Collected Works of V. I. Lenin - Vol. 16 - From Marx to Mao

442V. I. LENINVIITHE LOW PRODUCTIVITY OF LABOURIN SMALL-SCALE PRODUCTION AND EXCESSIVE WORKThe significance of the data on the use of machinery inagriculture is usually underestimated in economic literature.Firstly, the capitalist character of the use of machinery isquite often ignored (always, in the case of bourgeois economists);the economists make no investigation of this problem,they do not know how to raise it or do not even wantto do so. Secondly, the use of machinery is considered inisolation and not as a criterion of the different types of farm,different methods of cultivation and different economic conditionsof farming.If, for example, as a general rule we find an incomparablygreater use of machinery in large-scale compared with smallscaleproduction, and a huge concentration of machines inthe capitalist farms, which sometimes even have almost amonopoly of up-to-date implements, this is an indicationof the difference in care for the land among farms of differenttypes. Among the machines registered by the German censusare such machines as steam ploughs, seed-drills and potatoplantingmachines. The fact that they are mainly used incapitalist agriculture means that in this case care for theland is better, the technique of cultivation higher and theproductivity of labour greater. Bensing, 151 the author of awell-known monograph on agricultural machinery, basinghimself on the data of specialists concerning the effect ofusing various machines, has calculated that, even withoutchanging the system of cultivation, the use of machines byitself raises the net return from farming many times over.These calculations have not been refuted by anyone and basicallythey cannot be refuted.The small-scale producer who has no opportunity ofusing up-to-date implements is forced to lag behind in carefor the land, and it is only individuals or a few dozen out ofhundreds and thousands who can try to “overtake” the bigfarmer by applying more labour to the land while retainingthe old tools, and by greater “assiduousness” and a longerworking day. The statistics of the use of machinery indicatetherefore the existence of excessive labour in small-scale pro-