9i8 Capitalist Production.
the same under all modes of production. For it is not a result of its specific form, but a natural requisite of all continuous and reproductive labor, of any continued production, which is always a reproduction, including the reproduction of its own labor conditions. It is furthermore evident that in all forms, in which the direct laborer remains the " possessor " of the means of production and labor conditions of his own means of subsistence, the property relation must at the same time assert itself as a direct relation between rulers and servants, so that the direct producer is not free. Tliis is a lack of freedom which may be modified from serfdom with forced labor to the point of a mere tributary relation.
The direct producer, according to our assumption, is here in possession of his own means of production, of the material labor conditions required for the realization of his labor and the production^of his means of~subsistence. He carries on his agriculture and the rural house Industries connected witli it as an indepeiTdent producer. This independence is not abolished by the fact that these small farmers may form among themselves a more or less natural commune in production, as they do in India, since it is here merely a question of independence from the nominal lord of the soil. Under i^ such conditions the surplus labor for the -jaamiaal owner of the land cannot be filched from them by any economic measures, but must be forced from them by other measures, w^hatever may be the forrcuassttmed by them.^^^ This is different from slave or plantation economy, in that the slave works with conditions of labor belonging to another. He does not work as an independent producer. This requires conditions of personal dependence, a lack of personal freedom, no matter to what extent, a bondage to the soil as its accessory, a serfdom in the strict meaning of the word. If the direct producers are not under the sovereignty of a private landlord, but rather under that of a state which stands over them as their direct landlord and sovereign, then rent and taxes coincide, or rather, there is no tax which differs *^ After a country had been conquered, the next step for the conquerer was always to take possession of the human beings also. Compare Linguet. See also M^er.
Labor Rent. gig from this form of ground-rent. Under these circumstances the subject need not be politically or economically under any harder pressure than that common to all subjection to that state. The state is then the supreme landlord. The sovereignty consists here in the ownership of land concentrated on a national scale. But, on the other hand, no private ownership of land exists, although there is both private and common possession and use of land.
The specific economic form, in which unpaid surplus labor is pumped out of the direct producers, determines tlie relation of rulers and ruled, as it grows immediately out of production itself and reacts upon it as a determining element. Upon this is founded the entire formation of the economic community which grows up out of the conditions of production itself, and this also determines its specific political shape. It is always the direct relation of the owners of the conditions of production to the direct producers, which reveals the innermost secret, the hidden foundation of the entire social construction, and with it of the political form of the relations between sovereignty and dependence, in short, of the corresponding form of the state. The form of this relation be^ tween rulers and ruled naturally corresponds always with a definite stage in the development of the methods of labor and of its productive social power. This does not prevent the same economic basis from showing infinite variations and gradations in its appearance, even though its principal conditions are everywhere the same. This is due to innumerable outside circumstances, natural environment, race peculiarities, outside historical influences, and so forth, all of which must be ascertained by careful analysis.
So much is evident in the case of labor rent, the simplest and most primitive form of rent: The rent is here the original form of surplus-value and coincides with it. Furthermore, the identity of surplus-value with unpaid labor of others does not need to be demonstrated by any analysis in this case, because it still exists in its visible, palpable form, for the labor of the direct producer for himself is still separated by space and time from his labor for the landlord, and this 920 Capitalist Production.
last labor appears clearly in the brutal form of forced labor for another. In the same way the " quality " of the soil to produce a rent is here reduced to a tangibly open secret, for the nature which here furnishes the rent also includes the human labor-power bound to the soil, and the property relation which compels the owner of labor-power to exert this quality and to keep it busy beyond the measure required for the satisfaction of his own material needs. The rent consists directly in the appropriation, by the landlord, of this surplus expenditure of labor-power. For the direct producer pays no other rent. Here, where surplus-value and rent are not only identical, but where surplus-value obviously has the form of surplus labor, the natural conditions, or limits, of rent lie on the surface, because those of surplus-value do. The direct producer must, 1), possess enough labor-power, and 2), the natural conditions of his labor, ^yllich means in the first place the soil cultivated by him, must be productive enough, in one word, the natural productivity of his labor) must be so great that the possibility of some surplus labors over and above that required for the satisfaction of his own:> needs shall remain. It is not this possibility which creates the rent. The rent is not created until compulsion makes a reality of this possibility. But the possibility itself is conditioned upon subjective and objective facts of nature. And there is nothing mysterious about it. If the labor-power is small, and the natural conditions of labor poor, then the surplus labor is small^ but so are in that case the wants of the producers on one side and the relative numbers of the exploiters of surplus labor on the other, and so is finally the surplus product, by which this little productive surplus labor is represented for those few exploiting land owners.
