[London,] 7 March 1877 

Dear Frep, 

As I might forget to do so later, I am sending off this 
contribution in the wake of my last epistle?™*: 

1. The most important point of Hume’s view of the influence of 
an increase in money on the stimulation of industry, a point which 
shows more clearly than anything else (if, indeed, there had been 

4 Wilhelm Liebknecht - > minds that are narrow and anarchic and at the same 
time—monstrous contradiction this— dictatorial 

any room for doubt on this score) that he sees this increase as 
occurring only in conjunction with a depreciation of precious 
metals, a point to which Hume reverts on various occasions, as is 
apparent if only from the excerpt I have sent—is that ‘THE price or 
labour’ rises only in the last resort, after that of all other 
commodities.» Now M. Dihring says not a word about this; 
indeed, Hume whom he praises so highly, is treated by him in as 
slovenly and superficial a fashion as all the rest. Besides, assuming 
he had noticed the thing, which is more than doubtful, he would 
have seen fit, having regard to the workers, not to praise a theory 
of this kind but rather ro Burke THE WHOLE. 

2. My own particular way of dealing with the Physiocrats”— 
i.e. as the first methodical (not, like Petty, etc., merely casual) 
exponents of capital and of the capitalist mode of production—was 
something I did not, of course, wish to put on display just yet. 
The fact is, in plain words said, that my viewpoint might be taken up 
and simultaneously debased by charlatans before I had a chance to 
expound it. Which is why I did not touch on this in the exposé I 
sent you. 

But in dealing with Dihring it might perhaps be fitting to draw 
attention to the following two passages in Capital. I quote them 
from the French edition because they are less vague here than in 
the German original: 

With reference to the Tableau Economique*”': 

‘La reproduction annuelle est un procès trés facile 4 saisir tant 
que l’on ne considére que le fonds de Ja production annuelle, mais 
tous les éléments de celle-ci doivent passer par le marché. La les 
mouvements des capitaux et des revenus se croisent, s’entremêlent 
et se perdent dans un mouvement général de déplacement—la 
circulation de la richesse sociale—qui trouble la vue de l’obser- 
vateur et offre a l’analyse des problémes trés-compliqués. C’est le 
grand mérite des physiocrates d’avoir les premiers essayé de 
donner, dans leur tableau économique, une image de la reproduc- 
tion annuelle telle qu’elle sort de la circulation. Leur exposition est 
a beaucoup d’égards plus prés de la vérité que celle de leurs 
successeurs’.© (258, 259.) 

4D. Hume, Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects, Vol. 1, Dublin, 1779, pp. 303- 
04. -5 E, Diithring, Cursus der National- und Socialékonomie.... - © ‘Annual reproduc- 
tion is a process very easy to comprehend provided one considers only the funds of 
annual production. But all elements of the latter have to pass through the market. It is 
there that the movements of capital and revenue meet, intermingle and lose 
themselves in a general interchange—the circulation of social wealth— which 
confuses the eye of the beholder and presents problems of great complexity to the 

With reference to the definition of ‘travail productif”: 

‘Aussi l'économie politique classique a-t-elle toujours, tantôt 
instinctivement, tantOt consciemment, soutenu que ce qui carac- 
térisait le travail productif, c'était de rendre une plus-value. Ses 
définitions du travail productif, changent 4 mesure qu’elle pousse 
plus avant son analyse de la plus-value. Les physiocrates, par 
exemple, déclarent que le travail agricole seul est productif. Et 
pourquoi? Parce que seul il donne une plus-value qui, pour eux, 
n’existe que sous la forme de la rente fonciére.’” (p. 219). 

‘Although the Physiocrats could not penetrate the mystery of 
surplus value, yet this much was clear to them, viz., that it was “une 
richesse indépendante et disponible qu'il” (the possessor thereof) “‘n’a 
point achetée et qu'il vend”’* (Turgot) (p. 554, Capital, 2nd German 
ed.), and that the same could not arise out of circulation (1.c., Capital, 
pp. 141-145). 

I happened to be at pinner when the Great Barry arrived in GREAT 
HURRY With 8 newspapers under his arm. 

English newspaper editors are quite extraordinary antmats. The 
Editor of Vanity Fair (i.e. the subordinate one; Mr Bowles, the 
head and proprietor, a semi-Urquhartite, has gone to Spain with his 
wife for the benefit of the latter’s health) had at length published 
the article from which the Scottish Morning News and the 
London Whitehall Review had shied away, ditto the 6 Governmental 
PAPERS, OY rather the cenrrat press which is in the hands of the Tory 
Ministry and puts their stuff together for them. 

Bon“ The same Vanity Fair man has, by way of revenge, now 
taken fright in his turn at the prospect of reprinting (in the 
interests of the cause and Mr Barry) the article already printed by 
those 8 journals, namely the one relating to Gladstone’s arricte IN 
tHE Contemporary Review.” Writes, asking Barry what to do in the 
event of a upeL action. I gave Barry—who had providently come 
already armed with the above-mentioned 8 papers—instructions as 

analyst. It is greatly to the credit of the Physiocrats that they should have been the first 
to attempt to give, in their tobleau économique, a picture of annual reproduction as it is 
when it emerges from circulation. In many respects their exposé is closer to the truth 
than that of their successors.’ 

4 productive labour - > ‘Indeed, classical political economy has always, whether 
instinctively or consciously, maintained that it was in the nature of productive 
labour to provide surplus value. The further it carries its analysis of surplus value, 
the more its definitions of productive labour change. The Physiocrats, for example, 
declare agricultural labour alone to be productive. And why? Because it alone 
provides surplus value which, for them, exists only in the form of rent.’ - 
© 4ndependent and disposable wealth which he ... has not bought and which he 
sells’ - 4 Very well. 

to what answer he should give. I Must BE VERY MUCH MISTAKEN IF EVEN THIS 
HESITATION (WHICH WE SHALL, HOWEVER, OVERCOME) HAS NOT SOMETHING TO DO 
WITH THE ‘SCRUPLES' OF Mr Co tet. IT 1s, IN FACT, TOO BAD TO TAKE THE SECRET 
DIPLOMACY BUSINESS OUT OF THEIR HANDs! 

By the by, Russian diplomacy has degenerated into pure farce. 
Mr Ignatiyev’s rour, whether or not it is initially successful, will still 
remain, no matter what the circumstances, an even more 
grotesque and compromising pilgrimage than that of Mr Thiers 
after the farrago of the 4th of September.” 

From the magnanimous Gambuzzi I have received an epilogue, 
9 paces long, of his own contriving, upon the magnanimous 
Fanelli,” who has just died. Presumably intended to make me 
repent of the insulting remarks about ejusdem” Fanelli in the piece 
concerning the Alliance.‘?” 

Your 
K. M.