[1. General Characterisation of List] 

... [2] that awareness of the death of the bourgeoisie has already 
penetrated the consciousness even of the German bourgeois, so 
the German bourgeois is naive enough himself to admit this “sad 
fact”. 

“For this reason also it is so sad ihat the evils which in our day accompany 
industry are advanced as a reason for rejecting industry itself. There exist far 
greater evils than a social estate [Stand] of proletarians: an empty exchequer— 
national impotence— national slavery—national death” (p_ Lxvii). 

It is truly sadder that the proletariat already exists and already 
advances claims, and already inspires fear, before the German 
bourgeois has yet achieved the development of industry. As far as 
the proletarian himself is concerned, he will certainly find his 
social situation [Stand] a happy one when the ruling bourgeoisie 
has a full exchequer and national might. Herr List only speaks 
about what is sadder for the bourgeois. And we admit that for him 
it is very sad that he wants to establish the domination of industry 
precisely at the unsuitable moment when the slavery of the majority 
resulting from this domination has become a generally known fact. 
The German bourgeois is the knight of the rueful countenance, who 
wanted to introduce knight-errantry just when the police and 
money had come to the fore. 

3. A great inconvenience (obstacle)*’ affecting the German 
bourgeois in his striving for industrial wealth is his idealism 
professed hitherto. How is it that this nation of the “spirit” 
suddenly comes to find the supreme blessings of mankind in 
calico, knitting yarn, the self-acting mule, in a mass of factory 
slaves, in the materialism of machinery, in the full money-bags of 

266 | Karl .Marx 

Messrs. the factory-owners? The empty, shallow, sentimental ideal- 
ism of the German bourgeois, beneath which lies hidden (is 
concealed) the pettiest, dirtiest and most cowardly shopkeeper’s 
spirit (soul), has arrived at the epoch when this bourgeois is 
inevitably compelled to divulge his secret. But again he divulges it 
in a truly German, highflown manner. He divulges it with an 
idealistic-Christian sense of shame. He disavows wealth while 
striving for it. He clothes spiritless materialism in an idealistic 
disguise and only then ventures to pursue it. 

The whole theoretical part of List’s system is nothing but a 
eee eee ]* disguising of the industrial materialism of frank 
political economy in idealistic phrases. Everywhere he allows the 
thing to remain in existence but idealises the expression of it. We 
shall trace this in detail. It is just this empty idealistic phraseology 
that enables him to ignore the real barriers standing in the way of 
his pious wishes and to indulge in the most absurd fantasies (what 
would have become of the English and French bourgeoisie if it 
had first to ask a high-ranking nobility, an esteemed bureaucracy 
and the ancient ruling dynasties for permission to give “industry” 
the “force of law’’?). 

The German bourgeois is religious even when he is an indus- 
trialist. He shrinks from speaking about the nasty exchange values 
which he covets and speaks about productive forces [von Produktiv- 
kraften]; he shrinks from speaking about competition and speaks 
of a national confederation of national productive forces; he 
shrinks from speaking of his private interest and speaks about the 
national interest. When one looks at the frank, classic cynicism 
with which the English and French bourgeoisie, as represented by 
its first—at least at the beginning of its domination — scientific 
spokesmen of political economy, elevated wealth into a god and 
ruthlessly sacrificed everything else to it, to this Moloch, in science 
as well, and when, on the other hand, one looks at the idealising, 
phrase-mongering, bombastic manner of Herr List, who in the 
midst of political economy despises the wealth of “righteous 
men” and knows loftier aims, one is bound to find it “also sad”’ 
that the present day. is no longer a day for wealth. 

Herr List always speaks in Molossus metre. He continually 
shows off in a clumsy and verbose rhetoric, the troubled waters of 
which always drive him in the end on to a sandbank, and the 
essence of which consists of constant repetitions about protective 

* There are three illegible words in the manuscript here, apparently meaning 
“fallen in front of him” — Ed. 

On Friedrich List’s Book Das Nationale System der Politischen Oekonomie 267 

tariffs and true German [“teutsche”] factories. He is continually 
sensuously supersensuous. 

The German idealising philistine who wants to become wealthy 
must, of course, first create for himself a new theory of wealth, 
one which makes wealth worthy of his striving for it. The 
bourgeois in France and England see the approach of the storm 
which will destroy in practice the real life of what has hitherto 
been called wealth, but the German bourgeois, who has not yet 
arrived at this inferior wealth, tries to give a new, “spiritualistic”’ 
interpretation of it. He creates for himself an “idealising” political 
economy, which has nothing in common with profane French and 
English political economy, in order to justify to himself and the 
world that he, too, wants to become wealthy. The German 
bourgeois begins his creation of wealth with the creation of a 
highflown hypocfitically idealising political economy. 

3.°° How Herr List interprets history and what attitude he 
adopts towards Smith and his school. 

Humble as is Herr List’s attitude to the nobility, the ancient 
ruling dynasties and the bureaucracy, he is to the same degree 
“audacious” in opposing French and English political economy, of 
which Smith is the protagonist, and which has cynically betrayed 
the secret of “wealth” and made impossible all illusions about its 
nature, tendency and movement. Herr List lumps them all 
together by calling them “the School”. For since the German 
bourgeois is concerned with protective tariffs, the whole develop- 
ment of political economy since Smith has, of course, no meaning 
for him, because all its most outstanding representatives presup- 
pose the present-day bourgeois society of competition and free 
trade. 

The German philistine here reveals his “national” character in 
many ways. . 

1) In the whole of political economy, he sees only systems 
concocted in academic study rooms. That the development of a 
science such as political economy is connected with the real 
movement of society, or is only its theoretical [3] expression, Herr 
List, of course, does not suspect. A German theoretician. 

2) Since his own work (theory) conceals a secret aim, he suspects 
secret aims everywhere. 

Being a true German philistine, Herr List, instead of studying 
real history, looks for the secret, bad aims of individuals, and,. 
owing to his cunning, he is very well able to discover them (puzzle 
them out). He makes great discoveries, such as that Adam Smith 
wanted to deceive the world by his theory, and that the whole 

world let itself be deceived by him until the great Herr List woke 
it from its dream, rather in the way that a certain Dusseldorf 
Counsellor of Justice made out that Roman history had been 
invented by medieval monks in order to justify the domination of 
Rome. 

But just as the German bourgeois knows no better way of 
opposing his enemy than by casting a moral slur on him, casting 
aspersions on his frame of mind, and seeking bad motives for his 
actions, in short, by bringing him into bad repute and making him 
personally an object of suspicion, so Herr List also casts aspersions 
on the English and French economists, and retails gossip about 
them. And just as the German philistine does not disdain the 
pettiest profit-making and swindling in trade, so Herr List does 
not disdain to juggle with words from the quotations he gives in 
order to make them profitable. He does not disdain to stick the 
trade-mark of his rival on to his own bad products, in order to 
bring his rival’s products into disrepute by falsifying them, or even 
to invent downright lies about his competitor in order to discredit 
him. | 

We shall give a few samples of Herr List’s mode of procedure. 

It is well known that the German priests believed they could 
inflict no more deadly blow on the Enlightenment than by telling 
us the stupid anecdote and lie that on his death-bed Voltaire had 
renounced his views. Herr List, too, takes us to Adam Smith’s 
death-bed and informs us that it turned out that Smith had not 
been sincere in his teaching. However, listen to Herr List himself 
.and his further verdict on Smith. We put alongside List’s words 
the source of his wisdom. 

List: 

[National System of Political Economy, 
Vol. I: International Trade, Trade Policy 

Ferrier, F.L.A., Du gouvernement considéré 
dans ses rapports avec le commerce, Paris, 

and the German Customs Union. Stuttgart - 

and Tubingen, 1841:] 

“I recalled from the biography by 
Dugald Stewart how this great mind 
[Adam Smith] could not die in peace 
before all his manuscripts had been 
burned, by which I wanted to make it 
understood how serious is the suspicion 
that these papers contained proofs 
against his sincerity” (p. Lvili). “I 
showed that the English Ministers [...] 
made use of his theory in order to 
throw dust into the eyes of other na- 
tions for the benefit of England” (loc. 