Finally, labor rent implies in itself that, all other circumstances remaining equal, it will depend wholly upon the relative amount of surplus labor, or forced labor, to what extent the direct producer shall be enabled to improve his own condition, to acquire wealth, to produce a surplus over and above his indispensable means of subsistence, or, if we wish to anticipate the capitalist mode of expression, whether he shall be } Labor Rent. 921 able to produce a profit for himself, and how much of a profit, meaning a surplus over the wages produced by himself. The rent is here the normal, all absorbing, one might say legitimate, form of surplus labor. So far from being a surplus over the profit, which means in this case in excess of any other surplus over the wages, it is rather the amount of profit, and even its very existence, which depends, other circumstances being equal, upon the amount of rent, or upon the forced surplus labor to be surrendered to the landlord.
Some historians have expressed astonishment that it should be possible for the forced laborers, or serfs, to acquire any independent property, or relatively speaking, wealth, under such circumstances, since the direct producer is not an owner, but only a possessor, and since all his surplus labor belongs legally to the landlord. However, it is evident that tradition must play a very powerful role in the primitive and undeveloped circumstances, upon which this relation in social production and the corresponding mode of production are based.
It is furthermore clear that here as everywhere else it is in the interest of the ruling section of society to sanction the existing order as a law and to perpetuate its habitually and traditionally fixed limits as legal ones. Aside from all other matters, this comes about of itself in proportion as the continuous reproduction of the foundation of the existing order and of the relations corresponding to it gradually assume a regulated and orderly form. And such regulation and order are themselves indispensable elements of any mode of production, provided that it is to assume social firmness and an independence from mere accident and arbitrariness. It is just through them that society is rendered more firm and emancipated relatively from mere arbitrariness and mere accident. Society assumes this form by the repeated reproductio-n of the same mode of production, where the process of production stagnates and with it the corresponding social relations. If this continues for some time, this order fortifies itself by custom and tradition and is finally sanctioned as ^n expressed law. Since the form of this surplus labor, of forced labor, rests upon the imperfect development of all pro- 922 Capitalist Production.
ductive powers of society, and upon the crudeness of the methods of labor itself, it will naturally absorb a much smaller portion, relatively, of the total labor of the direct producers than under developed modes of production, particularly under the capitalist mode of production. Take it, for instance, that the forced labor for the landlord originally amounted to two days per week. These two days of forced labor are fixed, are a constant magnitude, legally regulated by laws of usage or written laws. But the productivity of the remaining days of the week, over which the direct producer has independent control, is a variable magnitude, which must develop in the course of his experience, together with the new wants he acquires, together with the expansion of the market for his product, together with the increasing security which guarantees independence for this portion of his labor-power. These things will spur him on to a greater exertion of his laborpower, and it must not be forgotten that the employment of his labor-power is by no means confined to agriculture, but includes rural house industry. The possibility of a certain economic development, depending, of course, upon the favor of circumstances, upon inborn race characteristics, etc., is open in this case.
^ III. Bent in Kind.
The transformation of labor rent into rent in kind does not change anything in the nature of rent, economically speaking. This nature, in the fomis of rent considered here, is such that rent is the sole prevailing and normal form of surplus labor, or surplus-value. This, again, expresses the fact that rent is the only surplus labor, or the only surplus product which the direct producer, being in possession of the labor conditions needed for his own reproduction, must give up to the owner of the land, Avhich under this state of things is the one condition of labor embracing everything. And furthermore it expresses the fact that land is the only labor condition, which stands opposed to the direct producer as a property independent of him and held in the hands of another, Rent in Kind. 923 being personified by the landlord. To the extent that rent in kind is the prevailing and dominant fonn of ground-rent, it is always more or less in the company of survivals of the preceding form, that is of rent paid directly by labor, forced labor, no matter whether the landlord be a private person or the state. Eent in kind requires a higher state of civilization for the direct producer, a higher stage of development of his labor and of society in general. And it is distinguished from the preceding form by the fact that the surplus labor is no longer performed naturally, is no longer performed under the direct supervision and compulsion of the landlord or' of his representatives. The direct producer is rather driven by the force of circumstances than by direct coercion, rather by legal enactment than by lie whip, to perform surplus labor on his own responsibility. Surplus production, in the sense of a production beyond the indispensable needs of the direct producer, and within the field of production actually in his own possession, upon the soil exploited by himself and no longer upon the lord's estate outside of his own land, has become a matter of fact rule here. In this relation the direct producer is more or less master of the employment of his whole labor time, although a part of this labor time, at first practically the entire surplus portion of it, belongs to the landlord without any compensation. Only, the landlord does not get this surplus labor any more in its natural form, but rather in the natural form of the product in which it is realized.
