London, 23 June 1868
Dear Fred,
Best thanks for the £ 10.
Tussychen und Jennychen sind beide leider sehr unwohl – Halsentzündung und Erbrechen. Wenn die Sache nicht besser wird to-day1, muß ich einen Doktor rufen. Unser Allen ist seit einer Woche plötzlich paralysiert, so daß er sein Haus nicht verlassen kann.
Vésinier stänkert hier in der French branch gegen Dupont und Jung, die er beide „als Bonapartisten“ verschreit. Während meiner Abwesenheit wohnte er einer Sitzung des Central Council bei (wozu er kein Recht hat) und hat einen fabelhaften Bericht in die „Cigale“ (Brüßler Blatt) geschrieben. Es war grade Diskussion über den Sitz des Kongresses.
Lafargue kann unmöglich zeichnen2, da er Frenchman, außerdem mein son in law3. Zeichne A.Williams oder something of the sort4. Am besten wär’s, wenn Sam Moore zeichnete.
Salut.
Dein
K.M.
Gestern by accident5 fiel mir eine schöne Stelle bei A.Smith in die Hand. Nachdem er erklärt, daß labour6 die prime cost7 etc., und annähernd, wenn auch mit beständigen Widersprüchen, das Richtige gesagt; nachdem er ditto erklärt: „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“8; schlägt er plötzlich um und will wages, profit, rent9 als die „component parts of natural price“10 (bei ihm = value11) entwickeln. Da findet sich u.a. folgendes Schöne:
„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.“12 (Die Existenz des Profits in der „Nachbarschaft“ als Erklärungsgrund desselben!) „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 repay him what they may very properly be said to have cost him.“13 Diese zweite Manier, den Profit in die prime cost – weil bereits vorgefressen – zu pressen, ist wirklich schön.
Derselbe Mann, bei dem das Organ des Pissens und der Generation auch geistig zusammenfallen, hatte vorher gesagt:
„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.“14