1805: 

“Is it possible that Smith was sin- 
cere in heaping up so many false argu- 
ments in favour of free trade?... Smith 
had as his secret aim to spread in 
Europe principles the adoption of which 
he knew very well would give his coun- 
try the world market” (pp. 385, 386). 
“One is even justified in assuming that 
Smith did not always propound one and 
the same doctrine; and how otherwise is 
one to explain the torment he suffered 
on his death-bed because of the fear 

On Friedrich List’; Book Das Nationale System der Politischen Ockonomie 269 

cit.). “As regards its relation to national 
and _ international conditions, Adam 
Smith’s theory is a mere continuation of 
the physiocratic system. Like the latter, 
it ignores the nature of the nations [...] 
and presupposes eternal peace and uni- 
versal union as already in existence” (p. 
475), 

that the manuscripts of his lectures 
would survive him” (p. 386). He [Fer- 
rier} loc. cit. (p. 388) reproaches Smith 
for having been a commissaire des 
douanes.” “Smith almost always argued 
like the economists”  (physiocrats), 
“without taking into account the di- 
vergence between the interests of the 
different nations, and on the assump- 
tion of a situation where there would be 
only one society in the world” (p. 381). 
“Let us set aside all these projects of 
union” (p. 15). 

(Monsieur Ferrier was an inspecteur 
des douanes under Napoleon and loved 
his profession.) 

J.-B. Say’s political economy is interpreted by Herr List as an 

unsuccessful speculation. We shall give below in full his categorical 
verdict on the life of Say. But before doing so, one more example 
of the way in which List copies from other authors and in copying 

falsifies them in order to hit at his opponents. 

List: 

“Say and McCulloch seem not to have 
seen or read more than the title of this 
book” (that of Antonio Serra from 
Naples); “both loftily throw it aside with 
the remark: it treats only of money, and 
the title by itself proves that the author 
laboured under the delusion that the 
precious metals were the sole objects of 
wealth. If they had read on further,” 
etc. (p. 456). 

Count Pecchio, History of Political 
Economy in Italy, etc. Paris, 1830°: 

“Foreigners tried to rob Serra of the 
merit of having been the first found- 
er of the principles of this science” 
(political economy). “What I have just 
said cannot be applied at all to Mon- 
sieur Say, who while always réproaching 
Serra for having regarded only the 
materials of gold and silver as wealth, 
nevertheless allowed him the glory of 
having been the first to make known 
the productive power of industry.... My 
reproach is addressed to Mr. McCul- 
loch.... If Mr. McCulloch had read a 
little more than the title [of Serra’s 
book]”, etc. (pp. 76, 77). 

One sees how Herr List deliberately falsifies Pecchio, from whom 
he copies, in order to discredit Monsieur Say. No less false is the 
biographical information given about Say. 

* Customs officer.— Ed. 
> Customs inspector.— Ed. 

© Pecchio, J. (comte), Histoire de l'économie politique en Italie, Paris, 1830. (In the 
manuscript the title of the book is given in German.)— Ed. 

Herr List says about him: 

“First a merchant, then a factory-owner, then an unsuccessful politician, Say 
took up political economy, as people take up some new enterprise when the old 
one no longer succeeds.... Hatred of the Continental System, which ruined his 
factory, and of the originator of this system, who drove him out of the Tribunate, 
caused him to come out in support of absolute freedom of trade” (pp. 488, 489). 

So Say supported the system of free trade because his factory was 
ruined by the Continental System! But what if he had written his 
Traité d’economie politique* before he owned a factory? Say became a 
supporter of the system of free trade because Napoleon drove him 
out of the Tribunate!!° But what if he had written his book while 
he was a tribune? What if Say, who according to Herr List was an 
unsuccessful businessman who saw in literature only a branch of 
business, had from his early youth played a part in the French 
literary world? 

Where did Herr List obtain his new information? From the 
Historical Note on the Life and Works of J.-B. Say by Charles Comte, 
which was published as an introduction to Say’s Cours complet 
d’économie politique. What does this note tell us? It contains the 
opposite of all List’s statements. Listen: 

“J.-B. Say was intended by his father, who was a merchant, [4] to engage in 
trade. However, his inclination drew him to literature. In 1789 he published a 
pamphlet in behalf of freedom of the press. From the outset of the revolution he 
contributed to the newspaper Courrier de Provence, published by Mirabeau. He also 
worked in the office of the Minister Claviére. His penchant ‘for the moral and 
political sciences’, as also his father’s bankruptcy, caused him to give up trade 
completely and to make scientific activity his sole occupation. In 1794 he became 
editor-in-chief of the Décade philosophique, littéraire et politique. In 1799 Napoleon 
appointed him a member of the Tribunate. The spare time left him from his 
function as tribune he used to work on his Traité politique, which he published in 
1803. He was dismissed from the Tribunate because he belonged to the few who 
dared to be in opposition. He was offered a lucrative post in the finance 
department, but he refused although chargé de six enfants et n’ayant presque point de 
fortune”..., since he would not have been able to carry out the duties of the post 
offered him without taking part in implementing a system which he had 
condemned as being disastrous for France. He preferred to start up a cotton- 
spinning mill, etc.” 

If the slur which Herr List here casts on J.-B. Say owes its origin 
to falsification, this is no less the case with the praise List bestows 
on the brother, Louis Say. To prove that Louis Say shares the 
crafty [listag]¢ view, List falsifies a passage from this author. 

Herr List says on p. 484: 

* Published in 1803.— Ed. 
» Burdened with six children and having almost no fortune.— Ed. 
“ A pun: “listig” means crafty, but could also be an adjective from “List” — Ed. 

On Friedrich List’s Book Das Nationale System der Politischen Oekonomie 27 1 

“In his” (Louis Say’s) “opinion, the wealth of nations consists not in material 
goods and their exchange value, but in the ability continually to produce these goods.” 

According to Herr List, the following are Louis Say’s own 
words: 

The Louis Say of Herr List: The real Louis Say: 

“La richesse ne consiste pas dans les “Quoique la richesse ne consiste pas 
choses qui satisfont nos besoins ou nos dans les choses qui satisfont nos besoins 
gotits, mais dans le pouvoir d’en jouir ou nos gouts, mais dans le revenu ou 
annuellement” (Etudes sur la richesse des dans le pouvoir d’en jouir annuelle- 
nations, p. 10).? ment.” ? 

Thus, Say is not speaking of the ability to produce, but of the 
ability to enjoy, of the ability which provides the “income” (revenu) 
of a nation. From the disproportion between the growing productive 
force and the income of the nation as a whole, and of all its classes 
in particular, there arose precisely the theories most inimical to 
Herr List as, for example, those of Sismondi and Cherbuliez. 

Let us now give an example of Herr List’s ignorance in his 
verdict on the “School”. He says about Ricardo (List on productive 
forces): 

“In general, since Adam Smith, the School has been unfortunate in its 
researches into the nature of rent. Ricardo, and following him Mill, McCulloch 
and others, hold that rent is paid for the natural productivity inherent in plots of 
land. Ricardo based a whole system on this view.... Since he considered only 
English conditions, he was misled into the erroneous view that these .English 
ploughed fields and meadows, for the apparently natural productivity of which 
such fine rent is paid at the present time, have been the very same ploughed fields 
and meadows at all times” (p. 360). 

Ricardo says: 

“If the surplus produce which land affords in the form of rent be an 
advantage, it is desirable that, every year, the machinery newly constructed should 
be less efficient than the old, as that would undoubtedly give a greater exchange- 
able value to the goods manufactured ... in the kingdom; and a rent would be paid 
to all those who possessed the most productive machinery.” “Rent increases most 
rapidly, as the disposable land decreases in its productive powers. Wealth increases 
most rapidly in those countries ... where through agricultural improvements, 
productions can be multiplied without any increase in the proportional quantity of 
labour, and where consequently the progress of vent is slow.” (Ricardo, Principles of 
Political Economy, etc. Paris, 1835, Vol. I, pp. 77 and 80-82.)° 

* “Wealth consists not in the objects which satisfy our requirements or our 
tastes, but in the possibility of enjoying them annually.” (Researches into the Wealth of 
Nations, p. 10.)—Ed. 

