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

62
V. I. LENIN
of this subject a single step. How confused were his conceptions
of “income” is shown by his lengthy speculations in his
Fourth Social Letter to von Kirchmann (Das Kapital, Berlin,
1884) about whether money should be included in the national
income, and whether wages are taken from capital or from
income—speculations of which Engels said that they “belong
to the domain of scholasticism” (Vorwort to Vol. II, Capital,
S. XXI).* 36
Utter confusion on the problem of the national income
reigns supreme among economists to this day. For example,
in his article on “Crises” in Handwörterbuch der Staatswissenschaften
(the afore-mentioned compilation, p. 81),
Herkner, speaking of the realisation of the product in capitalist
society (§5, “distribution”), expresses the opinion that
the speculations of K. H. Rau are “sound,” although he
merely repeats Adam Smith’s mistake by dividing the whole
product of society into incomes. R. Meyer, in his article on
“income” (ibid., p. 283 and foll.), quotes the confused
definitions of A. Wagner (who also repeats Adam Smith’s
error) and frankly admits that “it is difficult to distinguish
income from capital,” and that “the most difficult thing is
to distinguish between returns (Ertrag) and income (Einkommen).”
We thus see that the economists who have discoursed at
length on the inadequate attention paid by the classical
economists (and Marx) to “distribution” and “consumption”
have not been able to give the slightest explanation of the
most fundamental problems of “distribution” and “consumption.”
That is understandable, for one cannot even discuss
“consumption” unless one understands the process of the
reproduction of the total social capital and of the replacement
of the various component parts of the social product.
This example once again proved how absurd it is to single
out “distribution” and “consumption” as though they were
independent branches of science corresponding to certain
independent processes and phenomena of economic life.
It is not with “production” that political economy deals,
* That is why K. Diehl is absolutely wrong when he says that
Rodbertus presented “a new theory of the distribution of income.”
(Handwörterbuch der Staatswissenschaften, Art. “Rodbertus,” B. V.,
S. 448.)