The burdensome interruption by the labor for the landlord (see Volume I, chapter X, 2, Manufacturer and Boyard), which disturbs the reproduction of the serf more or less, according to the way in which forced labor is regulated, disappears, wherever rent in kind has its pure form, or at least it is reduced to a few short intervals during the year, which demand a continuation of rent by forced labor bv the sids of rent in kind. The labor of the producer for himself and his labor for the landlord are no longer palpably separated by time and space. This rent in kind, in its pure form, while it may drag itself along sporadically into more highly' developed modes of produ'^tior and -onditions of production, nev-" 924 Capitalist Production.
ertheless requires for its existence a natural economy, that is: an economy in which the conditions of production are either wholly or for the overwhelming part produced by the system I itself in such a way that they are reproduced directly out of l\ its gross product. It furthermore requires the combination j N?f domestic rural industry with agriculture. The surplus product, which forms the rent, is the product of this combined agricultural and industrial family labor, no matter whether rent in kind contains more or less of the industrial product, as it often does in the middle ages, or whether it is paid only in the form of actual products of the soil. In this form of rent it is by no means necessary that rent in kind, which represents the surplus labor, should fully exhaust the entire surplus labor of the rural family. Compared to labor rent, the producer rather has more elbow room to gain time for some surplus labor whose product shall belong to himself, as does that of the labor which produces his indispensable means of /subsistence. This form will also give rise to greater differences in the economic situation of the individual direct producers. At least the possibility for such a differentiation exists, and so does the possibility that the direct producer may have acquired the means to exploit other laborers for himself, but this does not concern us here, since we are dealing with rent in its pure form. Neither can we pay any heed to the endless variety of combinations, by which the various forms of rent may be united, adulterated and amalgamated.
Owing to the peculiar form of rent in kind, by which it is bound to a definite kind of products and of production, owing furthermore to the indispensable combination of agriculture and domestic industry attached to it, also to the almost complete selfsufficiency in which the peasant family supports itself and to its independence from markets and from the movement of production and history in the social spheres outside of it, in short owing to the character of natural economy in general this form is quite suitable for becoming the basis of stationary conditions of society, such as we see in Asia. Here, as previously in the form of labor rent, ground-rent is the normal form of surplus-value, and thus of surplus labor, that Rent in Kind. 925 Rent in Kind. 925 is of the entire surplus labor performed without any equivalent by the direct producer for the benefit of the owner of his essential means of production, the land, a labor which is still performed under compulsion, although no longer in the old brutal form. The profit, if, falsely anticipating, we may so call that portion of the direct producer's labor which exceeds his necessary labor and which he keeps for himself, has so little to do with determining the rent in kind, that this profit rather grows up behind the back of the rent and finds its natural limit in the size of the rent in kind. This rent may assume dimensions which seriously threaten the reproduction of the conditions of labor, of the means of production. It may render an expansion of production more or less impossible, and grind the direct producers down to the physical minimum of means of subsistence. This is particularly the case, when this form is met and exploited by a conquering industrial nation, as India is by the English. y IV. Money Rent.
IV. Money Rent.
By money rent we mean here — for the sake of distinction from the industrial and commercial ground-rent resting upon the capitalist mode of production, which is but a surplus over the average profit — that ground-rent which arises from a mere change of form of rent in kind, just as this rent in kind, in its turn, is but a modification of labor rent. Under money rent, the direct producer no longer turns over the product, but its price, to the landlord (who may be either the state or a private individual). A surplus of products in their natural form is no longer sufficient; it must be converted from its natural form into money. Although the direct producer still continues to produce at least the greater part of his means of subsistence himself, a certain portion of this product must now be converted into commodities, must be produced as commodities. The character of the entire mode of production is thus more or less changed. It loses its independence, it remains no longer detached from the socia*' 9^6. Capitalist Production.
connections. The proportion of the cost of production, which now is more and more complicated with the expenditure of money, now becomes a determining factor. At any rate, the excess of. that portion of the gross product, which must be converted into money, over that portion, which has to serve either as means of reproduction or as means of direct subsistence, assumes a determining role. However, the basis of this rent remains the same as that of the rent in kind, from which it starts, although money rent likewise approaches its dissolution. The direct producer still is the possessor of the land, either by inheritance or by some other traditional right, and he has to perform for his landlord, who is the owner of the land, of his most essential instrument of production, forced surplus labor, that is, unpaid labor for which no equivalent is returned, and this forced surplus labor is now paid in money obtained by the sale of the surplus product. The property in requirements of labor separate from the land, such as agricultural implements and other movable things, is transformed into the property of the direct producer even under the preceding form of rent, first in fact, then legally, and this is the condition even more under money rent. The transformation of rent in kind into money rent, taking place first sporadically, then on a more or less national scale, requires a considerable development of commerce, of city industries, of the production of commodities in general, and with them of the circulation of money. It furthermore requires that products should have a market price, and that I they are sold more or less approximately at their values, ' Avhich need not necessarily be the case under the preceding forms. Tn^ the East of Europe we may still see in a certain measure this transformation with our own eyes. How little it can be carried through without a certain development of the social productivity of labor, is proved by various unsuccessful attempts to carry it through under the Eoman emperors, and by relapses into rent in kind after the attempt had been made to convert at least that portion of rent in kind into a money rent which had to be paid as a state tax. The same difficulties of transition are shown, for instance, by the Money Rent. 927 pre revolutionary time in France, when money rent was combined and adulterated by survivals of the forms preceding it.