> “Although wealth consists not in the objects which satisfy our requirements or 
our tastes, but in income, or in the possibility of enjoying it annually.” —Ed. 

©“ David Ricardo, Des principes de l’économie politique et de Vimpét. Traduit de 
langlais par Constancio. In the manuscript Marx gives an abridged German trans- 
lation of the title. — Ed. 

According to Ricardo’s theory, rent, far from being the conse- 
quence of the natural productivity inherent in the soil, is rather a 
consequence of the constantly increasing unproductiveness of the 
soil, a consequence of civilisation and the increasing population. 
According to Ricardo, as long as the most fertile land is still 
available in an unlimited amount, there is still no land rent. Hence 
rent is determined by the ratio of the population to the amount of 
available land. 

Ricardo’s theory, which serves as the theoretical basis for the 
whole Anti-Corn-Law League* in England and the anti-rent 
movement in the free states of North America,!°* had to be 
falsified by Herr List—assuming he had more than hearsay 
knowledge of it—if only because it proves how little the “free, 
mighty and wealthy bourgeois” are inclined to work “diligently” 
for [the increase of] “land rents” and to bring them [the landowners] 
honey from the hive.’ Ricardo’s theory of land rent is nothing 
but the economic expression of a life-and-death struggle of the 
industrial bourgeois against the landowners. 

Herr List instructs us further about Ricardo as follows: 

“At the present time the theory of exchange value has fallen into such 
impotence ... that Ricardo ... could say: ‘to determine the laws by which the yield 
from land is distributed between landowners, tenant-farmers and workers is the 
chief task of political economy’” (p. 493). 

The necessary observations on this are to be made in the 
appropriate place. 

[5] Herr List reaches the height of infamy in his verdict on 
Sismondi. 

List: 

“He” (Sismondi) “wants, for exam- 
ple, the spirit of inventiveness to be 
curbed and bridled” (p. xxix). 

Sismondi: 

“My objections are not to machines, 
not to inventions, not to civilisation, but 
only to the modern organisation ‘of society, 
which deprives the working man of any 
property other than his hands, and 
gives him no guarantee against compe- 
tition, of which he will inevitably be- 
come a victim. Suppose that all people 
share equally in the product of the 
labour in which they have participated, 
then every technical invention will in all 
possible cases be a blessing for all of 
them” (Nouveaux principes d’économie 
politique, Paris, 1827, t. II, p. 433). 

* Here and below Marx gives the name of the League in English — Ed. 

> See pp. 284-88 of this. volume.—Ed. 

On Friedrich List’s Book Das Nationale System der Politischen Oekonomie 273 

Whereas Herr List casts moral aspersions on Smith and Say he 
can only explain the theory of Monsieur Sismondi from the latter’s 
bodily defects. He says: | 

“Monsieur de Sismondi sees with his bodily eyes everything red as black; it 
seems that his spiritual sight in matters of political economy suffers from the same 
defect” (p. xxix). 

In order to appreciate to the full the vileness of this outburst, 
one must know the passage from which Herr List derived his 
remark. Sismondi says in his Etudes sur l’économie politique, where 
he speaks of the devastation of the Roman Campagna: 

“The rich tints of the Roman Campagna ... even entirely escape our eyes, for 
which the red ray is non-existent” (p. 6). Brussels reprint, 1838 [Vol. II]. 

Sismondi explains this by saying: “the charm which attracts all 
other travellers to Rome” is destroyed for him and he “therefore 
has eyes that are all the more open to see the real, miserable 
condition of the inhabitants of the Campagna.” 

If de Sismondi did not see the rosy tints of the sky which 
magically illumine the whole (factory) industry for Herr List, he 
did see the red cock on the gables (roofs) of these factories. We 
shall have an opportunity later* [to examine] List’s verdict that 

“Monsieur de Sismondi’s writings on international trade and trade policy are 
without any value” [p. xxix]. , 

Whereas Herr List explains Smith’s system from the latter’s per- 
sonal vanity (p. 476) and the hidden English shopkeeper’s mental- 
ity, and Say’s system from a desire for revenge and as a business 
enterprise, in regard to Sismondi he descends so low as to explain 
Sismondi’s system from the defects of his bodily constitution. 

[5] 4. Herr List’s Originality 

It is highly characteristic of Herr List that, despite all his 
boasting, he has put forward not a single proposition that had not 
been advanced long before him not only by the defenders of the 
prohibitive system, but even by writers of the “School” invented 
by Herr List—if Adam Smith is the theoretical starting-point of 
political economy, then its real point of departure, its real school, 
is “civil society” [die burgerliche Gesellschaft], of which the different 
phases of development can be accurately traced in_ political 
economy. Only the illusions and idealising language (phrases) 

* Apparently, the reference is to a part of the manuscript which is missing.— Ed. 

belong to Herr List. We consider it important to give detailed 
proof of this to the reader and must claim his attention for this 
tedious labour. He will derive from it the conviction that the 
German bourgeois comes on the scene post festum, that it is just as 
impossible for him to advance further the political economy 
exhaustively developed by the English and French as it would 
probably be for them to contribute anything new to the develop- 
ment-of philosophy in Germany. The German bourgeois can only 
add his illusions and phrases to the French and English reality. 
But little possible as it is for him to give a new development to 
political economy, it is still more impossible for him to achieve in 
practice a further advance of industry, of the by now almost 
exhausted development on the present foundations of society. 

5. We therefore restrict our criticism to the theoretical part of 
List’s book, and in fact only to his main discoveries. 

What are the main propositions which Herr List has to prove? 
Let us inquire into the aim he wants to achieve. 

‘1) The bourgeois wants protective tariffs from the state in order 
to lay his hands on state power and wealth. But since [in 
Germany], unlike in England and France, he does not have state 
power at his disposal and therefore cannot arbitrarily guide it as 
he likes, but has to resort to requests, it is necessary for him in 
relation to the state, the activity (mode of action) of which he 
wants to control for his own benefit, to depict his demand from it 
as a concession that he makes to the state, whereas [in reality] he 
demands concessions from the state. Therefore, through the 
medium of Herr List, he [the German bourgeois] proves to the 
state that his theory differs from all others in that he allows the 
state to interfere in and control industry, in that he has the 
highest opinion of the economic wisdom of the state, and only asks 
it to give full scope for its wisdom, on condition, of course, that 
this wisdom is limited to providing “strong” protective tariffs. His 
demand that the state should act in accordance with his interests is 
depicted by him as recognition of the state, recognition that the 
state has the right to interfere in the sphere of civil society. 

2) The bourgeois [Burger] wants to become rich, to make money; 
but at the same time he must come to terms with the present idealism 
of the German public and with his own conscience. Therefore he 
tries to prove that he does not strive for unrighteous material 
goods, but for a spiritual essence, for an infinite productive force, 
instead of bad, finite exchange values. Of course, this spiritual 
essence involves the circumstance that the “citizen” [“Btirger’] takes 
this opportunity to fill his own pockets with worldly exchange values. 

On Friedrich List’s Book Das Nationale System der Politischen Oekonomie 275 

[6]* Since the bourgeois now hopes to become rich mainly 
through “protective tariffs”, and since protective tariffs can enrich 
him only insofar as no longer Englishmen, but the German 
bourgeois himself, will exploit his fellow-countrymen, indeed exploit 
them even more than they were exploited from abroad, and since 
protective tariffs demand a sacrifice of exchange values from the 
consumers (chiefly from the workers who are to be superseded by 
machines, from all those who draw a fixed income, such as 
officials, recipients of land rent, etc.), the industrial bourgeois has 
therefore to prove that, far from hankering after material goods, 
he wants nothing else but the sacrifice of exchange values, 
material goods, for a spiritual essence. Fundamentally, therefore, 
it is solely a matter of self-sacrifice, of asceticism, of Christian 
grandeur of the soul. It is pure accident that A makes the sacrifice, 
but B puts the sacrifice in his pocket. The German bourgeois is 
much too unselfish to think in this connection of his private gain, 
which accidentally proves to be linked with this sacrifice. But if it 
should turn out that a class whose permission the German 
_bourgeois thinks he requires for his emancipation, cannot go along 
with this spiritual theory, then this theory must be abandoned and, 
in opposition to the School [which advocates freedom of trade], 
precisely the theory of exchange values be brought into play. 

