Collected Works of V. I. Lenin - Vol. 3 - From Marx to Mao

THE DEVELOPMENT OF CAPITALISM IN RUSSIA
“distribution,” and “income”. All these problems, particularly
the last, have hitherto been a veritable stumbling-block for
economists. The more they have spoken and written about
it, the greater has been the confusion caused by Adam
Smith’s fundamental error. We shall cite here some
examples of this confusion.
It is interesting to note, for example, that Proudhon
repeated essentially the same error, except that he formulated
the old theory somewhat differently. He said:
“A (which stands for all property owners, entrepreneurs
and capitalists) starts an enterprise with 10,000 francs,
and with them makes advance payment to the workers, who
must produce goods in return; after A has thus converted
his money into commodities he must, at the end of the
production process, at the end, say, of a year, convert the
commodities again into money. To whom does he sell his
commodities? To the workers, of course, for there are only
two classes in society—the entrepreneurs on the one hand,
and the workers on the other. These workers, having for the
product of their labour received 10,000 francs as pay, which
covers their essential requirements of life, must now, however,
pay more than 10,000 francs, that is, they must pay
for the addition that A receives in the shape of the interest
and other profits he counted on at the beginning of the year.
The worker can cover these 10,000 francs only by borrowing,
and, as a consequence, he sinks deeper and deeper into debt
and poverty. One of two things must necessarily take place:
either the worker may consume 9, although he produced 10,
or he pays the entrepreneur only the amount of his wages,
in which case the entrepreneur himself suffers bankruptcy
and disaster, for he does not receive interest on capital,
which he on his part, however, must pay.” (Diehl, Proudhon,
II, 200, quoted from the compilation “Industry.” Articles
from Handwörterbuch der Staatswissenschaften,* Moscow,
1896, p. 101.)
As the reader sees, this is the same difficulty—how surplusvalue
is to be realised—that Messrs. V. V. and N.—on are
fussing over. Proudhon only expressed it in a somewhat
specific form. And this specific character of his formulation
* Dictionary of Political Sciences.—Ed.
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