Money rent, as a converted form of rent in kind and as an antagonist of rent in kind, is the last form, and the dissolving form, of that form of ground-rent, which we have considered so far, namely of ground-rent as the normal form of surplus-value and of the unpaid surplus labor to be performed for the owner of the means of production. In its pure form, this rent, like labor rent and rent in kind, does not represent any surplus above the profit. It absorbs the profit, as it is understood. To the extent that profit arises in fact as a separate portion of the surplus labor by the side of the rent, money rent as well as rent in its preceding forms still is the normal barrier of such embryonic profit, which can only develop in proportion as the possibility of exploitation gTows, whether it be the producer's own surplus labor or the surplus labor of another, which remains after the surplus represented by money rent has been paid. If any profit actually arises along with this rent, this profit is not a barrier of rent, but the rent is rather a barrier of this profit. However, we repeat that money rent is at the same time the disappearing form of the rent which we have considered so far, of that rent which is identical with surplus-value and surplus labor, of ground-rent as the normal and prevailing fonn of surplusvalue.
In its further development money rent must lead — aside from all intermediate forms, such as that of the small peasant who is a tenant — • either to the transformation of land into independent peasants' property, or into the form corresponding to the capitalist mode of production, tliat is, to rent paid by the capitalist tenant.
With the coming of money rent the traditional and customary relation between the landlord and the subject tillers of the soil, who possess and cultivate a part of the land, is turned into a pure money relation fixed by the rules of positive law. The cultivating possessor thus becomes virtually a mere tenant. This transformation serves on the one hand, provided that other general conditions of production permit 928 Capitalist Production.
such a thing, to expropriate gradually the old peasant possessors and to put in their place capitalist t£Jiants. On the othe~r hand it leads to a release of the old possessors from their tributary relation by buying themselves free from their landlord, so that they become independent farmers and free owners of the land tilled by them. The transformation of rent in kind into money rent is not only necessarily accompanied, but even anticipated by the formation of a class of propertyless day laborers, who hire themselves out for wages. During the period of their rise, when this new class appears but sporadically, the custom necessarily develops among the better situated tributary farmers of exploiting agricultural laborers for their owti account, just as the wealthier serfs in feudal times used to employ serfs for their own benefit. In this way they gradually acquire the ability to accumulate a certain amount of wealth and to transform themselves even into future capitalists. The old selfemploying possessors of the land thus give rise among themselves to a nursery for capitalist tenants, w^hose development is conditioned upon the general development of capitalist production outside of the rural districts. This class grows very rapidly, when particularly favorable circumstances come to its aid, as they did in England in the 16th century, where the progressive depreciation of money made them rich, under the customary long leases, at the expense of the landlords.
Furthermore: As soon as rent assumes the form of money rent, and with it the relation between rent paying peasants and landlords becomes a relation fixed by contract — a development which is not possible unless the world market, commerce and manufacture have reached a relatively high level — the leasing of land to capitalists necessarily also puts in its appearance. These men, having stood outside of the rural barrier so far, now transfer to the country and to agriculture some capital acquired in the cities and with it the capitalist mode of production as developed in those cities, which implies the creation of the product in the form of a mere commodity and as a mere means of appropriating surplus-value. This form can become the general rule only Money Rent. 929 in those countries, which dominate the world market in the period of transition from the feudal to the capitalist mode of production. When the capitalist tenant steps between the landlord and the actually working tiller of the soil, all conditions have been dissolved, which arose from the old rural mode of production. The capitalist tenant becomes the actual commander of these agricultural laborers and the actual exploiter of their surplus labor, whereas the landlord has any direct relations only with this capitalist tenant, the relation being a mere money relation fixed by contract. This transforms also the nature of the rent, not merely in fact and accidentally, as it did sometimes even under the preceding forms, but normally, by transforming its acknowledged and prevailing mode. Instead of continuing as the normal form of surplus-value and surplus labor, it becomes a mere surplus of this surplus labor over that portion of it, which is appropriated by the exploiting capitalist in the form of profit. And now the total surplus labor, both profit and surplus above the profit, are extracted by him directly, ajDpropriated in the form of the surplus product, and turned into money. It is only the surplus portion of the surplus-value extracted by him from the agricultural laborer by direct exploitation, by means of his capital, which he turns over to the landlord as rent. How much or how little he gives away to him depends, as a rule, upon the limits set by the average profit