3) Since the whole desire of the bourgeoisie amounts, in essence, 
to bringing the factory system to the level of “English” prosperity 
and making industrialism the regulator of society, i.e., to bringing 
about the disorganisation of society, the bourgeois has to prove 
that he is only concerned for the harmonisation of all social 
production, and for the organisation of society. He restricts 
foreign trade by means of protective tariffs, while agriculture, he 
maintains, will rapidly attain its highest prosperity owing to 
manufacturing industry. The organisation of society, therefore, is 
summed up in the factories. They are the organisers of society, 
and the system of competition which they bring into being is the 
finest confederation of society.'"°* The organisation of society 
which the factory system creates is the true organisation of society. 

The bourgeoisie is certainly right in conceiving in general its 
interests as identical interests, just as the wolf as a wolf has an 
identical interest with his fellow wolves, however much it is to the 
interest of each individual wolf that he and not another should 
pounce on the prey. 

6. Finally, it is characteristic of Herr List’s theory, as also of the 

* The manuscript here has a new sheet marked 2.—Ed. 

entire German bourgeoisie, that in order to defend their desires to 
exploit they are compelled everywhere to resort to “socialist” 
phrases and thus forcibly to maintain a deception that has long 
been refuted. We shall show in various passages* that Herr List’s 
phrases, if the consequences are drawn from them, are communis- 
tic. We, of course, are far from accusing someone like Herr List 
and his German bourgeoisie of communism, but this affords us 
fresh proof of the internal weakness, falsity and infamous hypoc- 
risy of the “good-natured”, “idealistic” bourgeois. It proves to us 
that his idealism in practice is nothing but the unscrupulous, 
unthinking disguise of a repulsive materialism. 

Finally, it is characteristic that the German bourgeoisie begins 
with the lie with which the French and English bourgeoisie 
ends,— after reaching a position where it is compelled to apologise 
for itself, to offer excuses for its existence. 

7. Since Herr List distinguishes the present, ostensibly cos- 
mopolitan, political economy from his own (national-political) 
economy by the former being based on exchange values and the 
latter on productive forces, we have to start with this theory. 
Furthermore, since the confederation of productive forces is 
supposed to represent the nation in its unity, we have also to 
examine this theory prior to the above-mentioned distinction. 
These two theories form the real basis of [List’s] national economy 
as distinct from political economy.” 

* * 

It can never occur to Herr List that the real organisation of 
society is a soulless materialism, an individual spiritualism, indi- 
vidualism. It can never occur to him that the political economists 
have only given this social state of affairs a corresponding 
theoretical expression. Otherwise, he would have to direct his 
criticism against the present organisation of society instead of against 
the political economists. He accuses them of not having found any 

* The reference is to parts of the manuscript which either were not written or 
have not been found.—Ed. 

This paragraph is followed in the manuscript by an incomplete third -of 
the third page of the sixth sheet and a blank whole page (the fourth of the sixth 
sheet). The first chapter, which ends here, is followed immediately by a separate 
unnumbered sheet containing a small fragment to which the author has given no 
title and which is placed in this edition after three asterisks inserted by the 
editors.— Ed. 

On Friedrich List’s Book Das Nationale System der Politischen Oekonomie 277 

embellishing expression for a cheerless reality. Hence he wants to 
leave this reality everywhere just as it is and only change the 
expression of it. Nowhere does he criticise real society, but like a 
true German, he criticises the theoretical expression of this society 
and reproaches it for expressing the real thing and not an 
imaginary notion of the real thing. 

The factory is transformed into a goddess, the goddess of 
manufacturing power. 

The factory-owner is the priest of this power.’ 

[7] II. The Theory of Productive Forces 
and the Theory of Exchange Values 

1) ¢ Herr List’s theory of “productive forces” is limited to the 
following main propositions: . 

a) The causes of wealth are something quite different from wealth itself; the 
force capable of creating wealth is infinitely more important than wealth itself 
[p. 201];) : 

(b) List is far from rejecting the theory of cosmopolitan economy; he is merely 
of the opinion that political economy also should be scientifically developed 
[p. 187]; 

c) What then is the cause of labour?..., what impels these minds and these arms 
and hands to undertake production and what gives efficacy to these efforts? What 
else can it be but the spirit which animates the individuals, the social system which 
makes their activity fruitful, the natural forces the use of which is at their disposal? 
[p. 205]. 

« 6) Smith “went astray by explaining spiritual forces from material conditions” 
[p. 207].) 

¢7) “That science which teaches how productive forces are aroused and 
cultivated and how they are suppressed or destroyed” (ibid.).) 

8) An example lof the distinction] between two fathers of families, Christian 

hci 105 
religion, monogamy, ~ etc. [pp. 208-209]. 

(9) “One can establish the concepts of value and capital, profit, wages, land 
rent, resolve them into their component parts, and speculate about what could 
influence their rise and fall, etc., without in so doing taking into account the 
political conditions of the nations” [p. 211].) 

Transition. 

10) Workshops and factories are the mothers and children of scientific (civic) 
freedom [p. 212].'° 

11) The theory of productive and non-productive classes. The former produce 
exchange values, the latter produce productive forces [{p. 215]. 

12) Foreign trade must not be judged solely from the standpoint of the theory 
of values [p. 216]. 

13) The nation must sacrifice material forces in order to acquire spiritual or 
social forces. Protective tariffs for raising manufacturing power [pp. 216-217]. 

14) “If therefore a sacrifice of values is made owing to protective tariffs, that 
sacrifice is compensated by the acquisition of productive forces, and this not only 

* Here this fragment written on a separate unnumbered sheet breaks off.— Ed. 

278 | Karl Marx 

ensures the nation an infinitely greater sum of material goods for the future, but 
also industrial independence in the event of war” [p. 217]. 

15) “In all these respects, however, the chief thing depends on the state of the 
society in which the individual takes shape, on whether crafts and sciences flourish” 
(p. 206). 

2) Herr List is so much a prey to the economic prejudices of the 
old political economy—more so, as we shall see, than other 
economists of the “School”—that for him “material goods” and 
“exchange values” completely coincide. But exchange value is 
entirely independent of the specific nature. of the “material 
goods”. It is independent of both the quality and the quantity of 
material goods. Exchange value falls when the quantity of material 
goods rises, although both before and afterwards these bear the 
same relation to human needs. Exchange value is not connected 
with quality. The most useful things, such as knowledge, have no 
exchange value. Herr List therefore ought to have understood 
that the conversion of material goods into exchange values is a 
result of the existing social system, of the society of developed 
private property. The abolition of exchange value is the abolition of 
private property and of private acquisition. Herr List, on the other 
hand, is so naive as to admit that by means of the theory of 
exchange values 

“one can establish the concepts of value and capital, profit, wages, land rent, 
resolve them into their component parts, and speculate about what could influence 

their rise and fall, etc., without in so doing taking into account the political 
conditions of the nations” (p. 211). 

Hence, without taking into account the “theory of productive 
forces” and the “political conditions of the nations’, all this 
can be “established”. What is established thereby? Reality. What 
is established, for example, by wages? The life of the worker. 
Furthermore, it is established thereby that the worker is the slave 
of capital, that he is a “commodity’, an exchange value, the 
higher or lower level of which, the rise or fall of which, de- 
pends on competition, on supply and demand; it is established 
thereby that his activity is not a free manifestation of his human 
life, that it is, rather, a huckstering sale of his forces, an alienation 
(sale) to capital of his one-sidedly developed abilities, in a word, that 
it is “labour”. One is supposed to forget this. “Labour” is the living 
basis of private property, it is private property as the creative 
source of itself. Private property is nothing but objectified labour. If 
it is desired to strike a mortal blow at private property, one must 
attack it not only as a material state of affairs, but also as activity, as 
labour. It is one of the greatest misapprehensions to speak of free, 

On Friedrich List’s Book Das Nationale System der Politischen Oekonomie 279 

human, social labour, of labour without private property. 
“Labour” by its very nature is unfree, unhuman, unsocial activity, 
determined by private property and creating private property. 
Hence the abolition of private property will become a reality only 
when it is conceived as the abolition of “labour” (an abolition 
which, of course, has become possible only as a result of labour 
itself, that is to say, has become possible as a result of the material 
activity of society and which should on no account be conceived as 
the replacement of one category by another).'”’ An “organisation 
of labour”, therefore, is a contradiction. The best organisation that 
labour can be given is the present organisation, free competi- 
tion, the dissolution of all its previous apparently “social” organi- 
sation. 

