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This shows the absurdity and triviality of the view adopted by J. B. Say, who claims to derive surplus-value (interest, profit, rent) from the ’services productifs’ rendered by the means of production (land, instruments of labour, raw material) in the labour process via their use-values. Mr Wilhelm Roscher, who seldom loses the opportunity of rushing into print with ingenious apologetic fantasies, records the following example: ‘J. B. Say (Traité, Vol. I, Ch. 4) very truly remarks: the value produced by an oil mill, after deduction of all costs, is something new, something quite different from the labour by which the oil mill itself was erected’ (op. cit., p. 82, note). Very true! The oil produced by the oil mill is indeed something very different from the labour expended in constructing the mill! By ‘value’ Mr Roscher means such stuff as ‘oil’, because oil has value, despite the fact that ‘in nature’ petroleum is to be found, although in relatively ‘small quantities’, which is what he appears to refer to when he says ‘It (nature!) produces scarcely any exchange-value’ [ibid., p. 79]. Mr Roscher’s ‘nature’ and the exchange-value it produces are rather like the foolish virgin who admitted that she had had a child, but ‘only a very little one’. This ‘man of learning’ (’savant sérieux’) continues on the same subject: ‘Ricardo’s school is in the habit of including capital as accumulated labour under the heading of labour. This is unskilful (!), because (!) indeed the owner of capital (!) has after all (!) done more than merely (!?) create (?) and preserve (??) the same (what same?): namely (?!?) the abstention from the enjoyment of it, in return for which he demands, for instance (!!!) interest’ (ibid. [p. 82]). How very ‘skilful’ is this ‘anatomico-physiological-method’ of political economy, which converts a mere ‘demand’ into a source of value!

Chapter 8: Constant Capital and Variable Capital