sequences of that mistake may be completely eliminated. I shall assume that all goods are produced only by the co-operation of labour and of free natural powers, and by the assistance exclusively of such objects of capital as have themselves originated only by the co-operation of labour and free natural powers, without the intervention of such natural gifts as possess exchange value. On this limited hypothesis it is possible for us to admit Rodbertus's fundamental proposition that goods, economically considered, cost labour alone. Let us now look farther.
The next proposition of Rodbertus runs thus: that, according to nature and the "pure idea of justice," the whole product, or the whole value of the product, ought to belong without deduction to the labourer who produced it. In this proposition also I fully concur. In my opinion no objection could be taken to its correctness and justice under the presupposition we have made. But I believe that Rodbertus, and all socialists with him, have a false idea of the actual results that flow from this true and just proposition, and are led by this mistake into desiring to establish a condition which does not really correspond with the principle, but contradicts it. It is remarkable that, in the many attempts at confutation that have been directed up till now against the Exploitation theory, this decisive point has been touched on only in the most superficial way, and never yet been placed in the proper light. It is on this account that I ask my readers to give some attention to the following argument; all the more so as it is by no means easy.
I shall first simply specify and then examine the blunder. The perfectly just proposition that the labourer should receive the entire value of his product may be understood to mean, either that the labourer should now receive the entire present value of his product, or should receive the entire future value of his product in the future. But Rodbertus and the socialists expound it as if it meant that the labourer should now receive the entire future value of his product, and they speak as if this were quite self-evident, and indeed the only possible explanation of the proposition.
Let us illustrate the matter by a concrete example. Suppose that the production of a steam-engine costs five years of labour, and that the price which the completed engine fetches is £550. Suppose further, putting aside meanwhile the fact that such work would actually be divided among several persons, that a worker by his own continuous labour during five years makes the engine. We ask, What is due to him as wages in the light of the principle that to the labourer should belong his entire product, or the entire value of his product? There cannot be a moment's doubt about the answer. The whole steam-engine belongs to him, or the whole of its price, £550. But at what time is this due to him? There cannot be the slightest doubt about that either. Clearly it is due on the expiry of five years. For of course he cannot get the steam-engine before it exists; he cannot take possession of a value of £550 created by himself before it is created. He will, in this case, have to get his compensation according to the formula, The whole future product, or its whole future value, at a future period of time.
But it very often happens that the labourer cannot or will not wait till his product be fully completed. Our labourer, for instance, at the expiry of a year, wishes to receive a part payment corresponding to the time he has worked. The question is, How is this to be measured in accordance with the above proposition? I do not think there can be a moment's doubt about the answer. The labourer has got his due if he now receives the whole of what he has made up till now. Thus, for example, if up till now he has produced a heap of brass, iron, or steel, in the raw state, then he will receive his due if he is handed over just this entire heap of brass, iron, or steel, or the entire value which this heap of materials has, and of course the value which it has now. I do not think that an