Thus, if wages can be “established” according to the theory of 
values, if it is thereby “established” that man himself is an 
exchange value, that the overwhelming majority of people in the 
nations constitutes a commodity, which can be determined without 
taking “the political conditions of the nations” into account, what 
does all this prove but that this overwhelming majority of people 
in the nations does not have to take “political conditions” into 
account, that these are for it a sheer illusion, that a theory which in 
reality sinks to this sordid materialism of making the majority of 
people in the nations into a “commodity”, into an “exchange 
value”, and of subjecting this majority to the wholly material 
conditions of exchange value, is an infamous hypocrisy and 
idealistic eye-wash (embellishment), when in relation to other 
nations it looks down contemptuously on the bad “materialism” of 
“exchange values”, and is itself ostensibly only concerned with 
“productive forces”? Furthermore, if the conditions of capital, 
land rent, etc., can be “established” without taking the “political 
conditions” of the nations into account, what does this prove but 
that the industrial capitalist and the recipient of Jand rent are 
guided in their actions in real life by profit, exchange values, and 
not by considerations about “political conditions” and “productive 
forces”, and that their talk about civilisation and productive forces 
is only an embellishment of narrow-minded egoistic tendencies? 

The bourgeois says: Of course, the theory of exchange values 
should not be undermined within the country, the majority of the 
nation should remain a mere “exchange value”, a “commodity”, 
one which must find its own buyer, one which is not sold, but 
which sells itself. In relation to you proletarians, and even in our 
mutual relations, we regard ourselves as exchange values, here the 
law of universal huckstering holds good. But in relation to other 

nations we must interrupt the operation of this law. As a nation 
we cannot huckster ourselves to other nations. Since the majority 
of people in the nations has become subject to the laws of 
huckstering “without taking into account” the “political conditions 
of the nations”, that proposition has no other meaning than the 
following: We German bourgeois do not want to be exploited by 
the English bourgeois in the way that you German proletarians are 
exploited by us and that we exploit one another. We do not want 
to subject ourselves to the same laws of exchange value as those to 
which we subject you. We do not want any longer to ‘recognise 
outside the country the economic laws which we recognise inside 
the country. 

[8] What then does the German philistine want? He wants to be 
a bourgeois, an exploiter, inside the country, but he wants also not 
to be exploited outside the country. He puffs himself up into 
being the “nation” in relation to foreign countries and says: I do 
not submit to the laws of competition; that is contrary to my 
national dignity; as the nation I am a being superior to huck- 
stering. 

The nationality of the worker is neither French, nor English, 
nor German, it is labour, free slavery, self-huckstering. His government 
is neither French, nor English, nor German, it is capital. His native 
air is neither French, nor German, nor English, it is factory air. 
The land belonging to him is neither French, nor English, nor 
German, it lies a few feet below the ground. Within the country, 
money is the fatherland of the industrialist. Thus, the German 
philistine wants the laws of competition, of exchange value, of 
huckstering, to lose their power at the frontier barriers of his 
country! He is willing to recognise the power of bourgeois society 
only in so far as it is in accord with his interests, the interests of his 
class! He does not want to fall victim to a power to which he wants 
to sacrifice others, and to which he sacrifices himself inside his own 
country! Outside the country he wants to show himself and be 
treated as a different being from what he is within the country 
and how he himself behaves within the country! He wants to leave 
the cause in existence and to abolish one of its effects! We shall 
prove to him that selling oneself out inside the country has as its 
necessary consequence selling out outside, that competition, which 
gives him his power inside the country, cannot prevent him from 
becoming powerless outside the country; that the state, which he 
subordinates to bourgeois society inside the country, cannot 
protect him from the action of bourgeois society outside the 
country. 

On Friedrich List’s Book Das Nationale System der Politischen Oekonomie 281 

However much the individual bourgeois fights against the 
others, as a class the bourgeois have a common interest, and this 
community of interest, which is directed against the proletariat 
inside the country, is directed against the bourgeois of other 
nations outside the country. This the bourgeois calls his nationality. 

2)* It is possible, of course, to regard industry from a completely 
different point of view than that of sordid huckstering interest, 
from which it is nowadays regarded not only by the individual 
merchant and the individual manufacturer, but also by the 
manufacturing nations and the trading nations. Industry can be 
regarded as a great workshop in which man first takes possession 
of his own forces and the forces of nature, objectifies himself and 
creates for himself the conditions for a human existence. When 
industry is regarded in this way, one abstracts from the cir- 
cumstances in which it operates today, and in which it exists as 
industry; one’s standpoint is not from within the industrial epoch, 
but above it; industry is regarded not by what it is for man today, 
but by what present-day man is for human history, what he is 
historically; it is not its present-day existence (not industry as such) 
that is recognised; but rather the power which industry has 
without knowing or willing it and which destroys it and creates 
the basis for a human existence. (To hold that every nation 
goes through this development internally would be as absurd as 
the idea that every nation is bound to go through the political 
development of France or the philosophical development of 
Germany. What the nations have done as nations, they have done 
for human society; their whole value consists only in the fact that 
each single nation has accomplished for the benefit of other 
nations one of the main historical aspects (one of the main 
determinations) in the framework of which mankind has accom- 
plished its development, and therefore after industry in England, 
politics in France ‘and philosophy in Germany have been de- 
veloped, they have been developed for the world, and their 
world-historic significance, as also that of these nations, has 
thereby come to an end.) 

This assessment of industry is then at the same time the 
recognition that the hour has come for it to be done away with, or 
for the abolition of the material and social conditions in which 
mankind has had to develop its abilities as a slave. For as soon as 
industry is no longer regarded as a huckstering interest, but as the 
development of man, man, instead of huckstering interest, is made 

2 In the manuscript point 2 occurs twice in this chapter.— Ed. 

the principle and what in industry could develop only in con- 
tradiction with industry itself is given the basis which is in 
harmony with that which is to be developed. 

But the wretched individual who [in his ideas] remains within 
the present system, who desires only to raise it to a level which it 
has not yet reached in his own country, and who looks with greedy 
envy on another nation that has reached this level—has this 
wretched individual the right to see in industry anything else but 
huckstering interest? Has he the right to say that he is concerned 
only for the development of man’s abilities and man’s mastery of 
the forces of nature? For this is just as vile as if a slave-driver were 
to boast that he flourished his whip over his slaves in order that 
the slaves should have the pleasure of exercising their muscular 
power. The German philistine is the slave-driver who flourishes the 
whip of protective tariffs in order to instil in his nation the spirit 
of “industrial education” !°8 and teach it to exercise its muscular 
powers. 

The Saint-Simon school has given us an instructive example of 
what it leads to if the productive force that industry creates 
unconsciously and against its will is put to the credit of present- 
day industry and the two are confused: industry and the forces 
which industry brings into being unconsciously and without its 
will, but which will only become human forces, man’s power, when 
industry is abolished. This is as much an absurdity as if the 
bourgeois wanted to take the credit for his industry creating the 
proletariat, and in the shape of the proletariat the power of a new 
world order. The forces of nature and the social forces which 
industry brings into being (conjures up), stand in the same 
relation to it as the proletariat. Today they are still the slaves of 
the bourgeois, and in them he sees nothing but the instruments 
(the bearers) of his dirty (selfish) lust for profit; tomorrow they 
will break their chains and reveal themselves as the bearers of 
human development which will blow him sky-high together with 
his industry, which assumes the dirty outer shell—which he 
regards as its essence—only until the human kernel has gained 
sufficient strength to burst this shell and appear in its own shape. 
Tomorrow they will burst the chains by which the bourgeois 
separates them from man and so distorts (transforms) them from 
a real social bond into fetters of society. 

