market for all branches of industry’ (Die Deutsche Volkswirtschaft im 19. Jahrhundert, 2nd edition, 1909, pp. 399-420). This devastating discovery admittedly hinges on a full acceptance of the Professor’s peculiar conception which, for some reasons, only considers those as ‘exporting countries’ who pay for their imports with a surplus of agricultural products over and above their own needs, who pay ‘with the soil’. In this scheme Russia, Rumania, the U.S.A. and the Argentine are, but Germany, England and Belgium are not, ‘exporting countries’. Since capitalist development will sooner or later also claim the surplus of agricultural products for the home demand in Russia and the U.S.A., it is evident that there will be fewer and fewer ‘exporting countries’ in the world—international economy will vanish.—Another of Sombart’s discoveries is that great capitalist ‘non-exporting’ countries increasingly obtain ‘free’ imports in form of interest on exported capital—but the capital exports as well as exports of industrial commodities are of absolutely no account to Professor Sombart. ‘In the course of time we shall probably get to a point where we import without exporting’ (p. 422). Modern, sensational, and precious!
[314]Bulgakov, op. cit., p. 132.
[315]Ibid., p. 236. A quite uncompromising version of the same view is given by V. Ilyin [Lenin]: ‘The romanticists (as he calls the sceptics) argue as follows: the capitalists cannot consume the surplus value; therefore they must dispose of it abroad. I ask: Do the capitalists perhaps give away their products to foreigners for nothing, throw it into the sea, maybe? If they sell it, it means that they obtain an equivalent. If they export certain goods, it means that they import others’ (Economic Studies and Essays, p. 2). As a matter of fact, his explanation of the part played by external commerce in capitalist production is far more correct than that of Struve and Bulgakov.
[316]Studies on the Theory and History of Commercial Crises in England (Jena, 1901) and Theoretical Foundations of Marxism (1905).
[317]Studies on the Theory and History ..., p. 23.
[318]Ibid., p. 34.
[319]Ibid., p. 333.
[320]Ibid., p. 191.