London, 23 June 1868.

Dear Fred,

Best thanks for the £10.

Tussychen and Jennychen are both unfortunately very unwell – sore throat and vomiting. If the matter does not improve to-day, I shall have to call a doctor. Our Allen has been suddenly paralysed for a week, so that he cannot leave his house.

Vésinier is stirring up trouble here in the French branch against Dupont and Jung, both of whom he decries ‘as Bonapartists’. During my absence he attended a meeting of the Central Council (which he has no right to do) and has written a fabulous report in the ‘Cigale’ (Brussels paper). The discussion was just about the seat of the Congress. Lafargue cannot possibly sign, as he is a Frenchman, besides my son in law. Sign A. Williams or something of the sort. It would be best if Sam Moore signed.

Salut,
Yours
KM

Yesterday by accident I came across a fine passage in A. Smith. After he has explained that labour is the prime cost etc. and has approximately, though with constant contradictions, said the right thing; after he has ditto explained: “The profits of stock, it may perhaps be thought, are only a different name for the wages of a particular sort of labour, the labour of inspection and direction. They are, however, altogether different, are regulated by quite different principles, and bear no proportion to the quantity, the hardship, or the ingenuity of this supposed labour of inspection and direction”; he suddenly changes tack, and wants to develop wages, profit, rent as the “components parts of natural price” (in his = value). Among other things, the following fine thing is found:

“When the price of any commodity is neither more nor less than what is sufficient to pay the rent of the land, the wages of the labour, and the profits of the stock employed in raising, preparing, and bringing it to market, according to their natural rates, the commodity is then sold for what may be called its natural price. The commodity is then sold precisely for what it is worth, or for what it really costs the person who brings it to market; for though in common language the prime cost of any commodity does not comprehend the profit of the person who is to sell it again, yet, if he sells it at a price which does not allow him the ordinary rate of profit in his neighbourhood, he is evidently a loser by the trade; since, by employing his stock in some other way, he might have made that profit. (The existence of profit in the ‘neighbourhood’! as the explanatory ground of the same!) His profit, besides, is his revenue, the proper fund of his subsistence. As, while he is preparing and bringing the goods to market, he advances to his workmen their wages, or their subsistence; so he advances to himself, in the same manner, his own subsistence, which is generally suitable to the profit which he may reasonably expect from the sale of his goods. Unless they yield him this profit, therefore, they do not reply him what they may very properly be said to have cost him.”

This second method of squeezing profit into the prime cost – because already consumed in advance – is truly fine.

The same man, in whom the organ of pissing and generation coincide mentally as well, had previously said:

“As soon as stock has accumulated in the hands of particular persons ... the value which the workmen add to the materials ... resolves itself into two parts, of which the one pays their wages, the other the profits of their employer upon the whole stock of materials and wages which he advanced.”