The Saint-Simon school glorified in dithyrambs the productive 
power of industry. The forces which industry calls into being it 
lumped together with industry itself, that is to say, with the 
present-day conditions of existence that industry gives to these 

On Friedrich List’s Book Das Nationale System der Politischen Oekonomie 283 

forces. We are of course far from putting the Saint-Simonists on 
the same level as someone like List or the German philistine. The 
first step towards breaking the spell cast on industry was to 
abstract from the conditions, the money fetters, in which the 
forces of industry operate today and to examine these forces in 
themselves. This was the first call to the people to emancipate 
their industry from huckstering and to understand present-day 
industry as a transitional epoch. The Saint-Simonists, moreover, 
did not stop at this interpretation. They went further —to attack 
exchange value, private property, the organisation of present-day 
society. They put forward association in place of competition. But 
they were punished for their original error. Not only did the 
above-mentioned confusion lead them further into the illusion 
of seeing the dirty bourgeois as a priest, but it also caused them [9], 
after the first external struggles, to fall back into the old illusion 
(confusion)— but now hypocritically, because precisely in the 
‘course of the struggle the contradiction of the two forces which 
they had confused became manifest. Their glorification of indus- 
try (of the productive forces of industry) became a glorification of 
the bourgeoisie, and Monsieur Michel Chevalier, Monsieur 
Duveyrier, Monsieur Dunoyer have pilloried themselves and the 
bourgeoisie in the eyes of the whole of Europe—after which the 
rotten eggs that history throws in their faces became transformed 
by the magic of the bourgeoisie into golden eggs— since the first 
of those named above has retained the old phrases but has 
endowed them with the content of the present-day bourgeois 
regime, the second is himself engaged in huckstering on a 
wholesale scale and presides over the selling-out of French 
newspapers, while the third has become the most rabid apologist 
for the present state of affairs and surpasses in inhumanity (in 
shamelessness) all previous English and French economists.— The 
German bourgeois and Herr List begin where the Saint-Simon 
school left off—with hypocrisy, deception and phrase-mongering. 

England’s industrial tyranny over the world is the domination of 
industry over the world. England dominates us because industry 
dominates us. We can free ourselves from England abroad only if 
we free ourselves from industry at home. We shall be able to put 
an end to England’s domination in the sphere of competition only 
if we overcome competition within our borders. England has 
power over us because we have made industry into a power over 
us. 

3) That the industrial social order is the best world for the 
bourgeois, the order most suitable for developing his “abilities” as 

a bourgeois and the ability to- exploit both people and na- 
ture—who will dispute this tautology? Who will dispute that all that 
is nowadays called “virtue”, individual or social virtue, is a source 
of profit for the bourgeois? Who will dispute that political power 
is a means for his enrichment, that even science and intellectual 
pleasures are his slaves? Who will dispute it? That for him 
everything is excellently {adapted*]? That for him everything has 
become a means of wealth, a “productive force of wealth”? 

4) Modern political economy starts out from the social system of 
competition. Free labour, that is to say, indirect slavery which 
offers itself for sale, is its principle. Its primary propositions are 
division of labour and the machine. And this can be given its 
highest development only in the factories, as modern political 
economy itself admits. Thus political economy today, starts out 
from the factories as its creative principle. It presupposes present- 
day social conditions. Hence it does not need to expatiate on 

“manufacturing force” .!%° 

If the “School” made no “scientific elaboration’ of the theory 
of productive forces alongside and separately from the theory of 
exchange values, it acted in this way because such a separation is 
an arbitrary abstraction, because it is impossible and cannot go 
beyond general phrases. 

5) “The causes of wealth are something quite different from wealth itself. The 
force capable of creating wealth is infinitely more important than wealth itself” 
[List, op. cit., p. 201]. 

Productive force appears as an entity infinitely superior to 
exchange value. This force claims the position of inner essence, 
whereas exchange value claims that of a transient phenomenon. 
The force appears as infinite, exchange value as finite, the former 
as non-material, the latter as material—and we find all these 
antitheses in Herr List. Hence the supernatural world of forces 
takes the place of the material world of exchange values. Whereas 
the baseness of a nation sacrificing itself for exchange values, of 
people being sacrificed for things, is quite obvious, forces, on the 
other hand, appear to be independent spiritual essences— phan- 
toms—and pure personifications, deities, and after all one may 
very well demand of the German people that it should sacrifice 
the bad exchange values for phantoms! An exchange value, 
money, always seems to be an external aim, but productive force 
seems to be an aim which arises from my very nature, a self-aim. 
Thus, what I sacrifice in the form of exchange values is 

* There are one or two illegible words in the manuscript here — Ed. 

On Friedrich List’s Book Das Nationale System der Politischen Oekonomie 285 

something external to me; what I gain in the form of productive 
forces is my self-acquisition— That is how it seems if one is 
satisfied with a word or, like an idealising German, does not worry 
about the dirty reality which lies behind this grandiloquent word. 

In order to destroy the mystical radiance which transfigures 
“productive force”, one has only to consult any book of statistics. 
There one reads about water-power, steam-power, manpower, 
horse-power. All these are “productive forces”. Is it a high 
appreciation of man for him to figure as a “force” alongside 
horses, steam and water? 

.Under the present system, if a crooked spine, twisted limbs, a 
one-sided development and strengthening of certain muscles, etc., 
make you more capable of working (more productive), then your 
crooked spine, your twisted limbs, your one-sided muscular move- 
ment are a productive force. If your intellectual vacuity is more 
productive than your abundant intellectual activity, then your 
intellectual vacuity is a productive force, etc., etc. If the monotony 
of an occupation makes you better suited for that occupation, then 
monotony is a productive force. 

Is the bourgeois, the factory-owner, at all concerned for the 
worker developing all his abilities, exercising his productive 
capacities, fulfilling himself as a human being, and thereby at the 
same time fulfilling his human nature? 

We will leave it to the English Pindar of the factory system, 
Mr. Ure, to reply to this question: 

“It is, in fact, the constant aim and tendency of every improvement in 
machinery to supersede human labour altogether, or to diminish its cost, by 
substituting the industry of women and children for that of men; or that of 
ordinary labourers, for trained artisans” (Philosophie des manufactures, etc., Paris, 1836, 
t. I, p. 34). “By the infirmity of human nature it happens, that the more skilful 
the workman, the more self-willed and intractable he is apt to become, and, of 
course, the less fit a component of a mechanical system ... therefore [the main point] 
of the modern manufacturer is, through the union of capital and science, to reduce 
the task of his work-people to the exercise of vigilance and dexterity, etc.” (loc. cit., 
t. I, p. 30). 

Force, Productive Force, Causes 

“The causes of wealth are something quite different from wealth itself.” 

But if the effect is different from the cause, must not the nature 
of the effect be contained already in the cause? The cause must 
already carry with it the determining feature that is manifested 
later in the effect. Herr List’s philosophy goes as far as knowing that 
cause and effect are “something quite different”. 

(“The force capable of creating wealth is infinitely more important than wealth 
itself.”’] 

It is a fine recognition of man that degrades him to a “force” 
capable of creating wealth! The bourgeois sees in the proletarian 
not a human being, but a force capable of creating wealth, a force 
which moreover he can then compare with other productive 
forces—an animal, a machine — and if the comparison proves unfa- 
vourable to man, the force of which man is the bearer must give 
place to the force of which the bearer is an animal or a machine, 
although in that case man still has (enjoys) the honour of figuring 
as a “productive force”. 

If I characterise man as an “exchange value”, this expression 
already implies that social conditions have transformed him into a 
“thing”. If I treat him as a “productive force”, I am putting in the 
place of the real subject a different subject, I am substituting 
another person for him, and he now exists only as a cause of 
wealth. 

The whole of human society becomes merely a machine for the 
creation of wealth. 

The cause is in no way superior to the effect. The effect is 
merely the openly manifested cause. 

List pretends that he is everywhere interested in productive 
forces for their own sake, quite apart from bad exchange values. 

