ld lead to an amount of internal contradiction and false conclusion that leaves no doubt of its incorrectness. This, however, has been shown by Knies in such a striking way that it would be mere superfluous iteration to dwell further on the point.*42
Thus in the very first proposition he has laid down Rodbertus comes into collision with fact. To be entirely just, however, I must here make one concession which Knies, as representing the Use theory, was unable to make. I admit that, in confuting this fundamental principle, the whole of Rodbertus's interest theory has not been confuted. The proposition is wrong; not, however, because it mistakes the part played by capital in the production of goods, but because it mistakes the part played by nature.
I believe with Rodbertus that, if we consider the result of all the stages of production as a whole, capital cannot maintain an independent place among the costs of production. It is not exclusively "previous labour," as Rodbertus thinks, but it is partly, and indeed, as a rule, it is principally "previous labour"; for the rest, it is valuable natural power stored up for human purposes. Where natural power is conspicuous—as in a production which, in all its stages, only makes use of free gifts of nature and of labour, or which makes use of such products as have themselves originated exclusively in free gifts of nature and in labour—in such cases we could, indeed, say with Rodbertus that the goods, economically considered, are products of labour only. Since then Rodbertus's fundamental error does not refer to the role of capital, but only to that of nature, the inferences regarding the nature of profit on capital which he deduces are not necessarily false. It is only if essential errors appear as well in the development of his theory that we may reject these inferences as false. Now such errors there undoubtedly are.
Not to make an unfair use of Rodbertus's first mistake, I shall, in the whole of the following examination, put all the hypotheses in such a way that the consequences 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 th