Some light is already thrown for us on the essence of the 
present-day “productive forces” by the fact that in the present 
state of affairs productive force consists not only in, for instance, 
making man’s labour more efficient or natural and social forces 
more effective, but just as much in making labour cheaper or more 
unproductive for the worker. Hence productive force is from the 
outset determined by exchange value. It is just as much an 
increase of....? 

[III. From Chapter Three] 
[The Problem of Land Rent] 

..(22] land rent disappears. These higher grain prices— since 
the worker always consumes a certain amount of grain, however 
dear it may be, and therefore his nominal wage increases even 
when in reality it decreases— must be deducted from the profits 
of Messrs. the industrialists; Ricardo is wise enough to assume that 

* Here the text occupying the fourth page of the ninth manuscript sheet ends. 
Sheets 10-21 have not come down to us. These missing sheets should contain the 
end of Chapter II and the beginning of Chapter III.— Ed. 

On Friedrich List’s Book Das Nationale System der Politischen Oekonomie 287 

wages cannot be depressed further. Hence, when there is a rise in 
the price of grain, there follows a reduction in profits and an 
increase in wages, without the latter increasing in reality. However, 
the increase in the price of grain raises the production costs of the 
industrialists, thereby making accumulation ‘and competition more 
difficult for them, in a word, cripples the productive force of the 
country. Therefore the bad “exchange value”, which falls in the 
form of land rent into the pockets of the landowners without 
any advantage (to the greatest detriment) to the country’s productive 
force, must in one way or another be sacrificed to the general 
good—by free trade in grain, by shifting all taxes on to land rent, 
or by outright appropriation of land rent, i.e. of landed property, 
by the state (this conclusion has been drawn by, among others, 
[James] Mill, Hilditch and Cherbuliez). 

Herr List, of course, did not dare to tell the German landed 
aristocracy of this frightening consequence of industrial productive 
force for landed property. Hence he berates Ricardo, who dis- 
closed such unpleasant truths, and ascribes to him the opposite: 
view, that of the physiocrats, according to which land rent is 
nothing but a proof of the natural productive force of land, and 
falsifies him. 

List: 

“In general, since Adam Smith, the 
School has been unfortunate in its re- 
searches into the nature of rent. Ricar- 
do, and following him Mill, McCulloch 
and others, hold that rent is paid for 
the natural productivity inherent in plots 
of land. Ricardo based a whole system 
on this view.... Since he considered only 
English conditions, he was misled into 
the erroneous view that these English 
ploughed fields and meadows, for the 
apparently natural productivity of 
which such fine rent is paid at the 
present time, have been the very same 
ploughed fields and meadows at all 
times” (p. 360). 

Ricardo: 

“If the surplus produce which land 
affords in the form of rent be an 
advantage, it is desirable that, every year, 
the machinery newly constructed should 
be less efficient than the old, as that would 
undoubtedly give a greater exchangeable 
value to the goods manufactured ... in the 
kingdom; and a rent would be paid to all 
those who possessed the most productive 
machinery” (Des principes de l'économie 
politique, etc., Paris, 1835, t. I, p. 77). 

“Wealth increases most rapidly in 
those countries ... where through agricul- 
tural improvements, productions can be 
multiplied without any increase in the 
proportional quantity of labour, and 
where consequently the progress of rent 
is only gradual” (p. 81 et seq.).* 

* Marx quoted these passages from List and Ricardo above (see pp. 12-13). In 
repeating the quotation from Ricardo, Marx translated the end differently — Ed. 

Hence, in relation to the higher nobility, Herr List does not 
dare to keep up his shadow play with “productive forces”. He 
wants to lure this nobility with “exchange values” and therefore 
slanders the School of Ricardo, who neither judges land rent from 
the standpoint of productive force, nor judges the latter from the 
standpoint of the modern large-scale factory system. 

Thus Herr List is doubly a har. Nevertheless we must not do 
Herr List an injustice in this matter. In one large Wurttemberg 
factory (K6chlin, if we are not mistaken) the King of Wurttem- 
berg* himself participates, having invested a large sum in it. In the 
Wurttemberg factories, and to a greater or lesser extent in those 
of Baden as well, the landed nobility plays an important role by 
holding shares. Here, therefore, the nobility participates monetari- 
ly in the “manufacturing force”, not as landowners but as 
bourgeois and manufacturers themselves, and»... 

...[24] “productive forces” and the “continuity and permanence 
of production” of a whole generation arises—the disguised 
Communist List teaches this as well—and is therefore also a 
hereditary feature of the generation and not of Messrs. the 
industrialists (see, for example, Bray'!'). 

In England, high land rents were ensured for the landlords only 
through ruining the tenant-farmers and reducing the farm labour- 
ers to the level (of real beggars) of an Irish poverty. All this in 
spite of the various Corn Laws, and apart from the fact that the 
landlords in receipt of rent were often compelled to allow the 
tenant-farmers a remission of one-third to one-half of the rent. 
Since 1815, three various Corn Laws have been passed to improve 
the position of the tenant-farmers and encourage them. During 
this period, five parliamentary committees were appointed to 
establish the existence of the distressed state of agriculture and to 
investigate its causes. The continual ruin of the tenant-farmers, on 
the one hand, in spite of the total (full) exploitation of the farm 
labourers and the utmost possible reduction of their wages, and, 
on the other hand, the frequent necessity for the landowners to 
forego part of the rent, are themselves proof that not even in 
England —in spite of all its manufacturing industry — have high 
land rents been produced. For, from the economic point of view, 
it cannot be régarded as land rent when part of the costs of 
production,''? by means of agreements and other circumstances 
lying outside the sphere of economics, is drawn into the pocket 

* The reference is to Wilhelm I, King of Wurttemberg.— Ed. 
> The text breaks off here, as the 23rd manuscript sheet is missing.— Ed. 

On Friedrich List’s Book Das Nationale System der Politischen Oeckonomie 289 

of the landlord instead of that of the tenant-farmer. If the 
landowner himself cultivated his land, he would certainly take care 
not to enter part of the ordinary profit of working capital under 
the heading “land rent”. 

Writers of the 16th, 17th and even the first two-thirds of the 
18th century, still regarded the export of grain by England as the 
main source of its wealth. The old English industry—the main 
branch of which was the woollen industry, and the less important 
branches of which processed mostly materials supplied by the 
main branch itself—was wholly subordinated to agriculture. Its 
chief raw material was the product of English agriculture. As a 
matter of course, therefore, this industry promoted agriculture. 
Later, when the factory system proper developed, already in a 
short space of time the necessity for customs duties on corn began 
to be felt. But they remained nominal. The rapid growth of the 
population, the abundance of fertile land which had yet to be 
made cultivable, the inventions, at first, of course, raised also the 
level of agriculture. It especially profited from the war against 
Napoleon, which established a regular system of prohibition for it. 
But 1815 revealed how little the “productive force” of agriculture 
had really increased. A general outcry arose among landowners and 
tenant-farmers, and the present Corn Laws were enacted.''* It is 
in the nature of modern factory industry, firstly, to estrange 
industry from the native soil since it processes mainly raw 
materials from abroad and bases itself on foreign trade. It is in the 
nature of this industry [secondly] to cause the population to grow 
in a ratio which, under the system of private property, does not 
correspond to the exploitation of the soil. It is furthermore in its 
nature, if it gives rise to Corn Laws, as it has always done in 
Europe up to now, to convert the peasants into the very poorest 
proletarians through high rents and factory methods of exploiting 
landed property. If, on the other hand, it succeeds in preventing 
the passing of Corn Laws, it puts a mass of land out of cultivation, 
subjects the price of grain to external contingencies, and complete- 
ly alienates the country [entdussert das Land vollig] by making its 
most essential means of subsistence dependent on trade, which 
undermines landed property as an independent source of property. 
This last feature is the aim of the Anti-Corn-Law League in 
England and the anti-rent movement in North America, for land 
rent is the economic expression of landed property. Therefore the 
Tories continually draw attention to the danger of England being 
made dependent for its means of subsistence on, for example, 
Russia. 

Large-scale factory industry—of course, countries like North 
America which have a huge amount of land still to be brought 
under cultivation (and protective duties by no means increase the 
amount of land) do not count here—certainly has a tendency to 
paralyse the productive force of the soil, as soon as its exploitation 
has reached a certain level, just as, on the other hand, the conduct 
of agriculture on factory lines has a tendency to oust people and 
to convert all the land—of course, within certain limits— into 
pasture, so that cattle take the place of people. 

Ricardo’s theory of land rent, in a few words, amounts to the 
following: 

Land rent adds nothing to the productivity of land. On the 
contrary, rising land rent is proof that the productive force of 
land is falling. It is in fact determined by the relation of the area 
of land suitable for cultivation to the number of the population 
and to the level of civilisation in general. The price of grain is 
determined by the cost of production on the least fertile land that 
has to be cultivated because of the needs of the population. If land 
of a poorer quality has to be resorted to, or if amounts of capital 
have to be applied with a lesser yield to the same piece of land, 
then the owner of the most fertile land sells his product as dearly 
as the peasant who has the worst. He pockets the difference 
between the cost of production on the best land and that on the 
most infertile. Thus, the less productive the land that is put into 
cultivation, or the less the yield from second and third amounts of 
capital applied to the same piece of land, in short, the more the 
relative productive force of the land decreases, the higher the land 
rent rises. The land made fruitful everywhere....* 

IV. Herr List and Ferrier” 

The book by Ferrier, sous-inspecteur des douanes© under 
Napoleon, Du gouvernement considéré dans ses rapports avec le 
commerce, Paris, 1805, is the work from which Herr List copied. In 
List’s book there is not a single basic idea that has not been stated, 
and better stated, in Ferrier’s book. 

Ferrier was one of Napoleon’s officials. He defended the 
Continental System. He does not speak about the system of protection 

* The text of the fourth page of the last numbered sheet in Marx’s manuscript 
breaks off here.— Ed. 

b This chapter of the manuscript occupies four pages of an unnumbered 
sheet. — Ed. 
© Sub-inspector of customs.— Ed. 

On Friedrich List’s Book Das Nationale System der Politischen Oekonomie 291 

but about the prohibitive system. He is far from making phrases 
about a union of all nations or eternal peace within the country. 
Nor, of course, has he any socialist phrases yet. We shall give a 
short extract from his book in order to throw light on this secret 
source of List’s wisdom. Whereas Herr List falsifies Louis Say so as 
to be able to present him as his ally, nowhere, on the other hand, 
does he quote Ferrier, whom he has copied out everywhere. He 
wanted to lead the reader on a false trail. 

We have already quoted Ferrier’s judgment on Smith. Ferrier 
still adheres to the old prohibitive system, but more honestly. 

State Intervention. The Thrift of Nations 

“There is a thrift and an extravagance (prodigalité) of nations, but a nation is 
extravagant or thrifty only in its relations with other peoples” (p. 143). 

“It is untrue that the most profitable use of capital for the person who owns it 
is necessarily also the most profitable for industry.... The interest of the capitalists, 
far from coinciding with the general interest, is almost always in opposition to it” 
(pp. 168, 169). 

“There is a thrift of nations, but it is very different from Smith’s.... It consists in 
buying foreign products only in so far as they can be paid for by one’s own 
products. Sometimes it consists in completely foregoing them” (pp. [174], 175). 

Productive Forces and Exchange Value 

“The principles of the thrift of nations which Smith laid down (set) are all based 
on the distinction between productive and unproductive labour.... This distinction 
is essentially incorrect. There is no unproductive labour” (p. 141). 

“He” (Garnier) “saw in silver only the value of the silver, without thinking about 
its property, as silver, to make circulation more active and, consequently, to multiply 
the products of labour” (p. 18). “Therefore, when governments seek to prevent the 
outflow of money ... this is not on account of its value ..., but because the value that 
is received in exchange for it cannot have the same effect in circulation ..., because 
it cannot cause a new creation at each transition” (pp. 22, 23). “The word ‘wealth’, 
as applied to money that circulates as money, must be understood from the acts of 
reproduction that it facilitates ..., and in this sense a country enriches itself when it 
increases the quantity of its money, because with this increase of money all the 
productive forces of labour increase” (p. 71). “When it is said that a country can lay 
out (expend) an income of two milliards, ... what is meant is that the country has 
the means, with the aid of these two milliards, to support a circulation 10, 20, 30 
times greater in values or, what is the same thing, that it can produce these values. It 
is these means of production, which the country owes to money, that are called 
wealth” (p. 22). 

You see: Ferrier distinguishes the exchange value possessed by 
money from the productive force of money. Apart from the fact that 

“ See pp. 268-69 of this volume.—Ed. 

in general he calls the means of production wealth, there was in 
any case nothing easier than to apply to all capital the distinction 
which he drew between the value and the productive force of 
money. 

But Ferrier goes still farther, he defends the prohibitive system, 
in general on the grounds that it safeguards for the nations their 
means of production: 

“Thus prohibitions are useful whenever they make it easier for nations to 
acquire the means to satisfy their needs.... I compare a nation which with its money 
buys abroad commodities it can make itself, although of poorer quality, with a 
gardener who, dissatisfied with the fruit he gathers, would buy juicier fruits from 
his neighbours, giving them his gardening tools in exchange” (p. 288). “Foreign 
trade is always profitable when it endeavours to enlarge productive capital. It is 
unprofitable when instead of multiplying capital it demands its alienation” 
(pp. 395-96). 

Agriculture, Manufacture, Trade 

“Should a government promote trade and factories in preference to agricul- 
ture? This question is still one of those on which governments and writers cannot 
agree” (p. 73). 

“The progress of industry and trade is bound up with that of civilisation, the 
arts, the sciences, and shipping. A government, which can do almost nothing for 
agriculture, can do almost everything for industry. If a nation has habits or tastes 
capable of holding back its development, the government must use all its means to 
combat them” (p. 84). 

“The true means of encouraging agriculture is the encouragement of manufac- 
tures” (p. 225). “Its domain” (that of industry, by which M. Ferrier means 
manufacturing industry) “is not limited, whether in its successes or in its means of 
improvement.... Far-reaching like imagination, and like imagination mobile and 
fruitful, its creative power has no limits other than those of the human mind itself, 
from which it daily receives fresh eclat” (p. 85). 

“The true source of wealth for an agricultural-manufacturing nation is 
reproduction and labour. It must apply its capital to this end and be concerned to 
transport and sell its own commodities before it can engage in transporting and 
selling those of other nations” (p. 186). “This growth of man’s wealth is to be 
ascribed primarily to internal trade, which long preceded the exchange of nation 
with nation” (p. 145). “According to Smith himself, of two capitals, one of which is 
invested in home trade and the other in foreign trade, the first gives the country’s 
industry 24 times greater support and encouragement” (p. [145]-146). 

But M. Ferrier at least understands that home trade cannot exist 
without foreign trade (loc. cit.). 

“If some private persons import from England 50,000 pieces of velvet, they will 
make a great deal of money by this transaction and will be very well able to market 

their wares. But they reduce the home industry and put 10,000 workers out of 
work” (p. 170; cf. pp. 155, 156). 

Like List, M. Ferrier draws attention to the difference between 
towns engaged in manufacture and trade and towns which only 

On Friedrich List’s Book Das Nationale System der Politischen Oekonomie 293 

consume (p. 91), but in so doing he is at least honest enough to | 
refer to Smith himself. He refers to the Methuen Treaty,!!4 so dear to 
Herr List, and the subtlety of Smith’s judgment of that treaty 
(p. 159). We have already seen how in general his judgment of 
Smith coincides almost word for word with List’s. See also on 
carrying trade (p. 186 et passim). 

The difference between Ferrier and List is that the former 
writes in support of an undertaking of world-historic impor- 
tance—the Continental System, whereas the latter writes in support 
of a petty, weak-minded bourgeoisie. 

The reader will admit that the whole of Herr List is contained 
in nuce in the extracts quoted from Ferrier. If, moreover, one adds 
the phrases he borrows from the development of political 
economy since Ferrier, then all that remains as his share is empty _ 
idealising, the productive force of which consists in words— and 
the clever hypocrisy of the German bourgeois striving for domina- 
tion. 

Written in March 1845 Published from the manuscript 
in the magazine Voprosy Istorit K.P.S.S. time 

No. 12, 1971